While away on vacation last week we had to spend the afternoons parenting apart – one of us sitting in the room while Goose “slept”, and the other off playing with Woo in the water park or pool, or both!

More often than not, I self elected to monitor goose, as it let me do some chores like downloading pictures and, well, napping. Sadly Goose got herself in a vicious cycle where she was either really overtired and face planted immediately upon being put in the crib, or she was super keyed up and fought her nap with all she had. She knows that I am in the room with her, but tends to forget and babble to herself. This is but a sampling of what she had to say on one of these days…

You’re my cuddle buddy

Baby, do you wanna cuddle and sleep?  I will tuck you in.

Baby, we have to sleep now. Stop talking.

Cuddle me or you will have to go outside.

You’re stinky.

Lie down. Now put your bum down and go to sleep.

“oh no!” “what?” you’re wet.” “it’s ok, I’m getting dried off.” in different voices, I’m not sure which was Goose and which was Baby. Neither was wet.

Shhh. No talking.

(after baby was bashed against the side of the crib a few times) You will have a time out because you hit me. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-9-10. Ok, you’re done. Cut it out.

Bounce bounce bounce. You’re a horse – I enjoy riding you. (I assume this was to Baby)

When is Judy coming to clean this room? (Judy is our cleaning lady at home.  She did not come on the trip with us.)

Can I have a piña colada?

I see you mommy – there you are. Hi.

Love shack, love shack B-AAA-BY

Mommy said blah blah blah

Why is it nap time?  I wanna play

Hahaha I toooooooted

Yohn Yacob Yingleheimer Yidt… (she sang the whole song, each word starting with a Y)

Ready?  Baboink!  Ready, set?  Roar!! (I wish I knew what she was up to here)

I sleep all the time, so not today.

Look! A parasailer!! A parasailer!!  It’s gone.  It was baby’s parasailer and now it’s gone. Oh, I maybe see it!  Yup. But it’s gone again. It fell.  (She did see a parasailer, but it didn’t fall, it just moved from her view.)

It’s a good thing she does not know just how much she was making me giggle. She eventually fell asleep, shortly after I gave up on the hiding, moved to the bed, and napped.

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We took the lils to a Kids in the Capital get together at Starr gymnastics this weekend. We were sure that it would be a winner, as they go to classes at the Starr near our house on a weekly basis. We got there and they were both quite excited. It was a surprise for them, and it went over very well.

As the play part of the gathering started, they were split into separate groups based on age, much like they are at our Starr. Goose went off with Willy, Woo stayed with the older kids and I started to walk around and take pictures. When I got closer to Woo’s group, I noticed that he was looking upset. He was still trying to go through the routines, but was clearly unhappy. Then he saw me, and broke into tears.

I was sitting on the ground at this point, and opened my arms for him to run into. He cried for a minute, and settled into me. I was confused and asked what was wrong. I never imagined that he would be upset here. “It’s too loud here,” he explained, “the teachers keep yelling and it scares me”. My heart burst.

He’s our little boy, but has always been so big. I forget sometimes that he gets scared and needs his mommy. He was so vulnerable in that moment, something I rarely see from my lil boy. The instructors weren’t doing anything that I would have thought was threatening; they were just competing with the noise in the space, and making themselves heard. It was happy and exuberant, just too much for Woo.

He spent the rest of the party hanging out in Goose’s group, or following me around as I talked to friends and took a few more pictures. He did have a great time and even ventured back with the big kids group a couple of times. He returned to me every time the instructors talked though.

We ended the day with some snacks and time to talk to new friends. He really did enjoy himself, as was evidenced by his happy mood and singing as we were packing up. Ironically, he was singing at the top of his voice. It was very loud!!

Here he is, clearly having some fun:

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On Sunday night I did something that I never thought I would do. I finished the six-week one hundred push-up program. Even though didn’t do 100 consecutive push-ups, I am pretty pleased with what I did accomplish over the last six seven and a half weeks. My last work out of the program consisted of 252 push-ups over nine sets, including one that was 60 consecutive push-ups! I’m damn proud of that 🙂

The website itself doesn’t expect that every person will be able to do 100 push-ups in one set, and I didn’t think that I would even come close to doing 100 in any number of sets. Looking at the program, I thought that week three was going to kill me, and that would be the end of the push-ups for me forever. I never actually expected to enjoy this process. I never thought that I would be selling it to people as I have been.

So now, I have to figure out a way to keep it up. I am pretty pleased with the muscles that I have gained, I officially have pipes! My arms don’t jiggle at all any more, and my abs are actually starting to have some definition again. My current plan is to keep up the three a week workouts, and aim to do five sets of twenty-five on those days. My only lament is that I didn’t work up the courage to try this sooner!

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I went out for drinks this week with some friends. We had a lovely time, chatting and laughing, enjoying each other’s company. It was a much-needed break for me after a hard day and I left feeling very refreshed. As I left though, I had a fleeting thought that my parents would not have approved of this!

It’s not the fun that they would object too, although there was many a day when I was certain that my mom’s main role in life was to ensure that I didn’t have fun. It was the fact that I had met four of these people online. Two of them I had never met before that night. The girlfriend that I went with? She had never met any of them.

Prior to last summer, I would have never guessed that I would have done this. That was before I really started using twitter, started reading so many local blogs, and writing this blog. Through these experiences, I got to know most of the people who I have met, and felt completely comfortable in going. I now have another thought, one that I am not sure how to reconcile. How am I going to explain this to my children when the time comes?  “It’s OK for Mommy, but not for you?”  Thankfully I have time to think it through.

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I cook a lot with my lil peeps, and today I have a post up at Kids in the Capital with one of our favourite easy pasta recipes.

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There are times when I am astounded by how quickly the lils grow up. Some days I see every little change and difference in them, including apparent over night growth spurts. Other times I find myself realizing that they have new tricks, and have seemingly been up to them for weeks. Willy and I frequently have conversations that centre around statements like “did you know that Woo/Goose can now…” Over the last week or so I have noticed a few of these changes, and am starting to put them together.

Goose has progressed from a little girl who wore diapers to a big girl who goes to the bathroom all by herself, telling me “I don’t need you, Mommy”, as she goes. This has happened in the last month. Sure she has the occasional problem getting her pants down or she gets tangled up in them and makes a mess, but it is progress. When she makes those messes, she even tries to clean them by herself!

This week Woo has become a skating machine. He has always been keen, and enjoyed his time on the ice. We got him on cheese cutters when he was not yet two, and moved him to skates last year. He loved it, but was somewhat tentative. He used a chair to shuffle around the ice, but didn’t understand why he wasn’t moving as easily as he did on the cheese cutters. This week, he moved from the chair to shuffling on his own! The boy can skate! He now begs to skate everyday – and gets to whenever we can take him.

I think that the best part is that they are also moving to independence together. When they go down to the playroom in the basement, they no longer fight over who gets to turn on the lights at the bottom of the stairs. They have just figured out that only Woo can reach the lights at the top of the stairs, so he gets those, and Goose gets the ones that she can reach at the bottom. They used to fight over silly things like who gets which milk glass, but now they agree on which glass for the current meal, and plan to trade for the next. When they play together in their rooms, Goose will ask Woo to read a book to her, and he DOES.

How long before they get their own breakfast on saturday morning?

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Right before I got pregnant with Woo, I was in the best shape of my life. This also meant the lowest weight that I have been as an adult, but most importantly, I was in shape. Fit, healthy, and happy for it. It’s gone downhill since then. The children are not to blame for this, but they have been a convenient excuse.

“A week til the baby is due, then the baby is late, I’ll just lie on the couch and eat bonbons while I wait. For two weeks. And gain FIFTEEN pounds.”

“I’ll exercise when I feel better/recover”

“I’ll exercise when he sleeps through the night”

“I’m pregnant again, I’ll exercise when the baby is born”

“I’ll exercise when she sleeps through the night”

“I’ll exercise when I sleep through the night”

You get the picture. The thing is that I am out of excuses. So I recently started getting some exercise. I’ve started the 100 push-ups challenge (just finished week five!), do sit-ups every time I turn the computer on, and am making good friends with my elliptical again. In the first few weeks of this year, I think I have worked out more times than I did in the last four years. I have no idea if I have lost any weight in the last few weeks, but I feel great.

The neat thing is that the lils have noticed. I have started doing the push-ups and sit-ups with them around, and they now mimic me all the time. Today I learned that Goose can count to twenty, because she was doing a set of “sit-ups”, just like mommy. They also love to watch me on the elliptical, choose music for me to work out too, and like to get on with me. This is part of my cooldown now, although I am pretty sure that adding a 38 or 45 pound weight is not the best way to cooldown. They think it is hysterical though, and frequently ask when we can exercise again.

I have noted that I need to set a better example in one other facet of the workout regime that we have created together, and that is my music selection. It needs to be cleaned up because of the language in some stuff. Wearing my iPod doesn’t help, as apparently I like to sing out loud.

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I have a post up at Kids in the Capital today, talking about our new lunchtime favourite, the cheese train! It’s what we had for lunch today, in fact!

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I love my local Tim Hortons. It’s handy in that it is walking distance from my house, but in the opposite direction to my office. Still I go there on the two days that I travel into the office, even if it delays me. It’s not the food, or the coffee that keeps me coming back, although I do like the mildness of Tim’s coffee. The people there are what makes it worthwhile.

It’s one of those Timmies where the drive-thru is always lined up onto the road (I realize that this does not narrow it down at all), so I opt to go inside. Inside, where I get to meet the great people who work there. They are always happy to see me, greeting me with a smile and hello, and asking after my family and me. They miss me when I don’t come in, and worry if I am gone for more than a week without warning them. On the rare occasion that I have brought Woo and Goose in, they make a big fuss over them, and sneak them as many timbits as they can. They are just really kind people.

This month they have been training a new guy on the cash, and this was his first week working it solo. On his first day, I walked in and gave him my order of two coffees. Yes, two coffees, both for me. The coffee at my office is terrible. He started pouring and was stopped by one of his colleagues, who told him that I wanted extra larges, my usual. I let her know that it was OK, that was my order today. I also reassured the next person who tried to correct him, and the next, and the next. Four people were concerned enough to about my order that they needed to correct him. That is why I love my Timmies.

New guy wasn’t there the next day. I hope I didn’t have anything to do with that, I am sure that he is really nice.

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