Happy New Year!

Snow Day!

I can so clearly remember being a little kid and waking up in the morning and looking out the window of our little house to see winter's first snow fall. It was so surprising, breath-taking and exciting! All of that peaceful snow opened up a world of possibility for my brother and I...for our day's agenda. Tobogganing, building snow forts, making snow angels, having snowball fights with the neighbour kids...so much fun! I can still hear the distinct echo of our noise and laughter...so loud against the quiet of the snow.

My all time favourite though, is bundling up really warm and playing outside in the snow at night when it is pitch dark outside. The whole world is like a different place. Especially when the snowflakes are dropping and you can tip back your head and catch them so easily because they are so visible against the vast dark sky. Living up north, that first snowfall was always so special. The novelty of the snow would slowly wear off throughout the winter and then as the snowbanks turned brown and the roads turned to muddy slush we would just wait for the spring rain to come and melt away the ice and snow. But that first snowfall was magical.

When we moved down to the coast, our first Christmas without snow was almost surreal. I didn't understand why people even bothered putting up Christmas lights without the snow to reflect the lights. Everything looked so different - like one key ingredient was missing. We were happy to be near all of our extended family though, and Christmas proved to be lovely even without the snow.

Now, nineteen years later and I must admit that I still crave snow in December. Purely for its picturesque quality. The way it traps people in their cozy homes and provides an excellent excuse for having a lazy day with family. When it happens to fall any day from December 24-31st then snow just seems to have such a peaceful quality to it. It says, relax and enjoy. So that is what we did today.

This is the type of snow that doesn't wait around. By the afternoon it can be melted away. So we had breakfast and then donned our winter gear right over our pj's and headed for the tobogganing hill. We were among the first on the hill and the snow was powdery as our toboggan slid down the slope.

After a few runs down the hill and carrying both kids and the sled back up the hill several times RKA and I realized that we were way more into it than the kids.

Next time it snows we might need to get a babysitter so that we can go tobagganing! So after a few rides down rocket run we followed R and B over to the playground. They thought it was super fun to slide down the snow covered slides and swing through the cool crisp air.

Back to the fence.

A few weeks ago I popped in our wedding video (which is now ten years old) and I don't think we've watched it in about seven years. It is beyond hilarious. I told RKA, it should be titled: "Two Kids With No Clue Get Married"...we are both so young, so skinny, and so nervous! What were we doing getting married????

We were 22 years old...just at the age when our parents really had no say but when we really had no business getting married. I had just graduated with my Bachelor of Arts...but my plan was to go to interior design school (not exactly the logical next step)! RKA was still working on his engineering degree (He's always been more practical). We really only owned our car and our clothing...thank goodness for wedding gifts!

We rented a one bedroom apartment at UBC so RKA used to ride my old mountain bike to class. I was a terrible cook (RKA did most of the cooking, or else we ate out). But I was a good wife - I knew when to support my man and when to challenge him. RKA was a good cook. Enough said. Ha! We worked out our marriage in that little highrise apartment. I am thankful for those four tough years because those years laid the foundation for our picket fence.

Our fence is not perfect. It's not even white. It is weathered and worn, and there may be pickets missing from the proverbial fence but it's our fence. RKA and I dreamt it together, and we built it together plank by plank. It is built on love and stubborness, forgiveness and pride. No, it is not perfect. There are rough patches and sharp edges that have yet to be sanded. But it is a really great fence. I know that the fence will fade, and wear, and parts will need mending. I know that there is that one little place where there will always be a gap. I also know that we have a really solid fence to lean on, and for that I am grateful.

Anticipation

For me Christmas is all about the anticipation. Planning, prepping, dreaming, wishing, and waiting. The wait seems so long when you are little and you really have nothing to do but wait. But when you are the grown up - the one responsible for creating the magic of Christmas for your own little ones the time seems to fly! At one point you wonder if there will be enough time for all of those special little finishing touches. But by four days before Christmas you can sit down and look around at your month's work and be content with what was completed and forget about the rest. From here on in it is just about enjoying "tiny tots with their eyes all aglow"...

Abandoned dump trucks and strewn tutus are commonplace in our home amidst the sparkle of the season...

We decked the halls this year and put up every last decoration and ornament we could find...

No really - every last one we could find and then some! Our ornaments range from sentimental, to historic, to home-made, to tacky - thanks for that one, Stani!...(then there is also the toy truck which B recently decided to hang on the tree)...

Our local gingerbread engineers gave it their all, but one side of the roof cracked upon installation and required extra icing spackle and candy reinforcement (this just added to the charm)...

Kitty contemplated her Christmas costume (in the end she decided to forego the antlers this year)...

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care in hope that St. Nicholas soon will be here!

Cabin Fever

December in our house has been a lot like December in yours. There has been tree-trimming, cookie-baking, Christmas parties, flu-battling, hoping for snow, cards mailed, cards received, and a bit of gift shopping and present wrapping. All of this hustle and bustle has meant that we have had less time to free range the kids...and we have all been a little "cooped up". Little B has so much energy that I think this bout of cabin fever has hit him the hardest. He has been directing his pent up energy at his sister... his boredom busters include chasing, "tickling", tackling and otherwise annoying R. She reacts in the typical older sister fashion of squealing and protesting dramatically which fuels him with a rush of adrenaline and the feedback loop continues. I know the only real cure is fresh air so we have been trying to bundle up and make it outside to play daily.

Beyond the Picket Fence

I like photography because it reminds me that life is beautiful. I try to be an optimist but that label doesn't really fit me. I consider myself more of a realist. Truth is beautiful. I try to weave together glossy pictures with catchy captions...but sometimes it is the grainy pictures and raw words that hold the most power. There is beauty in truth because it is tangible and so relate-able. People know truth when they see it. Truth is I hate texting. Truth is I love my friends but I am lazy about keeping in close touch. Truth is I love being a “stay-at-home-mom”.

That last truth is one which has taken me four years to claim. I began motherhood tentatively…I was afraid to be defined by “the picket fence". Being a mother seemed to mean giving up so much and I struggled with how to balance it all. At times, I resented the general expectation that I would be the one who was the full-time caregiver. The financial reality was that as the lower earning parent I was the only feasible candidate for staying at home. So I reluctantly set out on the path of a stay-at-home-mom.

When I was first expecting R I had only been working for a couple of years. I planned to have my baby, take my maternity leave and then return to work. It had taken me a long time to decide to become a teacher (as well as a lot of schooling). I wanted to pursue my career which had barely gotten off the ground. I insisted to anyone who would listen that I would be returning to work full time.

Then R was born and my role as a mother was launched. As I stayed home with my baby daughter I realized that being a mom was a tough gig! The thought of entertaining this growing toddler daily was daunting but I just wasn't ready to leave her in someone else's care. RKA and I were barely out of starving student mode so we were used to making monetary sacrifices and we quickly reverted to our familiar cheapskate lifestyle and I took extra unpaid leave from full-time teaching. Sacrifices were made, Rick rode a scooter and I wore out-dated shoes...but we were happy!

RKA and I loved being parents and once R turned one we decided to have another baby. Nine months later B was born - our son! Life with two under two was busy but I slowly began to feel more comfortable in my role as “mommy”. Yet, I was feeling even more unsettled about my career situation. Now I would be missing two children if I went to work. These two kids who grow and change by the minute...just when I think I have it figured out they change again!

I started teaching on call here and there to make a bit of money and also just to get out of the house and dust off my teaching hat. R&B were watched by family which made it easy but I still missed them while I was working. Also, teaching on call is not the same as teaching your own classroom (think crowd control). Then I would get home and be exhausted and out of patience for my own two kids. It just wasn't working for us. I wanted to be home with my kids!

So it has been an evolution of a mindset. In the beginning I was so focused on maintaining my position as a full-time teacher that I wasn't considering the growth and change in our family from then until now. I remained fixated on the idea of returning to work full-time but it never sat right with me. I couldn't really wrap my head around kissing my kids goodbye every morning and going to work with other people's kids while missing my own. It has been a four year evolution of a mindset and now there is nowhere I would rather be than at home with my kids. Truth is I love my picket fence!

Gemologists

R & B are both cracking us up 24/7 around here.

As an almost four year old, R has an incredibly rich and varied language...peppered with gems. For example if her lips are dry and chapped she asks for "chopstick" to soothe them. She was also cooking a "ham-booger" today on her play bbq. Another funny one was going through TH drive-thru and she asked for "a sesame street bagel toasted with plain cream cheese".

Now that B is two his words are taking off. Strangers are even starting to understand his words. He also has opinions and no trouble conveying them. For example his mantra this week has been "Santa. Knee. No thank you!" His latest is scrunching up his whole face into a frown for both negative and affirmative responses. He also points very emphatically and is not beneath leading you by the hand to show you something to get his point across. My favourite is when he brings me his blanket and says, "Mommy. Cuddle. Couch." This is his key phrase to get me to drop whatever I'm doing and give him some major attention.

As always, there are more daily gems from our little gemologists but these are the few that came to mind tonight.

Tradition

It all starts with a good idea. An ingenious, captivating, and novel idea that and everyone wants to try. Then everyone wants to do it again...and again...until that good idea is a tradition. I love traditions and December is a month of traditions in our family.

Many of our winter traditions are "classic Canadian" like building snowmen, and snow princesses, and snow queens, and today a snow angel ...

...complete with a bracelet for a halo and a pendant out of mommy's jewellery box.


Of course, we also have tons of food based traditions in our family...especially around the holidays. Like hot chocolate with marshmallows to warm up from playing outside in the cold.

(For the record this was unprompted hand-holding!)

RKA and I each continue a couple of our own traditions from our childhood families as well. My family always did the advent calendar which my mom created and which we now also use in our little family. RKA's family votes every year on the ugliest Christmas card they receive (makes you think harder about which box of cards you pick, doesn't it!).

We've also started some of our own...such as the "holiday hot tub"

Yesterday we broke with tradition and put our tree up before the official start of the month. Regardless, it felt exactly like it always does. I had high expectations that the family was going to listen to carols and talk and laugh while gently hanging ornaments in a visually pleasing fashion. RKA thought that if he could just get the lights on the tree then his job would be complete. The kids thought that it would be fun to rummage through the boxes of decorations and scatter them across the living room rug leaving a mixed trail of sparkle and Styrofoam particles. The Christmas carols kept spontaneously stopping for no apparent reason. Last year's mini-lights for the tree were kaput thereby interrupting the original tradition with the implicit tradition of taking a shopping trip to pick up new lights. Same old traditions! But this year we did one thing a bit differently. We had a little Cindy Lou Who whom asked to be the one to put the star atop the tree. And who says no to Cindy Lou Who?