A 5-Year-Old Boy

The Bairn turned five last week.  We didn't invite any children to his party, but his friend Sam made him a birthday card and the little girls who live behind us showed up at the door with a card for him also.  We took cupcakes to his preschool class (my 'helpers' just about sent me over the edge making those cupcakes) and then we had a family party with crepes (The Bairn's favorite food) and homemade ice cream cake (which was fairly gross but met the birthday boy's specifications).

Eating a leftover cupcake from preschool.

We attempted to visit the wave pool for our family birthday trip, but there was an incident before we arrived so it was closed down for cleaning and we visited the natural history museum instead and then let The Bairn eat chicken fingers and naan at an Indian restaurant in Halifax.

Reading at Grandma's house over Christmas break.

At five-years-old The Bairn is very interested in the world.  He spends a good chunk of his days discussing ghost ships and unsolved mysteries (he has solutions for the Bermuda Triangle and Stonehenge).  We're currently reading an adult book together about the Mary Celeste mystery.  He loves reading books about Lego constructions and building little cars with his actual Lego bricks.  He plays with Hot Wheels and Transformers.  He's very interested in helping me cook.  He loves playing with Natey but I have to spend a lot of time asking him to stop picking up his brother.  He wants to keep the Sabbath 'unholy,' he tells me.  He cannot get enough snuggles and tickles.  Sometimes he says to me, 'Mom, could you snuggle me?  My snuggle bank is really low.'  He explained to me recently that all the snuggles I give him during the day slip out of the snuggle bank at night, so he needs to cuddle a lot every day.  He's very recently started calling me mother, which he pronounces mudder.  So I hear a lot of Oh, Mudder!  He would like to live on candy.  He is a sweetheart.

Snuggling a brother.

Bairn Crafts

The Bairn has been very busy with arts and crafts.  He can entertain himself for an impressive amount of time with a pair of scissors, a pile of construction paper, and a can opener (the can opener is for making 'stamps' on his paper notes).  One evening he read aloud some of his notes and even made me write some of them out.  They were all along these lines:

Oh, dear.

Gems from The Bairn

Upon finding a dead frog in the yard, "Well, I guess Jesus will just resurrect him."

Feeling unsatisfied that I don't know how he can go find God while he's still alive, "Maybe we could ask Santa Claus.  He has some magic he could use to help us."  (I've never endorsed Santa Claus or told my kids that anything they receive on Christmas is from Santa Claus, but The Bairn has suddenly decided that he is the real deal.  He spent part of the morning examining a World Book to try to find Santa's house in the North Pole.)

At bedtime on a day when he was reprimanded for behaving too loudly at a function, "Oh, mom, I am not an expert at quiet."

While at a playground near a Lions' Club building with Steve, "But how did the lions build this?  They just have paws."

Snuggling me at bedtime, "Do you know why I love you so much?  Because you are my mama."

Kids of Summer

This one gives great big smiles, but he's shy for the camera.  (Also, he hates the outdoors, making his life very difficult this summer.  He's happiest lying on my bed in the air conditioning.)

One day I left him in his carrier when we came home from an outing and while I was unpacking the car, the bigger kids gave him some toys.  Ellen is fanatical about ensuring that he always gets his time with that monkey.

A boy in a strawberry cut-out wearing his cousin Tooie's shirt.

Hiking.  The Bairn loves it.  Ellen asks if it's over yet so she can eat a picnic.

But she enjoys the sights along the way.

The Bairn was determined to catch a fish at this nature playground, but all either of the kids got was a water skeeter.

The mud kitchen made up for the lack of fish.

Saturday was a family reunion.  The kids were thrilled by the potluck dessert selection and the abundant juice selection that elderly relatives kept offering them.  I cut Ellen off after 2 cupcakes and 2 juice boxes but she still threw up all over my lap (and on the baby brother sitting there).

We've had a new baby for every family reunion we've attended.  It makes us very popular with the older generations.

Ellen and a distant cousin (they have the same great-great-grandfather).  When I ask Ellen to smile, she makes fake dimples in her cheeks with her fingers.  I don't know why.  She has real ones.

Brothers

 The Bairn is really enamored with his brother.  Every day he asks me if he can have a baby visit.  Baby visits involve sitting next to his brother and requesting stories from the fascinating life of a newborn.  The Bairn is especially tickled if the baby asks him questions.  They also sometimes do exercises together.  The baby leads and The Bairn copies all the stretches and yawns and raised fists.

The Bairn is also enamored with my camera.  He usually gets his grubby paws on it every couple of days and takes close ups of our shoe rack or the piano, but yesterday he actually got this pretty fabulous photo of the newbie.

My Wee Artists

Ellen loves to write and draw. Pretty much as soon as she could sit up, she could grasp a pencil and enjoyed doodling. She's just recently started making pictures that are really representational, though. This was her first one. She drew it a few months ago and she says it's "daddy walking." It got smudged when I left it on the counter before hanging it in Steve's office. Every time she goes in to see Steve work, Ellen sees the drawing and says, "Oh, there's Daddy walking."

I love that one recognizable foot.

The Bairn has far less interest in art.  He likes to make big paint messes and "tracks" and scribbles, but this week was the first time I've ever seen him actually try to draw a picture of something.  He sat on my lap at the kitchen table before breakfast and did a whole, fascinating, series.

This one is Someone Smoking.

This is Someone Stealing a Box (Mommy: What's in the box?  The Bairn:  A meat grinder.)

This is Someone Exploding a Building.

He's really keen on vice.

Four Years Old

The Bairn turned four on Tuesday.  As is traditional, I gave him a truly awful haircut for his birthday and a super low-key party.  The Bairn has a couple of friends whose birthday parties he attends.  There are bouncy castles and party favors and one million presents involved in these parties.  I'm always worried that The Bairn will compare these parties to his own and feel let down by what Steve and I offer him, but so far, the small parties we have are still enough to send him into a frenzy of celebration.  This year Steve's parents and aunt joined us for a crepes (The Bairn's favorite food) and an ice cream cake that I'm mostly getting to finish off all by myself because everyone else seems to have forgotten it down in the deep freeze.

The mint chocolate ice cream cake I made The Bairn.  Ellen was indignant that she didn't get to blow out the candles.

I'm not sure what Ellen is doing here but she's got some pretty crazy hair going on.

At four-years-old The Bairn

• loves to snuggle.
• enjoys all things involving wheels.
• has learned to make his own bed, takes his dishes to the sink, and has finally given up a sippy cup.
• keeps a pile of coins in a shoe on his bedside table (he made his first thrilling purchase with birthday money from my parents this week).
• is deeply interested in male anatomy.
• still naps (hallelujah!).
• adores anything silly.

American Thanksgiving 2015

We don't really celebrate American Thanksgiving, but I roasted a chicken today (both as a nod to all the turkeys in the ovens of my homeland and because we have 30 whole chickens in the freezer) and ate it with mashed potatoes and over-salted cornbread stuffing and cranberry sauce. Steve left the house around 8:00 this morning and won't be back until after I'm in bed, so I ate my fake Thanksgiving meal with one child who would only eat the green beans (he opens them and eats the inside and leaves the 'pods') and one child who stood on her seat and howled for more mashed potatoes every time her mouth and bowl were empty at the same time.

 After supper, I got out the Christmas decorations to make sure the kids were really out of their minds excited right before bedtime. The Bairn became super attached to the advent Christmas tree. He selected a location for it and then dragged it away from his sobbing sister and draped his body across it so no one could move it from its correct location until Christmas day. Ellen lost the Baby Jesus from one of the nativity sets (we found him on the workbench), she and The Bairn both draped garlands all over the place, and I managed to wrest the stockings away from them and hang them on the stairs, even though The Bairn is also seriously in love with Steve's (it has a train).

This year on Thanksgiving, I'm very grateful that both my children still nap and that they nap at the same time.  It's a gift.

Also, I'm thankful that Ellen (aka I Always Have Pneumonia Face) has access to 24-hour health care.  She's been to the walk-in clinic twice this week and the ER three times.  She loves the hospital bracelets.

This is what she looks like when she's sick.  She's snuggling a unicorn costume that she refused to let me put away.

Today she seems to be doing much better and she's been sashaying around the house, swinging her arms and wiggling her hips when she walks.  I love the way she walks. She and The Bairn also very enthusiastically helped me clean toilets.  I really love how much they love to help.  Also, I love that The Bairn must always sleep with Chicky Bick (hand puppet) and Baby Bick (finger puppet) on his pillow.  And that he likes me to smell his breath after I brush his teeth to see if he's fully freshened.  And that both kids say, "You. look. maaaahvelous," but it comes out "maaaahbelous" from Ellen.

Happy Thanksgiving.

TV Addict

Steve to The Bairn:  Do you want to spend some time chatting with me?

The Bairn: I would love to, but there's an emergency.  We lost the remote control!


He then spent about an hour explaining to me how we needed to get to the robot station (by train, plane, and taxi) to locate a 'finding robot.'

The next morning, when the remote was still not found, The Bairn told me that he had two 'big ideas':
1.  Use the telephone as a remote control.
2.  Take Grammie and Papa's remote control and use it on our DVD player.


We still haven't found the remote, but The Bairn's fresh out of ideas for finding or replacing it.

It's Good to Keep a Sweetie Boy Around for Your Self-Esteem

Bairn: (Snuggling in bed with me)  What do you like best?

Me:  I like being with my family the best.  What do you like best?

Bairn:  I love you, Mom, best.

Weaning + Small Town Life

We're weaning Ellen. When we tried it in the spring, it didn't take.  This time we took a different approach and sent both kids to their grandparents' house for the weekend.  As Steve was talking to his mom on the phone to arrange pick up, The Bairn insisted on packing his bag. He was sitting out on the porch waiting for his ride before Steve even got off the phone. 

Steve and I hadn't been alone overnight since The Bairn was born, so we hardly knew what to do with ourselves on a Friday night without children.  I had big plans for finishing projects and mopping floors, but instead we made cookies and drove to the next village over to a convenience store that sells a surprisingly wide range of hair brushes and still rents DVDs.  They have an assortment of movies from the mid-2000s and when I sent Steve up to the counter with a comedy, the man at the till didn't ask for any ID or even a phone number.  "When's it due back?"  Steve asked.  The man shrugged his shoulders.  "A week?"  I feel like we could keep it forever and no one would mind.

My Little Ones

My children are just impossibly sweet and funny at the moment. We're at some sort of sweet spot in which they're both at good ages that just delight me every day, and I feel the need to gather up all the pieces of them, the moments that grandparents assure me are the best of our life, and hold them still somehow.

I read with Ellen and think to myself, "I must remember how impossibly sweet it is to have a curly-haired girl snuggled under my chin."  I watch her run across the playground and know that it would be a crime to forget how her cloth diaper makes her skirt puff out like a cupcake and that she waves her hands over her head when she runs and that her motion is more up and down than it is forward.  She bounces.  She enters the kitchen with a blanket around her neck and announces that she's a 'sup'aherio' and then the next day in the stroller she argues with her brother that she's not a baby, she's a 'wobot.'

The Bairn snuggles in my lap and promises that he will never leave me.  He sits in the backseat of the car after church, munching on snacks and informing me that he learned about 'Heavenly Father and robots and cars and trucks and monster trucks' in his class.  He explains to Steve that babies live inside their mothers until they're born and come out to drink milk from the mommies' 'milksides.'  He loves the outdoors (but not wearing pants there).  I took him hiking last week and he named all the sections of the trail - Mom's Jungle, Franklin's Forest, and The Bairn's Jungle.  He ran over the bridges and literally oohed and ahhed at everything I pointed out to him.

Not a fan of pants outside

These kids drink monkey milk (banana smoothies) every day and beg to help Steve make pizza.  They want to eat all the bread dough before I bake it and delight in picnics (even if it's just grapes on the deck).  They love playing in the sandpit at the market, visiting the beach, and going to the splash pad.  Ellen holds us by the finger and leads us around and The Bairn calls excitedly to show me the things he's built.  They both worry about bugs.

Watching the July 1st Parade

I just can't get over them.  They go to bed at night and I recount our day to Steve and I think, "Remember this.  Remember."

Gems from the Bairn

Steve goes on church visits on Tuesday nights.  Tonight after Steve left.

Bairn: Mom, do you love Daddy?
MBC: Yes, do you love him?
Bairn: He went away on visits, but I'll never leave you alone.  I'll always stay here with you.


Looking at pictures of Italy.

MBC: I've been there. 
Bairn: When were you there?
MBC: Oh, before you were born I used to travel.
Bairn: Yep, I was just waiting in the hospital for you.  Wog, wog, wog.  Just waiting for you to come get me.



At the local market where Steve does some engineering for their new building.

MBC: Daddy's over in that building for a meeting today.
Bairn: No, no, Mommy.  This is the market.  Daddy comes here for doughnuts.  Church is for meetings.  Why are you so wrong?

The Goings On

Ellen walks around with a paper hippopotamus on her hand saying, "Sorry, sorry, sorry."  Because, you know, if you can say 'hippopotamus', you can say 'I'm sorry.'

There's a satellite dish buried in our backyard.  The former house owners put it there to be fish pond until it became a giant mosquito breeding ground and then they used it as a fire pit and then they buried it with a bunch of trash.  They were super classy.  Steve's been unearthing it, which has left a giant hole in the yard for The Bairn to spend his mornings exploring.

Ellen loves to dress herself.  She has a preference for hats, boots, ruffles and anything 'fancy.'

The garden is mostly all planted.  We didn't label our seedlings very well, so we're not really sure what we're growing.  Lots of tomatoes, some sort of peppers, a variety of squashes, beans, maybe pumpkins, maybe melons, kale, cucumbers.  The Bairn loves walking up and down the rows.

I am having all the FEELINGS about our lawn.  Our lawn tractor is broken and we can't afford to fix it and it takes me 3 hours with Ellen on my back to mow it with the push mower but the teenagers (and more specifically their parents) ask rates I consider scandalous to do the job.  We're currently paying a kid more per hour than Steve's draftsman charges to have a tidy lawn.

Arts and Crafts

The Bairn loves his arts and crafts projects, and I recently started hanging them up in our dining area. Last week a dinner guest asked The Bairn if he had made the paintings and mobiles on display. "Oh yes," The Bairn replied. "I do them for crafternoon to make the house fancy."

And Here's What He's Like at Three

At three-years-old, The Bairn

He was thrilled by the animatronic dinosaur advertising an upcoming
exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
'It's trying to tell us something," he said.

• loves dinosaurs.  This is new but I'm enjoying reading every book written about dinosaurs more than reading every book written about tractors, which is what I've been doing for the past two years.
• has imaginary bird friends.  He asks to talk to them each morning, and they tell him 'tweedle tweedle tweedle.'  They have a nest on a stool in his room.  The other day I found him standing on the stool 'protecting the eggs from oviraptors.'
• regularly pretends to be a kitty or a turtle.
• prefers 'toys with wheels.'
• helps.  He puts away his folded laundry, takes the trash to the garage, holds the dustpan while I sweep, and even empties his own potty.  He's very happy to assist me, especially if he can do it while pretending to be a machine.
• hugs, kisses, and tickles his sister.  He tells me he's a tickle machine and must make her feel better.
• asks 'Why?' all the time. We've just started with this and if I can't come up with a decent explanation for the motivations of fictional characters or for why his friend lives in his particular home, The Bairn commands me, 'Sink about it, Mom.  Sink about it.'

Three Feels Big

The Bairn turned three-years-old today.  When I was growing up, it never occurred to me that my birthdays might be more significant to my mother than they were to me.  She wasn't getting gifts or cake or the ability to go to school or drive a car like I was.  In fact, until The Bairn had his first birthday, I never considered that while I reflected on my previous birthdays each time I turned a year older, Mom was probably remembering my birth day.

Today I watched the clock and said to myself (and sometimes to Steve), this time three years ago . . . I was having contractions in the corner market.  I was still 10 hours away from having a baby.  I was on my way to the hospital.  I was a brand new mother.

I can't ever think of The Bairn's birth without thinking of all the kindness we received, far away from family, in a moldy, mouse-infested tenement, and so bewildered by parenthood that I couldn't even figure out how to take care of a newborn and fix myself lunch simultaneously without help.  Just getting to and from the hospital (three trips) took six different kind people. I had planned to use taxis but was told again and again by our friends (and sometimes mere acquaintances) that I was to call them day or night for rides. Maureen, who drove us to the hospital when we actually stayed and delivered The Bairn, chatted merrily to me, occasionally glancing at me in the rear view mirror and assuring me in her Scottish brogue, "I'm just trying to take your mind off it.  You'll be fine!" and Charlie, who drove us to the hospital 3 days later when I had a panic attack and who is the father of 10 children himself, asked me if Steve was taking proper care of me and told me stories about his first child.  Tina and Angela found me at the hospital that night after Julie, who had brought us dinner, didn't find us at home.  Angela took me to her house the next day where Aileen sat next to me for hours and taught me how to breastfeed.  And Tina kept me at her house for weeks after that, planting me on a couch with a plate of chocolates and whisking The Bairn away for some snuggling in a different room so I could sleep.

I don't know if The Bairn will ever meet any of these people who now live across an ocean from him, but they are the angels present for his birth.  He will surely hear stories about them, as they've rooted themselves in our family history through their service to us.

This is my friend Emily's blog.  We were roommates at BYU and at Sunday dinners she used to lead the discussion among roommates on topics such as which superpowers we would most enjoy.  She and her two children are in the middle of a year-long trip abroad and I love reading about her travels and her insights into her experiences, but this post, about kindness, is my favorite.  It's what I want to say about our friends in Scotland.

Happy Birthday to my three-year-old boy!  I'm so grateful for him and for all the new helpers in his life, because I can make lunch while I care for him now, but I'm still a bewildered parent working out how to raise this clever kid.

Chatting with Aunt Jean over Birthday Cupcakes

Snow Days, Sick Days

We're just getting out from under weeks of illness. We've been down so long that we even dragged our TV up from the basement, where it's been sitting for the last 18 months, so that we can all nurse our fevers and watch movies and take it easy during these hard winter months.  We are also having the cold and the snow from the living in the Canada, which meant that we had to pull out a few special treats today.

Like snowcream.  The classic ice cream treat made from snow.  I ate it as a child and The Bairn is a convert, although I had to talk him into trying it.

Matching games from the parent resource center.  Ellen is very insistent about trying everything The Bairn does.  When he drinks hot chocolate, I have to give her a tiny cup of water and stirring spoon so she can participate in the ritual.

The 'Yes' Drawer.  The kids have taken over one of my kitchen drawers.  It's full of their own kitchen utensils and things I suspect they can't break.  Sometimes they like to pull everything out and play games with them.

Ellen is, in fact, holding a knife sharpener.  That should probably go in the 'No' Drawer.

Baby Love

Last night The Bairn and I were discussing Ellen and how she's a baby now but will get bigger and will stop being a baby and then we'll have ANOTHER baby [note: I am not pregnant].  "And then we'll have more and more babies!" The Bairn enthused.  When I asked how many babies he thought we should have, he very promptly announced that there would be ten more babies.  Hmmm.  Not so much.  It's too bad, though, because Ellen and The Bairn do LOVE babies.

My friend brought her infant, Caitlyn, over last week.  We pulled the exersaucer out of the basement and settled Caitlyn in it and my kids went wild with delight.  All morning Ellen crooned, "Oh, babe-baby.  Bee-bee-beeeee.  Baby see."  And then she'd lean in as far as she could over the exersaucer and pile paper towels on Caitlyn's head.

The Bairn, though generally a clever kid, couldn't figure out that Caitlyn and his sister were not the same person.  He was really thrilled to have a baby girl in the toy-contraption-machine, but he kept asking me why I'd put E in there and looking startled when he saw, he thought, his sister in an exersaucer and then turned around and saw her gathering paper towels behind him.

We need a little more time before we add another baby to this mix, though, because Ellen and The Bairn are still working on peacefully co-existing in a shopping cart.  One day a woman in the grocery store saw The Bairn kissing Ellen in the seat next to him and came over to tell me what an adorable sight it was, but she missed part 2, in which Ellen did all the screaming and I did all the threatening when The Bairn refused to STOP kissing her because 'I just love her so much.'

Gems From The Bairn

Fruit flies were swarming some leftover apple on a plate at our table and they were distressing The Bairn.  He flung out his arms and announced, "I am a scarecrow of bugs." 

He still has a few strange turns of phrase.  My favorites are

I am interested of  _____ (bugs, lightning, etc.)

and

I will pull up it

There's a dead raccoon on the side of the road a few houses down from us.  The Bairn's very concerned about it and wants to take it to its home, although it's been there so long that it's now almost unrecognizable as an animal.  A few weeks ago we passed it in the stroller while talking about Halloween decorations that are full of air.  "Maybe we could pump that raccoon full of air and make it better," The Bairn suggested.

He doesn't really understand death, which is probably why he calls the gravestones we pass mate-o-malts.  His own word that he came up with himself.