crazy eights

I should have posted this yesterday but I forgot how many days there were in May? My brain is just straight up mush these days y’all.

Nicky is eight months old! At eight months he is a busy little buddy and army crawls around the house at great speeds and sits unassisted for long periods. He eats everything I give him with his two teeth, especially enjoying broccoli stems, chicken and sliced pears. After a few weeks of having a mixed-up schedule he is back to napping twice a day and sleeping through the night, although we have been putting him down a little later in the evenings. He loves spending time outside in the Ergo, in his stroller or on a blanket on the ground, but he HATES car trips and yells through them non-stop. He doesn’t have a favourite toy at the moment (any toy he can put in his mouth will do just fine) but loves playing Round and Round the Garden and being sung to.

it’s fair

Last year when we visited Taylor’s family over May long weekend we took Gwen to a small fair and since then she’s been obsessed. We usually go to the Fair at the PNE in the summer and go on a couple rides, but last August I was so pregnant & we were so busy we didn’t manage to do it, so Gwen has been waiting a whole year to go to a fair again. We went on Saturday and she was SO EXCITED. She’d been talking non-stop about going on a ferris wheel so I was happy to see they had one, and that she was tall enough! I took her on the ferris wheel and she went on a couple kiddie rides with her cousins and by herself and had a blast. She probably could have done more (and definitely wanted to try the bumper cars) but it was getting late so we had to leave. I’m happy that I will have someone brave enough to go on rides with me at the PNE this year though (Taylor and Sym are total chickens and literally will not go on a single ride with me).

Nicky did not go on any rides but it was incredibly hot that day so he very much enjoyed eating ice from my sno cone.

shorty

I have been confused all week about what day it is. Gwen has speech therapy on Tuesdays and so on Tuesday I knew it was Tuesday, but I thought it was Wednesday. When we got home (from her Tuesday speech therapy appointment) Sym was here and I asked her “what are you doing here???” because on Wednesdays after school she goes to her dad’s. Then yesterday Gwen had a hair appointment and I knew it was on Wednesday because I scheduled it for Wednesday, but on our way home we stopped to get a burger for her dinner and Taylor asked if I wanted one I said no, because I thought it was Thursday and we always get poutine on Thursdays so why would I spoil that with a burger???? But it was WEDNESDAY and there was no poutine and I also missed my opportunity to have a burger. I also thought today was gonna be Friday and that I only had one more day of work left this week, how cruel.

Anyway, Gwen’s haircut. She told me she wanted to “see her neck” (I think she was very inspired by Sym’s cut a few weeks back) and after a couple talks where I explained that once it was cut if she wanted it to be long again it would take a long time to grow again, I made her an appointment. She was so well behaved at the salon and I can’t get over how cute the result is! She loves it so far as well.

(Those curls aren’t natural btw, she requested our stylist “curl her hair a lil bit,” again like Sym.)

mother’s day

Gwen woke me up this morning before my alarm went off, to ask me if it was still my special day. I told her no, Mother’s Day was just one day, but that we could still have a nice day today. She told me “yeah, we can build your new Lego together!” (I got the Lego Disney Castle this weekend and she really likes to help me build it, which is good because with over 4,000 pieces it’s going to take me FIVE-EVER to finish it).

My Mother’s Day was very nice and relaxing, I slept in a little (what a sorry state this world is when sleep is seen as a treat, though) and then watched Guardians of the Galaxy* with Gwen while Taylor made stuffed French Toast with strawberry compote for brunch. Later, after he’d gone to bed Gwen and I started building the Lego castle, and played in the backyard with Nicky. In the evening we got a babysitter (SUCH LUXURY) and went to the movies- to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Yes, I watched three movies this weekend; two were Guardians of the Galaxy and the third was its sequel.

* With Gwen’s speech therapy, we are working of F, S at the start of a word when followed by another consonant, S at the end of a word, and two-syllable words where she drops the middle consonant. Gwen gets bored/frustrated/overwhelmed if we do too much at a time so I’ve been incorporating it into all of our games and activities, including watching this movie (which she is obsessed with). Stuff like… “That’s Drax. Drak-ssssssssss. Drax says the Sakaaran are paper people. Pay-Per. Pee-Puhl. That’s Gamora, she has purple streaks in her hair. Pur-Puhl. Sssss-treak-sssss. Groot is drinking out of the fountain. Fffffff-ountain. That boy goes by the name of Starlord. Ssssss-tarlord.”

late easter


I ordered these dolls for Gwen & Nicky in NOVEMBER lol glad they arrived in time for something.

Because Easter weekend fell the week before we were having our floors replaced, we were able to celebrate with the kids. We had to finish packing and get out of the house on Sunday so any kind of special meal or Easter egg hunt just wasn’t happening. So instead, we did it this past weekend. I bought a bunch of Easter stuff on clearance (really to best part of the whole thing) and after brunch Taylor took the kids on a dog walk-slash-Pokemon hunt while I set up in the backyard. I laid out a blanket for Nicky to roll around on and hid candy, toys and other treats (the Easter Bunny brought Sym a giftcard to Forever 21, so modern) around the backyard. Gwen in particular had a BLAST hunting for all the candy-filled eggs hidden in the flower gardens.

Historically I haven’t done an Easter egg hunt for my kids (except for one year when we did one with a tiny Gwen at the beach), because hiding chocolate around a house full of idiot dogs is… not a great idea. Usually a basket of treats just appears in their rooms when they are sleeping. But It was so much fun I think from now on we’re going to do it every year.

mercurial

The weather here has been so mercurial lately, it’s hard to plan our weekends because one day is all warm blue skies and the next is pouring rain. After all the weeks (and weekends) of packing, cleaning, moving, and unpacking Taylor and I really wanted to do something that would be fun for Gwen, especially since we basically had to skip Easter. On Saturday we wanted to take her to her favourite playground but as luck would have it, it started raining as soon as we let the house. Instead we went for a soggy walk and ran some errands, then treated her to a ridiculous pink & purple sparkly princess bathing suit from the Disney Store. She’s been wearing it non-stop since we brought it home so I guess it was a good value (plus it was on sale). The 5/6 fits her now so I think we’re going to have to get a 7/8 to last her through until the end of the summer, which is RIDICULOUS because she’s only 4 1/2! Sunday the weather actually was nice, so we took the little kids to the playground(s) at Second Beach. I also meant to do an Easter Egg hunt for Gwen with a bag of Shopkins eggs I got on Friday for $2 but like an idiot I forgot, so I guess we will postpone Easter yet another week. Thank goodness she has no concept of when holidays actually are yet!