Month: November 2010

movie night

We’re trying to start a movie night in the Fox household, once every two weeks or so, but we’ve had a few barriers.

First, Elliot is VERY sensitive about what movies he watches. (Frank the Combine in Cars freaked him out the first few times he watched it.) The only movies he’s successfully sat through are Cars (about 100 times) and Bob the Builder’s A Christmas To Remember. And I refuse to watch Dora movies.

Second, we never seem to be organized for our movie nights. The whole point is to spend some family time together, but we’re always rushing around trying to figure out what to watch, where to get it from, get dinner ready early enough, get the dishes cleaned up, get the kids in their pj’s…so the kids often sit with just one of us (or neither of us). There’s also the issue of the couch. It only fits three people.

So we end up where we are tonight…the kids are eating popcorn, watching a new Bob the Builder DVD (not a movie), and Greg and I are sitting at the dining room table. Blogging. At least we’re all withing ten feet of each other.

Next time I think we’ll get pizza, and I’m going to do a bit of research to see if I can find some movies that all of us will enjoy. If that doesn’t work, we’ll just have to wait a few years.

walkabout

One of the things I want to do with my kids is walk. They don’t have to be expert mountain climbers or hard-core hikers, but I want to be able to take them to a place like Thetis Lake and go for a walk. For a while I thought this time would never come. Elliot has always loved being carried, and well after his third birthday he was still asking to be picked up. It was frustrating at times, especially when I couldn’t pick him up because I was carrying Amy and his reaction would be a tantrum. But it was also a battle that I mostly chose not to fight. If he asked to be picked up and I was able to, I usually did, and still do. I love carrying my kids and I know it’s not going to last forever.

But things have changed over the past year with Elliot. He’s much more into walking, and I’m often quite impressed by his stamina. Amy’s still in the stroller and being carried quite a bit, but I’m expecting that in the next year or so we will be able to start taking some longer walks with both of them.

And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a planned thing, nor does it have to be at a park. Tonight during dinner Heart was a bit antsy, so Greg said he’d take her out for a walk after dinner. I asked Amy if she wanted to go, pretty sure she’d say yes (she did) and I also asked Elliot, pretty sure he’d say no (he may be into walking more, but he’s still a homebody and he was already in his pj’s). Surprisingly, he said yes. And also surprisingly, they got ready to go out without any prompting at all. Elliot even helped get Amy ready. So we all went out together. Amy in the stroller and the rest of us walking, Elliot holding the flashlight. We walked around our “block” (really a circle), which takes about fifteen minutes with kids, and when we got back to the house Elliot said he wanted to go around again. Greg went in to do the dishes and the rest of us went around again.

I had a great time. I love doing stuff as a family, I love the little games Elliot plays (don’t step on the cracks, pretend the leaves are fire) and I love listening to the conversations he and Amy have. And they were both excited about seeing the crescent moon and all the stars. We got home and transitioned nicely into bedtime, and now they are both in bed. Quiet.

It was a lovely end to a lovely day.

neighbours

I’ve had my share of bad neighbours. In my previous life, my house had three panhandle lots behind it and two out of the three neighbours were assholes. One set never spoke to us, even when we said hi to them directly, and it was apparent that they hated our dogs. The other set started off okay but then they parked a beater of a car at the end of our driveway and left it there for months. When we politely complained, they blew a gasket and it got progressively worse after that.

When Greg and I first moved in together we didn’t have any issues with our neighbours, which was fine, but we didn’t really know anyone either, so we kind of lived in our own little space.

The first day we looked at this house, the neighbours on one side were outside doing yardwork, and as we pulled away after our viewing, they waved to us. Then the night we moved in, they came over with a tin of homemade cookies and an invitation to their Christmas Open House. They are a “blended” family. He has three boys, all in their late teens/early 20’s, and she has one daughter who is 12. The boys haven’t been around much, but the rest of them are outgoing (without being in your face) and have been very friendly to all of us, kids and dogs included.

It seems to be the best kind of relationship you can have with your neighbours. They watch our house when we’re away and vice versa. We have friendly conversations when we’re all outside together. We’ve talked about getting together for a bottle of wine, and that will happen at some point. But we never feel (and I hope they feel the same way) that they are infringing on our personal space.

It makes living here all the more pleasurable.

here we go again

We went through a rough patch with Elliot when he turned three. It lasted a long time (months), and I am still thankful that we are through it. I spoke to a lot of mums through that time, and they all said that three was their hardest year. And they assured me that four would be much better. They were right.

However. We have a second child, and she appears to be hitting her “three” about five months early. It’s a totally different three from Elliot, but I’m still finding it difficult. There is a whole lot of “NO” being yelled in our house (by her), a whole lot of laughing as she does something she knows is wrong, and a whole lot of unprovoked hitting, almost exclusively aimed at her brother. This morning she walked up to him with a dustpan and whacked him. The other day he was sitting defenseless on the toilet and she ran her fingers roughly down his face.

When I drop them off and pick them up at daycare I feel like I’m barely in control as she refuses to put her inside shoes on, takes forever to put her coat on, wings her coat around hitting other people, and says “no” to me about 20 times. At the dinner table we are constantly asking her to stop pushing her feet against the table, to stop getting off her chair, to stop putting her feet ON the table. Often I’m at a loss as to what the right consequence is. And even when I do have a consequence that makes sense (such as removing her from Elliot’s room when she hits him…something that does hit home for her), she immediately is contrite. She apologizes, says “me don’t do that again” and says she’s ready to stop . I’ve been letting her decide when she’s ready to rejoin us when I exile her, but lately I’m wondering if I need to be tougher. Time outs never worked with Elliot but I’m wondering if they would with her. Except that I’m not a fan of them.

I do recognize that this is all normal behaviour, and for the most part I think Greg and I are navigating our way through it with some success. For example, she removed her dishes from the table tonight WITHOUT putting them upside down on her head, and she proudly pointed out to both of us that she was doing it “gently”. So some of it is getting through. And while I feel frustrated at some of her behaviour, what is easier with her than when Elliot was three is she recovers so quickly. So although there is still lots of drama, it’s very short-lived. But it makes for a bit of a roller coaster ride.

I think I just needed to vent a bit. Mission accomplished.

a series of tweets

Tonight’s post is a bunch of random tidbits, all at most 140 characters long, since I don’t have a topic in mind that would produce a longer post. So, in no particular order:

It’s inconvenient for someone who likes to work in the evenings that the servers I work with are restarted nightly between 7 and 9 pm.

My daughter is way more fixated on “treats” (i.e. Halloween candy) than her brother is.

This dog we are trying out pees once a day. Weird.

I’m trying to drink more herbal tea. I’m enjoying some Westcoast Peppermint from Silk Road as I write this.

Apparently white tea is five times better for you than green tea. How they measure this, I don’t know.

Greg and I have spent over half of the last 10 evenings working, each of us on either side of the dining room table. Quality marriage time.

Just checked the aforementioned servers. They are still down. It’s 9:10 and I want to work…get a move on!

The thermostat’s at 21, I have long underwear on, I’m drinking hot tea, and I’m still cold.

I’ll put you out of your misery and stop here.

i’m all over the map on this one

Yesterday Greg and I spent most of our day traveling to and from Brackendale, just north of Squamish. We returned one dog richer.

We got another pointer, from the same breeder that we got Yoshi from. Her name is Heart (which may change if we keep her), and she is Yoshi’s grand niece (her grandmother was Yoshi’s sister, so I think I have the grand niece part right). The fact that she is related to Yoshi was not planned — we contacted the breeder to see if she had any adult dogs available and Heart was the only one that was young enough for us.

She’s almost four years old, has a heart-shaped patch on her right flank, and is quite a bit smaller than Yoshi. She’s very timid but affectionate, and definitely anxious to please. We have her for a month trial, same as we did for Yoshi.

The past 24 hours have been way more emotional for me than I thought they would be. We arrived at the breeder’s house and were met at the door by four dogs. Three of them came right up to us, the fourth went into a submissive pose and peed on the floor. That was Heart. Kathy had warned us she was timid, but as soon as I saw her I wanted to change my mind. Not a good start. Greg and I crouched down on the floor, and within two minutes she was coming up to us for pets, but very tentatively. You could see she wanted the attention, but was a bit overwhelmed. I confirmed with Greg that he actually wanted to do this (if he had said no I wouldn’t have tried to change his mind), and he was still game.

We stayed for about half an hour talking to Kathy, then pretty much forced the poor dog in the car and started our six-hour journey home. She was actually remarkably calm. She slept for part of it, and the other part she sat up and looked out the window. No whining, no anxious pacing. On the ferry I curled up in the back of the car with her and she snuggled her nose under my arm. I feel asleep crying, as we were in almost the exact same position that Yoshi and I were in the night I said goodbye to him.

She slept in our room last night on a bed on the floor, and again was remarkably calm. She got up a couple of times and whined a bit, but for the most part she lay on her bed. We shipped the kids off to Gramma’s for the weekend so we spent a quiet day here at home. I took her for a couple of walks, one of which took us down to Esquimalt Road. She was definitely wary of all the vehicles, but she was VERY good on leash. No pulling at all, and she didn’t hang back either. And lots of sniffing. I took that to be a good sign, a sign that she was at least a bit comfortable.

She doesn’t like loud noises and she doesn’t like sudden movements. Her reaction is to cower and then run away, but 30 seconds later she’ll come back and check out the source of the noise or movement. I’ve been trying to talk to her as much as I can so she can get used to the sound of my voice. When our neighbour came over today she didn’t bark when she came to the door, but she did run downstairs. But she was soon back up, looking to Greg for comfort, and within minutes was receiving pets from Zoe.

She has many movements and sounds that are either pointer-like or Yoshi-like — I’m not sure which. It’s somewhat comforting and somewhat sad for me to hear her sigh in the exact same way he did. She curls up on the bed with her front legs in the exact same position as he did, and she rests her head in my hands just like him. The practical side of me says these traits are just pointer-like. The more emotional side says they are Yoshi-like.

Greg and I had toyed with the idea of getting a different breed, but we came to the decision a few weeks ago that we wanted another pointer. When we see other pointers we always go up to the owners and chat with them. I know it’s not unusual to be attracted to a specific breed, but I think I assumed that this dog would be entirely different from Yoshi. She’s not. And it’s thrown me a bit. Okay, a lot. Hence the emotional day.

I’m stating the obvious when I say my goal is not to replace Yoshi. I’m pretty sure he’s irreplaceable. My goal is to fill a void left by him. I’ve been a dog owner for over ten years and I miss it when I don’t have one. This was reinforced to me today when I was out walking with Heart. A walk isn’t complete to me without a dog by my side.

And then there’s her personality. She is definitely timid. Do we want to take this on? I was feeling pretty comfortable about it by dinnertime, seeing how far she’d come in a 24 hour period, but then the kids came home. Elliot was quite good with her, but Amy is too young to know how to move slowly. She just wants to hug Heart. Heart just keeps running away from her. Admittedly they were together for all of one hour, so it’s a bit early to be jumping to conclusions.

Which is a good point. It’s a bit early to be making any decisions. We’re going to introduce her to this life as slowly as we can, and we’ll figure it out. If she doesn’t fit in to this family, she won’t stay. And it’s not like I’d be delivering her back to a shelter. She’d be going back to the home she’s always known. But I think if we decide not to keep her, it’ll be hard for me to say good-bye. I’m growing attached to her already, and I think it’s because a tiny piece of Yoshi has come home.

two helping hands

Both kids have been really into helping with household tasks lately. Amy’s been doing the dishes (and quite well I might add) and Elliot’s been helping me with laundry and sweeping.

Amy just thinks it’s something fun to do, but Elliot really wants to help. He specifically asks: is there anything I can help you with, Mum? There are definitely jobs he likes better than others…if I mention anything about cleaning up his room he doesn’t want to do it, but if I ask him to go get the laundry from the dryer, he’s all over it. He carries the laundry basket downstairs, opens the dryer and takes out all the clothes, and then carries the basket back up, full. I’m pretty impressed with his strength.

Both kids are quite good about clearing their plates away after dinner. Elliot almost always does it without being asked, and Amy now (after a few months of sticking to our guns) does it without a tantrum. And sometimes without being asked. 🙂

I know it’ll change at some point and these things really will become chores for them, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

could be responsible for my weight gain

How can I be blogging for four years and not have a “booze” topic? I’ve obviously been leaving some stuff out.

I never used to drink alcohol. I had no objections to it, I just hated the taste of it. Then I started drinking the odd cider (the Okanagan Springs sweet stuff), and when I met Greg I started drinking beer. I think I was trying to impress him, and in the process realized I actually liked it.

From there both of us branched out into wine, and although we have no idea how to really taste a wine, we can definitely give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. We keep meaning to keep track of the ones we like, and there are a few we can remember, but mostly we just wing it. Funnily enough the bottles ALWAYS get finished.

And somewhere along the line I discovered my drink. Strongbow. There was a short stopover on Merridale Traditional Cider, but for the past two years I’ve been pretty committed. And now that I’ve made the switch, I can’t imagine drinking an Okanagan Springs. Eeeew.

So I sit here, drinking my Strongbow that my mother-in-law so kindly purchased for me, enjoying the mild buzz it’s giving me, and fully admit that I am now an avid consumer of alcohol.

how things change

As I navigated to my blog for tonight’s post, no concrete post ideas in my mind, I clicked one of my “This Day In” links, and found this post.

Everyone says things get easier as your kids get older. Or at least a lot of things get easier. And yes, it’s easier to have a “Mummy Day” with a four-and-a-half-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old than with a two-and-a-half-year-old and six-month-old. Two years ago I was dreading my Mummy Day. Yesterday was my Mummy Day and we had a great day. The kids are more portable, I don’t have to lug around a crap load of stuff, they can provide input on what we do for the day, they provide more feedback on things they enjoy (and things they don’t enjoy) and they both make me laugh.

We spent the first part of the morning making a birthday card for my sister. Elliot drew an amazing cat on her card, and wrote “Happy Birthday Auntie Jan” (copying from me) and his name. He also did a card for his cousin, with a cat eating an apple. Amy did some scribbles. It was fun to just sit and do a craft, and have them both enjoy it for such a long period of time.

We then visited their old daycare, which was a bit odd. Elliot was pretty hesitant, as I knew he would be, but he actually was more outgoing than I thought he’d be. He gave one of his old teachers a big hug, and said hi to a couple of kids he knew. Amy was pretty shy with her old teachers, even though she said she had been missing them, but she had a few smiles. It was a quick visit, and I don’t think I’ll do it again unless the kids ask to go up. I think it’s a bit confusing, and I think Elliot may have some not-so-great memories of the place. As we were walking toward the big yard (where we often saw him looking quite forlorn) he was a bit upset that we weren’t just going inside to his classroom. Kind of gives me the willies, wondering what he was going through while he was there. But thankfully we’ve dealt with that one.

After the visit we headed down to the best children’s book store in Victoria for story time. It was a full house. Elliot spent most of his time looking at a book, which is a bit unusual for him (he’s usually listening to the stories and songs), and Amy must be getting used to the place because she was more into it than she has been in the past. Maybe because last time she was there she got a cookie from Kate. 🙂

Next up, we went home for lunch to meet up with JenV and Carys. The kids had fun playing outside, and in the afternoon I read and had a great nap on the couch while Elliot watched TV and Amy napped.

We still have bumps — probably every day — but in general I’m enjoying this time, and I’m thankful that I have the flexibility to take a day “off” with them.