Away Again

We're leaving in two minutes for a holiday up in the Muskokas with my family. Back in a week with lots of photos of the birthday celebrations and the trip.

Back Home and More B-Day Celebrations

Jacob's leg seems to be recovering nicely. He's not putting any weight on it yet, but he doesn't seem to be in any pain and it's not slowing down his crawling. The flights to and from T-Bay went very smoothly despite 1-2 hour delays in each direction. It turns out that airports are the perfect playground for crawling twins - carpeted, big space, lots of people to smile at. We spent the weekend out at Kate's parents' camp, which was beautiful and relaxing and it didn't even snow. The kids got about 50 bug bites each, but otherwise had a great time. We got home late from the airport last night and the kids took a while to settle. Then, in the middle of the night, Jacob woke up crying. When Kate went in, he had crawled over to Molly's bed, was sitting up next to her, and was mournfully saying "ba?" in a fruitless effort to wake her up to see if she wanted to chat.

I forgot to bring the camera this weekend, but here are some shots from this morning's b-day celebrations at the office.

- Waiting for the cake

- Jacob wondering if tissue paper is the greatest thing ever

- Molly proving that she's a climber too. She promptly fell off the box, proving once again to Kate's colleagues that we're the most irresponsible parents alive.

- Jacob ensuring that Molly's present isn't better than his

- Molly with the splish-splash pool and new favourite "bah"

First X-Ray

Jacob slipped backwards down a couple of stairs last night and was very upset, as you can imagine. We couldn't figure out what was hurting though. He fell asleep as normal, but had a fitful night. This morning, when he pulled himself up to standing, he kept his right foot in the air (like a puppy with a thorn in his paw) and when I tried walking him he screamed when he put weight on his right foot. So we went to see doctor Wendy and then went to get x-rays (he never uttered so much as a whimper throughout). It turns out that he has a buckle fracture of his tibia. No cast required and no long term effects, but he won't want to put any weight on it for the next week or two. So, he won't be walking on his 1st birthday but no other ill effects (except in the pits of his parents' stomaches).

Off to T-Bay

We're flying to Thunder Bay this evening on the first leg of the twins' birthday tour. Will it snow? Will we survive the mosquitoes? Will I forget to bring the milk bottles again? Will report back on Sunday evening.

Cheesy Pop Star and A New Twin Game

First, my favourite non-twin-related moment of the summer thus far. At our coffee place the other morning, one of our friends says, "there's Bryan Adams in line". Kate immediately blushes about four shades of crimson and reaches up to fix her hair. It turns out it's just some local schmo named Adams, not the can-con pop star best known for performing the cheesy Robin Hood theme and for singing a horrendous duet with a Spice Girl. Kate fell in love with him as a pre-teen, and apparently isn't quite over him yet. Interestingly, when we started dating, Kate pronounced that when a band starts singing about horses, you know they're officially, pathetically done (in the process, winning an argument about U2's place in rock history - evidence Achtung Baby's "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses"). Well, a visit to Wikipedia shows that young Bryan's first ever album was called "If Wishes Were Horses" - what a fitting way to launch a sad career. I can't believe that Kate would leave me for this clown.

The kids would have played this game all day, non-stop, if I'd let them - chasing each other around the chair, stopping, letting the other one catch up, and then giggling uncontrollably.

Wagons & Beaches

In addition to the new vehicles in the last post, we also broke out Sean & Erin's old wagon this afternoon, first in the backyard and then down to the beach for a dip. The video shows their 1st time in the wagon - and they're pretty excited about it. We also managed a trip down to Barrie today to pick up new car seats (which we'll break out on their birthday) and an inflatable pool (which features in the video). At the beach, Jacob went all the way into the water for the first time, and quite enjoyed it. Molly didn't appreciate having a single toe dipped in the lake.


Here's a shot of the four of us down at the beach.

Jacob at the beach after a few mouthfuls of sand.

Molly a little more circumspect about the whole beach experience.

Homeward bound after the beach.

New Vehicles

First time on a horse and on a car.

Stairs and Sunny Summer Days

Not surprising considering his propensity for coffee table mounting, Jacob has now taken to climbing the stairs. His first were the steps from our front yard to back yard. Of course, once I ran inside to get the camera, he refused to climb them again. But you get a sense of what a lovely afternoon we had outside. And since then he has begun climbing the stairs in the house. Time for more safety gates

Not-So-Safety-Proofed

Jacob proving that the tv room is not yet child-proofed.

Brainy Boy

Jacob shows off his B-word proficiency.

Bad Weekend For the Swiss

Not only did Federer get humiliated by Nadal in the French Open final, but the Swiss also lost their opening match at Euro 2008. They're in danger of "pulling a Canada". Canada has the ignominious claim to fame as the only summer Olympic host to not win a gold (Montreal in '76 - Canada repeated the challenging accomplishment at the '88 winter games in Calgary) - well the Swiss could well host the Euros and fail to score a goal. At least they still have Alinghi (which has always struck me as an impressive performance for a landlocked country).

On the movie front, we saw Lars and the Real Girl last night and both really liked it. Ryan Gosling (of London, Ont.) is fantastic (again) and it's a great, surprisingly fresh story about community. If only we could all live in such a supportive world.

Molly Crawling

She's always crawling... until I bring out the camera. So this video isn't perfect but it gives a taste.


And here's a funnier one of Molly being too tired to crawl and Jacob treating me like a paparazzi.

A Few Observations

• Even in small towns, some people are quite rude. At the grocery store, a complete stranger said to me, "double trouble, that must be a lot of work", a pretty common, tame comment. When I said, "it's not so bad, they're pretty great kids", she turned into attack mode and said "that's easy for you to say - I bet you wouldn't say that in front of your wife". I just raised an eyebrow and walked away.
• A little sleepy today after last night's triple overtime. The Red Wings are the best team I've seen since the mid-80's Oilers, and I think they've been the better team in every period thus far in the series. The Penguins may be tough to beat in the coming years, but the Wings are too good this year.
• Mens' tennis is as exciting as it's ever been with three extraordinary, likable stars at the top of their games. Federer's the greatest of the Open era, a smooth, true artist, but his battle against time looks pretty tough on clay. No one has ever been better at Paris than Nadal, whose bad fashion sense can overshadow his tough determination and sublime defensive shotmaking. And Djokovic, the charismatic and mercurial Serb is trying to prove not only that he's the real pretender to Federer's throne, but also that he is ready for that throne right now. All makes for a pretty compelling next few days of tennis.
• Jacob & Molly have started trying more and more "adult" food. Pasta with butter and parmesan is a huge favourite. They are big fans of the roasted red pepper soup that I tried out this week. Not so excited by the cucumber soup (yes I've tried to encourage the arrival of summer by trying a series of cold, summer soups).
• Molly's crawling more and more. My full time job is clearly going to involve a lot of chasing and coralling.
• We've finished all four seasons of Entourage, so we're feeling a little lost (on hockey's off-nights). What a fun show.