A new year

So yesterday I turned 41. I thought maybe this would be a good time to get back on track. Seeing as how my New Years resolution to write more regularly failed miserably, maybe a birthday resolution will work.

Lets start with my birthday. It was a pretty great day. Ginny made me a picture of a birthday cake and wrote happy birthday on it. Jorja wrote me a little letter in which she quoted the first four verses of psalm 23. She looked it up all on her own and wrote it all out. I was quite impressed. Ginny also got me a bag if mini Skor bars. She knows me well. Julie got me three awesome tshirts - one darth vader, one yoda and one from the princess bride that says 'as you wish'. She also got me some new cologne so I can smell good. CeCe said happy birthday to me countless times. All my girls made me feel pretty special and loved. I'm a lucky guy.

After lunch I took the girls to the park while Julie started to make my birthday supper. To fully appreciate this, you need to know how Julie feels about meat. She could really take it or leave it. When it comes to raw meat, she could definitely leave it. Anyway, for my birthday, she bought me a rack of ribs. One of her coworkers had given her a really good recipe, so she gave it a try. So while I was gone, she touched these raw ribs and cut them apart. She put them in a pot and boiled them. Now I love ribs but the thought of boiling them seems gross even to me. Apparently the smell isn't that great either. But by the time I got home, they were in the oven, in the roaster, and smelling wonderful in their sauce/marinade. She really does love me. When supper time came, Julie even tried a couple. I tried the rest.

A couple of days ago, the girls were all outside jumping on the trampoline. None of them are overly fond of bugs. By that I mean there's a lot of screaming and yelling for me when they see one. CeCe was jumping away when she spotted a bug. She yelled, "A bug! A bug! Daddy, shoot it!!" ( I have no idea where she got that from). Before I could respond, Ginny handled the situation for me. She said, "Daddy can't shoot it. He doesn't even have a gun." It's tough to argue with that.

This evening Ginny asked me why girls have to wipe and boys don't. 'Like, when they pee?' I said. She replied, 'yes.' I said because boys have a penis and girls have a vagina. ( we've always just called things what they are) She thought about it for a moment and then nodded and said, 'Yeah, a guess girls have it wipe something longer. And it wouldn't make sense to wipe something all circley and slippery.' Again, it's tough to argue with that. Later.

Sent from my iPhone

Too quick

Some things just seem to happen too fast.  Jorja has experienced a couple of things this month that mean she is growing up way too fast.

She has decided that she wants to walk home from school on Fridays by herself (the other days she walks to daycare with other kids).  So a couple of weeks ago, I said she could.  The other girls and I walked her there, and then waited as she was due home for lunch.  It's not very far, but it involves crossing a fairly major road.  So Ginny and I sat on the step.  And waited.  CeCe wasn't too concerned.  Jorja is a poky kid getting ready to come home at the best of times, so I'm not sure why I was waiting the minute school let out.  I paced.  I walked to the edge of the yard and looked around the corner.  Nothing.  I guess it had only been a minute.  So I sat back down and waited.  Sure enough, there she came.  She rounded the corner into sight with the biggest grin possible on her face.  She was pretty proud of herself.  I was proud too.  A little nervous, but proud.  She wanted to walk back to school, but I wasn't ready for that yet.  If she's coming home, I know when she gets there.  How do I know if she makes it back to school?  That would just be too long of an afternoon.  I guess she's more ready than me.

Jorja also had her first sleepover.  She was invited to a birthday party sleepover and really wanted to go.  So we said yes, and off she went.  There was no midnight call to come get her (maybe because they were still up doing whatever 8 year old girls do till after midnight).  No call at three in the morning.  No call first thing in the morning.  She was fine.  Again, a little more ready for these things than her parents.

Ginny is also growing up quickly.  On Friday, I took her to the kindergarten open house at school.  She was pretty excited to go and 'check things out.'  The principal talked to the parents while the teacher took all the students for almost an hour.  She was gone and never looked back.  She may be a little more hesitant come September as there will be a new teacher that we've never met.  Hopefully not.  I'm sure her parents will be hesitant enough for everyone.

CeCe's potty training continues to progress.  (This is one thing I won't be upset to be grown out of.) We're down to just night time diapers.  She has conquered the pooping in the toilet fear.  It turns out, she just likes her privacy.  Every time she announced she had to go and someone went with her, she would get stage fright and clam right up.  So now she has just started sneaking off by herself and doing the deed, then proudly announcing when it's over.  Whatever works.  She even does that business in the big toilet so we don't have to dump the poop out of the little potty.  Bonus!  She still pees in the little one, which is oval shaped.  I mention the shape because whenever she goes, she stands up, looks down at it and triumphantly declares, "I peed and egg!"  Later.

Seventy

Seventy. It seems a little surreal. I guess I've never really given it too much thought, but it seems like an age associated with grandparents. Well, now it is an age associated with parents. One of them anyway. My Dad turns 70 today.

My grandpa was in his 70's when he passed away. I was a teenager then, but he always seemed like a little old man. I don't really have a changing picture of my grandpa. In my mind (and memory), he always kind of looked the same. At that time, I thought he was pretty old when he died. Now I don't think so. I see my other grandpa and Julie's grandma who are 90 now. It's weird, but that grandpa has always kind of looked the same too.

Maybe that's why I have a hard time seeing my Dad as 70. To me he is still the same guy who tied my skates, taught me to drive when I could barely reach the pedals, chopped and hauled wood, shoveled shit, fixed my cars and lawn mowers, and was always there when I needed him.

My Dad has had some health issues over the past several years. Quite a few years already I guess because he was forced to retire early for health reasons. To be perfectly honest, there were times when I didn't think my Dad would still be here. He probably wasn't that much older than me when he lost his Dad. It was Christmas morning and I can still see him crying when he got the news. I am not ready for that kind of news yet.

So Dad, if you're reading this, I want you to know how much I love you and appreciate you. I pray for you and thank God your still here. Happy birthday. And here's to many more. Later.

Sent from my iPhone

May

Here we are, the last day of May already. It's been a pretty big month for us.

Ginny has now graduated from preschool. She had her final concert/graduation on the 22nd and then still had a few more days of school. I was able to go on her last field trip with her which also happened to be her 'special' day. Special days usually involve some unpleasantries for the parent helper - clean up, craft prep, and bathroom trips. The bathroom trips are my least favorite, but since we were on a field trip, there was none if this!  And there were four other moms there to play the hero should the need arise.

Here's Ginny riding the bus.

And here she is during share time, telling all about her cat, shadow.

At the end of the day, the teacher explained there were only two more days left. One little boy must be sick if school already. He let out a big 'cha-ching!'  Not quite the same reaction as Ginny, who had been crying off and on the past couple if weeks because she doesn't want preschool to end.

More big news from May - CeCe has finally started potty training. She wears panties every day now and only switches to diapers for sleeping. We have even managed a trip out for lunch, going to superstore and going to Sunday school. We have returned home from all our outings unscathed, which is good. There is still the occasional accident at home, and we haven't managed to poop in the toilet yet, but the end is in sight. After almost 8 years of continuous diapers in this house, be end is in sight. It's hard to believe.

If our cat, Layla, doesn't get lost this summer, it will be a miracle. She sprints out the door when there is the slightest crack, and she ventures further away every time and does not want to be caught. With three kids going in and out and not always shutting the door, you can only imagine. Jorja (bless her tender heart) goes unto near hysterics when Layla gets out. It's not pretty. There's shrieking and wailing and running and sobbing. On Sunday afternoon, I was on the phone, talking to my mom. CeCe had gone outside to jump on the trampoline. Jorja and Ginny were already outside. Two minutes after going out, CeCe came back in because she had an accident. So as I was standing there in the entrance, tying to hold the phone between my shoulder and my ear and change CeCe's pants and underwear, Jorja came in and let the cat. I only had CeCe undressed at this point. Jorja went into the ugly cry 'Layla's out! Layla's out' and we took off after her. Jorja in the lead shrieking, CeCe's bare butt next, and me in the rear, trying to put clothes on CeCe and still talk on the phone. Jorja yelled, 'Leave CeCe dad, Layla's more important!'  Finally I said, 'I'm going to  have to call you back mom.'  In the meantime, Layla had found a crack in the fence and was under the cedars in the front yard. After luring with a cat treat, we finally captures the rogue animal and got her back in the house. At this point I realized CeCe was now in the front yard and still half naked. We got that taken care of too and have now had strict conversations about watching the door when coming and going. Later.

Allowance, boys and swimming

I'm typing on our old desktop computer tonight.  It's old and slow and pretty much just used by the kids playing computer games.  I forgot how slow it was.  Our laptop died on Sunday.  It has been giving us a warning for a while.  It told us to back everything up because hard drive failure was imminent.  That didn't sound good.  But we got almost four months before the imminent failure happened.  I turned it on Sunday afternoon and it told me the hard drive did not exist.  I'm not as expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not good.  So now we're looking for a laptop.  Fun, fun.

Jorja has been helping out a lot around the house lately.  She is super keen to clean the table off after meals and even cleans the litter box once in a while.  We decided that since she was starting to show some responsibility that we would give her an allowance.  So we started at the beginning of April - $5/week.  To her credit, she knows what she wants and can save till she gets it.  She's had her eye on some clay charm-making craft book/kit at Indigo for some time now.  It was $23.99.  She had a bit of money from before the allowance started, so she saved every week, and when she had enough, she asked if she could go and buy it.  So we did.  She brought her own wallet along with all her money.  I thought her chest might explode when she was up at the till paying for her stuff with her money by herself.  It was pretty awesome to see.  We had a chat before we started this about how saving is important, but that giving is also important.  I asked her if she had $10, what would be a good amount to give away, and she said a dollar.  Sounds like 10% to me.  So she's been taking a loonie every other Sunday to church.  She's a pretty awesome kid and we're pretty proud of her.

Of course Ginny sees the allowance thing and it didn't really hit home until Jorja bought her own thing.  Ginny was pretty upset that day.  So we had a chat with her too, and if she helps out and does her part, she could have an allowance too.  Not as much as Jorja, but a start.  The first couple days after the chat was a bit much.  Dad, what can I do now?  Mom, what do you need done now?  Should I dust?  Should I clean up?  Should I make my bed?  If only the enthusiasm would last.  She's pretty good about doing her part too though.

Ginny and CeCe both seem to be better friends with boys than girls.  Maybe it's just that there have been more boys than girls their ages at daycare.  I'm not sure, but Ginny is best friends with a boy from daycare who is also in her preschool class.  They play well together and have a great time.  The boy, I'll call him C, came to Ginny's birthday party.  As Julie was curling Ginny's hair that day, Ginny said, "I bet C has never seen me with curled hair before."  As it turns out, she is not the only one concerned with her appearance.  We had C over one weekend for a play date and he got his Mom to do his hair for the occasion too.  It was all gelled up and spiky.  Pretty cute.  They were playing for a while and then C seemed to be quite taken with our piano.  He really enjoyed playing it.  So he was plunking away for a while and Ginny was sitting on the steps not very impressed.  I guess when you have a piano in your house and take lessons, some of the thrill wears off.  After a while he looked up and saw the look on Ginny's face.  He said, "All right Ginny, I can see that I'm annoying you.  What would you like me to do now?"  The boy's learning young.

CeCe has a little friend in Sunday school.  I'll call him Z.  We're friends with one of the volunteers in their class, so we get some behind the scenes info that we normally wouldn't.  One morning we walked in, and Z yelled from across the room, "Hi CeCe!"  I guess he had been asking before we showed up if CeCe would be there.  Our friend figured that we must be friends with Z and hang out outside Sunday school, but that is not the case.  He only gets an hour a week, but he likes to make the most of it.  Last week, the two of them were sitting side by side and he looked over and said, "You've got pretty flowers on your dress CeCe."  CeCe didn't miss a beat and replied, "I know!"  That's all she had to say about that.

The older girls finished up their skating lessons and both made huge improvements.  Jorja went from just walking on the ice to actually gliding and almost doing cross overs.  Ginny went from not being able to stand up to going with now walker and moving up a level in her class. 

Now we're into swimming lessons.  All three of them this time though.  They all love it, but CeCe talks about it all the time.  "I'm going swimming?"  Not today, Friday.  "I'm going swimming on Friday?"  The lessons themselves worked out awesome.  All three girls in different lessons in the same half hour time slot.  We'll probably never be so lucky again.  They all look like they are having a blast when they're out there.

Hopefully my next post will be sooner coming than this one was.  Later.

Ginny turns five

Ginny turned 5 on March 7th.  She is a pretty amazing kid.  She is smart, funny, sensitive and independent.  She has a wicked sense of humor and one of the most infectious laughs you will ever hear.  She definitely marches to her own beat.  Her fashion sense is in a word - monochromatic.  Her top has to match the bottom.  She loves to play with Jorja, but is also starting to enjoy her little sister's company as well.  The three of them all play fairly well together most days.

 

Leading up to her birthday, there was a lot of discussion about what she wanted for a gift.  When we looked in stores, it pretty much boiled down to she wanted everything.  Obviously, this wasn't going to happen.  After doing some Internet research, she decided she would like some Lego.  That works for me - I love Lego.  We got her a couple of sets, and nine days later, she is still playing with it.  That's a good sign.  Today, she built something with no instructions.  Awesome!  That's what Lego is supposed to be about.  Sets are nice, but we got most of our enjoyment just building stuff ourselves.  Here she is with some of her stuff.

Her birthday fell on a Thursday, so we didn't do much that day.  We asked what she wanted for her birthday supper and she said Montana's.  That sounded good, so we headed there after work.  We asked her beforehand if she wanted the waiters and waitresses to sing to her and she said yes, but she didn't wan to wear 'the hat'.  For those of you not familiar with Montana's, they have a big Moose antler hat they make the 'lucky' person wear.  Personally, it grosses me out.  How do I know the sanitary state of the scalp that was in there before mine.  So I was glad she didn't want the hat.  We conveyed this wish to our hostess, but the message got lost along the way.  When the group of servers came out to sing, they had the hat with them.  Ginny went into ugly cry.  "I don't want to wear the hat!"  They apologized of course, but to say the moment wasn't the same after that would be a bit of an understatement.  She did manage to quiet her sobs while they chanted out their version of happy birthday, but the sparkler in her ice cream had long gone out.  The video is not exactly happy.

Fast forward to the Sunday after her actual birthday to her party.  She invited 7 friends from preschool to a gymnastics party.  They all had a blast and we had some tired, sweaty girls when we were done.

Parachutes, relay races, and trampolines filled the better part of two hours.  I took a lot of pictures, but realized that all I had were a lot of blurry kids.  I guess the iPhone doesn't capture the action trampoline shots that well.  The relay race was quite amusing.  When they finally got the hang of passing the baton, they waited till the competition was back before the next person would go.  Whatever lead one team had was gone as they waited politely for their competitor to come back.
Then came cake and presents.

It was a Barbie theme and Julie did an awesome job on the cake.

Everyone was really thirsty by the time we headed home.

Another great party in the books (and not in our house).  Later.

Parent of the year

I had one of those 'parent of the year' moments today.  We were outside in the backyard for a good portion of the afternoon.  It started with me on the roof shovelling some snow off, then doing some snowblowing and shovelling off the trampoline (which we didn't get taken down before the snow fell last fall.  When I was on the roof I realised how much snow was on it and figured that probably wasn't good).  Julie was doing some chipping and trying to find the driveway under layers of packed snow and ice.  Eventually we were all outside and the kids were playing. 

I'm not sure if anyone has seen the show 'Idiot Abroad', but Julie and I have been watching it lately.  The basic premise is that Ricky Gervais sends his friend (the idiot) around the world to see magnificent sights.  There are some bumps in the road along the way to make for some more entertaining TV.  One show, Carl (the idiot) was going to Alaska to watch whales.  Part of the experience meant visiting an Inuit village and going on a pleasure hike with a guide through waist-high snow all day.  He was not impressed.  Anyway, as Jorja was leading Ginny through the mountains of snow in our backyard today, I couldn't help but think of this show.  We have an area for RV parking (which loosely translates to weed-growth area) between the garage and the neighbour's yard.  They went exploring back there and they were both up to their waists in snow.  It was rather slow going.  I was supervising CeCe on the play center and watching them. 

It was fairly mild today, so I thought I would see if a snowman was in the cards.  I picked up and handful and it wasn't quite warm enough.  I'm not sure what the Inuit word for this type of snow is, but I think it would translate as 'not quite soft enough to make a snowman, but if you pack it hard enough, you can make a snowball.'  So I made a snowball, which was packed pretty hard.  I looked over at the two explorers by the garage and thought I would lob the snowball in their general direction.  I thought maybe they would look up and get a kick out of it or wonder where it came from.  That's how I had things played out in my head.  What actually happened was a little different.

I lobbed the snowball toward them, Jorja looked up and it hit her square in the face.  She went down like she had been shot and started howling.  I ran over to her through the really deep snow, filled my boots, but kept on.  I got to her and wiped the snow from her poor shocked and wounded face.  She was still crying pretty good and said it hurt to open her eye.  I got her into the house and calmed down and explained myself to Julie who wondered what all the commotion was about.  It was quite the ordeal.  But this evening, she had no lasting damage and had forgiven me for my error in judgement.  Sheesh.  Who is the idiot now?  Later.