Gone are my lazy days of parenting. I am now a full time working mom! Yep- it's glamorous, glorious and leaves time for nothing. Here's a few things that aren't happening now that I'm back at work: regular children's baths, warm dinners, clean undies, blogging, tea drinking, and connecting time with hubby! Oh well- I guess this is what they call ... life. On another note, we've had an awesome summer and here are some pictures to show you what my Q boys have been up to...
2 Comments
Finally a new post... it's been way.too.long. Things have shifted in the House of Q and I've barely been keeping up but here's my latest post on what we've been doing and why I haven't been keeping up is somewhat evident...
http://houseofqblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/almost-done/ We've had some big changes in the House of Q lately... one of them is highlighted at the link below. I'm trying out this other site for blogging because Weebly is giving me some trouble with uploading pictures. So check out this link:
http://houseofqblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/30/renovations-in-the-house-of-q/ and please tell me what you think. I am working to transition over to wordpress and not lose all my previous posts but there's so much change going on for us that blogging has definitely taken a back seat! More blogs on all that's changing very soon... Jeff sent this to me: If this is an average… there’s no doubt that our 4 year old is at the upper end of that normal curve. We observed, no question asked for maybe 20minutes but then a barrage of mind blowing questions that lasts for 5 minutes. This kid is curious!
Based on Kai being awake for 10 hours a day this is like… 39 questions an hour 1.5 questions a minute So all in all, Kai’s asking 390 questions, Jeff responds to 50 of them and the rest he says, “I’m not sure, go ask Mom” to which then I need to respond to the rest… so if anyone is wondering this is how my days go. I field questions and attempt to entertain Kai’s curious inquiring all day long. Connor is not far behind this average, if only we could understand the jibber jabber! He’s talking up a storm but in his own language. The best is when he changes his intonation and you know it’s a question and you don’t know what the question is. If I really want to freak Jeff out I should tell him that at the rate Connor's going we’ll have two toddlers in our house soon so that’s like 780 questions a day. That sounds like fun times in the House of Q! See this vest?
Cute, right? This vest is like the devil’s spawn to Connor. The mere mention of it sends him into such a frenzied state, I spend 15 minutes calming him down. The sight of it is nearly unbearable; for all parties involved. Connor does not. like. this. vest. I have managed to wrangle it onto him (exactly twice) because it’s almost the cutest thing I’ve ever seen as far as boys clothes go but the pain endured while donning this vest is almost too much… almost! It was a gift from Kati and Poppa and it’s got some style. It’s as close to dressing a girl as I’ll ever come to and yet Connor won’t have any of it! He just instantly despises it and although both Jeff and I coax him… “C’mon Connor, time to put on your vest” or, “It’ll keep you warm, friend” or, “Please, put on your vest, just to go to Chantal’s”. Then, after I finally get it on… he screams bloody murder until we take it off again. The most laughable part is… this is just the beginning. This kid has specific tastes and I don’t need to imagine where this spunky side of his personality came from. Jeff plan and simple! Jeff won’t try on a t-shirt with any sort of decal on it. Forget even mentioning corduroy pants. If a material feels too itchy, scratchy, soft or smooth, bumpy, sticky or starchy, Jeff passes it by. Now, Kai is more reasonable, however lately he’s even been annoyed with ,“bunchy” shirts, pants and socks. Kai's reaction is as disturbing as Connor's as he takes to howling and having a fit; screaming like an army of red ants are attacking the part of his body that feels "bunchy". So it seems, that this “spring” season (if we can even call it that) there’s a theme; the boys are ramping up their expression(s) of dislike for clothing items. They're disliking skinny jeans, certain colours of shirts, or long sleeves that are not the perfect length, and occasionally Kai dislikes any and everything you suggest. It’s an exciting time to get dressed, in the House of Q. I’ve actually thought about sending Kai to daycare in his pajamas, Connor too! (Jeff too, why not?). There was a kiddo in his pajamas all day long at Chantal’s day home just last week. I got to thinking, this may be a solution for us. All is not lost, for this House of Q Mom. I’ll still try donning that darn vest on Connor bi-weekly and if nothing else, my spring cleaning will certainly become very easy. Everything must go! These Q boys will be wishing they'd shown less contempt for their cool, stylish clothes once they're wearing the same outfit 7 days in a row. Spring cleaning here I come... Kai is looking pretty happy in the photo. But the truth is, he just wants to be with "the cousins". He basically became "too cool" for his parents and I had a glimpse into my future. In the end, he tolerate skiing with us. He became a speed demon and was just keen to make quick turns ( in his pizza snow plow) and "rip down the hill".
We are excited for future ski trips with family, now that Kai is keen to hit the slopes whenever he can. Thanks to Erin for this great picture of the 3 of us. We had an amazing vacation in Big White. It was an awesome family ski hill and we had so much fun visiting “the cousins” (as Kai called them). It took us 2 full days to get there, stopping to chill with the truckers for a combined total of 5 hours over 2 days on route. The first day took us 10 hours just to get to Revelstoke (typically a 5 hour drive away). We drove through blizzard, ice, jack-knifed semi’s, avalanches, closed roads, rain, wet roads, massive puddles and then soggy grey skied spring conditions, warm temps and back into blizzard – Armageddon-type road conditions (as Jeff affectionately called it. All just to get to this mysterious destination, “Big White”. In the end… it was worth it! This ski resort is awesome! Our accommodations perfect for us ( a rented condo on the hill with ski in and ski out access, the day care was perfect for Connor and the hill had so much variety for all of us to ski. Kai ripped it up on blue’s ( after some warm ups) and we used a new app called “ski tracks” to document our ski runs; number of runs, total and average speed and altitude etc. This did create a slippery slope of speed challenges and Jeff thought he’d won by clocking 96kms/hr and then Erin stole his thunder with this screen pic… We’re still investigating whether alternative transportation was employed.
Overall, the kids were amazing on the drive(s), Jeff hit up some, “30cm’s of fresh pow” ( powderific snow while stuck in Revelstoke for 5 hours), we visited family and connected with Kelowna friends and enjoyed 4 full days of skiing in spring conditions. It was awesome! Our return trip was uneventful- clear roads and calm energy in the car. Except for the hotel in Revelstoke where my kids got high off the skunky smelling fumes of neighbouring travelers smoking their pot, weed, hash etc. Apparently you can’t “smoke” in Super 8 hotels but this applies only to certain types of smoke. Rant: Now I’m all for freedom of what you want to do, smoke up, make silly decisions, laugh lots and then eat cheetos… it’s all good… but when it affects the air my children breathe I do have something to say. I asked the front desk if “non-smoking also included pot smoke?”, I was met with an uncomfortable laughter from the cute little Asian girl running the show. She vowed to resolve it… or rather look into it. After being “hot boxed” myself while standing outside our room looking for our room key, management called. They told me that the people smoking, “didn’t answer their door when we knocked, or their phone when we called, so there’s nothing we can do”. They offered to move us or refund our money (allowing me to find alternative accommodation for the night… it was 9pm and the boys were well on their way to sleepville!). Jeff was neutral on the issue… perhaps high on fumes… however I let it go ( not my norm)… but I didn’t want to be a prude afterall, toke it up Reve!! Returning from Big White has made for a major delay in blogging. We are slowly returning to normal here in the House of Q but it’s been a few unusual weeks. We’ve all been fighting some weird spring bug, we’ve were into spring temps and now it’s -12 here today. I worked 4 days this week and Connor and Kai learned some new words on our trip: “no” and “boring”. So, we’ve been laying low and trying to get back on track. Hopefully we’ll be up and at ‘em with more House of Q antics soon… the boys are changing so much. Parenting lessons abound and we’re also gearing up for camping season, gardening and more home removations. Spring 2014 here we come! Guess who turned 35 today? He handled it pretty well but keeps telling me he's almost 40. Talk about needing to live in the moment! Jeff had a day of eating so that means I pretty much cooked all day but it was a good eating day. Breakfast was with Wendy, Steve and Emmett and carmalized apple crepes. Then dinner was lasagna and pecan squares with chocolate. I spent the entire day cooking but it was worth it. Happy 35th Birthday Jeff! |