BLOG MARCH 2012

Saturday March 31, 2012

I love introducing the girls to the things I loved as a kid. In addition to comics, Star Wars and Thundercats, I have given them an intro to "Sailor Moon" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". They are eager to learn about anything I watched and played as a kid. They like to leanr the names of each character, whether they are good or bag guys and what weapon they use as well as any other character traits or special powers they have. I told them the names of the four Ninja Turtles and a few moments later I heard Rain saying "Michelancelot", instead of "Michelangelo". She was getting mixed up between ninja turtles and knights of the round table. Hey it could happen to any kid right? I know many cartoon stray away from fighting these days but pretty much every story ever told ia about good versus evil so its obviously something very hardwired in the human psyche.

The girls had fun the other day when I pulled out a bunch of lotions and gels rom the cupbord (all perfumy junk I don't use) and let them make potions with it all in the bathroom. The house reeked of baby powder, musk, bath pearls and aloe gel...but the girls had fun. They even bathed some of their toys in the goop they mixed up. They came down at one point and asked for labcoats because they were scientists and needed to look the part. I let them wear some of my zip hoodies and we stuck sticker name badges on them (Scientists always have name badges on them). They even cleaned up as best they could afterwards.

While the girls played upstairs I managed to kill the vaccuum downstairs. It jammed somehow and you could smell rubber burning. So the smell of burnt rubber nicely contradicted the potions being mixed. It was an instant headache for me.

The ohter day I made a salad and set it on the table. While I was busy making the rest of dinner Torren had climbed up and dissected the salad. He wanted to eat the cucumber so instead of just picking it out of the salad he found it easier to to remove all the lettuce instead and place it on the table. After de-cucumbering the salad he put all the lettuce back in the bowl...and then sneezed on the whole thing. Nice. Anyone want some de-cucumbered germ salad?

Torren loves to feed the cats their morning cat treats. One morning we were out of his normal cereal so I gave him some Puffin cereal which looks a lot like the cats treats. He was amazed that I let him it eat. I then made the connection that he thought he was eating cat treast, something I am always telling him "Not for Torren, only for the cats." He scarfed a whole bowl of puffins eagarly thinking this was his one shot at getting his fill of cat treats.

Last night Daddy had to go into work so we made french fies and hotdogs for dinner and had a camp out in the kitchen. We turned the table into our tent with a bed sheet and munched our buffet style dinner on the floor like a picnic. The kids had fun.

Piper was playing with some lalaloopsy toys she was given at a birthday party and pilled up osme items and then called them her "Cake and Tea". Torren heard her and started shouting "Caketea!" over and over again. We all joined in. It's a fun word to say really. Here is a photo of caketea.

Cake tea



Piper's drawing that she sent in to a Chickdee magazine contest. They had been asked to draw a picture of Petal the Monkey doing something that they liked to do. Piper drew her figure skating.



Posing with attitude.



Supergirl is on the scene (it's an over-the-head bath towel).

Saturday March 24, 2012

Welcome Blake! Auntie Mags had a baby boy on March 16th. The girls had quite different reactions when we told them of Blakes arrival. Piper was happy and eager to meet her new cousin. Rain walked in and asked..."Was it a girl?" I replied "No...a boy." Her head drooped and she just walked away back to the couch and her book. You gotta laugh. Ben and I got down to meet our new nephew that day. He was very alert and following our voices. He's so cute. One more cousin added to the ever growing clan.

March has been weird. In the last 3 weeks we've been dressed in our winter jackets, wrapped up with scarves, mitten and hats....and we've had days when the kids have been out on the deck in their bathing suits louging about reading books in the sunshine. I'm not sure what the rest of the month has in store for us...or even next month. It's just weird. Breaking the ice up on the pond, or hitting some balls into the feild with a bat in our shorts and tees. Crazy.

On one of the nice warm days we had last week Rain stepped outside onto the deck and exclaimed..."Oh. Wow...there aren't any cockroaches out here." I asked her why she thought there would be. " Oh you know, because its spring." Of course. Spring is when cockroaches come out? I have no idea where some of these ideas come from. A couple of weeks back she told me she liked eating meat. She told me that Piper liked meat also but maybe would one day not eat meat like Mommy, since she didn't want to eat animals...especially rabbits. And I quote directly from Rain. "Some people eats rabbits you know....like the Irish." Again...why does she think Irish people eat rabbits? Where does that come from? Ben and I were in hysterics at the table when she said that.

Torren has been talking up a storm. He is eager to say any words you can teach him. he excells with "H" words mostly. Hotdog, helmet, hockey, hat....he loves to ask for cookies, juice, water. He can tell you when he is stinky. He loves to get the phone, put it to his ear and say "Hullo!". His new favourite thing is racing. He says "Go" which means he wants you to count down for him..."On your mark.... Get ready...Get set.....GO!" Then he takes off running. Sometimes he only takes a step and then falls down and says "Uh-oh" to which I reply "Crash." He then says "Ow". Piper chases him and gets him running around in circles. They also have bum scootching races down the hallway.

He can now climb up into the treehouse in the backyard. He tried to climb up the end ladder too and then move onto the horizontal bars above the swings. He also grabs the beam above the ladder to the treehouse and hangs off of it swinging his legs out over the ladder below. My heart stops. At the school on the kindie yard jungle gym he also swings ont he bars and climbs up the monkey bars. Anything the big kids can do he's gonna try it too.

He can now say Rain's name sort of...It comes out more like "I-ean"...but we know he's trying to say her name. He seems to have trouble with the "P" sound so Piper's name is still unsaid. He tries to say his own name too but is missing the "N" sound on the end. It comes out more like "Torr-eh" He has Mama down pat now. I hear him when he wakes up shouting..."Mom...mama...mommy....mama...mom....mama...mama!!" He still loves his Daddy though and has started running after cars that look like Daddy's shouting, "Dad-dy!!!" He gets so excited when Daddy comes home from work. He usually bypasses me completely when Daddy is home (even i I've been at work all that day too).

Torren hates getting dressed. However, we've discovered that if he thinks he's putting on clothes that have something to do with hoceky he is excited to get dressed. For example, any clothing that hs hockey on it, numbers on it (that we tell him are hockey numbers) or clothing that have images of vehicles on them..."Look, these socks have airplanes on them." He is co-operative if we dress him in acceaptable hockey/sport or vehicle related clothing only. I did manage to get him to put on a Dinosaur shirt the other day though....so maybe he's just getting more relaxed about the whole 'getting dressed' thing. He also loves his Kermit jammies. We watch a lot of Muppet Show episodes in the car so he recognizes him.

Speaking of TV, Torren will finally sit and watch TV. He loves Four Square. It is the only show that will get him sittting still for more than five minutes. The girls on the other hand, have been branching out in to all sorts of shows. They are obsessed with Star Wars (since we watch the 3 original movies) and have been taking out Star Wars readers from the library, as well as running about having light sabre fights. Now I have introduced them to "Thundercats" and Piper is dashing about like her new-found heroine Cheetarah. It's so awesome that they love the things I loved as a kid. It fun to see them role playing those characters too. I can't tell you how many days/weeks/months me and my sibs killed playing "Dukes of Hazzards" on our bikes when I was a kid.

Today the girls finished their swimming lessons. Piper moves on to the nexy level but Rain has to repeat for the first time. She was quite upset. It's hard to teach kids that they can always try their best but sometimes they can't be the best. We went to get a frosty as a treat for doing so good anyways.

They are both doing excellent at gymnastics. Their teacher speak quite highly of them and they have leanred so many new terms that I have to jot down so I can understand what they are talking about. Front supports, skin the monkey, casts, straddle rolls, bridges and tuck jumps to name a few. Their teacher had them doing assisted front sommersaults on the balance beam last week. Crazy and awesome! Piper has great form, long legs, pointed toes and strong movements. Rain has great balance and energy.

Ok...this post is getting long...gotta post more often.

Me, holding my new nephew Blake on his birth day.



Torren can open the fridge door. He got out a full bag of milk...a bit too heavy to hold for long. I came into the kitchen to find half the floor covered. After I had it all cleaned up and de-stickified he got his hands on a bag of sunflowers seeds and accidentally dumped those too. We gotta get a lock on the fridge and cupboards.



Sasha was over one night and wanted to make tiaras. Here is what I improvised with...and how the three girls decorated their tiaras.



Piper in her vampire costume playing her part on an unsuspecting Torren. It's a creepy photo.



The girls in their monster masks. (We found a book with a dozen paper masks in it at the Value Village. It looked like a very old book...th ekids have been having fun dressing up as different monsters)



Torren tries on a paper mask.



Rain with her homemade bolo. She tied a pine cone to the end of a skipping rope and was swinging it about her head and then casting it off into the garden or across the deck.



Plate-licking good!.



Swinging at the top of the slide.



See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. (I couldn't resist when they were all sitting there). And yes this is March. Bathing suits in March. Weird weather.



Torren washing the car. Rain had the idea to wash the car and Torren joined in.

Monday, March 5, 2012

So Torren can push me around on my computer chair. He digs in his feet and can shove me across the floor. He thinks it's funny when i try and work on the computer to push or pull away from the keyboard. He also has grown interested in his potty. He knows it's like a mini toilet and he will often sit on it of he sees the girls sitting on the toilet. He said to me one day "stinky". I told him to put the stinky in the potty. He grunted and the stood up looked in the potty and said, "empty." Speaking of the bathroom, i was drawing a bath for the kids one night and popped out of the room to go get something. I came back in, only to find Torren sitting in the bathtub water in his clothing. Apparently he can climb into the tub on his own. Thankfully there was not much water in there yet. He seemed quite casual about sitting in soaking wet clothing playing away with his bathtoys.

The girls have been doing weel at their swimming and gymnastics. Piper seems quite keen on the balance beam, walking backwards and forwards, doing fancy walks and turns and liuttle jumps. Rain (although she loves the cheese pit best) seems to be doing well at the uneven bars. She can flip up and over them and land quite easily now. Torren and I watch from the viewing room upstairs. There was a little boy a couple of weeks back that he was trying to teach how to walk. The boy was about 9 months old and crawling. Torren got down on his hands and knees and crawled next to him, then stood up and walked past and away. He then looked back as if to say "See....its just that easy. Just get up and walk." When the boy just sat there smiling Torren walked back over to him, got down again and crawled alongside him...then got up and walked past, turned back again and gave him that look again. Another week Torren was watching a couple of 8 year old boys play hockey with mini sticks and a foam puck. He stood on a chair shouting "HOCKEY, HOCKEY!" and eventually joined in when he spied a third mini stick on the table. Another week he had fun wrestling with a three year old boy. Torren started to crawl around so the three year old joined in and started crawling around too. Torren then popped up to his feet and jumped on the boys back like he was getting a horseyback ride. Last week Torren had three 8 year old girls wrapped around his finger. The girls had just arrived foe their dance class and he joined in with their stretching, copying their stretches as best as he could. They thought he was adorable and soon enough he had them chasing him around the room, tickling him and giving him hugs. I tell you, it doesn't matter what the age of the other kids are, boys or girls, Torren finds a way to join in.

We had some excitement last week when a transformer blew next door and apprently caught on fire. Ben was out late at a class and I was in bed reading when I heard a loud BOOM! It woke Torren up. A few minutes later and there was a fire truck outside the window blocking off the street. Then Ben came driving up only to see a fire truck parked out in front of our house. They wouldn't let him in to our driveway so he parked down at a neighbours house. Torren was happy to see the firetruck with it's lights flashing and it took us a whlie to get him back to bed. The girls were bummed that they slept through the Kaboom (as they called it).

More excitement happens when Rain deicded to tell me that they had a lockdown at school one day. My jaw dropped? A lockdown? Really? Piper then corrected Rian and told me it was only a practice drill. They had to sit in the corner of the classroom for maybe and hour, or ten minutes...she wasn't sure. Rain was still convinced it was eral and that there was an intruder in the school.

I guess another big change this past while is that I am back working again part time while the kids get to spend time with both sets of grandparents. It's a fantastic opportunity for me to get my feet back into the world outside my family and it's awesome that the kids get to spend more time with their grandparents. The timing worked out perfect.

Lastly, I have to mention the girls and their art. Piper has become so patient with her drawing that she has created some really well-thought out and detailed artwork. She is even in the middle of drawing a picture whicH she hopes will iwn a prize in the contest in the Chickdee magazine. She also copied when I drawing a superhero one day which I named "The White Witch". Piper did a fantastic job of copying my work in her own style but while copying the name she somehow wrote "The Which Witch", which in my mind is and even better name. I was amazed that even though she mispelled "White" she mispelled it and made it another word. We did some painting a couple weekends ago and it got me thinking that maybe I could start teaching them about different types of art. I borrowed some art history textbooks from Nana and showed them some pictures in it. Piper was most interested in the naked sculptures of Adam and Eve and a painting of a man with arrows piercing his body everwhere. I explained to Rain what abstract art was and she set to work creating "abstracts". She then hid her abstracts all over the house and we've been finding them accidentally ever since. In the sweater bench, in the toy basket, in the laundry, in my night table drawer. You never know when you might just find a rain-drawn abstract.

Rain has also requested to write poetry. I jot down the words as she dictates them to me, making it up on the spot. I then draw a picture to go along and she colours it. You can check out her first two poems on her art page.

So far we've made it through week one of march break. We went to the zoo with some classmates, to airzone, swimming with Nana and Opa and the girls were treated to the movies yesterday by Sasha's Oma. We've been doing some road tours in Rock Band, been down to the Lake and had some playdates with friends. It's been a busy week. Still waiting on the arrival of Auntie Mags' baby. Auntie Dani had her baby last week...a girl named Gwendolyn.

The kids with their friends at the zoo.



No one can see me.