Saturday Morning Meandering

Only four days left until we can post more photos on Flickr! and finally get that book made up. Uploading all those reno photos used up my entire bandwidth allotment for the month.
In the meantime, the impact of the renovation has finally wound down to resemble daily life. The office is an office again - an amazing studio space actually. And there is finally storage inside the house! What a difference that makes. You should try it!

The list of things to do, although long, consists of the sort of things one might put on a list anytime, anywhere; hanging photos, sorting through small piles of clutter, fixing this or that, . . . killing a rat . . . Of course this means there is no glaringly obvious priority, a situation which tends to breed procrastination. But we are steadfast in our commitment to getting this mental clutter dealt with - as long as we can agree what to do next. I have a feeling that once Steve and Zoe wake up Liam will claim that 'fixing Polly' - his wooden pirate parrot from Gigi, who had the misfortune of being sat on last night - will eclipse all other household considerations.

I claim coffee time for Mommy and Daddy takes priority over all other chores.
I can hear the little princess now (thump, thump thump)...
Let the Chaos begin!

Morning Moment

Suddenly Liam was crawling into bed with Zoe and I this morning.

"Mom, I came to have a snuggle with you" - he says. I could hear Stephen puttering around with the breakfast details downstairs. It was nice to sleep in for a bit.

"Yikes!! Liam your feet are like popsicles!" I exclaim as he tucks his frigid feet into the warmth of my legs under the covers. "You know how you always want popsicles these day? You should just suck on your toes!"
He giggles at the image of his popsicle feet.
"Mom, you're as warm as the sun" he says, still with a giggle in his voice as he hugs me tight.
Zoe pipes up "I'm the moon!"
We turn to look at her. "You're the moon?" I ask.
"No" she responds, thinking for a moment, "I'm a butterfly."

Popsicles, Sunshine and Butterflies... could be spring is just around the corner!

The Adventures of Baby Cat and Monkey Boy - Moon Mission

There is a big TV box in our living room. One side has been cut so that it falls open - rather like a hatch. A red string on a popsicle stick has been fed through a hole so you can sit in the box and close the hatch. Once inside, like magic, you can travel anywhere you want in our cardboard spaceship.

The kids go to the moon alot these days - or Mars. On the weekend they travelled the whole solar system.

Today was all about the blast off. The latest addition to the spaceship is Liam's old booster seat. The seat is on its back because that is how the astronauts sit for take off in the Saturn V. Have I mentioned that Liam knows more about the Apollo moon missions than all the info contained in the latest IMAX film on the same topic? At one point I just had to get the video camera out because Liam picked Zoe up and stuffed her into the tiny space left over behind the seat. He picked her up. Strong kid that one. And nobody stuffs Zoe anywhere she doesn't want to be. She usually wants to go with Liam in the spaceship though. But it was really the following explanation that inspired me, I only wish I had got it on tape;

"Don't worry Zo - I know it's a little cramped but it won't be for long.
It will be really loud for a while and then there will be a HUGE explosion, but then it will be quiet.
Really quiet.
And then you can get out and move around..."

Yeah, he's got the moon mission stuff down.
The spaceship is also part of Liam's new method of dealing with his temper and frustration - a sort of self imposed time-out; "I'M GOING INTO THE SPACE SHIP AND I'LL NEVER SEE/PLAY WITH YOU/ AGAIN!!!!"
Zoe thinks this is just grand. Now whenever Liam gets mad she tells him; "Liam, you gotta go in your space ship!"
That tends to go over much better than when she says "Liam, you need a Time Out"- something she says when she is mad at him. It will invariably reduce him to tears, even though everytime I patiently explain to Liam that Zoe can't actually give him a time out, that's my job.

The spaceship has survived two recycling days so far. I'm not sure how long I want to have a huge cardboard box sitting in the living room but as long as it is shuttling Baby Cat and Monkey Boy from here to the moon I'm guessing we're stuck with it.

Success II

It worked!!

This evening, in the L&M ladies room Zoe happily used her new purple potty seat exclaiming "My purple potty seat here?? I not fall in the hole!!"

Success!

A new 'purple' potty seat appears to be the solution to Zoe's Potty Procrastination ("no, I don't have to pee," "It's not a purple potty mommy," "It's a yucky potty"). I found one like the 'green' one we have upstairs on the Nice New Big Potty, but with 'purple' handles. It has been a big hit in the downstairs potty for the past two days and today it made its' inaugural trip to a potty in a completely different house - Success! Now we just have to give it a go on a real live Public Potty. Wish us luck!

Please, just don't anybody mention to Zoe that it's really more of a periwinkle blue (to be honest it does look slightly purple in real life).

Snapshot

It's Saturday morning.
Steve has been researching online for recording electronics but now he's playing guitar.
Liam has been making suggestions like "On Wednesday I think we should fly to Calgary and visit Nana and Panda - maybe we will, maybe we won't, you never know..." and "I invented a new day - it's Daddy and Liam day..." Zoe is flip-flopping from happy girl to grrrowly girrl at will but at the moment the two of them (or three?) are combining thier efforts to destroy parts of the living room.

Uh Oh - Liam's mastermind attempt to make a bridge (with the lid to the coffee table) failed due to mommy intervention and he has stomped upstairs in a huff - Zoe, following, is carrying a plastic apple saying "Liam, I made an apple for you! I made a apple, I made a apple. Liam - a pineapple, a pineapple."
He may have returned to sulk downstairs but he's finding it difficult to present the appropriate image with Zoe dogging his heals, apple in hand. Needless to say Zoe isn't making headway with her apple gift.

Liam is back to the drawbridge building scenario, slightly modified to suit parental requirements - no walking on it.
And now it's a top and lower bunk at the same time as being a drawbridge for their secret castle...
Oh dear, now it's getting complicated because Liam's vision doesn't coincide with parental ideas of 'safe play.'
With Steve's help they have settled on a 'safe' version of the drawbridge idea and there are giggles and laughter eminating from the living room once again.

I better go now. Just in the time it has taken to read this over there has been another intervention and sulking session. But the Ship (wait a minute - wasn't it a castle??) is sailing once again, Cap'n Liam is shouting orders and First Mate Zoe is working the rigging...

Clutter and the New Desk

Clutter and the New Desk
Originally uploaded by Sheriagogo.

This is - well, was - the state of the Office as of yesterday. I've had an hour or so today to sort, and let me tell you, the Canadian Diabetes people will have a LOT OF CRAP to pick up next week. Hope it does them some good. It feels great to get rid of it all. Maybe one day soon Steve will get his office space back and life can procede in the forward direction once again.

We have also been uploading even more photos of the reno onto my Flickr! site. Have a look if you like - the best way is through the bathroom renovation batch. The plan is to have a Qoop book printed of the whole batch - one of the cool things about Flickr!

Next job; print off photos for Great Grama Bessie. Steve told her if we didn't get her a bunch by next week she could disinherit us.

Door Jam

It's been forever since I posted even though I am writing and working on posts most days. It's not writers block - more like writers clutter. My head is so full of stuff to write I can't seem to get it all out or finish a piece.

Like right now I'm writing about all the clutter in our house. Exciting eh? Well, I need to write it. No-one needs to read it. Anyways, the halls are jam packed with stuff to consign or donate, and the bathroom door - conveniently located in front of the office closet for the past few months - was in the way of my tackling the last storage area for purging. So we thought we'd do the novel thing and hang it! It has been painted for over a week now... or maybe just 4 days. It feels like longer. Anyways, last night we got ourselves a bathroom door. This means there is hope for me having a hot shower in the mornings since with the door missing Steve has been averaging about 30 minute showers to 'warm up enough to withstand the draft.' That's 10 minutes longer than his normal - about a whole shower for me - and the entire contents of our hot water tank.

After, um, well, I've lost count of the weeks - a really long time anyways - we now have a bathroom door. We can almost have guests over again! Amazing. Still, there is much to be done before that is a reality. The clutter remember? Maybe we'll get it all dealt with this weekend... or not. As long as no one comes down with another cold or flu we'll have a fighting chance (Zoe was down for all of last week with a head cold and fevers - can you say 'cranky and clingy?'). And the odds will be even greater if Zoe finishes up getting those last two molars that finally made an appearance yesterday - four months of teething hell finally over!!

So that's life in the land of clutter and head colds.
Maybe I'll finish up one of those other bits later today... or maybe I'll clean out the closet.