wow - mom CAN actually ski

Poor mom tripped at the ice rink waaaay back in October on my birthday.

After several visits to the hospital, the doctor and the physiotherapist she's still waiting for an MRI scan to see what she actually did to her knee when she fell, but in the meantime today she was finally brave enough to try skiing for the first time this season.

Several things needed to be organized to make this happen, including changing the date of my parent-teacher interview at school, finding someone to pick up Ollie from preschool and play with him for a while, dad sorting out some work stuff...and of course the weather had to co-operate too.

So here we are - photographic evidence that i have the BEST parents. Sunshine, the mountain virtually to ourselves, our first picnic in the new car (mom remembered the hot chocolate).....and all on a school day :)

I was a bit worried at first that mom was just going to ski around in a circle, as she didn't seem to be turning very well on her bad knee, but after a couple of runs she seemed to get the hang of it. I discovered today that i actually only need one ski at a time as i skied across the slope with one foot in the air. Parallel turns, here i come!

Getting creative

My preschool teacher Jasmina taught me well. Why would anyone want a silly little shop-bought valentine? Any time is a good time to get creative as far as i'm concerned. I wasn't expecting to find blue glitter on my sandwich the next day, though!


generally the messier painting gets done elsewhere....

after we'd done our paint-throwing Jackson Pollock style, Ollie and I did a silk-screen print which we painted with watercolours.



Thanks 4cats art - we had fun

The Olympic torch

I got my Olympic mittens at Kindergarten today, just in time for the olympic torch run tonight.






Fortunately it had just about stopped raining as we waited out on Broadway, so i was able to carry my Canada flag rather than my umbrella. Some huge trucks went by with people singing and dancing on them, and lots and lots of policemen...on bicycles, running, in cars and on motorbikes.


We had a front row spot on the street as the torch went by, and then we chased it for a little while to see if we could catch up and get another look.



Mom lifted me onto a newsstand so i could see better.....i told her i'd like to see the olympic torch again next time the olympics were here.

Buttercups and daisies

We've been learning some pretty cool stuff at preschool recently:
We've fed caterpillars until they were so fat they made themselves cocoons to sleep in. When they woke up, they'd turned into butterflies we could release in the park.
Then we had an excellent story about tadpoles that turned into frogs. How cool is that?
So there we were - mom, ollie and i - going down west 10th: i was clearing the way for mom and ollie on my bike, they were coming along at a more sedate pace with the stroller, when suddenly i stopped in my tracks. "Wow mom, look at all the buttercups". There was a whole garden where they were growing nothing but buttercups all over their lawn it was ever so pretty. "Mom, did you know if you pick buttercups and put them into water they turn into daisies?"

words that make a mother quiver....

"i know mom, i've got a GOOD IDEA"

a phrase we seem to be hearing quite often at the moment.....unfortunately. why did we encourage our son to think for himself?!!!

Granny May (10 May 1916 - 19 May 2008)

Mom's been busy the last couple of days looking up flights to england, while dad's been away at historymaker. unfortunately great-granny died before mom was able to get to the airport. i told mom she didn't need to be sad, as now she could share my granny.
"little" played a far greater role in the family than her nickname would suggest. maybe one of the reasons she loved me was that finally she wasn't the smallest person in the room?


Granny May loved singing, especially the old war songs from her youth



I think she might have been an opera singer, if circumstances had been different

watching 'the bocce boys"

our next door neighbours are a household of graduate students who must have plenty of time on their hands: not only did two of them run a marathon recently, they spend an inordinate amount of time playing bocce.
sometimes they let me play with them, but not too often as i'm rather good. i think my enthusiastic cheering interrupts the flow of conversation somewhat, too. now that ollie wants to join in as well, mom went and bought us our own set of bocce balls. we could play in the back garden, but authentic bocce happens out the front, just like next door.

things you never thought you'd hear your 3 year old say....

(the first in an occasional series)

on arriving home from preschool, when asked what he'd like to do next joel replied: "it's a lovely day for croquet, mommy"

actually he said "croquery", but he meant croquet!