life's little pleasures

I’ve just taken 2 1/2 weeks off for Christmas holidays.  It’s not a long time but usually when I take that time, we go somewhere.  This year, I decided I wanted to take 2 1/2 weeks and do nothing.  

N-O-T-H-I-N-G

I realized this was odd for me when, everytime someone asked me where we were going for vacation and I said nowhere, they were shocked.  They couldn’t believe I hadn’t planned anything.  Wasn't going anywhere.

After the 2 1/2 weeks, I would say that the vacation was...interesting.  Would I do it again?  Yes.  Was it relaxing? No.  Was it a good break?  Yes.  It gave me time to focus on my family (and myself).  It helped me to gain some insight on my relationship with my kids.  I can't fully articulate what I learned yet, but I'm still processing.

Part of doing nothing involved little pleasures like going out for dinner.  One night, we went to one of our usual haunts (the kid's current favourite place to eat).  I'm not going to say where for fear of being judged. :-P  During dessert (and in the spirit of enjoying little pleasures), I decided to start taking pictures of the kids.  They thought this was fun.  This is how it evolved...

First, Aves made a face when I took a pic:

Josh thought this was funny and wanted me to take a pic of him:

This prompted Josh to want to take a pic of me.  I obliged, of course, by making a face:

Then Josh wanted to take a family shot (for some reason, I forgot the making-a-face theme):

I wanted Josh in the shot, so he did this:

Not wanting to be outdone by her brother, Aves needed to make sure she took a pic as well:

Life's little pleasures, indeed.

merry christmas and happy new year

We hope you had a Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing you in 2014!  Lots of love from Brian, Yvette, Josh, Avery and Nikita.

Christmas morning 2013

options

A couple of days ago, Brian had this weird moment where he felt something weird on his tooth.  When he used his tongue to figure out what it was, a piece of his tooth fell off!

He announced that he thought a piece of his tooth just fell out.  Josh, of course, wanted to see.  It WAS, very weirdly, a piece of a tooth (Brian wasn't doing anything like biting down when it fell out).

As Josh was looking at the tooth he said to Brian, "Daddy, you should put that under your pillow!".  and then in the spirit of always giving options, he added, "OR I could put that under my pillow!"

(As an aside, it was likely a white filling and not a piece of Brian's tooth that fell out.)

Along for the ride

how old was grammy when i was born?

This was one of the questions Josh asked when reflecting on his birthday.

It was Josh's "birthday weekend" this past weekend.  He was SO excited for his birthday this year.  He actually started counting down on the 1st of the month!

I'm a bit behind on blogging about milestone accomplishments, so instead of going through them, I'm going to share this funny story along with a couple of birthday pics from the weekend...

On Sunday, we had family over to celebrate Josh's birthday.  Josh and his cousin, Luke, are only 6 months apart and always seem to bond when they get together.  Somehow, though, mischief seems to be able to find them.

There were a few times through the course of the afternoon that Josh and Luke needed a talking to.  All in all, though, silliness aside, they were pretty good.  Every gathering, it feels more and more like we can leave the kids to play and the grown ups can actually have some conversation too.  In fact, there were a few times where we (the grown ups) asked each other where the kids were!

After everyone left, we started tidying up the house.  Nature called and as I sat on the toilet, I noticed something didn't feel right.  I quickly got up.  At first, I thought the toilet seat was up when I sat down (ewwww!), but I recalled lifting the lid myself.  The seat was indeed down, but it was wet, wet, wet!  The underside of the lid was wet too.  It looked like the water from the toilet had sprayed up while the lid was down.  Still ewwww!

As I wiped my backside, I called Brian.  I said, "do you know what happened to the toilet?!'.  Now, I know we always talk about women's intuition, but I'm thinking that maybe this is what male intuition is about!  Brian took one look at this illogically wet toilet seat and lid and immediately called, "Josh!".

I was puzzled why he would have thought Josh had anything to do with this (note that this was in our master ensuite, off our master bedroom; absolutely no reason for kids to be in there).  When Josh came in, Bri started the inquisition:

B: Did you play in our bathroom?
J: Yeah, me and Luke did.
(woo! hoo! to male intuition!)
B: Did you play with the toilet?
J: Yes.
(Seriously, kid?!)
B: What were you doing?
J: We sprayed it with this.
(Josh produces a water spray bottle from the counter.)
B: Why would you do that?!
J: It was Luke's idea (way to throw Luke under the bus!).  We thought it would be funny if we sprayed the toilet and then someone sat on it and got all wet.

Bwahahaha.  It was SO painful for Brian and I not to bust a gut in that exact moment!  How can you punish a kid for that?!

After the kids went to bed, Brian laughed, "They SO got you!".  They did indeed.  Punk'd by a couple of 7-year-olds (sans camera)!

Happy 7th Birthday, my little prankster.  The surprises continue each and every day!  We love, love, love you, Josh.

Party at Koko's with friends

Celebrating at home with family

great fart!

I'm sure she will kill me one day for posting this...

Aves is a big cuddler.  Also, she is cuddly.  So, cuddles with Aves are win-win.

Tonight, at bedtime, Aves was a bit upset because she has a raw spot forming below her lower lip from constantly licking her lips.  I put some salve on it to help heal.  It stung a bit and she was crying.  She was laying down, so I lay down alongside her, like I was spooning her, and cuddled with her to make her feel better.

After a few seconds, she stopped right in the middle of her cry, turned over so her butt faced the other way and said, "Just a second, Mommy, I have to fart.".  She paused long enough to expel her gases.  Then she flipped back over to continue cuddling with me!  As she snuggled into me she said, "That was a great fart".  I couldn't help but burst out laughing.  She was very serious and very confused by my laughter!

In the end, I'm not sure whether it was my cuddling or her 'great fart" that made her feel better, but she stopped crying.  So, I guess it doesn't matter as long as she felt better!

may the force be with you

In my defense, the blog posts have been sparse because I'm living in the moment instead of writing about it.  At least that's what I'll tell myself when I look back at the blog and wished I'd written more!

This particular post is about Josh's recent obsession with Star Wars.  He's done with Ninjago and Minecraft is sort of in the backburner.  It's all about Star Wars these days.  I was pleased to discover his favourites are episodes IV, V and VI!  He's watched all episodes BUT episode II.  Ironically enough, it's the only episode I haven't seen either.

Of course, the highlight of Star Wars for Josh is the lightsaber.  And, I guess, being a Jedi.  I have caught him several times trying to use the force (and, according to him, being successful!).  Although I did like Star Wars as a kid, I don't ever remember pretending to be a Jedi and trying to use the force.  Must be a boy thing...

During our recent trip to NY, my sister bought Josh his first 2 lightsabers.  It was love at first sight.  He is truly obsessed and quite skilled at handling them!  He has since gotten another lightsaber from the PNE (that lights up and makes noises!).  And in an afternoon of father-son bonding, Bri and Josh went to Rona and then built Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber.  I'm still not sure who exactly was being indulged with that endeavour.  Ha.

But in the end, it is Josh's conversations about Star Wars that has been most entertaining for me.  There have been so many quips, questions and stories, I can't begin to remember them all.  Here are a couple that have stuck out in my mind:

Josh on saber-play:

J (as he crisscrosses 2 light sabers against my neck; in a very serious voice): Mommy, what are your last words?
Y: Uhhh…I love you.
Josh makes a slicing action with his 2 lightsabers like he’s slicing my head off.  Ha.

J (doing the same to Aves; same serious voice): Ave, what are your last words?
A: Say it in french!

Hahaha.  That could very well be the most famous last words EVER!  Fwiw, he sliced her head of anyway!

THEN, he came back to me and did the same crisscross against my neck:

J: Mommy, what are your last words…in french!
Y: Uhhh…Je t’aime!

And then he sliced my head off.  Again.

Sigh.

Josh on pod-racing:

J: Mommy, did you know that Darth Vader knows how to race pod racers?
Y: Really?!  Darth Vader knows how to race pod racers?! (I never recalled an episode where I saw Darth Vader racing pod racers.)
J (in an exasperated tone with his hands in the air): Maw-uh-om!  Darth Vader IS Anakin.  And Anakin knows how to race pod racers.  So, of course, Darth Vader knows how to race pod racers too!

Mommy can be so uncool sometimes.

S and Josh when I told them to do their best ninja pose (I wish I'd said "best Jedi pose")

motherhood moments

As a family with 2 working parents, part of our "routine" is that we do our chores and errands on Saturday morning to get them over and done for the weekend.  The kids also like to have pancake breakfasts on the weekends.  We dawdled our way through our pancake breakfast this past Saturday and before we knew it, it was 10:30 am.  We hurriedly cleaned up so we could get out the door and through a jam-packed few hours of errands.

I decide that to make things faster (and because this moment to myself would only last for so long), I needed to brush my teeth AND go to the bathroom at the same time.  Ha.  As I sat on the toilet, brushing away, I thought of this post - talking about these motherhood moments where we end up doing things we never imagined we would do before we became moms.

At that exact moment, Aves walked into the bathroom, looked at me on the toilet and without even the slightest hesitation, she came over, sat on my lap and reminded me for the 57th time that morning that she wanted to go to the barbershop to get her hair cut.  We must have been quite the sight.  Motherhood moment, indeed.