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.

Matt at work

You can watch him work at Amherst College - Museum of Natural History

Matt is away with work for the next 2 or more weeks.

Hockey tryouts are officially over for us! Woohoo!

Patrick was happy to be chosen to return to the AAA team. He looked pretty good at the tryouts. He has his signing on Saturday. His track club training starts this week and he has been invited to join a summer hockey team.

Last night, Damon was ecstatic to be chosen for the Novice Hub team. It is the highest level of hockey available for Damon's age group. Hub is the equivalent of A hockey. Because our area has so many competitive hockey players, a league was set up just for A level hockey within the local area. So that means close travel! YAY.

After the cuts had been made, the parents were called into the dressing room where all the boys who had been chosen were sitting. All of the boys were sitting quietly, except Damon who was grinning from ear to ear and pumping his arms in a "YES! I just scored a touchdown" gesture. It was cute and embarassing all at once. Then they "signed" him and he even had to sign his own name. Now that the whole team has been chosen, they will use Sunday's tryout time to have the team go out for a skate. He also has a lacrosse evaluation this week, but we have turned down the rep lacrosse coaches who would like Damon for their teams. We were hoping to have some freedom of movement this summer.

So after the weekend I move on to ONLY juggling lacrosse, track club and Campbell's soccer schedules.

A Sneak Peek at Baby #5

I had a 12 week ultrasound yesterday as part of my Integrated Prenatal Screening.

The tiniest little feet I've ever seen

There is the baby's profile.  Baby is measuring about 3 inches long right now.
Here's a view of Baby's little tush.  See if you can guess Baby's gender.  It's a bit early to tell, but gender differences are already visible at 12 weeks.

Scenes from a warm spring day

The perfect spot to watch for critters and catch some rays.

"I love the mud!"

(You are supposed to notice the training wheels lying on the patio next to his bike)

Spring

Sharon O'Neill Fair

September 22nd, 1942 - April 11th, 2006


Sharon was a Teacher, Artist, Activist, World Traveler, Explorer, Puff Ball Hunter, Dreamer, Daughter, Aunt, Friend and Inspiration to all of her family and those that knew her. I have always felt a special connection to my Aunt Sharon. I learned so much from my aunt. I think many of the choices I have made in my life were influenced by the experiences and times we had shared together.

Sharon and I shared countless memories. Some of my fondest memories are as follows: travelling to both the East and West Coast on summer vacation; staying in Ottawa with Sharon and Gerry; the many trips to the CNE and food pavillion, dinner at restaurants in Toronto where Sharon often could not decide what she wanted to eat so she would order several dishes that we would all enjoy;
walking through fields looking for Puff Balls; taffy at the Highland Games; fireworks at the Beach; drawing pictures on the floor; building a pink and blue castle in the backyard at my parents' house; taking photographs at the dinner table; spending time at the cottage in Wawa; and of course, building The UP-SHACK with Andrea, Kent and Barclay.
Last summer, under Sharon's supervision, I got a chance to build the UP-SHACK 2 with my kids. I was able pass down some of the same memories to them that I shared with Sharon after building the first one. This summer the kids and I will gather the materials and build a wing in her honor.

Sharon with Patrick and Damon - Wawa 2002
Sharon, thank you for everything you gave us. We will miss you forever and never forget you.




Turtle Island Sunset - Wawa 2005

Happy Birthday Campbell!

Today is my little man's 6th birthday.  Campbell is a fun and quirky guy.  He is a diligent hard worker with an upbeat attitude.  He is very eager to learn. We all love him a lot and hope his birthday is a special one.

I took him and his best buddy out for lunch at their FAVOURITE restaurant.


Then they played before going back to school for the afternoon.  Tonight we will have a quick dinner before Patrick's tryouts and then we'll have cake when Patrick gets home.