Monday, April 24, 2006
At last we are expecting the work of shoring up our foundations to begin later this week. This is good news; having the kids' playthings in the living room has worked out well, but as spring has arrived and their energy levels have skyrocketed, it's been rough on rainy days not to have the large playspace downstairs for bumptious games. For days when the weather is decent, the backyard is very popular with both boys, and the grass seed has come up well. Jamie even helped Daddy cut the grass yesterday!
My mother has been visiting, which is always great, and yesterday we were terribly productive! We got some of the art hung, put up coat hooks in the foyer at kid-height, hung the blinds in the dining room and Jamie's bedroom at last, and rehung the bedroom curtains Mum had reconstructed for us. Bit by bit we are losing the just-moved-in look (and high time, too, after nearly five months). Today after I meet with the geotechnical engineer, I think I'll try to get another of the boxes of miscellania dealt with, and maybe I'll even be inspired to try (yet again) to get the electrician in to hang the refurbished light fixtures.
The boys are fine. I think AJ is getting a molar or two; he's had the telltale red spots on both cheeks for a day or so. He's talking constantly and very clearly, and keeps a careful eye on Jamie; in part this is because he wants to make sure he does, and gets, everything Jamie does and gets, and in part it's because Jamie tends to jump on him. The sibling dynamic is developing well, in other words. Jamie can be difficult on and off; he's in one of the stages where asserting his independence means challenging authority in ways that seem downright silly to the authority in question. He's still a very lively boy with a generally good heart, though, and let it be recorded that I have yet to defenestrate him, in spite of occasional very strong urges.
We have some travel plans in the next little while. I'll be leaving the boys with my parents while I spend almost a week in Toronto for the Exultate Chamber Singers' 30th anniversary celebration, in which I've been invited to participate in a minor capacity; I'm really looking forward to the break. I think I'll do a whole range of self-indulgent things, possibly even including sleeping in past 5:45am. In June Paul's mother is coming from the UK, and since she'll be based in Toronto and spending some time at the cabin on the Bruce Peninsula, this will mean another trip up, this time for all four of us. We're planning that the boys and I will spend July wtih my parents and August in the UK with Paul's mother; our only restriction is that we must be back for the beginning of school in September: pre-K for Jamie and part-time playschool for AJ! And free time for me...which I can use to unpack the last of the boxes from the move.
My mother has been visiting, which is always great, and yesterday we were terribly productive! We got some of the art hung, put up coat hooks in the foyer at kid-height, hung the blinds in the dining room and Jamie's bedroom at last, and rehung the bedroom curtains Mum had reconstructed for us. Bit by bit we are losing the just-moved-in look (and high time, too, after nearly five months). Today after I meet with the geotechnical engineer, I think I'll try to get another of the boxes of miscellania dealt with, and maybe I'll even be inspired to try (yet again) to get the electrician in to hang the refurbished light fixtures.
The boys are fine. I think AJ is getting a molar or two; he's had the telltale red spots on both cheeks for a day or so. He's talking constantly and very clearly, and keeps a careful eye on Jamie; in part this is because he wants to make sure he does, and gets, everything Jamie does and gets, and in part it's because Jamie tends to jump on him. The sibling dynamic is developing well, in other words. Jamie can be difficult on and off; he's in one of the stages where asserting his independence means challenging authority in ways that seem downright silly to the authority in question. He's still a very lively boy with a generally good heart, though, and let it be recorded that I have yet to defenestrate him, in spite of occasional very strong urges.
We have some travel plans in the next little while. I'll be leaving the boys with my parents while I spend almost a week in Toronto for the Exultate Chamber Singers' 30th anniversary celebration, in which I've been invited to participate in a minor capacity; I'm really looking forward to the break. I think I'll do a whole range of self-indulgent things, possibly even including sleeping in past 5:45am. In June Paul's mother is coming from the UK, and since she'll be based in Toronto and spending some time at the cabin on the Bruce Peninsula, this will mean another trip up, this time for all four of us. We're planning that the boys and I will spend July wtih my parents and August in the UK with Paul's mother; our only restriction is that we must be back for the beginning of school in September: pre-K for Jamie and part-time playschool for AJ! And free time for me...which I can use to unpack the last of the boxes from the move.
