and still waiting

2011 In Review

2012-01-28T16:11:00.000-05:00

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Christmas 2011

2012-01-02T20:54:00.001-05:00

For the first time ever we were in Ottawa on Christmas morning, and I must say it was really nice. We had a quiet day at home enjoying good food (yes, I cooked!) and playing with new toys. The kids were all very excited to see the gifts that Santa had left.

This is the first picture of the girls checking out their haul (B was still in bed at this point).

Santa really had it pretty easy this year, though. A asked for “a three-ring binder with paper”, and B wanted a nutcracker. They all three got a binder and paper, and the girls entertained themselves with these for a good little while until B finally joined us.

B was equally as thrilled with his gifts from Santa…

After awhile, we opened the gifts under the Christmas tree (Santa’s gifts are never wrapped and are not under our tree). From DoT and I, the kids got one gift each… a LeapPad Explorer. This turned out to be a great gift for all of them. We were a bit worried that B might be a bit young for it yet, but he loves his LeadPad as much as his sisters do. And DoT and I love how quiet it kept them on the long drive to grandma and grandpa’s house on Boxing Day, and continues to keep them in the mornings.

We also got quite a bit of snow on Christmas eve and Christmas day, so DoT took the kids out to play in it a bit. B got a bit tired of it quicker than the girls and came in to have hot chocolate with me. But the girls stayed out a long time playing in the snow.

On Boxing Day we loaded up the van and headed to grandma and grandpa’s house. Unfortunately, my uncle passed away on December 23rd (RIP Uncle Mike), so we had a funeral to go to on the 27th. But that was followed by even more presents from my family’s gift exchange. (The kids are still in their church/funeral clothes in these pictures, although the rest of us took the time to change into something more comfortable.)

We were still in southern Ontario on New Year’s Eve, and we celebrated the entry of the new year there. The kids had a great time counting down (10, 9, 8, 7…) and yelling “happy new year” to ring in the new year at precisely 8:00 p.m. Last year I let them stay up late, and I won’t make that mistake again. They also got to drink out of special glasses (plastic wine glasses) and eat chips and cheezies, so it was a special night indeed. I know I didn’t see midnight that night, and I’m pretty sure DoT didn’t either.

Well, I think that pretty much brings you up-to-date. I still plan to do my 2011 photo montage, as in past years, so watch for another blot post in the coming week. (And if you didn’t notice the earlier one from today, check it out too, below.)

Happy New Year!

K….

Fall 2011

2012-01-02T12:42:00.002-05:00

Okay, so what’s been happening in the last couple of months since I last updated this blog? Well, here it is, in chronological order…

1. A visit from Grandma!

2. The girls had a school project (for Remembrance Day)… their assignment was to draw a picture of peace. Here are their masterpieces…

3. I went to Winnipeg, Yellowknife and Tulita (NWT).

Here’s a pic of the (little) plane I flew from Yellowknife to Tulita in; and another picture of me in the gear they outfitted me in for the cold, cold weather. (I felt a bit like a toddler in a snow suit… unable to move.)

I have some beautiful pictures of Yellowknife and Tulita, but decided to spare you the 100 or so pictures, since I couldn’t pick just one or two.

4. Christmas decorating

At the end of November, we set up our Christmas tree. This year the kids knew exactly what to do and wasted no time getting it all decorated.

5. Christmas baking

6. Christmas performances

Then came the Christmas season with all the associated parties and performances. This year all three of my kids were “angels” in the church’s annual Sunday School Christmas Program. Here is a picture of my three angels before leaving home for the program (sans wings)…

Here they are at the performance with their wings (prior to the fight breaking out… I wish I was kidding)…

And here is a picture of the start of the brawl…

The kids also had a Christmas pageant at their school. I didn’t get any good pictures during their performances (I wasn’t close enough and the lighting wasn’t great), but here’s a picture of B in his hat (he made it himself!)..

Then came the big day! I’ll do a blog post for Christmas soon (hopefully later today). Stay tuned.

K….

Happy Hallowe’en

2011-10-31T20:27:00.001-04:00

Finally, an update

2011-10-17T16:32:00.001-04:00

Hi all,

So, first things first… I neglected to put up a picture of the kids on their first day of school. Here it is…

And here is a picture of A with her glasses. (E ended up not needing glasses after all.) I was going to take a better picture, but then decided that the fingerprint on her glasses in this picture really does accurately capture her. :-)

K…

A few new things…

2011-09-16T20:54:00.001-04:00

1. Both girls will be getting glasses. A very soon (we’ve ordered her some) and E hopefully soon but it will depend on how long it takes until we can convince her that she won’t die if the eye doctor puts drops in her eyes. :-) We were at the eye doctor today and the doc thinks it would be good for them both to have glasses now that they are in grade 1. Last year, their eyes weren’t perfect, but really what do you learn in kindergarten anyhow. So we decided to give it a year and see what happened. :-)

2. We are going to Disneyworld again in October. DoT has another conference there and my friend Cathy convinced me to look into whether or not we could get cheap flights. (Thanks, Cathy!) Tonight I booked flights for the kids and I to go the same days DoT goes. Now I just need to hope and pray that when DoT’s work books his flights, he ends up on the same flights as we have. Because otherwise, I’m doomed. We leave early in the morning and have to transfer planes in either Newark or Philadelphia (I can’t remember which). Me with three kids and all our luggage hustling from one plane to another is not going to go well if I’m on my own.

3. School has started and everyone seems to be settling in fine. B started all-day jr. kindergarten this year, and seems to love it. Although he’s only been to school 6 days and has come home wearing his back-up pants twice. I really think the problem is that he is just having so much fun he doesn’t want to be bothered with going to the bathroom. And he doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he’s peed his pants at school. So, I’m not sure what to do about it. Every time he comes home after an accident I’ve talked to him and he has solemnly promised that from now on he’ll go to the bathroom when he needs to pee. But, alas, the follow-through seems to be lacking. The girls started off in separate classes again this year, but I decided my sanity was more important than their unique, individual personalities, and requested to have them moved into the same class. So now they are together in a grade 1 class (A was previously in a grade 1/2 split class), and both seem to like that.

So, that’s the updates for now. No pictures tonight, but I promise, as soon as A’s glasses arrive (we’re told it should only be a few days), I’ll put up a pic of her sporting her new look. (Not a big surprise, I’m sure, but she chose the pink glasses… even though I had her try on almost all the others first.)

K…

Summer vacations – parts 1 through 5

2011-08-17T23:54:00.001-04:00

Part 1 – Toronto – Centreville:

Part 2 – Toronto – Zoo

Part 3 – Grand Bend

Cherry picking…

Beach…

Part 4 – New Brunswick

Part 5 – Newfoundland

I have tonnes more pictures of Newfoundland but I know you’re all really just interested in the pictures with the kids in them. But believe me when I say, Newfoundland is GORGEOUS!

A big shout-out ‘thanks’ goes to Teagan, Zoey, Sonya, and Paul who hosted us and made our visit so much fun. We can’t wait to come back!

Happy 6th birthday!

2011-07-01T20:15:00.000-04:00

Photo courtesy our fabulous caregiver, Heather.

P.S. We have had no end of computer problems. We had to take into the shop for repair, and while it is now working, it came home with everything wiped from the hard drive. And I can't seem to download Windows Live Writer again -- it wants me to create a new account for this blog, but then won't let me (probably because this blog is already linked to my existing account!) If anyone has a solution for me, let me know. I miss Live Writer.

K..

Time flies…

2011-05-29T19:20:00.001-04:00

So, once again a lot of time has passed between updates. I have serious doubts that anyone is even reading this blog anymore. Let me know if you see this post, because if no one is reading anymore, I’m going to shut it down.

So, what’s new since the last update?

1. A visit to the sugar shack.

In early April we visited a sugar shack not far from Ottawa. We didn’t have a lot of time, and I would have liked to have spent a bit longer there, but we did manage to fit in the main things…

A ride on a horse-drawn carriage…

Saying ‘thank-you’ to the horses afterwards…

A visit with the farm mascot…

And the petting zoo….

2. New Hair Cuts…

3. Easter (and egg hunting)…

4. B’s 4th birthday!

5. Spring arrived…

And the kids are enjoying flip flop weather, and playing outside..

6. Mennonite Relief Sale.

And finally, this weekend, we headed to New Hamburg for the annual Mennonite Relief Sale where we ran into old friends and ate lots of yummy food.

It didn’t rain, but it was overcast and threatening rain much of the day; so we put the kids in their rain suits. I must have been asked at least a dozen times in the span of a couple of hours where we got the suits. Everyone wanted one..

Okay, that’s it for now. We are heading into a busy summer season. My work is very busy, and I have a lot to get done over the summer, but we are still planning a few trips. We want to get to the Toronto Zoo and Centre Island again this year. We’re also heading to Newfoundland for a reunion of our China travel group from when we adopted the girls (we didn’t travel with a group when we got B), and hope to get to New Brunswick at some point. We’re all also anxiously looking forward to our week at the cottage with my family. I’ll try to find time to update this blog though throughout the summer, at least with some pictures.

Have a great spring!

K…

What have we missed?

2011-04-04T20:56:00.001-04:00

Okay, so it has been a long time since I’ve posted anything so I’m sure there will be lots of stuff that I could be telling you about, but I’m not going to remember it.

A big part of the reason why there have been no updates lately is the DoT and I lost our camera. It was missing for about 6 weeks, and then we finally figured it out and found it. And without pictures, I know there is no point coming to this blog. But, finally, the camera is back, and I’m going to try to be a bit more regular about updating here. I know, I know… I’ve said that before.

So here is some of what we have been up to…

1. Chinese New Year

We celebrated at a friend and colleagues house, and I thought I would have had a picture of all three kids in their New Year’s outfits, but I don’t . So here’s a shot of B.

All three kids got skates for Christmas and the host of the New Year’s celebration had a backyard rink. It was fantastic. The kids had a great time skating in the back yard and I had a great time watching them through the sliding glass doors, in the warmth of the kitchen, with a glass of wine in hand.

2. March Break

DoT and I both had to work, so the kids spent the days off of school at the caregiver’s house. And they had way more fun there than they would have with DoT and I. Every day was a theme day… space day, pool party day, pirate day, etc. And one of my personal favourites… rock star day.

3. Swimming Lessons

All three kids have been enrolled in swimming lessons for a few sessions now, and are starting to get really into it. It took quite awhile for E to get to the point of being willing to put her face in the water. But now they are all well beyond that. A is able to do a front float for a fair while, and a back float for a few seconds too. E is close on both counts and I expect it won’t be long before she’s doing it too. B is a bit further behind, but he is two years younger after all.

4. Spring!

Yes, it looks like spring has arrived in Ottawa. (When I first wrote that sentence I wrote `has finally arrived in Ottawa’, but since both sets of parents have had big dumps of snow in the last week or so, I thought I really shouldn’t complain.) Anyhow, my spring bulbs are up, and the days are getting a bit warmer. On the weekend DoT took the kids to the park for the first time…

Well, that’s it. This blog post makes it seem like we haven’t been doing much for months, and in a way I guess that’s kind of true. We’ve mostly hibernated for the winter. We’re all very happy spring is here.

I promise to try to update more often.

K…

A look back at 2010

2011-01-07T23:23:00.001-05:00

It was a good year.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Halloween

2010-12-22T19:44:00.001-05:00

Hi all, DoT here with an overdue update. First Halloween:

Guess which kid was woken up for this photo?

Plenty of visits by the Tooth Fairy:

A had 2 visits within 3 days (you can see her new teeth coming in already)

E was a little jealous until her own tooth fell out a few days later

Mr B insisted he be included in the pictures as well.

The kids decorate their own tree

Then start work on the big tree

A makes a gingerbread house with uncle J

New jammies from grandma …

E explores her artistic side…

Happy butterfly

A shows off her Minnie glasses (her sister asked not to be included – not up for dealing with the paparazzi today)

Merry Christmas everyone, we’ll miss everyone out east this year…

Once again I question why we live here…

2010-10-25T12:23:00.001-04:00

So, as you may recall, when we came back from our trip to Mexico I spent the next couple of weeks trying to figure out a way to move my family and take up residence there. Well, we’ve now just returned from a trip to Disney World, and again I’m questioning why we live where we do. While in Florida, it was sunny and hovering around 30 degrees (Celsius) the whole week. When we arrived back in Canada, the temperature was hovering around freezing, and it’s been raining ever since. And the worst of it is that I know the miserable weather is just starting. I hate winter.

On a more pleasant note, we had a great time in Florida. Although there really weren’t a lot of things for the kids to do in Disney World – partly because they are too short, the rides/shows were too scary, or one adult was not allowed to accompany more than one kid on a ride at the same time. But we met a whole bunch of characters (Mickey included!), who the kids didn’t know ahead of time but with whom they insisted we get their pictures.

Unfortunately, while at Disney my camera batteries died and I hadn’t brought any extras with me. So, I don’t have pictures of the kids with Mickey, Minnie or Goofy. But I got the Disney Photo Pass and so there are pictures on the Disney site. If you want to see them, let me know and I’ll send you the account into and password. I may end up buying some of them, even though they are pretty expensive ($14.95 for one photo!) If I do, I’ll put them up later.

And for those of you wondering how I kept track of three kids at Disney on my own – I rented a double stroller and then made all three kids sit in it. It was a lifesaver.

If I were to do it again, I’d probably buy fewer passes for Disney and spend more time at the resort. The kids had a great time swimming in the numerous pools at the resort…

Since getting back, we’ve been taking it easy. Yesterday we decided to go get pumpkins so we can make jack-o-lanterns this week. Keeping with tradition, we took the kids to the pumpkin field to pick their own. It was a cold, rainy day, and the mud was pretty slippery in the field, but the kids had fun anyhow…

Back to work tomorrow. :-(

K…

I love this…

2010-09-29T20:50:00.001-04:00

I have never heard of 8th Continent, but if I knew where to pick up some of their soymilk, I’d run right out and get some (in spite of the fact that none of my family members like soymilk). It is just so refreshing to see a mom depicted in a commercial who is not perfect….

The company’s website includes the following: “We know it’s not easy being a mom. That’s why we salute momhood for what it is: doing your best every day, and trying not to screw up too much. ” What a great motto.

School (and everything else) starts…

2010-09-14T22:30:00.001-04:00

So, another school year has started and once again, B is not happy about being left behind by his sisters. This year I don’t have a picture of him wailing at the bus stop. You’ll just have to visualize it. Actually, it was when we dropped him of at the caregiver, but the expression was pretty much the same. :-) Don’t worry, he got over it pretty quickly.

This week is the first full week of the girls going to full-day kindergarten. All of the kids’ activities started last weekend too – swimming (for all three kids), piano lessons and Chinese school (for the girls only). So, naturally this week everyone is a little bit on edge and there have been lots of time-outs and melt-downs late in the day.

Keeping with tradition, I captured the girls on their first day of school…

The first day of school we had some issues with the bus, and the girls ended up not being dropped off at the caregivers’ house. But I think we have it all sorted out now. Also on that day, we discovered that the girls have been separated this year into two different classes. Not a big deal, but it might have been nice to know that a bit in advance so I could have prepared them … especially E who is not crazy about the idea. And I have sneaking suspicion that the main reason the girls were separated was to make it easier for their teachers to tell them apart, and not for their benefit. But, whatever, it will probably be good for the girls too.

Finally, for the last year or so, I’ve been struggling with the girls who always want “wild hair” – i.e., no barrettes or pony-tails, etc. But I can’t stand seeing their hair in their eyes all the time. Last Saturday we had an appointment to get their hair trimmed, and on a whim we all decided that bangs were the way to go. Here are before and after pictures, all taken within a couple of hours of each other… (sorry for the quality of the first shot… it was taken by DoT on his cell phone)

Finally, for those of you still having difficulties telling the girls apart, your troubles may soon end. We had both girls to the eye doctor on Friday, and it looks like at least one of them may need glasses. (Of course, I guess if they both end up with glasses, you could still have problems.) We go back at the end of the month, to further assess them, and we’ll see then. I broached the subject of glasses with them, and unlike my experience (oh so many years ago, when glasses were absolutely not desirable), both girls want to have glasses.

Finally, I wanted to put up a picture of the kids in their new Chinese outfits from Auntie P and Uncle J. (Thanks so much, J&P!) The outfits are fantastic. My pictures really don’t do them justice.

I had to take a lot of pictures to get this one decent one (with them all looking at the camera and smiling). Here’s one of the failed attempts, but I still love this picture…

Okay, so I think we’re now up-to-date (for anyone who hasn’t already seen it, I put up a post a couple of days ago. Scroll down if you missed it.)

K…

Vacation Part 3

2010-09-12T16:19:00.001-04:00

This post has been a long time coming. We’ve been very busy, and I just haven’t been able to find the time to put up another blog post. But I didn’t want to miss telling you all about our trip to Centre Island (Toronto), so I’m finally resorting to just a quick post with a bunch of pictures.

Friends of ours had suggested to us that when we were in Toronto we should check out Centre Island. And am I ever glad we listened to them. This place is perfect for kids our kids’ ages. For weeks after we came back to Ottawa the kids asked when we were going to go to Centre Island again. We had such a great time. Here are a few of the (many) pictures we took….

Checking out the view on the ferry ride to the Island.

B and I riding the chair lift across the Island. Notice my seemingly happy expression in spite of the fact that I did not enjoy the ride at all. I’m not a fan of heights, and despite the fact that the chair didn’t look that high up from the ground, when I was up in it, it seemed a lot higher. B on the other hand loved the ride.

As did the girls (A in this picture) and DoT…

Don’t you think every car should have two steering wheels?

Hey little brother!

Riding the rails.

And, of course, there was the always popular merry-go-round.

Finally, after learning my lesson with the chair lift, I made DoT take all the kids on the Ferris wheel. First A and B…

Then E…

I zoomed in for this picture, from at least 20 metres away. How does she always know when I’m taking a picture, and manage to mess it up at the last moment?…

Okay, so that’s all I’m going to say (show) about Centre Island. For anyone out there with kids between 2 and 8-ish, I’d highly recommend it.

Coming soon… a post about what’s happened in Ottawa since we got back.

Summer Vacation – Part 2

2010-08-18T21:20:00.001-04:00

After the cottage we headed to Toronto for a few days. Day 1 was a trip to the zoo. The kids were pretty impressed with the animals we saw, even though it was very hot and we were there most of the day. Here are the most popular animals we saw (yes some are dad’s favourites)…

Spot the loudest animals in this picture (hint: there are three of them)

Hey wait a minute! These elephants aren’t nearly as big as they looked a few minutes ago…

Don’t worry tiger – the fence protects you from our kids…

How come the orangutan can wash windows but our parents can’t?

I don’t believe it either A, but dad claims it swims in the water..

This polar bear could backstroke with the best of them

We’re the star attraction!!

Thankfully the kids didn’t realize you could get camel rides – dad wasn’t keen on that idea

These animals were more fun to ride, although they kept turning left all the time…

These are the only animals mom and dad would let us bring home – they said “no” to the tiger…

Vacation 2010 – Part 1

2010-08-05T21:54:00.001-04:00

For the last two weeks, we have been vacationing. We started off at our annual cottage week in Grand Bend, Ontario. For the last ten years or so, my family has rented a ‘cottage’ (really more of a house) and all congregated next to Lake Huron for a week. As always, we had a great time again this year. I think our kids would happily spend 24 hours per day at the beach. E spent a lot of the time just running up and down the shoreline. B and A alternated between the water and the sand. And DoT and I mostly sat and enjoyed watching. :-)

They also spent a lot of time as super-heroes….

And being with cousins, and aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas was pretty great too…

There are lots more pics on my flick*r account, so head on over there if you’re interested in them. (Send me an email, or leave a comment if you want me to add you as a ‘friend’ to view the pictures.)

Also, after viewing all these droopy-drawers pictures from the last couple of weeks, I just ordered one-piece swimsuits for the girls. :-)

K…

Happy Family Day, E and A!

2010-07-04T17:37:00.001-04:00

It’s been a busy time for us lately… the girls’ birthday was on June 27th, then Canada Day on the 1st and the girls’ Family Day on July 2nd.

On their birthday, we went strawberry picking at a local farm here (Proulx). It’s become a tradition that every year at around this time, we meet up with friends for a morning of strawberry picking and fun at the farm. This year it had been raining a lot the week before we went, so it was very wet. And the berries weren’t very good. But the kids had fun anyhow…

Then after the strawberry picking we came home for birthday cake…

And the best part, for the kids, I think, was licking the candles. Although the first time he did it, B stuck the wrong end in his mouth. :-) Good thing they had blown the candles out first.

On Canada Day we went to park not far from our house. I thought rather than try to head downtown to Parliament Hill, where I knew there would be too many people (over 100,000, I’ve heard since), we’d go to a local park where I knew they had Canada Day events planned. Well there were still way too many people. The girls really wanted to ride the merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel, but the lines were so long we’d have had to wait over an hour I’m sure for either one. So, instead we paid too much money for them to have (their first) horse ride. They all enjoyed it, but all the way to the car they still complained about not getting to ride the Ferris wheel.

And then, Friday was Family Day for the girls – the anniversary of the day we got them. It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since we first met E and A. The time is going way too fast. So here are this year’s pics (yes, there are two of each of them… I can’t decide which of their referral photos I like best. Must be the chicken suits – I’m sure they’d make anyone look great) …

If you are interested in looking at the photos from previous years, check them out here…

2009: http://andstillwaiting.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

2008: http://andstillwaiting.blogspot.com/2008/05/happy-referral-day.html

2007: http://andstillwaiting.blogspot.com/2007/07/happy-uh-gotcha-day.html

My work has finally lightened up a bit, thankfully. I’ve been very, very busy at work right up until yesterday. Last week , E drew a family picture that she gave to DoT… I was conspicuously absent in the picture. :-( I guess my family may be feeling a bit neglected. Oh well, I should be around more now, and hopefully the blog posts will pick up to prove it.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer so far, and keeping cool somehow. We’re in the middle of a heat wave in Ottawa, with temperatures feeling like 38 or 39 degrees with the humidex. I’m really looking forward to heading to the cottage in a few weeks in Grand Bend. For any of you reading who are in that area, think about dropping by for a visit. We’d love to see you. Send me an email if you think you can make it, and I’ll give you dates and directions.

Bye for now.

K…

A quick update

2010-06-13T22:26:00.001-04:00

Hi again,

Just wanted to give a quick update since a lot has been going on here lately. Firstly, I can’t believe I didn’t mention this awhile ago, since it is big news… B is out of diapers. Yeah! ! Well, during the day that is (he still wears a diaper over night). About a month ago our caregiver decided it was time, and introduced potty training. I must be oblivious to the signs that kids are supposed to give you to let you know they are ready. Because I saw no sign B was ready, and yet it really only took a couple of days for him to leave diapers behind, so he clearly was (ready). I can’t tell you how excited I am to have no more kids in diapers. :-)

In other big news, the girls got bikes today. Their birthday is in two weeks, and we had already told them they were getting bikes for their birthday, so when we picked up the bikes today there just really didn’t seem to be a point to trying to hide them (yeah, good luck with that if we even had wanted to hide them) until their birthday. So, they had their first ride today. It was a short ride (at least shorter than they wanted). By the end of it they were starting to get the hang of it, but they will need some more practice yet before they truly master it.

When we decided to get the girls bikes, we started looking around at them in stores and everywhere we went B was very enthusiastic about the bikes. We told him many times that he was not getting a bike, but somehow I doubted that that little bit of information had truly made it into his brain. Well, despite my fears, B handled it better than expected. He made it clear he expected one too, but got over it pretty quickly. And while his sisters were out learning how to ride a bike, B contented himself with playing with bubbles…

Happy spring everyone! Take a moment in the next week or so to truly enjoy the long days, because they start getting shorter again in a week.

K…

Has it really been a month?

2010-06-09T07:35:00.002-04:00

Okay, I know I`ve been neglecting this blog. Sorry, but all I do these days is work and sleep. My work is crazy busy these days and I find myself putting in a couple of hours of work every night (at least) after we get the kids to bed. Finding two minutes to blog has been difficult. And it`s not likely to get any better for at least a few more weeks. So, don`t look to this blog for too many updates in the near future.

For now, I'll just stick a picture up, since I know that's what everyone comes for anyhow...

Sorry, see you in a few weeks.

K...

This is a test

2010-05-07T14:27:00.003-04:00

A blog I read (Salsa in China) put me on to Windows Live Writer, as an easy way to write a blog post and put up pictures. So I thought I’d try it out. So, if you’re seeing this post, then I guess it worked.

And what better way to test if I can post pictures from here, than to put up another Mexico picture. (It seems like years ago.) Actually it’s a series of three pictures from when, on the last night there, I tried to get a picture of the three kids on the bridge over the pool (that we had to cross several times, each and every time we walked past it).

Attempt #1:

Notice what happens as soon as I grabbed A’s arms to try to get them down for the pic? Her sister took right up in her place…
Attempt #2:

And then this….
Attempt #3:

At which point we gave up.
K….

Why don't we live in Mexico?

2010-04-18T21:05:00.002-04:00

Right now I can't think of a single good reason.

K...

New shirts

2010-03-17T20:09:00.000-04:00

Check out the new t-shirts the kids got yesterday... Shauna, our fabulous caregiver, made them for them...

Look!!!

2010-03-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

Don't see what I'm so excited about? Maybe another angle, and a close-up will help....

Yeah!!!!! Welcome spring.

A busy weekend

2010-02-28T15:56:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we hosted a young woman from China (Wuha) who, unfortunately, we didn't get to spend nearly enough time with. She was in Ottawa as part of the International Volunteer Exchange Programme run by MCC, and we put her up in our spare bedroom. Her sessions each day went from 8:30 a.m. until 9:00 p.m., and by the time we picked her up and got her back to our house she was tired and so were we. (The kids don't seem to understand that you should sleep in on the weekends.) So, we didn't really get to talk too much in the evenings. But then, last Sunday, she and another woman from her hometown in China spent a couple of hours in my kitchen cooking. There was a potluck meal last Sunday night for all the (59) volunteers and their host families and so they made a couple of traditional Chinese dishes. And I paid close attention and tried to take notes as they went along. Of course, they had brought with them a couple of the more difficult to find ingredients, but they were kind enough to leave them with me when they left, and the one who is currently doing a placement in Calgary has assured me that you can get these things in T&T (which we now have in Ottawa!) Of course, they told me that it wasn't actually traditional Chinese food, because they couldn't get the spices they needed for that, but they recreated it using what they could find here. Tasted amazing, though, anyhow.

They were very kind and at the same time as they made their dishes for the potluck, they made an extra dish (Twice-cooked pork) which they left in the fridge for us to eat Monday night. It was fabulous. The potluck and programme last Sunday night were really great too, but unfortunately A came down with something and started with a fever. It was a flu or something, and thankfully didn't last long. She missed school on Monday but then was pretty much over it by Tuesday.

We've exchanged email addresses with Wuha, and hopefully we can keep in touch with her wherever she ends up going (she's in Washington state for her placement right now). And when we go to China for a visit with the kids, I'd love to see her there.

Last weekend was also busy because the kids started swimming lessons on Saturday morning and the girls were invited to a birthday party (their first) on Saturday afternoon. I was laying 50/50 odds that the girls would actually go into the pool, but they surprised me and both went in and said they had fun. Not as much fun as B though, as evidenced by the fact that he screamed for about 30 minutes straight after DoT hauled him out of the pool at the end of the lesson. It was awful. I wonder how many people wondered if we were crazy white people abducting a little Chinese boy. :-) Anyhow, yesterday at their second lesson they all still loved it and we were able to bribe B out of the pool and out of the complex without a major meltdown.

The birthday party last Saturday afternoon was crazy. I think Shauna (the birthday girl) had invited her whole class, and most of them showed up. I'm a firm believer of limiting the number of kids to the child's age.... i.e., if you're turning five, you get to invite five kids (of course I'm still hoping to avoid hosting birthday parties for a couple more years). It was pretty chaotic in the house and it was the longest two hours I've lived in a long time. So then the igrls went to school on Monday morning and came home with an invite to another kids birthday party which happened yesterday. I was still recovering from the first one, so I made DoT take them. :-)

The weather in Ottawa is very mild these days. Which makes it perfect weather to make a snowman. A few years ago a friend of mine gave us a snowman kit, which we finally were able to use today. Poor B napped during the whole event, but E and A had a great time creating our snowman. Here he is...

Of course, then they declared that was 'daddy' and proceeded to make a snowman to represent all of us. I'll let you decide who's who (hint, the little one in the middle is B) ...

I'll have to end here if there is any hope in getting this post published this weekend (believe it or not I actually wrote most of this a week ago). I'll leave you with some random pictures taken this week. The first one is from Friday following classroom Olympics at the girls' school. As you can see we have a couple of athletes in the family... one silver and one gold medal (don't ask me why the colours are as they are). Not bad. :-)

Family Day

2010-02-15T22:13:00.001-05:00

Hi all, DoT here. Another weekend has flown by and I have survived Family Day with the kids (the Federal Public servants don't get this day off so K was at work - knew I should have picked "heads"). Today was especially a challenge since we will have house guests starting Wednesday night and the house needed, shall we say, "a lot of tidying up". As anyone with kids knows, as soon as they sense you aren't paying 100% attention to them, they start to circle.

Things weren't too bad until just after lunch. I told B it was time for his nap and he started running away saying "no!"(hope my new team at work turns out to be a little more cooperative when I ask for things). I then carried B to his nap with him screaming and kicking. Once he was behind bars, I turned back to cleaning. The girls were able to amuse themselves for a while but then started to want to shred paper like Dad. Now you might think "what's wrong with letting the kids help out" - well I have stories about scissors that made me hesitate with giving any shredder lessons. I still think it would be wise to hide the shredder before they start improvising sometime soon.

As well, I got the usual challenges to have treats all day. I fear the day is coming soon, when they will have out-thought me at every turn and have an answer prepared in advance for every situation. Today A spotted some jelly beans Grandma had sent us from Xmas.

A: "What are those?" (sensing the set-up already - pretty sure she has seen a jellybean or two before)

Me: "Jellybeans" (missing a chance to change the course of the conversation).

A: "Are they yours or ours?" (again all finesse - my answer won't change anything)

Me: "Yours I guess". (here it comes)

A: "So...can we have some?" (no beating around the bush when the jugular is exposed).

Me: "After Supper".

A: accepts after minor grumbling sensing she has totally mastered the negotiation. By the time she asks for that convertible, I will have no chance other than to run away from her.

In the midst of all this, we have an ant problem in E's room. I didn't think ants came out in the winter but we now have proof that they do. She, it also turns out, has a fear of ants (either one of the other two kids would have loved that upgrade to their accomodations). We put down some traps, removed a kid snackbag that was likely attracting them and vacuumed everything; but apparently it will take a few weeks for the traps to take effect. In the mean time she has not been too keen to go in there or go to sleep.

So by this afternoon I am getting tired, and a bit frustrated, and the kids must have decided I needed a bit of comic relief.

After the girls playing in E's room for 20 minutes, E came out with a big pout on and said "Daddy, A has an ant and I don't". I had to think this phrase over to make sure I had heard that right.

Me: "Let me get this straight - you want an ant?"

E: "Yes"

Me: "Let's go find you an ant". For the next 15 minutes A and E both have ants crawling on their hands and arms and think it is hilarious. This goes on until E can no longer find her ant. She figures it is in her pants. She finally ends up getting totally undressed in an attempt to find her ant, and plans to stay that way. I convince her to at least put on her PJs. It is at this point that I hear A talking to her ant "where are you Ant Mimi?" She had a pretty dead looking ant and I told her finally to flush it. She told me finally that Ant Mimi had been flushed down the toilet. A half hour later, I am in tears and laughing so hard that I can barely re-tell this story to K on the phone. All in all, a good ending to a day I had ant-ticipated would be difficult (sorry couldn't resist - hope Ant Mimi won't be offended).

Here is a shot from the day. They look so innocent don't they?

We're back

2010-02-02T20:43:00.000-05:00

For those of you who think, based on the title of this post, that we are just returning from a fun-filled vacation in the sunny south, think again. What we are back from is a week of sick kids, and a lost Internet connection. But no need to dwell on that... we survived both and are back in the land of the living and the connected. :-)

So the big news these days is that after 9.5 months of full-time French language training, DoT took his oral interaction test last week and passed! He is now back to his regular day job, and couldn't be happier. Yesterday was his first day back to his regular job, and then today I found out that I've been approved to go on full-time language training. What are the odds? Unlike DoT though, I will be leaving my post for only about 8 weeks. And I have to clear my desk of the seventy billion projects I have on the go before I leave, so I won't be going on training until at least May. I think I will enjoy language training in the summer months.

Good news for those of you who like winter about as much as I do... A announced today that she couldn't see her shadow so spring is coming soon. Never mind that she was standing outside this evening, in the dark, while looking for her shadow. Good thing she didn't take a couple of steps backwards where the light cast from our lamp post would have hit her. :-)

DoT is away today and tomorrow at a management retreat for his work, so that makes me a single mom for a couple of days. I don't know how people do it. Thank goodness it's only for a couple of days.

Well, that's it for tonight. Happy Gound Hog Day! Pictures next post... I promise.

K...

We are so ready for spring

2010-01-19T21:09:00.001-05:00

Ugh. I've had enough. Bring on spring.

It seems to me we always have a nice thaw during Winterlude here in Ottawa, so I'm thinking the spring-like weather will soon be on its way. It can't arrive soon enough for me. I have had it with winter coats, boots, hats, scarves, mitts, snow, ice, sleet, etc., etc. I think we need to move to Victoria. Or maybe Turks and Caicos.

In other news, we apparently now have a sixth family member ... every time E draws a picture of the family there are now the regular five of us, plus a big guy in the middle who is "Yo Gabba Gabba" (a really irritating Treehouse character). I find it quite entertaining now to see the art work of A and E. It seems like all of a sudden they went from just scribbling to now having real pictures. Sure our heads may be joined directly to our legs. But usually DoT and I are depicted wearing glasses, so we can always tell who is who. :-)

Well, seems it is official, the girls have left their fevers behind. Apparently it is quite unusual for siblings to have PFAPA syndrome, so their doctor at the Children's Hospital is going to write them up as a case study. I'll let you all know when that's published because I'm sure you'll want to rush out and purchase a medical journal to read all about it.

In unrelated medical news, we're thinking we're going to have to have B tested for whatever it is when people have problems due to low sugar. (If I wasn't so tired, I'd Google it and find the proper name for that). We've finally clued in to the fact that B's major meltdowns happen right before a meal. We figured it was just that he was hungry, and therefore cranky. But really calling him cranky when he's in the middle of these episodes is like saying a severed arm is uncomfortable. Technically true, but a gross understatement. The other day B worked himself into such a state he couldn't control himself. He ended up in his crib for over a hour and we only managed to get him over his fit by shoving a raspberry into his mouth and covering his mouth with a hand until he finally swallowed. Once he'd had a bite, he calmed down and was willing to eat, and then was his normal happy self. So now when we get him up in the morning we greet him with a sippy cup of orange juice. I wonder if he's just playing us... wouldn't we all like to be greeted with breakfast in bed every day?

Finally, I now have an excuse to break my New Year's resolution. These weekly updates may prove more challenging now that I have two more people to compete with for access to the laptop. The girls have discovered Starfall.com (thanks for the heads-up, Jan).

Happy Family Day B!

2010-01-13T19:53:00.000-05:00

Wow, hard to believe that one year ago yesterday we met B. Time flies...

January 12, 2009:

January 12, 2010:

A look back at 2009

2010-01-04T18:54:00.004-05:00

Well, how do you like that... here we are four days into the new year and I haven't broken my resolution yet. :-) (See the post below if you don't know about my New Year's resolution.)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This is the post that never ends ...

2009-12-31T18:14:00.002-05:00

...it just goes on and on my friends...

So I've had that song in my head now for the past couple of days. You know the song that starts with "this is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends" and then continues from there without ending. I can only remember the first couple of lines, but even that is enough to go around and around in my head without ending. So I guess it truly is the song that never ends... at least for a couple of days.

I'm sure the reason for the never-ending song in my head is that I've been thinking about putting together a blog post for a couple of days now and there is so much to tell that I feel like this post could go on and on and on. Sorry. I'll try to keep it brief. And my New Year's resolution for this year is to update my blog at least once per week so hopefully future posts will be shorter, and more timely. We'll see how long that resolution lasts. (In past years my resolutions have lasted about 3 days.)

So, lets start with the girls' fevers. About a month ago ago we went back to the Children's Hospital to see the Infectious Disease team, and (drum roll please...) it looks like the fevers are gone. I was convinced the doctors were wrong and the girls did not have Marshall's Syndrome but it looks like they did. They had their tonsils out on August 20th, and since then we haven't had what I consider to be a "real" fever. A had a really low fever for a day after she had her H1N1 vaccine, so I attributed the fever to that. And E had a low fever for a few hours, a couple of weeks back, which was accompanied by a runny nose, coughing and congestion. So, it looks like it was a flu bug. In both cases the fever was just over 100 degrees, and lasted only hours. It was a far cry from the 104/105 degree fevers that last four or five days that we'd become used to.

In other health news, I took the girls to our pediatrician's office for the regular flu shot a few weeks ago. E really doesn't like needles and before going I joked with DoT, laughing that there wasn't much E could do... it's not like she could get up and leave if she decided she didn't want to go through with it. Well, yeah, nice theory that. When I was sitting on the pediatrician's table, holding A while she got her shot, E announced that she didn't want the needle, opened the door to the office and left; in spite of me hollaring at her to "get back in here!". She went to the waiting room play area and hid. Luckily there aren't really that many great hiding spots in there and I found her pretty quickly.

B has now started at the same daycare the girls go to. He loves it. I'm back to work, and I love it considerably less. :-) I had been hoping to get many of the things on my to-do list done during my time away from work, but that didn't happen. Although, I did have all my Christmas shopping and decorating done before I went back, which was nice. A couple of weeks ago we pulled out the Christmas decorations and put them up. We have a small tree that we let the kids decorate themselves. Then they "helped" us decorate the big tree. Only a few ornaments were broken. Here are a couple of pics of the event...

And here is a short video that makes me laugh, of B trying to find the perfect spot for an ornament...

The only problem with B's starting daycare is that most days he is not napping. He has always been a really light sleeper, and there is just too much fun going on at the daycare, so he refuses to sleep. Which makes supper time and the evenings really unpleasant for all of us. I know it is hard to believe since B seems to be such a fun, easy-going kid, which he is for the most part, but he can also be really terrible. For him "the terrible twos" seem appropriately named; at least during the 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. timeslot.

We have lots of snow in Ottawa, which the kids are loving. But it now takes about 15 minutes to get all the kids into snow suits, hats, mitts and boots before getting out the door in the morning. And of course none of us wants to get up 15 minutes earlier in the morning, so we're kind of pressed for time these days.

DoT and I went to a parent/teacher interview several weeks ago. The girls' teacher told us that the girls "don't have a mean bone in their bodies" (mostly true), and that she loves having them in her class, and then launched into a running commentary on everything that is wrong with their participation in school. :-) Basically, on what I'll call the academic side, the girls are doing fine. They can both print their names now, with only minor mistakes, and can count to 30 or so, and recognize the numbers 1 to 10, and most of the letters of the alphabet. But, on the social side of things (which is what much of jr. kindergarten is about), they have some work to do. The biggest issue the teacher seems to have with them is that they like to play with each other, and don't interact as much with the other kids. This is especially the case with E. I have always wanted the girls to have a strong bond with each other, and it seems I've got my wish. The teacher recommended (again), that we seperate the girls into different classes next year. If at the end of the year there is still an issue with how the girls socialize with others, then we'll consider it.

Now the only other comment the teacher had was that the girls have trouble "keeping their hands and feet to themselves". Both DoT and I thought that meant they were hitting or kicking other kids. But no; it means they are too "huggy". They "like to give their friends hugs". So on the one hand we have them not playing with other friends, and on the other hand they are hugging the other kids when they shouldn't be. I guess that means they are just randomly running up to kids and hugging them. :-)

Around Remembrance Day, the girls homework entailed finishing the sentence "Peace is...", and colouring a picture of what they said. Later the teacher put together a book of what all the kids had said, and it rotated through the homes of the kids. When we got it, I took pictures of each page as a momento. Some of the sentences by the kids said things like 'giving hugs', or sharing candy or toys. E said peace is "when you say sorry". A, on the other hand, said peace is "keeping the streets clean". Huh? Overall, a really cute project. And, to Spencer, who said "peace is being with my babysitter", I would like to say "amen to that". :-)

Okay, I'm going to end here. I know I haven't talked about Christmas, and maybe that will be a post for another day. It certainly deserves a post of its own. But for now I'll just say the kids thoroughly enjoyed Christmas this year; and loved all the gifts they got from Santa and others. It was touch-and-go right up to the very end as to whether or not Santa would leave gifts or lumps of coal, but in the end the kids all got what they asked Santa for, so I guess they were good enough this year. :-)

Happy New Year everyone!

K...

The Difference Between E and A

2009-11-06T14:59:00.004-05:00

People often ask us whether the girls are very different. My typical response is that the are very similar in a lot of ways, but that they do have there own unique personalities. The are similar in that they like the same things, and act very much alike. However, personality-wise, they are quite different. And nothing illustrates this difference more than their reactions to the snow we had last night. When I was driving home with them and pointed out that it was snowing, they both were very excited. A (or as she likes to call herself these days "super martian robot girl" - I have no idea where that comes from!), immediately said "I'm going to make a snowman". E, on the other hand, said "I hope we don't get stuck."

K..

Happy Hallowe'en

2009-11-02T10:31:00.002-05:00

I forgot to take a picture of the kids on their way out of the house, but I made them put their costumes back on later in the evening (when all they wanted to be doing was eating their candy) so I could get a picture...

We also tried to carve the pumpkins we picked up last weekend. Turns out no one in this household has any talent whatsoever when it comes to pumpkin carving. These were the kids' pumpkins...

B's is on the left, E's is in the middle, and A's is on the right. B didn't actually draw a face, so DoT improvised for his. E and A both drew the eyes and noses, but had just a line for the mouths, so again we had to improvise a bit. (And the eyes and noses are bigger than they were drawn. If we wanted any candle light to come through we needed to make them a bit bigger.)

This was the pumpkin made by the babysitter (with the kids) on Friday night. She has more talent than all of us put together...

Hope you all had a fun Hallowe'en night, and got lots of goodies!

Livin' the good life

2009-10-27T09:59:00.009-04:00

Hi again all,

Well, we've been so busy lately we haven't had a chance to update this blog. So we have lots to tell you. And lots of pictures to go with it.

Firstly, the big news around here is that we are now able to eat tomatoes. You have no idea how happy we all are about that. All of the kids are pasta lovers, and it's tough to make any kind of pasta (or pizza for that matter) without tomato sauce, particularly since we're still off dairy so that takes out all the cream sauces. We've been making due with butter, or oil and garlic, but we're all thrilled to be able to get back to tomato sauces.

To celebrate, one of the first nights after we introduced tomatoes back into our diets we made our own pizzas. It was really fun watching them make their own pizzas. Their personalities came shining through... E was very methodical about it, carefully spreading out the ingredients to have an equal distance between each piece. A on the other hand was much more a grab-and-scatter kind of gal. B wasn't quite sure what to make of it. And all three of them ate many of the ingredients off their pizzas before the pizzas ever made it into the oven. I guess they were hungry.

This past weekend we made our annual trek to the Proulx Family Farm to pick out our pumpkins. (Incidentally, we need to find a new pumpkin farm... Proulx is just getting too expensive.) The kids had great fun picking a pumpkin. There was only one rule... whatever pumpkin they picked they had to be able to carry themselves. As you can see from the pictures, they had a great time running through the fields looking for the perfect pumpkin.

In the end these were their choices..

They all ended up picking fairly small pumpkins, but they still had fun climbing around in the bigger ones...

Of course you can't visit the Proulx farm without also participating in the other activities at the farm...

And, of course, we took our pictures next to the "How Tall This Fall?" sign, as we have every year.

(They haven't really shot up since last year, have they?)

Okay, I've now spent most of the day trying to also upload a short video for you, but blogger doesn't seem to want to let me do it. So I'll end here. If I'm able, I'll add the video in the coming days.

Have a happy Hallowe'en everyone!

Thanksgiving Update

2009-10-14T21:24:00.005-04:00

Greetings DoT here - I couldn't miss out on a rare chance to write something in English (I am entering my 7th month of full-time French training -I will need English training when I am done). This past weekend we travelled to visit Grandma and Grandpa G. It was a busy weekend as you can see below. We had a family Thanksgiving get-together/karaoke party (see photos below).

We also went to see each of our nephews play hockey. The girls found the arena too loud and held their hands over their ears for most of the two games. This despite the fact that they scream like banshees at our house and don't even seem aware that they are doing it. In spite of the noise, they were always excited to see cousin M or J on the ice and A screamed their names when they played a shift. E also told me she wants to be a referee (they watch games with me on tv now, just to see how many referees they can spot - I think they are fascinated by the man in black and white giving "time-outs" to adults for being naughty). I'm not sure how she thinks she can signal the penalties (time-outs) with her hands over her ears, but I'm sure she'll figure something out.

On the way back to Grandma's from one of the games, I managed to run over a speed bump a little too quickly. Mom and E thought this was funny and laughed. This was, however, quickly followed by a grouchy comment from the backseat "Super A is not laffin'!" Apparently superheroes who need to get around in minivans have high expectations of their drivers...

We survived the trip back home (even though Mr. B was a tad edgy from having missed 4 naps this past weekend and didn't want anyone else singing or talking along with Dora in the van).

Last night we had a cake for me (I turned the big 4-0 yesterday). The girls sang Happy Birthday but E then informed me with a pout that she would blow out the candles (we ended up sharing that responsibility).

You'll see below some heartwarming pics of the girls feeding their younger brother - until you realize they are doing it to get rid of the food in their bowls (not big breakfast eaters). If you can't have a dog, you need a younger brother.

Finally tonight the kids were playing at McDonald's Playland and we sat back and watched as the girls helped pull B up each level and then we saw A guiding B onto the big slide so that they could come down together (screaming and laughing) - there may be hope for my kids yet. All in all, a good week with plenty to be thankful for.

Pics below:

23 days 'til Hallowe'en

2009-10-08T15:31:00.002-04:00

We're starting to get excited about Hallowe'en...

K... (who is really looking forward to the girls going back to daycare next week)

School Hat Day

2009-09-29T08:29:00.002-04:00

Today is Hat Day at the girls' school (otherwise known as "Spirit Day"). So, here is our morning photo. Not to be outdone by his sisters, B got into the action too...

Not much new happening

2009-09-22T14:03:00.004-04:00

Well, we're in our second full week of school for the girls this week, and B has gotten over the injustice of the fact that he's not allowed to go on the bus in the mornings. I know that given half a chance he'd be on the bus before I could stop him, but we hold onto him pretty tightly when the bus pulls up, and for the most part he accepts it.

So far school seems to be going pretty well, although it's hard to say really since the girls are pretty tight-lipped about it. But we've received a couple of emails from the teacher (sent out to all the parents) and it sounds like things are going fairly well.

In other big news, we are in the midst of having hardwood floors installed on our main floor. It should be done tomorrow, and I'll try to take a picture then and post it. (No pictures today because our camera is buried somewhere on the island, underneath everything I took out of the cabinets, to keep things from getting broken when the floor guys are moving furniture all around.)

Finally, I once again have all three kids home with me. Our caregiver went into the hospital today and it is very unlikely that she'll be able to take the kids again until next week.

That's it for now. Have a good week everyone.

K...

*** Edited to add: If anyone is interested in purchasing an Entertainment Book, let me know. The girls are selling them for a school fundraiser. (If you don't know what an Entertainment Book is, then you're probably from a location that doesn't have them. So, don't worry about it. That means you, mom.)

First day on the bus

2009-09-15T09:03:00.003-04:00

I had planned on putting a post up yesterday with pictures of the first time the girls got on the school bus. But, unfortunately, we missed the bus. Not because we were late, which I know you were all thinking, but because the bus was much earlier than we had been told it would come. We had arrived at the stop 10 minutes earlier than I expected the bus. So, we waited at the bus stop for about 30 minutes, along with another family who arrived at the stop after us and was waiting for the same bus. They took this picture of us to mark the occasion...

And here's one of just the girls (both with their eyes closed, oops)...

So today we headed out to catch the bus about 10 minutes earlier than yesterday, and we were still only at the stop about 2 minutes before the bus came. I wanted to get pictures of both girls getting on the bus, but A got on so quickly (while I was talking to the driver, confirming that they were supposed to be on this bus), that I missed her entrance. Here's a pic of E as she got on...

Good thing she's had all that practice rock climbing - those steps are pretty big for her. :-)

And here is one of B, when we grabbed him and wouldn't let him follow the girls on to the bus. I'm sorry, it's terrible to admit, but this just makes me laugh...

Poor guy. Heehee.

K

End of Summer

2009-09-09T13:45:00.002-04:00

This week DoT's family rented a cottage near Ottawa, and we've been catching up with them, and enjoying the great weather.

The beach at the cottage doesn't have any sand, but the kids have had great fun throwing rocks... mostly into the water, but occasionally one lands remarkably close to a sibling. So far, no one has been hit... we're not sure if they have good aims, or poor ones. Actually, B did get hit by a stone; but since he'd launched it straight up into the air and it came back down on him, he had no one to blame but himself.

Here are a few pics of the fun at the beach...

Splashing is fun...

And apparently dumping water on your head is fun too. (So why is it such a tragedy when DoT or I accidentally dump a bit of water on their faces when we're washing their hair in the bath tub?)...

Fun with frogs...

Other pics from the weekend...

The other big news of the week is the A and E started Jr. Kindergarten this week. A went to school on Tuesday, and E went today (Wednesday). Now neither one goes again until next week when they both will go full time (2.5 hours per day). This week I drove them to school and picked them up afterwards, but starting next week they will take the bus. Hopefully.

When I asked each of them how school was, they both said "good". And that was pretty much all I could get out of them. For all I know they spent their school days eating candy and running around screaming; since those two things would constitute a good day in their opinions. :-)

Here are the mandatory first-day-of-school pics...

And one final one of A giving her sister a good luck hug this morning before we headed out the door (or is she trying to put a choke hold on her? One never knows) ...

Daycare starts tomorrow (yeah!)

2009-08-30T14:11:00.002-04:00

Hi again all,

So, first off, the girls are doing really well. They are acting completely well, and I've given up on trying to keep them from running. We're still not riding bikes or going to the park, for a few more days, but otherwise things are back to normal. I'm not sure we're done yet with the whole tonsil ordeal (not sure if the scabs are off yet) but at the very least we're nearing the end. For about a week after the surgeries the girls did not sleep well at all, but things are much improved and last night none of the kids woke up during the night. Yeah!!

Tomorrow the girls start at a new daycare. We will be easing them in this week, so tomorrow they will probably only go for an hour or so, and then we'll increase it a bit each day and see how it goes. I expect they will be fine with it. We've talked a lot over the last months about going to Shauna's house, and they seem fine with it.

Tuesday, they both have their interviews with their new teacher, so that will be fun. And then next week they each go to school for one day (well actually, for 2.5 hours of one day); and the following week they start school for real. I can't believe it. When did they turn from babies into little girls?! I'll try to remember to take pictures of them on their first day of school, to post here.

Also this week, DoT's family will arrive in Ottawa for a visit. This will be the first time most of them have met B. They are renting a cottage not too far from Ottawa, so hopefully we'll get to spend lots of time visiting with them.

And I know you haven't seen a lot of pictures on this blog lately, so I'll end with a few pics today. The first one shows the girls and DoT a bit later in the day after we were at home following their surgeries. Can you tell one of them feels better than the other? :-)

This is E a few days later, after having spent the weekend back in the hospital...

And here are a few pics of them with the giant animals that DoT bought them at the hospital gift shop. The frog is named Hip Bone and the tiger is named Leo. (The frog was originally A's but E really wanted it and A was nice enough to trade. What a nice sister.)

And finally, here's a shot of B. He's really into the Thomas set lately...

On the mend (hopefully)

2009-08-26T09:52:00.002-04:00

Hi again,

Well, here we are almost a week after the girls' surgeries and things are definitely better than they were. Both girls are now feeling quite good. The only remaining problems are more mine than theirs. We were told by the CHEO ENT team that they are not allowed to run, jump, climb, etc., for two weeks after their surgeries. So I think I holler "don't run!" at least a few hundred times every day. Running is their normal pace, even in the house, so it's hard for them to remember. Also, they don't understand why they shouldn't run (I'm not all that clear on it myself).

The other challenge right now is getting them to drink enough. We were given a guideline that says they should each drink about 1 litre of water, daily. And the ENT coordinator told us that was a minimum. When I complained about how much water that was, he told me just to have them take a couple sips of water every fifteen minutes. No problem. Yesterday, I set the kitchen timer to go off every 10 minutes while they were awake and every time it went off, all day long, I made them take a couple of swallows of juice or water. At the end of the day, E had drunk about 500 ml, and A had drunk about 600 ml. So we're not really anywhere near where they are supposed to be. Today I'm setting the timer again all day, making them take bigger drinks every 10 minutes, and I suspect they won't nap today so that should also help. We'll see.

Of course, all this drinking means we are also making more trips to the bathroom than we're used to. Our days are just jam packed with fun stuff... drink, pee, drink, pee, repeat, repeat again. :-)

We were warned that they will again have a fair amount of pain when the scabs fall off in their throats; and were told this would happen anywhere from 5 days to 10 days after the surgeries. We're really looking forward to that. (We're on day 6 right now.)

Quick update

2009-08-24T13:05:00.004-04:00

Hi all,

Erin is home. She ended up staying in hospital from Friday to Sunday. She's on antibiotics now, and had a steroid dose in the hospital; which seems to have worked wonders on her. She now is acting completely well. Much like Alex was until her experimental drug treatments ended. We only had to give the kids the experimental drug/placebo for two days following their surgeries. Alex is now not doing very well. It seems like all I do all day is beg, plead or fight with her about drinking more. She's pretty sore.

All I can say is that if she ends up going into the hospital because of dehydration, DoT will be the one accompanying her. I can't face another night in there.

I hope this ends soon. I'm reaching the end of my rope. :-)

On other happier news, yesterday we went to a reunion of the families that travelled to China at the same time as we did to get the girls. It was a really great time. I so enjoyed catching up with the people who were there. The only problem was that the day went by far too quickly. Well, that and the fact that the girls just had their tonsils out so weren't feeling too great and couldn't really participate much.

I'll try to post some pictures from the day when I get a chance.

That's it for now.

K..

How much does one kid have to drink? (Updated)

2009-08-22T14:56:00.005-04:00

So, three rounds of antibiotics and one round of steroids later, E is doing pretty well. She says her throat doesn't hurt anymore, and was very upset that I wouldn't share my pizza at lunch with her. (While Popsicles and ice cream may be all she's supposed to eat these days, it's not enough to carry me through... although there are not a lot of other choices in the snack shop downstairs.) In fact the ENT team has cleared her to go home this afternoon, if she drinks enough. Which is turning out to be the problem. She doesn't have a sore throat, she's just not thirsty and not really interested in drinking. She's still hooked up to an IV line too, so I don't imagine that's helping.

She has also decided that she doesn't want to go home. Although one might think it's because she having such great quality time with mom, rather it's because she doesn't want them to take the IV off of her. And it's not even the idea of taking out the line, I don't think. It's the tape they use to keep it on. All the nurses and residents here have taken great pains to tell her that it doesn't hurt, it just feels like Band-Aids. And there lays the problem. E (and A too, for that matter) love to wear Band-Aids, but never want to take them off because they think it hurts. No matter how many times we have taken Band-Aids off, and it didn't hurt, we've been unable to can't change their minds about this. So E thinks she can go through the rest of her days, I guess, in this hospital room, with this IV line attached.

Oh, and I just found out that they are giving me a prescription for the antibiotic she's on, so we can give it to her at home. It tastes horrible, according to the nurses here, and E agrees. It's becoming more and more difficult to get her to take it. In fact, about 10 minutes ago it took the nurse and I both holding her down in her bed with strangle holds and forcing it into her mouth. (Thankfully, she doesn't seem to have yet realized she could just spit it out, and once it's in her mouth she swallows it.) I guess if she's still on the antibiotic come Monday, DoT will have to come home during his breaks in his French training, to help hold her down to take her meds. :-)

No decision yet on whether or not she will be discharged today. I guess I should ask exactly how many cups of apple juice she needs to drink before they'll let her go home.*** And then I can line them up on her tray and force them into her like I am the antibiotics.

K...

*** Update -- okay, so the official answer is, 80 mL per hour and 960 mL per day. So about four times as much as she is. Oh yeah, it is not looking good for us getting out of here today.

Back in hospital

2009-08-21T19:23:00.002-04:00

Okay, so this morning I finally decided enough was enough, after fighting constantly with E and still not successfully getting her to take in much liquid. We arrived back at CHEO late morning, and not long after that E was admitted. Since then she's had an IV to get her re-hydrated (she was dehydrated), pain meds, and the doctor has ordered some antibiotics. She still isn't doing great. Still fighting with me a lot when I try to get her to drink anything. But she is still on the IV, so it's less of an issue. Until tomorrow when they will probably discharge her again.

I'm late getting this post up because E's been watching videos on my laptop, and playing her first computer game. Clicking on a paintbrush and then "painting" a colouring page. She's not bad at it considering she's having to use her left hand... they put the IV in the right hand and she fought so much when they put it in her that they had to really strap her onto the board that comes with it. She doesn't have much movement in her right hand as a result. :-) DoT will probably be happy to read this. Both E and A still occasionally switch back and forth with which hand they use, but it seems they both consistently prefer their right hand. And DoT would love another lefty in the family. There's still hope for B, I guess.

B is doing fine. He's a bit difficult because the girls are wanting more attention from us than normal, and more than he'd like us to pay to them. I'm sure DoT will be happy to get both A and B to bed tonight. He's got his hands full, I'm sure.

A continues to be "well". You'd never know she had her tonsils out yesterday, except for a bit of a squeaky voice when she talks. And the fact that she is really milking this and getting basically as many Popsicles and as much ice cream as she likes. (B too, because really it's just easier to give in than to try to explain to a 2 year-old that his sister is having a Popsicle/ice cream and he can't have it.)

Finally (Cathy B - in response to your comment), I haven't gone to the docs to demand the "real drugs" for E, but the thought has crossed my mind more than once to just dip into A's bottle of the medicine and give it to E. If only I wasn't so rules-oriented, and could live with the thought of messing with a "randomized controlled double blinded study" and inadvertently having the study results skewed, possibly depriving millions of poor little children without tonsils of a truly miraculous drug. :-)

Anyhow, that's it for tonight. Here's hoping for a good night and a turning point in E's recovery.

The storm before the calm?

2009-08-21T07:36:00.003-04:00

Oh man, what a night. I spoke too soon yesterday when I said things were going pretty well. I guess I should have known. Things are always worse at night. Last night E was up, screaming, every couple of hours. And it often took almost an hour to get her calmed down enough to go back to sleep. It was rough. She really, really, didn't want to drink anything. And in fact, refused even to swallow her own spit. I'm hoping for a big improvement today, or we just might end up back at the hospital. She's going to be dehydrated soon, if we don't get some liquid into her.

A woke up only once, and I don't think it was because of her throat. She just slept a fair amount during the day yesterday, and she wasn't really that tired. She wanted to play.

E's still asleep right now, so I don't know how she'll be yet this morning, but I suspect that after a few hours of not swallowing she won't particularly want to take it up again. It's going to be a battle.

A is wide awake, acting like her normal self. Our biggest trouble with A right now is trying to get her to not run and jump around. The girls are not supposed to run or jump, or do anything really active, for two weeks. How do you convince a four year-old, who runs everywhere, not to run?

Surgery done

2009-08-20T12:22:00.003-04:00

So here I sit beside E's bed at the Children's Hospital, and what do you know, CHEO has an unsecured network enabling me to check in with you all.

Both surgeries are done, and from what the doctor tells us, they went fine. Both girls bled a bit during the surgery, but not much. We're in the recovery room right now waiting for the girls to have drank enough that the hospital staff are willing to let then out of here. Which judging by A would have been about a half hour I go, I'm guessing; and judging by E may not be until tomorrow. :-) Kidding. We'll get out of here sooner or later.

The girls are participating in a randomized, double-blind drug trial to test out the dosing of a new medication, not yet approved for tonsillectomies in Canada. We know from the forms that one of them has been given the drug and one has been given a placebo. And now, shortly after the A's surgery (and a couple of hours after E's surgery), A is singing, talking, and playing; has drank I don't know how many cups of apple juice; and eaten at least three Popsicles. E is sleeping right now after her second dose of morphine; not yet having finished one cup of apple juice; and choking down a half a Popsicle. Hmmmm, which one do you think is on the real drug? :-)

Actually, I'm pleasantly surprised. A is doing great, with little to no complaining about her throat. And even E, who obviously is less comfortable following the surgery, hasn't been complaining too much. I feared we might have to non-stop crying kids, who both refused to drink anything. So far, we're doing okay. However, one of the nurses here did warn me that often kids do better for the first few days, and then around day 3 or 4 it gets a bit worse. We'll wait and see, I guess. Nothing else we can do.

I'll update again later, if I get a chance.

My, how time flies

2009-08-17T16:20:00.004-04:00

So, after being told to expect to have the tonsil surgeries in two months, we are now scheduled for this Thursday. The hospital called last Friday, but we were unsure until today as to whether or not the surgeries would go ahead, since E had ibuprofen last week. We had previously been told no ibuprofen for two weeks before the surgery, but apparently it's not that big of a deal, since the surgeries are going ahead.

So, this Thursday, E and A will both have their tonsils and possibly adenoids removed. And then we somehow survive the following two weeks, after which life becomes perfect bliss. Or at least it feels that way after the previous two weeks with two four-year-olds in pain, and the previous three plus years of having someone in the household with a fever every 2 to 3 weeks. Or that's the plan. :-)

Prayers, crossed-fingers, good vibes (or whatever else might be your particular approach) are much appreciated.

K...

Medical update

2009-08-11T15:47:00.003-04:00

Today we had the girls back in to CHEO (the Children's hospital here) to meet with the ENT team, to discuss getting their tonsils out. The Infectious Disease team at CHEO and DoT believe the girls have Marshall's Syndrome (I'm more sceptical... big surprise there, eh?), which is what is causing their fevers. A few medical studies have been done which suggest that if this is the problem, then removing their tonsils will stop the fevers (anywhere between a 50% chance and a 90% chance, depending on the study you believe). So, we have signed the papers to take out their tonsils.

It's a fairly easy surgery (only about 45 minutes) followed by what was described to us as "2 weeks of hell", while the girls recover. We've decided to have the two girls' surgeries at the same time... two times the amount of "hell", but for only half as long, I guess. :-) Of course, that assumes that neither one of them will have a fever when their surgery is scheduled, because if they have a fever the surgery will be cancelled. Oh, and they are not allowed ibuprofen for 2 weeks before the surgery and a few days afterwards, which really complicates things if they do have a fever during that time. Right now the only way we're getting through any fevers that come along is by alternating Tylenol and Advil/Motrin. If we have to cut out the Advil/Motrin, it's going to be tricky.

So, the ENT doctor figures it will be about 2 months until their surgery. Anyone want to come and visit for a week or two in about 2 months time? I may be needing a vacation around that time. :-)

Finally, I'm noticing a distinct lack of recipes provided in the comments to my previous blog entry. Thanks, M, for the only suggestion we've received. Come on everyone else... surely you have a non-wheat, non-dairy, egg-, tomato- and cranberry-free recipe to share.

K...

Help!

2009-08-07T15:39:00.003-04:00

I have already asked many of you, in person, for suggestions of food/recipes that we can make for our family meals. Here's the opportunity for the rest of you to pull out your family favourites and pass them on. But before you do, read on...

I think all of you know how much I hate cooking, so make sure your meals can be prepared with a maximum of 20 minutes of prep time. :-) Also, and here is the hard part, we are no longer allowed the following foods in our diets:

- wheat
- dairy (all dairy, i.e., cheese, yogurt, milk. Butter apparently is okay, as is almond milk, rice milk, or coconut milk. No soy milk though.)
- eggs
- tomatoes
- cranberries (no big problem there).

The results of A's allergy test indicated high sensitivity to the above, and the naturopath wants us to eliminate all these things from our diets. Or at least A's and E's diets. But it seems, at the least, impolite to eat all these things in front of them when A and E can't have them. (Note: ketchup, cheese, and veggie dips were previous staples in our household.)

In the summer we're getting by since we like to bbq, so meals typically consist of barbecued chicken or pork, with rice or potatoes and veggies. And the kids like most fruits. But lunches are a bit difficult. I don't like a big meal for lunch, and my old standards are now verboten. So far we've been eating lots of rice and rice noodles (although we're missing tomato sauce), and some soup (you'd be amazed at how many soups, you'd never expect it of, have tomato in them). And it's getting tiresome. Also, we can't seem to learn to like the wheat free bread we've found (mostly rice bread). So sandwiches are out. If any of you have a good wheat free bread machine recipe, let me know. I've put the emphasis on "good" because I've found lots of recipes, but so far I wouldn't say any of them are good.

To end, in a somewhat rare move, I've decided to put a photo on this blog that has me in it. :-) Here's the photo that will go with our 6-month report back to China for B's adoption. Can you tell I got a bit of sun the day before this was taken?

Vacation and more

2009-08-01T14:14:00.003-04:00

Hi again all,

I am writing this post from a lawn chair in my backyard, refreshment in hand (or at least sitting within arm's reach). You may have noticed that a lot of time has passed since my last post. Part of the reason for that has been that we've been really busy. But a big part of it has also been that our home computer has been acting up making it practically impossible to send email, yet alone update the blog. Well, yesterday DoT and I (and all three kids! yikes) went out and bought a new laptop, and wireless router. So now I'm testing it out with a new post. So far I'm loving it.

So, last week we headed to a cottage on lake Huron for our annual cottage week in Grand Bend with my family. It was great again this year, in spite of the less than stellar weather. Here are just a few of the hundreds of pictures I took...

Here are DoT, A and B on one of the many, many trips DoT took to the edge of the water to get buckets of water for the kids, for their sand castles...

A and E at the beach (we were there most sunny mornings)...

B and cousin M sharing a laugh...

B and DoT just relaxing at the beach...

A and E at the campfire (we had a campfire and roasted marshmallows every night (with the occasional smore and banana boat thrown in for good measure)...

Finally, here's a shot of all the cousins. I'm not sure why but none of my kids seem to be able to wear a coat or sweatshirt with a hood and not wear the hood at all times. Anyhow, the kids sure are growing up...

Since getting back from vacation, I've had a friend visiting from southern Ontario. I also hired a high school student for a few days this week so my friend and I could get out and do some touristy things. It's been a nice relaxed week. That all ends tomorrow. Two more weeks until the girls' daycare starts up again.

Tonight DoT and I are planning to meet a couple of old friends for dinner and a movie. We haven't done that in ages. I've been really looking forward to it, which explains why last night A started with a fever again. So far she hasn't seemed too bad and we're still hoping to go. But we'll see. Hopefully we can get through this fever without a seizure and then that will be two in a row. Wouldn't that be nice?

Well, I'll end here. Hope you are all enjoying your summer. And here's hoping the weather in August is better than it has been this summer so far.

K...

Happy Family Day A & E!

2009-07-08T16:02:00.008-04:00

So, some of you may remember that I intended to take a picture of the girls holding their referral photos each year on the anniversary of their referrals. However, my intentions don't always materialize. As you may recall, a couple of years ago I missed their referral date. So, instead, I had them pose, on the anniversary date of getting them, with pictures of themselves from when we first met in China.

Well, this year I actually did think about taking their pictures on their referral date, but I couldn't find the enlarged photos I'd made from their referral pics. So, since I couldn't take their pictures with their enlarged referral pictures on the anniversary date of their referrals, I figured I'd do the 'family day' photos again this year, instead. Yeah, well, I thought of that again today... 6 days after their family day anniversary. Oh well, better late than never, I guess. Here they are holding their pics from three years ago on July 2nd...

Here, for comparison purposes, are links to the posts from the last two years where we did these pictures...

2007 Family Day anniversary photos
2008 Referral anniversary photos

Finally I'm attaching two videos to this post. The first one shows B starting down his chosen career path of drummer. The second one shows A "reading" a book to E. The book basically consists of one animal after another coming to eat the one before it. It's a bit repetitive, but I couldn't edit the video before posting. Sorry. :-)

Happy 4th Birthday!

2009-06-27T21:25:00.006-04:00

Wow... 4 years old. Can you believe it?

It was a big day today, with lots packed into it. First, we met friends at a local berry farm this morning.

We took a wagon ride back to the berry patch...

And after spending more time than I thought we'd need picking, we ended up with three baskets...

As you can see from E's chin, and A's top, we also ate a few :-) while we were there.

Then from there, we headed to a local park that our friends introduced us to. After a picnic lunch, the kids took off playing. Check out this play structure. It was huge (over two storeys high).

There were lots of other structures and swings too, and other things that twirled the kids around until the couldn't stand up straight. :-)

Finally, we loaded them into the car because it was already after the time that B naps. Of course look who fell asleep (and didn't!) on the way home...

All the kids napped when we got home (which of course DoT and I paid for with a much later than normal bedtime tonight). Then it was supper time, followed by birthday cake. The girls were thrilled with the Pablo (one of the Backyardigans, for you uninitiated) cake.

They were also thrilled with the gifts they opened from P and Uncle J, and from Grandma M...

Finally, what better end to the day could there be that getting to watch tv in mommy and daddy's bed, while eating popcorn?

That, in a nutshell, was our day today. I have a tonne more photos, including the obligatory, messy-cake-eating photos, on my flickr account. So, go there if you want to see them. (Let me know if you want to be allowed access, but haven't yet.)

K...

A month in photos

2009-06-23T18:21:00.003-04:00

Okay, finally found the camera cord. So here's your photo fix...

E & A "helping" DoT plant a rose bush...

Do you think we can convince M to move to Ottawa? We sure appreciated him at the swing set... no pushing required on our part...

B gets his turn on the swings...

E and A monkeying around at Grandma's house...

Driveway art. (They're "drawing daddy" on the driveway)...

Fun with bubbles...

Catching up

2009-06-17T09:43:00.003-04:00

Okay, so it's been awhile since I last posted, and a lot has been happening. I'll try to bring you up-to-date with the highlights, but unfortunately we've misplaced the cord to connect our camera to the computer; so this post will be without pictures. If I find the cord, I'll throw up some pictures in another post.

1. Ultrasounds

E and A both had ultrasounds done at the local children's hospital at the end of May, in a continuing attempt to figure out what's causing their fevers. We had prepared them for the ultrasound with lots of talk ahead of time about what would happen. And, in fact, when we arrived there was even a fight about who got to go first. Yeah, well, that didn't last. By the time we were in the examining room, neither wanted to submit to the torture, and we had to hold poor A on the table while the technician did the work. And she a strong one (A not the technician). :-) Actually, after the first few minutes, when she realized it didn't hurt (I guess mommy and daddy's word on that wasn't believable) she settled down and was fine. And then when it was E's turn it was okay because she'd already seen A go through it.

They weren't allowed to eat anything before the ultrasounds, but we had plied them with Popsicles to try to ensure they had full bladders for the ultrasound... but not too full that they had to pee. It's a delicate balance with three year-olds, and in the end A peed before she hit the exam room, but then had to pee again during the ultrasound. And I had to take E out to the washroom mid-way through the ultrasound because she just absolutely could not hold it any longer.

2. Mennonite Relief Sale

Right after the ultrasounds, we had lunch and hit the road for southern Ontario for our annual trek to the Mennonite Relief Sale.(http://www.nhmrs.com/) Saturday was a beautiful day and we enjoyed filling up on pork on a bun, fresh donuts, and apple fritters, with about 20,000 of our friends. :-) Tragically, for the first time ever, we missed out on the strawberry pie. It was sold out by the time I made my way inside the arena.

3. E's dentist appointment

E had a visit to the dentist in early June (A had an appointment awhile ago, did I blog about that?). She did fantastic. Not only did she sit in the big scary chair, but she even let the hygienist check her teeth, clean them, floss a bit, and put some fluoride on them. And she even helped out by handling Mr. Slurpy (the hose-thing that sucks up the water out of your mouth when they spray it in to rinse). And then, when the dentist came in, she let him have a look too. (A, at her appointment, was happy to hear about what goes on, and play with Mr. Slurpy, but wasn't willing to let them do anything to her other than a quick "count" of her teeth.) When E was finished she was allowed to pick out three toys from the treasure chest. I helped her find three, but really she wanted one thing in particular and that was it. (A small, squishy, gel-like blob that doesn't do anything.) So, while I talked to the hygienist to try to coordinate the next appointments of A and E, she went back to the treasure chest and put the other two toys back. Never mind that A came back from her visit to the dentist with a toy for her sister and brother too.

4. B's dedication

The next weekend my mom and dad came for a visit to be here for B's dedication at our church. Those of you who attend our church know what a fiasco that was. For everyone else, lets just say there was lots of running around at the front of the church when we were supposed to be standing still and listening. I'm sure everyone in the pews were thinking that we should never have gone back to China for a third child, because clearly we are having trouble managing the first two (and now the third). :-)

5. Another weekend of travelling

Last weekend we hit the road again for southern Ontario to be there for the milestone birthday celebration of a good friend of ours. (Happy b-day, K!) This trip also coincided with Field Day (a fun day in the small village I'm from), so we took in a bit of that while we were there, and won the prize for having made the longest trip to get there. And it really was the 'longest' trip... we hit Toronto traffic on the way down, and what used to be a 5.5 hour trip for DoT and I before we had the kids, turned into a 9 hour drive.

Before we left on Friday morning, the girls got their hair cut. In spite of the fact that they both insisted they wanted short hair "like B's", I only let them cut off about 2.5 inches. When I'm able, I'll post pictures.

Of course, all of this was complicated by the fact that ALL the kids had fevers over the weekend. E's started Thursday evening, A's started Friday evening, and B's started Saturday. On the up side, there were no seizures this time. I felt like I was giving meds constantly though... the girls were getting Advil/Tylenol every three hours and B got thrown in there too from time to time. (His fever wasn't really too bad.) Plus, we have a heavy medication schedule for the girls now since we took them to a witch doctor Naturopath in early June. We take a whole bunch of different medications/supplements which means that basically I spend most of the day running after them with spoons full of stuff trying to get them to down it. (Sorry if I've offended any strong believers in Naturopaths. Take comfort in the fact that if this all works and gets rid of the fevers, I'll be the biggest convert to the benefits of Naturopathy in history.)

The girls stayed home from daycare yesterday, but are back today and we're trying to get back into our regular routine.

I think that about covers the highlights of our last few weeks. Like I said, I'll try to post some pictures soon. And maybe even another blog post.

K..

New Duds

2009-05-25T11:01:00.004-04:00

This weekend we had a (too short!) visit from Auntie 'Em and L.B. And they both brought fabulous new clothes for B. Here he is sporting them...

P.J.'s from Auntie 'Em (we know Grandma M., particularly, will appreciate these)

And a beautiful hand-knit sweater from L.B.

Nice.

K.

Cool commercial

2009-05-21T09:17:00.010-04:00

Hi all,

I just saw this on another blog site I check out every now and then. Regardless of where you stand on the whole pro-life/pro-choice debate, I think you will appreciate this from an adoption perspective...

Oh yeah, in case you noticed something is different... I thought it was time for a change. Hence the new look to the blog.

K..

Wet Weekend

2009-05-19T14:26:00.005-04:00

This weekend was the last weekend of the Tulip Festival, so we decided to get out and take in the tulips. Of course, Saturday morning was the best opportunity for us, and therefore it poured rain at that time. But we went all the same. The kids were all set in their rain suits, so the rain didn't bother them one bit. (And I can't tell you how many people commented to us that they wished they had suits like that too.) DoT and I don't have raincoats, so we got plenty wet. (I actually went out and bought a raincoat since this happened.)

Here are a few pics... (it's funny that the pictures don't show how hard it was raining)

Mmmm.. popcorn. It didn't get too soggy.

After checking out the tulips, we went to the small midway just next door. The kids had spotted it on the way in, and I don't think there was any way we were going to get out of there without a trip to the merry-go-round.

All the kids enjoyed the little train ride...

But only A was brave enough for the merry-go-round...

Have a great week!

K...

Rants

2009-05-13T09:12:00.010-04:00

Okay, enough is enough. What is wrong with retailers these days? Was it always like this and I was blissfully unaware? Or has the race to be the first out with the new season or holiday gotten out of hand? You know, every year, just after Thanksgiving, I would hear people starting to complain about how the stores were setting up their Christmas displays and it was only October. But I didn't care... I love Christmas and the sooner I start seeing the decorations the better.

But, apparently consistency in my views is not something I strive for. Because this week when I was shopping for sandals for the girls, I found out the I've missed sandal season. Yes, believe it or not, on May 11th when I was looking for sandals, thinking we may need them in the next couple of weeks, I was told that "sandal season is over". Okay, maybe in the hot, sunny climates of the southern States, but for heaven's sake, we live in Canada! We have had maybe one or two days when my kids could have worn sandals so far this year... and I think I'm being generous here. I don't really think there have been any days yet where we could have been in sandals. (Because, as everyone knows... you don't wear socks with sandals!) But, alas, apparently I have missed sandal season.

And it's not just about the sandals. A couple of months ago, when I finally surrendered to the fact that my children's stomachs were hanging out of the bottom of their shirts and I really needed to get them some larger clothes, guess what I found in the stores then (in February/March!). That's right. Sun dresses, tank tops, Capri's and shorts, hats, sunglasses and bathing suits. Okay, so I know some people may be lucky enough to be heading south for a vacation in the sun at that time of the year, but surely not the majority of us. Where were the long sleeved shirts and pants? Apparently, we were into the summer season then.

And don't even get me started about the limited choice I already have in clothing because I am not willing to dress the girls in pink or purple all the time. When I went into Kiddie Kobbler on Monday I saw a display of about 40 different pairs of sandals for girls. About 37 of them were pink. Same thing everywhere else. I got to the point where I was walking into stores asking the sales clerk to bring me any sandal (boys or girls) that wasn't pink and was available in a 7.5 or 8.0. And as of today the girls are still going to be wearing running shoes, or going barefoot, all summer long.

Of course pink shoes would probably match their ensembles of choice these days...

Oh yeah, they like it...

2009-05-04T15:09:00.004-04:00

Update

2009-05-01T18:20:00.005-04:00

I should have known better. I used to know better. There was a time when I never would have pronounced us to be 'out of the water' or 'past the worst of it' or anything remotely like that, which would have required fate, or the cosmos, or whatever, to decide to knock that stool out from under us and put me 'back in my place'. But obviously, I forgot that lesson somewhere along the line. "Surfacing from sick week"... what was I thinking?

So, less than 12 hours after posting that blog entry, we were back to being a sick house. E's flu which had been gone (so we thought) for two days, was back. It only lasted a bit more than 24 more hours and, if I hadn't learned anything from the retribution to my last post, I would say that she's healthy now. But I'm not making that mistake again.

Of course, as soon as E's flu symptoms went away, A started with a fever. Great. So, that means that I'm running on very little sleep since then, since I'm up constantly through the night checking her temperature and, whenever it is high, spending hours with a damp cloth on her head trying to bring her temperature down. We were successful with that and the alternating Advil/Tylenol cocktails... for about a day. And then, yup, she had another seizure - yesterday afternoon. It was a mild one, or so our caregiver tells me. It happened at the daycare, and of course by the time DoT and I got there, it was long over. On the one hand, it's good it happened at the daycare, since I didn't see it, and I'm definitely less freaked out this time than I was the last time. (Although still a bit freaked out.) But, on the other hand, our caregiver assures us that this time she didn't stop breathing and so it might have been good if I had seen it, so I could quit worrying about the not breathing part. Anyhow, she hasn't had any fever medication for about 6 hours now and seems fine, so hopefully we're done with this fever and we're good to go for about another six weeks. Of course, I would never say that we're over it, or even suggest that I was thinking we're over it... at least not without knocking on every piece of wood furniture in our house. :-)

The playhouse that was ordered at the baby shower I went to last weekend has arrived and is being delivered to us (by our lovely friends who hosted the shower) tonight. Hopefully DoT and I will be able to put it together tomorrow. I'm sure all the kids will be anxious to have it set up, so we'll see what we can do. Neither one of us is the handiest though, so we may need to wait until Grandpa G comes for his next visit. :-)

Sorry, no pictures with this blog entry. Maybe if we get the playhouse set up soon we'll put a picture of that on the blog.

Also, for anyone who would like to have pictures from us that they can download and print (yes, I'm thinking of you, Cheryl M), send me an email and I'll add you to the list of people who can access our Flickr photos. We're starting to upload pics to Flickr (but we're not going back in time, so don't even bother sending us a request for a pic you saw in the past) so others can access them too. But I'm far too paranoid to make our Flickr account open to just anyone, so it's by invitation only. Send me a note and I'll add you.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend everyone!

K..

Surfacing from sick week

2009-04-27T09:29:00.015-04:00

So, after almost three years of being home with the girls from China, we finally had a sick kid this week. Aside from the frequent fevers that both E and A get (during which they don't seem sick as long as we keep the fever in check with Advil or Tylenol), neither one had ever been sick. At least not sick as in vomiting.. they've had colds in the past.

Well, this week E caught some type of stomach bug that involved abdominal pain (cramps probably, but it's hard to say since she just laid around whining and saying her "tummy hurts") and vomiting. She had it for about 4 days, so I consider myself lucky that she only threw up four times. The first time she threw up was kind of funny... it was a huge surprise to her (having never thrown up before in her almost four years) and she actually laughed after it happened. The novelty wore off though.. for both of us. After the first time though, she was pretty good about alerting us to the fact that she was about to be sick, and so we didn't have a lot of clean-up to deal with. I know, I know, this is more information that you wanted, right? Okay, moving on from this lovely topic...

Yesterday, A, B and I went to a shower for a friend who recently adopted a baby from Ethiopia. (Dot stayed home with E, to avoid passing sicko germs to everyone else). Well, it turns out that the shower was a surprise joint-shower for my friend and for us (actually B). What a nice surprise. We had a really great time - there was lots of food and I actually had a chance to visit a bit with friends, even given that I was on my own with two kids in tow. And, in a few weeks, we will be getting a play house that has been ordered as a shower gift. The girls are going to love it every bit as much as B will, I think. I showed them a picture of it and they are pretty psyched. :-) Of course, I didn't have a camera along with me at the shower, so I don't have any pictures to show you.

Yesterday was also B's second birthday. So we sang 'happy birthday' and blew out candles on a cake at the shower, and then did it all over again at home (so E and DoT could participate). I got a few pictures at the home rendition. Here they are...

(All three kids helped blow out the candles.)

While E was home sick, I pulled out my knitting thinking I could get back to it. (It's probably been at least a year since I last did any knitting.) E decided she wanted to knit too. Here she is with her work...

I'm thinking she did better than I did...

Notice the dropped stitch and the broken needle. *Sigh* Clearly I have some remedial work to do.

Well, that's it for now. Hope you are enjoying this spring and everything around you is coming alive. If you have any tips for effort-free-gardening (particularly for a garden that has been neglected for years) please, please leave me a comment. :-) (Comments on other topics are also welcome!)

K...

Welcome Spring!

2009-04-16T13:13:00.005-04:00

So, the weather is now starting to warm up and we've been trying to get outside and enjoy it. A few days ago, DoT took the kids to one of the parks near our house and they amused themselves by running up and down the hill. Well the girls ran up and down (oh yeah, and screamed, they're into that these days), B mostly just amused himself by watching them. :-)

Oh yes, and as evidenced by this video, my absence meant no one was thinking about how impossible grass stains are to get out of pants. :-) Fortunately, the grass hasn't yet started turning green so it was mostly just mud... that I'm hoping will come out easier than grass stains would ...

Finally, on Wednesday DoT and I took B and A to the Children's Hospital for the morning. B had three appointments (at 9:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 11:30 a.m. so we figured we throw in a trip to a clinic and some bloodwork for A while we were there. What a fun morning. While in the past A has handled blood draws amazingly well, Wednesday was an exception. Talk about screaming. I felt sorry for all the parents with kids in the waiting room while A was in having her blood taken. Try telling a kid it isn't going to hurt while they're listening to a screaming, sobbing, almost hysterical kid going through it right at that moment just on the other side of what must be a paper-thin door. Anyhow, we all survived it. The blood A had taken is going to the USA for some genetic testing, which we won't have the results of for 6 to 8 weeks.

B had his first speech therapy appointment. He's doing really well. The doctor was quite impressed with him, and especially happy at what a little parrot he is. It makes it really easy when he happily tries to say whatever you say to him. According to the findings of this visit, B currently uses b, p, t, d, m, n, w, s, k, g, and is starting to use h. He also is using simple words and some combinations he's learned (e.g., thank you; bye bye; how are you? (which sounds more like howyoo); and double, double (OK, he's not saying that yet, but he's heard it enough I'm sure he'll be ordering for us soon). Then after his appointment with the speech pathologist, he had a hearing test (where he finally 'aced' a test), and a visit to the Ear, Nose and Throat doc. There is some fluid in his ears, but given his good hearing test, they don't think tubes in his ears are needed - at least not at this point. He'll be followed every six months by both the Ear, Nose and Throat doc, and the speech pathologist.

No fevers for either girl right now, but I'm just waiting now for the next one for A. We have been given the option of putting A on anti-seizure meds to keep her from having another seizure; but we're not sure whether or not we'll do it. Dot and I are of different opinions on this, and while we all know that my opinion is the one that truly matters, the fact that DoT doesn't agree has me second-guessing myself somewhat. We'll probably wait until after at least the next fever has come and gone before we make a decision.

Finally, I'll end this post with a couple of pics. The first one shows how we travel the neighbourhood in style. (The hands are over the eyes because they all thought it was too sunny. Huh. No such thing, in my opinion.) The second one was taken the evening of Easter, following our egg hunt (we were too busy all day to get to it!)

Miss Negotiator

2009-03-31T15:44:00.008-04:00

She seems so cute, sweet actually, but in reality she is a .... master negotiator. You want proof, listen in on this exchange E had with her dad last week:

DoT: "E do you want strawberries or blueberries for dessert?"

MN (Master Negotiator): "grapes!"

Dot: "E that was not one of the options, do you want strawberries or blueberries?"

MN: "grapes!"

MN: "please dad may I have grapes?"

DoT, heading to fridge to get grapes: "grumble, grumble".

A sure sign you have more than one child happened yesterday when I had to ask everyone "OK now who put the stickers on Abby's bum (our cat)?" No one ever did fess up to that one.

After our scare two weekends ago, A seems to be perfectly fine. She seems to be into egging her sister on over who is first for everything (i.e. getting out of the car seat, getting a bib on, etc).

The kids had fun last weekend at our travel group reunion (the group we travelled with to get the girls). We had brunch then the kids played in the foyer. The funniest part was when some spa employees came out and asked the kids to be quiet (we didn't know there was one there - who knew 10 kids uttering piercing shrieks wouldn't be considered part of a relaxing day at the spa?)

Mom also had to explain to our girls that once you threw a coin into the wishing well, you didn't climb in to get it back...

Here a a few pics:

The hula rabbit (those ears need some coffee)

Our China travel group get-together last weekend

Busy ironing

New bunnies from Grandma M!

The Master Negotiator works best when no one can read her eyes...

The mandatory spaghetti face picture

The snazzy new vehicle the kids ride in at daycare (I am sure this thing is worth more than our Sunfire).

Wrestling...

What a week

2009-03-28T09:41:00.003-04:00

Hi again all,

Sorry for the delay in posts. It's been quite a week around here. Last weekend, A had two febrile seizures that landed her in the hospital from Saturday to Tuesday. As much as I like the Children's Hospital here in Ottawa (CHEO), I'd rather not visit it again. All of the doctors have assured us that febrile seizures are scary for parents/caregivers, but are not dangerous and cause no damage to the child. I'm trying to remember that while I prepare for our next one. (I have no doubt that we'll have more since E and A both have frequent recurring fevers - about every 4 to 6 weeks.)

The only good thing to come out of the whole experience is that it gave us an "in" to the infectious disease group at CHEO. They ran a whole bunch of checks and have decided that E and A's fevers are not caused by anything chronic. They suspect they have a familial fever syndrome -- but have told us it is quite likely that they'll never be able to diagnose it for sure. So, we will just have to live with the uncertainty - which is not the easiest thing for me.

When A had her seizures last weekend, she stopped breathing and her lips turned blue, which completely freaks me out. The doctors have said that this is not unusual, that when she needs a breath she'll take it, and that she will breath again when the seizure ends. But if any of you have experience with seizures and can reassure me of the same thing, please let me know. Maybe if I hear the same thing from many people, I'll stop being so worried. (PLEASE, if you aren't going to reassure me, than don't comment at all. I'm worried enough, thanks.) Looking on the positive side, we're also told that by the time children reach the age of about 5, their brains are developed enough that they won't have seizures anymore. So, we just have to get through the next year and a half, or so.

For right now, we are all well. No fevers in the house now, and aside from some crankiness and whining over the same toy, the kids are all running around and generally happy. I'd post a picture, but we aren't able to transfer pictures to our computer directly, and I'm too lazy right now to transfer them to the laptop and then onto the computer. Maybe DoT will post more pics this week.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

K...

Beef, Beef, Wonderful Beef!

2009-03-18T18:58:00.008-04:00

OK I guess I should explain the title. There is a Robert Munsch book where the girl sings "socks, socks, wonderful socks". We were at Lonestar for lunch having fajitas and A decided she wanted to try the beef (we always give them chicken, but she saw dad eating the beef). Once she tried it and liked it, she started singing "beef, beef, wonderful beef!" It did take me a while to figure out where she got the song from.

Yesterday I discovered something about B. You have a pretty good hunch that your son is going to be an extrovert when he says "hi" and waves to people......who are in pictures on your fireplace mantle.

Last week B was discovered to have parasites in his poo samples so we had to give him 33mL of medicine a day for three days. Thankfully he didn't seem to mind the medicine too much. The lady at the adoption agency said "so now he will probably start gaining weight". Oh man, I better start working out now to be ready to heft him around, he already weighs close to what E does. The urine test also revelaed that he may have a bladder infection (they want another test) and the blood people also want another test. Hopefully nothing serious in any of this. I sure hope he does better on school tests than on these ones because he is 0-3 so far. Here are some pics (relax none of them are of the poo samples):

The gang hanging on the stairs

B getting ready for what is becoming our daily wagon ride (we've already lost one set of mits that he tossed).

Limbering up for practice

Just hanging out

Playing with my cousin M's robot

A accessorizing

Monkey see...

Don't believe the picture - they still like books more than he does.

Dancing queens...

Mid March Update

2009-03-11T14:21:00.012-04:00

It feels like Spring is here at last! I have been asked what words B is speaking so far, so here are the ones I know of (sorry but I can’t identify any Mandarin ones he may be using):

Daddy (used interchangeably for either parent)
Up (so far not really used in context – he just puts his arms out and whines to get picked up. He also catapults himself off a stair at you if you are below him)
Hi
Bye
Thank you (he can’t pronounce it right but uses it at the right times)
Yeah (doesn’t bother with “yes”)
Naaa! (his “no”, he gets lots of that from Daddy and his sisters so he is getting quite used to it)

The girls have a few cute phrases I should note before I forget them:

Here is it! (here it is)
Cocadotties (polkadots)
Elewhips (used to say that for elephant but haven’t in a while)
What you laughin about?
Day-Gee-Oh (for Diego of “Dora the Explorer” fame)

There are probably more and if I remember them I’ll add them to a later entry.

I have learned you shouldn’t ask children rhetorical questions. Yesterday as I was struggling to loosen E’s seatbelt, I asked her why it was so tight. Her unexpected answer was “because you drive so fast daddy”.

Below are a few photos from the last week or so. B has actually taken a slight interest in books which is a step up from his previous state where he would just try to shut the book on you and escape.

E pauses from her busy schedule for a photo op

A makes me wear one of these "helmets" too sometimes.

I want my own car Dad

There must be a musical toy in here somewhere...

Peekaboo!

A new sport - Chair Diving

Play Ball!

2009-03-02T13:25:00.005-05:00

Since Spring Training is here we decided to get a few swings in last night. I think A is playing for the Texas Rangers and of course E is playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They hit the ball then run screaming to jump on the pillows so they are safe. I chase them with the ball to keep them honest.

A decides enough baseball, she is hitting the town.

Let's go get my sisters from the daycare

Yay we're home!

Snazzy shades...

It was too much work wrestling that tiger last time so I picked an easier opponent...

After a hard day a guy needs to relax.

Tiger Wrestling

2009-02-24T10:36:00.014-05:00

Not much new from yesterday, we are soon heading out to CHEO for B's appointment so I have packed as many small and (hopefully) distracting toys as I can into the diaper bag. The snacks have also been loaded up. Here are a few pictures from the last week...

I can't find Abby to chase, so you will have to do Mr. Tiger. Don't get cocky, I'll win this fight yet.

E hides in bed...

B in the middle of the action.

Whew, that tiger put up more of a fight than I thought he would...

Dad you missed a spot over here.

K and the girls watching "Ladybug Picnic" from Sesame Street. They especially like the part where the ladybugs sit around telling knock-knock jokes.

I need my shades on to play with this bus!

You know it's cold in Ottawa when the penguins have to wear snowsuits.

Jumping on the bed...

A Visit From Uncle J

2009-02-23T13:23:00.006-05:00

This weekend we had a visit from my brother who lives in Oklahama. He was at McGill for a job interview and made a sidetrip to come see us and meet B. Needless to say the kids kept him occupied (and vice versa). Tomorrow B and I head to CHEO for his first of 4 visits to the International Adoption Clinic. He will likely get bloodwork done right after that, so we will see how he (and I) handle that event.

Uncle J, trapped in a spiralling game of "why?" with the kids, starts diagramming plant DNA to explain his point...

Watching Sesame Street and Muppet videos, some of those bring back memories (especially Ma Na, Ma Na)...

Saying goodbye to Uncle J before bedtime.

B hamming it up for the camera with Uncle J.

Our harmonica trio play some foot-stomping tunes (my apologies in advance to anyone who can actually play the harmonica).

Post-Family Day Update

2009-02-17T13:47:00.008-05:00

Hello all. You can tell by the existence of this blog that I lived to tell the tale that was Family Day (I know a few of you were wondering if I would - K being one of them). For those of you not living in Ontario, many people get this day off but we federal workers don't, so I had the three kids yesterday. Things went pretty well, with only a few minor skirmishes to report.

The pics from yesterday are below and show the fort, the helmets and the pillow sliding. The other pics and our rowing video are from others days. We also put a bunch of chairs together and played flying to China (I wasn't allowed to be the pilot or co-pilot).

B had his first two needles today and handled it pretty well. He stopped crying within a minute or so. The doctor will wait until B has had his visit to the International Adoption Clinic and associated blood-work to know what other needles he needs. They will be able to tell what things he is already immune to, which may avoid a few needles. He also had his first completely solo bath today and again - no crying. He even laughs when he splashes water in his own face. He had great fun today offering me Cheerios and then snatching them away at the last second. He doesn't know how attached I am to food, he may want to re-think that one before he gets bitten.

B "repairing" our plant stand. I'm glad he knows what hammers are for, because although he doesn't know it yet, he's going to be repairing all the numerous damages he causes over the next 15 years...

The girls busy cashiering (don't worry - they also play with the drill/hammer set, probably more than B does).

Hanging out in the tent

Everybody out - I think I saw a skunk in there!

Not sure exactly what sport this is, although I know grocery shopping can be rough at times.

Pillow sliding (believe it or not, not sanctioned by dad - don't know where they came up with this one).

Rowing to buy some new socks across the river - from a Robert Munsch book.

A Busy Crew

2009-02-13T13:03:00.010-05:00

Not much new to report today, although B had a bath without any protest which is progress (still put up a fight at nap time though - maybe that will change next). It might take the bathroom a week or so to dry out, but I'm just happy he wants to get in. Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days. As you can see the place is never dull:

B, in a rare state of sitting down (he always says "cheese" now when the camera is out).

Joy to the World

2009-02-11T15:51:00.001-05:00

A surprise post for CB. I have a few video clips from the Christmas Pageant experience. For those of you who don't know, the girls learned the first verse of Joy to the World. They were supposed to go up on stage with a bunch of other kids (with sheep hats on) and sing in the play's finale. Well we got as close as the front row of the seats but never made it onto the stage. They did however join in the singing. The following series of videos shows our attempts to get them on video. I seem to be having trouble posting more than 4 videos so I will try to post them separately. Just fyi the last video is a little bright, you may want to wear sunglasses...

Joy to the World II

2009-02-11T13:33:00.004-05:00

Chinese New Year!

2009-02-10T11:14:00.027-05:00

Greetings all to a New Chinese Year! A couple of weeks ago we attended a New Year's party and the kids got to wear their outfits. They were kind of hard to catch standing still but see below for a few shots. The girls seemed scared of the fireworks at the end of the night but B would have probably been down there lighting the fuses if I wasn't holding him.

B is settling in quite well. He is still not real impressed with the daily car rides to the sitter and back while I drop off the girls. Usually by the time we have arrived back home I have already put his boots and socks on three times (yes velcro boot straps while handy for me aren't great for childproofing).

We had great news at CHEO last week. We took B in to get assessed for his cleft palate surgery and the plastic surgeon pronounced that it had already been repaired in China! The orphanage people didn't know that and we just assumed the reports were accurate. So that means one less surgery here. He will probably have his lip reduced a bit just before he starts Grade 1 and his right nostril won't be touched until his face stops growing (18 or older). At the rate he eats they may never be able to do that surgery! We have an appointment for him in March with the dental surgeon to see if he needs surgery for his jaw - the part where the cleft was, dips in a fair bit from the rest of his teeth. He also gets his first appointment at the International Adoption Clinic March 31 and then in April he sees the ear-nose-throat specialist to make sure everything is fine there. It is common for cleft kids to have hearing problems and some require tubes in their ears for a few years. B seems to hear fine - when he wants to listen. The nurse said she can't help us out with that one.

B and I signed the girls up for Junior Kindergarten last week, it is hard to believe the time has gone by this quickly - they will be 4 in June.

B is certainly picking up on the language. He can say "up" when prompted. The other day when I started to take his picture he said "cheese". He also waved at an elderly gentleman in the grocery store today - I think it made the old fellow's day - he seemed quite impressed at that.

B's other passion is small game hunting - particularly housecats. Poor Abby has never been chased this much in her entire life! B even makes a point of climbing up on the couch if he sees her sleeping on the back of the couch and follows her until she hides somewhere. Today I had to pry his hand off her tail or she might be a bobcat now.

The other big news today was that he stopped crying once he got into the tub! He started splashing and laughing and later trying to drink the bath water – hmm I wonder which two girls taught him those tricks?

Well enough talk, see below for the photos.

The new truck some of K's colleagues bought for B. His sisters even let him use it once in a while.

The big picnic. Note the miraculous sight of not one "Baby Jesus" but two attending the same party. I try telling A they are angels but she corrects me everytime.

B at the Chinese New Year party

E and K playing with an octopus

A in the only shot I had that wasn't blurry (they don't sit still long).

Peekaboo!

The first time I heard him say "cheese"

Small game hunting

Toliet paper hands!

He's so smart playing with a computer already...

OK maybe not - then I saw him brushing his teeth with the pen...

Settling in at home

2009-01-27T14:13:00.014-05:00

Hello from Ottawa! It already feels like a long time has passed since we were in China but we are quickly starting to settle into a routine. The adults are still going to bed too early and watching Magnum PI reruns at 4:00 AM (when we wake up for the day) but things are improving sleep-wise (for the adults - E&A seem to be sleeping worse since grandma and grandpa left).

I drop the girls off in the morning with B in the far back of the van. He whines a bit while in the car seat but not with near the vigour the girls first did. He is also very good at throwing the laundry basket down the stairs and turning off the computer (both of which he has done 3-4 times already). Here are a few pics from the last few days.

With Uncle J and Aunt L at Baskin Robbins in Beijing (I told L how B already has the start of a moustache and she said I was just jealous - which I am).

A shot of B and I just after getting off the plane at midnight (note he doesn't seem impressed with Ottawa at this point). The picture is a bit fuzzy but that matches how we were feeling perfectly.

A shot of our wonderful babysitters (they survived two weeks), and three of their grandchildren.

B playing in the rec room:

A couple of videos of him in action. The first one has him walking in Mom's slippers. He is steady on his feet but still scares me on the stairs - he is not as stable on the stairs as he thinks he is. The second one has him playing with his Panda.

Quick update

2009-01-25T19:18:00.002-05:00

Hi all,

Since I said in my last post that I would try to update again in the next few days, I figured I'd better. But believe me, this will be short. We're exhausted. :-) Jet lag is really kicking our butts this time around. Probably it was the same thing last time, but time has dulled that memory. Oh, and also, the last time we went straight to a cottage where we had lots of hands helping us out and entertaining the kids. This time we're trying to deal with three of us being jet lagged and two not.

Last night B slept great... from about 9:30 p.m. to around 8:00 a.m. this morning. But unfortunately, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. after only sleeping for about 5 hours. I consider myself fortunate though, since that's about 5 more hours that DoT got. Poor guy. And today, I had a nap at the same time B did, but DoT was up with the girls. Not sure how I successfully argued that I should be the one who got the nap. It probably helped that DoT was suffering from sleep deprivation and just stared at me with glassy eyes when I talked. :-)

So far the three kids seem to be getting along pretty well. They take an interest in each other, but haven't had a lot of interaction yet. B just wanders around the house, following the girls, watching what they're doing, or imitating them.

Tomorrow B has an appointment at the pediatrician. (We haven't yet got him a health card, but hopefully that won't be a problem. I'll try to get it in the next few days, and will call the number into the office then.) He also has several appointments at the Children's Hospital in the coming month, to start looking at his treatment plan for his cleft.

Well, that's it. Wishing you all long, peaceful, slumber-filled nights.

K...

Are we there yet?

2009-01-22T16:28:00.003-05:00

Um, that would be 'no'. We are, however, back in Canada. We're at the Vancouver airport now waiting for our connection to Ottawa. Our 6 hour wait was shortened to 5 hours because our flight out of Beijing was one hour late leaving. Right now we're all very tired (it wasn't a good flight from Beijing to Vancouver) and just putting in time until we can get on the next plane to Ottawa. Naturally, because we have lots of time in Vancouver, our luggage was among the first bags off, and we sailed right through customs. All told we were probably through and re-checked in for our flight to Ottawa within 45 minutes of landing. Not having to go through immigration was very nice. Another couple, also flying into Vancouver with a new baby from China, told us that the customs officer they spoke to said they had saved themselves a couple of hours by avoiding immigration. I believe it. It looked pretty busy at the immigration counters.

This will probably be my last post for a few days as we all try to get over the jet lag and get into a routine. I will however, try to update again in the next week or so.

K...

Canadian Citizenship

2009-01-21T08:48:00.002-05:00

Before coming to China to get B, DoT and I made the decision to try the new process of obtaining B's Canadian citizenship... that is, to not apply for immigration and go straight to the citizenship application, now possible with the change to the citizenship legislation. We weren't sure if this was going to be a wise move, since the process is still somewhat new and we weren't sure all the bugs had been worked out. But apparently they have... at least here in China. Today when our guide picked up B's visa from the Embassy, it came with a letter stating that as of January 20th, B is officially a Canadian citizen! Yeah! So not only did it save us the 1111 RMB (approximately $200 Canadian) charge for a medical check here in Beijing, but it also saved us a whole lot of time and aggravation. (I remember with the girls we had to first apply for a SIN card, which then allowed us to get a health card, which then gave us the two pieces of ID needed to apply for citizenship.) We submitted the (Part II) form at the Embassy on Monday and had the letter today (2 days later!) stating that B's now a Canadian citizen.

K...

More shopping

2009-01-21T02:22:00.012-05:00

I forgot to mention in my post below that we did get to WangFuJing last night. We walked there from our hotel, with B in a stroller that Lily has loaned to us. It was a mild night, so we quite enjoyed it. We went to the Children's Store there, but the prices are not as good as I remembered and they don't seem willing to come down too much when bartering. I ended up buying one pair of shoes each for the girls, but that was it. After the work that went into getting what I consider just an okay price on those, I just didn't have it in me to start again with negotiations for another pair each. (Although, who knows, maybe the price I did get is good, and I'm just out of touch on the price of kids shoes in Canada.) You all know how much I like shopping (not!)... well shopping where I have to wheel and deal is even worse. I am looking forward to getting back to Canada where the price is the price.

Here's a shot of WangFuJing at night. Given that we've been told a few times now that no one from Beijing would shop at WangFuJing, only tourists (the prices are too high), there sure were a lot of people there last night. And a lot of Chinese people. So I guess there are a lot of people from other parts of China in Beijing for the Spring Festival starting next week. :-)

But that said, today we set out for more shopping. We went to the Pearl Market and to a Silk Market nearby. In spite of the fact that I didn't plan to, I ended up buying pearls at the pearl market. And I almost bought a quilt at the silk market. They had a very interesting set up in the market that demonstrated how different silks are made. The silk quilts were beautiful and so soft, and they showed me how they vacuum seal them in bags to compress them for travelling. I resisted though. :-)

Here is a picture of DoT and I trying our hands at pulling the silk to make a quilt. They said we need some practice.

After the shopping we had a late lunch at a noodle restaurant.

Then it was nap time. Actually, it was past nap time. Normally, B would nap around noon or shortly after. Today it was about 3:30 p.m. when we got him down for a nap. Yesterday he had a late nap too, and didn't end up going to sleep until after 11:00 p.m. last night. I think we're in for a similarly late night tonight.

Tomorrow we fly home. As I mentioned previously, I am anxious to get home. However, I'm dreading the flight. When we first got B, I thought the flight wouldn't be too bad since he's such an easy-going, laid-back kid. However, over the last few days, he's become a bit less patient. Apparently he's now comfortable enough with us to be a bit whiny when he's bored. And somehow I think a 12-hour flight is not going to be nearly exciting enough to keep him entertained. Hopefully he'll sleep for a good part of the flight. We'll see.

K...

More sightseeing

2009-01-20T19:24:00.015-05:00

So yesterday we took in the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower in Beijing. It was pretty interesting, but unfortunately it was pretty hazy in Beijing so the view wasn't as good as it could have been. We got to the top of the Drum Tower about 5 minutes before the next drum performance, so it was neat to take that in.

Here is a picture of the three of us by the drums.

And I took this picture of our guide, DoT and B on the climb down. The steps were very steep.

This is a picture of the Drum Tower, taken from the Bell Tower.

After taking in the views from the Towers we took in a tea ceremony. The room was set up for big groups, but we were the only ones there, so we got the ceremony all on our own. It was really interesting. I wish I could remember everything I learned about the teas, and which ones are better for which, but I can't. And of course, I wasn't video taping it when I should have been. All I remember is that oolong tea is good for digestion. I thought jasmine tea was the one that the guide said should be drunk by those of us who like to drink wine, since it will ward of liver disease; but DoT thinks she said that jasmine tea was good for the eyes. Alas, if only I had video taped the guide as she was explaining the teas, I'd have perfect skin, vision, and digestion, and all my internal organs would be in tip top shape. :-)

Next we headed to the site of the 2008 Olympics to take some pictures. We didn't go into any of the venues, but did get some picture outside. Unfortunately, we didn't really get any good ones -- DoT and I could have sworn the Lily took a picture of us with both the Birds Nest and the Watercube in it, but apparently not since it's not on our camera. Here are a couple of pictures though...

The Water Cube.

In front of the Bird's Nest.

Check out this building, built to look like the Olympic torch. During the Olympics it housed the media, but now I think it is an office building (either that or apartments, I can't remember what Lily said).

On the way out of the Olympic site, DoT spotted this bird, which Lily told us is a "happiness bird". Apparently if you spot it, it means you're going to have happiness.

Finally, we decided to have lunch at a hot pot restaurant (basically, hot pot is fondue as far as I can tell) ... according to our driver the best hot pot in Beijing. It was very good, so he may be right. Here's a photo of us at our first hot pot...

If any of you are going to be in Beijing and want to go to this restaurant, let us know and we'll give you a picture of the outside of it. We tried to get a card so we'd have the name and address of the restaurant, but unfortunately it was entirely in Chinese. Apparently they don't cater to foreigners too often. :-) Anyhow, we have a picture of the outside of the restaurant which I think shows the name and address.

Quiet day yesterday

2009-01-19T19:27:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we didn't really do too much of anything. As DoT reported, we went to the Canadian Embassy to do Part 2 of the Canadian citizenship application for B. It felt more like entering a jail than an Embassy, but once inside it didn't take long at all... basically submit the form and pay the fee (in Yuan, which surprised me).

Yesterday B was not quite as happy-go-lucky as he has been. He didn't sleep a lot the night before (we were late getting back to the hotel) so we weren't sure whether his whininess was due to that or if he's just more comfortable with us now and showing his true colours. :-) In any case, I'd still characterize him as a very easy going child. Which is nice.

We had hoped to walk to Wang Fu Jing for shopping yesterday afternoon, but we also wanted B to have a good nap. He slept for about 2 hours, and when he woke up we remembered that we had sent some laundry out the day before which was supposed to arrive back after 3:00 p.m. So we waited for the laundry... which by 4:45 p.m. had not yet showed up. We then left the hotel to go see J&L's apartment and have supper at a Sichuan restaurant they like (Sichuan Yaodianzi Restaurant). It was very good... we decided to stick to more familiar dishes and passed up on caterpillar fungus and other more exotic dishes. :-) (Apparently we'll get our laundry this morning before 10:00 a.m.)

This morning we are heading to Tian'an Men Square and to the Drum Tower. Then this afternoon if we have time we'll try to get to Wang Fu Jing, and maybe the Silk Market. If not today, we have time for more shopping tomorrow.

Sorry no pictures for the blog today. I`m sure we`ll have some for ou though after our visit to Tian'an Men and the Drum Tower. Bye for now.

K...

At the embassy

2009-01-19T01:05:00.015-05:00

Hi all here is video proof of something I could have described but is more fun watching. B has apparently been paying attention when we change his diapers (we didn't coach him on this one and I didn't believe it the first time it happened). I seem to be having problems saving video in Blogger so I put this one on Youtube. See below.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcg7CzYUV_U

He even tries to fold up the diaper pad after we are done. I think by tomorrow he'll be able to change himself (a dad can hope can't he?) If only he would enjoy baths. He still won't come over the threshold into the bathroom (the memories of his first experience are still fresh it seems). I added a few photos of our hotel lobby so you can see where we are living these days.

B in the lobby waiting for mom and our guide to complete the paperwork. He looks content there but we actually had to ride up and down the escalator about 8 times while they were working. He also let me know he wasn't pleased when I finally dragged him off of it.

We did get to the embassy and hand over some paperwork to start the process. Given that the embassy is considered to be sitting on Canadian land, our guide commented that this is how she makes a trip to Canada 5-6 times a year. I think we'll investigate that as an option to speed up our trip on the way back. Later on tonight we are headed for J&L's house to visit and go out to a Sichuan restaurant they like.

Shopping at the Markets

2009-01-18T04:56:00.011-05:00

So in response to more video from our latest Chinese movie star, here is a video from yesterday of B playing with the Panda from Uncle J and Aunt L. If you listen closely you can hear his little squeal of delight (squealing in a manly sort of way of course) at the start of the clip.

Last night we walked to a restaurant that J&L like (apparently they took J's mom and dad and sister there as well - so the whole family has been there now). On the way there we realized our hotel was only about a block away from the hotel we stayed at the last time we were here. That was good since I now know where to get groceries and how to walk to the Silk market. The restaurant is called Xiheyaju Restaurant. The sesame beef dish was great (as was the whole meal) but to the chagrin of J and I they only served Budweiser - no Chinese beer (no one said international travel was for the faint of heart). It was a long walk to the restaurant and a late meal for B but he was a real trooper.

Today we went to the Dirt Market (with J&L and our guide) and bought some artwork (you will have to visit us to see it). Thanks to Uncle J's bartering skills we got the price down quite a bit. We also considered buying some elaborate hand-carved, floor to ceiling cabinets there but when we found out that they cost about $20,000 Canadian, we decided that money would be better used buying two Hyundai Accents (we told Uncle J not to bother bartering for that). This market had a lot of neat stuff - paintings, statues, books, old swords, Chairman Mao books etc. It is the kind of place you could visit often.

After having some lunch at Grandma's Kitchen (Western-style food), B and I stopped for a shot in front of the Merry-Go-Round. This photo is for A who loves Merry-Go-Rounds and who is still talking about going to the fair as soon as the snow melts.

After that we headed for the Ya Show Market to shop for some clothes. There weren't many great deals to be had, it seems prices have gone up since we were here last. We did get B a pair of shoes but that was it. By then B, K and I had had enough shopping. In typical male response to shopping, B's defense mechanisms kicked in (see below).

Tomorrow we go to the Canadian Embassy to apply for Canadian Citizenship. B took a good passport photo, I wish we had an electronic copy to share.