recap-o-the-week

This week has been busy and good and tiring. Despite a fairly decent night's sleep last night, I'm feeling pretty beat; I could blame the weather, or the accumulation of a week of high-energy-output, or no-naps, or the up-at-night nights... but I'll just hope for better - for some good rest tonight and another good day tomorrow.

I'll break this down day by day:

Sunday: Mother's Day! I love this day for a few reasons: I feel special, as a mom - and I love my kids and I love being their mom (and I get to love them forever and ever and ever)! And I know that this is how my mom felt and feels about all four of us, and it's pretty special really, to get a better understanding of your parents and to think that the everlasting, all-consuming, unconditional feelings that we have for our children are the same ones they had (and continue to have - right?) for us. Am I talking in circles? I hope not. Anyways, Happy Belated Mother's Day! Moms, you make the world go round.

Oh, and skating happened for the first time last Sunday, and I have no pics. We are all planning on going to tomorrow's class, so stay tuned.

Monday: Swimming in the morning with Hendrik, and construction site visit (up-close action! diggers! front-end loaders!) and Walmart and gym triple-combo-pack-trip in the afternoon. If only we didn't have to drive to this construction site, we'd be camped out there. I'll take pictures next time....

Tuesday: AM visit to the Children's Museum at The Museum of Civilization. Hendrik was into stamping his "passport", but we left it somewhere and that was that. Pretend food play at the cafe, driving cars, playing on a big boat, more cars, stamping, cutting - these were a few of his favourite things. In the afternoon, I have no idea what we did.

Wednesday: Gymnastics in the morning followed by a family trip to the pool followed by meet and greet with Steve's team followed by lunch at Moca Loca - this equals that two-hour+ nap I wrote about in the last blog. I went for a run, hit Costco and Bulk Barn. We had an early dinner and went to the Canada-Turkey match here in Gatineau, stayed for two sets and called it a night.

Thursday: We did an errand on our way to a friend's house for a playdate, and made it home in time for lunch and nap. We had another early supper and got to the gym in time for warm-up, meet and greet with the mascot (a huge moose), and national anthems. Again, we stayed for two sets and then wrapped things up before Alana lost her cool; at home I was all about business getting the kids into bed. Books of the week for Hendrik have been The Dinosaur Alphabet Book (I feel so-so about the illustrations) and The Construction Alphabet Book - this one gets an A+. They were both "surprise books" - rewards for being such a gooooood listener. Since Alana would just try to stuff both of these books in her mouth, she gets Goodnight Moon and a few other boardies.

dr.hendrik at work (in his office, with steve in the waiting room, and then doing some work on Steve's "cracked" elbow)

Friday: I had a meeting in the morning and bought a new bathing suit (avec a Groupon discount, yay!), and Shanti helped out with the kiddies (double yay). And with the hopes of getting back to a regular-ish bedtime (8:00), I decided to skip the nap thing (for Hendrik at least) - so we headed out to a fabulous park where there was mucho play - in the playground, the sand, the woodchips, the trees (Hendrik was "gardening"). I tried to do a bit of Baby Book catch-up in the evening, but ran out of glue - that was on my list of things to do this afternoon but we found something better to do.

Saturday: Steve needed to be at the gym this morning at 11:15 (they lost in 5 tonight in Kingston, vs. Turkey), so after blueberry pancakes and a half-cleanup, we made for the park, found some rocks and threw them in the water. Minus the mosquitos, it was sort of perfect: a bit spontaneous, simple, sunny and warm; Alana slept peacefully and Hendrik was smiling from ear to ear, looking for rocks and finding white dandelions, pointing out good skipper rocks and stopping to look at geese. It's these little things in life that count the most... no? I thought the same thought 45 minutes later when, after dropping Steve off at the gym and dropping in on the festival-y type thing that was happening across the street, Hendrik soaked himself bit by bit in a series of water fountains - drops in his hair, on his face, then a wet shirt, then splattered splashes on his pants, and then soaked - the whole time smiling and stomping in the sun and water, not noticing me notice him. It made me think: this is it, this is why we live... to notice and have and experience moments like this. It was perfection.