I Swear I'm Gonna Do This

2018

Martin here:

As 2018 comes to a close we were reminded that the ol' blog hadn't been updated in some time. Here's a highlight of what 2018 was to us.

Elsie at the end of 2017

Elsie continues to turn into her own person. The difference from 4.5 to 5.5 isn't as great as previous years on the surface, but I think inside there is a lot going on. She loves her various toy brands (LOL dolls, Calico Critters, My Little Pony, stuffed animals) and does a lot of imagination play with them. She's really started doing a lot of drawing. She took a music class in the fall (at a thoroughly annoying time of 5 Friday afternoon), enjoys singing and dancing. Youtube and Netflix continue to play a big part in her life, but watching full movies is now on the table as well. She's gotten into Anime and we recently enjoyed Howl's Moving Castle, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Mary and the Witch's Flower.

Harry Potter has made a big impression on her this year. In the past we attempted to read the book, and/or the illustrated book to little avail. They start so slowly that it was hard to engage her in the story. However, the movie cut a lot straighter to the chase and she was enraptured. After watching the first a couple of times we brought out the second and she loved that as well. Dobby the house elf makes her laugh and laugh. While I'm very excited for her to be interested in Harry Potter, the series (at least in movie form) will have to take a multi year break as the third is so much scarier (cursed Dementors) than the first two. Perhaps now that she's into them in general we can go back and try the books again. The third shouldn't be too bad as a book we hope.

She likes to play games and has started taking control in Minecraft. Tablet games are also big at the moment. Elsie and I have enjoyed playing Stardew Valley quite a lot this past year. It's a fun game to play cooperatively. 

Elsie at the end of 2018

Elsie has continued some strong friendships this year with a few of her good friends from last year, Abigail, Scarlett, and Holly. 

We've thankfully had lots of good opportunities to see them over the past year, including a short camping trip with Scarlett and her family (Corbett, Mike and Kristen). I hope we can do a longer camping trip in 2019! She's also gotten big this year! She's about 113 cm tall and just over 18 kg (40lbs). That means she recently graduated to a booster seat. She also doesn't really fit in the double stroller anymore, so that's making going downtown a bit tricky as we used to be able to just pop them in the stroller and walk. Other highlights include biking with training wheels and scootering.

Arthur at the beginning of 2018

Arthur has been through a big year of changes. From an almost two year old, to an almost 3 year old. He is 98 cm tall and just over 16 kg (35 lbs). He loves to play with his trucks and tractors and watch Paw Patrol. He's continued to develop his personality (often stubborn, lovable, and mostly kind though him and Elsie are currently fighting while I type). He still occasionally takes an afternoon nap, though I believe the days of that are mostly at an end.

His vocabulary and communication have skyrocketed the last few months. He speaks in sentences and can mostly communicate whatever he wants. He was nappy in the car while on the way out to visit friends yesterday and had some funny sleepy things he said, including: "I want my eyes off", and "My hands won't stay up". He continues to have some funny pronunciations, such as hello instead of yellow, transformer truck instead of transport truck, ebbator instead of excavator (edit: talop instead of laptop). 

 Arthur at the end of 2018

It's a big step forward from 2 to 3, and while I think there will definitely be some "threenager" times that we have to get through with him, he continues to be a delight and a fun little person.

Pets:

We had a year of ups and downs with pets. It started off down when Eeloo died of feline leukemia. She was my little kitten and though she wasn't perfect, she's still missed quite a lot.

The downs continued when Camber died of cancer in the summer. She was such a goofy fun loving pup and maybe we didn't always realize how good we had it with her. She's missed quite a bit as well. Camber and Eeloo were best buds as well, so Elsie decided we should bury their ashes beside each other in our yard so they can play together forever. Elsie was very brave and stayed with me while they put Camber to sleep, petting her and telling her we loved her.

We were missing Camber enough that it wasn't long before we were thinking of getting another dog. So Thanksgiving weekend we made a trek over to Maine and adopted Betsy from a shelter. She's a whole lot of dog, not quite sure what breeds are mixed in, but possibly Pointer and Staffordshire Terrier. She's 2 and a half and still pretty much in puppy mode. She's excitable, loves to play rough, and is actually pretty good with the kids.

She's so active though, and we weren't always able to give her the play she wanted, so we threw caution to the wind (and Betsy chased it and barked at it like it was a bird) and one weekend in November, Krista headed back out to Maine to pick up a kennel mate of Betsy's. We welcomed Honey Sparkles (guess who got to name her) to the family. She's a three year old shepherd mix of some kind (possibly greyhound or whippet mixed in there) and she is probably the dog we should have gotten first. She's chill, mellow and very nice. She's afraid of certain people and was almost definitely abused at some point. But once she warms up she's quite lovely. 

Our big plan seems to have worked out as Betsy and Honey love to play with each other, just the way Betsy wants to and she is much more tolerable around us because of it. So the year ended on a good note. We now have 2 kids, 2 dogs, and 2 cats. (We also still have 2 houses, but thankfully the one that won't sell is at least rented).

For me it was a busy year of work. I got involved in a new initiative at work that had me travelling a lot. This past year I traveled to Miami, Ottawa x2, Athens, GA x2, Chicago, and Olathe, KS. I am betting that 2019 won't be quite so much travel, but who knows. I played Ultimate Frisbee all year long, including a very fun summer league where our team almost went all the way (Llama Trauma)! I got out biking a bit, running a bit, but hoping to do more of each in 2019. In the fall I insulated a small part of our shed to turn into an office space, so that's where I spend most of my work days now. Mostly non work life is centered around kids, reading, and some video game time.

Krista: Living in the here and now would be how I would describe the last year. I feel like my mind has finally made the switch from planning next steps and looking forward to when the kids are older to just having fun right now and making the best of where we are.  We are living in a fixer upper and I am looking forward to it being fixed up, but I am also appreciating this phase of the process. For example, the kids could write on the wall, the dogs could scratch the floor or doors, I could scrape the walls and nobody would feel too badly about it. That's a nice sense of freedom to have for us right now. I appreciate it so much that when I do imagine having the house fixed up, I've joked that we will need to hurry up and move before we ruin it.  

I've enjoyed meeting other moms and families around us and I've been taking the kids to participate in a weekly home school group. They are learning so much and we have pretty relaxed days that allow for following interests and playing. The kids love jumping on the beds! I never knew there could be so many games played while jumping on beds, but there are a lot! The kids do it every day and we may now be experiencing the effects of that on one of our mattresses. It's the one that neither of the adults wants to sleep on, but neither of the adults think that a new mattress is a very fun way to spend a few hundred dollars. 

Hobbies are still on the back burner for me, but I do have some fun when the sewing machine has to come out for a seam repair or for making Christmas stockings for the kids this year. I've been knitting the same winter hat for myself for almost a year and it's still not big enough to take off the needles. I think I must, reluctantly, admit that I've chosen to make "dogs" my hobby for now. My yearning for a dog after Camber passed would not allow me to wait awhile. Then we got Betsy Boo and felt like our world had been flipped and flopped before realizing that she really is a very good dog, but just has a different personality than dogs we were used to. She needed another doggy friend to speak her language and run faster and play harder than any of us humans could. Honey Sparkles has ended up being a near perfect friend for her and a seriously sweet dog for us to love on. 

Our intentions for the new year are to enclose our yard a bit better for the dogs and give ourselves more privacy from passersby (and undesirable neighbors, gasp). We have an amazing yard for a city lot and really do need to enjoy it as fully as we can. We would like to insulate the house this winter while the efficiency rebates are provided by the province (there is currently no insulation in our walls!).  I've started daydreaming about kitchens, but haven't yet hit on exactly what I'd like to create, so that might wait until 2020. For the kids, I'm trying to get Elsie into a dance class and I bet 2019 is the year she learns to read based on what she knows already. She absolutely loves Roald Dahl books and we've read many since we discovered this. They may just be what inspires her to love books. Arthur seems to be showing an inclination toward video games fostered by Martin, I'm sure, and we would love to get a big sandbox up and running for him (and Elsie) this summer. He loves anything to do with trucks and he can't seem to have enough dump trucks and cranes and excavators. For those from Merrickville, you'll get a laugh to know that he refers to one of his excavators as being like "Jonah's excavator." 

For myself, I'd like to find a part time job in the near future. I haven't figured out what kind of job would be best for the family, but we've got dogsitters to pay and there are sure to be vet bills coming our way :) That, and it would just be nice to contribute a bit more to the finances. Let me know, if you hear of anything! Back to Martin...

In the summer we took a big trip to Ontario. We visited a lot of friends and family and got to visit our old house as well. It was strange to hang out there after a year away. We gave it a good clean and took care of the yard and awkwardly slept on the floor. Other highlights included a short canoe trip my brother and I took to our normal Kawartha lakes (finally laid our father's stone where we spread his ashes), visiting a museum in Ottawa, a zoo in Peterborough, Toronto, Hamilton, Woodstock, Quebec.

It was quite the trip, we put over 5000km on our new (to us) car (2011 Elantra Touring, perfect for a long trip like this). 

That's it for 2018, I know we're all excited for 2019! We have no major plans this coming year. We had hoped to take a trip to Scotland, but not having sold our house has put a damper on our finances. I believe we're planning on another Ontario trip, mostly camping again, hopefully we'll see some of you while we're there!

The Summer So Far

Elsie had her 5th birthday in unicorn style. She had a party in the house - not in the yard as planned due to some unexpectedly chilly temperatures - with the Music Man as entertainment. We are so lucky to have met so many great kids and parents since moving here and they all made it a special day. At the end of the day, I asked her how she felt about her party. She said it was fun, but she didn't get enough time to jump on the bed with her friends. So, one of these days, we'll have to have a "Jump On the Bed" party.  

Our yard plans are coming along, albeit with some hitches. The raised beds that I placed in what I thought was the sunniest part of the yard are actually in the shade from noon to 4:30 or so. I don't know how I made that mistake, but it's made an enemy of a certain tree that is unfortunately placed half on our property and half on our neighbours'. Ultimately, I think we will come to be at peace with the tree once it's been trimmed a bit to thin out the canopy. The window box project has taken a back seat to the pavilion/outpost/decky thingy that Martin built under the shade in our most treed part of the yard. We've had an occasional meal out there and the kids use it as a place to keep their outside toys. We need some outdoor furniture to make it really useful. I've planted some cedars, hemlocks, a red oak, some native perennials, and beefed up the front garden. We had some wildlife activity in the yard: baby squirrels being raised in the trees, baby skunks being raised under our neighbour's shed, and just yesterday two (that we know of) Monarch butterfly eggs were laid on the leaves of my milkweed plants. 

Arthur and Elsie have had dirt piles to play in this summer during all of the yard preparations, but Martin's built a sandbox to transition them toward a cleaner play substrate. We just have to find a good beach to take sand from now. Arthur spends a lot of time outside with his trucks. Elsie's been more interested in riding her bike and, since we clued in that she's gotten taller and needed her seat raised, she's found it a little easier than it was last year. One of the highlights of the summer, for me, has been watching her ride her bike down at Victoria Park. Arthur tagged along, capably, on his hand-me-down balance bike and they had a good time biking together.  

Arthur is still napping for a couple hours in the early afternoon. With the summer schedule, he seems to be falling asleep around 9:30 or 10 even and waking up at 7 with no wake-ups in the night. I don't nurse him to sleep at night anymore, but still do for naps and when he wakes up from a nap. He has adjusted really well to not nursing to sleep at night. One night, I just said "Arthur let's try going to sleep tonight without boopy." and he just laid on his side of the bed and fell asleep. So easy! Arthur is such a different experience for me. He is very much wanting to do everything by himself. If I try to help him with his food, opening the door, closing the door, pulling a heavy wagon... just about everything... it will be met with sharp cries and resistance. This is so much the case that if I've forgotten and opened the door by myself, he will fuss, close the door, then be happy only when he's completed the task of turning the knob and opening the door. Arthur has been saying "Mama, play me" or "Papa play me" quite a lot in the past couple months. He wants us to get down with him and make the tractors/trucks/cars talk to each other. We all kind of run out of things to talk about after the introductions, but he persists in wanting to do it. Arthur doesn't express his feelings quite as much as Elsie did at his age, but we do get the occasional hug and "lub you" from him. He even tells Elsie he loves her sometimes and tells her that she is his best friend. Elsie is quick to correct him and tell him that she can't be his best friend because she's his sister. When Arthur is sad about something he will often hang his lip down, lower his head and walk very slowly away to be by himself. He can also be found getting down on the ground to curl up and be sad. Today, I asked him to stay out of a picture I was taking, because he kept posing with his hand in front of Elsie's face. This made him so sad that he had to curl up. 

Arthur still speaks in choppy sentences, leaving out things like "to", "the", "can", and "do". He has his own way of saying some words: library - "ba-lie", ice cream - "I cream", excavator - "evator". He's memorized how to count to 10, but when he tries to actually count something it can sound like "one, three, two, eight", so there's a part of the concept still missing. He can sing along to the ABC song too. His major interest right now is simply machines: watching videos about machines, talking about machines, reading his Cars and Fire Engines books, and playing with his truck toys. We go to the beach and he immediately sets himself up with the toys we brought and only briefly stops for trips to the water. 

We had decided soon after Arthur was born that two kids was plenty and that we were done. We had maintained that decision right up until Martin had a vasectomy. And, in general, we do still believe that we have maxed out when it comes to kids. But... sometimes... when the kids are happy and getting along... and nobody is sick or playing annoying games like repeating everything I say... I sometimes wish I still had another kid to come. I really have to work to remind myself that the more kids you have, the less time you have for the ones that are here right now. Part of the pull is from hanging around women who are pregnant and still growing their families. I imagine that they have organized, and are maintaining, some sort of housework/cooking/personal life/date night schedule that allows them to sanely manage a larger family. Or I attribute to them a level of patience that I have not yet attained. I guess what I'm saying is that sometimes, when I think that there is some way to do it well, I wish I were the type of person to be able to have more kids. If I haven't found my parenting zen by now, chances are it will be a struggle for a while yet and I remind myself that a third child would not magically bring this about... I also remind myself that my husband is sterile. 

The goat in the background was not stuck. She was just checking to see if the grass was indeed greener. It always is, dear goat. It always is.

Elsie and Arthur being part of the herd.

Arthur resting after having played tag with an unwilling goat.

We've had some adventures this summer, like a three week road trip to Ontario, hosting cousins on the island, going for hikes, lots of trips to the beach for the evening, and -my favorite- a trip to the goat farm. We had a really great time with the kids and Elsie loves to go out in the field with goats and pretend that she is "a member of the herd." Arthur actually enjoyed holding the teenager chickens and this makes me think he'll be a pretty good little chicken farmer someday. Elsie's been talking about "when we are wealthy enough to buy a barn." I haven't quite teased out what she imagines will be in the barn.

Spring Here

Plants have been pushing through and slowly morphing over the past month here in Charlottetown. We've recently entered a bit of a windy, cool stretch but we have a lot on our plates and I am happy for the extra time we've been given to get things ready for planting. Martin is away in Ottawa right now, but when he gets back he will be finishing up the raised beds just in time for our soil delivery. We have wood for window boxes and for a deck of sorts in the yard. Elsie's 5th birthday party will be held in the yard at the end of the month and I am feeling anxious about how everything will get done in time. 

Our landscaping dreams are filling my mind as Martin and I have come to the conclusion that we would like the yard to be chock full of trees and bushes. I've been going over the MacPhail Woods nursery catalogue and trying to figure out where I want everything, but then I worry about money as we haven't sold our extra house yet and the fun of it all gets lost in the worry. Martin has to remind me that we don't have to do everything in one year!

Elsie and Arthur have been fighting a bit less and actually playing together: I've found them reading in bed, Elsie's pulled Arthur in the wagon, they chase bubbles, and play tag. Sometimes Elsie will even ask Arthur if he wants to share a toy with her. I still find myself running into the room to the sound of screams and cries and finding hair in Arthur's hands, but it is probably not as often as it used to be. 

Arthur has been wanting to read a lot of books and he is always asking "why?", which means that the logical part of his brain is developing rapidly. Great! He knows a lot of letters and notices them all over the place. He can count a bit too, if he's heard somebody say the numbers not too long before he tries. A lot of it might be mimicking more than knowledge, but it's something. 

Elsie's started learning more letters and sounds. She really does not like it if I try to have sit down pencil/marker time, so I've tried to back off and remember that I want to just let her learn in her own way anyway. Yesterday at Forest School, her teacher asked her if she could write her name. She said she couldn't but she could write the first letter. And she did. I looked down to see a beautiful upper case "E". She always knows more than she lets me know about. 

Last night was a rough one. The kids didn't fall asleep until around 11:30; Camber had an upset stomach and was trying to get my attention; then insomnia set in for awhile. So I'm sitting here with lazy legs and a tired mind. More will have to come later.

Arthur Speaks

Before I forget the few things that Arthur has said lately, I wanted to write them here.

He's been imitating a lot of our sentences, lately - especially Elsie's sentences. We were driving and Elsie said that when we lived in Merrickville, she heard voices talking to her when she was trying to go to sleep. Arthur chimed in "voices talkey to me!".

He was getting ready to jump from the chair onto the bed and he said "Watch this!"

When he's crying about something, he can often say why he's crying. It's usually "Elsie hit me" or Elsie pushed me".

Today he hugged me and was saying over and over again "layvoo". I clued in that he was saying "I love you" and was so surprised because that one's been a long time coming!

Sometimes he'll say something like it's a question and before we can answer he'll say "maybe not".

We were reading in the big chair and we both got up for some reason between books, but when I came back to the chair I sat on the opposite side. Arthur came back and he pointed at my old spot and said "your side", then pointed where I was sitting and said "my side".

He's been practicing saying "chocolate chip" today. It started out sounding more like "choc-y bit", but it's definitely "chocolate chip" now. 

Happy Birthday Dear Arthur!

Arthur is 2 years old today... although not quite officially, since he was born a bit past 6:30 pm EST. 

We just had some chocolate cupcakes with whipped cream frosting and sprinkles, which Elsie expertly administered to the tops. Arthur opened a couple of presents and asked for "more presents". Hmmm... I'm thinking Christmas sure did change his expectations when it comes to getting gifts. We got him a book because I think we just can't bring ourselves to buy more toys so close to the toy spree of the holidays. This will likely be how we feel every year and thus the tradition of a birthday book is born. He did, of course, get toys from my parents, and is happily playing with them and Martin downstairs. We will all be going to Panda Fun tomorrow evening to do a little more celebrating. 

This guy gives us plenty of reasons to celebrate. He's happy and funny and easy to please. He's learning new words every day and it's so fun to think of what he'll be doing and saying at three years old! When I was blowing up his birthday balloons, I told him that they said Happy Birthday and since then he's practiced saying "Happy Birthday". Surprisingly, Arthur has developed some basic numeracy as well. I think he knows the order of numbers under 10, and he just said "three" when he saw three flashlights together. I say surprisingly because Arthur seems to express himself in fewer words than Elsie did at his age. When he reveals something that he knows it always makes us do a double take. I love that right now when he means he *doesn't* want something he *says* "want it" or "want that". It would be confusing for somebody else to try to figure out what he wants. 

Arthur loves to play tag, jump on the beds, swing in the sheet, bump on our bellies, push his toys around, and just a couple days ago he really took to shoveling snow. He's been drawing with markers and chalk for a couple months now. Sometimes, he'll tell us what it his he's going to draw then when chalk meets board (or marker meets paper) it's all big loop de loops. He claims to be drawing everything from dogs to tractors to papa. It's all squiggles. I love that he's brave about the creative process and I hope that he brings that into everything else he does. He's got a great imagination that lets him play by himself quite easily most days. We were at the library a couple days ago and he took a small chair away from its table and started pushing it all around the aisles. I thought he was saying "one more" when he was doing it, like he was telling me he was going for another round, but today he did the same thing at the library and I understood more clearly that he was actually saying "lawn mower". Wow! He likes to pretend to be trucks and when I pretend to be a garbage truck that he can load with garbage. 

Arthur is still sleeping with me for most of the night, but he is now starting the night in his own bed. He used to like singing a song or two or reading the Big Red Barn before sleeping, but he's been in more of a hurry to get to sleep these days. He's still nursing about 3 times in the night and waking at around 7:30 (going to bed around 9). Martin still takes him when he wakes up so I can go try to sleep a bit more with Elsie. They are not going outside in the mornings anymore, but this morning was actually warm enough to do a walk and I think they'll try it a couple of times this weekend with temperatures going up to 9! Arthur likes to use the little toilet when his diaper is off and I suspect that by the summer he'll be in a nighttime diaper only. His favorite foods are clementines and chocolate covered granola bars. He was crazy about egg nog over the holidays and Martin joked that on the one day I was away Arthur drank egg nog like it was a breast milk substitute. 

Martin and I are so happy that Arthur is just exactly the way it is, because it makes having two kids a little bit easier than it could be. We are also so happy to be well out of the baby stage, having had our fill of sleepless nights and nap routines. The future is bright and we look forward to taking this guy on adventures and building a rich life for him at home. 

Martin's Note: Arthur is 13kg, 89cm. I agree with all the above, Arthur is a really cool little guy who I love spending time with. As his bedtime has been slowly shifting later and he's sleeping in later, I find I'm missing our morning walks quite a bit. Though not so much in the last few weeks. It's been rather cold here and we don't have a good way to keep him warm. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do together in the spring and summer. I also look forward to seeing how much he will be able to do at the parks. He was pretty confident at a year and a half, I'm betting a 2.5 year old Arthur is going to be hard to keep up with! We love you tons Arthur, here's to another great year.

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