Will: “You can’t just get a baby. You have to hope. Hope’s pretty powerful.”
Well said.
Category: Kids
Musings
I’m happy Hallowe’en is OVER for another year. I suppose I don’t hate it as much as I used to now that we have kids, but it’s still one of my least favourite “holidays” of the year. I didn’t like it as a kid; I disliked the pressure of finding “the perfect” costume, and since I grew up on a farm with a Dutch mom, trick or treating was rare, so I never cared about it that much. I particularly hate that most costumes for girls/women have been taken to soaring heights of slutiness. That’s just annoying. Anja will henceforth be an old fashioned ghost, white sheet and all, until she’s 21.
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CITS is creeping along through the fall and early signs of winter. However, CITS #8 and #9 have been run with a boy. That being said, he can hold up his end of the conversation and walks when I ask/tell him to, so we shall continue until it has to turn into Chicks in the Snow… which means ski days.
I’m trying to decide what, if any, races to do next. I’ve damaged my knee so it either needs to be soon – before the doctors kibosh more running, or post-op. Suggestions welcome.
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Our home office is close to the kids playroom and it’s actually kind of nice to be in here working while they play together (we have a door we can close when we don’t have to break up fights). The best part is eavesdropping on their conversations. It’s quite something listening to a 6 year old explain to a 4 year what “outnumbered” means. Or listening to a 4 year teach the 2 year old how to count to 20 (who needs 12 and 14, anyway?)
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It’s November 1… which means no more perusing cooking sites with guilt-free pleasure. My cooking challenge starts today. What was I thinking?? We head to Kona tomorrow as a family which is great but we’re joining friends who happen to be great cooks. Some would see this as an opportunity to learn. I see it as pressure!
That being said, please send me some of your go-to recipes so that I don’t have to spend my days on Pinterest! Maybe I should have started small, as in one new smoothie recipe a week – I can handle that!
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QOTD
Will to Rory, late one night. “It’s in my dreams to have you come to school with me”.
Rory: “I’m so glad the world isn’t made of black pepper otherwise my whole body would be so itchy”.
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Kona-bound tomorrow. 3 kids. 6am flight. I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me… but think of me with fondness as you roll over in bed at 7. Oddly, one of the things I am most looking forward to about this trip is being in the US for the election. I’m curious to watch the coverage without the Canadian twist.
Hard to believe that when we come home it’ll be one week till opening day at WB!
Aloha!
QOTD
We were all loaded into the truck and driving to Vancouver early this morning. The following conversation actually happened.
Rory: “Mum, I had a dream that Auntie Lizzie is getting married.”
Me: “Well, as a matter of fact, she is”.
Will: “Rory, ca c’est, comment dit-on, a dream come true”.
(Translation: “that is, how do you say, a dream come true”.)
My boys are closet romantics.
Rubble Creek and random thoughts
Rubble Creek Classic
Last week, Jen and I, accompanied by 30 friends/strangers ran the Rubble Creek Classic . Chicks in the Sticks go racing! We’ve been wanting to do this run for years and we finally committed; or rather, I signed Jen and I up whether she liked it or not. Neither of us have gotten in much quality training of late but the day was spectacular and well worth the effort of getting up early and running 24K.
About 8 km of climbing, a random number of kms of flats around the base of Black Tusk and then 10 painful kms of down, down, down… I felt that run for days.
It was mostly worth it because I had the most spectacular nap that afternoon.
Fact
“If you want something done, give it to the busiest person you know”. Truer words were never spoken – to me, anyway. I’ve been “retired” for about 3 weeks now and I am struggling to relax and feeling the need to fill my days with tasks and projects. I’m afraid that if I slow down, I’ll never get going again.
Fall
It’s Fall now, pretty much officially. Shorter days, cold mountain mornings. I love the leaves, the light, the change. I don’t love having to layer the kids in clothing. I’m counting the days till the can dress themselves intelligently to head into the cold outdoors.
Early runs now start in the dark… harder to pry oneself out of bed, that’s for sure. This morning’s CITS run was the 2nd Annual-Earn-That-Turkey-Dinner-run through the Mosquito Lake trails. The sunrise made it special, as did the fact that we were done by 8:45am.
Thankful
There is much to be thankful for this year. Despite the loss of my mother a few weeks ago, I am thankful for being surrounded by such good friends, ridiculous children, a close-knit family and some pretty nice physical surroundings. Frankly, there isn’t much I can complain about.
Ed: is it thankful FOR or thankful that I? See? Told you I wasn’t a writer.
QOTD
Anja and I fly to Quebec tomorrow to prepare for Mum’s celebration of life. She is very excited about prospect of “fwying on da aiyapwane”. Little does she know that flying is basically like sitting in a car for 5 hours, but with a bathroom. I can’t bring myself to burst her bubble. I have, however, drilled the notion of sky martials into their towheads. Scream and the “sky martian” is allowed to open the door at the back of the plane and “fwow you out!”
Parenting 101. Fear and mild skepticism.
On playing hookie
I’m a big believer in the importance of education. I consider my family to be extremely fortunate to be educated in French in BC. We’re privileged enough to have small classrooms, outstanding teachers and programs that allow our kids to experience different things other than just sitting behind a desk 24/7.
This past weekend, we were chatting with friends who were telling us about their own experiences with their schools. For instance, they were reprimanded when they took their kindergartner out of school for a week to go to India (India!) Others are charged $200 per absence because truancy levels are so high where they live.
Personally, I think that is outrageous. I want my kids to experience a diverse education. If that means that I’ll pull my first grader out of school for one day to do something I think has value, I will. If I want to give the kids the opportunity to travel somewhere exotic (or not), I’d like to do that without penalty (within reason, of course). Granted, growing up, if we weren’t bleeding from our eyeballs, we didn’t skip school – ever. I don’t regret that because our weekends were so wildly different from our Monday-Friday life.
All this long winded diatribe to say that it was great to pull Will out of school today to take him and Rory to hike the Chief in Squamish. I’d been promising/threatening to take them all summer and with the weather about to turn and empty retirement days looming, I thought it would be a great time to do it.
The boys did great. The hike was no joke and we made it to just beyond the second peak. Saved by some PB&J sandwiches in the sun, we ventured back down and had some very amusing chats about a variety of topics on our way down: Star Wars, manners, Omi, squirrels, walking sticks, burping and sore muscles to name but a few. I’ve heard that the best way to communicate with young boys is while they are moving. If my kids are any indication, it’s 100% true.
We didn’t make record time by any means but there was sunshine, limited whining, minimal blood and no fights. I’ll call that a win.
QOTD
Will, 6 (on a mountain bike ride):
“I love going uphill!”
Rory, 4 (whisperered over breakfast the following day):
“Mum, when I do a front flip, I feel like a champ.”
Anja, 2 (when asked which flavour of ice cream she wants):
“Pink.”
Rolympics
4 years ago, Rory was born… amidst a rock slide that shut down the Sea-to-Sky Highway and left us separated from Will for something like 6 days. That adventure was followed shortly thereafter by the Beijing 2008 Olympics. I don’t think I’ll ever forget being in my brother’s apartment, Will asleep in the other room, Rory on my shoulder, whisper-screaming for Simon Whitfield to GO! GO! GO! And Go! He did… to a silver medal.
Sadly things didn’t end well for Simon today, but in honour of that event four years ago, we gave Rory’s 4th birthday party a fitting theme this year.
Bring on… The Rolympics!
We like our Games to be inclusive (we mix age, gender and qualifying times for every ‘event’). We keep our athletes hydrated and fueled (aka juice boxes and cupcakes). We provide diversion from the stress of competition (aka smash the piñata). We are quite flexible on uniform rules (nudiness encouraged). Our flag bearer was selected by his peers (more like forced to do it). We all napped afterwards.
All in all, success!
A time lapse of sorts
Being the 3rd child and sister to 2 active boys, Anja likes to try to keep up. She’s getting pretty good on her little bike.
Sometimes, letting her try to keep up leads to some painful outcomes.
Introducing: Rainbow Face!
Weekend wrap
Another weekend come and gone… I’m still a little blown away by how quickly they go by.
A little biking, a little running. Some sun, some rain. Friends having twins. No garage sales. Some dog walks. Too lazy to write much about it, photos will have to suffice.
All in all, a good one capped by a super run yesterday. CITS #6 is in the books, 22K on Singing Pass. Super excited for the next one!
But first, I gotta get through this. See ya later, comfort zone.
Monday afternoon in Whistler
On our way home from work/bike camp, we spent an hour here… just your average Monday afternoon in Whistler, I guess…
It’s pretty entertaining to, once again, observe the differences between the boys. Will plotted and planned his every move. Rory just sent it!
The SMO's stories 