Big Sister

Even though she has her moments, Claire is typically a good big sister. In fact, she takes her role so seriously that I have had to get on her case about the fact that she's "not the mommy". I know Jillian gets on her nerves sometimes - the two of them have such different personalities that it must be hard to get along. Claire is precise and perfectionistic and practical and Jillian is silly and exuberant and silly (yeah, I said it twice. It bore repeating). However, lately, I've been finding Claire spending a lot more time doing nice things with, for or to Jillian.

On Sunday morning I woke up as I normally do, listening to the sounds of the girls going to the bathroom. I prepped myself for one or both of them to come in and ask us for breakfast or to just plain get up. It didn't happen. Things got reallllllllllly quiet. This freaked me out and I got up in a bit of a panic to see what the heck they were up to. When I went into the room, I found this:


You could have knocked me over with a feather. There they both were, in Claire's bed and Claire was happily reading Dora stories (Spanish and all) to her sister. I've been trying to teach them that if they are awake and I am not, that it would be considerate of them to stay in their rooms and read books or play quietly till I get up. It appears that on Sunday, Claire's brain finally processed that talk and went out of her way to keep Jillian occupied. Good stuff.

I thought they needed more company, so a few minutes later the scene looked like this:

He loves paper. We have to wrestle paper out of his grasp on a nearly daily basis. He tries to eat it and that just isn't cool.

This has nothing to do with the kids but when I was taking those pictures, Phineas stood at my feet and made cat love to a stack of books. It was almost like he felt like he should be included in storytime:

You should have heard the purring.

When it comes to Daniel, Claire is absolutely head-over-heels in love. Jillian likes him too but Claire loooooooves him. I came down with a nasty case of stomach flu earlier this week and got so dehydrated that I couldn't make enough milk to keep the poor boy happy. We supplemented him with a bit of formula while I was sick and he loved it. I'm not too impressed that he prefers bottles but I will consent to giving him a bit of formula before bed in an attempt to get him to sleep through the night again. He was doing it for months but gave it up in the last couple of weeks. Hunger is one of the only explanations I can come up with so...bring on the formula. Last night I gave his sister the job of feeding him. She was in heaven:

She's a good girl. I hope she still loves him when he gets mobile and starts eating all her books.

Delta Alpha November India Echo Lima

Hey. It's me, Daniel. That title up there is pilot speak for yours truly. Why? Cuz I'm cuter than Tom Cruise and I've got the gear to be the next Top Gun. Mom made me an Aviatrix hat (Ravelry Link and Designer website respectively) :


Don't be calling me "Maverick" or "Iceman" or "Goose" though, k? I wanna be "Heartbreaker". Nobody can resist these baby blues...

Here's my airplane impersonation (or as close as I come at five-months old):

Mom told me she has some really cool airplane buttons for this hat but she can't find 'em so I'm putting up with temps for now. I can't see 'em over there on the side of my head so I don't care just as long as I can pretend I'm in a dogfight when I wear my hat.

When I'm big enough to fly a real plane I need something cool and loud. Making noise is one of my favourite pass-times right now so I think I'd like a plane that I could make sonic booms with. Wouldn't that be cooooool? My mother (silly woman) agrees that I need something loud but she tells me whatever I fly has to be wet too. She wants me riding around in one of those big noisy helicopters that drop water on fires. She thinks I go a little overboard with the drool for a guy with no teeth on the way. Me? I find the drool a good way to mark my stuff as mine. Those sisters don't want my toys once I've made them dripping wet. I drool on the shoulders of all my favourite ladies too. That way they look sort of messy and the other boys don't bother with them. Heh. I've got the dating strategies down pat.


Come over here so I can drool on you too. You know you want me to.

(Mom says I have to give the deets on the hat *sigh*. She made it from Berroco Blackstone Tweed in a colour called "Cape Cod". She really likes the yarn. I caught her rubbing it on her face a few times and heard her talking about how it has angora in it...whatever that is. She wants me to say that she went up a needle size on both the ribbing and main hat to compensate for the heavier yarn. Finally, even though she made the bigger size, the under-chin strap is only on 6 stitches instead of 8 because that goes under my chin better. It is a touch big on me now but I'm gonna be awesome in it once it gets colder.)

Kids Think the Darndest Things

The girls are playing out in the backyard this morning. It is strangely quiet inside the house unless Daniel screams (which is his new habit...he does it for his own entertainment and to make me crazy). They have their easel out there and I refilled up their bubble jars. They have a couple of balls and each other for company and it is alllllll good. It is a fairly crisp morning and that helps. Claire hates heat and humidity and bright sun but she will stay outside for hours in this sort of weather (again, the apple does not fall far). They are really giving the yard the once over, sizing up everything in their path.

A little while ago, the door flew open and Claire burst in:

Claire: Mommy, Mommy, come quick!
Me (wondering what Jillian, Our Lady of Head Bonking, has done to herself this time): What's the matter?
Claire (all panicky and out of breath): We. We found. We found a. We found a snail. We found a snail body!

Seriously. That's how she talks when she has something in her brain that she wants to get out quickly. One word at a time, added to the sentence, over and over till I'm ready to burst from the anxiety of it all. I think her brain is just spinning so fast that her tongue can't keep up with it. Anyway...

Me: A snail body?
Claire: Yeah! A snail body! Come quick!
Me (imaging a squished garden snail and preparing to give the "death speech"): Ok. Let's go see.

I go out back in my socks, such was the nature of the emergency, and see Jillian looking frantic and pointing at the sand table. I approach and look for the poor squished critter:

Me: That's a slug.
Claire and Jillian: A slug?
Me: Yeah...a snail without a shell. That's how they look all the time.

It just struck me funny and I wanted to share. All too soon they'll know all about things like slugs and seahorses and how the SkyScreamer at Marineland looks like fun but likely isn't and how Wubbzy isn't real and no we can't go visit Wuzzleburg. So, humour me while I write these things down so I don't forget.

A Conversation I DID NOT HEAR

Me: We really need to do some serious decluttering. Once the girls are back in school, I'm going to start getting rid of stuff. We need more organized storage and we need to make better use of the basement.

DH: Yeah, the basement is pretty ridiculous, isn't it?

Me: It's crazy down there. Things get tossed down there, never to be seen again. It needs a better structure.

DH: We have lots of shelves and stuff down there but we aren't making good use of them.

My antenna starts going up and I go into a defensive posture

Me: Uh huh....

DH: Like how you have five shelves of yarn in the basement. A lot of it has been there for five years. The stuff you haven't used, you should throw away.

Me: What?

DH: Throw it in the garbage. Take a garbage bag down there and get rid of it. If you haven't used it by now, you aren't going to.

Me: Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen.

I figure that was a better response than "La, la, la...I can't hear you" or running wild-eyed and flailing into the basement to make a nest out of the precious, precious stash and sit there, for eternity, scowling. It probably wasn't as good a response as explaining to the engineer husband that wool is a natural insulator and the fact that we have THAT MUCH in the basement probably means we are cutting our home heating bills by a third. No! No! We are cutting it IN HALF! I should look up the R-value of wool.

Newfoundland Vacation Week 2

Back to the vacation summary. We had a really great time during the second week of our vacation to Newfoundland. We'd been there long enough to settle in and relax a bit so we were up for a bit more activity.

We started week two with Daniel's Christening. We've had all the children Christened in Newfoundland at the church I attended as a child. Here he is - boy in a dress:

The girls both wore the dress that I wore. I really wanted Daniel to wear the gown that his father wore so my mother-in-law got it from her sister and we washed it up nice and squished Daniel into it (it was a touch snug).

This is a dress with history. DH's grandparents had it made (his grandmother may have made it herself - I'll have to check that) 64 years ago for their eldest child from some old priest's vestments. All six of their children, several of their grandchildren (including DH and his brother) and now a great grandchild have worn it. It was beautiful. It even had a matching petticoat. Apparently, they used to regularily change the ribbons in it from blue to pink depending on the gender of the wee one.

After we recovered from that occasion, DH and I decided to go on a little trip to Rose Blanche (small outport community my parents are from). My Aunt Janet was eager to see the girls and meet Daniel:

While in Rose Blanche, DH and I went for a boat ride with my Uncle Cliff. We always seem to bring nice weather with us to Rose Blanche and it was a great day for a spin. The red house in the background is my aunt's place and the turquoise place is the town restaurant (deeeeelicious).

On this trip we went to West Point where my aunt and uncle keep their cottage/fishing base. It is a 40 minute boat trip from the end of the highway and is a lovely spot in the middle of nowhere. It used to be a community but was relocated back in the 60s. During relocation, most people dragged their houses to new communities (honestly) but they often left the porches behind. My aunt and uncle's cottage started out as one of those porches but they have added to it over the years so now it is a nice big spot. When I was a kid, I used to spend chunks of my summers out there fishing and berry picking and basically having a great time.

Here is a wharf with lobster traps and a stage:

Here's DH exploring the town (the brown place in the background is Aunt Janet's spot):

When we got back to Rose Blanche, the girls were determined to go for a ride so Dad hopped in the boat with them and they went for a little spin around the harbour (which they loved):

The following day, the girls asked if they could go out and visit the lighthouse so DH and I took them over for a jaunt. They had a blast cavorting over the rocks:

I think Jillian's pose is hilarious in this one.

They desperately wanted to go into the lighthouse and go up the "spooky stairs" to the light. So we did:

It really is sort of spooky in there. It is cold and damp and the stairs are steep and the rail hardly seems adequate. Fun though. Claire even got to sign the guestbook (the tour guide knew who we were).

Here's an iris that was growing in the boggy soil. There's a broken sea urchin down in the bottom right-hand corner (blurry but there).

Here is Claire by the sea:

and with a "blowy flower":

DH by the sea:

Jillian and I by the sea:

Once we got back to Corner Brook, the local strawberries were out (the season is later there than in Ontario so we got to experience local berries in both locations). They were really, really, really good and for a full week, this was how we saw Jillian:

I have no real reason for posting this picture other than the fact that I liked it. My aunt gave him the outfit and the visor both made me laugh hysterically and go "awwwwwwwwwwww". He became quite the dool bucket that week (and hasn't quit yet).