A (Seriously) Merry Christmas To You!

You might recall Christmas last year was a rather somber affair, and in spite of some of the serious faces this year, I assure you a very merry time was had by all. I was fairly excited myself since this was the first year my boys really seemed to "get" what Christmas was about. As such, I took a picture of the tree and presents before they woke up this morning for posterity:

And then I made a little noise and peeked in the boys' room a few minutes later to see a couple of sleepy heads beginning to stir. I love Seth's still-sleepy eyes in this picture as they survey the loot under the tree for the first time:

Of course, Seth did his due diligence since the first thing he did after that was to make sure the plate of cookies and glass of milk we'd left out for Santa were empty:

– Carrots for reindeer is also gone. I is convinced everyone!

The boys tucked into their stockings first. Well, Seth tucked into his stocking – Nate needed a little coaching after he unloaded half of it and started putting things back in. Still, his look of concentration is admirable:

And unlike last year, Seth showed us all how to unwrap a present like a pro (or at least in record time):

– 'Dis is how it done, everyone!

Nate needed a little coaching here too (and in case you were wondering, that's a pensive look Seth is giving his brother even though it looks a little like nose-picking):

This is easily one of my favorite moments from unwrapping presents today. Nate finally got the paper off and the box open and exclaimed "Paper!" and the truth is, he was pretty excited about getting a box of paper. I had to tell him to keep looking since there was a gift (other than paper of course) still in the box:

I love the look on his face when he found it! Nate is fairly obsessed with foxes lately and he didn't let his new friend out of his sight all day:

This is the last of the Santa gifts that were opened before breakfast. Twig was a reasonable hit, but required some serious concentration:

After breakfast (and a change of clothes later) we got down to the business of opening up the rest of the presents. I didn't have anything special planned in terms of "Christmas outfits", but their shirts from last year still fit so I went with it. I'm glad I did – same shirts, but a year later and oh... how things have changed:

One of the boys' favorite presents were some new slippers courtesy of Gamma Rita. Said slippers by Gamma Rita's own admission are "so ugly that they're kind of cute". Truth be told, I kind of love them too.

Mr. Potato Head was also a hit:

... but not so important that Nate couldn't take a break to hug his new best friend:

Of course the gift that got the patented "big smile" from Nate was courtesy of Uncle P.:

It even warranted a "really, really big smile" as things turned out:

Merry Christmas everyone!

- L.

The Truly Terribly Horrible Sweater

Full title: The Truly Terribly Horrible Sweater That Grandma Knit & The Tale Of The Traveling Scarf

A long time ago Gamma Rita sent us a book. It was called the Truly Terribly Horrible Sweater... That Grandma Knit.

She also did her best to knit some truly terrible and horrible sweaters for the boys, which I swore wouldn't fit them until the first grade at the time.

It turns out Gamma Rita and I both messed up. The sweaters are actually pretty cute and at a little over 2.5 years old they fit my boys fairly well, so I decided to run with it in the backyard today.

– Oh hi everyone. Is us. We is posing for picture now.
– Mommy totally bribe us with cheese crackers to get 'dis shot.

– Cheese crackers is good bribe, but is you thinking what I thinking bro'?
– Er...

– Because I is thinking it be fun to get up to no good.
– That's nice Seth. I is working my tail off for 'dis pose. And also for cheese crackers.

– Also I let you in on a little secret now. Mommy can see what you is up to.
She right behind that camera.
– Uh-oh. That not good then.
– No, is not good. You pretty much out of luck on cheese crackers.

– I think I work on next year's Hallowe'en costume to distract Mommy then.
I is so going to kick butt at being Ron Weasley. Even 'dis sweater not stop me.
Obscuro now!* 

• • • • • • • 

There are books I can never ever read to my boys because I get a lump in my throat before the first sentence is done. The Truly Terrible Horrible Sweater That Grandma Knit is Gamma Rita's personal lump-in-the-throat book. Or at least when she gets to the part that says:


"What about the yellow?" [the little boy] asked. 

His [Gamma] put her arm around his shoulder. "Yellow is the happiest color I know. I remember the day your [Mommy] called to tell me [she was having two baby boys]. Your [Mommy] waited a long time to have a baby. It didn't seem like it would ever happen – and then you were born. You [both] are the sunshine of all of our lives." 

The truth is that I can't read that part of the book either without getting a lump in my throat. I did wait a long time to have babies and when the time was finally right my body wasn't very cooperative as it turned out. In the end, once again, we were the lucky ones.

Times two.

And more (so much more) than I ever could have hoped or asked for.

Even on the crummy days.

• • • • • • • 

Of course this post is also about something else Gamma Rita knit so if you're done having a decent sniffle over the last part (or maybe that was just me?), here is the Tale Of The Traveling Scarf (which I promise is nothing to sniffle over).

Last winter when Gamma Rita came to visit she brought along a scarf which was a wise choice for winter in Toronto. It mostly wasn't needed last winter because it was a pretty mild winter here all things considered, but on the days it was needed it was really, really needed**.

When it came time for Gamma Rita to return home she took her scarf with her, but accidentally left it behind in a public restroom at the Vancouver airport and didn't realize it was missing until long after she got home – at which point she decided to forget about it.

This past summer while Gamma Rita was visiting she took the boys out for a stroll one fine day and happened upon a box at the end of someone's yard. It was full of items to take for free should the mood strike you – books, odds-and-sods and believe it or not, Gamma Rita's scarf.

The same scarf she left behind in an airport bathroom in Vancouver had not only returned itself to Toronto but ended up in a box at the end of someone's yard only a few blocks from my home.

This is the scarf: 

The pattern was one Gamma Rita created. It's one of a kind and there was no mistaking it for anything other than the one she knit herself.

A little bit spooky, but a true tale nonetheless. Gamma Rita has knit many things over the years, but even she was pretty surprised that one of her projects managed to find its way home (so to speak).

- L. 

*No worries - everyone got their cheese crackers as promised. Seth is no spell caster, but he sure is cute even when he's getting up to no good.

**I will never, ever forget that day and neither will Gamma Rita. The boys were well bundled up and protected under their stroller cover, but for the rest of us it was like nails through the forehead walking home. 

PS. More pics from today. At the risk of sounding like a proud mama, these boys of mine photograph rather well, yes?

– Is like Mommy's eyeglasses!

And last, but not least, a shot of my boys together sans bribery:

– Who Mommy kidding? We already has cheese crackers.
– We totally working on dessert options now. Trust me, we got
'dis one covered everyone.

Little Treasures

Nearly every day that Gamma Rita was here this past summer she and/or I would take Nate and Seth for a walk and come home with handfuls of "little treasures". The boys just loved to stop and pick foxtails, dandelions, "alligators" and other curbside weeds on a stroll around the neighborhood – and after the first couple of trips we knew where to find all the best ones. Eventually we ended up taking a bag along to collect the treasures since hands could no longer contain our bounty as summer went on. When we'd get home, we'd dump the bag and the boys would spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying all their free loot. It made a terrible mess in the backyard at times, but they loved it (in fact, I'm sure the mess was the best part).

Yesterday we got a surprise package in the mail with a whole lot of little treasures from Gamma Rita's backyard. Since she lives on the West Coast, many of them were backyard treasures you can't find around these parts.

I think it goes without saying that it was a big hit!

Gamma Rita sent a box filled with some very nice rocks, knobbly sticks, chestnuts, pressed fall leaves and dandelions. There was even a piece of fir tree (AKA "prickly pineapple").

Unfortunately the last one ended up as a casualty of a 6 day trip through the mail, but that hardly mattered because there was this:

I can already hear Gamma Rita having a good laugh over the look on Nate's face in that picture. I also decided to take a picture of whatever is it before it got completely demolished by the boys:

The sticks and rocks were the real show-stoppers though. The boys were having a contest to see who could hold their stick up the highest*:

We also heeded Gamma Rita's advice to hold the leaves up against a window to really see all the pretty colors, and the boys were suitably impressed.

Of course, there were a couple more things in the box aside from rocks and sticks, etc.

The bag in the background is what I like to call Mommy's "little treasures", and like all treasures that are truly prized I've done my best to keep them out of sight of any and all who would like to steal them.

- L.


*Every time I look at that picture all I can see are the boys auditioning to play Harry and Ron in a pre-school production of Harry Potter. 

Missing Gamma Rita

A pre-emptive caveat: I expect that at least half of this post will make no sense to anyone who doesn't speak both toddler and hasn't spent at least 8 weeks here doing their level best to mind-meld with Nate and Seth over the rest, but here goes... 

Gamma Rita left on a jet plane ("a BIG jet plane!") last Phthearsday.

My boys were pretty excited about seeing her off so we went outside after lunch to see if we could spot Gamma Rita's plane "up in the sky!". We have a pretty good view of planes departing and on any day other than this one we wouldn't have had to wait more than 2 minutes to see some type of aircraft overhead.

We waited as patiently as we could to wave to you Gamma Rita, but after 15 minutes we had to call it quits.

– Where is you Gamma Rita? I is looking and waiting.

– I straining real hard to see you right now, but you is not there. Where is you? 

– Seriously Gamma Rita... where IS you?!?
– I also still wondering where you is, but thinking at same time that maybe
I strain a little too hard in effort to find out.

It was pretty close to nap time anyway, but we had to shut down "Operation: Spot Gamma Rita" due to an unexpected passenger on board*.

That said, we gave it our best and even if we'd all managed to wave at a plane that day it wouldn't change the fact that Gamma Rita is missing and that we are all missing Gamma Rita.

• • • • • • • 

Dear Missing Gamma Rita:

Thank you for another summer of love. Between us we survived** a season of:

Dumpidee-do walks, wonkies, crookedy ones, tall ones, and broken ones. The naming of flowers – nas-TIER-tiums and cosmos and "the white ones too!". A million alligators, foxtails and dandi-loins. Endless trips to the yellow store, Different Mall and Shoppiers.

Potty learning. Lellow ones and brown ones and big-one-Nate-ones. "Get out of there!", "Switch ones!" and "You kill yourself!". Lullaboys and lillaboys and happy accidents from the latter.

Sausage kierlees, suppiers and making a workable seating arrangement schedule so we could finally stop "switching ones" and get down to the business of eating a meal.

A thousand swings with a lame wing, countless beards and earplanes. The Snow-beards we spotted overhead for a weekend were especially popular (I'll admit I was fairly impressed also). Old Razor-Eyes was excellent at spotting them all.

Kicky legs and fast legs and borrowing quotes from a movie to describe them. "Run Forrest, run!" still makes me laugh.

The rowing of boats, BBQ stands, scanicorns, strap-a-daps and skotches, not to mention all the SCRUNCH!

Boible stories*** and a sack of potatoes always wound the day down nicely.

And last but not least all those cursed watiers (fresh ones and warm ones most especially). You managed them as well as anyone could.

Thank you more than I can say for spending a summer helping me pick toddlers off the ceiling while keeping me sane and having enough humor left in you to have a laugh with me about it all at the end of the day.

We miss you, missing Gamma Rita.

Love,

- L. (and Seth! and Nate! and Seth! and Nate! and Seth! and Nate too!) 

• • • • • • •

*AKA poop. It's hard to tell a story these days that doesn't involve poop.

**I use the term "survived" loosely – even if it did occasionally feel like an endurance test along the way we had a good time, all of us.

***I might not have it in me to ever write posts about the nas-TIER-tiums or sausage kierlies but the Boible stories is too good not to write about. It's coming.

• • • • • • • 

PS. This post would not be complete without more pics, most especially ones of Gamma Rita and her grandsons, so without further ado...

Gamma Rita's babies.

The look that says it all.

Letting our little lights shine!

Despite many attempts to get the boys sitting still long enough for a picture with Gamma Rita, this was as close as we got:

After which Gamma Rita promptly checked for ants in Seth's pants. We never did find any, but requests for "more upside down" were abundant after this maneuver:

Practicing "Mr. Sun" with Nate. Gamma Rita is a good teacher (or maybe it was the other way around):

And of course, the day was never complete without those Boible stories!

A Day At The Park: Two Ways

My boys agree on most things when it comes to play at home, but the park is a whole different ballgame (which is why it's impossible to take them to the park when flying solo). 

I took my point-and-shoot camera along on a recent trip with Gamma Rita and the only two pictures I managed to get of the boys together were pre-park over an incredibly nutritious lunch:

– Turns out we is still lovin' it™, everyone!

And pretty much right before we left where they were miraculously smitten with the same aspect of the park at the same time. Lovely shot of the back of their heads, but you get the idea.

Welcome to a typical day at the park OP style! 

• • • • • • •

This is how the "Nate Way" typically unfolds – and by the way, this is not the same slide featured in the previous picture. This is the "Really Big Slide!" (just so you know): 

– "Really Big Slide" is what I imagine Heaven look like everyone!

I need to caveat this post right now by saying that although I spent an equal share of time with both of my boys at the park there are far less photos of Nate mainly due to the fact that we spent 90% of our time together in the exact same location.

And there's only so many photos you can take of a boy doing exactly this: 

– I could do 'dis all day. And usually I does!

Over and over and over again. What can I say? Nate really likes that slide!

Despite the park resembling an uninhabited wasteland* in all my photos for some reason, things were fairly hopping (busy park on a busy weekend) – and even though both of my boys are quite good at waiting their turn, I won't insult you by pretending they necessarily enjoy it. 

– I is waiting turn which I doesn't really mind that much, but I throws in 'dis
tragic look for effect anyway in case it endear someone to let me through
to front of line.

The other 5% of the time with Nate was spent dashing around trying out anything that could be climbed on: 

– Please note everything around me in focus. Is just me that is blur
for some reason.

Or anything worth riding: 

– Big or small, I rides them all!

And even though the general consensus has been that swings are stinkeroo since Seth lost interest (and anything your brother doesn't want to do is typically not worth doing of course), Gamma Rita managed to coax Nate back onto a swing:

After which it was game-on!** 

– OK. I admits it. Swing is fun.

• • • • • • •

The second half of our day at the park was spent doing things the "Seth Way" and it's probably best if I just let Seth narrate this: 

– Oh hi everyone. Is me, Seth. We is at park today and Nate doing it all wrong
so I shows you how it done right instead. There is a lot to see and do here and
I see and do all kinds of stuff, but everyone know first priority at park is to
impress the cuties. Right now I is gathering ingredients to make one of my
signature dishes. Everyone know the cuties dig a guy who know own way
around a kitchen.

– I has a few recipes I likes to make at park. Macaroni and cheese, grilled
cheese sandwiches and caesar salad are my go-to favorites. Today
we is making macaroni and cheese.

– I start by combining ingredients in handy bowl-type thing hidden under
play equipment. Is especially handy because 'dis secret recipe!

– So secret in fact that it important to take look around from time to time
to make sure no one peeking...

– ... before I add super-secret final touch. Turns out, rocks and twigs are what really
make 'dis recipe.

– And BAM! Is all done.

– I take moment to bask in own success but is fleeting. It take more than a
winning recipe and good looks to impress the cuties after all.

Mommy note: it doesn't take more than that smile and those baby blues to impress me. I could get lost in those eyes (and sometimes do). And yes, they really are that blue.

– Good thing I also has skills at vehicle maintenance. Oh sure, it obvious that
missing wheel is real problem, but taking time to look under hood anyway
make it seem like you really know what you is doing.

– Next I head over to "Really Big Slide" to see what all the fuss about.
I start to climb up to slide 'dis way but discover pretty quick there
no cuties over here so I cuts it short.

– I end up finding more cutie-friendly way to top of slide but when I arrive
it turn out I only find Nate and some big kids and exactly zero cuties.
"Really Big Slide" turn out to be stinkeroo!

– Thank goodness regular slide has plenty of cuties and even though you
not see any evidence of that here, me and my bucket was big hit!

You probably wondering about my bucket right now and why it such big hit
so I give you hint.

– Is not big hit because I using it to make more recipes.

– And it not big hit because I pose here and there to casually show off
a little leg (although 'dis big crowd pleaser also).

– Is big hit because it turn out caring about environment also popular
with the cuties!****

– To be perfectly honest though, I do 'dis part even if no cuties is looking.
Is just fun!

- L. 

*I have no idea how I managed to take pictures of my boys at an extremely popular park on a weekend afternoon and make it look like we were the sole inhabitants. It wasn't especially deliberate, but really... wow!

**I had Seth in hand when I took the swing pics of Nate. It was pretty close to leaving time and I had approximately 500 pics of Seth and a half dozen of Nate. Also, enjoying a swing is a rare beast ever since Seth declared swings stinkeroo*** and Nate took his word for it.

***In all fairness, Seth unexpectedly got sick on a swing last summer and hasn't been on one since.

****Actually, it's not. The part about the recipes/kitchen play, car maintenance and the "regular" slide all being popular with the cuties is quite true, but Seth is definitely on his own with park maintenance. Hunting for "little treasures" is an intrinsic part of going to the park with him however, and the highlight is definitely the trip to the respective bins where we sort things into "garbage" and "recycling".

• • • • • • • 

PS. In case you thought this was fresh material and wondered why the weather was so nice and everyone was looking so spry, these pics are actually from a couple or more weeks ago when the weather was still good and we were between summer colds.