It's a beautiful sunny day here in Vancouver, and already I can feel my mood lifting! The girls and I just went for a big long walk to pick up groceries, and now we're waiting for Kera to come so we can go out for lunch with her. Tiegan is fast asleep, and Kea and I have been working on some Klutz Kwiz cards that she got from friends. It is meant to attach to a battery operated base that gives all the right answers, but we didn't inherit that piece. Luckily it's kindergarten level, so I'm pretty confident that I can answer them all!!!!! There's all sorts of questions, like "Today is Mon. What day is it tomorrow?" "How many mice are there in this picture?" and then there's "If you are a carpenter, what do you do for your job?" - Kea's answer: "make carpets"!!!! I guess I could see that!

the world through the eyes of a 4 year old....

Kea is such a character, it's so much fun to be able to experience the world with her! She's at that age right now where she is fully caught up in an imaginative world with mermaids and faeries and ballerinas. It's not unusual at all to have her holding a full-on conversation with all her 'characters' and she'll play elaborate games with her 'friends' for hours on end. Amazing - and so liberating, I don't remember way back when it was okay to talk to 'yourself', but I hope Kea is able to stay in this world for quite a while! It seems like a fun place to be.

The other day Jamie was in the bathroom with her while she was going pee. He was talking to her about how to sit on the toilet so that she doesn't end up peeing on the seat like she often does, and she said "but dad, I can't help it. It just jumps up - I think it wants to come out and play instead of going down the toilet."!!!!

She's also been upset lately that many of her friends seem to have been named after flowers, and wanted to know why we didn't name her after a flower. I told her that she's actually named after a parrot (something we discovered a year after her birth) which is much better than a flower. She must have been thinking about this for the next couple of days, because then a few days later she came up to me and said "Mom, why did you have to name me after a big carrot?"!!! She must think that her parents are insane, and it wasn't comforting to her at all to be told that we went the vegetable route rather than the flower route!!!!!!!

Buffy-rama

Okay, so Jamie and I are quickly becoming rather addicted to the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Kind of late in the game, I realize.....but we're hardly known for being on top of pop culture or anything! We'd seen an episode here and there beforehand, especially when Kera was living with us, and kind of wondered what this wacky show was all about. But I had so many friends who really enjoyed it, and there was so much writing about it, even amongst the academic world, so finally I figured I should give it a try. And that was made easier by the fact that Kera has the entire 7 seasons on DVD, so we borrowed the first couple of series and within a week had watched the first season - rather addictive! It's just so much fun, and I'm rather addicted to the music during the opening credits! And it is MUCH more enjoyable once you know the whole story from the beginning!!!!!

Tropical Punch!

Isn't it fairly ironic that I was commenting on how ready I am for the rains to come in my last post, and now they are here with a passion - I can't believe how intense it's been raining for the past 36 hours or so. I heard on the radio that the rains are coming from the tropics, and so they are calling it a "tropical punch" and it's meant to last a couple more days yet. The storm started with a very intense bout of rain for about 24 hours, making our backyard a swimming pool (and flooding our downstairs slightly, but luckily it was very easy to clean!) but now there's periods of less intense rain which allows our yard to drain a little! Every winter we swear that we're going to dig out French drains in the backyard come summertime, but then by the time summer arrives we can easily convince ourselves that we don't REALLY need to do it! However, I think we're officially sick of mopping up our basement floors twice a winter, so this summer we're really going to do it!!!!

Kea had preschool this morning, and I was there on one of my duty days - always really interesting to see all the kids there, and to see how she spends her mornings! They've started this new thing where they have clipboards and pencils by the felt board, and ask the parents to write down stories that the kids tell us. Kea's friend Ullie had a very elaborate story going on with all the different characters and a tonne of mittens, and when I asked him if I wanted to write it down, he said "sure, this is the story of JESUS AND THE THREE SNOWMEN" and proceeded to tell me this long convoluted story about finding a missing snowment behind the mittens, but it really had nothing to do with Jesus at all! Evidently he is the king of creating fabulous titles but hasn't quite made the connection between the title and the story yet! Fun morning, though!

Now I'm off to read Kea a story while Tiegan naps - and maybe to make hot chocolate on such a cold, blah, rainy day!

and then lack thereof....

....lack of productivity, that is! Wow, it's been a while since I've managed to update our blog here. But now I have Tiegan fast asleep on my lap (she's been coughing a tonne and obviously coming down with ANOTHER cold, so I have her face down on my lap and I'm kind of scared to move her in case she wakes up) so I figured I'd take a moment or two to write a bit - and hopefully get back into the swing of things again!

We had a wonderful Christmas and a great holiday away from home, and now it's so nice to be back home again. And it's been an easy adjustment coming home again, as we left the snow, ice and cold of Ottawa to arrive to snow, ice and cold here in Vancouver! And unlike in past years, this winterness seems to be hanging on :-( I'm ready for the rains to come back, our house is not insulated for the cold and we just don't have all the right winter-gear! Life is busy busy busy since our return, doing lots with Kea's preschool, Jamie catching up with work, and all of Kea's classes and courses starting up. I'm realizing that we'll have to slow down on the number of classes that the kids take once Tiegan gets old enough, as there's no way I'm shuttling them BOTH to all of these classes - and there's no way we can afford it all! But for now it's fine, and I guess that's just one of the perks of being the oldest - kind of goes hand-in-hand with always having to share her fruit leather when Tiegan notices it in the car, because she's older and understands more than her little sister!

Anyways, it's a lazy Sunday afternoon, Kea's in the bath upstairs with Jamie, I'm listening to some Alicia Keys downstairs and I think I might cuddle up under a blanket and read some of my book. I LOVE naptime :-)