Category Archives: Weather, Seasons, & Celebrations

Weekend Roundup

The weather was beautiful, which went a long way towards offsetting how ill I felt over the weekend. Going downtown on Friday really messed with my energy levels and I paid for it. This is one of the big reasons why I was reluctant to commit to a full-time in-house job: the commute alone would kill me, thanks to the FMS. And if I needed proof to demonstrate how much the medication I’m taking for it has been helping, skipping a night because my throat thing was making sleeping difficult what with the dry scratchy feeling I couldn’t shake no matter how much water or honeyed tea I drank and throat lozenges I sucked, because the meds dry me out and made the whole throat thing worse at night, illustrated precisely how much they take the edge off the pain. We had to cancel a dinner on Saturday because both Liam and I were sick, and HRH was at the tail end of a stomach thing. Then because I was still too wiped out we passed on the public Beltane ritual on Sunday as well. I slept badly all weekend too, but that’s a given when I have bad FMS days now.

Instead we took things nice and easy over the two days. I spent a lot of the weekend just kind of sitting down, mainly reading Christopher Bunting’s Essays on the Art of ‘Cello Playing Vol. 1 (which is brilliant) and Kim Harrison’s The Outlaw Demon Wails (which is also excellent, moving things in the series along, further developing characters and relationships, and addressing some very interesting issues) while HRH and the boy enthusiastically overhauled the garden and prepped it for planting vegetables and whatever new flowers we decide to add. Late Saturday afternoon we meandered down to Dorval for some ice cream at Wild Willy’s. Sunday we picked up grass seed and vegetable seeds in the morning, HRH laid the grass seed and raked in new earth with it, and when Liam woke up from his nap we packed the wagon with water bottles and an apple and ambled to the park so he could play. He is a mad slide fanatic. HRH fielded him as he threw himself down various slides while I sat in the sun and watched. When the boy had reached the clumsy stage from all the activity we trundled to the corner store to buy Freezies and ate them on the way home. I picked three wild violets just around the corner and drank in the sweetness the rest of the way to the house. The side garden along the path to the backyard is a windy happiness of tulips and daffodils too, which makes me very pleased.

Orphaned squirrel update: There was a second one rescued the day after the white one was brought inside. The new baby is a more usual grey colour. The white one’s eyes opened on Saturday (lovely brown eyes, so it’s not an albino) and the grey one’s opened on Sunday. They are both girls, and the white one does seem stronger than the grey. They both suck lots of formula from the syringe, though, and curl up so sweetly in a hand or under the chin once they’re done. They are remarkably good-natured and behave much like gerbils do. At the moment they’re about the size of a large gerbil, too, fitting very securely in the palm of my cupped hand. Liam has held them and petted them very carefully, has rubbed them gently against his cheek, and has decided that the white one is his favourite. He asked to sleep with it the other night and we explained that it was very very tiny and he might roll over on it and squish it. I’ve posted three of the pictures at Flickr taken last Thursday evening when we first found the white baby on the ground. I don’t have pictures of the little grey one yet, as when I’m with them now I’m usually handling them.

It’s cool and rainy today, which is a good thing because the gardens all needed a good soaking.

Beltane Bake Day!

I am late; I said I’d make this formal announcement last week. Well, last week was swallowed by post-book missing brain, small child, and angsting about a job interview. However, that’s all over now. On to the fun stuff!

It has come to my attention that there are a bunch of people around who like to bake. Breads, bread products, quick breads, yeast breads, sourdough, cakes, sweet loaves, more cakes, pies, tarts… you name it, someone bakes it. And every time we talk about it on-line, everyone else gets the baking bug.

So! On the heels of this realisation I have cobbled together a new holiday celebrating both the arrival of spring and the glory of baking! Ladies and gentlemen, I declare this coming May Day the first annual Beltane Bake Day!

Now technically speaking May Day, AKA Beltane (Beltaine, Bealtinne, Latha Bealltainn, Walpurgis Night, etc.) is the first of May, traditionally beginning at sundown on April 30 and carrying forward to sundown on May 1. This year it happens to fall on a Thursday, and so I am declaring the Beltane Bake Day a THREE-DAY HOLIDAY! Yes, it will begin on May 1 (however you want to determine when it begins) and end at midnight on May 3. This gives everyone a chance to bake with a relaxed schedule whether they work full-time outside the home or otherwise.

The rules:

1. Bake something.

2. Your baked item must be from scratch. No mixes, unless they are an ingredient in a multi-ingredient recipe. (Using a pudding mix in a cake recipe, for example.)

3. Brag about it in your on-line journal. This is your opportunity to wax poetic about your love of baking, and/or the specific product you have baked, and/or the process and your experience baking it. If it falls flat, share your woes with the rest of us and we will console you.

4. Brownie points to those who post a picture! (Seriously, what other kind of points belong in a baking holiday?) If you don’t have a camera, describe it as best you can. Or borrow one from a friend, bribing them with a taste of your baked item!

5. Because bragging inevitably engenders envy, people will likely ask for your recipe, so you can post it as well. Unless it’s a closely guarded secret, in which case you can gleefully withhold it and taunt us all.

That’s all there is to it! This event is simply to give us all a reason to bake something and talk about it, sharing it in the only way we can with people scattered all over the continents. Your baked item can be as simple or as fancy as you like.

I propose that we use this post as a home base, so to speak: when you’ve participated and posted about it in your journal, leave a note here with a link to your post so others can find it. Feel free to repost this link in your own journals to share the event with as many people as you like.

You have three days in which to plot, plan, and prepare. Have fun!

Friday

In a nutshell, here’s what’s going on:

I interviewed today for a writing-associated position on a game that expands upon the game I worked on last spring, and by the end of the interview the producer said, “Well as far as I’m concerned you’re on the team already, so let’s talk money and time.” In short, I have everything I was concerned about not having: the pay I’ve asked for, flex time, working at home, and the week off when my first round of edits come along, and being on tap for the next round of stuff that’s needed for the game. Plus I have the very excellent bonus of working on a game that will help people understand the art of conversation, how to think through a problem and achieve certain goals using dialogue, and other neat stuff. I am still moderately in a state of stun, as I was expecting to have to turn it down because I thought it would be another full-time in-house deal. Part of the coolness of the project is that it’s still at the development stage; they need content to work with before design goes any further, and that’s why I’m with them.

They laughed when I told them there were now two DS units and a Wii in the house, and that it was their fault.

The car we’d crawled all over and had taken for a test drive Monday evening… was sold last night, eighteen hours before HRH was scheduled to go in and begin negotiating for it. To me this means that this was not our car and we should ask them to keep an eye out for exactly the same thing — which they have already found for us. Go team us! The new one is a year younger, has less than half the kilometres, and is only about $1500 more.

We found a baby squirrel who had fallen out of its lofty nest yesterday afternoon, and after watching for the mama squirrel and fending off neighbourhood cats for a couple of hours, Scarlet took it in. I came home today to discover her at work trying to hold a second baby and draw formula up into a syringe with the other hand. Looks like their mama is history; this second one is skin and bones. I helped feed and deflea the second one, and it’s simply adorable. They’re so young their eyes aren’t even open yet. I’ll be going up to feed it again in half an hour so Scarlet can keep working on her paper.

While I was out there was another plumbing emergency, one that entailed someone getting into our apartment to go into the panel backing onto the bathroom pipes. Seems that when the bathtub was replaced the places that were supposed to be sealed weren’t. The landlord apologised and said it was his fault. What I want to know is why it took five years for this to start leaking downstairs. Anyhow it’s been handled (thank you, Scarlet, for using your keys to get the landlord in and being the Responsible Adult on the Premises while he fixed things), and the backyard plumbing thing was fixed on Wednesday.

I think that’s all at the moment. The boy and I are both still fighting colds. I can’t decide if he has an eye infection or not; sometimes I think he does, and then the symptoms vanish and I’m left suspecting he just has allergies. I’m still having difficulty with the throat/breathing thing myself, and part of that is a cold while the rest is my sensitivity to All Things Green, which just so happen to be going wild right now. The baby leaves out there are so soft and such a perfect green!.

Have an excellent weekend, everyone.

Weekend Roundup

Thank you everyone! Your enthusiastic comments were such a wonderful way to begin my first Monday morning post-book.

We had a fabulous weekend. Not only was the weather glorious, but we spent time with family and friends (both planned and unexpectedly), and picked up some things we needed.

Saturday morning we headed out to the bookstore, because the boy’s latest potty achievement was to be rewarded with a new train. He and HRH played with the train set on display while I wandered lazily and tried to remember what books I’d been diverting onto my wish list. I found Ophelia by Lisa Klein and The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James, neither of which had been on my list at all. Then we went upstairs “to see Mama’s books”, which means checking to see if they’re on the shelf and signing them if they are. Every month when I stop by there’s another half dozen that are unsigned, so they’re selling through steadily enough. I gathered them up and brought them to the nearest staff terminal and said, “Hi, I’m an author and these are my books you have in stock. I was wondering if you’d like me to sign them?” (See how far I have come!) The clerk looked at me and blinked, then said, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” “I wrote these books,” I said, smiling. “They’re your shelf stock. Would you like me to sign them?” She blinked again, and then suddenly clued in. “Oh! Oh, wow! Oh, yes — I mean, I think so, let me just call a manager and check.” So she called and got the okay, and offered me her pen. I signed them and handed them back to her, and she said, “Wow, this is so cool. You know, we do signings too — if you have a new book coming out you can just call Mike, our manager, and he’ll set you up and everything.” I thanked her and used her name (hurrah for nametags), shook her hand, and wished her a great day. As we walked away I heard the other clerk at the terminal with her say, “Wow, I’ve never met a real author before.” HRH and I giggled all the way down the elevator. Ah, yes; I remember that time, back when I was still new in the book business and I didn’t know authors were Real People too, who lived in the neighbourhood and had families.

We ran into Jeff and Tallis on our way along the sidewalk to visit the pet store, taking a walk while Paze did some shopping. We took them along with us and all said hi to Derek, a former animation classmate of HRH and Jeff (yes, such a wonderful industry, that has talented artists working in pet shops). Then we went back home to have lunch and a rest before Ceri and Scott came over for the first barbecue of the season! We had burgers and potato salad, and Ceri brought brownies for dessert that we ate with ice cream and strawberries. It felt so good to be out in the sun on such a gorgeous afternoon. As they left the full moon was rising right between the two houses opposite our front door, a luminous apricot in a faintly lavender-grey sky, and it was breathtaking.

Sunday morning we went out and did a round of errands. The boy got his next car seat, one that uses the car’s seat belts, as well as a new cap to replace the one that’s swimming with the ducks, new running shoes (size eight, good gods), and a red t-shirt with a Canadian flag on the front to replace the one he outgrew last summer. (He had pleaded to wear the one HRH was wearing last Thursday night, you see.) After the nap we went to the south shore to take a look at the second-hand Saturn Ion we’d been eyeing and reading up on. The original plan was to drop him off with his grandparents but his nap had begun and ended late (we’d had to wake him up, in fact) so in order to get to the dealership before they closed we brought him with us. He enthusiastically helped us examine the car. The first place we looked was in the trunk, because let’s be realistic, if a cello isn’t going to fit there’s not much point. We popped it open and our jaws dropped at the size: it’s bigger than the trunk area in our current station wagon. “But this is too big for us!” the boy exclaimed. We assured him that it wasn’t, and took a look at the interior. He very seriously crawled all over the back and tested each seat there, and even pulled the shoulder belt down and tried to fasten it, making sure it worked. Meanwhile HRH and I were exploring the front and marvelling at how open and roomy it was. While HRH looked under the hood I sat in the driver’s seat and Liam came to stand in the middle of the car, balancing one hand on each headrest as he looked at me. “Mama,” he said earnestly, “this car is too big for us.” “No, it really isn’t,” I said. “Do you like it?” “Yes,” he said. “I can sit there now?” So I let him sit in the driver’s seat and feel important while HRH and I talked with the saleswoman about taking it for a test drive.

On our way back to our car the boy pulled me over to a Pontiac Wave and said, “See, this car is perfect!” “It’s nice and compact, I said, “but a little too small for what we need. Do you like the black one?” “Yes,” he said. “I could have my new car seat in it?” “You could,” I agreed. Then we all went to spend the rest of the afternoon with HRH’s parents and have a delicious dinner. I had completely exhausted myself by that point so wasn’t very good company, but it was lovely to just sit and be quiet while the boy played with all his toys and the afternoon sun streamed in the front windows.

Knowing the book had been finished and the beautiful warm and sunny weather went a long, long way towards making the weekend wonderful.

A Very Good Day So Far, And More To Come

I’m feeling terrific today. It’s sunny and going up to 21 degrees C (woo!). I did a pile of groceries after dropping a cheerful boy off at the caregiver’s, bought myself an Iced Cappuccino on the way home, and sat on the front balcony in the sun to write sixish pages of ritual and new chapter material. Go me! And I did it in a tank top and rolled-up jeans, too; it was that warm and sunny. Evidently I need capris, and soon. Maggie sat in the sun with me, and Cricket complained until I let her out too, at which point she tried to run away from home by jumping to the neighbours’ balcony and down to their front porch. I came inside, put my shoes on, and went out round front to pick her up. She fought me every step of the way home. She wouldn’t last half a day out there, and I told her so, but she wouldn’t listen, the ungrateful thing.

Also in the day’s good news column, I was contacted to reprise my consultant position on a sequel project by the company I did two-ish months of in-house work for last spring. My first thought was, “Yay, I can meet Ceri and Scott regularly for lunch, and do group lunches with like-minded individuals every once in a while!”. My second was, “They liked me, they really liked me!” And the third was, “Yay, excellent and regular income!”. Then I remembered that I was looking forward to being home with the boy again once the book had been handed in and only sending him to daycare two days a week, and I was a bit sad, but work is work. I’ll negotiate working a day at home every couple of weeks. The contract is just a contract and won’t be forever, just another couple of months.

Naturally, because I have just foreseen an influx of money, I have just queried my favourite on-line cello supply store about half a dozen books of sheet music and essays and the associated shipping and handling. I am incorrigible. I am also hoping Shiny New Books will inspire me to practice more. That may be problematic if I’m working full-time. Ah well, books keep.

Now to transcribe all the handwritten material from this morning and see what kind of state Chapter 2.5 is in. And I have more handwritten stuff from last night to insert in the final chapter as well. Hmm. I have piles of paper all over my desk, and I can’t tell what’s what as I used the backs of the printed chapters as scratch paper… except where I used them to expand upon what was on the opposite printed page. This could be interesting.

Tuesday So Far

An excellent morning! It’s sunny and there’s absolutely no wind, so it feels much warmer than the thermometer says it is. Sparky and I spent two hours at the Ecomuseum this morning, stomping in puddles and through mud. The original and earnest plan was to do it on foot, but right out of the car he asked to be carried. Uh-hunh; I don’t think so. So I pulled the handy-dandy Emergency Umbrella Stroller out of the trunk, which delighted him because he decided he wanted to push it. This would have been fine if the paths hadn’t been mud and water, and if he knew what a straight line was, and if he didn’t have that I-am-three-and-I-can-do-it-MYSELF streak flaring up that refused to allow me to help steer the thing.

Anyway.

There were a couple of class groups and a handful of families there at the same time, but the compound is big enough that we only ran into them once or twice. We saw an Arctic fox, and a pine marten doing intense laps in his enclosure, and deer, and crows, and the ravens flying around their enclosure (wow). Then we went to see the ducks in the waterfowl pond.

And there it was that disaster struck. See that faded green hat in the post icon? It is now at the bottom of the duck pond. Yes, Sparky leaned over the railing a little too far and suddenly wailed; his hat had fallen off. I grabbed for a shovel and threw myself down on my stomach and tried to hook it but it was just out of reach. Let me tell you, the wails and the tears and the running of the nose turned it into a Titanic-class tragedy. I tried to reach it from the next edge but there was no way. So I soothed him as best I could, but he didn’t want to leave it behind. I suggested going on to see the foxes and the wolves, and checking back later to see if the hat had drifted to shore. “Maybe the ducks will bring it to the edge of the pond,” I said, so he pressed his face against the railing and hollered, “PLEASE DUCKS, BRING MY HAT!” Finally he agreed to continue along, but he wanted to be carried so I managed the stairs up to the next level with him on one hip leaning his tear-stained cheek against my shoulder, and hauling the stroller up with the other hand. Then he wanted to sit in the stroller (aha, finally) and didn’t want to get out to see the animals, but complained that he couldn’t see. And the entire time he was saying, “Where is my hat? Is it in the water? It fell off? We will ask for help when we get back.”

The bears were out for the first time this spring, and we saw all three of them. And we spent about half an hour watching the river otters from both the top level and the window looking into their tank. There were more tears when I finally said that we had to keep going, and after a quarter-hour of resistance he climbed into the stroller on his own and waited for me to catch up and push him along. We took a side trip to check the duck pond but the hat was nowhere in sight; it had sunk, as I had expected when I saw it taking on water as it made its initial progress across the pond. There was no point in asking the staff to pick it up for us. So we agreed that he could wear his Thomas the Tank Engine hat from now on, and we’d keep our eye out for a new cap too. Then we saw the owls, and then we went inside and had our peanut butter sandwich while watching the birds in the solarium.

The car was nice and warm from the sun; I took off both our jackets. He almost fell asleep on the way home, but I kept him up with raucous Muppet songs. We finished lunch while watching the DVD disc of the new They Might Be Giants album Here Come the 123s, and now it is nap time. (This is a big improvement over last Tuesday, the day upon which there was no nap.)

Good day so far, with one bad bit. After the nap, I think we’ll bring out the home-made play dough again and make another army of Totoros. Or maybe the finger paint. [ED. NOTE: It ended up being making cupcakes and watching the TMBG DVD again instead, then playing in the backyard till we decided to take the wagon to the bus stop to meet HRH when he came home from work.]

A selection of photos from the Ecomuseum are up at Flickr. And now, bonus pictures: We have crocus-age!

Thirty-Four Months Old!

It’s been a long winter, but we’re finally free of winter coats and boots and gear, and no one is happier than Liam (unless it’s HRH and I). He’s so much easier to get in and out of the car now, and handles it very nicely all on his own again now that he’s unencumbered, which is a relief for us. Now the next goal is getting the 40lbs+ seat with flat edges, so in and out is even easier all round.

In the wake of the metres of snow, we have found all sorts of things. He has been cheerfully stomping and shovelling the snowbanks in the backyard with HRH to break them up and help them melt. In so doing he also found his hockey sticks and the whiffle ball, and has been batting them enthusiastically around the yard. Every day when we go out we have to check on the progress of the crocuses coming up in the front garden, and he announces with great energy that “Mama, I’m watching the flowers grow!” He hugs the big maple tree that divides our front yard from the neighbour’s, and usually kisses it too. We saw a robin the other day (“Look, Mama, a robin bird!”) and he asked what it was doing. “I think he’s looking for little twigs to build a nest,” I said. “He’s building a nest?” he said, very interested. “To sleep in?” And then we had to go through all sorts of animals and identify their beds and habitats. I love that he asks so many questions.

With the weather so much milder we’ve been outside a lot more, and the wagon is seeing use again, as well as the new trike. Unfortunately we’ve discovered that the new trike is a bit stiff, which may be why it was in the second-hand shop. Oiling it hasn’t made a difference. I think it has to do with the plastic front fork and the metal hub not playing well together. We’ll look for grommets to line the holes in the fork, and put blocks on the pedals; maybe that will help Liam put more power into pedalling to overcome the stiffness. In the meantime he walks it and pushes it around the backyard quite happily. When we went out to play the first weekend the driveway was clear the passel of boys next door were out too. The eldest, an adolescent, is a really excellent on a skateboard, and his little five year old twin brothers have their own tiny boards they can zoom around on too. Well,Liam saw one of these and abandoned the trike to the three year old brother and went right for a loose board. He kept trying to stand on it, so I went over and held his hands and showed him how to push with one foot and balance on the other. Does anyone know how to skateboard, and would be willing to teach him in a couple of years if he’s still this enthralled? HRH’s knees would pop off and walk away in protest, and the only time I’ve been on a board was in a school hallway outside the chem lab in grade ten; my lips are sealed, and I don’t think there’s anyone else left who can tell the tale.

We’ve been trying to teach him knock-knock jokes, because he’ll say “Knock-knock!” to get us to pull aside a curtain or blanket. Last weekend he was in the laundry basket (don’t ask) with a blanket over his head like a little pot pie, and HRH and I were sprawled across the bed. “Knock-knock,” he said to get us to pull the blanket away so he could pop out. “Who’s there?” I said instead. “Liam,” he said carefully after a moment. “It’s me,” he added, in case I needed reminding. “No, no, Liam; when someone says ‘Knock-knock’ you say ‘Who’s there?'” I said, and fed him the line: “Knock-knock!” “It’s Liam!” he said, throwing off the blanket with a grin. So we kept at it, and he kept looking at us as if we were crazy. Finally, when I said “Knock-knock!” he looked at me seriously and said, “It’s Liam, I’m very pleased to meet you,” and took the hand that I was dangling over the edge of the bed and shook it politely. We howled until we cried. He grinned and looked back and forth between us, but he had no idea why it was funny. Not that it mattered; he threw himself on top of us in the bed anyhow and laughed along.

Playtime has become quite complicated. His two main toys are his set of metal cars, and his wooden train set. The cars and train have long conversations among themselves, and go through small crises that they solve. It’s very interesting to listen to him. He actively tells us stories at night now, too, instead of us leading him along. It’s a wonderful feeling to walk up the street with him after a day with the caregiver and ask, “So did you have a good day? What did you do?” and listen to him chatter on about what he did, and to understand it all.

Last week we were watching Kids’ CBC and there was a host interstitial about the letter O. Liam said, “Oh, the letter O!” and dashed out of the room. This is not unusual; he is a very busy boy. What was different about this time was that he came running back in saying, “Here, Mama, the letter O!” and handed me the red magnetic letter O from the fridge. I nearly turned cartwheels, but settled for praising him, giving him high fives, and hugging him fiercely. We regularly hear him count to twenty (the numbers fourteen and sixteen optional). Since then he’s been asking “What’s that’s name? (Translation: What is the name for that object?) What’s at the front of that name? (Translation: What letter does it begin with)?” When I tell him I hand him the magnetic letter if I can, because drawing on a sheet of paper doesn’t satisfy him. He knows how to say certain alphabet sequences when given a letter to start from, but not others without their context.

Ceri and Scott brought us all presents last weekend, and he got a book on knights. He opened it and said, “Thank you! I have something for you, too.” And he reached out and took the (empty) gift bag that was behind him, and handed it to Ceri. It was so terribly sweet, even if all that was in it was tissue paper; it had held HRH’s video game, but Liam hadn’t been in the room to see him open it. It was very touching to see him want to give a present to someone else because they’d given him one. In general he’s very polite, although we’re still working on sitting at the table while the parental units finish their meals (or most of them, anyway). Sharing is consistently getting better and better, as is helping to clean up, now that he more clearly understands the concept of hurting other people’s feelings by his behaviour.

Gryff still sleeps outside his door at night and during naps, and when Liam wakes up some times he lies down on his side of the door and plays with Gryff under it, little fingers and paws darting back and forth. The other day he found Hammy, the old cat toy that had been Gulliver’s special toy. Hammy is the terribly imaginative name we gave to the stuffed hamster with a motor in it; when you pull a string it vibrates. HRH had it on a shelf along with Gully’s old collar. Liam saw it and wanted to hold it, and the moment he discovered the pull string Gryff was there too, grabbing for it. The two of them rolled around on the bed together playing with it, and HRH said that yes, Liam could give it to Gryff to play with. “I think Gully would like that,” he said, watch the two of them laugh and romp with it. Bringing Gryffindor home so Liam could have a cat to play with was one of the best decisions we’ve made for Liam. (I am assuming it’s been a good thing for Gryff too, and judging from the amount of purring that goes on he’s very okay with it all.)

His local grandparents came to stay with him so HRH could attend my last concert, and it was really nice not to have to rush or try to plan out complicated car scheduling. When HRH and I were getting ready to go he looked up at me and said, “Where are you going?” “I’m going to my concert,” I said. “Mama is playing her cello for lots of people tonight.” “Oh, you’re going to your concert? Can I come?” And it felt so good to say, “Next time, yes. This summer you can come watch Mama play her cello in a big, big church. And then we can see fireworks.” On Sunday morning I suggested that we play our cellos and he was all for it. He set himself up very well and started playing his baby cello, and I quietly brought out my music stand. “Why do you have that, Mama?” he said, as he’d never seen me use it before. I explained what it was and what it was used for, and then I started playing ‘Sampo’, the opening title song from the Totoro soundtrack (reading it in treble clef, thank you very much, go me). He looked up right away and said, “Mama, that is Totoro music! You’re playing Totoro on your cello!” It was very gratifying to have him actually recognise what I was playing, and to see him so happy about it. I think I am now officially the coolest mom on the block because I can play Totoro music (thank you, Joe Hisaishi, for making your themes easy). He didn’t even let me get to ‘Kaze no Torimichi’ or ‘Tonari no Totoro’, though; he ran off to bang on the bathroom door and tell his father, who was trying to shower, what I was doing.

I am so thankful to have such a happy and enthusiastic boy. Life is a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to having this book done with for a while, so we can go back to spending more time together. Besides, we only have two months in which to plan the three year old birthday party. I’m thinking that this one’s going to have to be split into two: one for the kids, because they’re all old enough now to do the party thing, and one for the adults at a different time to celebrate the awesome parents he has.

Other Liam posts this month:

– a hero shot of Liam
– Liam discovers the metronome
– Liam’s new tricycle!
– and the 34-month the teaser post