pho-tos

It's late and I'm tired, but I need to get these pics up! Be it rain and cold or afternoon sunshine, Hendrik has been loving the weather and the various sets of different activities that keep us inside or take us out, be it splashing in puddles or bathing a la turkey in my mom's roasting pan or cooking in an 80s Fisher Price kitchen (ah-mazing!). Pics now, words later...

happy splashing in puddles!

he loves the mew-mew that lives on the landing, who is always curled up and sleeping; the cat gets some love almost every time we go up or down the stairs... so sweet!

the best toys ever! hendrik loves playing kitchen and loves making me coffee on the stove... i'm so glad my mom and dad kept all of this stuff!

playing boats

our little turkey :)

playing ball with the dog, at supremo close range

aaaaand watering the plants

news +

The night before last I finally got to talk to Steve for more than a few minutes - with the World League schedule, the 23-hour trip to Brazil and the time change, it's been tough to find time to chat - and despite the fact that we were both super exhausted, it was such a relief to finally catch up on a few things. This facebook status post followed: I miss my husband I miss Italy and I love love love my boy... Because, we had more to talk about than the regular what've you been up to how's the weather how's the visit with your parents stuff; Hendrik had an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist on Monday and the doctor brought up the possibility of surgery - big, big sigh.

We were referred after I mentioned something in a regular check-up appointment a few weeks ago - his left eye is a bit wonky sometimes (or all the time?), but it's not something that we've thought too much of or have been overly concerned about. We had one visit to the clinic and then another one (Monday's) and the verdict is that his eyes are misaligned and not working together in unison (due to a combination of amblyopia and strabismus), and the recommended fix is a combination of surgery and patching. I've been surprisingly calm about it until Tuesday night when I looked at the info sheets we came home with and a few blogs I found after searching strabismus repair surgery (imagining him under the knife, uncomfortable etc) and so I wanted to / needed to talk to Steve and feel assured and come up with some sort of game plan for what to do and how to feel. After we talked I went back and looked at pics from our last few months in Italy, and I really noticed the inward turn of his left eye - how did that escape me so? Anyways, I guess that's beside the point; what matters is that it's nothing incredibly urgent (the surgery), and despite the fact that his eyes aren't working together all of the time, his vision is near perfect. It's just a bit scary to think of him needing surgery, of him having surgery - and then the recovery and the potential for other issues down the road. Steve and I have barely had time to look into things let along talk about anything, and that's definitely on our to-do list pronto; also, the wait list for the surgery is close to a year, so we have time to wrap our heads around everything and learn learn learn. Until then, we're working on getting him to wear an eye patch for 90 minutes a day, to keep the strength of his left eye up with that of his right one. It's been so far so good... yeaaaaay! We're starting slowly and working our way up - with the help of an iPad yesterday (and Buppa, thank you thank you!) and a new trunk of toys today, we're getting there. After our long overdue skype convo the other night, I went in and looked at Hendrik sleeping and felt so overcome by love and thankfulness; we have more than anything I could ever wish for, with him and with our family, and this is, I hope, really just the most minor smudge in the big picture of his life, of our lives.

love love love love love

So! Onwards. We're in Vancouver and it's rainy and cold - yay to the Vancity bit, but boooooo to the weather. We had a pretty decent trip out, thank goodness for the extra seat between Hendrik and I and Dennis (name in cursive on the sweatshirt sleeve), our private and gruff middle-aged man-neighbor. Hendrik fought sleep by insisting on flailing his legs here and there, and I felt like I had to straightjacket him in my arms to get him from pissing off the guy in front of us - uggggh... But eventually he fell asleep and I got a bit of time with Mma Ramotswe and her gang before catching some shut-eye myself. There have been so so many fabulous bits in this latest edition of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency (it's the best one I've read in a while) and I'm sure it won't be long before I give in and share some blog-side. If I had it right here with me now I'd find something fabulous, but it's upstairs with Hendrik in Claire's old room, so it'll have to wait.

The rest of the visit with my parents was great - the sun came out and we got some good hide and seeking in, cleaning done and ... yeah, it was good! They flew to Toronto yesterday morning, and Shanti ferried the two of us out to the airport later in the afternoon; Steve will join on the 19th and I can't wait!

shortsy

This is going to be a short and sweet post - my parents are here visiting and I have the latest Mma Ramotswe book waiting for me and just two days to read it... eee! Mes parents arrived Friday night and since then we've enjoyed some good meals, walks, trips to the park and mmmm that's about it - all good! Also all good was the trip Hendrik and I made out to the Ikea on Thursday morning, the biggest and bluest there is in Canada; it's over 400,000 square feet! That is big... I wonder how many people are on staff to clean? Oufffffff... Anyways, it was practically empty which makes for the best kind of shopping anywhere, especially at an Ikea, where, if you happen to be in a hurry, irritation and annoyance suction themselves on to your visit from start to finish. We stopped for lunch - meatball meal combos - and I managed to limit my purchases to four (five?) things: step stool for Hendrik, potty for Hendrik, baby utenstils + cups + bowls (again, for Hendrik) and napkins. Oh, and a giant tupperware for ... guess who ? Hendrik and his too-small clothes. So - the only thing I didn't get for Hendrik was napkins? Hm. Well, whatever, I got myself some meatballs and root beer.

 And we're a few days closer to getting Steve back - after a 0-3 run in Poland this weekend they're making their way to Brazil tomorrow. That has got to be one loooong trip, and they get to make it again one week later when Europe welcomes them back to Finland. We haven't talked much in the past few days (booooo) but maybe we'll have better luck this week (maybe?), even though Hendrik and I are on our way to Vancouver on Wednesday. Steve will join - on my birthday! - and I can't wait. Some pics from the week, and then I'm off to Ladies Detective Agency-land...

dinner tonight, yums!

cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters + - from last night's pizza supreme

steve giving someone (gavin?) the crazy eyes (love it) before yesterday's game against Brazil

wrapping up may

Because I'm tired and because, yet again, I'm playing catch-up with a looong list of things to write about, I'm going bullet. Wait, make that number:

1. Steve came home last Friday and has since been flighted away by the world of volleyball - this time, for all of three weeks... le sigh. The team flew to Poland yesterday, they'll be in Brazil a week later and then, with just a few more air miles collected, will spend the final weekend of World League in Finland - what a trip! There must be a reason that the Europe weekends weren't scheduled back to back, but at least all four teams will be on the same page in terms of ridiculous-amount-of-traveling complete. If you're interested in catching any of the games, live scoring will be up on the FIVB site, and matches will be aired on CBC (!!), but a day later; for this coming weekend, Friday's game (they play Fri/Sat/Sun) (11:30am Eastern) will be on the telly on Saturday at 2:00 (Eastern) on CBC Sports.

Hendrik and I are already missing our guy, but he's been in our thoughts - mucho, already. Since Steve left yesterday afternoon, Hendrik has broken into several random "yaaay daddy!" cheers - some of which have been followed by: yay Duff, yay Freddie, yay Shanti and yay Gavin, in that order. And even though Steve's bags didn't get packed until after Hendrik was in bed on Monday night, and even though we didn't talk all that much about daddy leaving for trois semaines, Hendrik has fought sleep like a crazy person since that last night that Steve was here. My guess is that he's had that sixth sense thing that dogs have - when they know something's about to go down and start acting strange and out of sorts... you know what I'm talking about? I think our Hen knew Steve was leaving - or that someone was leaving - and didn't want to get left in his crib forgotten. Poor little sucker - he's been short on sleep and I'm hoping that we can turn the corner here one of these nights; by the end of the day I am so so so looking forward to this hour or two of quiet and do-what-I-want time (after cleaning, tidying etcetc) that I want it to happen right away, at 8:00, at bed time. We'll see....

2. Steve's Other Trip (China) was good - short and busy and, among other things, stinky (the grocery store). It really was such a quick trip that they didn't get too much of a sense of what life would be like there, but the volleyball aspect of it all got a positive review. I don't have anything too new to say because I didn't get tons info out of Steve and maybe that's because they didn't do much other than travel from hotel to gym to coffee/bakery and back to the hotel. They did look at an apartment complex with the hopes of catching a glimpse into our potential living situation, but until it's a done deal, it's not something we'll think about all that sincerely. Freddie blogged about it a few times, and if you're interested, you can read his posts here and here.

3. There was an awesome article about Steve in the Durham Region newspaper a few weeks ago - read it here. Proud!!

 4. Our family of three had an awesome afternoon at the beach on Saturday, and Hendrik was in fine form with his sand-castle destruction skills. Just like his dad, Steve kept building 'em up and Hendrik kept knocking 'em down boom boom boom. Since then, he's been saying, "Buppa, sand castle, what doooo" or "Daddy sand castle, what doooo" and they're the sweetest little tweets of sentences I've ever heard. After some good play time at Meech beach we hit up the Chelsea Pub for some dinner and then rolled on over to La Cigale for dessert... yummmm!!

5. I don't think I ever said anything about the shirt in toilet incident at Bob and Marg's, so here goes. Grandma was getting Hendrik ready for a bath, and with t-shirt in hand, he was in and out of the office and in and out of the hallway, running and ripping around - as little kiddies do. She was encouraging him to make for the bathroom, and no sooner did she mention taking his shirt in there with him - he ran into the bathroom, lifted up the toilet seat, threw his t-shirt in there AND FLUSHED. Luckily, Gamma was right on his tail and grabbed it out of there before the stripes clogged up the flue... but !!??! Hilarious. Let's hope it's both the first and the last time he tries that.

6. Hendrik has some new friends in his room - we found them at Superstore for $7. Jackpot!

He also has some new furniture: bench plus tables and chairs, and he loves them. Thank you Zella and Elspeth and D-man!

7. Yay Shanti! She ran her first half-marathon on Sunday and we were there to greet her at the finish line, or, rather, at the end of the corral of runners. Can you imagine looking this good after running 21+ kilometres?

 8. I'm 27 weeks and feeling good. The heat and humidity sure got to me yesterday (I think it got up to feels-like-39 at one point - gross) but we stayed in well AC'd places (library, grocery store) and all was well. I had a doc appointment this afternoon that took way too long (what is the deal with the waiting at doctors' offices? I had the first appointment after lunch and they were already 30 minutes behind schedule... aughh), and with Hendrik in tow and snacks gone and only two toys (books) in my bag, I was ready for things to go sour. But... he was as good as gold. Curtains and a box of kleenex kept him busy for at least 20 minutes and then he found an apple at the bottom of my bag and we were all good.

blueberry-smoothie mustache ARRRRRR!

9. Vids: these speak for themselves....

playing catch up...

wheeling...

... and relaxing

The past few weeks have been amazing, and full of volleyball. California was great and then our time back at Grandma and Grandpa B's was great and the World League weekend was great... and now we're back home in Gatineau, and I guess that's great too. Wait --- it will be great when Steve gets home on Friday. We were thinking that this week (and next) would include some solid together time - in between one set of games and the next - but it turns out that a little trip had to be slotted in. More on that in a minute...

vs Brazil

 
fifth set vs. Brazil - in case you missed it! 

with Dan-o after Friday's game

 
on-court after Friday's match; Hendrik somehow got past security... 

So yeah, World League was killer! The guys played so so so so well (so well that I couldn't (still) help but wonder why the weekend lineup wasn't the one we saw in the finals at the Olympic qualifier) and BEAT BRAZIL! And Finland! And challenged Poland! That's the first time I've seen such energy in a gym at a vball match in North America, and the first time in 13 years that the team has knocked off Brazil. It was amazing! We left the gym on Saturday night buzzing; the game was sold out, and the five-set show was as good as it gets. Hendrik was not so into sitting in the stands and watching nicely, so Marg and I took turns hanging out with him in the hallway - thankfully there were screens and we could still catch all of the action while he played with his ball and ran around like a little goat. We got to catch up with some good friends (albeit briefly) and see Steve a bit too (even more briefly), and even more importantly decided last minute to stay in the city on Sunday night so we could get some family time in before Steve left for China.

And yes, that is his little trip - he went to China. After three days of crazy volleyball, Monday rolled around and he got on a plane bound for Beijing... ouf. Isn't thirteen hours in economy just what an athlete needs after a weekend of work? That much time in economy isn't good for anyone, but he did say that it flew (haha) by and that it wasn't too too bad. So this is the deal: he went there with Freddie (Winters) because there's a team (Beijing) that is interested in signing both of them for next season, and (possibly) because it's the first time the squad will be hosting foreign players, they wanted to check them out, do the meet and greet thing etc etc. That's what the guys figure anyways, but it is better for us too; Steve can look into our potential accommodation situation, see what life might be like, see what the volleyball might be like, yadda yadda yadda. So far it's mostly so good; they're staying at a hotel just steps away from the gym, and yesterday's light training session went well. The coach seems decent and everyone is friendly - the only not so fabulous thing so far is the food. They went to a Carrefour and he said it was stinky - meat out in big bins and stinkiness... eeugh. I can't wait to hear more when he gets home Friday night! And then we'll see. By no means is this a done deal, so we'll just have to wait and see and get things figured out and then - and then... yeah... we'll see.

Sooooo Hendrik and I are here for a few days before dadd-dyyyy gets home and I'm going to try to get things organized - our front hall is jammed with stuff (ugh). We're going to miss Gamma and Buppa after two-plus weeks with them BUT have some visitors and visits to look forward to too; my parents arrive on the 1st and then we head to Vancouver on the 6th. Between the three of us we're really going to be all over the place - all over Canada for momsy and bean, and all over the world for Dad. Makes for some good blogs... I hope!

!!!!!!!

out for dinner post-game

pretending to help in the garden

in Dad's shoes

best video EVER!!!

This video is worthy of its own post. At the World League match in Toronto this afternoon...
 

here + there

    

 

Steve and I had an impromptu date-afternoon on Wednesday and with the exception of the TWO HOUR commute from Bowmanville to University and Queen in the heart of downtown Toronto (less than 80km, and we left after rush hour), it was amazing. Gams and Bups babysat and we walked around free from parental duties; in fact, we walked all the way from aforementioned intersection to what I will from now on call Toronto's best pizzeria, Pizzeria Libretto. It was SO GOOD! Better than most of the pizza I had in Italy and I'll follow up that comment with this: pizza is a beast of many colours - a chameleon if you will? It can be deep dish or shallow, have toppings galore or be less-(on top)-is-more, have a salty crust or a sweet one or a chewy one or a hard crispy one... and yes, on and on I could go. Libretto serves the real deal pizza-from-its-birthplace (Napoli) pie; it's VPN (Verace Pizza Napoletana) certified and it's good. I mean, unless you're into Pizza Hut or Hot'n'Readys or some such (ugh) thing, don't worry about it, but otherwise - if you find yourself in Toronto and want some goooooood pizza, check out one of Libretto's two locations. And, with the lunch deal - $15 for a Beet-Mozz caprese salad, a Margherita pie and some gelato - we'll be back for sure!

On Tuesday morning Steve and Hendrik and I enjoyed some family-of-three time at the Bowmanville Zoo (joined every now and then by a roaming goat) and had a great time. The weather was good, the animals were friendly (and not at all shy) and of a fabulous variety; and never have I seen anyone (Hendrik) so into alpacas! They were hands down the most memorable animal of the trip, and he'll still talk about them if you ask him; "alpaca!!!" (said with mucho gusto - more of an "al-PACA!") has been filling the walls of the Brinkman household ever since.

The dandelions were also a hot-spot; we could have spent the whole day here!

taken from the car... yows!

The main attraction for me - besides Hendrik's love for the furry llama-like creatures - was the elephant, in the zoo and out. When we were leaving she was embarking on a several kilometre walk up B-ville's busiest street, on her way to the circus. Apparently it's nothing new for locals, as she heads out for walks on a regular basis. Can you imagine an elephant walking down the street in your neighborhood? Ooh, and I also liked the zoo's tiger, and the references that Hendrik immediately made to the Tiger Who Came to Tea.... love it.

the birthday girl!

babsy wasn't the only one to receive gifts - hendrik got his first golf set from bob jr!

And even though it was a few weeks ago, last night a group of us got together to celebrate Barb's 70th birthday - yay! There was great company, killer food (see pics - and the video) and lots of eyeballs on Hendrik. He wasn't shy at all, and helped get the birthday girl her tiara and beads and blow out the candles on the cake; he handed out coffee and ate nicely with a fork and stayed up until after 9:00 before asking to go home to bed (I happily obliged).

the food was the best! if you need a recipe for an amazing white lasagna, look no further; there were zero leftovers.. so good!

Pam made one of her amazing cakes and it was so delish that Hendrik did what everyone else was wanted to do... check it:



I especially like the part where he follows the "done" with a "nooo" - as in, no, don't let it be true. This was, by the way, after not one but two very generous helpings of dessert...  just like mom, he loves his cake!

And we've spent some good time relaxing around here (in the hammock, on rocks) and getting dinner made and food in the bell-y. Isn't he the cutest? Mmmmmm I love him......

And if anyone has any idea what he's saying in this video, please let me know; for the life of me I can't figure it out - or is he just talking about Incas?



Signing off... a weekend of World League starts tomorrow!