A night apart

Monday night, for the first night in their entire lives, Matthew and Renee and I are apart. I was traveling for work and alone in a hotel. And it was hard, I missed them more than words can say, came close to tears a few times.

And what was I doing on this momentous night? Watching Sex and The City 2, missing my kids, husband and pre-kid life all at the same time.

They met me at the airport and I walked so quickly to get to them, I walked into at least 2 people!

A few weeks ago, on the second day of Rosh Hashanna, Samuel and I had a day alone together, and it was fantastic. We started by waiting for the first garbage truck to come. It was collecting yard waste, but Samuel seemed a little nervous about the truck and wanted to stay in the entrance of the house when the it came by. By the time the second garbage truck came to pick up the regular garbage and organic waste, Samuel was completely enthralled by the garbage truck. We followed it to every townhouse in the complex. We ran around corners to see if we could beat it, watched as every bin be dumped into the hopper and very piece of garbage be crushed by the crushing panel (thanks to the garbage truck books Marc bought Samuel, I can name all the parts of a garbage truck). He asked the garbage collectors about the truck and the garbage and where it went and why it smelled. He also explained to them that the smell would go away when the truck went by the sprinkler because the sprinkler would clean the truck. We went home and made lunch, spaghetti with pasta sauce with peas and a huge amount of herbs de provence. He loved it. Making it, eating it, cleaning up after it, all of it. We went to the see a movie, and later “played” video games. All was great until he fell, hit his head really hard, hard enough that there was a silence before the panicked cries and after the cries a “mommy, I want to go home now and sleep on my bed”. To keep him awake and entertained, we bought some silly bands and legos to make a dump truck, and other trucks that we could pretend were garbage trucks. He perked up and I remembered that I love legos. A Shabbat dinner topped off the day. It was amazing.

Samuel, waiting for the garbage trucks

Matthew’s best day would be last Sunday when we went on the subway. He loved every minute of it and talked about it all week “Mahew like tren” “ah love subway” ‘mammy there tren” every day all week. Until yesterday, when Marc took the boys on the subway train again. He continues to love “ha ball” (high ball), “o-side” (outside) and “dacing” (dancing). He also loves singing the Shabbat blessings, any day of the week, any time of the day. I'm sure picking me up from the airport would be amongst his top days, not because he came to see me, but because he got to pull my bag and eat pizza while pulling the bag. We had pizza at the airport and as we were cleaning up the table, Matthew grabbed the last bits of 3 slices of pizza. He pulled my bag with one hand and held on to the 3 pieces of pizza with the other hand all the way to the car, about a 10 minute walk, eating along the way. He was in heaven!

Matthew on our way back from the train

(note the sunglasses, that's how he insists on putting them on)

Pizzas and a suitcase, what more can a boy want?

Renee wasn’t so impressed with the subway train, and had a similar reaction to the train as she does to animals – shakes at the introduction, jumps in my arms and stays there hanging on for dear life. She is working on potty training and loves her “pulla” (pull-ups). She holds her own when the boys play with each other, entertaining herself independently or by watching their shenanigans. She has been sick for a few days, but seems to be getting better. She's so tired, she has bags under her eyes.

Shana Tova

Rosh Hashana is a time of year to reflect, to take stock. A holiday of rituals - eating apples and honey, hearing the shofar, round challah, being with family and friends. It always sneaks up on me - schools starts, work gets busy after the summer and it's always at a bad time to take days off - but I'm always grateful that it's here. A built in break to reflect.

Samuel is in his 3rd year of Casa (SK equivalent) and is taking his role as one of the older kids in the class very seriously. He came home after the first day of school to show us how 3rd years "have to sit like this" with his back super straight, his face super proud. He is obsessed, and I mean obsessed with garbage and recycling. Not only does he count down the days for our garbage days, but it's one of the first questions he asks people. At bedtime, he requests that we read the garbage collection calendar - "Thursday September 9 there is no pick up, Friday September 10 there is green bin and garbage pick up . . . ". He continues to have a most visid imagination and had his camp counselors that he wasn't coming back to the last week of camp as he was going to be in Israel. He absolutely loved camp, made real strides in swimming, and came home singing all the old stand by camp songs. A particular favourite was "everywhere we go, people always ask us who we are, so we tell them, we are the LULKAs, the mighty mighty Lulkas" I loved it, not sure what Marc thought :)

Playing Garbage

Matthew is a boy in every sense of the word. He kicks and throws a ball with uncanny skill. Most of the time, he's a happy-go-lucky guy, but when he gets mad, watch out - fists flail, neck vein pops, tears flow, body shakes. He love jumping on his mattress (despite repeated warnings, distractions, it's futile to dissuade him). A few weeks ago, he dove into the wall so hard he actually dented it. The cry that followed the first few seconds of silence was intense. I thought this was a teachable moment, so I took the opportunity to say "Matthew see the whole in the wall, see your the bump on your head, it hurts, so no more jumping on the bed" he looked at me, smiled, tears stopped and he said "jumping bed" and went right back at it. (if there was ever a lesson in telling kids what to do, not what not to do, this was it!). For weeks after, he'd say "head, wall, ou-y" pointing to the spot on his head and spot on the wall. This was replaced with "head, floor, ou-y" after he fell off the mattress and onto the hardwood floor. He loves fries ("papas"), hot dog dog, grapes ("yvas" = uvas), strawberries ("presa" = fresa), juice ("jus" or "ugo" = jugo). He has fallen in love with Amanda, Samuel's former teddy bear with a plastic doll's face. They cuddle and kiss all through bed time. He loves taking a bath, especially pouring water from containers ("watefa" = waterfall). He also loves brucshing his teeth and is partcular about which toothpaste he wants to eat, I mean use. True to his age, he often says "i do dis" (I'll do this), but not as often as his sister.

Bath time

Renee's favourite phrase is "I do dis". she loves to sing, particularly ABC, Twinkle Twinkle and Bah Bah Black sheep, and while that are the same tune her diction is good enough that you can differentiate which one she is singing. She is an avid and speedy "reader", she loves books but it's rare to actually be able to read one to her as she flips the pages so fast. She loves drawing and puzzles. She warms up to new people eventually, but when faced with a crowd her preferred place to be are my mom's, Marc's or my arms. She pinches, hard and purposefully, but then cries terribly when we respond with a firm "no pinching". She says thank-you (tak-u) and please (peas) in both languages (gasas = gracias, pofavo = porfavor). She's starting the toilet training process and takes great pride from using her potty and getting a "pula" (pull-up).

Drawing during Pictures at Nottawasaga

Matthew and Samuel get along famously and have really taken to playing together. Matthew and Renee still seem to have their own way of communicating with each other, although I haven't heard the "ewok" language in a while, they can look at each other and laugh hysterically. A few days ago, they woke up and despite our efforts to get them back to sleep, they decided that 5:30 was a beer time to tickled each other and that they did for about 10 minute, roaring with laughter. All three egg eachother on to do more things the shouldn't, like here when they moved the living room furniture around to be able to jump on it. The second picture shows Samuel helping Matthew over the back of the chair.

(no Matthews were harmed during the taking of this picture, he thought this was fantastic)

A few more pictures from Nottawasaga where we celebrated my grandmother's 90th birthday:

4 generations

One great-grandmother, 11 great grandchildren