Monday, December 22, 2008

Long Time No Blog

Sorry it has been awhile since my last post. We leave for Thunder Bay tomorrow - ten days in the frozen tundra, and it couldn't possibly be any colder or snowier than here. Not sure what the odds are of our flight actually happening.

The kids are happy and back to full health. We're still going to the same coffee shop every morning for caffeine (Kate and I) and muffins (2nd breakfasts for the kids). And now, the twins spend about half an hour every morning charging around the place, getting underfoot, charming the old ladies, and generally burning off energy. One woman almost started crying this morning when Jacob tried to help Molly back to her feet. When they lose each other in the store, Jacob starts shouting, "Maya, Maya", which is what he calls Molly, and when they find each other they grin and squeal. We are quite the spectacle.

It's a good thing we live a block from the library, because we're probably reading over 100 books a day (or sometimes one book 100 times a day). For the first nine months I thought this reading to your kids thing was just propaganda, but now they insist on book after book - "More, more, more". Strangely, the current runaway favourite is about a girl who wakes up with a gator on her head. After each reading, the kids walk around saying (or trying to say) "how cool is that?!", one of the lines from the book.

I went in the second of the series of winter runs held here in town. Kate had to deliver twins, so I missed out on my chance to exact any revenge. I got my butt whupped by a guy pushing a stroller, a guy with one leg (although he does have the cool running prosthetic like Oscar Pistorius), and several kids under the age of 14. Then as I'm wheezing away from the finish line, a quite attractive woman comes right up to me and says, "ummm, you have snot on your face". Yup, I haven't lost my way with the ladies.

I will try to post from Thunder Bay. Happy holidays everyone!

Friday, December 12, 2008

When the weather outside is frightful...

...we fill the twins' sandbox with snow and bring the winter fun indoors?

Things I enjoy about this video:
1) It's mostly a video of Kate playing in the snow because the kids have no idea what she's going on about
2) Molly displays her wicked arm
3) Jacob prefers not to get his hands cold or mucky - chip off the old block


I wanted this to be our Christmas card photo, but Kate has temporarily lost her sense of humour. As is typical in our family I don't expect Christmas cards to actually be sent until the New Year, if at all.


And here's a preview of Christmas morning, where the highlights are sure to be boxes and wrapping paper.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Slowly Recovering

The kids are just about back to good health. Finally. There sleep is still a bit disrupted so we're all still a little on the exhausted side, but I think we've turned the corner. On Saturday night we chanced it, got a babysitter and went to friends for a dinner party. The kids didn't make a peep, so we might not even have frightened away the sitter.

We were gifted these toques by one of the women who frequents the coffee shop in the mornings.
- Molly in bear hat

- Jacob in Rudolf hat and Brady jersey

- Kate leading the twins in song and march

- My two favourite goofballs. Molly found this hat in the "too small" cupboard and insisted on wearing it all day. It and very little else. Jacob spent most of the day spinning, telling me that he can't be too sick anymore.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Kate Wins, Obviously

A while ago in this post, I described how I kicked Kate's butt on the running treadmill. A few people have since e-mailed me wondering if Kate exacted her revenge. All of these people, supposed fan's of my blog, were salivating at the prospect of me getting my comeuppance. You've all missed the point. I'm the underdog here. Kate always wins. Of course she got me back - it was so obvious and inevitable that I didn't even bother writing about it, but to set the record straight, here goes:

So two days after our initial run Kate gets on the treadmill, then refuses to tell me how fast she's gone. I tried telling her that I'd given up running - that I was retiring as the undisputed champ but she gave me one of those glares. So, that evening she watches me scarf down some baked goods and drink a tall glass of eggnog. As I down the last sip she says, "l'll watch the kids if you want to run". I had no choice so I went for a short run. Just to get her off my back. She ran so hard that she couldn't move the next day and hasn't felt healthy since, but she's the champ.

Then last weekend we entered the Snowflake 5 km run, here in town. Before the run Kate said we should just run together and that she wasn't feeling well so we should take it easy, and she was cold, and her nose was dripping, and she was tired, etc., etc. Wouldn't you know it, at the 3km mark she turns it on and leaves me in her dust. She finished in 6th place out of 40 plus women (alas only the top 5 got their names in our esteemed local paper), while I got outsprinted at the end by the 2nd ranked 12-year-old boy. So, Kate wins, obviously.

Political Farce

I'm enjoying the ongoing political farce. It's never bad for democracy for the populace to see that its self-serving politicians are wearing no clothes. And there's no leader without egg on his/her face right now:
- Harper's mean/pettiness streak is finally coming home to roost. Will he ever learn that a minority government means you have to compromise?
- Dion is laughable. His Youtube quality response to Harper last night was unsurprisingly amateurish. Can you have a PM who is this despised/ridiculed by his own party?
- Layton/Duceppe plotting behind the scenes for months to bring down the government no matter what course it takes? Also not very cool.
- Elizabeth May trying to turn the coalition takeover into a Senate seat. Pretty quick to abandon the Greens. Again, not very surprising.

I think the Liberals' best case scenario is for the GG to agree to prorogue parliament until January. And if Harper's January budget includes a lot of fiscal stimulus then they should support it, thus looking reasonable and not solely driven by a lust for power. Then, once they have a non-lame-duck leader in place in May, then they can look for a reason to re-engage the coalition. Right now they're overplaying a very weak hand.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Grandma Saves The Day

I've got two very sick twins and one very sick wife on my hands. This is the kids' second cold/flu of the winter and it's only December 2nd. Tell me the whole winter won't be like this.

Fortunately, Kate's mom was with us for the past five days, with seemingly endless energy, enthusiasm and ideas. She was so great I can't even make any mother-in-law jokes.

- Too cold for a sandbox. So here's the cornmeal tub instead.

- Jacob concentrating on a big spoonful on cornmeal

- Molly in the diaper box train

- We moved our comfy chair upstairs in the kids' play area - nice and bright for storytime

- Me pulling the kids in their new sled

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Rodeo Molly

The kids were playing this hilarious game where they stood up, spun in circles and then fell down on top of each other giggling. But of course once I got my camera, they refused to play that one anymore (possibly because Molly was too dizzy to stand by this point).

Instead, here's Molly perfecting her tackling and hog-tying moves on her brother. Additional highlight is me using my disciplinarian tone, to no avail.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Young Artists

To the children's probable detriment, my parenting mantra is that if you read enough books and learn enough ball sports, then the world is your oyster. Doesn't leave enough (any?) room for arts and crafts, which I hated as a child, and don't have much proclivity or talent for as an adult. Fortunately the kids have Kate.

Their first artistic endeavour was finger-painting during my parents' recent visit. It was an unmitigated failure unless you consider eating the paint to be an act of artistic expression. When Jacob looked disdainfully at the paint and refused to touch it, my genes took a withering attack from his mother.

- Molly with evidence of her paint eating

- Jacob willing to smile at the paint, but not to touch it


Next project was decorating the gingerbread men, which to my eye was a bit beyond their capabilities, but their mother was unfazed.

- The twins appearing unfazed as well

- Molly wondering if it will taste as good as finger-paint. Jacob giving me the "Dude, you're kidding me. Does mama realize I'm 16 months old? What does she expect me to do with this thing?" look.


The final project was to get the twins naked, roll them around in paint and encourage them to roll around on a canvas. You're hoping I'm kidding. Trust me, I wasn't present for this one.

Reminiscent of Yves Klein, except he did it with nubile young women - ah the French are clever. As an aside, the linked video above must be one of the few on Youtube with full nud*ty (not that I've conducted extensive research).

Anyway, the twins' project was deemed such a success that the work is now hanging in my parents' kitchen. Not that they're biased either.


And finally, for the diehard fans, here's a video of the gingerbread experiment.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Young Athletes

Multi-sport athletes simultaneously playing soccer, hockey, and doing some heavy lifting.

Molly shows great tackling technique and Jacob demonstrates that he may have inherited my touch around the net

Jacob with a unique form of celebrating Molly's brilliant free kick goal

Catching Up on Early Christmas

We celebrated an early Christmas with my parents during their visit last week. Here are some photos of the festivities:
- Molly in a big stocking

- Molly under the tree, surrounded by presents (boxes decorated by cousins Sean & Erin)

- the family opening presents

- Jacob curled up with Grandpa

- reading some new books with mama

- glee and excitement at their new kitchen (which Sean & Erin generously donated)

- they'll be taking over the cooking duties any day now

- in the new toboggan

- reading with their grandparents

Monday, November 17, 2008

Playing with Fire

If I were asked to boil down the reasons for our happy marriage, I would say, "we compete, Kate wins, everyone goes home happy". There isn't room in most good relationships for two truly competitive people and in ours, Kate is the one who has to win, while I'm the one who takes the high road and seeks harmony over divisiveness. Which makes the events of yesterday all the more dangerous.

Neither of us has run much since the kids arrived, and Kate didn't run at all for the previous year. Yesterday we decided to dust off the treadmill and each of us did a 40 minute run. I ran 450 metres further than her during the allotted time. Not just a victory, but a complete trouncing. I know, I felt a little sad about it too.

Signs that Kate May Have Lost Some of Her Competitive Fire
- she agreed to run first, somehow ignoring the fact that I would then have a target to beat
- she told me how far she had run before I ran, thus relinquishing the chance to lie about it later
- she appeared to be supportive and congratulatory when I told her how far I'd gone

Signs that Kate May Still Have Some of Her Competitive Fire
- she claimed the only difference between us was my new shoes
- while I was still sore from my over-exertion she insisted we take the kids sledding in the afternoon, repeatedly running up and down the hill pulling the sleds
- after my repeated gloating including an "it's a good thing we weren't running on a track because I would have lapped you", she looked me square in the eye and quietly said "you are going down"

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Molly Walks

Will recap the past week with some posts, hopefully tomorrow.
But first wanted to share some video footage of Molly walking for the first time tonight. She spent all day wanting to walk laps everywhere, holding a finger for balance, and then just before bedtime she flew solo.

Oh, and this one too.

And this one even though she doesn't quite walk, but you can see how hard she was trying and I love how she never stops laughing.

And this very short one is a classic "out-take"

Friday, November 7, 2008

Video and Vocabulary

By popular (read: wifely) demand, here's a great video of Jacob walking on the bridge between Windsor and Eton.

As this is ever-changing, I should note the kids' favourite expressions this week are:
- "Uh-ohhhh" whenever anything is dropped (or thrown) or whenever anyone falls down
- "Nooooooo", especially as a response to "now we're going to change some diapers"
- "down", which Molly says on every stair during her descent
- "more", for more food, more books, more swings, more anything
- animal sounds - they seem to have quack, baaa, and mooo down pat and occasionally a meow and a twit twoo. Woof substitutes for all other animals.
- "Baba" which is what they call me
- "Molly" is pronounced by both of them as pretty close to "Mama"
- "Dayka" is Molly's usual pronunciation for Jacob. For a while she called him "Jay Jay", which is pretty funny because "jie jie" is the Mandarin word for big sister, so I thought she was reminding him that she's the older of the twins.
- "Mama" is occasionally what they call Kate, although quite often when we say "where's mama" they look at you like you're asking where Elvis might be. Kate's not amused.

My parents arrive this afternoon and Kate and I are escaping to the Muskokas tomorrow for a night away.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Molly's Feet and a Warm Fall Morning

Molly had her regular 6-month appointment at Sick Kids yesterday and got two thumbs up on her feet, which are looking perfect. Two other families were getting in trouble as they had both stopped using the boots and bar at night because they thought their kids' feet were looking fine. People are strange.

We dropped in on Jo and little Benjamin for a quick visit on our way home too - everyone looking fantastic.

I spent part of the morning raking leaves in the backyard, while the kids burrowed in the leaf piles and generally got mucky. I was in shorts as the warm weather is giving it one more college try before winter truly descends.

- Dirt makes you grow

- Jacob helpfully bringing leaves to the pile

- Both kids in the leaf pile

-Take this leaf from my grubby hands

- Molly too

- Doesn't she look kind of Bond-esque in this photo

- Twins at work

- Twins at work II

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

More From England

We're back from the old country and just about over our jet lag (we had to take it on faith that Obama would win last night as we couldn't last beyond 9pm).
- Last Wednesday was the low point of our trip. A 45 minute drive to Oxford went to hell when we ran dead-stop into a traffic jam. The wonderful English traffic authorities routed the 6-lane highway through a few country lanes. After 4 hours we had moved about 10 miles, and had no idea how long it would take to go the remaining 20. We tried to find a hotel in Wycombe, but apparently they haven't heard of hotels there. So, we returned to Lindsey and Serge's with our tails between our legs, and two very tired, sick, grouchy twins.
- The following day we made it to Oxford in less than an hour, no problem and we had a fabulous visit with my old CEGEP friend Heather and her family, including lots of walking around the town, a tour of Merton college, a visit to the natural history museum and a couple of drives out into the country.
- The flight home was a dream as the kids slept the whole way. One guy on the plane said, "I'd always thought that twins were hard, but after this flight it looks like they're pretty easy". On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that neither family we visited in England will be rushing to expand their family size as the kids were a little short on sleep and therefore not quite at their best. But, a great trip regardless.

Here are some more photos from our trip.
- Jacob at Eton, watching rugby for the 1st time

- The 3 of us watching together

- The bridge to Windsor - Jacob's perma-grin

- In front of Serge's "house"

- Proof of the snow in England - the view from Lindsey's front door

- Kate and Molly in front of Lindsey's house

- Horse getting a little frisky

- Horse getting a lot frisky

- Horse chasing Lindsey and Jules

- Lindsey and Jules

- Molly and Jacob with their new bud, Julia

- Heather, Kate and I with all 3 kids

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Greetings from snowy England

We have been in England since Friday morning and the weather has been quite lovely and fall-like until tonight when it began to SNOW! Of course we are taking the blame for importing the fluffy stuff.

Here are a few highlights of the trip thus far:
- Bulkhead seats on the flight over and each of us had an extra seat which made a huge difference. The kids took about 30 minutes to fall asleep but then slept soundly until the breakfast service began with an hour left in the flight. Could not have been easier.
- Lindsey and Serge live next to a church and cemetery so there has been lots of walking there. The kids like to touch each gravestone, wave, and say "Bye bye". Sure to freak out some of the parishioners before long.
- We went into London on Sunday. The kids walked all around Covent Market and then right through the Tate Modern. We managed to escape without damaging any of the expensive paintings. Molly didn't enjoy the subway but otherwise the kids were unfazed by the big city.
- Yesterday was St. Alban's, where we walked around the pretty old town, through the park and ended up at a family-friendly pub.
- Today we spent the afternoon in Windsor, checking out the castle, and Eton, where Jacob and Molly took in their first rugby practice.
- Tomorrow we head to Heather and Neil's in Oxford.

- Video of Jules, Molly and Jacob playing in Serge's box "house" - getting along like they're all best buddies

- On a canal walk, earning our pub lunch

- At the pub - how much does Molly love her Mama?

- And how much does Jacob love profiteroles

- Kate and Molly in the park at St Alban's

- The 3 kids at the Tate Modern

- Molly about to kiss/eat Jules

- Crossing the Thames from Windsor to Eton