Slanted

The Last Tennessee Visit

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Tue, 02 May 2023 23:44:00 +0000

My dad is very ill. He went into the hospital on January 1 and has declined in health ever since. He and my mom sold their house of 32 years this week and are living in Utah at my sister's house.

We drove down at the beginning of April to help pack and prepare for the move (and to escape the intolerable Canadian spring).

Dad was able to come upstairs for Easter dinner, but mostly it was too difficult for him to come up and eat with us. Charlotte remains the child least afraid of him. When he came up and wanted to sit in his armchair, Charlotte was already sitting there. "Why don't you let me sit there?" he said, to which she replied, "Then where will I sit?!" She also made him some 'unicorn tea' out of colorful ribbon.

Hunting for Easter eggs in the backyard.

Dying Easter eggs

Having a parking lot lunch before going into Dollywood. The kids loved Dollywood. The two oldest are the perfect age for an amusement park. They rode rides until the park closed; guzzled about 82 gallons of soda from their refillable drinks; and enjoyed cinnamon bread. Then we all got a violent stomach bug for 24 hours, but it was a great trip all the same.

Charly had a great time except on the Raging River. When she got off, she declared that she would never go to Dollywood again. Then she went and road the little cars three times in a row and decided that she liked 'Dry Dollywood' and only disliked 'Wet Dollywood.'

The kids discovered Uncle James' Star Wars figures.

A Post for My Charly Girl

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 00:02:00 +0000

Charly is 3. Maybe it's because she's the only child in our family without a younger sibling at the age of 3, but she just seems like the easiest 3-year-old we've ever had (but still naughty). She's sweet and funny and full of personality.

She says 'wuse' instead of 'use,' which I find utterly charming, even when she wants to 'wuse' my scissors to snip up paint brushes and playing cards.

She thinks this plate of my grandmother's is hers. It's her cookie plate and she runs for it every time we eat cookies.

She's wildly in love with babies. She tells me that one day she will have real babies and I can help her take care of them but they will not be my babies. They will be hers. I find little beds all around the house. The baby on the right is named Baby Dear, after the baby doll in the book of that name, and it is her favorite baby. Her favorite stuffed animal is a soft, sparkly unicorn she bought at DI on a trip to see my sister. She calls the unicorn Yoon the Pyoon and sleeps with her every night and sometimes pretends to ride her. On that trip to Utah, she also fell wildly in love with her cousin Tooie and thinks about him and talks about him often.

I asked her to pose.

This is a very Charly photo. Note the following: 1) uncombed hair (always a battle) 2) the expressive hand gesture and bend at the waste which is common when telling us stories or giving explanations 3) clothes picked out herself (always) 4) Tongue stuck to the side in concentration.

Charly is pretty mild for a 3-year-old, but one day she got really mad at Howard and told Neil, "Say 'poop' to him. Get out your bad words! Say bad words at him!'

Reading ALL the Romance Novels

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 22:44:00 +0000

Here is what makes me happy in a pandemic when I cannot get to my home country to eat Mexican food and see my mama: novels by Kristan Higgins. I read all 20 that were available to me in the last three months and they were the perfect thing. I'm going to have to find a new perfect thing, because there's only one book left to read.

This is also a perfect thing. Spy kids with their Easter sunglasses. They kept ducking and rolling through the house.

Covid-19 Memories

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I found this in my draft folder from earlier in the pandemic. We're fortunate that our kids are in school full-time now, we're back at church one hour a week, and we're mostly able to do the things we need and like to do every day - just with masks and social distancing. The only thing we really long for is looser travel restrictions. We'd love to go visit our family in America. Anyway, here are some early pandemic memories for posterity.

Some of my favorite Covid-19 memories:

Drive though car wash with the whole family. It was the first time the kids and I had been anywhere for 6 weeks, and the kids were thrilled! They whooped and hollered as the suds and water covered the van, but I had to hold Charly's hand, because she was scared. Then we picked up Chinese take out and felt excited that we had actually left the house.

Charly wearing her little pink robe all day and night. Adorable.

Taking the kids to build a dam on the beach road.

Take out - such a treat when you're homebound. Several times Steve brought home take out and there was much rejoicing.

Family Pandemic Concert, featuring "Babies are Nice" sung with piano accompaniment.

The kids' letter writing project. I forced them to write letters and send them to friends and family and they received lots of fun ones in return.

And some of my least favorite:
Mass Murder

My friend Annie passed away from cancer. The day she died, Steve decided we should all go out for supper, since Covid restrictions had just loosened and I could take it easy and have a treat. I hadn't been in a restaurant for 4 months and it was the least fun eating out adventure of my life.

This Girl

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 01:02:00 +0000

We've got our last toddler. She is so naughty and so delightful. I thought we were finally at the stage where we could have planters full of flowers on the front step - that I could keep them alive for three months, in addition to the other plants and people and animals I keep alive. Charly eats them. Every chance she gets, she runs from the back deck to the front step and chomps on begonias. A few days ago she just ripped the remaining flowers right out of the pot. Maybe next year.

Charly's other favorite pastimes are swinging on the grape arbor, taking care of baby dolls (today she was washing her favorite doll's head in the water flowing out of the storm drain), reading books about babies, blowing kisses, and harassing the cat.

Here she is helping the cat by putting the cat's dry food into her water for her. You can see that we put the cat food on top of a storage container that sits on top of a storage bench to try to keep it away from toddlers.

Here is Charly checking out a display at the natural history museum.

Sometimes she climbs up next to her daddy and hands him a book to read 8 times and that is the cutest.

She's at about the age I usually wean my babies, but because she's the last baby, the thought of not nursing her anymore makes me feel like crying, so we'll keep it up a while longer, even though she enjoys pinching me with her razor-like finger nails while she drinks.

Gems from the Bairn: 7-Year-Old Edition

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 23:40:00 +0000

We just started having 'fancy' Sunday dinners. Fancy in this particular instance means that no one eats off plastic and we light candles on the table. Last week at our fancy dinner, Steve was admonishing the Bairn to use his table manners "in case the Queen comes for supper," to which our boy replied, "Why would the Queen have supper with me? I'm not a pro wrestler or anything."

Discussing his future with me: I'm not going to have kids, because then I'll have more money to spend on myself.
Me: But children give you someone to love and to love you.
Bairn: Isn't that what pets are for?
Me: Who will take care of you when you're old? I'm taking care of you while you're young and then you're going to take care of me when I'm old, right?
Bairn: I'm pretty sure that by the time you're old, there will be robots that can take care of you.

One-Year-Old Baby

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Sun, 12 Jan 2020 20:54:00 +0000

Look how big my baby is! And her sister! Sometimes we call that baby Birdie. I don't know why. It's fun. She turned a year old in Tennessee at my parents' house. First we strapped her in a minivan and drove for 3 days to get there. Mostly she didn't mind and when she did cry, that good sister of hers would do a puppet show for her from the back back seat or I would throw crackers back to her as a peace offering.

She can do lots of new things: walking, climbing, clapping, kissing. I like to just sit and watch her toddle around the house doing all her jobs (wearing boots, yelling at the cat, making messes) and marvel at how fantastic she is.

Charlybird

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:26:00 +0000

Baby Charlotte was born 22 December 2018. She's very mellow and when I take her out to the bus stop to send the kids off to school or to meet them after school, the Grade 5 girls on the bus lose their minds waving to her. She's a local celebrity at the elementary school.

Now that she's 4-months-old, she can (sometimes) roll over and is great grabbing toys, blankets, and her sister's hair. She thinks the kids are very funny and she reminds me of some sort of wonderful puppy when she wakes up in the morning--wriggly and soft and beaming.

We love her.

Gems from Nee-Nee

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 17:51:00 +0000

Walking down the stairs, while sick, he ran out of energy and stopped to say, "Oh, Mom, my feet ran out of power."

Going to bed one night: "If your lamp goes out at night, Jesus will be your flashlight."

N: "I'm scared of boa structures. Let's talk about it."
Me (after figuring out that he was talking about boa constrictors): "That kind of snake doesn't live here. They live in hot places."
N: "Hmmm. Ikea is a hot place."

35 +4

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 20:06:00 +0000

Neglected as my poor blog is, it seems a shame not to mention on it, for posterity, that we're expecting a baby in about 4 weeks. Four weeks and not 5, because I am of 'advanced maternal age,' so my doctors won't allow me to go past my due date, which is just fine, because it means I should have plenty of time to have a baby, spend a couple of quiet nights in the hospital eating their very fine vegetable lasagna, and still get home in time for my parents to arrive Christmas night before celebrating Christmas on Boxing Day. Fortunately, my kids are bad at calendar use, so waiting an extra day for the holidays will not make their heads explode.

Why a Cat is Such a Great Pet

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Sat, 25 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

While riding in the car earlier this week, Ellen was bemoaning the fact that she has no friends except the cat. She says a cat is not a good friend because sometimes a cat will scratch. The Bairn helpfully pointed out, though, that a cat is a really exceptional pet, because it can be both a friend and a weather indicator. If you pat it and it's wet, it's raining outside. If you pet it and it's hot, it's sunny outside. And so on. Thank goodness for Furball.

The Daily Bittle

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 18:35:00 +0000

Today I finished reading Ivy & Bean: No News is Good News to the kids and The Bairn was very taken with the idea of creating a local newspaper. He started one for our house called The Daily Bittle. It only has two and a half headlines but they are as follows:

Baby Catastrophe! (who knows which of Nee-Nee's catastrophes he's referring to)
Cereal at Wal-Mart is only $2!
and
Baby is . . . (again, who knows what he was going to report here)

Unfortunately, The Bairn does not love printing, so he abandoned his newspaper for bike riding.

Furball

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 23:31:00 +0000

The children found a cat. They are thrilled. They named it Furball and made it a house on the deck (since I will not allow it in the house). Ellen takes little dishes of water out to Furball and then loses her mind when Nee-Nee puts a rock in the dish and ruins Furball's cleaning drinking supply. The kids want to feed the cat, but Mama says that it can either find its way back home or learn to eat the plentiful supply of mice in our yard.

Foolish Furball has stuck around for 24 hours now even after discovering what kind of children live in this house. Ellen grabs Furball at every opportunity, forces her (him?) to the ground and pets her furiously. Ellen came inside in tears this morning after Furball scratched her. It was a tiny scratch but Ellen was devastated that her best friend would do such a thing to her.

Nee-Nee

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 16:16:00 +0000

Little Natey calls himself 'Nee-Nee' and briefly said 'nes' for 'yes,' which is probably the cutest thing I've ever heard in my whole entire life. Then he said 'nip' for 'yes.' Also cute.

Nee-Nee is two. He is my most polite child but if I turn my back on him, he colors the kitchen table with markers, empties the silverware drawer into the sink, and uses the spray bottle to soak all the furniture.

He says the sweetest tiny prayers with arms folded tightly. He loves puppies and 'Howdy' and "E-uh." He sleeps in his own bed but flings the master bedroom door open sometime early in the morning to come find me every single day. Fortunately, he'll snuggle back down if I join him. Yesterday, I saw him find a sample of cat food we received in the mail. Mistaking it for a treat, he hustled it outside and climbed to the top of the play structure with it where I saw him trying to wrestle it open in secret. He brought it back unopened, but if made me laugh and laugh. Earlier in the day, also at the top of the structure, he frantically steered the steering wheel, yelling to me, "Drive away from worms!"

He repeats words. "I want want want cookie." "I need need need dat!"

He loves to "fly" to bed and I just love to see him pattering around the house (E sometimes calls him Baby Tap Tap, because we can hear his little feet coming and going).

8 Years

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 18:38:00 +0000

Steve and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. We spent the previous week in Ohio at a trade show with just the two of us and the baby, which is pretty luxurious for us at this point in our lives. Steve's parents stayed with the two older children and, the kids tell me, let them watch movies past bedtime and eat candy and ice cream. I came home to a house cleaner than it's been in ages, so it was a giant win all around!

On our actual anniversary, Steve and I shared red velvet cupcakes with the kids (our wedding cake was red velvet) and I gave Steve this card by Nikki McClure. It's called 'Seal.'

An Impending Birthday Party/The Party is Over

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 18:28:00 +0000

I started writing this post about The Bairn's upcoming birthday:

The Bairn is turning six this month. (How can it be? Wasn't he just born? Soon he'll be in college! etc.) Now that he's in school, he's discovered the world of birthday parties. In the past, we've mostly just invited a few family members to the house for a homemade ice cream cake and then taken a trip to the wave pool or a museum as a special treat. This year I have promised The Bairn a birthday party. He came home from school today and told me that he would not tell me anything about his day, because it's a secret, except that he asked his enemy at school if he would be nice if he came to The Bairn's birthday party, and the enemy said, 'Yes.' The Bairn informed me that this means we will be inviting the entire Grade Primary class to his party.

Then a month went by without finishing the post and now the birthday has come and gone. [And I still didn't post it, so now Valentine's Day (mentioned below) is past also. I'm winning at blogging.]

I talked The Bairn into only inviting the boys in his class to his party and told him we would be having it at home, despite the fact that birthday parties at home are Not The Thing at The Bairn's school. Keep the Expectations Low is my main parenting philosophy. [We prepared valentines today. There are no toys or candy attached to the cards we printed out from the Internet. My other philosophy is I Don't Care What the Joneses are Doing! We're Not Keeping Up with Anyone! Fight the treat bags, people. Srsly.]

The party was Lego Ninjago themed, and Papa came as Sensei Wu and trained all the aspiring ninjas. Ellen is still wearing her ninja headband (strip cut off an old bed sheet - I am SERIOUS about the low expectations). She even wore it to church and while she was making 'snow ninjas' in the yard yesterday.

I added a note on all the invitations that gifts weren't necessary [loooow expectations], but every single child still brought The Bairn something. We opened presents at the same time we did the cake, and The Bairn was so excited by his Lego sets that he didn't even eat any of his own cake until the next day.

Baby Ninja

The Bittles

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 18:24:00 +0000

I found this post in my drafts from the summer. It's not complete. There was supposed to be more about The Bairn and Natey, but I don't want it forgotten, so I'm posting it as it is.

--

I call my kids my little bittles and, because of this, they call themselves the bittles. As in, "Mom, wait for the bittles!" and "Oh look, this spoon is bittle-sized." When I straighten up at night and put tiny shoes back on the shoe rack or flip open a notebook and find drawings of escape plans and family members on top of my grocery lists, I'm so pleased to have these little bittles who have hit another funny spot that I particularly enjoy.

Ellen is currently obsessed with policey things. She asks to watch silly robbers (Lego shorts) on the ipad and spends a lot of time designing Lego boats and aircraft and police stations for a minifigure she calls Shiny Silver, presumably because of his sunglasses. She has an odd linguistic pattern that goes like this: Mom, I want to tell you something. It's this. She likes me to scoop her up in a towel after her bath and drop her on her bed as hard as I can, so she can pretend to be a bird landing in its nest.

At the harbour in Halifax.

The Bairn is the huggiest boy in all the world. He calls me his lovey and tells me he loves me the best because he loves to jiggle my arm fat.

Camping with cousins in New Brunswick.

Hiking in Fundy National Park

Cape Enrage - We couldn't go down to the beach because the tide was coming in.

A cemetery we happened on while driving to Moncton.

Natey and Ellen on a tandem swing at the park.

Rascal

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 23:12:00 +0000

Our baby is a rascal. Sometimes we call him the Wild Baby of M-town. I'm sure I loved all of my babies this much when they were this age, but there's something about a third baby that already seems so abundant (a boy and a girl and, wait, another boy!) and the fact that he's the third means that we realize how quickly he'll be out of this sweet, funny, rascally age.

Just enjoying a bit of meat at Steve's client's Eid celebration earlier in the month.

This baby pudges around the backyard doing all kinds of important work. He begs to go 'ide and I just slide the screen door open for him and he lets himself down off the deck and patters around in the grass, lining up rocks and filling up buckets. I peek out the door and he's in the sandbox working on a project or busy at the water table. Earlier this week, I looked out and shouted because he'd climbed all the way to the top of the kids' play structure. He'd figured out the rock climbing wall and let himself into the little fort. When I tried to coax him over to me to get him down, he was too pleased with himself, peeking between the wooden slats and calling out, "Hiyo! Hiyo!" to the kids on the swings down below him.

Driving his car at the neighbor's house.

He loves books with animal pictures. He flops himself down on my lap several times a day with a book in hand so that we can look at 'puppies' (all animals) or 'now' (the sound a cat makes). If his brother and sister are with me on the couch, he shoves right by them and pushes and fusses until he can settle himself right down in the middle, on my lap.

He does tricks - Patty Cake and So Big and Where are Your Teeth? He sits for long periods of time ringing the doorbell on the dollhouse or snuggling a stuffed animal or rifling through my drawers. When he wants something he knows he shouldn't have, he runs with it and when we get close enough to take it, he throws it. He and his sister and I made cookies this week and he stood at the table hurling the cookie cutters across the table as his contribution. While I was picking green beans recently, he helped. As I picked, I would hand him a few of the beans and he'd walk them to the end of the row and deposit them in the bowl. Adorable.

He spends a lot of time with "E-ah" now that The Bairn is in school.

His favorite activity is brushing his teeth. We had a stool right next to the vanity in the bathroom and every day someone would forget to close the bathroom door (to keep Nate out). I'd walk in and find him standing on the stool brushing his teeth (usually with someone else's toothbrush). "What are you doing, " I'd ask and he'd answer "Deet." (Teeth.) Today I found him sitting on the stairs with The Bairn. He was very happily letting his brother brush his teeth.

Sports

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 00:40:00 +0000

The Bairn is playing tee ball this summer. Twice a week we drive to ball field in a neighbouring village and The Bairn spends a great deal of time making dust storms and sitting down on the bases. He also does a lot of this:

I didn't realize until we got to the ball field that he was wearing boots instead of sneakers.
It's hard to play tee ball in boots.

I thought that maybe he wasn't really enjoying the world of sports (which he would come by honestly), but then when he was chatting to Grandma on the phone about it, he declared that tee ball is amazing and that he loves it. Also, his coach gave him a team t-shirt this week that The Bairn was shocked to discover he could take home and keep.

This is Ellen's favorite thing about tee ball:

She really wishes this were her puppy, but it belongs to a long-suffering family that lets her drag their pet around.

The Bairn also started swimming lessons this week. He's very nervous about getting his head wet while swimming, so I have to make lots of deals in the morning. Okay, if you jump off the side today, you can have cereal when you get home. And he requests lots of prayers to make him brave for swim class.

Ellen much prefers watching The Bairn swim to watching The Bairn sit on a ball field (despite the lack of puppies).

One-Year-Old Boy

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 16:22:00 +0000

Natey's birthday was at the end of April. His brother and sister were very excited for him. The Bairn spent a lot of time thinking about possible cakes for him and woke up early for days before the birthday, because he was so excited about the day. He (The Bairn) was disappointed that there were no decorations on the actual birthday and when I told him I had streamers if he wanted to put them up, he said, "Yes, let's put a streamer outside the house that says: The [Family] house - it's run down but, still, it's home."

On the big day, we took the whole family, including Grammie and Papa, to the children's museum in Halifax and, then, my favorite part, we grabbed lunch at the big seaport farmers market just down the road. The Bairn ate a giant pretzel, so we spent the next two weeks fashioning giant pretzels at home. ( Ellen was insistent on making teeny tiny pretzels and also making large, strangely shaped creations with her dough.)

I made a sad-looking bunny cake and we fed the birthday boy his favorite meal: spaghetti and peas.

Little Natey is so small and cute. He kisses on request but generally turns his head away when the other kids try to kiss him. He loves to 'beep' our noses while triumphantly announcing, "Bup! Bup!" He's recently figured out how to climb up on the kids' chairs, but he can't get down, so I often finding him standing on a chair in the middle of The Bairn's room hollering. He is a master mess maker and also excellent at snuggling. We love to hear his little feet pattering around the house.

Christmas 2016

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 00:47:00 +0000

It seems a shame to have completely skipped over Christmas, since so much of it was so nice, so here's a little recap.

One of my very favorite moments of the whole Christmas season was sitting at the piano one day playing Christmas songs while my sweet E sang along. I also had a very peaceful, Christmasy-feeling hour sitting on the couch watching my happy kids play after having our Nova Scotia Christmas with Steve's parents.

We spent two weeks in Tennessee over Christmas. We flew in the hopes that I would still like my husband and children by the end of the trip. A road trip seemed beyond my capacity this year, so we booked cheapish tickets, spent the night in a hotel the night before and left before dawn one December morning.

Kids Waiting for Christmas Dinner

There have never been so many cookies in my mother's house ever. They just kept coming. There were three or four tins of homemade cookies open at any given time and when one tin ran out, another miraculously appeared. The kids could hardly believe their good luck.

We visited Dollywood and I have never seen E so pleased. She loves riding in a 'bee plane.' I rode the Scrambler with The Bairn, teaching me that I am very old. I felt quite sick afterwards and was pretty happy that Steve wanted to go on the bumper cars with him.

My brother and his family joined us a few days after Christmas and we ate very tasty BBQ with them.

He was up first on Christmas morning.

We almost all got sick. My mom took The Bairn to church without me one week, because I was too sick and reported that it was all fine, but during the sacrament service, The Bairn informed everyone that he was not thinking about Jesus, he was thinking about a duck.

E also extra loved the children's museum.

11-Months-Old!

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 23:54:00 +0000

Baby Boy is 11-months-old. He seems more like a baby to me than the other two did at this age, probably because he has an older brother and sister.

At 11 months, his favorite activities are

Climbing the stairs. Any time the gate at the bottom of the stairs is left open, Natey heads straight for it with great purpose and starts his climb to the 2nd floor.

Throwing things into other things. We were in a hotel in Nashville last month and before I left the room each day I checked the garbage cans, because Nate spent all his time filling them with shoes and socks and whatever he could get his hands on. He especially loves throwing rolls of toilet paper into the toilet and cars and trucks into Ellen's little potty.

Brushing his teeth. His favorite toy is a toothbrush that he walks around with and bites.

Riding in the backpack. He's been sick and teething lately and the only thing that really satisfies him is to ride on my back in the backpack most of the day.

Taking baths.

The older kids still adore him and love to play with him, although I often have to shoo them away because they get a bit rough and want to tie him up and drag him around.

Don't be fooled. He's never ever slept in this crib, but he likes to play in it and throw things out of it onto the floor.

He was actually enjoying wearing these goggles until the kids insisted on taking a photo with him wearing them and then he quickly had enough of it. This is probably a good representation of his life at 11-months-old, though. He's deeply loved but sometimes it annoys him.

Head Staples

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 00:13:00 +0000

Steve has 9 staples in his head. He brought the head stapler home from the hospital, in case he ever gets a head injury again (or in case I need to staple anyone's mouth shut). I have a picture, but I won't post it, because it's gross.

Steve was replacing rotting beams in our basement and got thrown backward by a 4x4 under pressure. Fortunately, his parents were here, so they were able to bandage his head and take him to the hospital. The Bairn hid under the table when Steve came up from the basement, because head wounds bleed a lot. It was a bit creepy.

Steve sent me strange text messages from the ER. Can you serve me some Spurgeon please? It turns out, though, that it was just poor texting and not the head injury. Should have read Can you save me some spaghetti please?

10-Months-Old

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 02:07:00 +0000

My baby turns 10-months-old this week.

He loves

playing ball. Aunt Jean gave him a little baby-sized ball and he's actually very good at sitting on the floor with me or The Bairn and throwing it back and forth. He's very pleased with himself about it too.
blueberries, peaches, and sweet potato pancakes. All of those foods make him kick his feet and scream for more. (He hasn't quite embraced sign language yet.)
opening cupboards and drawers and rifling through the contents. He pulls open my bottom filing drawer and attempts to rearrange my files every single day.
being tickled. The kids like to take turns tickling him, because he gives such satisfying little laughs and giggles. It actual sounds like he's saying, "Hee hee."
walking around like a boss. He started walking about 3 weeks ago and it's darling.

I just love snuggling him up during naps and rocking him is one of my favorite parts of the day.

A 5-Year-Old Boy

noreply@blogger.com (MBC) — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 19:47:00 +0000

The Bairn turned five last week. We didn't invite any children to his party, but his friend Sam made him a birthday card and the little girls who live behind us showed up at the door with a card for him also. We took cupcakes to his preschool class (my 'helpers' just about sent me over the edge making those cupcakes) and then we had a family party with crepes (The Bairn's favorite food) and homemade ice cream cake (which was fairly gross but met the birthday boy's specifications).

Eating a leftover cupcake from preschool.

We attempted to visit the wave pool for our family birthday trip, but there was an incident before we arrived so it was closed down for cleaning and we visited the natural history museum instead and then let The Bairn eat chicken fingers and naan at an Indian restaurant in Halifax.

Reading at Grandma's house over Christmas break.

At five-years-old The Bairn is very interested in the world. He spends a good chunk of his days discussing ghost ships and unsolved mysteries (he has solutions for the Bermuda Triangle and Stonehenge). We're currently reading an adult book together about the Mary Celeste mystery. He loves reading books about Lego constructions and building little cars with his actual Lego bricks. He plays with Hot Wheels and Transformers. He's very interested in helping me cook. He loves playing with Natey but I have to spend a lot of time asking him to stop picking up his brother. He wants to keep the Sabbath 'unholy,' he tells me. He cannot get enough snuggles and tickles. Sometimes he says to me, 'Mom, could you snuggle me? My snuggle bank is really low.' He explained to me recently that all the snuggles I give him during the day slip out of the snuggle bank at night, so he needs to cuddle a lot every day. He's very recently started calling me mother, which he pronounces mudder. So I hear a lot of Oh, Mudder! He would like to live on candy. He is a sweetheart.

Snuggling a brother.