The boy has been very, very patient, waiting two whole weeks for the workshop to be cleaned up, a table to be built, and the box of his very, very special Christmas present to finally be opened.
There are already plans to build a Lego train station, and to take Lego minifigs on a ride in the gondola car. He’s being very careful, very responsible, and couldn’t be prouder of his very grown up gift. He did let go for a second to throw back his head and wildly yell, “Thank you, Santa!”, though.
January 2011:
First loose tooth:
Starting cello:
The new spinning wheel:
February 2011:
The new spinning wheel, finished:
The boy’s first ever self-directed school project with no teacher input: He planned, designed, and executed a three-dimensional model of a penguin.
March 2011:
Oh hey, by the way, we’re going to have a baby around the end of July:
This is what 1.5 km of Polworth singles plied into a two-ply yarn look like:
April 2011:
We planted a crabapple tree:
Spring sprung in our backyard:
May 2011:
The crabapple actually bloomed, bless it:
HRH made his stage debut as bassist with the band known as Invisible:
June 2011:
The boy’s last day of kindergarten:
Sparky’s visits La Ronde, our local Six Flags amusement park, for the first time:
The boy’s first cello recital:
At which I also played, of course, and loved what I did:
Six years old!
July 2011:
We buy the boy his very own cello:
Eight months pregnant made playing in the Canada Day concert a challenge to say the least, but it all worked, even though I looked like a poster child for How To Not Play The Cello:
I knit my first real lace project that involved more than one line of pattern, a cap for Owlet:
August 2011:
We had the baby!
Who wore the lace cap:
September 2011:
The first day of Grade One:
Owlet had a tongue tie clipped after five weeks, which made nursing so much better:
October 2011:
Owlet with her owlet:
Owlet greeeeew:
HALLOWEEN!
November 2011:
Cute baby was cute:
December 2011:
Someone was a walking cliche for his sixth Christmas. Suggestions on FaceBook for snappy comebacks when people sang the song at him were, “You should see the other guy,” or “But the puck went in, so it was worth it,” courtesy of Rob:
We tested the “babies get bonuses to cute when dressed in overalls” theory:
We decorated the tree:
Owlet received a delicious Lamaze toy for Christmas from Nana and Grandad:
And a very, very special commemorative dish made by Birdsall-Worthington Pottery in Mahone Bay, a partner to the plate Aunt Wilma gave to Sparky when he was born (Sparky’s has a family of three ducks on it, Owlet’s has four):
You know what else happened in 2011? HRH finished the existing attic to give us both an office space. We’re finally assembling pictures from that odyssey; stay tuned!
Look who loved Santa! Thank you, powers that be, for making her one of those instead of one that freaks out. We woke her up in line, and I expected to have to feed her to calm her down because of over-stimulation, but instead she was entranced by the lights and music and the new Christmas carousel the mall has installed with their holiday redesign (long overdue, I must add… although it’s a bit heavy on the red).
Also, who authorised the boy to become a string bean?
Christmas merry-go-round!
We kept the boy out of school and had a family day, seeing Santa and having lunch out, instead of trying to make it all happen on a weekend day when the malls are hellish. It was a great decision; the crowds were pretty much non-existent. I think we’ll do it again next year.
I have just sent Harry Potter off to school. I don’t know who’s more excited about this costume, the boy, HRH, or myself.
Oh, heck. We know it’s the boy.
HRH built that broom and wand from scraps of wood in his school workshop. Here’s a better photo:
I made the robes from scratch; I think the material cost me all of $15 (yay for the bargain shelves at the fabric store). We bought the glasses, but that’s the only thing we purchased for the outfit. The crest is an iron-on transfer we printed out from an Internet image. If we’d had time we would have made the gloves and shinpads, too.
(Personally, I think the argyle socks make the outfit.)
This was so much fun. There is, alas, a no brooms-no wands policy in effect at school (no accessories of any kind, it’s a safety thing) which was very upsetting to the boy, because he desperately wanted to show them off (and I cannot blame him, because just look at how awesomely cool they are!). So we did a photo shoot this morning and printed out a couple of the pictures for him to take to school to share instead.
The school is doing their annual costumed Halloween walk just before lunch today, a police-accompanied neighbourhood tour that allows the kids to show off their costumes to the other kids and get some fresh air before they settle down to an afternoon of parties and haunted house activities the older grades put together for the younger kids.
There will be more pictures taken tonight, of course. I hear a very tiny superhero will be making an appearance…
On this day twelve years ago (egad), in the company of family and dear chosen family on a spectacular autumn day, I married my best friend.
Twelve years later, we own our own house, which was a lovely little dollhouse to begin with but is on the verge of being upgraded to wonderful what with the new attic (so close to being done, so close), and have not one but two beautiful children, who are joys and delights.
Today also marks the thirteenth anniversary of HRH and I doing our first road trip together, one of the joys I have continued to experience with him throughout our marriage. I’ve been told that the true test of a couple is if they can paint a room together without killing one another, but I suspect the ability to survive a road trip better attests to their ability to co-exist harmoniously. (Going through house renovations together may be the ultimate test of a relationship, however. On that front, I am pleased to inform you that both HRH and I are still alive, still unmaimed, and still married.)
We’re not doing anything to mark the event, really. We rarely do, but this time round we’re so wiped from renos and keeping up with a baby that our celebration will consist solely of sushi for dinner and an early bedtime.
I love you, HRH. We’ve put up with a lot of ups and downs, challenges, and obstacles, but you always give more than you’ve got to make sure our lives are stable and as good as they can be. We still have a way to go, but travelling the road ahead with you, our son, and our daughter is a joyful prospect.
One hundred labels on school supplies (because yes, we had to label every crayon, marker, coloured pencil, and graphite pencil), one new school bag, one new lunch box later…
It’s the first day of Grade One.
(There are new sneakers, too — black hightops! — but as we don’t know if he needs a pair each of indoor and outdoor shoes this year like last year, they’re waiting at home because tying laces is still a challenge.)
He has a new bus driver, a very nice lady. And his bus stop is one block closer, which is a welcome change, although one wonders why the closer stop wasn’t assigned last year when he was younger. This morning’s routine seemed to work quite well. We’re going to have to find a new time for cello, though, because we can’t fit it in at 7:30 AM like we did last year, what with the baby and me needing that time to pump milk for the day’s supplements.
He’s very ready for school to start again, as we are; I think the lack of structure of summer vacation was wearing on him, despite our best efforts. Now he has something that’s just his own again that will keep his mind busy.
I’m looking forward to my day alone with the baby, but I’m also looking forward to meeting his bus this afternoon and hearing all about his day.
Hello, world. We’ve been offline for a few days; sorry about that. I managed to get a quick announcement via text message out to Twitter late Thursday morning, and eventually a quick post to FaceBook when I’d had the time to sit back and buy data access for my iPhone on Thursday night, but this is the first chance I’ve had to sit at my computer since we got home late Friday night to acquaint you all with the lovely news of our daughter’s birth and shower you with photos.
In a delicious show of irony, the Owlet decided to hatch on the estimated due date I’d been using from the beginning before my doctor adjusted it back and forth. To the medical community, I say Ha, and Ha again.
Thursday morning I woke up just after 4 AM and thought to myself, Hmm, that’s probably another annoying prodromal labour contraction. And really, there was no reason to think otherwise, seeing as how I’d been handling two weeks of prodromal labour on and off. I got up to walk around as usual, and started timing the contractions just out of habit. Good thing I did, because it turned out that they were getting more intense, were lasting about ninety seconds, and were coming between two and four minutes apart. After a solid hour of timing them to be extra-sure I woke HRH, who called his parents, and we threw the last few things we needed into bags. The boy woke up just before his grandparents arrived and we gave him hugs and kisses and told him his sister would finally arrive that day, and that he could come meet her that afternoon. The roads were beautifully clear at six-thirty in the morning, and we got to the hospital in record time. Good thing, too, because when they checked me out they discovered I was just passing 4 cm, and the contractions were getting stronger. They let me move around with the monitors strapped to me, thank goodness. Within an hour I was at 8cm, and then suddenly 9+cm, and the doctor was there and they made me get on the bed to push ( “Please don’t make me get on the bed, I hate the bed, the contractions are worse on the bed,” I remember saying). After fifteen minutes of pushing (which certainly felt much longer than that), and a grand total of four hours of labour (a time span which I certainly do not recommend in general, because yes, that was about fourteen hours of work compressed into a quite intensified four hours), Bria Elisabeth was born at 08:13, weighing 7 lbs 12 oz and measuring 51 cm long.
Our first family picture, post-birth:
Baby!
A close-up of the baby!
True to our word, the boy was the first person to hold the baby after HRH and I, and he got a little teary about it:
And then he began gifting her with all the little toys he’d chosen and bought for her:
Culminating in the ceremonial Passing of the Bunny, one of the boy’s special favourite toys when he was just a tiny thing:
We were released 36 hours after the baby’s birth, and only that late because they weren’t allowed to release us any earlier. Both baby and I are in sparkling good health, eating and sleeping and settling in well. Today the hit-by-a-bus feeling that lands a couple of days after a major physical undertaking arrived, and Tylenol is my friend, because everything everywhere hurts.
For those wondering, Bria is pronounced BREE-ah, and yes, it’s Elisabeth with an S instead of a Z.