hercules! hercules! hercules!

Although Simon does manage to break/wreck/get into/destroy an awful lot of stuff, many of his efforts are humorously in vain. One of his current frustrations is that he's unable to force his way through the back door to get outside. The screen is 60% torn off thanks to his efforts, but thankfully there are "decorative" bars on the door (quotation marks very deliberately used). As Peter and I watch his futile attempts to push the door open, a comment is generally made refering to him as either Hercules, Herc, or Hulk.

We should know better than to tempt fate with nicknames like that...

Last night, in the space of about four minutes, he managed to not only rip the towel rack off the wall in the bathroom, but also pull the shower curtain -rod and all- down on top of me while I was changing him.

After getting the shower curtain back up and putting the towel rack with it's protruding screws up out of his reach, Peter had the following to say:

"Just get him to bed without letting him near anything that's actually valuable."

Na-night, Simon...

house pics - part one

I've decided to finally indulge my mother and post a few pictures of our new house. I know these are just the playroom, but it happened to be the cleanest room this morning... Hurricane Simon went through not long afterwards and it now looks markedly different!

Simon's two favorite spots are the floor infront of the book shelf -usually on top of a mountain of books- and the little table. His current obsession is puzzles, and we spend most mornings doing them while Liam's at school. ALL. MORNING. It really is fun to watch him though. He's so deliberate with each piece. He can have five or six puzzles out on the table at once, but rarely makes a mess of them (a true miracle!). He loves to take a piece out, tell or ask me what they are, then put them right back, precisely how he found them. We really need to buy the game 'Operation'... I bet he'd do great.

Sorry these pictures are so small. You might be able to click on them for bigger images... I haven't tried.

As you can see, the playroom is set up for a full kitchen. This house must've been divided into two separate suites at some point. All of the cupboards are great for storage: extra food, toys, craft supplies, etc. The crazy/sad thing is that this kitchen/playroom (in the basement) has about four times the storage and three times more counter space than our actual kitchen on the main floor. The upper one is SO POORLY laid out! The bane of my existence. It was clearly designed by a blind man or a crackhead. We're working on it though.

I had to throw a couple Lego pictures in there since, in addition to puzzles, it occupies a large space in each day. If you look in the bottom right of the first set of pics, there's a six drawer unit FULL of Lego. Not only that, but it's been carefully -and neurotically- sorted by color: red and brown, yellow and orange, green and blue, white, all greys, and black.

(Take a guess whether Peter helped with this fruitful and satisfying endeavour... ha.)

It really was therapeutic, and Liam loves it (he's so like me!). He loves being able to find pieces he wants. It also beats our old storage system hands down. I don't miss the three huge Rubbermaid lids taking up all the floor space, nor do I miss stepping on dozens of tiny Legos each time I walk in the playroom. Three cheers for organization!

P.S. Hey, a post where I didn't talk about food!

a better day and more green goodness

Well Liam did much better at school yesterday. No tears, quiet or otherwise. When I dropped him off after lunch, Simon and I stayed outside the fence for about 15mins til they lined up to go inside. Knowing I was there, Liam ran right over to the group of boys he'd played with that morning and started playing soccer. Every few minutes though, he'd run back over to where Simon and I were... with a big grin. Clearly even our very peripheral presence was enough to put him at ease. I noticed more than a few sideways glances from the teacher but, again, Liam is my concern, not her.

(Although it was nice to be able to give Liam the support he needed - and for Simon to get the chance to run around - the whole talking/waving/goodbyes through a chain link fence had a distinct prison yard visitation-ness to it... a small exercise yard surrounded by high fences, patrolled by overseers, full of inmates who speak another language... Liam's kindergarten is like A PRISON IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY! No wonder it's a bit overwhelming at times!)

Another thing I did yesterday was put together a series of pictures for Liam to take with him. The paper is printed on both sides and about 1.5" tall and 4.5" long (a bit wider than a bookmark, but shorter). It has the following pictures on it:

He was thrilled when he saw it, exclaiming, "That was SUCH a great time!" when he saw the picture of he and Peter kayaking. He keeps it in a special pocket of his school bag for when he's feeling lonely. I love that kid!

Other than that, I have some exciting news on the green smoothie front...

While we still haven't found any popsicle molds, we did find something to fill in in a pinch. So here's a series of photos to show the transformation, from this:

To this:To these:To this:The one Simon's eating in the last pic had a bunch of blueberries in it, hence the purple colour. He eats a popsicle at almost every meal now! It's every kids dream to get "treats" at breakfast, but what Simon doesn't know is that that treat is half spinach! Mwaahaha! So I have no problem giving them to him often.

For all the skeptics out there, you really can't taste the spinach ONE BIT! It's amazing! The only downside to these green smoothies that I've found is that, since letting Liam watch a Popeye cartoon on YouTube he sings, "I'm strong til the finish cause I eat me spinach" almost every morning... which means that I'm humming it to myself several times a day!

school woes

Liam's first full day of Kindergarten was Tuesday. He wasn't thrilled about having to go back after lunch and being gone "all day", as he refers to it. We were a bit late getting there, so he lined right up with the other kids and went in. Yesterday though, we were earlier so he'd have a chance to play. Although up til now Simon and I have been staying with him til he goes in, at lunch parents have to leave kids at the gate (the Kindergarten has a separate building with a separate playground area that's enclosed by a fence and gate). He said he was okay at first, but then started crying "...but not like a baby with my mouth, just with my eyes into my arm." He said the teacher had him go and take a drink and he felt a little bit better.

So on the way to school today, I asked him if he wanted me to stay til he went in or if he was okay if Simon and I left when we got there. He said he wanted us to stay. Well as soon as we got in the gate, the teacher came rushing over to me to say that I wasn't allowed to stay.

(Last week during the "progressive entry" most of the parents who walk their kids stayed til they went in, but Tuesday and yesterday I was the only one.)

I ignored the teacher long enough to take Liam over to one of the boys in his class and ask for him (in french) if Liam could play with them. Then I had to say a quick goodbye before the teacher kicked me out. I talked to her a bit as we were walking out, but could hardly speak cause I was afraid I'd start crying in front of her. I already get a really critical vibe from her, like she thinks I coddle or baby Liam... but cmon! He's only five! And can't speak the language!

So after having promised him I'd stay with him, I just left him there. I've been crying about it all morning (I'm not discounting the fact that I didn't sleep much last night and am clearly hormonal) and really don't know if I'll be able to make him go back this afternoon if he doesn't want to go.

There are four or five Kindergarten classes there, so about 80 kids all together... not one of which he can speak to. I've heard there are two other boys who don't speak french, but they're in another class (together, nice for them) so I don't know who they are.

Normally Liam is the type of boy to walk up to a group of kids he doesn't know and start playing, with very little encouragement or help. Well on the playground (even with me and Simon there), he'd just walk around by himself watching the other kids play together. I realize that some kids prefer to play by themselves, but I know that Liam really wants to be playing with the other boys. He's had several small meltdowns at home in the last week and I know he's just overwhelmed by school. He still insists that he likes it though (although not being gone "all day").

I just really don't know what to do about the teacher. I really wanted Liam to be at a school that encourages parents to be involved, not one that makes you feel looked down on for wanting to be there with your child. Liam is normally very independant, so the fact that he's having a hard time being left at school shows me just how difficult it is for him. So I really don't care what the teacher thinks about my parenting. It's Liam's needs that concern me... not hers.

So prayers for Liam would be great. And for me to be able to talk to the teacher calmly (maybe I should just write a note!) and let her understand that he's not being silly or clingy or anything else - his behaviour is really out of the ordinary and I'm not just going to ignore it.

I'm very anxious to pick him up and talk to him about it... 45 mins to go.

remembering Lachlan

As I type this, it's Tuesday morning... We haven't had internet access - or phone since it's VoIP - since sometime late Friday night! What a frustrating weekend!

It also kept me from being able to write a little post saying 'Happy Birthday' to our nephew Lachlan. He would have celebrated his seventh birthday yesterday, so...

Happy Birthday, Lachlan! We were thinking of you all day and can't wait to see you again.

green smoothie day three

I should've taken a picture of our smoothie this morning! It was kryptonite green! Here's what was in it:

- two huge handfuls of spinach (it filled half the blender lightly packed)
- 1 1/2 apples
- 1 banana
- approx. 1/2 c apple juice
- approx. 2 1/2 c green grapes

Liam loved how green it was (I served it in a bright green cup too). When I told him it had spinach in it, he asked if that's why it tasted so great. Yes, Liam. Yes, it is.

Simon, on the other hand, refuses to try them. He had one little sip day 1 and now runs away yelling, "NO DA DOO!" (No thank you!) when he sees me coming towards him. I'm so disappointed since he's the one who really needs some more veggies in his diet. Day 2, I was able to sneak some into his parfait instead of using all soy yogurt and he didn't seem to notice.

I think I'd have better luck if it was in popscicle form, but we seemed to have lost our forms in the move (only have the sticks). I'd really love to find some non-plastic popscicle moulds, but I'm not sure that exists. Failing that I'd take regular ones, but we've searched EVERYWHERE here with no success... Walmart, Zellers, Canadian Tire, four different grocery stores, even two second hand shops! Nothing! So if you see any while you're out and about, think of us! Think of poor veggie hating Simon and his love of popscicles!

I'll take pics tomorrow. Promise.

Oh and here's (hopefully) the Green Smoothie video I promise a couple days ago:



Woo hoo! I did it!

first day at school

Liam's first day of kindergarten was Wednesday. He was SO excited! I was so nervous.

When we first moved here, we registered Liam at the school in our neighbourhood. After still not hearing which school he'd be going to, I finally found out - the third week of August - that he'd been transfered to the school the next neighbourhood over (the other kindergarten was full). It's not that big of a deal since it's less than a five minute drive, but the other school would've been walking distance. He is signed up for the bus though, which stops right outside our door. For the meantime though, I'll be driving him.

He's quite thrilled with his new backpack, as you can see.

Liam's teacher is Madame Seguin. She seems like she's been teaching kindergarten forever - kind of reminds me of Peter's Aunt Dianne in that sense. Her English is a bit weak, but Liam's there to learn French after all. Here she is welcoming the kids in the morning (this was only half the class since they're doing a progressive entry type thing).

There are four little tables in the class and each has four kids at it. The little boy who sits beside Liam is the tall, black one standing behind him in line above, named Noah, and the little girl who sits across from him is Amelie. I haven't met the fourth. Here's Liam sitting at his table.

So far he seems to really like it. I'm not sure how it will go when the full day starts this Tuesday... It seems like an awfully long time for him to be gone. He's only five! Simon and I will definitely miss him. As it is I feel like I'm looking at the clock every five minutes to see how much time is left...

green smoothie day one

I've been reading a bit lately about the benefits of a raw foods diet. Not that we'd EVER be even close to completely raw, but I certainly see the need for more raw food in our diet, fruits and especially vegetables. Our diet is currently about 90% whole foods (so very, very little processed foods) - more out of financial necessity than anything! - but I still have an awfully hard time getting veggies into Simon especially.

Enter the Green Smoothie.

To give you an idea of what I mean, here's a YouTube clip (if I can figure out how to embed it...). My favorite line is:

“If you do nothing else that’s healthy all day long…do this!”

Okay, so I can't figure it out! I'll be back later to add it cause it really is worth a view. Right now I have to get Simon up and the boys fed so we can get ready for Liam's first day of school. sniff, sniff. Thankfully I get to go with him today.

newest kitchen additions

Today was 50% off at Value Village or, as the Quebecois call it, Savers. I picked up a few pants and long sleeved shirts for Liam, but my best find were these canisters that now reside on the top of the shelves that Peter and his dad put up in our kitchen.

Aren't they pretty? They didn't photograph well/this was the wrong time of day to try to take pictures of them... they're actually a light, bubble gum pink alluminum. I don't even really like pink! But these caught my eye and I love them. I looked them up online and they're from the 50's or 60's and normally cost around $60USD. I only paid $2.50 +tax!!

Now to decide what to put into them. And redesign my entire kitchen around them... in my head of course.

(Think Peter would go for a pink kitchen??)