F-E-E-T

I remember when we were young, my parents used to speak to each other in Indonesian when they didn’t want us to know what they were talking about. To this day, I’m not sure that they believe that we all, indeed, understand a bit of Indonesian (enough to understand what they were saying about us!).

For the past little while, Brian and I have been spelling words when we don’t want the kids to understand what we’re saying. We don’t do it often, but we do it purposely. Lately, I’ve noticed that Josh listens more and more when Bri and I talk to each other. There have even been times when I’ve spelled a word and Josh would ask what I was spelling. Sorry, kid!

Yesterday, we were in the car on the way to Emma Lea Farms. Out of the blue, Josh says, “Mommy, Avery has her F-E-E-T on the seat.” You should have seen the look of incredulity that Bri and I gave each other!

And just in case we weren’t clear that Josh is catching on to our tricks, once we reached Emma Lea Farms and found out we couldn’t pick strawberries, I said to Brian, “We can still get some I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M.”. Without missing a beat, Josh says, “Mommy, are we going to have ice cream?”. Dammit.

What did your parents do when they didn’t want you to know what they were saying? And better yet, what do you do when you don’t want your kids to know what you’re saying?

bahyeh

Aves just finished her first ballet set (she pronounces it “bah-yeh”). It was strange because she looked forward to every class, but while she was in class, she was often off in her own world, not paying attention and not following instruction. I’m not really sure if she enjoyed it. She said she did, but her actions spoke louder than her words.

Today was her last class. I forgot to bring my camera, so I ended up taking lesser quality iPhone photos. It was ironic that today was photo day because lately, Aves has been wanting to wear skirts. Since summer doesn’t seem to want to come to Vancouver, we’ve been putting leg warmers on her legs to stay warm. When I put Aves in her ballet outfit this morning, she said she wanted her leg warmers. Ha. She’s a maniac. I just wanted to make it clear that it was not my decision to have Aves wear those leg warmers!

In any case, she is a super-cute little dancer. She has just that right amount of sticking out her belly and butt, tip-toeing goodness.

 

new hair

I recently decided to chop my locks. It was time. On Tuesday, my hair was reaching midway down my back. Today, I can barely tuck it behind my ears. For those of you know who have known me for awhile, you know I’m prone to drastic haircuts.

Though Josh and Aves have known me all their lives, that is a relatively short period of time. They have not really seen me undergo this metamorphosis before.

The afternoon I came home after my haircut, I walked in the door as I normally do when I come home from work. When I opened the back door, the kids heard it and I immediately heard Aves shout her usual, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy’s home!” from the living room. As she ran around the corner and saw me, she stopped in her tracks. The new few seconds were priceless: she stared at me with that “am I on Candid Camera?!” look, not really believing that this was me and very confused by what she was seeing. I didn’t say anything because I could that she was processing all of this. And after that few seconds of processing, Aves had finally made sense of the situation. She smiled at me, gave a sigh of relief and said, “Mommy! You got new hair!”.

sandwiches

I’m constantly debating in my head whether I am okay with Josh and Aves sleeping in our bed at night. They never start out there, but it seems most nights, they end up there.

On the nights where they form an Yvette sandwich and I sleep fitfully, I think, “this is not working”.

But the fact of the matter is: they want to sleep with us. And why is that so bad? It can’t be a bad thing that our kids need us in that way. Besides, it won’t last forever.

Then, sometimes I wonder, “how long WILL it last?!”. I don’t think I’ll have a 15-year-old crawling into my bed, but do I REALLY know that?! Ha.

Last night was an Yvette-sandwich kind of night. Josh is a cuddler. Aves, it seems, is some sort of pendulum. And Mommy is…grumpy.

At one point, I open my eyes and I am looking at Aves’ shoulder. She is sleeping on my pillow, I am sleeping on…the mattress. I feel Josh’s legs against my back. Ha. I am sandwich meat.

Then, I notice Aves start to stir. She takes her pacifier (don’t judge!) out of her mouth. Aves plants a kiss on my forehead, puts her pacifier back in her mouth and falls back asleep.

OK, I love sandwiches - there’s no debating that.

for the love of sport

Lately, Josh seems to be breaking new ground everywhere and, as his mom, I felt I needed to…brag :-) So, I think this post is more for me than anyone else…

Part 1 - Biking

A couple of weeks ago, we finally decided it was time for Josh to get a new bike. I’ve been holding out because Josh never seemed to want to ride a bigger bike. Every time I offered up a bigger bike to ride, like my sis’ kid’s bikes while we were in NY, he would say he didn’t want to go bike riding. This boggled my mind because the kid is obsessed with biking! That, coupled with the fact that he was still enjoying his current bike made me hold off on getting him a new bike. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

Well, the shift in my decision making process came on the day that I saw Josh riding his bike home alongside a classmate from pre-school. This boy is almost a year younger than Josh, so he is smaller than Josh. He was riding a bike that was much bigger than Josh’s - and don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Josh should have had the bigger bike. All I’m saying is that this boy looked proportionate to his bike. It made me realize that Josh was disproportionately large for his wee bike. It reminded me clowns riding on tricycles. OK, I exaggerate, but that thought did cross my mind.

I talked to Josh about buying a new bike and he liked the idea. So, off we went to the bike store to buy a new bike. They “measured” Josh for a bike and said he should be riding a 20” bike (I discovered that is the TT - top tube - measurement, btw). Josh’s existing bike was a 12” bike. Ha.

From the selection of bikes he was shown, Josh chose a bmx bike. Ugh. We brought it outside for a test ride. At that point, Josh said he didn’t want to ride it. Duh, Mommy! It took all that for me to finally realize that Josh was afraid to try a bigger bike! He hasn’t wanted to try to ride a bigger bike all this time because he was afraid. I can be so dense sometimes!

The bike guy and I managed to coax Josh onto this bike. The guy made adjustments as Josh sat on it so he could get comfortable. When he finally felt ready, Josh took a go on the bike. He rocked it. (Secretly, his mom knew he would :-) Even the bike guy was surprised at how quickly Josh adapted to the new bike. He said that often it takes time for kids to adjust to a new bike - it’s bigger and different. He seemed genuinely impressed. And Josh was genuinely impressed with the bike! From that point, he had no problem hopping on other bikes to test ride. But eventually, he had to choose, and he chose the original bmx bike that he first hopped on. Good choice, kid!

He hasn’t looked back since. Actually, that’s not true. He looked back once at his old bike seat. We had to replace the new bmx bike seat (it is true bmx seat that is permanently tilted back) with the adjustable seat from his old bike. The tilt wasn’t comfortable for him and didn’t realize it until he rode around a bit more.

So, Josh has taken his new bike to the terrain park and all-wheel park (bowls and stuff). He is starting to catch air as he comes over the lip of the bowl. Ugh. Did I really think this was a good idea?! But we all rode our bikes to the Hyack parade last week and Josh enjoyed street riding, too. It truly is fun riding bikes with Josh! It was definitely a worthwhile investment!

Oh, and incidentally, I need to mention that this new bike doesn't have pedal brakes.  It only has hand brakes.  Josh was fine with this too and was quite pleased to have a bike like mommy and daddy where you can pedal backwards as much as you want!

Part 2 - Basketball

Now, on to basketball. We have a Little Tikes plastic basketball hoop in the yard that Josh likes to play around with. Nothing serious. In fact, he doesn’t play with it that much at all.

Last Sunday, I took Aves to ballet and at that same time, the community centre has the gym set up for wee one play time. The community centre is near a friend’s house (this is how we found out about ballet class there) and they take their daughter on Sunday mornings.

So, after we dropped off Aves in her class, Josh and I went to the gym to meet up with S and play for a bit. Josh was by far the oldest child there and perhaps a tad too old for the purpose of that play time. But he can always find things to amuse himself (after all, he IS a child, isn’t he?!). On this Sunday morning, it was basketball. They actually had the “normal” basketball hoop down and there happened to be a “normal” basketball laying around. Josh picked up the ball and started shooting hoops. Who knew the kid could throw the ball that high?

For many reasons - like I’m 5’1”, non-basketball-playing and his mom - me being impressed is not a huge stretch. However, Josh did capture the attention of a dad that was there with his toddler. The dad came over and started shooting hoops with Josh (don’t worry, the toddler’s mom was there, too!). I’m not sure what it was that make me so proud that Josh inspired the guy to come over. After playing with him for a bit, out of the blue, the guy mentioned to me that Josh seemed like a natural athlete. Nice. For me as a mom, it truly warms my heart when a complete stranger pays my child a genuine compliment.

Part 3 - Tennis

One thing I didn’t mention in Part 1 is that perhaps Josh rode his new bike a bit too much. Adjusting to the size of his new bike took it’s toll on Josh and after a few days, he started to complain of leg pain around his groin area. So, we suggested a break from the bike.

On Saturday, since he couldn’t ride his bike, Josh picked up the tennis racket that V&S lent to him. He asked me to play tennis. Normally, when Josh and I “play tennis”, he gets me to hold the racket and he catches the ball while I hit it softly. I’m not sure why he preferred to not hit with the racket, but que sera sera.

Bri recently cleaned out our storage area and found my tennis racket. Yay! Now that we both had rackets, Josh had no excuse to not have a racket. We would both get to hit.

I decided to take him to the tennis courts at the local park. He seemed to think that was pretty cool. He asked to go again on Sunday. Today, he asked to go again. Yup, pretty cool.

As far as hitting goes, I’m trying to pull what I learned from tennis lessons from the recesses of my brain so I can teach him. I remember a lot of hitting from the centre of the court while Wally, my instructor, stood just on the other side of the net, throwing (not hitting) the balls to me. I did that with Josh and he asked, “Mommy, why aren’t you hitting my balls back?”. Ha.

Josh seemed to have fun doing this and, honestly, I did too. I’m finding I have the patience to teach him tennis. We even got to the point where I was hitting some of his balls back and he could hit it back to me. Yay!

And then on Sunday afternoon, as we were wrapping up tennis, I think Josh wanted it to be known that he wasn’t the only natural athlete in the family :-) I overheard this conversation between him and Bri:

J: Daddy, can you play tennis too?
B: Yeah, I can play too.
J: Who’s better? You or mommy?
B: Hmmm…I think mommy is a better tennis player than me.
J: (pauses) Daddy, mommy is really good at tennis.

Ha.

hot dog!

I was recently back east with the kids, visiting my sis and her family in upstate New York. During our visit, my sis said she wanted to take Josh to a place that is affectionately known to the locals as Cumbie’s - Cumberland Farms. Who’s kidding who?! There is nothing farm-ish or wholesome about this place. It is essentially a gas station with a 7-Eleven!

The reason my sis wanted to take Josh there is because they have a wall-o-slushie-drinks. She thought it would be cool to see Josh go crazy for slushies! hahaha.

He did, indeed, go crazy. The first time she took him there (yes, I said “first”), I was on my jaunt to the city. He liked it so much, that after I came back, he kept insisting on going to the “drink store”.

Finally, we went one day in the late afternoon after picking up a bunch of kids from school. A van load of 6 kids, my sis and I piled into Cumbie’s.

The drink selection of every type and flavour of drink that can rot your teeth and brain was impressive! AND the best part (and the part that is marketed heavily) is that every size is 89 cents! Yes, every size of drink is just 89 cents. Yes, I’m still confused about the marketing strategy.

As the title of this post implies, they have hot dogs too.

So, we get the van load of kids back in the car, all hopped up on sugar. At this point, my sis remembers her hubby needs dinner (hahaha…yes, i know, lucky him!). She calls N to see if he wants a hot dog from Cumbie’s. N is a funny guy and at this point, he is being a funny guy about being offered dinner from Cumbie’s. My sis is laughing a bit at his sarcasm, but I’m sensing that her patience is wearing thin with his humour as well as the incessant ruckus coming from the 6 sugar kids. Finally, N says, “You know what I really want? I’m really feeling like a…cheeseburger. Yeah, a cheeseburger shaped as a hot dog.”. Ha. That was the end of the rope for my sis. She lashes out at N for wasting her time while she has a van load of sugar kids and she stomps back into Cumbie’s.

At some point during her stomp back in, something rings true about the cheeseburger shaped as a hot dog. She goes straight to the hot dog counter and what does she find?!

Wait for it…






















Wait…

It is indeed true. You CAN find everything in the States! (Can you guess which is the cheeseburger?!)

chelan

I suck at multi-tasking these days.  I started a blog post about 3 weeks ago and I’ve been stuck on it.  There is so much I want to say, but I can’t figure out how to say it!  As a result, I’ve had blogger’s block.  Ha.  I haven’t been able to by-pass that post and start new ones.  Well, all that changes today!  Mostly because if I don’t post this one soon, it will feel too out-dated to post.  So, my blogger’s block post will just have to take a back seat for now...

This was the third year that we’ve kicked off our camping season on the Victoria Day long weekend and the second year that we’ve gone to a Washington state park on that weekend.  Last year, we went to Lake Easton State Park.  As wonderful as it was, it was just east of Snoqualmie Pass and there was still snow on the ground at the entrance of the park!  I really wanted to try to venture somewhere warmer, so this meant we had to travel somewhere in the interior.  We opted to go to WA again mostly because it seems much less busy going camping in WA on a Canadian long weekend than try to go somewhere in BC.

We decided on Lake Chelan State Park.  To sum up the weekend: we may have just found our Victoria Day long weekend camping tradition.  We had a blast.  The campground was quiet enough that it wasn’t busy, but it was busy enough that Josh found friends.  Perfect.

Aves was just getting over a stomach flu, so she made the trip out on Friday a tad rough, but she was a trooper.  Though she was clingy throughout the weekend, she still managed to run around, play and have a great time. 

Josh, as always, found ways to make the trip awesome for him and, ultimately, for us.  However, late on Friday at a rest stop, he wasn’t feeling so awesome.  He was running back from the bathroom with Brian and tripped over his tired feet.  He face planted into the sidewalk and it left him with a bloody mess on the tip of his nose, and around his mouth.  The poor guy came over to me in tears and he was gingerly grinding his teeth.  He managed to mutter, “Mommy, I think I ate concrete.”  Even in the face of pain the guy can make me chuckle!  You’ll notice some of the battle scars on his nose in the photos below.

Somehow, the weekend seemed like perfect camping weather.  The daytime was warm enough to wander around in shorts and a T-shirt.  We even sported swimsuits at the beach on Saturday (except Aves who refused to wear her bathing suit!).  Though the water in the lake was still cold, it wasn’t too cold for Josh to venture in up to his waist.  In the evening, it was cool enough that you wanted to sit around a campfire, but it wasn’t freezing.  Perfect again.

In addition to beach time and campfire time, we managed to fit in a hike, many bike rides, play time around the campsite and we even got out on the water in our dinghy a couple of times!  Honestly, I love watching our kids soak in all these experiences.  Not only does it remind me how much I enjoyed camping with my family when we were little, but it also gives me warm fuzzies to think we may be creating the same memories for our kids.

And not only did I enjoy watching the kids have a good time, I actually had a very relaxing time too.  A Globe & Mail article made me contemplate how I travel with my kids and something in that article helped me to change my outlook.  That, coupled with Brian and I working towards helping to alleviate my stress leading up to travel, made this camping trip essentially stress-free for me.  Yay and thanks to Bri.

As for the Lake Chelan area, we can’t wait to go back!  The Cascade Loop in Northeast WA is beautiful.  The down side to going so early in the season is that we miss out on all the summer activities and, most of all, the fruit stands!  This trip has left my mouth watering to go back to the interior this summer for our share of the summer fruit season.  Yum.

In any case, we have kicked off our 2012 camping season!  No other trips planned yet (ha!) but hopefully this will push us to get our butts in gear and make plans!

P.S.  This was my first time doing my share of driving the truck with the trailer hitched.  It is definitely intimidating, but I think I got the hang of it by the time I was doing my part of the drive home.  Having said that, I don’t think I will ever get used to the feeling that we won’t fit going over/through some structures.  My butt will continue to clench every time I drive us across a narrow bridge or through a tunnel!

I have a tummy ache, but there is sand and water to be played with, dammit!

How am I going to get this boat across this HUGE lake?!

'Take a picture of me, Mommy.'  Seriously.  That's what she said.

Yes, we are making smores on the campfire, but, more importantly, why is Aves wearing her bike helmet at the picnic table?!

Mommy, Daddy, can you row us far?

Bri rowing at the stern (but if the stern is at the front, does it make it the bow?)

Enjoying the scenery from the lake

Catching fish?

We got the feeling the ducks were used to people.

Look, Mommy!  Ice cream!

Ahhhh!  Rainbow sherbert!

Taking a stroll through Leavenworth