Our long weekend in photos

Griffith Sculpture Park.... exploring, wearing out the dog... enjoying the sunshine on Sunday.

Stopping for a moment to look at horses.... the white one was her favorite.

LLamas!!!!

AHHHHHHHHH..... a tired, wet and happy dog!!!

Look at the length of that tongue.... Lucy chilling out.

Mom chilling out on the chairlift... peaceful.

We seem to be in the 'pee' outside phase. An important part of childhood I think...


Climbing the chair poles.... strong daddy!

Exploring Gavin. Picking anything he can get his hands on...


Mom, Gavin and Lucy.

An inchworm... We are super into bugs- this is great for her but often not so much for the poor helpless, crushable bugs... note the DORA tattoo... yikes.

What a fantastic weekend.... the beginning of a summer full of fun, memories and trips.

Let him cry it out

It seems so obvious, right. Baby cries, parent's ignore it, baby falls asleep, never cries again.

Parent's of older kids talk about it like it's that easy. "We let little Billy cry it out." They say it with a hint of all-knowing bias that ignores the fact that they are currently not letting little Billy cry it out now.

We are.

And it blows.

The first night was Sunday. And it didn't go well. Gavin began crying at around 2:00AM (somewhat on schedule). At around 2:15AM, Rhona went in. She couldn't take it anymore. She fed him. Put him back down when he fell asleep, and we attempted to re-fall asleep. This isn't easy. We're worked up because we've spent the last half an hour listening the anguish in the little boy. We don't want him to anguish. We want to go to him, hold him, and make it all better.

But we're letting him cry it out.

Back to Sunday. 5 minutes after he seemed to be asleep, he woke up. And puked all over the place. He spent the remainder of the night in our bed.

Monday. With ear plugs in, Rhona seemed a little more prepared for the whole thing. And when he cried at around 3:00AM, we let it go for 20 minutes, then Rhona went in.

But she didn't lift him up. She rubbed his shoulders and back, and stayed near. That was enough to get him to sleep.

Which brings us to Tuesday night. This is when it's beginning to come together. Because on this night, when the cries came, we stayed strong. They only lasted about 10 minutes, and he got homself back to sleep.

This is it. We're winning.

Dear Rhona

Dear Rhona,

At the beginning of this year, you announced that this year, 2009, was to be the year of Rhona.

This meant you were going to do things for herself, like run, exercise, etc. Things that would make you feel better, look better, and be better. A part of that was listening to your voice and becoming Vegan. You never did like to think about where your meat came from, and didn't like to think that to make milk, cows had to be perpetually postpartum.

We, the family, rallied around you and threw full support.

Then, in no particular order, things started to happen. Grandma had major complications from minor surgery. Romeo had major complications. Gavin decided to spend the first 5 months of the year not sleeping, and Autumn decided to join in. We had ear infections, a dog that won't go for a walk, a friend that won't answer her calls, and kids that constantly need attention.

In other words, life.

But through it all, I think this has still been the year of Rhona. You've rallied and settled things for your mom, and continue to do the little things that make her life better (like fixing the heat yesterday). You plan road-trips with the kids, to the Zoo, even though you don't like Zoos. The family picnic you threw together was excellent and memorable. You organize play-dates, major playground visits, and still have time to do the laundry, throw together some kick-ass meals, and laugh and play with the kids.

In short, you're a great mom, and a great wife. And I just want to say how happy I am that I'm part of the year of Rhona. Because whatever life throws at you, you wrap it up in a nice little bow, and throw it back.

And you look beautiful doing it.

Thanks Babes.

love, Matt.

For Gord's Sake

At this point in time, Autumn's favorite movie is My Fair Lady. Her favorite song is "The Rain in Spain". She'll sing it over and over if you want.



And one of her favorite things to do is change the lyrics to made up silly songs.

Thus:

"The rain in Spain stays mainly on the Gabby's head".

"The rain in Spain stays mainly on the spoon".

It's actually I spy, for she'll look around the room as she sings the beginning part, with a sly grin, until she happens upon the thing that is getting rained on. It's fun make-believe, inspired by My Fair Lady.

As the title of this post alludes, another favorite song is the original Show Stopper performance of "I'm gettin' Married in the Morning".



In it, the character sings: "For Godsake get me to the Church on Time" in a pretty heavy cockney accent. So, the lyric actually sounds more like, "For Gord's Sake", when sung, in accent, by Autumn.

That leads me to ask Autumn, "Who's Gord?"

Which, as you can imagine, confuses her.

Family picnic

This is the first thing we saw when we got to the place where we planned the family picnic. A big, slow-moving, large-clawed dinosaur.

The picnic was at Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery, a totally cool place with incredible amounts of history. The 13th President of the US is buried here, and as I pointed out to Rhona, with 38 dead Presidents, having one is dead cool.

But back to the cute things that aren't crusty old or dead creatures. We also saw some baby geese, called goslings. Autumn was thrilled to see the little babies. And so was Rhona. She took a bunch of pictures of the little geese.

The actual picnic was great. Rhona threw together food for us all. We dropped a blanket on the grass, and dug in. Some dug in a little more than others. Especially Gavin.


But across the board, this gave us the chance to be outside as a family. To run around, laugh, see fun things, and take great pictures. Gavin liked being outside, but Autumn loved it. Maybe because she's becoming such a little girl.

My daughter

LoveBug

Now come on... you tell me. Is he the best looking kid you have seen today- or what? You should all know that he climbs stairs now, he chats non-stop, he eats everything and he is un-officially known as DESTRUCTOR. He grabs onto things and doesn't let go... this is not so bad except for the fact that we often don't realize he has grabbed something until we hear the crash. For example, yesterday he grabbed the Ficus plant as we were walking by and all the sudden BOOM! the plant and pot and dirt were all over the ground.... the boy has strength and a hellofa grib.

But look at that mug. love him.

Autumn bowling

Autumn went bowling. Part of me can't beleive that she went bowling before she went curling, but I'll live.

Anyway, here's the link to all the shots.

Next winter, curling.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

We're designed to run

If you've ever seen my wife run, you could have guessed this.

Missing in Curling

I was once sparing in a club game, and yes, I recall it this vividly. They accidentally threw their first through, so we called a corner guard. It slipped in the rings, and they thoughtfully flashed it. So, we’re sitting one on the wing, and throwing. The skip called to split the rings.

I let it be, it was after all, a club game, but this is an example of getting silly because of misses. A better call in this situation is to throw a guard on your own rock. Some people will play that. Most though, will split the rings and play the rest of the end for a deuce.

I bring all of this up because it occurred to me that if Peter Smith makes either one of his draws in the tenth end of the World Curling Final, Kevin Martin might win.

Peter missed just enough though. He chapped off on his first, and tickled a guard on his second. One might score both shots a 3, maybe even a two on his first. But in hindsight, I would give them both a 5. They took the double peel out of Marc Kennedy’s hands. Marc Kennedy, the guy throwing 93%, who makes double peels leaving the driveway in the morning just because he can, throws two hack weight hit and rolls in the tenth end of the World Championship with the score tied.

If that’s not the perfect example of a miss making you lost your mind, I’m not sure what is.

This is how you play the tenth end. They throw a center guard. You try the tick (or go top eight). They throw another center guard, you try the tick, or go top eight depending on what happened on leads first (ie, make the tick, and you tick again. Miss it, and you go top eight).

Regardless, they come around. And you double peel, since your second happens to be Marc Kennedy, a decent thrower of the rock who rarely if ever misses.

That’s how it’s drawn up. It changes because Peter Smith misses tantalizingly enough. He doesn’t miss so bad that peeling the guards is the only shot. And he doesn’t make it well enough so that peeling the guards is the only shot. Think about it: if he locks the rock on his first one, the double peel is the only call.

He missed just enough to get KMart thinking about, what? About going for the win on second’s rocks? No, he misses just enough to throw the script out the window. To generate a new, entirely baffling script that sees Martin toss a rock away, lest he lost the game right there, on his first rock.

Funny how a miss turns an end.

Dear Gavin

We don't talk about you nearly enough.

Your smile, your laugh, the way you look away when mom is holding you, and I walk up and say hello, the way you stand up, the way you dance to Meri Mac, and other songs...

I'm still a little bemused by the way you have to grab your kibbles and bit every time I change your diaper, but you've only peed on me once, and I had the over under pegged at 5.

I admit it, there's still a chance for the over, but at ten months, I think you're getting some control over your Willie, and that bodes well for the under.

And a dry dad.

Here's the thing Gavin. Adding you was literally doubling the amount of kids, but it more than doubles the amount of work. Ask other parents. 1 + 1 doesn't equal 2. It might be 5, but we're not sure. The point is, there's no time.

And your dad (me) has another blog these days, and that takes time.

It's not like there isn't things to talk about. Like how you have yet to spit anything out that we've fed. Scratch that, you spit out an onion badji, but that was far too spicy. You've eaten everything that we've put in front of you. This is a big deal. At this point in Autumn's life, we knew her favorite foods.

With you, your favorite food is food. And we thank you for that.

We're also starting to tell that you love your big sister. Outside of your mum, she's the greatest person in the world. When she comes in the room, you watch. If you can't see her from your high chair, you'll crane your neck until you can see her.

Even though we don't blog a lot about you, we love you. We'll do better.

Love, Mom and Dad.

Autumn on the new couch

IMG_5724
Originally uploaded by rdcaden

no, she really does know where she's supposed to sit. But she likes to prove that she's a big girl by sitting on the top.

What we did this weekend

A lot of dancing.

Gavin shots

Here are some. Take a look.

Pink Autumn

IMG_4738
Originally uploaded by rdcaden

Great shot Actually, Rhona took a bunch of shots of Autumn. See them here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18599954@N00/sets/72157615763017279/

Gavin

Gavin, originally uploaded by MRHames.

So, here's the post. He's standing with the help of stuff. He's officially started crawling (it's been a few weeks).

He'll eat whatever you put in front of him. (Which is different from Autumn, who's favorite line at dinner is "I'm all done".)

Maybe that's why he's almost 20 pounds, at 9 and a half months. And She's only 24 pounds at almost 3.

Enough about the comparison. Enjoy the shot.

scardey-dog??!

picture if you will.... it's a nice day out. You decide to take the kids and dog to the playground... it is warm by normal standards, you are itching to get out and you have already been up for four hours by 9am.... why not.

you pack up... blankets, hats, umbrella (for Autumn), juice, snacks, diapers, bottles- you got the picture. The dog in one hand the double stroller in the other.... moving along the 2.5 miles to the park- all good. One kid falls asleep the other and I swing, climb, slide.. you name it. Dog lays on the ground, barks for attention occasionally- good stuff. It starts to drizzle... pack up.... load up... on our way home for the same distance. It starts to thunder, it starts to pour.... All in all- the average family- no problem- so you get wet- no big deal.

the issue of course for me at this point is that my
DOG IS DEATHLY AFRAID OF THUNDER.
DEATHLY...

she starts pulling on the leash and running to find somewhere to hide- problem: our house is still 2.5 miles away. somedays that distance is nothing... a jaunt.

Today- not so much.

she pulled the entire way- jumped up on about 45 porches, ran down 20 alleys to try and hide... crossed streets, hid on patios.... the kids in the stroller the dog on her belly trying to shimmy home. In the end- I said " Self- you are not wearing a sports bra... which you NEED .... but screw it.... sprint home."

it was a little nutty, I was yelling at the dog, working on not dumping the stroller with the kids... but for a girl who has been trying to improve her speed per mile. I think I just ran two eight minute miles...

ummmm... did I mention it is only 10.30 in the morning.

crikey.

Happy St .Patrick's Day

This is a gift from Julie. It's a little big for the little guy, but he's rockin' it anyway.


It's not as easy as it looks. Especially for an old guy like me at 7:00AM, before the coffee has really kicked in.


Then of course, Autumn had to get in the picture. She loves to get her picture taken.

Happy St. Patrick's day. Have a good one.

crawling

Gavin is officially crawling. It's no longer a dragging. It's a crawl.

Waking up

Today was 55 degrees, and the street literally woke up, went outside, and said hello tp each other.

We put up the swing. Sat on the porch. And said hello to the street again. Autumn had a great time with her kids, Audrey, Patrick and Caroline.

It's spring. Gavin is getting older. Standing with the help of furniture. There's actually nothing he loves more. He stands up, and the smile goes across his face and lights up the room.

And then, he'll get on the ground and drag himself across the room.

It's not crawling.

It's more like dragging.

But I think he'll be walking in about a month. When he'll sleeping through the night is open for debate.

Nanny and Granddad

It's hard to put into words how much of a help that Nanny and Granddad are. On thursday, Granddad came to do settle some banking issues. But that also meant that he ws here to help out with the kids.

And then, even better, he took them on Friday to Brampton, giving mom and dad a night to ourselves, and then a morning to ourselves.

Of course, we're both sick, but at least this gives us a chance to heal.

I'm getting ready to leave for Brampton. Rhona is staying behind to heal. But when I get there, I plan to tell nanny and granddad how awesome they are. I don't want to let it go unsaid.

On sleep

When Gavin was born, I knew this year was going to be tough. While Autumn generally sleeps through the night, she does have the whole 2AM potty call.

"Moooooooom! I gotta go potty"

Luckily, most of these calls come 35 seconds after we leave the room for the first time after books. It seems that she is incapable of thinking about the potty until the lights are off, and the parental unit has left the room. So we can handle that.

Mostly.

But Gavin. He's suffered a double ear infection, followed by a cold. I know that he gave me the cold. I remember the moment that I was holding him, and I turned for a second and he put his mouth on my nose, and his goobers when up my nose.

Image via Wikipedia

Pleasant stuff.

Since then, my nose has been running non stop. I've gone through two boxes of tissues, and now I have a roll of toilet paper on my desk to collect the snot. And worse, this morning Rhona was laying in bed feeling like crap.

But this isn't about us.

This is about a year. At one year, sometime in June, we'll get to the point where he'll sleep through the night once in a while. Then, once in a while will turn into all the time.

And yes, they'll both be up at 6:00AM, a time that I usually take in the weekdays to let Rhona sleep in a little more. But moving forward, it has the potential to let one of us sleep in.

A little more.

Because right now, we're both on the edge of sanity.