the waiting place

My due date was yesterday and I am, as I have been with all of my pregnancies, once again overdue. And bored. These last few weeks have seemed interminable and still I wait and wait and wait. Not patiently, however. I have discovered that patience in these sorts of situations is not a virtue I possess.

Well, before this post becomes one long stereotypical pregnant complaint...I can't sleep. I can't bend over. I can't be away from a bathroom for more than three minutes...and all that. Let me leave this wallowing and post some pictures of our summer so far.

This is at Kurt's cousin's wedding, at which Leo told me that he was going to marry me when he got married and Aidan told me he was going to marry someone way prettier than me. The distance between three years old and eight years old seems to grow daily.

Here is my loving family at Lowville. Kurtis looks a bit stressed and tired. Maybe it was the long day spent saving frogs from torture and attempting to convince the children that, no, crayfish cannot chop off your toes.







And here they are at Rock Point, a few weeks later. Obviously Kurtis only owns one shirt.







And a few shots from around home, just to show you that we do spend time at home and I do take pictures.














Leo being a daredevil in the pool and the giant train track that occupied my driveway for a day, in progress.

Happy Birthday to Mommy!

So...it's my birthday today. Kurtis told me I was impossibly young last night and that he couldn't believe he was with someone as young as me. (Hooray! Obviously I have chosen the perfect man.) And today my mother and father brought over freshly steamed lobster and flowers and lemon cake. The kids sang to me and were almost perfect all day long. We all watched a movie together. (Well, it was Pooh's Heffalump Movie but you take what you can get.) And then together we played on my birthday present. A very new, very fun Wii fit!

I think I may have the best life I ever could have imagined.

Perhaps you've noticed that things are certainly slowing down around here. Something about late pregnancy is not conducive to blog writing, at least not for me. I'm not sure how often I'm going to get onto the computer in the next few weeks so if there is no action from us for most of the summer, hopefully you'll all understand why.

We went to a wedding last weekend. It was lovely and casual and very relaxed and afterwards Leo told me twice that he was going to marry me when he got older. I can't wait to remind him of that when he does get married.

Here's a quick story about Aidan's fish and then I have to drag my massive self off to bed.

Aidan has a beta fish. He was given the fish at a Mad Science class by his teenaged instructor. She told him to feed the fish every other day or so. Well, the task usually falls to me or to Kurtis because those sorts of things are very easy for eight year olds to forget and, while I'm all for having kids deal with the consequences of their irresponsibility, my convictions go way right out the window when I'm faced with the starving eyes of a little, flicking, purple fish. At any rate, I went camping last Wednesday with the kids and my parents while poor Kurtis had to stay home all by himself and go to work. I hadn't fed the fish in the two days before I left and Kurtis didn't feed him that Wednesday or on the Thursday. That's four days. I guess that's a long time for our fish. On Friday morning Kurtis came downstairs and heard this sound.

"knock...knock...knock..."

"Aargh!" he thinks to himself. "The ceiling fan is making noises. I swear I installed that thing exactly like they told me to."

He turns off the fan and continues to hear a faint noise.

"knock...knock...knock"

He cannot figure out where it's coming from. It isn't loud. Just a light tapping, like someone's baby finger on a glass window. Suddenly he looks around and realizes that the fish is knocking on his glass bowl with his head. Obviously he was starving and crying out for help in the only way he knew how.

Kurtis fed the fish and the knocking stopped.

The fish is named Albert Einstein. Oh, how he deserves his name.

As an aside, that's the name that Leo has picked out for his new baby brother. Ask him what the baby's name is and invariably that is what he will tell you. I suppose it's an improvement. When I was pregnant with Leo, Aidan was dead set on the name Darth Vader Max.

words, words, words

I have a family of snails living in a box in my backyard. I'm not sure how it happened but once you tally up the nest of four birds, the fish, the dog and now the three snails that Aidan has claimed as pets, the animals are seriously outnumbering the people. And I don't even like animals. Hopefully the snails are as self-sufficient as the birds because I have no time to feed or clean up after anyone else during the day. It's funny. I always thought I was an animal person. Perhaps it's just the wrong time in my life because there are days when even Rudi, the most gentle, undemanding and wonderful dog in the universe, is too much for me.

It's that feeling of having nothing left to give. So many requests have been made of me, so many things have required my attention during the day that I end up too drained for anything else. Unfortunately for Rudi, she and Einstein the fish, although I don't think he notices, are always last on my list. She's lucky if I have the energy to rub her head for awhile in the evening. Yes, judge me as you will, there are days when it's that bad.


Thankfully, it's Aidan's responsibility to feed the dog and give her fresh water and he's usually extremely good about doing his chores. So good that I'm beginning to consider the idea that I should give him more input into the rules, responsibilites and daily management of the household. My older brother loaned me a recent copy of the London Review of Books the other day and in it there was an interesting essay on Milton and his definition of a free man. The author talked about Milton's conviction that democracy breeds creativity and and discovery while monarchies simply encourage toadying and flattery. And because I am pregnant, mostly house-bound and kind of lost right now in the foggy days of diapers, goldfish crackers and soccer practice, I no longer have any other context in which to consider this information and so have to apply it to my family life. So, perhaps it would be better for Aidan's creativity if he lived in less of a "benevolent dictatorship" (the way my friend Jean characterizes family dynamics) and more of a democracy. I'm not sure how I intend to apply these thoughts. It's certainly much easier just to tell him of the decisions I've made rather than have him participate in the decision making process. But perhaps not as beneficial in the long run. Then again, I can always assuage my conscience by concluding that the real reason that Milton can think so critically is because he had a monarchy to rebel against in the first place.

Well, that was a wordy paragraph. If you made it through, I'm impressed. Sigh. I really need some different things to occupy my brain.

Before I go, I want to remedy one thing. I realized I posted several pictures of my nephew Manny in the last blog and neglected to post even one photograph of my delightful niece Olivia who, of course, also came to Leo's party and was charming as always. Unfortunately, she was feeling a bit under the weather and looks pretty grumpy in all of the photographs I took of her that day. So, to best display her loveliness, I'll post a picture of her from her birthday. She's a perfect and dainty little girl. Note the cool flower barrette in her hair? A friend of mine makes those. Her etsy shop is here and everything she makes is really cute and stays in even the finest hair quite well.

Happy Birthday Leo!

Leo turned three today. I cannot believe that he is three. Three sounds so old, yet I look at him and he's still my chubby little baby, gorgeous and pink and soft. Ah, who am I kidding? Aidan still looks like that to me sometimes and he's almost nine.

We had Leo's family party yesterday. He enjoyed himself thoroughly and loved his cake, presents and balloons. Or at least we thought he liked his balloons. He seems to have developed some fairly intense feelings of aggression towards Pablo, the penguin from The Backyardigans, and has taken to beating the air out of him...quite literally. Things look innocent and happy here but believe me, they took an ugly turn. The poor balloon is currently lying in a crumpled, defeated heap in the corner of our living room. Leo goes over and tackles it from time to time, just to make sure it will never rise again.


I don't know where this sudden and inexplicable anger came from. He normally loves Pablo and especially Surfer Pablo. Leo has a thing for surfing. He tried it for the first time with his dad this weekend and he's sure that he's a natural.
Today, we took Leo and Aidan, Cousin Manny, Auntie Erin and Gramma to Binbrook Conservation Area to celebrate. The kids seemed to have a great time. Manny and Leo had the thrilling experience of dual diaper changes. I've edited the photo because of graphic content but it was quite a sight. And yes, I know, he's now three and still in diapers. We're working on it.









Binbrook is a great place. I feel really fortunate that we live in an area filled with so much green space and things for families to do. The kids loved the lake and the splash pad and in August, they open up the park at night so that the Hamilton Astronomers club and the public can go and view the Perseid Meteor Shower. We went last year and it was fun. Both of the kids were fascinated. Aidan was enthralled by the meteors and the telescopes and Leo was just completely amazed at the idea that we were out, in the middle of the night, lying on the ground and being quiet, looking at the sky.













Overall, it was a great birthday weekend. We had lots of family around to help us celebrate and Leo spent some quality time with his cousin Manny to practice being a good big brother, just like his own big brother. He's working on sharing and being gentle and I'm sure he'll be wonderful when the time comes. As long as his little brother never wants to dress up as Pablo for Halloween. That might get a little scary.
Well, I'm exhausted and need to get to bed. I'll leave you with one last shot of cute Cousin Manny, just because he's so adorable and chunky and such a great snuggler.

Look at those gorgeous chubby arms and giant eyes.

look what we found...

...
and no poop, as of yet.

Thanks Leo...

...I wasn't finished writing or editing that post and Leo came along and started pushing random buttons on the keyboard. So, I'll just finish up now.

As I was saying, Aidan's a great big brother, loves to hang out with his brother...and wrestle with him. which I can't stand but I think I'm just going to have to get used to it, as a mother of boys. I'm trying, I'm really trying.



So, to finish off this interrupted post I think I'll get a little cheesey and say how much I love my two amazing boys and I can't wait to add another to the mix. In fact, I love all my guys, so much, even the one with the giant, rescuing hands. Yep...there's the cheese factor for all of you. Hope you enjoyed it.