Challenges and Triumphs

Hi!


We're alive! It's been a dog's age since I've written, and quite honestly I thought about ditching the whole effort a few times, but I'm back. Why? Because I'm pretty sure this is the closest thing my kids will ever get to a baby book / scrapbook / childhood memorabilia of any sort. So there you have it kids. Proof that I loved you as children... no guarantees about your adolescent years.


So here's how things are...


Neve is almost five months old. She is a firecracker. She smiles with her whole face, she vocalizes every emotion, she reaches out and grabs life...and then she sticks it in her mouth. We are all madly in love.

Judah is almost three. This leaves me feeling ancient. How is he three already? The kid could ostensibly start jr. kindergarten one year and a bit from now. That is if I could bear to part with him. Instead I think I'll lock him in a tower with a soccer ball and some Mercer Mayer books. I think he'd be fine with that.

Luke is done year two of engineering. I am no longer a Western widow. Instead he is doing a co-op in Tillsonburg (my back still aches when I hear that word...get it?) and commuting an hour each way. This commute has left me car-less...or as I like to think of it now, car-free.

At first we hadn't even considered the possibility of not buying a second vehicle for the summer. Obviously I couldn't survive without a car!!! Then I began to feel the creeping protestantenvironmentalist (that's a word right?) guilt. If I talked the green talk, I had better start walking the green walk, especially if Luke was burning enough carbon to put another hole in the ozone. So we (Jude, Neve and I) gave up the car cold turkey. Although my in-laws have been their wonderful selves and offered one of their cars on days when we need one, we've been doing really quite ok. Giving up the car has been my triumph of the season.

• We walk to the park and the library almost EVERY DAY. 
• We have taste tested popsicles from every variety store within a five kilometer radius. 
• We know the neighbourhood cats. 
• We wave to the lab who sits sentinel on the upper floor of the old Victorian three blocks away. 
• We notice when new plants bloom. 
• We stop and smell the roses...literally...like every four houses. It's glorious.

Now, to fulfill the promise of this blog post title, I'll give you a point form run down of some recent challenges.

• Judah likes to hug Neve's head. Tightly.
• Neve doesn't like having her head hugged, tightly or otherwise. 
• Neve likes to be attached to my hip.
• My hip is not made of velcro.
• Judah asks for pie and candy for every meal. Still refuses to eat vegetables.
• Pie and candy always seems to get cut from the menu plan
• Judah will only pee in toilets that meet his exacting standards, bushes apparently do not meet this criteria...even in emergencies. 
• Neve can roll from back to front and front to back...but she prefers for you to do it for her. She will scream to tell you this. If unheeded she will take drastic measures and do it herself.
• Judah thinks sunscreen and toothpaste are infected with the plague, that's the only explanation for his sudden (dramatic) aversion to both.
• Judah is on a story kick, wherein he asks you to tell him a story at least 50 times a day, for real. And if he doesn't like the plot he'll say, "I don't yike dat story. Tell me another one story."

And now, photos! 


See Neve, I took pictures of you even though you were the second child...