Biking and Belugas ...

The Seawall and the Aquarium was on our list of things to do this week, the last week of the summer before "big" girl M starts Kindergarten.  So off we went with the girls' bikes, a stroller, a backpack, a camera bag and a diaper bag (we don't travel light these days) - water and snacks at the ready.  At first we thought big, planning a ride around the whole of Stanley Park.  When we finally got out of the house around noon, we started to amend our plans, thinking we would leave open the option of doing half of the loop and cutting through the park.  Once reality set in, we ended up doing a portion of the seawall and I doubled back the long way with P and the stroller while the big girls and F cut through the park.   But still, it was a beautiful day, sunny with a crisp breeze and two proud little girls riding their bikes and a mini girl sleeping in the carrier (why I bother to bring the stroller I don't know, the kid's a kangaroo).   And while we sometimes forget what a beautiful City we live in but the seawall never ceases to amaze us.

We ended up at the aquarium to look at the baby beluga and to have a healthy (ahem) lunch.  Fun was had by all!

Seawall and Aquarium.  CHECK.

Cupcakes ...

Today, we finally got around to baking some cupcakes.  There was measuring, mixing, pouring and lots of bowl scraping and snacking along the way.  All supervised by P, of course!




The second best part was the decorating. 





The best part was the tasting. 







Baking and little girls just go together well.  Don't know why, that's just how it is. 





Cupcakes were on the summer list.  CHECK.

Late Summer ...

It's coming!  We've had a very warm and dry summer in Vancouver and a bit of a heat-wave in the last week, but just in the last couple of days I've felt something:  the very first beginning of a hint of fall in the air.  Just a bit of crispness, the shortening of the days and a coolness in the breeze.  And I love it!!  I love the prospect of walking along the beach on a crisp fall day, taking the girls to preschool and Kindergarden (and yes, I will feel have a lump in my throat when I bring M to the "big school" for the first time), thick sweaters and warm coats.  In a few years it will mean the smell of new school books cracked open for the first time, and a new school wardrobe, but for now our girls are just little and we still have them with us most of the time.

This has been my "mothering summer".  Little P was born on June 25th, just as the "big girls" were finishing preschool and the summer break started.  Everything since then has been a blurr of sleepless nights, middle of the night feedings and baby cuddling.  M and E have been to a series of summer camps, almost daily swimming lessons and they have spent a lot of time in the garden running through the sprinkler, jumping on the trampoline, hiding in the playhouse and baking sand-cakes. 

I keep reminding myself not to blink, that these are precious days and that the time of nursing and cuddling a  baby are very short. 

Having sweet little girls baking you sand-cakes is a privilege. 

Yesterday, E gave me a picture on which she "wrote" (in writing that is only decipherable to her) "Ich hab Dich lieb" ("I love you") On BOTH sides.

And here is a conversation with M:

Mia:    "Weisst Du, was eine perfekte Mama ist?"
           ("do you know what a perfect mom is?")

Me:     "Existiert so etwas?"
            ("Does that exist?")

Mia:     "ja, dass bist du!"
            ("yes, that's you!")

Sigh ..

I'm trying to squeeze everything out of the rest of the summer,  just taking a little time out each day to do something special for the girls.  Yesterday we painted our nails bright pink - there is nothing cuter than a little tomboy with dirty little feet from a hard day's playing and pink nails.  Today we baked and decorated cupcakes.   I should have a "to do with the girls" list to make sure we don't miss out on anything important this summer, such as a picnic on the beach, a bike ride along the ocean and perhaps a trip to the aquarium and to an old-fashined bowling alley... Just some things to think about.

Four Good Things

A long time ago, I started a tradition of thinking of at least four good things that happened in the day before I go to sleep at night.  I know all good things are supposed to come in threes etc., but for me it has always been four.  I also know that a lot of families share the best thing and the worst thing ("i.e. the rose and the thorn") of their day at dinnertime or bedtime.  That's a good idea and it may be something we will do as a family in the future.  But for me, I like to focus only on the good things that have happened before going to sleep.  It's a rare day that I can't think of at least four good things.  Here they are for today:

1.  Little E said to me "Mama, wenn Ich Dich habe dann fuehle Ich mich immer wohl". - "Mom, whenever I am with you I always feel good".  Awwww, what a sweetie.  I might add that this was the best of the four good things.

2.  I got a new IPad - a newfangled expensive toy, but I justify it by saying that it will be our "multipurpose tool" while we travel, working as our netbook, our DVD player and travelling bookshelf.  Now we can all fight over who gets to have it at any given time ...

3.  P and I had some time to ourselves to try to do some shopping - "try" being the operative word because I spent most of my time at the shopping center sitting on various benches nursing her.  With a decorative and discreet nursing cover, of course.

4.  I managed to make a dent in the mess that is called my home office.  This is a really good thing because it is a bit out of control.

So there we have it.  Four very good things!

Water Parks and Pink Leopards

This weekend the big girls were invited to two birthday parties.  Little P came along, of course, and slept through most of the events.



It was a Saturday of waterpark fun, with pinatas, lollipops and birthday cake.











Sunday brought a forest party where both M and E were pink leopards and enjoying, you guessed it, some more tasty treats and birthday cake.  Add a few balloons, some loot bags and the whole weekend could not have been more perfect for the girls.















For the harried parents, ferrying around three of them from one part of town to the other was not quite so perfect.  Trying to leave the house on Sunday morning was like a comedy of errors, since all hell broke loose just as we were ready to put on the party dresses:  E had "an accident" (involving poop, I will say no more), M threw up after getting a Tylenol stuck in her throat (necessitated by a mild fever/headache which E had the previous day), and P had a newborn baby "blowout".  As F and I were frantically running around cleaning and changing the girls and scrubbing the living room carpet, getting increasingly more stressed, we finally just had to crack up laughing and remind ourselves that, even though it was a bit hard to appreciate at that exact moment in time, we are very lucky to have three healthy little girls to clean up after and try to get out the door.  All in all a very good weekend!

She had her first Smile!!

Our sweet little baby P had her first smile today.  She is seven weeks one day old.  And no, it was not just gas or an arbitrary facial expression.  It was a sweet, toothless smile aimed at mom who was doing everything in her repertoire of goofy smiles and cooing to try to encourage it.  What's better is that both F and I were lucky enough to see it!  

I love this newborn period, and this time I am more aware of how time slips through your fingers amid sleepless nights, feedings and everything else that goes along with newborns.  This time I realize every day what a privilege it is to have this intense connection and be the lifeline for a sweet vanilla smelling new baby.  This time I'm not intimidated by her heartbreaking dependence on me, but I welcome it and enjoy every minute of it.  When she wakes up at night (which happens two or three times), I love just pulling her over (yes, she sleeps in our room, as does or four year old E - so shoot me!) and having her kicking eagerly against me while she feeds and then making her little newborn grunts while she falls back asleep.   I guess that is what they call Babybliss!

Having Fun instead of taking things too seriously ... (Fun Shopping with Mia)

My big girl, M, is 5 years old (5 and a half she would let you know!), and I'm proud and amazed at the little girl she has grown to be.  Today, I shared a real girl experience with her, as opposed to a toddler or preschooler experience.  We did a big shopping trip to Canadian Tire to buy a number of boxes and other large items, which I had a hard time juggling into the shopping cart and then struggled to peek over or around as I pushed the cart around.  Having a sleeping baby P and her stroller in tow, and M not yet having mastered the art of maneuvering the stroller around corners without bumping into them and waking the baby, could have made this one of those stressful "shopping with children" experiences which usually make you wish you had just stayed at home.  But M has this slapstick sense of humour and just cracked up at mom's antics.  Her laugh is so infectious that soon the other shoppers and staff were treated to a giggling little girl and her giggling mom shoving a hugely overloaded shopping cart and baby stroller through the aisles of the store, hamming it up a bit and not doing it very quietly.  Thank you, M, for reminding me how to have fun instead of taking things too seriously.

My first Post...

Hello blog!  I set up this little blog some time ago, but the first post was too intimidating and as the days went on I kept thinking "oh, I should blog about this", but kept setting the bar too high, thinking it would have to be extra witty or thoughtful .   So, little blog, we will keep it short and snappy, just to get us started. I'm excited about the prospect of capturing some of our daily life here.  If blogging is "the new black", then it's about time we had some blogging in our lives!  With three little ones (did I really just say three - wow, how did that happen?), our daily lives are so packed that it is hard not to "blink" and forget the lovely little details that make up our busy days.  I know that many of the special moments in the lives of our "big girls", Mia and Ella have already slipped through our fingers, gotten lost in the busyness of our daily lives. With time, I hope to go backwards a little, do some posts about past events, perhaps even some stories about Frank and I before our littles entered our life.  One day, they may even be interested to read about the life Mama and Papa had before they were born.   As Mia likes to say, "way back in the last millenium".  All in good time .... 

Anyway, my hope is that this blog will remind us not to blink. 

Whew, the first post.  That wasn't so hard ...