just because

they're so darned cute!

things i feel good about

1. breastfeeding - nothing better for Mom or baby.
2. cloth diapering - I haven't bought disposable diapers since our Easter roadtrip.
3. being pregnant/giving birth - very comfortable pregnancies and speedy deliveries if left to go into labour on my own.
4. reading to the kids
(Is there some kind of theme here?)
5. planting a garden - Noah ate all his garden peas for supper tonight with no complaints. He helped plant them and picked the "fat juicy peapods" this afternoon.
6. drying my laundry outside (except for diapers - see "no good very bad day")
7. composting

my mom

Check out this rocking nana of nine!

counting our blessings

This is going to be difficult to write. I'm sure it will take awhile.

I am a selfish person a lot of the time. It is something that I work on, but the impulse to be generous does not come naturally to me. It is usually a conscious effort and feels forced and awkward. It is so easy to get caught up in one's own small life especially on those days when there is not enough silence to listen to inner voices. I love my kids, but there are days when I speak more harshly than I would like. I am ashamed of that. I need to learn that Noah's defiance is not about me; it is about him learning who he is. Knowing this, it is difficult to keep my calm.

So much of the day is taken up in immediate concerns . . .feeding, diapering, keeping Noah busy if not happy. Any moments left for thought are consumed by worries about money, going back to work, finding daycare, etc. And those aren't really thoughts, they're noise too.

I think I spend a good deal too much time feeling sorry for myself when I can't have the things I want like a chance to sleep in every now and then. And, if I'm lucky, it is at this point when I think of those who are not as lucky as I am. One particular example comes to mind:

STEWART _ Danara Snow (nee Healy) Sunshine had broken through the clouds, The air waswarm and smelling sweetly, One brave rose in Danara's garden had come to full bloom Verypeacefully, On Mothers Day, May 9th, 2004 in the loving arms of her family, Danara drewher last breath. She is survived by her loving husband Brad; wonderful daughter Hope;mother Marlene Tamaki (David); father Kearney Healy (Lori); brother Daylan (Alana);sisters, Ria and Dani; grandmother Mabel Tamaki; aunts and uncles, Brenda, Shelley,Graham (Tracy), Doug (Sharon), Barry (Janice), Greg, Haely (Juhan); in-laws, April(Rob), Murray (Ruth); sisters-in-laws, September (Ryan), Olivia, Jamieson, and manycousins, nieces, nephews, and friends whom Danara cherished. She will be missed morethan words can convey. A celebration of Danara's life will be held on her birthday, inVancouver July 16th 2004. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Danara's name, tothe BC Cancer Foundation.

I went to elementary school with Danara. We lost touch after university. I try to think of her when I need to count my blessings. I wake up every morning with my kids and my husband. This should be enough.

i cut my own hair last night

The title says it all. It doesn't look too bad. It has been sooo hot here, and I've been wanting to get out to get my hair cut, and finally got so frustrated, I just put it in a ponytail (a small one) and chopped it off. Then I evened it out a bit. I feel so much better with no hair on my neck!

It's one of those things. I'm 35, and I've never tried to cut my own hair. It's silly, but I feel really happy about it.

bath time

Molly has outgrown or nearly outgrown the baby bath. For the past three nights, she has been taking her baths with Noah. It is a lot of fun for the whole family. Noah splashes and plays while Molly watches and giggles and adds some splashes of her own.

The first night, Marc commented on how much chubbier Molly was than Noah had ever been as a baby. Noah (as usual) wanted to know why. One of us went into some long explanation about how people are different sizes and shapes. Noah concluded that babies who are born at the hospital (like him) are skinny, and babies born at home (like Molly) are chubby.

The next day, Noah decided to use the word chubby in a different context . . . to describe me! I think he expected me to be happy about it since it was a good thing when we were talking about Molly. I was kind of hoping he didn't really know what the word meant, but today he asked me if I was growing another baby. I guess it's time to get some exercise!

(the picture was taken during Molly's first bath, not this week, but it was the only bath picture I have!)

no good very bad day

Yesterday was terrible. Noah was pretty much on me all day long. He was either climbing on me, stepping on my foot, standing in front of me, trying to crawl through my legs, or jumping on me. I don't think I've been particularly inattentive lately, so I'm not sure what gives.

I also tried to run errands with the kids. Not a good plan apparently. I needed to renew my drivers' license, and being the end of the month, the line up was super long -- no fun for Noah. Fortunately Molly was content to play with toys in her carseat and charm the other folks in line. At that point, I should have heeded my instinct and gone straight home, but I wanted to make chicken burgers for supper and needed ground chicken, so we went to Safeway.

Driving between MPI and Safeway, I forgot to buckle Noah's seatbelt, so he started freaking out as we were leaving the parking lot. There were cars behind me, so I needed to pull out and park with Noah standing up and almost in the front seat yelling at him to sit down while he's crying about his seatbelt. Bad bad Mommy moment.

In Safeway, Noah would not sit still in the cart and kept leaning out and trying to touch things. When he was out of the cart, he tried to run away 3 times.

There will be no more running errands with more kids than adults.

When we got home, I decided to hang diapers on the line for a little sun bleaching. Note to self: diapers are very very heavy when wet. The line broke. There were diapers all over the yard.

I think this was also the day Noah started saying: "I'm going to kill you Mommy."

That's it. Bad day over.

this post is about me

Today is my birthday. Yup, I'm 35, and I'm not actually as freaked out about it as I thought I would be. I spent the day with the kids (as usual on a weekday), and planned to have a picnic in the park for supper. I thought maybe we would get some ice cream as a birthday treat. Noah was extremely concerned about the lack of cake in these plans, so this morning's outing was to the corner store for a cake mix. You know you're a Mom when you bake yourself cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles when it's almost 30 above! To a 3 year old, a birthday - any birthday - without cake is just plain wrong!

baking with the boy

Noah is an avid baker -- as long as there are no more than 3 ingredients! One of out favourite recipes is for peanut butter cookies (1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg) which we found in the Mouse Cookies cookbook. Now, whenever Noah feels the urge to bake, he says,"to the mouse cookbook", with the same emphasis as "to the batmobile". Too funny!

she sings!

Molly is 5 months old today, and has just recently started singing. Noah likes to hum while he plays (usually the Larry-Boy theme song or music from Hermie: a common caterpillar ) and Molly will now hum along. It is an absolutely charming sound. She is actually quite a charming baby (if I do say so myself). She's very content and doesn't cry very much at all. She smiles and laughs and blows razzberries.

We have recently starting putting her in the high chair when we eat supper, and she loves being at the table with us.

belly laughs

Molly has been laughing a lot lately. She has been giving us the odd chuckle since she was a couple of months old, but this past week has been full of belly laughs. I read her a little story last night, and she laughed every time I read the word puppy (which was on every page!). She finds Noah especially hilarious. It really doesn't matter what he says, it cracks her up. Sadly, Noah doesn't seem to realize what a beautiful thing this is, but it is wonderful to see how Molly looks at him.

21st century boy

Noah asked me today what he would have to do to get email. I told him he would have to learn to read. He said OK. So, I guess that's what we'll be doing. Of course, I'm not sure I want my 3-year-old to have an email account, but I do want him to read and to love reading. I do think it would be fun for him to get messages from his cousins and grandparents. Mind you, he'll be asking me to check his email every five minutes (just like Mom!)

thoughtful Noah

Noah is in a defiant phase. At least, I hope it's a phase. He very rarely says "no" anymore when I ask him to do something. His response is now "I WON'T". Unless I ask him not to do something, then it is "I WILL". That said, we had a really good day today with only a few stormy moments one of which involved Noah throwing some grass at me around lunchtime. He didn't want to get out of the paddling pool and have lunch.

Around suppertime, Noah told me he was sorry for throwing the grass at me. It was a simple statement, and yet it meant and means a lot to me. It is an indication that he thinks about things (other than movie plots that he talks about constantly) and has internalized some concept of right and wrong -- not just when he gets caught and wants the time-out to be over.

Another sweet moment today was when Noah helped me with a diaper change. He took a wipe from the package and wiped Molly's bum with it and fondly called her a stinky baby. Too cute. I think I'll change her diaper on the floor more often.

you're only as old as you feel?

Sometimes I am sure I would love another child in our family, and then, I wake up with arthritis in my hands and I have a hard time with the kids' car seats, opening granola bars and hooking up the nursing bra. It's a little depressing. Maybe I am too old to do it again. Maybe I need to see my doctor about the arthritis . . .

stuff that won't make it to the baby book . . .

but that should probably be recorded anyway.

This is an excerpt from an email I wrote to Marc (May 17, 9:44 am):

Noah is completely naked eating a cereal bar, and spent the last half hour playing Lego also completely naked. I got him undressed when he had a potty accident (just didn't get his pants down in time). Of course I was changing Molly at the time. I put her in the crib in just a diaper (no plastic pants) to go clean Noah up. By the time I got back to Molly, of course she had peed, so I had to change the crib bedding too. It's all about pee today.

today

I played soccer with Noah in the backyard as Molly slept in her stroller, and the laundry was drying on the line. I wish every day of my mat-leave could be like this one.

a little about noah

I was just looking over my posts and noticed there was more about Molly than Noah, so I'm going to correct that. It's so easy to gush about the baby, especially when the pre-schooler going through a defiant phase. I mean, who really wants to write something like "my son only said Mommy, I don't like you 4 times today".

Noah is a great little kid. He's really funny and has his own quirky sense of humour. He loves to wear hats and pretend to be a spaceman or an explorer. He is learning to pronounce the letter L.

Last night at supper, Marc was telling Noah some jokes:

Marc: Why did the boy throw his clock out the window?

Noah: Because he was in a bad mood?

(silence, followed by Marc and I laughing)

Noah: Is that right?

*******

Marc: How do you stop an elephant from charging?

Noah: Throw a ball and hit it?

thumb

Molly found her thumb this week, and I am very happy about it. The first day she found it, she kept falling asleep every time she started sucking. It was pretty funny actually since she seemed to be dropping off completely against her will.

the point

Perhaps wondering whether we will have more children is not really "the point". At the moment I am more concerned about being able to spend more time with the ones we have.

I need to figure out how to be less dependant on the income from my full time job and figure out a more creative and flexible way to make some money. It doesn't have to be a lot, especially if we can stop paying for full-time childcare.

molly's first word is

hug!

Molly's happy noises sound like she is saying "hug". I'm happy to oblige.