merry christmas to all

It was a Liem-centric Christmas this year.  Because of the trip back east, I did not make heroic efforts to get out a Christmas card.  So, in lieu of a mailed out Christmas card (an perhaps a new tradition?!), here is our Christmas card photo.

We wish you and your family much peace and love over the holidays and into the new year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Liem Family (we miss you J&C!)

kooky

Happy Birthday, Grammy!  Love from all of your kooky grandkids...

snow fun

We've been back east for nearly a week now.  I've been complaining that we came all the way back here to find snow and instead, the snow turned up on the west coast!  We have essentially had typical west coast cloud and rain here in Toronto.

Well, apparently my complaints were finally heard.  We drove home from L&T's last night in freezing rain and wet snow.  And when the kids woke up this morning, Aves cried out "Look!  There's snow outside!'.

Since Josh is an old pro at snow now (ha!), he didn't say much.  But Aves could barely contain her excitement to go out and play in the snow.  It was killing her that she had to eat and brush her teeth before she could go outside.

When I rolled out of bed at my usual 10am (my body is stuck in PST!), the kids were just getting ready to go outside.  We went through the 15 minute production of getting their snow gear on and Brian took them outside.  I went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and I heard the door open.  Brian called me back to the door to get Aves undressed.  "Mommy, I'm not ready for the snow" is what she said.  Sigh.  So, I took off all those layers that we had JUST put on and then went back to the kitchen to get that coffee.  Not 5 minutes later, Aves comes into the kitchen and says, "Mommy, I'm ready for the snow now.".  Seriously?!

So, I gave her the 'if you go outside now, you have to stay outside with Daddy and Josh" lecture and dressed her up again.  Turns out, she was indeed ready now because she was just fine after that.

I was still in my jammies so I didn't go out right away.  It was a good thing because there was a knock on the door while I was inside.  It was Josh looking for a carrot for his snowman's nose.  I knew my mom wouldn't want me to use her produce for a snowman (we were never allowed to use it when we were growing up) but I rationalized that the carrot would be stored in a big outside fridge and we would eventually bring it back in to eat it.  When I brought the carrot, Josh asked for a banana.  I asked him what the banana was for (??!!) and he said the snowman's smile.  Ha.  Good thinking!  I couldn't deprive the snowman of his smile!

A little while later, there was another knock on the door.  This time, it was Aves.  She wanted a carrot and banana for her snowman!  I couldn't see another snowman outside, so I figured she hadn't built it yet and I told her to just share the snowman with Josh.  She gave me her whiny voice and pointed at her snowman that was peering out from behind a tree.  Damn.  I could hear my mom's appalled voice that I took all that produce, but how could I deprive my daughter of HER snowman's nose and smile?!

At this point, I relieved myself of produce smuggling duties and decided it was time to throw my jacket and boots on over my jammies.  I needed to get some photos of all this winter fun-ness.

Josh and Aves with their eyeless (but smiling!) snowman

Aves happily cleans the slide

The easiest way to clean the rest of the slide

Swings still work in the snow!

Face-down snow angel?!

Literally.  Face down.

Josh gives himself a face wash

The joy of snowballs

Aves' I'm-done-with-snow face

Mom & Dad's snow-covered backyard

home alone

One of the many plusses of becoming a parent is that kids force you to slow down and take a look around (yes, stop and smell the roses.  But I didn't want to use that phrase because I used it about 3 blog postings ago.).

Yesterday, we had a layover at Chicago-O'Hare airport.  As we were walking through a busy concourse, Aves said, "Mommy, look up!".  I looked up and there was a wonderful display of Christmas lights in the skylight archway.  Wow.  If Aves hadn't stopped and told me to look up, I probably would have seen it, but not really "looked' at it.  Thanks, Aves.

Then, as we were walking through that same concourse, I was reminded of the scene in Home Alone when the family was running through O'Hare (around the 12 second mark in this video). I couldn't help but to feel relieved that we didn't have a layover that forced us to do the same dash (though we did cut it a tad close at Sea-Tac!).

Oh yeah, and as we settled into my parent's place, my dad flicked on the tv and low and behold, Home Alone 2 was on!  Of course, we had to watch it.

 

liem eyes

I’m sure all the Liem’s know what I’m talking about…

elmo pee

Tonight, Aves wanted to sing the alphabet, but she wanted to alternate the letters between her and I. So I started with A and she followed with B and so on. I thought this would be interesting, because it would show if she really understood the letters. It was going well and I was very impressed that she knew the letters! Then, I got to K. Ha. What did she follow K with? Elmo pee.

On another note, here’s some footage of Aves singing...

oeuf, oeuf

We had eggs for breakfast today...

Y: Josh, qu'est-ce que c'est "un oeuf"?
J (almost immediately): Oeuf, oeuf.  It's the way a dog says "woof, woof" in French!

how many days until my 7th birthday?

Josh asked me this today. His birthday was on Thursday.

Usually, I try to do the kid’s birthday posts on their birthday. I’m 3 days late this year. My excuses are:

1. Ever since Thursday, we’ve had a double whammy of kiddie sickness and what seemed to be a bout of croup.
2. We were trying to get organized for today’s birthday party (all the while on the verge of cancelling due to sickness!).
3. Having the party today gave me 3 days leeway with the excuse that I wanted to include the party in the post! Ha.

So, it’s been a crazy few days. But enough about me! This is about Josh…

It’s been quite a year and you’ll have to forgive me for mixing 3 topics in one post - start of school, Hallowe’en and birthday.

Josh has had ALOT of change in the past 3 months, never mind the past year! He started EFI (early french immersion) Kindergarten this September. We are now parents of a school-aged child. It has certainly added another dimension to parenting!

Josh is likely the oldest child in his class, since we held him back from entering Kindergarten last year, but I’m certain we made the right decision. I’m seeing him grow by leaps and bounds, but he still has had his challenges. Despite the challenges, it seems that his maturity in understanding situations and being able to interpret his actions are making it easier for Mme. A and Mme. S to help him. So, it’s definitely helped that he’s a year older. We have been able to work together to continue to help Josh thrive, and for that, I’m so grateful. Thanks to Mme. A and Mme. S!

And my concerns about french have so far been unfounded. I thought that if I was worried about Josh adjusting in school, wouldn’t it be doubly hard in EFI? Having said that, I guess parents will worry about everything!

Josh has been loving the french part. Even Mme. A and Mme. S say that he has no problems using his french and being inquisitive about it. I’m impressed by Josh’s desire to pronounce words properly. I guess when you still can’t spell all the words, all you have is pronunciation.

The other day, Josh said he was going to say the word “No” only in french. From then on, Josh started saying, “Non”. And believe me, “No” and “Non” indeed sounded different!

Once, Josh started singing a song, “C’est le temps de ramasser, ramasser, ramasser…”

Y: Josh, I think the word is “remasser”, not “ramasser”.
J: No, Mom, we sing it “ramasser”.

I wasn’t sure, so I left it alone. Eventually, I looked it up and sure enough, it’s “ramasser”. I already believe Josh’s french will exceed mine sooner rather than later. Even Josh believes this…

J: Mommy, you are helping me to speak french.
Y: Thanks, Joshie, I hope so.
J: Mme. A and Mme. S are helping me too.
Y: Yes, they are.
J: And then I’m going to be able to speak french better than you.

Ha.

And even in day-to-day interactions, sometimes Josh speaks in french (most notably with “merçi”) and then catches himself and changes to english. Mommy feels somewhat proud!

Josh’s birthday party today brought some closure to the questions I had about how Josh is doing socially at school. He mentions so many different kids and it was so nice to finally put faces to names. There is something discomforting about not knowing the other people who are now influencing your child's thought process.  I also had a chance to meet various parents and that added some comfort. We got to trade stories about the things our kids say about each other and it was such a relief to hear that they essentially tell the same stories! (More about the party later.)

When Josh turned five, he was already big into Lego. Well, that hasn’t changed. But his focus has changed from the cars, trucks and other vehicles of Lego City to the magical (and somewhat violent!) world of Lego Ninjago. It’s the first time I’ve seen him this interested in something. Not only does he play with Lego Ninjago, but he watches the shows on YouTube (there is a series) and he has gotten a couple of books from Scholastic and has been reading the books. He knows all the characters and the story of how the world of Ninjago came to be. And because if this, I know all the characters and how the world of Ninjago came to be!

Speaking of YouTube, I think we have been a bit too lenient in the kid’s usage of YouTube. Everytime Josh asks us for Lego sets, it’s because he saw it on YouTube. And I’ve noticed that when Josh takes movies of himself using my phone, he often narrates the way I hear people on YouTube narrating! On his birthday, he was Facetime-ing (?) with my mom. He was showing her how the Lego Ninjago toy that she got him worked. He was showing it to her like he was on YouTube! It was hilarious. I was wondering why he was talking like that!

But Lego Ninjago has had some good influences too. Josh wants to be a ninja (yes, he was a ninja for Hallowe’en). When he was in gymnastics class, he said that he liked it because it was helping him to do his ninja moves. And he has said that he wants to take karate now! The other day, he was racing around a play place and I stopped him when he said, “Mom, I’m a “good” tired.” (that’s a different story!). I told him that he should be in track. He asked what track was and I tried to explain it. After I explained, he thought about it for a second and then said, “But I don’t want to do track. I just want to do karate and swimming and parkour.” (Don’t even ask about the parkour!).

 

As usual, Josh is thriving in physical activity. He’s been loving swimming lessons and over the summer, we went to the local outdoor pool for public swims. At the beginning of the summer, Josh would look at the diving board (a low springboard) and even made an attempt by walking to the end and looking down at the water. He never jumped. Then, the Olympics happened. We watched some of the high diving and Josh asked lots of questions. The next public swim, Josh asked to go on the diving board again. This time, he jumped! Bri was in the pool waiting for him and he guided Josh back to the edge. By the end of the summer, Josh was jumping off the diving board forwards AND backwards. Also, Brian was no longer waiting for him in the pool. He was watching Josh from outside the pool, ready to jump in if Josh had any trouble.

During one of our public swims, we ran into some neighbourhood friends. They have a 5-year-old daughter. S saw Josh jumping off the diving board and she went over with her mom. She climbed up the steps and stood at the deck end of the board. She was too afraid to walk out to the edge. So, Josh went up to her and said, “Don’t think about it. Just jump. It’s just fine if you just don’t think about it.”. Really, Josh?! Is that what you do?! You just don’t think about it?!

Also during the summer, Josh continued to enjoy riding his bike and scooter. I think this will always be a favourite pastime. Even as late as the lovely October weather we had, Josh was still asking to go to the bike park to ride the ramps and bowls.

The past few weeks, we’ve also taken the kids public skating. While Aves loves skating right now, Josh has made it clear that as much as he likes skating, he doesn’t want to take lessons. Ugh. This hurts because the kid is good! He is fast! But, he doesn’t know how to stop and his turns are painful to watch because he’s going fast enough now that he should really be doing crossovers. We went skating while in Seattle and there was a small joke that Josh is actually faster than Auntie C. And he will just skate round and round and round the rink the entire time. When he falls down, he’ll get up and continue on. He really seems to like it! But. He won’t take lessons. Damn.

So, this brings us to Josh’s birthday party. Last year, for a guest list, we gave Josh names and he said yes to the names. This year, we let him come up with the names of the kids he wanted to invite to his party. He came up with ALOT of names. But we decided to have a Lego-themed party at the community centre, so this was fine.

Most of the kids were from Josh’s school, but it was so nice to see that he didn’t forget his “other” friends (mostly the kids of our friends!) and his 6-year-old cousins, too. This was the first time that we had a “drop-off” party and, for the most part, the parents just dropped their kids off.  Some parents stayed at the request of their child, which was understandable, given their age.

I was surprised by how little effort it was at the party (though the community centre also provided facilitators)!  The facilitators did a great job of mixing up Lego time with gym time and eating.

I asked Josh if he enjoyed his party and he did (despite still recovering from a fever that just broke the day before). As I said, I was glad to put faces to names of the kids that Josh talks about and it was so wonderful to see all these kids interact. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to see my little boy growing up but mostly, it just makes me proud.

Happy 6th Birthday, Josh! It is indeed 362 more days until your 7th birthday, but I’m sure you are going to fill every last one with all your adventures!

We love, love, love you!

Building something specific

Or building nothing in particular

Lots O Lego

Figuring out how the game is played

Hmmm...class clown?!

"British Bulldogs!!"

The mad dash that ensues

Aves moves like ninja to get a piece of Lego!

Shark Attack!

a morally humbling experience

Josh's version fo crossing his eyes!

We went to visit J&C in Seattle last weekend (thanks to J&C for a night of JoshieAves-sitting and allowing us to have a night out!).

Night-out aside, we all went for dinner one night in Seattle’s chinatown. Like chinatown in most cities, it’s never an area that has the safest “feel” to it. When we came out from dinner, it was pouring out and we were trying to get organized with cars and who was parked where, etc. Amidst the confusion, a street person walked up to us and asked for any spare change or any food. The guy was soaking wet, very unfortunate looking and he said he was hungry. We were trying to get organized and get out of the rain so, as usual, we said, “No, sorry.” and tried to hurry away.

As we were walking away, Josh asked me, “Mommy, how come we didn’t give that guy money or food?”. 

Seriously?! I’m going to be morally judged by a 6-year-old?!

Before I could say anything, Josh said, “Is it because he’s a stranger?”

I was tempted to say yes and end the conversation there, but then I didn’t want him to be left thinking that we never give money to strangers (don’t ask me why, but somehow, that felt like it could backfire on me eventually!). So, I went through a long-winded explanation about when we don’t know people and we give them money, we don’t know if they are going to spend it on what they tell us they are going to spend it on. They might spend it on “bad” things. Man, I was seriously challenged when discussing why we do or don’t give street people money!

Josh seemed ok with this, but, of course, his morally-judged mom didn’t. So, I asked Josh if he would feel better if we went back to the guy and gave him a dollar and made sure we told him to spend it on food. Josh liked that idea, so that’s what we did.

Unfortunately, when we went back, we couldn’t find the guy. We looked up and down the block and the guy had disappeared.

It seemed that Josh felt better that we tried. On our way back to find the group, Josh asked me, “Mommy, can I keep the dollar?”. Ha! Crazy kid. I told him it was Uncle J’s dollar and he had to ask Uncle J (knowing full well that Uncle J would say yes!).

But then he followed up that question with, “Mommy, what are “bad” things that the guy could spend the money on?”. Are you kidding me, kid?!

Scrambling for an answer that didn’t involve explaining sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, the first thing that popped to mind was what I blurted, “Toys.”

Hahaha. “It’s bad to spend money on toys if you’re hungry. Because you can’t eat your toys.”

Phew. Josh seemed satisfied with that answer. For now.

Keep in mind that during dinner that night, Josh followed up our Thanksgiving chicken conversation when the steamed crab was served. He said, “I don’t think that crab wanted to be killed.” Sigh.

Why does it feel like we have some sort of activist in the making?!

winter + riding

I mentioned in a previous post, when I rode in the Gran Fondo, that riding a bike on the same road that you’ve travelled by car is a completely different experience.  Well, the same can be said for bicycle commuting.

I find when I commute to work via public transportation, I put my head down and trudge along.  Don’t get me wrong: the mixture of reading or playing iPhone word games is relaxing and de-stressing.  But the focus is mostly on what I'm doing and not what is around me.

When I commute on my bike, it is a completely different experience - almost like it’s not a commute.  Even though I have a destination and a focus, there is still time to stop and smell the proverbial roses.  I notice things I would never normally notice on my commute - when a road/path gets repaved; the interesting differences between mist, drizzle and rain; new house construction or renovations;  the best places to pick blackberries; the different colours and smells that accompany each season.  And the amazing thing is that I can think more clearly through work or kid issues as I'm riding.  I've actually been able to come up with solutions that eluded me in my usual day-to-day.  I get to see things in a whole different way on my bike.

The other day, I was riding along one of my favourite parts of my usual bike route - a tree canopy along a driveway entrance to a park in Vancouver.  It was during one of my morning rides - an atypically cold, crisp and dry autumn morning in Vancouver (love it!).  It promised to be a gorgeous, sunny day, but at that moment there was still fog in the air.  My tree canopy of red, orange and yellow leaves still covering the trees but also covering the ground was veiled with a layer of fog.  It was so beautifully mysterious that I had to stop for a moment and look around.  In that moment, despite the rainy days, dark nights and generally cold and hazardous conditions, I was reminded why I appreciate riding my bike through the winter in Vancouver.

And while I'm talking about things I appreciate while winter riding: I've had a few weeks of riding on streets covered with soggy leaves (not unlike the leaf-covered road below).  It is difficult to not tense up as I approach a corner on my bike and see nothing but soggy-leaf-covered road ahead - trying to prepared (but never fully being prepared) in case I lose my bike from underneath me in the middle of a turn.    So, I can safely say, I haven't appreciated the removal of soggy leaves from city streets as much as I do when I'm riding my bike.  Thanks very much to the city's leaf collectors for making my winter ride a little less butt-clenching!

olden days

Today, as we were driving past a school playground, Josh asked me, “Mom, did they have parks in the olden days?” Olden days?!

Instead of pursuing my line of thought, I just said, “I’m pretty sure they had parks in the olden days. But I don’t think they would have looked like the parks we have now.”

Then Josh asked, “Did they have Lego Ninjago in the olden days?”

I laughed, “No, I’m pretty sure they didn’t have Lego Ninjago in the olden days.”

This seemed to be it for that line of questioning. But I still wonder what Josh’s idea of the “olden days” is. 1900? 1950? Or maybe, the “olden days” is the time when I was a kid! You know you’re getting old when your kids call the 80’s the “olden days”. Ha.

dido

I quickly perused my blog posts and I don’t think that I’ve ever done a post on DIDO. Shocking.

We recently talked about this and we think DIDO started in 2005. At that time, the lives of our group of friends were shifting from our close-knit, Vancouver-centric lives to marriage and buying houses that forced us out of our centralized city locales. The bottom line was: we seemed to be seeing less of each other. One of my girlfriends came up with the idea of DIDO from one of her girlfriends, who was doing the same thing with a group of friends. The concept is simple: once every other month, we would take turns organizing a get together. We could either go to one of our houses and order in food or go out to eat - Dine In or Dine Out.

“We” is our group of 8 friends - 4 couples. When we started this, we mostly dined out. It was a great way to go to different restaurants and catch up with old friends at the same time. Bri and I introduced the first newcomer to DIDO probably at the beginning of 2007 - Josh. This added a new dimension to DIDO. We didn’t want things to change “too” much for just this one baby, so we tried to continue going out to restaurants. But, of course, the focus was much different for Bri and I. Also, everyone was keenly aware that mealtimes are much more…distracted with babies so we tried to go to more family friendly places. Even though we didn’t mean to, we slowly started to change the tone of DIDO.

Towards the end of 2007, M and J introduced their first newcomer to DIDO. Our group of 8 was now a group of 10 and growing!

Today, 7 years after starting DIDO, when we are lucky enough to get all 4 families out, we have to reserve a table for 14 - 8 adults and 6 kids. And we rarely get together JUST to go to a restaurant. These days, it’s all about the kids. We’ve done Canada Day celebrations, picnics at the beach or water park, Kris Kringle’s and countless dine in’s, because they are SO much easier than dining out!

MJME organized our October DIDO and managed to get 3 our of our 4 families out to the pumpkin patch last Sunday morning (LPD, we missed you guys!). It was pouring rain on the drive out to Langley and we almost turned around and headed for dim sum. But dumb luck (and lack of being able to get in touch with everyone to change plans!) brought us out to Aldor Acres. We thought it might be a short, wet experience, but then, part way through the morning, the clouds parted and we saw sun and blue skies. It turned out to be a perfect morning for the pumpkin patch (with some great photos below)!

The kids had a blast (mostly) and by the time we left Aldor Acres just after lunch, we were happy and thoroughly chilled. We decided to drop into Tim Horton’s for hot chocolate before the drive home, but we ended up in McDonald’s. It only took 7 years for us to end up doing DIDO at McDonald’s! Ha. The best part was that we actually managed to have an adult table and kids table for probably a good 20 minutes (possibly the beginning of a new DIDO tradition?!). It may not seem long, but with kids, that’s just enough time for us to have some good conversation and finish our hot drinks. Perfect.

It will be interesting to see how our DIDO’s evolve as the kids get older. I’m so happy that we’ve managed to continue our DIDO tradition for 7 years. To LES, MJME and LPD: we are so lucky to have friends like you! Thanks and PS: I think it’s our turn to organize for December DIDO!

M, Bri, S and Josh welcome you to Aldor Acres!

“Look! It’s drooling!”

Soft, white bunny!

Bri's face has "I didn't mean REALLY kiss it!" written all over it!

Josh and S with a kitten

Hay ride out to the pumpkin patch

Searching out just the right pumpkin

Aves is clearly distraught by the hay ride and pumpkin patch

Hmm...I think this is it!

Pumpkin success!

DIDO, the next generation (sans Aves and D)

Cutie pies

Just so you don't think it was all tears for Aves!

aves vs. monchichi

Lately, Aves has had alot of practice mastering the art of the tantrum.  OK, who's kidding who?  There is no art to tantrumming.  It's a primal display of emotions and very, very irritating.

This is how the tantrum usually goes with me and Aves:

1. Aves is happily doing something.
2. Mom expresses discontent with the "something" Aves is doing.
3. Aves feels indignant and expresses discontent at Mom's discontent.
4. Mom emphasizes her discontent and indicates what she prefers Aves to be doing.
5. Aves starts crying.
6. Mom tries to calm Aves down at the same time maintaining her stance on the matter.
7. Aves crying continues to escalate (because she's not getting her way) until she has reached tantrum status.
8. Mom (surprisingly still calm in the face of a tantrum) calms Aves down.
9. Aves calms down a bit but remains indignant, muttering things along the lines of "hating" this and "no like" that.
10. Mom maintains her stance and tries to "reason" with Aves.
11. Aves crying re-escalates to a tantrum.
12. Go back to step 8 and repeat.

The last time this happened (on Tuesday), it took close to an hour to get Aves to calm down and not re-escalate.  This has been going on for awhile now and it seemed like we needed to try something new.  So the next time I saw Aves going down the tantrum path (on Wednesday!), I tried a different approach:

It was after dinner and Aves wanted an ice cream cone for dessert.  To be fair to Aves, I understood that she wanted the ice cream cone because the previous night, she had a tantrum instead of getting an ice cream cone like Josh.  She likely felt that this night, it was her turn to have ice cream.

But Bri's mom had bought us a box of chocolates to celebrate our anniversary and we had already decided to share the box of chocolates for dessert (which is what prompted Aves to say that she wanted ice cream instead).

I wasn't about to cave in to her whims, especially in light of the fact that we don't do make-ups for bad behaviour the previous night!  I told her that we were having chocolate, not ice cream, tonight and she would have the ice cream another night.

Uh-oh.  Aves was ramping up (can you believe the child was having a tantrum because we were going to have chocolate instead of ice cream?!).

So, I ran into the living room and grabbed her girl and boy monchichis.  I went back to the kitchen and showed Aves that monchichi was talking into my ear.  I said, "Look, Aves!  Monchichi said he wants chocolate and not ice cream."  Aves stopped mid-whine, with wet eyes, and started laughing.  So I continued, "Are you sure you want chocolate, monchichi?" (I help monchichi give a nod).

Aves continued to laugh thinking this was hilarious!  I pretended to make monchichi eat the chocolate, "Om nom nom nom.".  Aves laughed and laughed and laughed.  Oh my gosh.  It worked!

Finally, I nonchalantly asked Aves, "See, Aves?  Do you want chocolate like monchichi?".

The smile abruptly disappeared from Aves' face and she said, "No.  I want ice cream."

Damn.

bringing a gun to a rock fight

The kids are loving playing rock, paper, scissors these days.  Josh is pretty good at it.  There is seemingly no strategy to it, but Josh can beat me consistently.  We've even tried incorporating lizard and Spock.

Aves can't quite get the timing of saying her outcome with what her hands are doing.  It's pretty cute and we all get a kick out of it (including Aves).

This morning, we were out for brekkie and towards the end, the kids decided they wanted to play rps.  Aves was playing with Bri and I guess she got tired of losing/getting the timing wrong, because she decided to play the hand that trumped us all...

the road to vegetarian...

...is paved with turkeys and chickens.

Now that Josh is in Kindergarten and making sense of the world, he had all sorts of questions surrounding the Thanksgiving tradition of turkey on this past long weekend:

J: Mommy, are we having turkey for Thanksgiving?

Y: No, we’re having chicken.

J: Why aren’t we haven’t turkey?

Y: Because there are only 4 of us eating it.  Turkey’s are just big chickens.  Since we don’t have many people eating, we don’t need a turkey.

J: Do you think the turkey wants to be killed?

Y: (Ugh.  Seriously?!)  Uhhh…what do you think, Josh?

J: I don’t think the turkey wants to be killed.

I think at that point, I changed the subject because he caught me off guard and I didn’t know what to say!  But later on at dinner, the conversation came up again as we were eating our Thanksgiving chicken:

J: Mommy, do you think this chicken wanted to be eaten?

Y: Well, I don’t think the chicken was thinking about being eaten when it was alive.  Chickens have really small brains (good one, Mom!) so I don’t think that they think of much.  They are just happy to be running around (I’m considering my chicken was free range, of course!) and getting fed.

J: I don't think that chickens what to be eaten.
Y: (In my best trying to be empathetic voice) Well, Josh, if you don't want to eat chickens or turkeys, then you don't have to.  Just tell me and I won't give you any.

What else am I suppose to say when the kid is questioning the ethics behind eating fowl?!

fiery girl

Today, Aves and I were driving home from the park. We were listening to music and singing along. Then, Aves says this to me:

“Mommy, when I grow up I want to be a singer…and set the world on fire.”

Wow. Why do I get the feeling that we’ve got our hands full with our little girl?!

almost 6 years

It is almost 6 years to the day that diapers made their first appearance in our house and I think we are finally seeing the light at the end of the diaper tunnel!

Today was Aves’ first completely dry butt day! Yay for Aves! She has resisted potty training since we started trying when she turned 3. We didn’t push the issue because, honestly, it wasn’t that big a deal to me. But Aves will be 3 1/2 in October and the idea that she had no desire to rid herself of wet or poopie diapers boggles my mind! So, when school (and pre-school) started, we finally decided that it was time to REALLY work on it.

Even though the potty chart didn’t work for Josh, I figured we would try it on Aves. Wow. Talk about results! It’s taken a couple of weeks, but today Aves rocked the toilet.

It started great with her waking up with a dry diaper. When I finally got up, I asked her to sit on the toilet and she peed. Woo! Hoo! I knew it was as good a time as any to try underwear all day (even though we planned to be out most of the day). At one point, while we were out, I panicked because Aves hadn’t pooed all day, so it had to be coming soon, and we were going to hop in the car for a bit of a car ride home. She wore a pull-up, but never did anything in it. Right up until bedtime, Aves did all her stuff on the toilet or potty and kept her butt completely dry all day.

Now, I know at 3 1/2, she is by no stretch of the imagination breaking any potty training records. I’m posting more because I can’t believe that the day is fast approaching when we will be diaper free! Can it really be?! One thing is for sure: when we finally reach that milestone of being diaper-free, I will not look back at those diapering days and ever claim that I miss changing diapers! Ha!

loss (aka loose, the sequel)

On Thursday, Josh lost his first tooth. Someone said (or I read somewhere?) that it can take a couple of weeks for a tooth to fall out after it starts wiggling. Well, just so you don’t have to do the math, it was 15 days from the time that Josh’s tooth started wiggling that it fell out. Unfortunately, Josh asked me this question because, I’m guessing, he wanted to know how long it will be for next time. Sigh.

I found out about the tooth when I was at work and when I got home, Josh was full of smiles and pride about the lost tooth. He was so excited and had so many questions about why his tooth fell out and when the “adult” tooth was going to come in and whether it was going to hurt. Little did I know that Josh was not all smiles and pride when his tooth fell out while he was in the morning line-up right before walking into his classroom. (I learned this the next day from the moms when I dropped Josh off at school.) Apparently, he was playing with the tooth while he was in line and his tongue pushed it out. He was upset and crying (possibly about the blood?) and when one of the mom’s reassured him that it was all ok that his tooth was suppose to fall out, he sobbed, “No it wasn’t! I pushed it out with my tongue!”. I guess at some point during the day, he managed to convince himself that it was all meant to be, because by the time I got home, there was no evidence of tooth loss trauma.

Instead, we started our discussion about the tooth fairy. We didn’t make a big deal about it, just explained that the tooth fairy takes the tooth and leaves something behind. Josh seemed to take this all in stride and didn’t ask too many questions. At bedtime, I put the tooth in a box (for ease of locating) and under his pillow. The next morning, Josh made no mention of the tooth! Ha. Clearly, surprises from the mythical tooth fairy are not high on Josh’s list of morning priorities. I asked him about the tooth and he said that he was waiting for me before he checked to see what the tooth fairy left for him. Hmmm…fear, perhaps?

We went upstairs and Josh pulled the box out from under his pillow. He started to get excited now that he had the box in his hands. He opened it and declared, “I GOT A GOLD COIN!”. I clarified that it was a loonie, but a big deal nonetheless. We started to talk about options for his “gold” coin. I told him he could put it in his piggy bank or, when we went to my work the following day, he could use to buy a treat from our vending machine. He thought about this for a bit and then he said, “Mommy, if I put my coin in my piggy bank, do I still get a treat from the vending machine?”. Damn kid. I gave a vague answer and he said he wanted just to keep the coin in the box (I guess he WAS pretty excited about it!). I said that was fine too, but when his next tooth fell out we would need the box for that tooth. Josh finally decided he wanted to put the coin in his piggy bank. Yay for saving!

Soon after this, Josh said, “Mommy, one of my friends gets more than one coin for his tooth.”. Dammit! Don’t kids know that they’re not suppose to disclose this information to each other?! (A friend likened it to grown-ups talking about salaries. Ha.) I can’t remember what I said, but I managed to skirt around the issue. There was NO way I was caving into tooth fairy peer pressure. When I went to drop off Josh at school that morning, I got clarity on this issue. Josh was still very proud of his absence of a tooth and went on to show his friends. One of the boys came up to me and said that when he lost his tooth, he got 2 coins because he lost his first tooth when he was a baby and the tooth fairy never came back then because he was too young. Aha! His mom confirmed that when his first tooth actually fell out, he was also given money for a tooth that got knocked out when he was a baby. Apparently, Josh seems to have selective hearing when it comes to coins from the tooth fairy!

And I’m still not sure how Josh is taking the whole loss of tooth experience. He keeps asking when the next took is coming in and that he can’t feel it. Today, he asked me if his back teeth will fall out too. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens when the next tooth starts wiggling...