Brought to you by the letter B; for choosing your battles

From the backseat:
"B is for Ben
B is for boomer
B is for Bev
and you know what mama?
B is for family!"

The front seat responds:
"That's sweet baby!
We have lots of Bs in our family!
But the word family actually begins with an F!"

Front seat, with a sigh:
"I am sooooo disappointed in you mama.
And angry.
Just say it.
Say family begins with B
or I'm gong to get annoyed."

So of course the front seat agreed...sort of:
"My mistake sweetie,
you are right again,
OUR family DOES begin with B!"

For me it is about picking the battles...

The extraordinarily short life of a gingerbread house and other christmas joy...

"Though always dressed in spiderman clothing
the following gingerbread experience
occurred over 36 hours or so..."

Buy...(really, who bakes their own houses and has a 3 year old?)

Mix and lick...

Build...

and Build...

wait...

Decorate...

wait...

Eat and drop...

Scream like your life has ended...

Try to rebuild

Decide it is useless

and with Uncle Matt's urging

get a hammer...

Vacuum 

and then eat...

Meanwhile...

clean the whole apartment.

build a Christmas tree

decorate the tree

visit Santa

and 

buy some ski boots 

for the mountain vacation

(but those pictures will have to wait)

A recipe for a joyful weekend!

Drop and Shop

Yup, that is what it was called.
Dropped him off at his awesome gymnastics club
5pm to 10 pm for 25 bucks.

I got a weeks worth of Christmas shopping done in 2 hours.

I scoured the adds at lunchtime today
made a plan
got it done
and then sat alone in the food court
eating teriyaki chicken with steamed vegetables.
alone.
happily alone.
Then I popped int to purdy's chocolates for a kiddy sized ice-cream
pepermint chocolate...
bonus Black Friday offer?
Dipped in white chocolate.
Lovely.
I got to eat it all.
Alone.

It was lovely.

I picked him up at about 8:30
so happy to see him happy
he was cozied up on a gym mat with 10 new best friends
watching the very beginning of Pinocchio
big grin on his face
white shirt smeared with pizza sauce
and christmas craft sparkles.
Tired.
Really really tired.

I asked him what part of the gym party he liked the best...
"All of it mama
I loved all of it
except the part where I didn't have cozy pyjamas and Travis did."

Note to self
send pyjamas, a pull up and his favourite blanket
and stay out til 10.

Dec 16th
Next one is called
It's a wrap.

Did I mention that I love his gym club?

Blustery Park Fun

Ick-less at last

I'm hesitant to write this...you know, bring on bad luck or something, but we are officially ick free and have been for about a full week.  Our first full 7 day span of health since the beginning of time (or Sept 15th...but it felt like forever and ever).

And we are busily preparing for winter.
car maintenance.
gift buying.
collecting together a few things for our mountain adventure.
dreaming in the toy aisle.
and hibernating on Sundays....I just made that rule.

There is swimming fun
where last week Ben was asked to close his mouth so Piret could put him under the water...
so of course he opened it.
Wide.

For a long long time.

These pictures are from week one...
we are in week 7 now.

And Gymnastics fun
(where we can not take photos)
where this coming friday they have an event for the kids
called "drop and shop".
I drop him off at 5
they entertain him
do some gymnastics
eat some pizza
crafts
a movie
and I can come back as late as TEN!
(of course he won't be staying til the end...but a girl can dream)

Can you say hallelujah?

 A few key events in the wee one's life...
The Royal
which was all about the map.
He is a map freak.

Artistic moments

Fall fun

And report cards
and a successful round of parent interviews
and
and
and

So busy.

In other unrelated news dude is 16.3kg (35.9 lbs)
and 101 cm tall (39.8 inches or 3 feet 3.8 inches).
According to the doctor he could be 5'11" as an adult.
Not so petite...
for a sickly child with an eating aversion.
Just saying.

Ick

So, it is official.  Dude is sick.  Bacterial.
A bit of lung ick.
A bit of sinus ick.
A teeny bit of throat ick.
 Ears are ick-less though.
Dr C is not a big giver of antibiotics
but the lung ick
combined with the never ending fevers
and the overall ick-ness of how Ben looked in his office
all worked to create the second ever antibiotic given by the family doc.

Here is Sir Ick eating some Pho on Sunday around noon.
I needed to get out of the house.
He needed to eat something.
He will ALWAYS eat Pho.

Looking a bit ick-y, eh?

On to other news.
Hung this lovely 16x20 canvas on the wall Sunday.

Ben exclaimed,"Mama, you've never been on the wall!  You look great!"
Yes, in fact my walls are a bit Ben-entric.

Here is the end wall in our place.

Here is a close up of the left side.

Photos of Ben and I, in blue, by Leslie Lightfoot.
Oil painting of Ben and Boomer on his first birthday, by Susan Groot.

Yes, they both rock.

again...still

The prince is sick again
Feverish again
Sleepless again


And I'm tired
Still


The end