My beautiful baby is 2

How did that happen? Olivia is two. That means I've had her in my life for 730 days (I guess 731 if last year was a leap year, i can't remember). That's mind-blowing. Yesterday i can remember looking down at her little head while she was nursing - her eyes are scrunched closed, but every few gulps she raises her eyebrows and my heart shifts and gets a little closer to the edge. Oh, I am falling, and hard, for this baby. That should only be yesterday not 600 yesterdays ago...
Two is the time for driving mommy nuts, no? No, not really. I can feel her frustration when we don't understand what she is telling us. Children are brilliant. No matter what happens to their ability to learn as they grow, they start off brilliant. Recognizing things around them, finding things funny, pointing things out to us, associating words to items and feelings, taking everything we throw at them in and eventually turning it around. Truly fabulous.
Happy Birthday Olivia May Berry. Thank goodness for two years ago today!

Olivia, my lovia, you are the bright in the dark. Your quick smile cheers those around you and your laughter is the starting point for a world of smiles. May life always bless you with happiness and wellness, you deserve no less. Typing, even saying (or Guess What? whispering), I love you, cannot really describe what I feel in my very soul every time I think of you, or look at you, or touch your hand. You are my miracle.

The Wagoneer

Birthday fun for little Miss O on the weekend. First Kyla's second birthday party - with much hugging and running and sliding and sand boxing. Then Olivia's birthday party with many cousins running around the homestead. The lovely girl had a lovely time...
Go Wagoneer Go!!!!!!!!!!!!
Take care,
V

I am a big suck head!

Well - we did the camping thang this weekend. When we woke up on Friday morning, the rain was streaming down in Guelph. Alan and I then discussed whether or not to go camping at all. Frankly, we are not camping folks, but we REALLY wanted to see our friends. After a couple of calls to Mar (sorry for the early wake up darlin!) and Paula, as well as a couple of emails to Jon and finally calling Len, who was at the camp site and assured us it was not raining, we got in the car. The plan was that we would pack the car as if we were going to camp, but if we got there and it was raining, we would not set up camp and just stay until later into the night and drive back home.
We ended up in Rondeau at about 1:30 p.m. and the weather was hot and humid, but no rain! Up goes the tent, off Vic goes to buy the groceries. As I am in town running around getting groceries (and towels - whoops!), the sky opened up. The rain poured down - and I had to run through it, across the street, because I forgot my purse in the car, and could not pay for the afore-mentioned towels!
Get back to camp - and they have only had a sprinkling, so I warn them that there may be a bit of rain coming. And come it did. Mar and I were trying to monitor the kids while holding the dining tent in place as it lifted off the ground and the poles pulled up.
Jay and Jenn came over to say hi and told us that they had unfortunately put their tent on a low spot, and were slightly worried about that. But I never heard that they had any leaks.
I did tho - have a leak. Right into the middle of our bed, but Al caught it early and when the rain stopped we cleared out the tent and hung everything up to dry.
Come bedtime for Olivia, we learned that she is not really good about tent sleeping, this despite the two weeks of preparation - talking about sleeping outside in the tent and having her sleep on her blow up Dora bed. So she slept with mommy and daddy in the big bed till about 3 a.m., at which point I was finally able to make the transition.
Saturday the day dawned really nicely. We had some beach time, some play time. Oliv was having a great time - other than bed times, she was a great camper!
Oliv did not see the need to nap - well not in the tent. Paula finally came to take her away (by this time, I had told Al that I thought it would be best if we went home after dinner - I was feeling so sick and gross that I wanted my bed really badly), and Oliv went down like a ton of bricks in the Damen's camper.
We struck our camping abode - just in time for some more rain (we were really lucky on timing), had dinner and took a quick stroll for ice cream. We left at about 9:30 and got home before midnight, in bed by 1 a.m.
Alan said to me on Sunday morning that he was sad not to see everyone for breakfast, and I agreed, but also said that I liked the idea of still having the Sunday to get ourselves prepared for the week. So maybe early Friday to Saturday night is the way for us to go - oh, and borrowing a trailer, or leaving Oliv with a grandparent or two!
So we are not stellar campers, but it was really good to see everyone again. Maybe next year we'll get the chance to have some longer conversations!
take care
lv
p.s - really strained to ignore the dish rack order last night and managed to have the smaller plates spread out very randomly!

quirky quirk

Do you know I really only like to drink milk from a glass (no plastic allowed!)
Do you also know that I think haloscan deletes older comments - or people have come and deleted their own comments. None of the posts in my archives have comments until like May. What up wid dat?

Quirks #1

Recently I have been a little self aware (not a lot, mind you, just a little). I think I have a lot of quirks and I thought I would go through a few of them here.
Here's one that occurred to me last night.
I have a dishes order (nope - that's not the quirk - i bet a lot of people have a dishes order) and I arrange the dishes to be washed on the counter according to their spot in the dishes order - cutlery then glasses (cutlery must be rinsed first, or glasses should go first), cutting boards (thoroughly scraped if they have had raw meat on them) bowls, small plates, big plates, platters, tupperware, pots and pans. This is also not really the quirk.
Here's the thing - it turns out I also have a drying rack order. Cutting boards at the back, then big plates, then little plates, bowls leaning against the cutlery slot (always positioned at the front of the tray towards the sink). Cheese graters (after plates, but before platters) can get tucked beside the big plates. Last night this occurred to me to be quirky when I caught myself washing and rinsing the bowls and leaning them on the cutlery slot, then washing and rinsing the little plates - and at this point I counted the number of slots I would need to leave empty in order to have enough spaces for the big plates, which I washed and rinsed and tucked behind the small plates. Tupperware lids go in empty plate slots (if the dish rack is too full for this - it's time to dry and empty it). Then the bowls randomly around the real bowls, pots and pans leaning on the tupperware.
Another sad note about all this is that I kind of get angry when people don't do things in this order. In their own home, their own dishes, possibly their own order, but I think it should be the same as mine - as, frankly, mine is best. I sh*t you not.
Take care,
V

5 things I would like to do for the earth

Alan blogged on this one recently (http://haloscan.com/tb/abear/112256521784486340) and I wanted to see what kind of a list I could come up with. How would I help the earth?
1) Mandate less lawn space for people/business, whatever - more trees and flowers to eat the bad stuff in the air and produce the good stuff, while also reducing the odd need for people to water their fricking lawns! This bothers me so much. It's grass. If it was meant to grow, it will grow. Don't people get it? NO NEW WATER IS EVER CREATED ON EARTH. We reuse what we can and we trash the rest. Well, it's getting to be so that our great great grandkids might have it pretty bad on the water front.
2) Tax breaks for anyone purchasing a smart car/hybrid. If we find ways to reward people for buying or even identifying new sources of fuel/power, more people will climb on the bandwagon.
3) Monorails and other forms of public transportation specifically designed to get people out of their cars and off the roads (I say monorails because we've used up so much of our ground space, that it seems deluded to think a typical transit system will work, although I would settle for increased GO train service to and from places outside the Greater Toronto Area - the province needs to start recognizing that commuters now exist from west of Cambridge to east of Courtice and they need to go to other areas of Toronto than the downtown core). Although having the system would not be enough. I think people should maybe have to pay a specific highway tax to drive the roads, unless they can show an active transit pass.
4) Greater rural opportunities for people. I think there needs to be more pressure and reward for people to move to and settle in rural spaces. Urban congestion is terrible. Industry should be congratulated for branching out. (I'd like to say it would be great if all of our rural spaces could be kept as pure and pristine as they are, but given the continued sprawl of mankind, that doesn't seem likely, so intelligent growth seems the best way to go.)
5) Increased tax benefits for charitable giving and participation (ie Habitat for Humanity)

That's all I can think of without repeating some of Alan's ideas - really liked the trees on buildings and windmills in the NWT.
Take care,
V