Family resemblance

Here we are walking down the road for a visit to Valerie and Dan's place.








Kira is racing with her brothers down the hill.






Some of the kids enjoying wild raspberries along the way.





Damon is watching the pointers play. Puck was so happy to find a dog who wanted to play like he does. On the way home he didn't even notice the pheasant that walked right across the road in front of us!

Go fly a kite

Induction

So I saw my OB on Wednesday. First I grabbed a sure-fire labour starter, Locke Street Bagel's famous BLT. The OB did an internal exam and started laughing. It wasn't the fact that I was still only 1cm dilated that was so funny, no it was the fact that my cervix was still so thick and firm that was giving her the giggles. HA HA HA. Apparently the sandwich hadn't helped much, but at least it was yummy.

She booked me for a biophysical profile for Monday morning. If there is a problem with that, I will be induced immediately, otherwise, I will be induced on Wednesday November 8th, which is 10 days after my due date.

So yesterday, Kira and I spent the morning washing the bathroom floor grout with toothbrushes. But still nothing. That's okay says Damon.

The other night, he was getting ready for bed and wanted to just wear his boxers. I said, "well you'll feel pretty goofy when I go into labour in the middle of the night and we are dropping you off at Reiko's house in your boxers."

He said, "When you had Kira, you drove us to Grandma's house and you weren't all crazy in labour or anything." LOL

I said, "That's because I was being induced for Kira, I had an appointment for them to start labour for me, I wasn't in labour."

He said, "Well do that again then, I don't feel like rushing around and having to leave the house in the middle of the night."

Very scary

Kira as Cinderella, decided that she'd rather watch "Max & Ruby" than go trick or treating. "No, stay home!"

Count Campbellula has a "bite" to eat before he goes out with his friends.

Damon is ready to go!

Patrick was a gaucho, looking oh, so south american with his blonde hair and pasty white skin.

Wawa Nightlife

At the end of an evening of bear watching, there's no better destination than Young's. The kids LOVE this place almost as much as the cottage. They save up their allowance for weeks to go on a shopping spree here. They sell great summer sausage, ice cream cones, gob-stoppers as big as tennis balls and pickles from a barrel. They also sell fishing gear, moccasins and way overpriced t-shirts. See you next summer Henrietta.

Finally

Summer photos! Matt finally uploaded our vacation photos to my computer. So my plan is to share them slowly rather than bombard readers with them.

When we are in Wawa, Matt becomes a bit of an explorer. He loves to find old abandoned mines (there are lots of them) and visit decaying monuments. Here is a view of Clergue Island in Michipicoten Harbour:

Ghost Towns in Canada says:
"Hector Clergue also had a summer cottage on a nearby island, now known as Clergue Island, complete with a footbridge on the mainland that was guarded by two chained black bears."

I had an appointment with my obstetrician on Wednesday. She thought she would be disappointing me by telling me that my cervix is long and only 1 cm dilate, baby has dropped, but only to -2 station (Kira was +2 at this point, and cervix was thin and 3 cm). I'm not really surprised as I haven't been having the same symptoms that I had at the end of my pregnancy with Kira that let me know just how low she was and how dilated my cervix was. Anyway, none of it matters until labour actually starts.

As much as I'd like to enjoy a meal without any heartburn, I'm hoping that this baby stays put until November anyhow.

Bursting with pride

Patrick won the city-wide cross country finals today! He won with about a 150 meter lead on the second place finisher and he wasn't even winded. There were over 400 boys his age running in that race! Everybody was amazed that he not only won, but won so easily. Matt got a photo of him shortly after the start of the race. He got off to a great start, pacing the boy to right in the photo, until he got to the 1/2 way mark. Sadly I don't have photos of his finish this time, I wasn't expecting him to come around the corner so quickly and by the time I got my camera turned on, he was long past me! When he finished and got his ribbon, he went back to the finish line to cheer on his fellow runners.

The last time he won a cross country finals, he was up all night the night before with stomach flu, and then begged me to let him try running anyway. Well last night he played in a hockey game and blocked a shot with his knee. When he got home, his knee swelled up and a nasty bruise appeared. He slept with ice on his knee and other than a bruise, he said it felt fine this morning so he ran anyway.

Damon and Campbell had great runs too! Damon wore the wrong shoes, got pushed down and trampled and still finished 127th out of over 500 runners. In Campbell's very first race, he came in 104th against older and bigger kids, in a pack of over 500. When Patrick was in grade 1, he finished 164th!

Bangs!

Here is Kira after her new haircut. I'll have to take a better photo of it, but you can see that she has bangs! She hates having her hair brushed and won't keep clips in it any more. She was looking more like a street urchin than the princess she thinks she is. And I was having fears about what would happen after I give birth and haircare is in Daddy's hands for a few days, so I finally caved in and gave her bangs and I trimmed 3 inches off of the back. I was thrilled that her curls stayed! And we can actually just brush it and leave it without any clips, ponytails or hairspray!!!!!

Return

I'm sorry, we took a bit of a "blog vacation" here. I'm full of excuses. We've been busy with hockey, I've been tired with this pregnancy, we've been sick - take your pick.

No sooner did the kids start school than the germs started coming home. Patrick brought home a nasty virus that hit him pretty hard. It caused his asthma to flare up and it was at least a week before he was at full capacity again. I got it and it took me 3 weeks. I can't explain how horrible it was. Only a pregnant asthmatic lady with a respiratory infection could appreciate the pain of pulling muscles in your uterus while you are coughing up a lung.

In the meantime....

Hockey season began. Patrick's team has already played several regular season games. They are in a tournament this weekend and had their first win last night! This is the team that won ONE game all last year. This year, with the addition of a few players, the team doesn't look outsized anymore and even when they lose a game, they aren't being outplayed the way they were in the past. The coaches are fantastic, and have a knack for turning troubled teams around. We think that all of the kids on the team are going to gain a lot from them this year.


Damon has made amazing progress at his practices. We were a bit concerned when he was chosen for this team. He had size, determination and toughness going for him, but his skating was not as strong as some of the other players who were chosen. With a new pair of skates, some confidence and a few practices, his skating has improved by leaps and bounds (or maybe that should be quick stops and turns).

School has been a bit trying for Damon. His teacher is brand new and a little too focused on results to remember that her students are living breathing children. After speaking to some dyslexia experts, we've decided to try pulling him out of French Immersion. We've also found that the public school system doesn't "get" dyslexia, so we are going to get him help for that privately with people who deal with dyslexia instead of going through the school system where they want to treat it as a learning disability rather than a learning style.

Campbell is dying for his season to begin. "How many days?" Only 7 more! He does well in school, especially math. Kira, Puck and I miss him though.

Kira is growing up very fast. She can't wait for Baby Hanna to get here.


Puck is good. He is growing out of the puppy stage. We are able to trust him loose in the house when we are out and he doesn't chew anything or get into any trouble. Oh, wait, I should correct myself. He does get into trouble for turning on the tap in the upstairs bathroom. He never turns it off, and we had a problem with the faucet leaking from underneath if it was left running. Matt fixed it, and we are really trying to keep him from drinking from the sink. He is so picky though, and doesn't like sitting water, he prefers running water. *sigh* Here he's "playing" with the neighbour's kitten.

Talk at Matt's work has been about possibly moving the company 2 or more hours away from here. They have put an offer in on a building in a small town surrounded by farm land. While we wait for a definitive answer, we've been spending all of our online time looking longingly at farms for sale on MLS.ca. Patrick has been making sure that there is a AAA hockey team, a track club and a rowing club. All looks good there. Damon has been looking at animal shelters for that perfect farm dog/goat/llama. Campbell just dreams about getting an ATV. With lots of encouragement from Damon, Kira has already put in her request for a pony.

And last, but not least, I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going by. Baby Hanna is going to be here in no time. Here's a photo of me a few weeks ago.

And they're off!

It's been a while since I've "blogged". Ooops. Just really busy with summer stuff.


Today was the first day of school and the morning went fairly well. Patrick's teacher was the one we had expected (and hoped for). Damon has a teacher who is new to the school, but one good thing is that some of his friends are in his class this year. And Campbell has a teacher that Patrick had in grade 4. We thought that Damon would have her this year, but they assigned her to grade 1, which I think is a GREAT fit. Campbell should have a good year with her. And we were surprised to see that the new vice principal is a familiar face from the hockey rinks and track & field meets! He is a hockey/track dad.

After they took the kids into the school, all of the moms went happily skipping off to the cafe for tea. Now Kira and I are home and she's enjoying the quiet.

Now I can't wait to see how the boys do today.

Breaking News!

Patrick and Matt are at the CANUSA Games this weekend. The first part of the meet was tonight and Matt called home with Patrick's results. He finished first in the 800m, first in shotput and second in long jump. He has more races tomorrow. Patrick's friend from his hockey team joined the track club this year and trained with Patrick and he came in second behind Patrick in the 800m. I'm sure that Patrick would be happy that his buddy did well too. I didn't get a chance to ask about Patrick's reaction, because Matt's cellphone cut out.

I will post photos from Matt's camera when they get home on Sunday. I'm also trying to muster up the energy to upload our Wawa vacation photos to a blog post.

Early tomorrow morning, we're off to see the Big Goose again. Expect many photos upon our return.

What makes you happy? An interesting question and article. I read a reprint of it in my local paper and in light of what has been going on in my life lately, it really hit "home".

OB appointment

I am 1/2 lb less on their scales than I was on my family doctor's a month ago, but I told them that I know that I gained weight in the last month, that according to my scale at home, I've gained 4 lbs in 4 weeks. BP was 110/70 and uterus was measuring at 25 cm.

The nurse changed my due date from November 4th to October 29th, based on my ultrasounds and fundal heights. We both agreed that my due date isn't that important anyway, since I will likely give birth sometime in the first week of November anyway.

I was disappointed that my OB wasn't there, she was on vacation and there was another doctor covering for her. She was okay, but there wasn't much to discuss with her as she isn't even my OB and I have no problems or questions that she could answer. She remarked on how active this baby is.

Here I am trying to use the camera timer to get a belly shot, but Puck is trying to hog the camera. I took about a dozen photos, but you could only see ME in 3 of them! I think I've unwittingly trained him to pose for the camera.

Oot and aboot

Canada Day! This was taken by Michael, the newspaper journalist. Kira is clearly not impressed with his coverage of the event.

Kira and friends at a picnic. The girls didn't pay much attention to each other until Blue arrived and they realized that they had a love of puppies in common.

Damon is proud of his playdough creation. This was between burning caterpillars (don't worry, the park staff had already sprayed some of them, as there is an infestation) and helping the park managers hunt for beetle-eating wasps.

Today is a rainy gray day, that type of day is a great hair day for Kira!

Nancy Jane Hanna Fair

July 22, 1940 - June 24, 2006

Salutation

Listen to the Salutation of the Dawn.
Look to this Day, for it is Life,
the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the possibilities
and realities of your existence.
The Bliss of Growth --
The Glory of Action --
The Splendor of Beauty --
For yesterday is already a dream and
tomorrow is only a vision:
but today well-lived
makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day.
Such is the Salutation of the dawn.

1/2 way there!

I had my 20 week appointment with my doctor yesterday. I've gained 2 1/2 pounds so far, which is about the rate at which I gained for Kira. My blood pressure was nice and low, baby's heartbeat was 140 and my uterus was measuring at 20.5 weeks. So things were great.

I can't believe that I am already past the 1/2 way point in this pregnancy! It feels like just yesterday that I found out I was pregnant. Since this will likely be my last pregnancy, I had sort of thought I would savour it a bit more than the others, but things have been so busy, I'm worried that if I blink again, the baby will be here.

Father's Day was a smash

For Father's Day today, Campbell and I made Daddy's favourite breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast. Then we hung around the house, the kids had a water fight and swam in the inflatable pool. After we finished our lunch of steak & cheese sandwiches on the BBQ, we all piled into the van and went for a scenic drive, with our final destination being a nice little museum that includes a lacrosse museum that Damon has been asking to go back to lately. Just around the corner from the museum we heard an awful screeching sound that ended in some guy smashing his SUV into the back corner of our van. Thankfully nobody was hurt, and the van was driveable. The rear quarter panel is badly dented (that doesn't show up well in the photos) and scratched, as is the bumper and the tire rim. The other driver asked us if he could leave because he was in a rush to get to work. He told us that his vehicle registration had expired and that he didn't have his new insurance card and he was worried about being fined for those. And he readily admitted fault, until the police arrived. The cop was a JOKE! He didn't even look at the skidmarks on the road. He had lots of errors on the accident report and didn't even describe anything about the accident! All he did was take down driver information and didn't even charge the other driver for causing the accident. By the time it was all over it was too late to get to the museum and Daddy was in no mood for museums.

Now we can say he runs like a girl

We took Patrick to the track and field trials to qualify to go to Michigan for the CANUSA games. Because of another big meet on the same day, they had a really poor turnout, so they were putting different age groups together for races. 10 year old Patrick ran his 400m race with the under 14 girls and beat EVERYBODY by about 100m! I was so proud of him. It was really hot today, so they cancelled the 800m and 1500m races, but his coach told the organizers that he can win those too.

Also, the teenage girls thought Campbell and Damon were cute so they wanted them to do the long jump with them, so their coach talked them into doing it too. It was so cute watching little 6 year old Campbell take his turn in line with 16 year old girls. They all cheered him and Damon on. Now he thinks he is a track star and wants to know if he made the team. We told him he was the top 6 year old there and he was thrilled.

Kira's hirugohan

Patrick and Kira came grocery shopping with me this morning and begged me for sushi as a treat for lunch.

Kira was very proud of her ability to eat using chopsticks!

Patrick: No, I don't like wearing grey socks.
Me (holding up a pair of clean grey sport socks): Why not?
Patrick: They don't feel as comfortable as the white ones.

Sure.

It's a .....

Girl! She is healthy and very active. I've got lots of pictures, but none of them show her gender.

Here is her profile. Compared to our other ultrasounds, she has a little nose.
Here she is looking at us, her little skeleton head is tilted to the left.

Birdy babies

Kathy welcomed a new neighbour, which reminded me of 4 years ago when we had neighbours living in our arbour. Yep that's them up on my blog header.
Here they are a couple of weeks later. 4 healthy baby robins. We watched their mom and dad take good care of them and we helped them ward off the wicked squirrels and starlings when we could. One day we got to see them all climb out of their nest one by one and get their flying lessons. There's the last one in the photo below, waiting for his turn to fly. We tried to help by 'shooing' away the cats for them. It was very interesting for our family to witness the whole process.

I hope that Kathy and her family get to have just as much fun watching their bird family grow up.

Sunday

Damon with his First Communion certificate.  The little brides were taking too long on the altar and our whole family wanted to get going, so we found a quiet place for Damon to pose.

A wee bit relieved to have it behind him, Damon says, "let the partying begin."

Present time

We had hoped for some nice weather so all the kids could play in the yard, perhaps in the pool, but instead we got bitterly cold wind and rain. 

It was also my birthday, so we had a special cake for both of us.

Charlie: "Puck is bad."
Kira: "Puck not bad Charry."
Charlie: "Yeah"
Kira: "No"
Charlie: "Yeah"
Kira: "Bye Kitty"
Campbell: "Puck's bad cuz Charlie gets hurted by him. I've seen him."
Kira: "No Cambo."

Mother's Day

Matt came home on Friday and within minutes we had friends come over for beer and pizza. Then Saturday we did some shopping, took my mom out for lunch and visited my Grandpa Sam at the nursing home.

That brings us to today, Matt and I were awoken at 7:30 am when Patrick and Damon's brawl spilled over into our bedroom. Some moms got flowers and breakfast in bed, I got a demonstration of the human nature of violence. I wasn't feeling great today, so it was nice to sit around in my sweats. I had mentioned a craving for lobster in garlic butter, so Matt created a seafood EXTRAVAGANZA. Garlic shrimp grilled on his brand new barbecue, escargot cooked in herb butter, a baguette, a salad and a lobster for each of us. The boys were excited about getting their own lobster, but Kira's reaction was the best. She climbed up to the table and in a half-laugh, she pointed and shouted out, "Look at my dinner!!!!!!!"

Life lessons - agony of defeat

So Wednesday was a big day in our household. It was the semi-annual Cross Country Meet for our school board. There seemed to be more kids there than usual. Normally, there are roughly 300 kids in each race, but there were at least 450 kids in some of the races. And the kids were competing against schools we've never seen at the meets before. Many of the other parents and I were wondering if they had condensed the 3 day event into 2 days.

Now last time, Damon's buddies finished 1st and 4th and he finished 7th. Here they are finishing 34th, 36th, and Damon was 40th.

He was initially disappointed with this finish and cried, telling everybody he was crying because somebody had punched his back during the race. But then he overheard other kids who were thrilled to have finished 89th, 94th, and even one boy who was calling his dad from his mom's cellphone to proudly announce that he finished 315th. After that he stopped rubbing his back and didn't mind telling all the kids at school that he finished 40th of 450 kids.

Then we come to Patrick. He was extremely nervous and felt a lot of internal pressure to win. But he saw a lot of his teammates who normally had top 10 finishes finish in the 40s or 50s. He was running in a race that was for grade 5 and 6 boys and since he is a very young grade 5 (being born in November) he has a disadvantage there. He didn't have a great start, but by the time they went over the bridge, he was moving up into the front pack of 10 or so boys. When they were coming back over the bridge we could see that he was 6th, and there was no way to catch the boy who was in the lead, he had about 100 m on everybody and he was only gaining speed.

Here he is looking a bit deflated after receiving his 6th place ribbon. He wanted to go home immediately after this photo was taken.

I told him how proud I was of him and reminded him that the competition in this race was much tougher than any he had ever faced and that he had probably run his best race ever. But I'm not sure he was ready to listen to me. Next fall he will have a much better chance when he doesn't have to run against boys who are almost 2 years older than he is. But hopefully this has taught him not to have such demanding expectations of himself.

Mondays

(warning - may contain subject matter that is disturbing to some readers)

So on Friday, I woke up and realized that I didn't feel nauseous. I was sure it was a fluke and that the nausea would be back soon. But hour after hour went by and I did not feel nauseous. Gaggy, yes but as pregnant women know, that is entirely different.

So today, being Monday, me not being nauseous and the first day that all of the boys would be in school after the weekend, I had high hopes of cleaning today. I woke up, got dressed, woke up the kids and went down to let the dog out of his crate and was met with a wall of stench at the bottom of the stairs. Unbeknownst to me, Puck had a difficult night and had quietly pooped all over the inside of his crate and on himself. One look into the room and the nausea made a quick comeback and before I could help out my poor dog, I was vomitting into the bathroom sink. I let him out and tried to do a quick clean up, but I wasn't able to be very thorough because I had to keep running to the bathroom for more retching. I got the kids ready for school and dropped them off and with all the windows in the house open, I was able to finish the clean up. In the meantime, Puck had another round of diarrhea. After I was finished cleaning, I went over to his "bathroom" area to inspect and see if I could find any towels or length of rope thinking we probably had a repeat of our Halloween Horror. But instead, I found a whole stick from a fudgsicle (that was eaten by the kids in the backyard on Saturday). I had a flashback to around this time last year when I was laughing at this post at Dooce, Dear God Almighty, Lord in Heaven, Everlasting Father. So far *I* haven't taken a picture of it yet.

Puck is feeling much better now, but I think I'm going to need a few more hours before I can eat.

Harassment

For Kathy

To go along with your barn cat post, here are a couple of photos of my "gun dog". I was never happy about the boys having toy guns, and worse yet, that they just leave their toys lying around. But one by one, Puck has been taking care of them for me.
In the evening after dinner, he holds them tightly in his mouth and tries to shine them against the wall. Then he chases the reflection. His favourite is the Star Wars "laser" gun. After a couple of days of play, the brittle plastic starts to crack, and OH NO, for safety reasons mom needs to throw out yet another toy. Tragic.

Happy Birthday Matt!

Daddy, call home! Kira needs to wish you a "Happy Dird-day" just one more time. The kids and I wanted to send you more birthday wishes!

We hope you had a great day even though you were far away from us. We love you and we miss you and we wish you were here with us.



Damon wanted to make sure that I included this photo of you. He loves it and thinks you look so cool. He is hoping that you still have those glasses so he can wear them.