Julia

you won't give me smooches.  I only like Daddy smooches.  You promised not to smooch me anymore"

That's my Julia.

Well, since it has been months since I last posted there is lots to report.


Julia started Preschool at the beginning of September and absolutely LOVES it.  This is not a big surprise.  She had to wait in the van most of the time the last two years when I would drop William off at school because she would cry so loudly as to disturb the class next door as well as the preschool class in her great distress at not being allowed to stay at school with him.


William started Kindergarten, twice.  After two days they decided to split the K class into 2 classes.  The class room is not as well designed but the teacher is great and the students are almost all from his preschool.

It is after 10:30 pm and my children are out for a walk with my dad because they could not be still or quiet.  They were literly bouncing off the walls.

We have been very busy and up pertty late every night.

Started with the results of this:

The driveway heaving in the middle of the winter, not this past winter but the one before.

From here we quickly progressed to:

Now we have:

William took this.

Julia - "Knock Knock Grandpa John"

Grandpa John - "Who's there, Julia?"

J - "Eddie"

GJ - "Eddie who?"

J - "You don't have to cry about it Grandpa."

J - "Knock Knock Grandpa John"

GJ - "Who's there, Julia?"

J - "Julia"

GJ - "Julia who?"

J - "Hee Hee Heee You don't have to cry about it Grandpa."

It is soo hard to be mad at her when she is so very proud of herself!

Julia has cookie dough on her bum and she is crying because she broke my pencil.  Other than that not much exciting here.

We all went to bed late last night and so slept in until 9 am.

William and I got up and dressed to head out the door to pick up Jessica and Luke on our way to the Farmer's Market for some breakfast and and some produce shopping before we went to the Children's Festival.

William chose puffed wheat square and a peanut butter and marshmallow treat. I chose a ham, cheese and green onion corn muffin. All contraband choices if Julia were with us due to the corn in all three. After getting our produce we headed to the Children's Festival.

The first thing that called to William was the Fossil Dig. Before we could do anything we had to get our stamps.

Once again we ran into the couple on stilts. William wasn't at all intimidated by them like Julia was, he also wasn't very interested in them.

Stamps on hands William decided that the first stop should be the Labyrinth. As we went through together we tried to solve all the riddles and find all the hidden items. We had to go back in a second time to find the bananas, but otherwise we found everything the first time through.

William next wanted to go dig for fossils and sharks teeth. Jess and I both were a little worried we wouldn't be able to leave the dig site without William's pants falling around his ankles with the weight of the rocks in his pockets. On the contrary William did very well with limiting himself to just what would fit in the small bag they provided.

I found a really nice sharks tooth that had serrated edges and was rather big compared to most we could find.

We showed it to a girl who was having trouble finding any big enough for her to feel and she put it in her pocket. William was a bit disappointed but I suggested that when Grandpa John comes to visit next perhaps Grandpa would enjoy it if William took him to look for sharks teeth.

After a bit, William got tired of digging through the rocks so we set off to see what else there was to see.

We wandered through the park down to the far side of the Bessbourough where we never got to with Julia yesterday. We found the face painting tent. William seemed interested so we went in to the tent. William looked around the tent, got a really concerned look on his face and said he didn't want any face painting afterall.

When we walked into the tent there were tables set up, maybe four or five on each side of the tent. At each table two or three people painting faces, also at least one child and parent for each face painter. On the walls around the room were pictures of all the different things they could paint on the children's faces. I think William found the whole place very overwhelming. Just as we were about to walk out the exit door William decided that he would like to have a rocket painted on his face after all.

I am so glad that the line wasn't very long either time we stood in it.

After William had his rocket ship painted we headed back to the other end to go to the science show. We got there just in time to see them set off the Diet Coke and Mentos. Jess and William went into watch the rest of the show while I sat down to watch Luke sleep. It was nice to be off my feet for a few minutes.

Toward the end of the show a sleeping Luke and I set off to plug our parking meter. When we returned we found Jess and William waiting in line to get a balloon from the Balloon Fairy. William stood in line for more than half an hour waiting for it to be his turn. We talked about what he would like to have made. William wanted to have a rocket ship to match his face. I asked him “What if she doesn't know how to make a rocket ship? What is your backup plan?” “ A straight balloon.” “A sword?” “no, just a plain straight balloon.” Once we got to the front of the line William asked for a rocket ship. She did know how to make them but couldn't because each child could only have one balloon. William took his straight balloon with instructions from the Balloon Fairy that if he could figure out how to make a rocket with only one balloon he was to come back and show her how he did it. We didn't even get to the back of the bandstand before William's balloon popped. He was SOOO disappointed he wanted to go back and get another one. He may have even been willing to stand in line again, but Jess and I were not.

We went off to the Art Tent where we got to do some painting on each others arms. William wanted a rocket ship on each arm. One taking off and the other in outer space.

I am still not sure what he was going for on me.

This was our last stop at the Children's Festival. After this we took Jess and Luke home and went to Grandma's to see how the sausage making was going.

I had a long post written up, but when I went to post it it disappeared.

AGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Since we didn't get to the Children's Festival on Wednesday as we had previously planned we planned to go today.  William and I were going to go and Julia was going to Grandma Alexis' to play with  Grandma and James.  That was the plan when we went to bed last night. It was the plan when we got up in the morning.  It was even still the plan when we got our shoes on to head out the door just after noon today.  Then Julia got to thinking.  She decided that the Children's Festival sounded like a lot of fun and she should come too.

Julia insisted that she did NOT want to go to Grandma's house.  She did NOT  want to play with “That BOY”, said with emphasis as though being a boy was the worst insult that you could throw at a person.  We talked it out for a while, trying to figure out what to do.  Julia wanted nothing to do with not going to the Children's Festival.  She would not be put off with the promise of going with me or her dad all by herself tomorrow.  She was not willing to stay at Grandma's while we went, period, end of story.

William on the other hand had had nearly a week to think about this just  Mommy and William trip.  He could see it falling apart in front of his eyes. Finally, William came up with what I considered to be a very mature solution.  He would go and play with Grandma and James and Julia and I would  go to the Children's Festival today.  William and the parent of his choice would go to the Children's Festival tomorrow.

So we buckled ourselves in to the van and went to drop William off at Grandma's.  Julia got upset again when she realized that the lunch I has packed for her was going with William to Grandma's.  I had packed the same food in two sets. One for one child, the other for one child and one adult. I was not going to be hungry to satisfy her need to bring her containers.

Once William was safely dropped off we went downtown.  Julia fell asleep in the van.  I  mean really asleep, as in pick her up out of the carseat, still asleep, asleep.  I found a decent parking spot not at all far from where we were to meet Jessica and Lucas. I pulled in and parked.

 I gathered everything we needed and got the stroller out that I still have from our Calgary trip (Jess') I put Julia in the stroller before plugging the meter, in order to maximize our parking time. I had a $2 & $1, and very little other change. I plugged the $2 coin in.  That should have bought me 80 minutes.  In fact it bought me......

0 minutes. It never registered.  Next I added my $1 coin.  That gave me the 40 minutes it should have.  I had just paid $3 for 40 minutes of parking and had no money left, now what?  I found a scrap of paper and wrote a note to leave on the windshield of the van and headed off.  About one and a half car lengths from the van I spotted a Commissionaire coming towards us.  I explained to him what had happened and he said that I could park for the two hours that I had paid for.

We met up with Jess and Luke in the park and wandered around for a bit seeing the big globe that they were rolling over children laying on the ground, and the parachute that a different group of children were playing with.  Julia tried out both activities.  The first time the globe rolled over her she lost her nerve just as the big ball was rolling over the child beside her.  She sat up just as the ball got to her.  I think it surprised her a bit but she was ready to go again for the next pass.  Jess, Luke and Julia played with the parachute a bit then we decided that we should eat our lunch before the perishables that we had brought had a chance to go funky.

After we finished our lunch we wandered down to the ticket booth to buy our stamps so that we could try some of the attractions.  

We saw a couple on stilts.  Julia was a little intimidated when they talked to her, but endlessly fascinated once their focus was on some one else rather than her.

With our stamps paid for and only an hour until the park closed we went to go through the maze.  There was an inflatable maze to wander though.  Once we got to the entrance of the maze, Julia stood there  and pointed an Imperious finger at me and told me in no uncertain terms to “GO AWAY”.  She was going to do the maze by her self, thank you very much.

One of my goals as a mother is to have children who grow up to be strong and independent.  I just didn't expect it in a three year old.

After the maze we went to the Potash Corp dig site to look for sharks teeth.  At the entrance to the  pile of rocks they give each child a small sealing bag for their collections.  Now, it is a small bag but still maybe, 2 inches by 4 inches.  Julia was determined that we should not leave the park until we had filled her bag with shark's teeth.  We found quite a few but it would have taken hundreds to fill the bag.  We finally convinced her to leave when there was about 10 minutes left till the end of the day.

We next found the Art tent where we coloured on each others arms and legs with water colour pencils. Then it was time to pack up and head home.
 
On the way out we passed an ice cream vendor.  I declined to spend $3 on a fudgesicle  but we decided that ice cream did indeed sound like a good idea.  We stopped at DQ on our way home for Dillybars.  Julia shared most of hers with William.

Tomorrow, William and I think I are going. 

Julia slept in until very nearly 10 this morning.  Even so we made it to story time for 10:30, well, nearly.

After story time we picked out a couple of movies, a couple of books and signed our selves up for the Summer Reading Club.  It was very nice.  Each of us picked out a couple of books and away we went, on to our next errand.

Our next stop was the grocery store for buns for supper and a bit of a snack for a treat.  I love going out with no fights and no struggels.

Julia had a bit of a nap and then it was time for Greg to be home for supper before ball tonight.

William and Greg went to ball all by themselves.  I understand it went fairly well.

Julia and I stayed home.  Julia tried her hand at Lego Indiana Jones for a bit.  Once the boys came home we went out for Frosters.

As I was sitting here typing this, Julia came dancing through swinging her pretty green bead necklace.  She opened the screen and was about to step out on to the deck when she started to screech and cry as if her heart were breaking.  Her beads had slipped out of her hand and between the boards of the deck.

We got up this morning and lounged about a bit and then went over to Mya and Corbin's house to play with them and to help their Mom make cusions for the boat.

That is the short version.  The long version is that we got up and were invited to Mya and Corbin's before we had started making breakfast.  We decided that we should have peanut butter and jelly or honey for breakfast rather than the blueberry muffins we were going to have.  Then we needed to get dressed. 

We had a lot of argument over who should be dressing who and who should pick their clothes.

We finally got out the door around 12:30.  The kids played really well, with a few arguments and the occasional injury.

We headed for home just in time to be in the most traffic that I have seen it a long time.  Julia fell asleep on the way home and slept for the better part of an hour, though most of the time we had to eat supper.

A few hotdogs and a it was time to head to ball.  William played really well, until he fell and skinned his knee.  Julia and I headed to Grandma & Grandpa's house to use their bathroom.  By the time we got back the game was over and William was playing on the park play structure.

William was riding home in our little umbrella stroller, Julia pushing him, in many directions, none of them the right one.  Then she finally got tired of pushing and wanted to ride as well.  Julia rode the rest of the way home on William's lap.  I really wish I'd had my camera.

I hate this program!

I just posted a post and it is gone.

Here's to trying again.

Greg is coaching William's Blastball team.  I think they both enjoy it.  Though it seems that perhaps they would both have more fun if Greg were not coaching.

If anyone has seen my camera please tell me.

A couple of pictures from William's camera.

The last  few days have shown us a real glimpse of spring.

On Thursday we went swimming with Jessica and Luke.  After we finshed swimming and lunch we had a great time playing at the park.

Then on Friday, we went to the Zoo with William's class.  I think everyone had fun, more or less.  We zoomed though the animals and then played in the park a bit while we had a snack.  I think I need to take the kids back some time when we have time to actually read about the animals.

Today the kids and I spent a couple of hours in the yard, raking and playing in the sand box.  I was going to add the grass rakings to the compost bins but they needed to be watered.   I found a wasp nest in one of them.  Thank goodnes it was an empty old nest.