Winter update

So much for keeping this very up to date...I did try a couple of times when blogspot didn't seem to be working (honest...). I enjoyed a lovely walk to work this morning, following a snow fall yesterday. The sidewalk was a patchwork of shovelling techniques and levels of effort, as people are responsible for shovelling their own sidewalk here (except us - we are so close to a school - that Jason doesn't attend- that we get plowed and salted). We are enjoying the milder winter here. I panicked last night when I looked at the weekly forecast and saw a day time high listed at -17C: "OMG!! How will we cope?! I can't go out..." and then I realized I was reading Ottawa's forecast. Phew! We have been getting just enough snow to almost satisfy Jason's Inuit blood. We are reminded about what a blizzard is as it usually falls fast and furious in a horizontal fashion.

We had a good holiday season, multiple pneumonia diagnoses in December aside. The children were of course very excited with the whole Santa thing and we have actually been attending church so they just might have a understood a little bit about the reason for the season. Keira certainly seemed interested in baby Jesus songs. On Christmas morning there was one more moment when both Mommies froze as Jason said "But wait!!! How did Santa get the desk down the chimney??!!" "Magic of course!"

The kids are doing well. We have pulled both of them from their child care programs and have been blessed by the arrival of fabulous caregiver, Aimmee.. After crying and screaming for 3.5 months at daycare drop off, I worried that it was all her stage in life. But on day 1 of Aimmee, she simply looked at Heather and said "bye Mom". This is a young lady who clearly had a vision of what she wanted and stuck to it. Now when you ask here about her days, instead of "Nothing. No good. No fun>", She says, "Went to playgroup. Had puppet show. Made lunch." For Jason, we had an incident on his last day at his childcare program that made us so happy to have something new. Something about "sometimes kids just slip through the cracks..."(a great motto for a child care program).

Jason is settling better into school. He is very creative and still loves writing, drawing and doing crafts. He tried out breakdancing class this past weekend and loved it!! He and Keira re really crazy together. We are bessed not to have to deal with fighting but they can spend an hour at teh dinner table giggling and not getting much food in. Keira can bring him to his knees if she gets an arm around him because he is so ticklish and if she can find an ear to tickle, parental intervention is required. Keira continue sto be way too smart for her own good, full of questions. I was re-reading some parenting books the other day and about Jason's introverteness which also gave me a hcnace to reflect on keira's extrovertedness, such as walking around constantly talking to herslef and others. The other day, Jaosn was listening to music in his room and drawing. keira came in and starting dancing around, 'Look at me Jason, LOOK AT ME," and since that didn't get attention, switched focus and got in between Jason and his desk and kept dancing. He kept drawing.

I will try and post photos soon.

Lisa