Visual Representation

Today was a nice day, but in terms of blogging material, I have very little to report.

So, I thought I'd see what would happen if I input my entire blog into a word cloud website I know called "Wordle." The site basically takes a whole bunch of text and compiles it into a visual representation that shows all the most frequently used words, and makes the ones you use more often look bigger.

My blog from this summer had close to 20 000 words; click on it to check out which ones were the most commonly used! (Could you have guessed?)

Until next time...

"I Didn't Have Fun, Mom!"

Today was the final act of my three-day gauntlet in looking after the kids by myself while Chrissy worked. I am utterly exhausted; "my soul is faint." The worst part is that this is what Chrissy does most weeks of the year without complaining, so I feel like I need to hide the "faintness" of my soul, or at least, not complain about it.

(But I REALLY want to complain about it!)

Anyhow, here's how it went.

It began with a poop. Or rather, it began with an absence of poop, from Jesse, who had been trying very hard to hold it in all week. But at the breakfast table this morning, his little legs were wiggling back and forth, his eyes were boggling, and he was upset about everything. We immediately recognized these as Jesse’s “I need to go but I don’t want to go” signs. Chrissy left, and I informed him that once he completed his puzzle he would have to have a poop on the potty, and he lost it on me, throwing puzzle pieces and literally running out of the room sobbing uncontrollably.

Eventually, after much tears and pleading (from both parties), I picked him up and stuck him on the potty.

The thing about pooping is that you can’t force a kid to do it. I mean, there are suppositories, but that’s a pretty messy last resort. So, I just waited it out with him.

And waited. (And waited!)

He gave me several arguments for why he should be able to descend from his throne. Most of them ended in, “BUT I DON’T WANT TO POO!” Several times he escaped, only to be caught and repositioned. Eventually, after about forty minutes, I heard the tell-tale unearthly screams, the moment of silence, and then... “I pooed!”

Sure enough, we had a nine-incher. I was proud, and Jesse got his lollipop as a reward. Here he is, proudly chewing on his sucker while Janna lent moral support.

Jesse’s mood improved dramatically from there, but Janna’s quickly declined. It felt a little too cool to go directly to the park, so we settled for some in-house activities for a while. At one point I enlisted Katie to read a great book to both kiddies at once – The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business. This book was a gift from Chrissy’s brother Josh, and I honestly suggest that all parents pick it up at some point. Especially of you can get the version with the sounds.

Katie’s doing pretty well here! Can you see how fragile the kids’ moods were at this point?

Watching Pinocchio again. Katie took this during the whale part – Jesse needs a little extra support during the scary moments, but he loves this part too!

Janna lost it during this time, so I began the extensive process of preparing to go to the park.

Prepped for the park:
-Snacks eaten (check)
-Diaper changed / Courtesy pee completed (check)
-Sippy cups located, filled, packed (check)
-Kids sunscreened (check, and that was awful!)
-Hoodies located and placed on kids (check)
-Stroller belts buckled (check)
-Kids smiling and optimistic about the next hour? (well....)

Actually, the park was great. Jesse is at the point where he has a lot of fun pushing Janna on the swing, which he did with joy, which also caused her to laugh happily, BUT I DIDN’T HAVE THE CAMERA (it was on the other side of the park). I was so mad that I forgot the camera, but very happy that the kids were happy. Then we went out into the field and chased each other until Janna became irritated, and we left for home.

To make a long story short(er), I put the kids down for a nap, enjoyed a couple of blissful hours of silence, and then when they woke up, all bad things broke loose. I needed to cook supper, but Jesse desperately wanted me to play with him, and Janna just clung to my leg crying for about an hour and a half, crying “Momma! Momma!” Then Jesse and Janna got into fights resulting in angry screams and tears. Then Katie used her food processor to grind up some veggies, and the noise sent my delicate children into a frenzy of tears and indignation.

I desperately tried to keep everything together, but when I finally got supper in front of them, both of them broke into tears and didn’t like anything. When Chrissy walked through the door at 5:30, both kids were overwhelmed with relief, and Jesse immediately summarized his day with the words, “I didn’t have fun, Mommy! I didn’t have fun!”

Hahahahahaha.... funny in hindsight.... Well, that’s all for tonight. I think I’ll take an hour or so to heal emotionally.

I’d like to dedicate this blog post to Chrissy Vance and Grace Wiegand, two awesome pregnant gals who cheered me up as I wrote this post with three different kinds of chips. Bless you.

Until next time!

A Day With Janna

Today was a complex day right from the start. By the end of the day, two things needed to be accomplished. Rogers needed to fix our cable TV (hasn’t been working for three weeks!) and, more importantly, Janna needed to have some blood work done so that we can eventually find out whether or not she is a Celiac (one who is antagonistic to wheat).

Chrissy had it perfectly planned out. She would take Jesse to work with her, leaving me to hang out with Janna until 11, at which time I would feed her and put her to bed for 11:30. She would sleep blissfully until 1:30 while the Rogers tech fixed out television issues, and then I’d take her to CHEO to undergo the upsetting process of having blood drawn.

This was a great idea! However, it’s actually really rare that I have Janna by myself for that much time, and I realized that, without Jesse around, I wasn’t really sure what to do with her for the next four hours until 11am. I took her outside for about ten seconds, and then it started raining on us. Chrissy had the van, and the stroller. I had the nineteen-month-old girl and a rainy day. What should we do?

Well, we started off by playing with her pop-up toy. I tried to figure out as many ways to play with it as possible. I popped up all the little pop-up things and dared her to push them down. She laughed, and pushed them down. I popped them up again. She pushed them down. Repeat, repeat. She walked away, opened the pantry, and walked away with a bag of sugar. I knew I had to change strategies fast.

Boots! This was actually her idea. She brought the boots over to me, and I figured I’d get another three minutes of entertainment out of this. Somehow, we stretched it to nearly ten minutes. It went like this: she handed me the boots, sat down on my lap, and screamed. I understood this to mean that she wanted me to put them on her. (Just for clarification, this wasn’t an angry or prolonged scream, it was just her standard, short burst of high-pitch sound she currently uses as a general means of communication.) 

Once they were on, she smiled with contentment for approximately one second before she tugged at the boots and screamed again. She wanted them off. Once they were off, she took the right boot and tried to stick it on her left foot. When it wouldn’t go on, she screamed, this time slightly irritated. I helped her put her boots on the wrong feet, for which she was again thankful for a full second, and then she was tugging at them again. Repeat, repeat. 

I thought she was going to do this forever, when she abruptly disappeared and brought me my dress shoes. “Alright,” I thought to myself, “I know how this game works!” I helped her put on both shoes, but man, was that ever a mistake! 

Somehow I had deeply offended her. She began real screaming at me and swatting at me with her hands. I had had enough of this, so I let her know in a stern voice that she wasn’t to speak to her dad that way.

Tears ensued. The next three hours were a little rocky.

Janna has this amazing ability to be intensely interested in something for ten seconds before it loses all attraction to her. She brought me books, and before I was finished the first page, she was hopping off my lap to find a new book. Same thing with toys. We had some great moments, but I started to feel a little frayed around the edges by the third hour.

What saved me in the end was our movie collection. Despite our childproof cabinet doors, Janna managed to sneak a hand through the crack and pull out all of the movies, one by one. Then she opened all of the cases and took out the DVDs. She seemed to love trying to figure out with case each DVD went into. She has her mother’s love for organization!

Eventually 11:30 came and went, and Janna went down for her nap. The Rogers guy came a short time later and tried three different boxes before deciding that nothing was working. He said that something was wrong on their end, and that he’ll call me back when they get it sorted out... hopefully we’ll hear from him tomorrow?

Two hours later, and Chrissy and Jesse were home. It was time to take Janna to get her needle. Chrissy had a deeply sympathetic look in her eyes as she sent us off. She was thinking back to the horrible experience she had had with Jesse, when she was asked to pin his arms down as the nurse stick the needle in his arm, Jesse screaming the whole time and looking at her with a sense of betrayal.

Janna is a completely different kid. She was so happy the whole way there, and when the doctor asked me to pin her arms against me, she just got a little quiet. She did cry pretty hard during the needle, but once the nurse pulled it out, it was as if it had never happened! She loved the sticker she received and munched happily on the (gourmet) jelly beans I bought her. Tough girl!

That’s it for now. Somehow, I feel twice as exhausted as when I’ve been watching both kids for the day! I’m not sure how that works, but Janna definitely has lots of energy. 

Until next time...

The Beginning of the End

This is my fifth last post of the summer - less than one week before school prep begins. Crazy how fast time flies. I'll be taking a break for the school year, with the exception of an odd post here or there, and I'll resume next summer. So, no time like the present for embracing all of those minute details that make up daily life.

As Chrissy was at work today, the mantle of HOUSE MAN once again fell upon my shoulders. Here are six photographs to give you a “snapshot” of our day.

Early morning with Katie Vance. Usually Katie scares me half to death each morning when she emerges unexpectedly from her room in the basement, but today she had an aura of happiness about her that made her seem to glide almost gracefully from the staircase. What was the occasion of this gleeful appearance? She finished school yesterday, and she is now fully qualified to perform graphical artwork on nearly all print surfaces! Congrats, Kate! (Janna is clearly impressed by this chipper disposition so early in the morning!)

Jesse’s newest obsession is the concept of the Piggy Bank. Somehow, at some point along our East Coast Vacation, he developed the notion that it was imperative for him to possess a piggy bank. He subsequently asked us every second moment for a piggy bank, to which we politely declined, repeatedly, thinking that eventually he’d forget and drop this strange impulse.

That never happened, and eventually we caved in yesterday and bought him his own piggy bank.

He now tries to carry it everywhere with him, and incessantly asks for coins to put in it. We’ve worked out a loose agreement where he cleans our bottom floor in exchange for a dime (YES!). Today, however, I was feeling generous and gave him a quarter. Here he is, carefully depositing his hard-earned cash.

We rented Pinocchio yesterday, and Jesse quickly fell in love with it. He hates the whale, and watches the whole movie in apprehension of its appearance. However, he loves the part at the end when Pinocchio is turned into a real boy. Here he is, watching just before the moment when Pinocchio becames a real boy. The excited expression stays on his face and intensifies until Pinocchio’s transformation is complete. I love watching movies with this guy!

Lunch time! Dinner today was “Cheesy Noodles” (Kraft Dinner), along with grapes and raspberries. Janna loves acting all dainty as she eats her raspberries...

...This impression is soon dispelled as she snarfs down her noodles!

Last but not least, Katie’s graduation gift to herself was a food processor. Never have I seen such excitement over kitchen equipment, but here it is! You’ve earned it, Katie!

That’s it for today. Must rest... Kids are tiring.

Until next time...

East Coast - Summer 2012: The B Sides

In the interest of saving time, I won't say much here, other than to mention that these are the photographs from our other camera. We took pictures with this one during the trip, but because we didn't have the proper adapter, we couldn't upload them until today.

Hope you enjoy the best of our photographic "B sides"!

Breakfast at McD’s in St. Hyacinthe, just east of Montreal. I think the facial expressions say everything – “What are we doing up this early, and how could we have been travelling for three hours already??” Note how Momma is firmly grasping her coffee cup.

Re-adjusting the car seat. This is not my favourite activity. Clearly, it’s not Janna’s favourite either. 

Janna refreshing herself during our lunch break at one of the several park stops along the highway through Quebec.

This picture just about robs me of my ability to type. I still can’t figure out what colour Chrissy’s eyes are. Here they look green, but the next second they will be blue. It’s perplexing!

A little later on in the trip, on the day of Bobby and Elise’s wedding. The day after I deep-fried my face in the sun on our deep-sea fishing trip. Changing my facial expression hurt; my skin had the same consistency as leather. Chrissy, on the other hand, appears quite healthy and at ease!

Mom and Dad, enjoying the beautiful cottage life.

Waiting for the wedding to begin. What a great picture of Mom! (Sorry Dad.)

MAN, were those suits ever hot! What made it even worse was that people kept on looking at my face, covering their mouths and whispering to each other. At least the groom looked sharp, although you can only see half of him in this photo (far left).

Chrissy and Jesse taking in the reception. Jesse was a little overwhelmed by the whole thing, but I thought he managed pretty well. What a classy little guy!

Chrissy already mentioned this, but I think the following two pictures basically summarize Janna during much of the trip. One minute she was VERY UPSET...

...and the next minute she was pleasantly content!

Birthday celebrations! Chrissy and my Mom both have birthdays in August, so it was nice to celebrate them together with my Nannie and Papa.

Slowly getting feeling back in my face. Feeling besides horrible, searing pain, that is!!

Some family pics with the parents and grandparents. Jesse had just received some fatherly discipline and seemed to find the idea of smiling to be a little too much.

He was a little happier with Mom and Dad. Janna on the other hand...

...was just getting ready to lose it! Isn’t it amazing how Jesse and Janna balance each other out?

On the way back to Fredericton, we saw some old friends: Wilbert, Denise, and their little guy Joash, whom we had never had the chance to meet. It was so great seeing them; they even showed Jesse the inside of their barn and all the cows (one of whom had just been born that morning)!

Back in Fredericton, Mom and Janna creating a true “Kodak moment.”

Jesse... reminds me of Zoolander here.

The Smith family! This was the first time all of the Smith children had been together since Jacob and Katrina’s wedding two years ago.

Jacob and Katrina – this was actually their two-year anniversary.

Janna entered a powerfully good mood just before we left to return to Ottawa. Thank you, Janna.

We woke up this morning feeling refreshed from sleeping in our own beds. Later, I looked out our front door and saw this on our walkway...

Just to clarify, that’s a baby doll on a blanket, what appears to be a bed, and a random small dress. Our kids were napping at this time, so I can only assume that our neighbourhood kids were out using their imaginations! An hour later and the scene had vanished. Home sweet home!

That’s about it. We’re still recovering from the trip, but since Chrissy’s working tomorrow, and I’ve got the kids by myself, I’m bound to have an interesting story or two to share.

Until then....

An Ethical Question

Well, today was one of those days. Janna was pretty consistently upset this morning, so we thought we'd take her for a check-up at the walk-in clinic to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong before our big trip home tomorrow.

That basically took care of our day until about 3:00 (she checked out ok, although the dr. wants us to get some blood tests when we get back to check her iron levels).

Since we packed this evening, I basically have nothing to blog about, except a quick mini-review on The Bourne Legacy and a controversial ethical question.

First, the movie. I can't say much without spoiling it, but I'll just say that I was disappointed. I think the actors  and actresses gave strong performances (especially Edward Norton - that guy can act!), but the story itself was lacking.

Secondly, the important ethical question:

At what point should a dad insist that his son's underwear is on backwards?

This is the question that faced me this morning as we prepared for our morning activities. I asked Jesse to put on his underwear, and this is what he gave me. I told him, in the gentlest way I could think of, "Jesse, I love you, but your underwear is on backwards."

He looked at me, offended, and said in a rather condescending tone, "No, Dad, they're perfect."

I'm sure my eyes probably boggled as I searched for an appropriate reply, but finding none, I simply shrugged and said, "Ok!"

I felt mildly guilty for the rest of the day. Underwear is constructed in a particular way for a specific reason, and I figured he probably felt a little uncomfortable for next few hours but didn't understand why. So my question is, should I have overridden his silly little misguided impulse, or was I right to let him have his way?

Any opinions/comments are welcome.

On a different note, since we'll be travelling back to Ottawa tomorrow, there will be no blog post. Hope to have a wonderful tale of peaceful travels to share on Wednesday!

Until then...

Some Time Together / Josh Arrives With Gifts

Occasionally, with two kids, Chrissy and I experience an absence of quality time together. Basically, going out to eat together is like Christmas to us! Today, my parents offered to take the kids, and Chrissy and I experienced a blissful couple of hours at East Side Mario's.

East Side Mario's, by the way, has a full gluten-free menu now, not just a paper print-out but a fully laminated, colour menu! These kinds of things really move me emotionally. Chrissy order the Seafood Linguini, and I had the Chicken Amatriciana. We had planned to take pictures of our beautiful food, but upon seeing our orders arrive we forgot all about photographs and dug in.

It was really good! I still have some left - a fact that warms my heart as I type this.

Chrissy and I figure we need to have two really good "moments" of quality time together each week to stay healthy, and so today was much appreciated and really good for us. Here we are enjoying our post-meal lollipops outside of East Side Mario's.

After supper, we picked up the kids and headed over to Grammie and Grand Pere's house to see Chrissy's brother Josh, who had just arrived from Toronto to spend a week with the Smith fam. Much to our surprise and delight, Josh brought presents! For Chrissy's birthday he gave her the next season of Friday Night Lights, which she and I will greatly enjoy over the next few months.

For Jesse, he bought the nicest puzzle Jesse has yet seen - a big, fifty-piece puzzle of the map of Canada. Here he is opening it up!

Jesse thanked Josh with an enthusiastic high five.

At this point, it became necessary to distract Janna from the puzzle by taking many pictures of her. Here she is!

Janna has been having a bit of a hard week, with many ups and downs. Here, she is clearly not enjoying the family pictures.

Here, however, she is having the time of her life. What has changed? Well, she is giving Grand-Pere a huge  pinch, which seems to bring her great joy.

Josh, meanwhile, lovingly watches over Jesse as he labours on his new puzzle.

It took him about forty-five minutes, but he completed it with a little help from his friends. He did it again before bed tonight!

That's it for tonight! Dad and I are off to see The Bourne Legacy. I am ridiculously excited. I'll give you my impressions tomorrow.

Until next time!