Utensil

A often chooses to eat cream cheese on toast for breakfast. We cut it up into little bite-sized squares for him. I recently noticed how he feeds himself these little squares: he stabs his index finger into the cream cheese so that the piece sticks to his finger and he can lift it to his mouth. Hilarious. Too bad I don't have an accompanying photo for this post!

You may remember that A was almost entirely indifferent to solid foods until he was about 13 months old. Now he often eats as much - or more than - his sister. When we call "It's ready!" at mealtimes, he GASPS, drops what he's doing, and runs to the table. Lately he gets down off his chair a few minutes into the meal and wanders around a bit before he continues eating. Another thing he often does a few minutes into the meal is to ask for dessert. His personal word for dessert sounds something like "hahoum?", the origins of which are completely mysterious. He will often keep eating his meal in tandem with dessert or even after his dessert.

As for D's relationship with food, not much has changed lately although she will sometimes surprise us by trying something new. Sushi, french fries, and desserts are still her favourites; she still eats zero fruit. One thing that I find so endearing is that she often drinks (herbal) tea, particularly chamomile before bed, or mint or vanilla nut creme in the afternoon. Sometimes we have tea parties. 

Sunshiney Day

At the end of April, we found out that we'd be moving here in the beginning of August. That gave us about 3 months to speculate on what it'd be like to live in this new place. Pouring over a map of the region, we imagined biking up a nearby trail to a lake where we knew there would be a public beach and a park. This afternoon, we did it! It was probably about a 25-minute ride, factoring in a number of self-imposed hill-avoidance detours.

That blue dot is the bike trailer containing our children.

Our fabulous destination!

Happiness on the sand! His sister was equally happy but she was off playing with friends and didn't get her photo taken.

Riding through the waterfowl park on the way home.

It's very strange and amazing to us that we live close to a place like this. The kids had a blast in the water and on the playground. On the way home we stopped for a quick supper. A didn't want to get back in to the bike trailer after that; he probably would've had the same reaction about getting back into a carseat if we'd been driving.

We're left hoping for some more clement weather so that we can do this outing again.

It Is Now August 2013

Neglecting this blog over the past year was a side effect of the fact that I got a job. Deciding to revive the blog has to do with the fact that we moved (a major, inter-provincial move - not down the block like our last move) and somehow the move makes me want to start documenting again. I started a post that was going to be an overview of the past year, focusing on the kids' milestones. But that feels like a really overwhelming post to write so I'm just going to jump right in with the basics of the present.

D is 5.5 years old.

A is 2 years old.

We now live in small-town New Brunswick.

Life is good.

Papa makes chocolate-chip pancakes every Saturday morning.

Their new sleeping arrangements, although A usually joins us for half the night.

Sunday dinner at their great-grandparents' house. Mmm, gravy.

Being eaten by a hippo.

Handsome lad. (He looks taller here than in real life, I'd say.)

Posing at the weekly farmer's market. We get 2 loaves of that bread there.

Ellipses to Indicate the Year-Long Blogbreak

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