wordless wednesday::fly

fly

handmade::for me

So. I finally knit myself a little something –  something using some of the nicest yarn in my stash.  Yarn from the CSA my sister and I joined last spring, so it is pretty damn nice yarn.

Then I knit myself a hat. Out of wool. Because girls on Vancouver Island are in desperate need of an assortment of wool hats on hand to deal with all that rain and those mild temperatures we have to live with all winter long.

This is all starting to sound like a bad idea, but for that one day when it snows this winter, god-dammit, I’ll be prepared.

Except. Well.

meh.

so, what I really learned here is that my mirror needed to be cleaned

maybe if I clean the mirror and turn my head?

maybe if I look like a total crazy person?

I’m not over the moon, I gotta say.  Although my Mom thinks it looks cute.

I’m still going to knit mittens that match, though.  Obviously.  A girl needs mittens for that one day a year it snows here.

the family meeting

We have started having weekly (sort-of) Family Meetings.  I read that one way to encourage your kids to be co-operative, and you know, generally awesome, is to have a family meeting.  A night where it is all about encouraging your kids, and a chance for the kids to have the floor.  The family meeting is optional, no one has to be there, but it happens at the same time, every week, and then when the meeting is over we hang out and play a boardgame.

There’s actually a lot more to it than that so if you’re interested let me know.  Or google it.  ah, google.  What did our parents do? 

I had very gingerly made the suggestion to Steve, totally expecting him to come back with that look.  You know.  THAT look.  The look your partner gives you when they’re certain that it’s official and you have completely lost your marbles.  But he didn’t.  Or maybe he did and I just ignored him.

So now, on Tuesday nights we gather around the kitchen table (before dishes! You have no idea how hard that is for me) and everyone takes a turn holding the talking stick (Yes!  Seriously!  A talking stick!  We all decoraed it together.  EVEN STEVE), and talks about what makes them proud to be in our family, what we appreciated about each other, and then we plan a family fun activity.  

What really happens is that Steve and I say something that the kids did that we want them to keep doing, like “I so appreciated how you put your dish in the dishwasher almost every day this week!” in the hope that one day they’ll pick up their own damn toys and stop asking me for milk in a sippy cup 5000 times a day.

Then Claire says “I ‘preciated that YOU put YOUR ish in the ishwasher Mama” and then sometimes she sings into the talking stick.  The first week she ate the cheerio that Callum glued on to the stick as his decoration. 

Callum refuses to talk, or if he does talk he says “Can we play a game now” or “no, YOU talk”.

Then we play a game together, which I’ll be honest, is the only reason Callum even attends the family meeting but hey.  He shows up. 

hungry, hungry hippos!

I have to say that I absolutely love family meetings.  We record what the kids say in the “minutes”, the kids are stupid excited about the meeting and talk about it all day, deciding what game they’re going to play and how this isn’t a boring meeting like all those meetings that Mama attends, and Steve is 100% on board and totally makes me want to get into his pants, I tell ya.  I’m so easy.

We even made a subcommittee at the last meeting (me and Steve) that will meet at another time to talk about house stuff.  The only problem with the family meeting is that Steve and I sometimes hijack it and talk adult talk, and then the kids get mad because it isn’t suppose to be about us figuring out how many cheques might bounce this month.  I envision the sub-committee going out for fancy dinners and beachside walks.  We’ll see…

wordless wednesday::where the wild things are

where the wild things are

buttons are hard

Steve is attempting to get into my pants (what?  we’re married.) and says to me: “what is this damn contraption?”.  Me: “a button.”

Those damn buttons.

In other news, we’ve successfully pulled off musical beds.  If by successful I mean that every person in the house is sleeping in the bed that would be deemed logical and not every person sleeping in a bed that provides the best night sleep.  I slept WAY better when I shared my bed with Anna.  Now my nights consists of a full three hours of wakefulness in a chair which doesn’t make for very good sleep.  That’s how long it typically takes me to get the baby back in the crib when she wakes up for a feed. 

Things can only get better.  That’s what I keep telling myself.  In the meantime I’m drinking a lot of coffee.

What’s new with you?