I’m pretty sure these blogs are getting boring 😆 Our days are pretty chill around here. I mean, they’re busy in a way, but mostly in the way that even a lame, boring day is still busy with our group! I guess you could say our days are simply low key, and not too riveting. But we love them.
The other day, in digging through our garage, I discovered a box of comic books I had saved! Most of them are Family Circus, and there’s a bit of Garfield, Dennis the Menace, and Calvin and Hobbes in there. The kids LOVE them!!
We spend literal hours every day, noses buried in comic books, with the big kids reading aloud their favourites. Its SUCH gentle humour. Its perfect. And SO relaxed.
The kids were struggling pretty hard by the end of yesterday, so we decided to get their teeth brushed and virtually ready for bed early, and then we went for a LONG walk! We went all the way to the grocery store to find it closed 😂 and then checked the mail, but what we’re waiting for had not arrived. So it was a bit of a bust but the walk was nice. Solly tuckered out just in the last block or so.
Once the kids were down, we watched some tv and then played cards while listening to the beautiful rain coming down. The open window was chilly, but it was worth it! I love that rain!!
Today isn’t the beautifulest of beautiful days, but I really hope we get outside in it at some point! Morale goes WAY up when we can!
Since we decided we would leave garden boxes for next year, we’ve been busy with other small projects. And by “we,” I mean Brady 😬
He simply used cutoffs, beater studs, and some leftover sheeting from our deck project. From those things, he built a small bike rack…
as well as a big beefy shelf for our garage!
We are doing a HUGE reorganize of our garage, finally moving things into the basement and the backyard. We have LONG awaited these days of actually placing things into their homes and no longer moving messes. I’ll show you big before and afters later on, when its at its best! For now, you’ll just have to take my word for it!
As for our other projects, the “call before you dig” guys are coming in a few days, and hopefully post hole digging guys just a few days after that! And once those things are done, the fence begins!!!! 😍 I am SO READY!!! As much as I love how many people bring their dogs to me street to run them off-leash, I highly anticipate being able to send my kids into the backyard without them being in total fear every time someone walks by with a dog.
Summer is going to be SO much nicer with an enclosed yard and freedom to run and play! It sounds backwards to say boundaries bring freedom, but they truly do, in lots of ways and lots of situations!
The last time I felt this way was when Waverly started having her breath holding spells. I felt like I sort of thought I knew everything about my kids. I’ve NEVER claimed to be an expert, but having five kids, I must’ve subconsciously figured nothing would surprise me anymore.
Last night, we had the pleasure of experiencing another first.
“Pleasure.”
I woke up bleary eyed in the middle of the night to someone crashing around my room. Usually, when a kid comes into our room, they try to call us quietly from the door, and eventually approach our bed, my side, and wake me up. Not this time. We don’t have a ton of junk in our room, but there was a hamper and a couple of boxes along one wall, and whoever was in our room was running into everything.
I saw a silhouette from the doorway. Hair. Rowan. Of course it was Rowan. He is our “wake the whole house in the middle of the night” kid. It isn’t unheard of that he would be there.
Except, lets be real. He’s been up there enough in the dark that he knows exactly how to get to our bed.
As I continued waking up, I heard him breathing fast and making whiny sounds. He sounded upset. And he was moving fast. He hit every box, tripped over everything, and slammed into my desk. Still, he kept going. I called for him and reached out my hand to bring him to me, but he wouldn’t respond. As my eyes adjusted, I could see he was reaching madly in front of himself, as though looking for something. Maybe just trying to get somewhere? But I was calling to him, and he wouldn’t come.
I asked him what was wrong, and he answered “Ummm ummm ummm… I’m really scared.” He continued crashing into things, just out of my reach. He was completely panicking. Once he had verbalized that he was scared, he kept saying it over and over and over again. I finally reached him and caught his hand. He didn’t immediately come to me, though. I sort of pulled him over to me and grabbed him into a hug. And he completely deflated. He was fine, and still, and safe.
He was sleepwalking. Of course that was it.
I held him for a nice long time. When we eventually released our hug, he wasn’t panicking anymore but he was definitely not all there. I know enough about sleepwalking to know you’re not supposed to wake the person from their sleep, and I assumed I had done just that, but he was SO upset, I couldn’t imagine how else to solve the problem and help him!
Brady ushered him back to bed, and said he still seemed quite disoriented, which made good sense. But Brady and I were UP after that! We watched a couple of episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine before we got tired enough to go back to sleep. Thank goodness it was just after 1:00am and not closer to the time we’d actually need to get up.
As you can imagine, I was pretty eager to get Rowan up this morning. As soon as I opened the door, he greeted me, happy as a clam! I asked him how his night was and he said it was good! He said he felt really rested and happy. His exact words were “No scary thoughts or anything!”
So 🤷♀️ That happened! And he has no idea! I’ve been suspicious of Rowan sleepwalking before, but its never gone beyond him standing in his doorway when we’re up late, and us walking him back to his bed. This was its own thing! Not my favorite thing, lol, but a good reminder that there are still plenty of surprises left to come my way!
Isn’t it crazy how it can go from +30 yesterday to 50km winds today?! Goodness! I’m so grateful that spring is upon us but I would LOVE to get to actually enjoy it! I joke. Sort of. We’ve enjoyed lots of beautiful days outside. I just wish they were every day! Either beautiful warm days with gentle breezes or raging thunderstorms. Those are the ideal for me 😆 Is anyone else’s anticipating those amazing spring/summer storms?? 🙋♀️
I’m accepting the reality of the upcoming summer, and all of our cancelled plans and inevitably discouraged kids. We got official word this morning that camp is cancelled, and while we haven’t officially cancelled our stretch at Waskesiu, we know all common areas will be closed, and we’ll need to cancel. I mourned that truth in my Parks Canada hoodie yesterday…
But as you can see, I’m also pretty thankful for the life we have and where we have it. “Making the best of it” isn’t so difficult for us. Its not perfectly smooth but its pretty ok, too. Our kids are content to be together, and we are content to be with them!
Remind me of that when Brady goes back to work and I have them all to myself 24/7 😬 What a season we’re in!
Disappointing adulting post alert 🚨 I know the bulk of this post falls under the “first world problems” category, but still, its a change to our plans so I’m going to share it here.
I think we’re giving up on our garden boxes this year :/ I truly am SO disappointed. We have the money saved up so we could build them the way we wanted them. I wanted them taller than “average,” and Brady wanted to build them out of cedar. We priced and planned and had it all set up.
But then, as we began to talk about needing to take our winter tires off, I remembered our all-seasons got pitched last winter, and we’d need to replace them. In our case, considering everything going on in the world, the lack of work, and the uncertainty, it would be irresponsible to spend money on garden boxes at this time.
I am so disappointed.
As I said a month or so ago, when my itch for spring really ramped up and I started talking garden stuff, I said multiple times that this is a low pressure garden season for me. I said I would be totally satisfied with throwing some seeds in the ground and just seeing what happened. The free time is what caused me to consider changing my mind and planning for garden boxes. Why not? 🤷♀️ We have time, and we had saved for them. But as you can imagine, our bus tires aren’t exactly standard, and they cost more than average.
So I need to backpedal and accept my simple garden this year. I have nothing against that, but I know our end game will be boxes, and we’ll never have more available building time than we do now!
So, plans change. Or, change back, I suppose. And thats ok. It’ll be simpler. And it’ll be another fun outside project for next season. There are pros.
Time to separate these suckers!
Regardless of where we plant, I just want to plant!
The kids coloured pictures on our neighbours driveway again today. They looked a little crime sceeny this time around, but they were well received 😘 Thank you, Tom and Rae, for always welcoming our family!
While they were doing their art, Rae surfaced, expecting to drop some cookies and books to borrow off for the kids. Lo and behold, we were already on her property, and the kids ate cookies happily while we visited for a few minutes. It was a really lovely spot in our morning. I miss people. *sigh*
After the colouring came biking, washing the van, and generally running around. It was really cute.
The cool morning wind has given up and the hot afternoon breeze is out! I’m a sweaty beast. Yikes! I don’t object, though. I welcome some good sweat and heat while we can get it! Warmth comes for SUCH a short time around here! ☀️ Enjoy it!!
I was upstairs grabbing a hoodie yesterday before I went for a windy walk, and Waverly followed me up. I sat down on the floor in my closet and asked her to pick out my pink hoodie. She stood still and looked at my clothes before actually selecting my pink hoodie!!! I was blown away, but figured it was fluke 😂 Until she started pointing at other pink clothes, saying “This! This! pretty!” She KNEW!! It was crazy!
Later that day, she was crying while the other kids were colouring, so Brady set her up to colour. She had a piece of paper taped to the tabletop, so it wouldn’t slide away on her, and a big pencil case of crayons. She was very entertained by colouring. More than I thought she’d be. She loved it. She only tasted a crayon once, and then asked me for help getting the little pieces off her tongue.
While she was seated with a big box of colours beside her, I figured I’d test her out a little bit.
I asked her to pick out a pink crayon, and she DID!!!
I could not believe she actually recognized it, for real! She isn’t quite 22 months old. To be fair, she doesn’t know the other colours yet. She only knows pink. But she KNOWS IT knows it!
Waverly, I am SO impressed!! You are such a smartie pants! While I like purple more than pink, I am still very very proud of you 😉 We shall henceforth call you “Waverly Pink.”
I’ve experienced an odd mix of emotions this morning. I’ll talk more about it another day. But in the midst of me feeling a little bit extra roller coastery, Dekker said to me, “Do you want to come inside with me and have a snuggle?” Who is that kid???
I took him up on it. And I’m SO glad I did.
As I was just sitting down in my recliner, Dekker was standing in front of me, arms out in front of him, waiting to lay down in my arms. I scooped him up as I simultaneously pulled the footrest up, and we lay together for a good long stretch. Probably close to an hour.
Of course, the snuggle changed over that hour. He moved around a bit. I tickled him. He got super smoochy and kissy. We talked, but not that much. We just rested together.
Dekker will be nine years old this summer. On one hand, I’m not ready for him to be so grown up yet. But on another hand, if he continues to let me snuggle and smooch and tease him, let the boy grow!! He is SO loving and affectionate and warm.
I asked Dekker several months back if he would ever be too old to stop holding my hand or snuggling with me. And he looked back at me, almost offended, and responded quietly with “Why would you say that?” I will NEVER ask again, my son ❤️
We have this big, tall, beefy deck in our backyard, and the dead space under it needed a purpose. I don’t know if I’ll always feel this way, or its just the stage of life that I’m in, but I NEED space to be practical. So, rather than using up another big chunk of the backyard for a shed, or keeping our garage messy with outdoor things, we decided to close in under the deck and use it as a storage area!
Brady worked on it all last week, first levelling the ground
putting a water drainage solution on the underside, then framing the side walls, floor, and front wall.
Then sheeting.
Then a gutter, and a door. There is even a spout in anticipation for a rain barrel! Woot!
Let’s talk about the obvious. The exterior is not so pretty at this point. We’re not too worried about it. There are options. For this moment, I think we may just end up coating it with a weatherproofer. We may also paint it. I vote purple 😂 Who’s surprised?? We may also decide to throw siding up, but that would happen maybe next year. We have enough planned for this season, and as we all know, money isn’t exactly flowing in excess. We saved for our projects, but we also have to be smart. So, for now, we go cheap. Its worth it to have that storage space. Now that this is build and the garage is mostly finished, we can see what in our garage actually has a home here and what to get rid of for good.
I’m rabbit trailing. I am SO happy to have our backyard storage completed!!
So is Rowan 😂
Today is blustery and grey, so all things considered, we’re going to enjoy a different kind of day inside. My beautiful sun-kissed family needs a cozy day together ❤️
We speculated all day whether or not it was going to rain. The forecast seemed to think it would, but the chance kept getting lower and lower. And really, can you predict a “storm” and say its going to rain less than a millimetre? I’m not sure that constitutes a storm. But, sitting out on the deck, we flip flopped all day about whether or not it was going to come.
We did eventually resign to going inside for supper, but we kept the kitchen window cracked and the living room curtains open. Just as we put supper on the table, I looked outside. It was grey and a bit windy, and the road was darker. Spotted. SPOTS! RAIN!!!
I bellowed “Raaaaaaain” before running outside. The kids ate while we sat on the step and watched the rain. Watched. Listened to. Smelled. Felt. Man, it was SO good to experience the rain again. Don’t get me wrong, I am LOVING the sun. Even in the chilly morning wind, I’m determined to be outside. This is me right now!
But the rain was GLORIOUS! Albeit short lived. But SO refreshing and beautiful.
It doesn’t hurt that the rain didn’t result in icy roads and devastation either. Maybe winter is finally over. Maybe.
We should probably get our winter tires off soon 😆 Whoops…..
