Bigger

My kids have gotten bigger. Way bigger.

Finn decided that he was ready to pee on the potty a couple weeks ago. Today he even put a "baby" on the potty today and talked for her, "I peed!" before clapping her hands together, then saying, "I'm so proud of you!" He's so funny. He's big into rhyming, especially our names. Mommy Bummy. Nana Banana. All day we sang songs. His fave was Five Little Monkeys, but Wheels on the Bus will always be a hit.

He's kinda rotten at the same time, though I think that naturally comes with being two and a half. We went to the library at the mall this morning. Not only was he not in sight most of the time, he ran from one corner of Safeway to the furthest corner as fast as he could get away. Then he ran away from me in the parking lot. He spent some time getting some negative energy out in the backyard when we got home. And even though he whines incessantly, he is so easy to make laugh. And his laugh makes my heart grow.

And Lily. Oh my. While she bailed on her last potential sleepover at Carly's, she's excited for an upcoming Brownie's science centre/pizza party/sleepover in a few weeks. Carly will have to be right by her side, but it's a step. Brownie's has been good for her. Glad we coerced her into it. More cookie sales. A food bank drive. Being on the Santa parade float coming up. And badges.

She's gotten so independent in the last month or so. She will walk home from school by herself at lunch and after school. She doesn't wake me when she has to pee in the middle of the night or even when she gets up and we're just downstairs watching t.v. She came home from Carly's the other day; Finn, Chris and I were all upstairs napping in bed. She didn't even come looking for us. Just went downstairs to play Barbie games online. These things are huge.

She's still painfully shy, but she spends more time at Carly's and from what we hear, even answers her parents questions. Out loud. I assume she's fine when we're not around, though I can't vouch for that. Even with us, trying to get something that's bugging her out of her mouth is like playing (four hundred and) 20 questions. Trying to keep all dialogue open, so hopefully someday she'll come around.

Gotta pick out clothes for tomorrow. Big kid clothes.

Buddy

Last night Finn said, "You're my best friend, Mom." He's pretty fantastic himself.

Big day!

Lily and I are heading up to Saskatoon after lunch for the Justin Bieber concert. As if we needed to sweeten the pot, Carly Rae Jepsen is opening. I don't know if I'll be able to wipe that grin off her face today.

Super busy crazy fun times

Shall I pull out my list of awesome things we've been doing? I think shortly after we got back from Minot we realized Finn had ringworm. Not a big deal, just a traumatic trip to the doctor's office.

That was followed by two Saturdays of birthday parties that Lily was invited to attend – and they were for boys in Lily's class. The first was Kylo's bowling birthday party, and right afterwards we hit the road to Grandma and Grandpa's for the weekend. Jet skiing, boating, tubing, throwing sand out of the sandbox, hot tub action, a day at the beach. It was that jam-packed.

Did a short day trip down to Weyburn to finally meet Khrystine's daugther, Ana, and her soon-to-be stepson, Eric. Tried to picnic but it was so hot we almost died. The following weekend was a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party, but this time Lily was the only girl so it wasn't as fun. On Aug. 1, Chris took the day and took Lily to the Queen City Ex. A perfect activity for the pair. They spent over eight hours there, a feat I was lucky to avoid.

For the August long weekend, we headed up to Shell Lake for the Hood/Flora family reunion. Stayed over at Grandma and Grandpa's and got to see Ryan and Leslie before we headed out the next morning. We camped. Not my first choice, but there were actually no other options. It wasn't so bad – until the first night. A thunderstorm kept me awake most of the night, the constant pelting of raindrops sounded like small explosions over and over and over... The second night we were so cold that we had to all sleep with our heads covered. Got to see everyone, hold frogs, hit the beach and park. Finn rode his bike constantly, impressing everyone with his moves. We were all glad to get home, if only to be inside again.

Spent the following week readying for Lily's birthday party, which we had on Aug. 12. It was super old-school. Musical chairs, scavenger hunt, random playing in the yard, a weiner roast, then cake. Ta da, over. Lily was very satisfied, though, exclaiming that this was the awesomest party ever.

Then this past weekend, Grandma and Grandpa so kindly came down for the weekend so they could watch the kids for us while we attended a co-worker's wedding. Of course, on Saturday the kids got sick. Chris and I followed a couple days later. On Tuesday, I hurt my back so bad I had to lay down all day. Then at supper Lily said, "My head is itchy." An hour of flashlight searching over her scalp until we found the little bugger that would ruin the rest of our evening. Chris and Finn immediately left to get lice shampoo. We did all of our heads so Lily wouldn't be alone; she was so upset. Took hours to strip the beds, rid our rooms of dirty clothes and towels, throw toys in the freezer, pillows in the dryer, re-dress the beds. Poor kids weren't asleep until 10:15 p.m. Chris stayed home since we're moving on Friday at work and I had to go in and pack. It all kinda went to hell and I ended up having to come home early anyway. Back at daycare today, but they're shutting down tomorrow since they found four more cases of lice, including Jack and Carly. Gonna do a thorough clean, though nothing makes me feel NOT itchy right now.

No time for including photos, but see our Flickr pics to get the full effect of this awesome narrative.

Hot fun in the summer time!

School's been out for just over two weeks. Since then, it's almost been a blur.

First there was the big Canada Day long weekend. The Winnipeg relatives came into Regina on Friday night and we all headed up to Saskatoon the next day for Auntie Norma's 50th birthday party. It was hot and fun with lots of kids running around.

Lily, unfortunately, had an awful ear infection that we could only keep at bay with Advil for so long. She crashed just after 7 p.m. so we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's for the night. Uncle Jared was there, too, and Finn kept us all entertained as we sipped wine.

The next morning, Lily felt up to going in the hot tub before we headed back to the farm to get Nana. We drove back to Regina as Lily, Finn, Nana and Skye all slept for almost the entire trip – exactly how it should be. We dropped Nana off and rushed home to put together a bbq of our own for Uncle Terry, Auntie Brenda, Kim, Aidan, Isabella, Trevor, Amber, Hunter, Heather, Colin, Zander, Keira, Nigel, Jessica, Ferguson, Nana and us! Trev, Amber and Hunter only stayed long enough to meet Ferguson before they hit the road.

After a few hours of eating and playing, we called it quits because it was apparent that everyone was exhausted. Nigel, Jessica and Ferguson stayed over so we got to visit with them in the morning before we jetted off to Rowan's Ravine to spend the day with our neighbours, Bob, Lori, Carly and Jack. They had their trailer out there for the weekend so we went for swimming in the lake, some mini golf, supper and bike riding before Lily's earache got the better of her again. We didn't make it home until 10:30 p.m.

After a few days back at work and daycare (where they went to the Leg and library for some field trip fun), we headed off to Minot on Saturday for watersliding, shopping for Lily's clothes, and touring the devastating flood damage that wreaked havoc there just over a year ago. That part was absolutely mind-blowing. Neighbourhood after neighbourhood you could see how the water had reached the tops of the houses. On some streets, every house was abandoned and nature had come back in to reclaim these yards. It was almost post-apocalyptic. While some were rebuilding, many were not. What kind of neighbourhood will that be? And will it flood again. I suppose we're lucky to be in one of only two cities in North America not built on a river.

Anyway, Lily's got birthday parties over the next couple Saturdays. We're hopefully heading down to Weyburn to visit Khrystine's baby this weekend and next weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's. Then the crazy rollercoaster of August begins!

Funny Finn at (almost) 26 months

The last couple months since you turned two have been lots of fun. You are just starting to talk in well-formed sentences that you thought up yourself. Which is surprising. And entertaining. Like:

"I go outside now. Bye!"
"I ride my bike."
"Yilyee (Lily), come sit down."
"There's Mezia's van."
"Mom, come back."
"I stay home."
"You coming?"
"Oh, it's suppertime."
"Motorcycle!"
"No bugging me."

Because you do get bugged a lot. And when taken to the edge, you like to bite and hit. Not that we blame you, but then we learned that you got into a fight with Lulu at the daycare. She ended up bleeding and you had two lumps on your head. She's three, but she's sweet on you. We got to see it in action at Jack's fifth birthday party. Despite having her own bag of popcorn, she just wanted to eat yours. And she was always by your side. I think she's the highlight of your weekdays.

Lulu is the little girl behind Finn.

On the weekends and some evenings, playing outside or with Lily and Carly is where it's at. You jump on the trampoline and play games with them. You swing beside them. You ride your bike, push the cart and throw your balls – and try to get into the garage where all the tools are. Our patio was a smart investment as it gets used constantly and as long as the gate's shut and the kitchen window is open, you are happy to be out there by yourself. You spend fairly long stretches of time in the sandbox or up in the "tree fort" scribbling over Lily's birthday party invitee list written in chalk. Some mornings before work, we send you out just to keep you busy while we finish getting ready. One day, you were eating a popsicle in the tree fort when you put in down on the chalk board ledge, then just came over and gave me a tight hug around the next before going to get your popsicle again.

You can count to 12 and say your ABCs (or something akin to it). You like to sing and read books about the babies on the bus, diggers and garbage trucks. You still sleep fairly well...until 5 a.m. when you request my presence. You spend at least the next hour in my arms until Lily comes in. Usually you spring right up to see her, even though she immediately starts poking and irritating you. She and you eat cinnamon toast or smoothies for breakfast. Usually you help Dad make the smoothies because they taste better then. You love ketchup on everything, maybe because we eat a lot of home fries as a supper side dish. Dipping is high on your list of suppertime demands. But you say "yucky" a lot, even when you don't mean it. Don't know if you picked that up from Lily or from daycare.

You go grocery shopping with Dad. I can't come because it all goes to heck then. I send you on a mission for broccoli, which you dutifully accept. You actually will go anywhere with Dad which is so, so nice.

While you haven't done it for a while, you'll put yourself in a time out. You sit on the stairs while I put the timer on. You can't move until it beeps. (We're just impressed that you listen because Lily never did. We still can't put her in her room without her literally trying to claw her way out!) But if you're well rested, you rarely have bad days. On the weekends, you slip into a two to three hour nap around 11:30. Weekends are so nice, especially since you don't require a whole lot of structure or entertaining. And we try to never have much to do, just play it by ear because the more you can play whatever you want, the better.

You still love to help. You scrape plates and stack the supper dishes. You put the condiments away. You help with the food processor and the mixer. You get toilet paper for Lily when she screams that there is none. You close the door when we leave the house in the morning. You start Nana's car. You pull weeds. You say you want to help water, but I think you just want the hose.

You want to play t-ball because every Monday through Thursday, kids and their parents walk behind our fence to the ball diamond. There are two games. One at 6 and one at 6:30 p.m. Sometimes you want to play with them so bad, you lay on the floor and cry. On Sundays, the older kids play football right behind the fence and you want to join them, too. Oftentimes, we'll just go to the park to be near all the action. That seems to help. You love climbing and going down slides with Mommy.

And I'm sure there's a lot I'm forgetting... You change constantly, always for the better.