with mucho to do i blog...

See above: Patras, and where our new place is in the city. Steve is in - to a modern, new, one-bedroom apartment. Might be close quarters, but with a fridge full of feta and fresh produce, we'll manage... ")

Even though organizing is well under way here, we aren't packed, the to-do list is long and scribbly, and all I really want to do is summon a genie to snap her fingers and presto change-o have the car packed, while I join Hendrik for a nap on the couch.

The weekend of coaching was amazing - the girls, a 15U team, earned second place (and a medal!) in a 16U tourney - and exhausting. I wondered, does coaching tire one out more than playing does? I was beat, and had to cancel sushi plans with my women's team... sad face sad face. However, I do - happy face! - get to sneak one more game in tonight, which means that I won't get home until 10:30-11:00 which means that I should be packing and loading the car now, while both kids are horizontal.

This coming weekend is the Winter Games, so I'll be kid-free and immersed in volleyball. Should be good! Hopefully I'll find some time to get to my school stuff and read... plan, blog; we'll see. Off to do jobs!

Coach Irena, Maiyah, Rachel, Sarah, Emily, Rebecca, Kendra, Alex, Me, Coach Erin
Sydney, Holly, Amy, Grace and Mel

on wednesday

Too! Much! To Write About! Flights are booked to Greece (March 11-May 6), Steve's team got a big win for themselves last Saturday, my Valentine spoiled me with beautiful flowers on Friday, the weekend of coaching went well, the Brinkmans are coming to visit this weekend, I'm coaching all day Saturday, we've been watching some Olympics, Hendrik can say the alphabet in French, and I just got the kids in bed in less than 20 minutes, after a late-ish practice for the club team I'm coaching this weekend. And I played women's league last night and it was so super fun, even though we lost in five sets and I didn't get home until 11:00. PM. My downstairs neighbors watch les enfants, and I am tired. Is this the reality of having little kids? On your own? Oui ma cherie, oui...

I also have a zillion - okay, maybe not a zillion but it feels like a zillion - tabs open. In multiple browsers, and here they are:

• The Questions That Will Save Your Relationships (HuffPost article - yet to read)
•  The How Are You? Culture Clash (NewYorkTimes article - yet to read)
• An Antidote for Mindlessness (New Yorker - yet to read)
• ALA Online Learning
• Smashball: A Cool New Youth Volleyball Experience 
• 15 Reasons We Absolutely Have to Keep Books Alive
• Cabin Porn 
• Panachaiki FC Wikipedia page (Steve's club in Greece)
• Raymond Briggs Wikipedia page
• Perfectly Flawed: [Lionel Shriver] explores the appeal of the unappealing (Financial Times)
• LOVE: Lost and Found on Craigslist (love this!!)
• The 13 Best Children's, Illustrated and Picture Books of 2013
  (I could read about books all day - I could have a zillion zillion tabs open about books... but when would I read all of the tabs? And how to get to all of the books?)
• The Isaac Foundation: Running Events
• Dad on School Run Can't Stop Laughing at Pupils Slipping on Ice 
• Western MLIS 

Here are a few photos from today, yesterday, and the days just before. I'm due for a 15-minute-a-day post - maybe I can remember to sleep with the camera beside me so I can catch the beauty of being woken early by these adorable early-risers.....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Books, books, books; Valentine's books! We are big into the special holiday books around here, and that's in large part thanks to my mom; I remember getting excited about the special books that'd be brought out just before a holiday, and then put away again... and she has gifted (along with my dad, bien sur) a sizable stack of Valentine's Day tomes. The kids have a few favourites, and though we read all ten of them on the couch tonight before bed (I was in such a happy place with the two of them crowded close, all ears and smiles) the ones that come out on top are Arthur's Valentine, Louanne Pig in the Mysterious Valentine, Franklin's Valentines and Love Bugs. At preschool this morning the kids mailed each other Valentines, and we must've read some of our holiday books ten + times; Hendrik was feeling it when, unprompted (I didn't hug him first), he gave me a huge hug, and then a few minutes later said, "I LOVE Valentine's Day. Do you see how big my smile is?" How cute is that?! I'm excited for them to wake up IN THE MORNING and see the valentines that are waiting for them (inspired by Arthur):

The sleep isn't much better than it was, well, any time in the last few weeks, but last night Hendrik slept all night and Alana was just up twice. A good night is due down the tracks pretty soon here, and I'd love it if it was on it's way NOW. Right right now.

I will post videos and then.... I need sleep. Because of recent nights - all recent nights - and because I have a big weekend of coaching coming up: Saturday, Sunday, all day, in preparation for the Ontario Winter Games.

Happy Valentine's Day people!!

pics and bullets

Every day around here is so full of so many blog-worthy things that I can't keep track of them all. And when this kind of situation gets dire, it's time for bullets (but photos first: for some reason they'll only load here, at the beginning of the post!):

a pause in futon-jump action

my getting-bigger girl

where's waldo? | cookies! | cousins

snowy, cold days around here!

cup on the foot

we found some non-buried swings :)

the meal that inspired a grocery shop

mailing valentines

Steve, in Patras, at a cafe that we used to go to; like the view, the sun, the weather, the man!

• These days, giving my children a bath is like giving them a bath in a tub full of caffeinated Skittles and telling them to eat their way out; they come out of there on fire. ON FIRE. They run the full length of our apartment and then jump up and down on the futon and then do BIG jumps off of it THUMP onto the floor. They would jump on there for an hour, I'm sure, if I let them. And maybe I should? Except Alana wants to jump and jump off of there too, and I know that someone Alana would get hurt - especially because Hendrik does Rambo jumps off and on to the futon, and his little body is getting bigger; he can hurl himself through space at a pretty decent clip. I watch with eyes bugging out of my head. "IT'S TIME TO CALM DOWN" is all I can say, over and over and over again.
• I went for a run today and it felt so good to move, outside, on my own. It was freezing and I was as slow as mud, but the sun was shining and I was running... all good!
• Not so good, the sitchy-ation around here, last night. Nope, no no no, nothing dire; just the only social plans - a party! - I've had in, well, months, were foiled. Hendrik had a minor meltdown after dinner and then fell asleep in my arms whilst recovering - at the very moment that I'd planned to leave the house. Oh, and Alana didn't nap. At all. I put Hendrik to bed, then tried to diaper him 45 minutes later, and he woke up and was none too pleased about it. His sister was in full whine mode, and all I wanted to do was hide. So, I tried looking on the bright side (it wasn't easy - positivity had expired) and went to bed early, at 10:15. Alana woke up at 10:20 and didn't go back down until close to 11:30, and then was up multiple times in the night. And then when morning came, she was ready to go - 7:08! Happy and awake! Not me. I tried cartoons, but Alana wanted to sit on my head instead. Literally.
• My cousin Spencer, who I haven't seen in years and years and years called me on Wednesday with the "I'm in town!" so we got together the next day. I was inspired (by a play food meal) to buy bacon and lettuce and big tomatoes and make a killer sandwich, so that's what we did... made a good lunch, chilled with my chillies, and then made sugar cookies - heart shapes! And I used beet juice (concentrated) to dye the icing pink... no trace of beety taste whatsoever. This is a trick I'd like to keep up my sleeve - and not forget about.
• We have a small slew of Valentine's Day books and the kids are loving them. There is one in particular that they both like - Arthur's Valentine, and as a result of several reads a day, every time Alana hears the word valentine, she says, "arthur"... it is tres cute.
  
  
• Since our January return from Bowmanville, Hendrik has taken it upon himself to say grace every night before dinner, even though much of it is unintelligible; what you can make out - and you don't have to listen closely - is "two thousand and four-TEEN" (as in the year), and sometimes, if you listen very very closely, you can hear him say "bless this food". Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right Gramps? Alana has joined in with the hands-clasping thing, and has also started saying a 17-month old version of Amen. (I'll post a video tomorrow.....)
• Alana is into throwing her food, and we've had spills (at least one) at every meal. Hendrik likes to do jobs and pick up her food, but it might just encourage her more. And she puts her cup (or bowl or whatever) on her foot as much as she can. Cute, right?
• I made Reese's Peanut Butter squares to take to the party I was supposed to go to last night, and they are SO GOOD. But so dangereux... one look at the ingredients will explain all; why they are as tasty as can be and why I don't want them in my house. YUM!
• Steve is doing well, and we skype at least once a day, hurray. It's great for him, for the kids, for me... and speaking of Steve and of Greece, I want to go to Elofonisos (google it). We will look into flights in the next few weeks once we figure out how long we'll stay for and if we're hoping to have Hendrik back in preschool here before the school year ends.
• Hendrik had an eye appointment on Monday, and it wasn't much of a surprise when the doctor started talking about a third surgery. Alignment is getting better and better with each operation, but it's not where he thinks it should/could be. We were given the option of taking a bit of a breather (operation, time out!) and waiting a year or so, but it's not going to get any easier plus we're not too sure where we'll be at this time next year (or the year after or the year after that). So it looks like the date will come up in May or June, and we'll be ready for it. Hopefully this will be one of those third-time's-a-charm things...

That's a wrap!

dinos + dancing

still good, still good.....

Life... is still good! Exhausting, but good. I found two grey hairs on my head tonight! While the kids were in the bath, and I swear they weren't there the last time I  - checked? I don't check, they just happened to be sticking out sticking up, begging to be pulled out. They might have something to do with the happenings of the last few days - here goes...

So, on Tuesday I made a game-time decision to drive to Toronto - Paul and Steph and Jimmy were in town, plus all of the other B-ville regulars (minus the Gramps-parents), and I was thinking that it'd be good to see everyone, have some company and get west before the library conference started (due to begin on Wednesday evening, running through Saturday). We left at 2:06, and by the time we hit the 417 (an hour's drive, more or less) we'd also hit a blizzard. I'm no pro at winter driving, but I do know that I do not want to be driving in white-out conditions (with the kids), with transport trucks flying by. It got better and then it got worse and I could barely see the tanker truck in front of me, so I got off in Kingston and found a hotel. I presented it to the kids as a super fun night in a hotel, yay for us! We get to stay in a hotel! They were both in good spirits, and I was just happy to not be behind the wheel; it was dark and snowing hard, and there were warnings to stay off the roads due to whiteouts and snow squalls (= "sudden moderately heavy snow fall with blowing snow and strong, gusty surface winds"). We stayed here, and it was great - for $139 we got a room with two beds, a fireplace, a hot buffet breakfast, parking, and free internet.

Great? Sleep not great. I knew it would be a bit of a rodeo getting everyone to sleep, and it surrrrre was. We were "in bed" around 9:00 (boy in one bed, girls in the other), and Hendrik's running commentary went something like this (oh if only, somehow, it had all been transcribed):

Hendrik: "mommy? mommy! It's 9:06. Oh! Mommy! Mommy? Mommy! Now it's 9:07! And do you see that? Look! Loooook it's a mouse! It's a pretend mouse! Where's it going? Mommy, you shouldn't talk when you're trying to sleep, Alana shouldn't talk when it's night-time."
me: "Hendrik, SHH. Alana isn't talking and it is night-time.... and you're talking. You shouldn't be talking. Sleep!"
Hendrik: "But I'm not talking! Alana's talking, she shouldn't be talking now, it's time to sleep. Mommy! Mommy? Mommy! Now it's 9:08! Wow. Look at the clock mommy. Do you see my face? Do you see my smile? It's this big! Mommy? Did you see? Did you see that? Mommy? Are you there? LOOK, ! it's nine oh NINE!"

and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Meanwhile Alana was doing bum-drops on the bed and I was trying not to fall asleep because I knew she'd fly off the bed and I probably wouldn't wake up and then I'd find her asleep under the bed or something. I tried corralling her, got a bloody lip (really), sang, told stories ("Mommy you shouldn't talk shh go to sleep" says Hendrik). Anyways, we finally did get some shut-eye and whatever, it was better than white-knuckling it on the 401.

The next morning the highways were closed (multiple accidents in both directions, including this one - 100 cars!), and conditions looked horrible, so we called my sister's ex's parents and paid them a visit. The padre insisted we stay there and I was so glad to have the company, a crib for Alana and a bed for Hendrik; it definitely saved some of my sanity (conversations with an adult! in person!) and made sleeping a lot more functional. On Thursday the roads were clear so we headed for home instead of Bowmanville; with more bad weather scheduled for the weekend, I figured I wouldn't want to chance a blizzard on the road again.

And here we are, Saturday, February. Since our return home on Thursday afternoon, we hit day one of Winterlude, paid Costco a visit, went to the library (where there was this: reading, I have to pee!, check out, pay unexpected fine, walk to car, hat is lost, back to library, find hat, get dressed, walk to car, I have to pee - !!!), Michael's, made Valentine's, put together an Ikea kiddie kitchen, and picked up a few essentials from the grocery store (milk, broccoli and coffee cream). The kids are great, but days are exhausting, and by the time they're in bed all I really want to do is check out. Shower, exercise, to-do lists - all of these things require a double-down effort, and more often than not, don't happen. Meh. I'll shower tonight, and exercise later (or not). To-do lists tomorrow night... and now, bed!