I am Niles Crane.

Okay I’m hanging my head in shame but I just came from the coffee shop (not Starbucks - I've decided I don't like Starbucks BUT there are MUCH better alternatives in Canada so no worries). I had to use my fingers to keep my order straight. Medium, non-fat, de-caf, no whip Moccacino latte. Yes, it’s a bit ridiculous. And now the kid’s can’t go to university because I spent their college savings to purchase said Latte. Ah well. It was yummy and I gave lattes up for lent and it was torturous. Lent is over. Perhaps they will both grow up to be baristas instead of barristers. I can only hope.

Pots, Kettles and maybe a frying pan or two.

We had my cousin and his wife for dinner on Saturday. It’s been forever since I’ve spent any real time with their 3 ½ year old son. It’s been awhile since they’ve been over to visit and he hasn’t been sick (i.e. sick equals glued to Mommy and VERY quiet). It was a sad evening. I couldn’t wait for them to leave and take their brat with them. Oh My. He was SUCH a sweet, quiet, easy child. We were the ones everyone in the family whispered about after we left. Us and our ADOPTED little hellion. That used to bug me – the fact I knew they were saying things about poor Sam and no doubt blaming it on his origins. Now I’m even more angry because they are still saying nasty stuff about Sam behind our backs and comparing him unfavorably to a child whose presence I couldn’t wait to be free of. I have no real proof of what is being said just a VERY strong suspicion and an in depth knowledge of what my extended family is like.

Sam is a handful – always has been and probably always will. He is spirited, spunky, determined and aggressive. He is rough and tumble and the kind of boy you always hear described as “all boy.” BUT he will generally listen when you tell him things (once you’ve managed to get his attention as he runs around the room like a bee on heroin that is. ;) He eats well. He sleeps like an angel. You can discipline him and it has a noticeable effect on his behavior. He really is a lot easier to handle than it might seem on observing us parenting him. He does X we do Y and everything ends up plotted nicely on the Z axis. More importantly everyday it gets just a little easier.

Not so Lord Fauntelroy. He destroyed our family room – toys EVERYWHERE. Okay he’s a kid we’ll excuse that. When the time came to clean up though who didn’t help at all? We sat down to dinner. I have some vintage kid’s dishes that I didn’t give the boys because I’m not crazy. Kamryn though had one. She was sitting next to Little Lord Fauntelroy. He immediately began pounding on the dish with his spoon. His mother told him to stop. He continued so she told him to stop again with pretty much the same result. Ummm… so she said stop again. Real effective! He’s not 15 months old here he’s 3 ½ and plenty capable of listening. We needn’t have had him at the table anyways. He didn’t eat anything and basically wanted down immediately. Kudos for my children who sat and ate with everyone and chatted and were basically angels.

Then bed time. I put all the kids up to bed (Fauntelroy was going to nap until it was time for his parents to leave; we were going to watch Little Miss Sunshine – NOT a kid’s movie.) I read stories to everyone and got everyone snuggled up in bed. We started to watch the movie. Who should wander downstairs because he had to go to the bathroom no more than ten minutes later. No fair you peeked at the answer! He comes into the room where we are watching the movie and announces that he is staying because “Mommy said I could.” Okay whatever. At this point I didn’t stop the movie – he’s not my kid and there was a perfectly good bed for him that he was happy staying in until “Mommy said I could.” By the end of the film he was muttering “F***ing losers” along with the character in the movie. Smart kid. Learns some things without much prompting. Again – not my kid.

Oh and then there was the crying about how he was hungry – I would be too if I’d eaten what he didn’t for dinner – and wanted chips. I offered crackers so there was a meltdown over chips. I bowed out. Not my kid. My brain was screaming “take him home!” I think they heard because they departed soon after. It was 10:30. It seriously felt MUCH later.

It might not seem that much but it was just one thing after another strung together with whining. I never want him to come over again. I know I won’t invite them over to dinner that’s not a family gathering ever again. They often ask us to watch him for the weekend. I’m lining up my excuses why we can’t now.

He was SUCH a sweet kid. A few boundaries and we’d still be raving about him. Cousin’s wife is due to have another in 6 weeks or so. Lord help them. Really burns me though that Sam is characterized as the “bad” kid. Is it wrong of me to look forward to family events so that others will notice how good he actually is.

What a blast we had!

What a day. The most snowfall in one storm I can ever remember (2 feet). The worst winter for snow that I can remember (more than 13 feet). My neighbour noted that we can now walk from his yard into ours with ease, careful don't trip over the 8 foot fence. I must say though we had the most fun.

The kids played outside for two hours, went in and warmed up and then went back outside again. It was about – 12 and no one cared. Everyone in the neighbourhood was out. It was like a huge block party. We had 4 snowblowers going and a lot of shovels. And just a lot of standing around being neighbourly. We used the snowhill on our front lawn as a toboggan run (my lawn - during the summer is COMPLETELY flat; no hill, no remarkable slope). Parents stood in the street to watch for cars – they were few and as the street hasn’t been plowed completely yet and is near impassable nothing was going very fast anyway. One parent at the top of the hill (the top is even with the second story of my house!) to police who’s turn it was next and let the fun begin.

What a way to spring forward. I took a ton of photos – none very good because its hard to shoot in snow and I’m not the best photographer. But here’s a little of our day.

The trek up the hill.



Said hill.



Kamryn at the top.



Kamryn at the bottom.







Same at the top of the hill.






And my last photo: Back on the 3rd of January when I THOUGHT we had a lot of snow I took this shot. I've put the one I took this morning next to it. It looks sooooooooooo paltry now. lol Kamryn is about 47 inches tall to give you some perspective. Our neighbour who is just a big kid at heart is working on building a luge run on the front lawn - seriously!

Winter Wallop

This is the worst storm I have ever lived through. Keeping in mind that we already have had over 300 cm of snow this winter (I think we were at 350 or so) with about a third of it still on the ground, this is just a little insane. It started snowing yesterday about 3 pm and snowed all night. We got 17 cm – a fair amount but then the real storm hit, along with 70 km/h winds. It’s just a little scary out. I can’t see the house-across-the-street's first floor out my front window because I can’t see over the 10-foot tall mountain on my lawn. The snow in the backyard (where no one has walked for weeks now) is EVEN with the top rail of our deck. Not all that impressive you say until you realize that the deck is 4 feet off the ground. So that's about 7 feet of snow. I don’t mean to say there is a pile of snow that high – ALL the snow in the back yard is that high.

Here’s hoping that the power stays on.

I sent the following photos
(taken this morning during the "break") to my parents who are vacationing in the Caribbean.