Last night, we biked.

Hi there blog.

It's me, your writer.

I apologize for the extended technological vacation.

But, you see, it's May.

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It was 8:30, but no one could sleep.

Claire had had a nap, Max had a late nap, and both were fighting the good fight against the sandman. Keeping each other and the tired big boys up in the process.

Sighing and looking out the window I wanted to be anywhere but returning a screaming banshee toddler back to her bed for the hundreth time. The sun hadn't set yet on a beautiful day, the first after a long stretch of rain. I grabbed Max and settled on the couch to sulk with chocolates, hoping Claire would settle so I could let him try again in a minute. I watched Troy struggle to focus on spite of the racket, in spite of the screaming and crying and footsteps, in spite of my storming, as he worked away on a built in shelf unit for our tv 'stuff'. I tried to drum up lines from the helpful book I've been reading, Buddhism for Mothers. Impermanence. Nothing is permanent, bad moments pass, so do good, don't dwell on the good, be present in the bad too. My mind wandered to the window again. Sigh. I wanted to be out there.

My eyes settled on my new wheels, the two-wheeled kind, I had gotten a new bicycle for my birthday. The kids stroller we got last year made sense now, since it wasn't just a stroller, it hooked onto my bike as a trailer. I had tried it out for the first time the other day on a long ride with my sister, it was awesome, so freeing, I felt like I had a little piece of me back. My sister and I chatted as we biked, catching up on things we never had time to chat about. There was no guilt of leaving the kids behind to do something for myself, no complications of someone else watching them or watching the time. The babies rode happily in back, taking in the scenery, my kids in their stroller, my niece on the child's seat on my sister's bike.

Wait a minute.

The bike!

A bike ride was just what Claire needed, what the whole house needed. Peace and quiet for the boys to sleep, calm for Troy to work, a bit of outdoor freedom for Mama.

So we went, Claire and Max settled sleepily into their chariot with jammies and blankies.

Oh, the air! The air was that perfect spring almost summer evening air, cool and warm. On my face, on my arms, on the kids tired eyes.

Pedal pedal pedal.

I quickly approached and passed my favorite spot, where the river reaches up onto a flat marsh and the waterfowl gather, the point in our strolls where I turn around before the kids get restless. I could hear the frogs peeping, the birds chirping, a woodpecker somewhere in there.

Past the sound of water trickling, past the house with the pretty stone, past the old rusty tractor.

Pedal pedal pedal. A quick peek. Not sleeping yet.

Thighs burning, I forgot I had decided last time that I need to raise the seat. I must do that before another ride. Gah. Those muscles haven't been used in awhile. I really should have given at least a little attention over the last few years to my fitness level.

I could smell water. "Smell it?", my brain asked itself. Yes, definitely smell it. It brought me back to laying in bed as a little girl, trying desperately to fall asleep while the sun still shone, my window open to the noises of the pond nearby. The peepers, the ducks, and that smell.

Breathing harder, getting hotter, shift down for a bit, shed the sweater.

Pedal pedal pedal.

Past men mowing in tandem, the smell of grass thick. Dandelions. Blossoms fragrant.

A neighbour I don't know nods hello with a smile at the kids, halts his mower as we pass so we don't get pelted.

A beautiful sprawling lawn, how do they get their mowing lines so straight? My I have more of my father in me than I realize sometimes.

Dead squirrel. Brains mashed onto the road. Nice. Ugh. Are squirrels really that big? Gah. Are the squirrels living in our roof that big? It's the size of a small cat. I must get Troy to do something to get rid of them. That's huge. What in the hell do you do about squirrels anyway? I recall with a shudder the squirrel race in my bedroom ceiling the other night. There's still crown moulding missing above my bed. Yes, there's a large crack above my head and there's squirrels running around. I moved to sleep with Seth that night. Yes, must begin squirrel eradication.

Pedal pedal pedal.

A pretty orange cat stalks in tall grass. A girl chats on her cell phone on the back of a truck. I wonder if she's seeking a quiet space too, if her parents drove her crazy and if she would rather be anywhere but there. I remember there.

Pedal pedal pedal.

Sun setting pink behind the mountain. The river shines and oscillates, sparkling pink.

Another peek, she's asleep. Should I go back now?

Well, I'll just pedal a little more.

Queen of my Castle

This is a quick 'as I shovel in breakfast' post, on the reasons why it's okay that I have not married Prince William (even though that means I am left to clean my own kitchen).

1. My own charming Prince made me a breakfast smoothie this morning.
2. The glorious sun is shining and my lawn is calling my name. This time of year any outside chores seem delicious. Miss Claire and Master Max and I will be going outside imminently to put a new wheel on our broken wheelbarrow.
3. Miss Claire has decided the potty is awesome. Which is awesome. She is so excited about her Diego seat and has been a potty superstar this week. Lots of high fives have been had by all.
4. Master Max is 9 months old! He has been a sleeping superstar (leaving Mommy giddy happy), has had beautifully clear skin lately, mimics our sounds in the cutest way, now scoots and shuffles backwards, and has found his knees. There's been lots of practice rocking back and forth on his hands and knees. Mommy is in trouble with these slightly sticky floors very very soon!
5. There are no holidays in sight for some time. Which pleases me to no end. This means routine and ease of schedule, regular bedtimes, and a lack of sugar induced emotionally fragile children for the next few months! (Easter was a little horrible. Really, the drama around here may have earned strict adherance to bedtimes and no sugar at the next holiday. Unless Easter has become a faded memory by then, my kids will be subject to strict mommy, for their own sakes!)
6. The coming unclaimed weekend holds the strong promise of doing something big. Like a deck, or walling in the new bathroom, or marathon sewing. We'll see, we haven't decided yet what awesomeness is to come, but it's going to be great.

Onwards to the outdoors, sunshine, tricycles, and a wheelbarrow that needs us!

I bet Kate can't say that. 

something yellow...

I joined in mid-week on Kerry's Young Ones: Kids' Color Week. She came up with the idea of a color themed week where the kids were to be the ones behind the lens. Wednesday was yellow!

The Lorax. Mr. Earth Day himself made an appearance on Seth's birthday!

Thane pointed out we needed to take a picture of Claire on Yellow day, she was very yellow!

Troy's been doing a lot of yardwork lately, project "make our renovation back into a lawn".

The Spring flowers have sprung!

Seth decided orange was close enough to yellow. Impressive reflection captured I thought!

I was a bit disappointed yesterday morning when I proposed the idea to my eldest, seven year old Thane, and he seemed less than enthused. He did pick out a few yellow props though, mostly just to humor me I think. That evening I decided to go outside and take my own picture of the yellow flowers I had just noticed blooming. I was pleased that if it had failed to inspire my kids artistically, the project had at least given me the push to literally 'stop and smell the flowers' on a very hectic day. As I was going out the door however, my birthday boy five year old Seth asked what I was doing and it dawned on me that I hadn't even asked him to take some yellow pictures for me. He was more than delighted to be offered the camera, and an hour outside together bopping from one yellow object to the next ensued. We ended the beautiful spring day outside playing baseball with a yellow bat and a yellow tennis ball.

Picture perfect. :)

A few things on my mind...

• How to build a tire swing? I'll google this tonight me-thinks. I had envisioned a romantic single board swing for our front tree, but the boys vote is for a tire swing. Really makes more sense for multiple kids anyhoo.
• What are the options when redoing our front porch? Our current porch has pretty white columns atop fugly, wearing out carpet floor. (Outside. Really. Carpet outside was a very bad idea. Who thought up the outdoor carpet idea?) Upon driving through the historic portion of old Woodstock I've decided we could get away with wood decking, not painted, (to avoid annoying painting maintenance) combined with a painted white front kickboard (from the deck to the ground) to tie in the columns. Make sense?
• How great this evening was. Troy was happily driving golfballs into our 'back field'. (Those lake scavenged balls from his days working on the golf courses are coming in handy. We'll send the kids up there on a 'golf ball hunt' sometime, maybe this should be next Easter's event, lol.) Seth was happily riding away on his 'new' bike, Thane's old bike with the seat put down. "I like this bike. This is a good color. This is a good bike!", he said. Bike riding is Seth's absolute favorite thing to do, most of the summer he walks around with his helmet on, indoor or out, because he'll be back out on the bike in a minute. I just picked up Seth's birthday present today, a load of gear to trick out his ride. Reflectors for the tires, a bell, a bottle holder, and Hulk bike gloves. He has a thing for dress up gloves, he's going to love these. Shhh. Don't tell! Claire was puttering around enjoying the warm air, climbing up onto the lawnmover seat and down, up and down. She was picking up rocks off the lawn and bringing them to us, the little gatherer that she is. She's been watching Troy do a lot of this lately too, beginning to transform last years moat back into this years lawn!

• My boy Seth is turning 5 tomorrow. FIVE. He is the world's most loving child, and hilarious. This year he has become even more articulate. I loved the fifth year with Thane, it really is a metamorphosis year from little boy to big boy. Seth is also my most tactile child, the thumb-sucker, the stuffie lover, the one with the penchant for anything soft. Will those sweet little boy things go this year?  Take a peek at these:

Seth asleep anywhere, as usual,

and with his big brother on Thane's first day of school three years ago.

On his third birthday, loving new wheels, and new stuffies.

Sweet little hands and toes at the beach.

Going camping, all that blonde hair!

Into birthday icing. (Look at that mischievious grin!)

More snuggles, more beach, more blond hair and cute toes. Too cute Seth. Don't grow up on me too quickly!

Right now.

My skin is warm from my day under the sun, this summery spring day. I am so tired from fresh air, good food, family. I hear soft breaths coming from the rooms where my family are sleeping down the hall, tired out from their fun outdoor day. My kids are asleep, content and exhausted, enjoying our visit 'home' to spend Easter in Nova Scotia with Troy's family. I love and appreciate my in-law family so much for all that they are and who they are to me.

You likie?

What do you think of the new blog look? A bit more width and breathing room for the text (the typographer in me was dying for bigger margins, more white space!) and a few new spiffy colors. I'm pleased with it, more tweaks to come I'm sure, but a nice facelift just in time for Spring! I like the circles as they are, but I was thinking just this morning that wouldn't they look fabulous with little silhouettes inside them? I'm thinking something in this style:

I found this Best Day Ever print by Erinjane Illustrations in her Etsy shop. Check out the rest of her work, I like! Doing this would mean I would have to fire up Illustrator though, my least favorite of programs. It's a shame Illustrator and I don't get along better, the work I can do in the program appeals to my design esthetic so much!

I want you also to take note of my nifty new gadget below each post, from LinkWithin for all you bloggers. What it does is picks out and lists past posts that are on related topics. I've admired this on a few different blogs I follow and finally picked the brain of a friend over at Birds On a Wire to see how she made this happen. I have been fascinated over the last hour following the links within my own blog. To see reoccuring topics and then to notice a growth or change on my part over the past few years of blogging is pretty amazing.

I did notice my lists of related links are not nearly as pretty as I'd like, since most of my posts have no pictures to use as a thumbnail. For a visual person this realization that my blog is lacking some, well, visuals, is disconcerting and I'm going to make an effort to give you more pictures! All in all, I hope you enjoy the related links as much as I do, I think it's a very interesting addition!

Stuff.

I'm not so good at Spring cleaning. I am, however, excellent at The Spring Purge. I go through the kids clothes, their toys, the linen closet, our closet, the front closet, the kitchen, every corner of the house, editing, cutting, and deleting items from our lives. I'm a good three quarters of the way there this year. Those Spring-like days where it's deceptively sunny, but when you actually go outside you realize that wind is still bitter cold, those are the best days to get me motivated to cull through our house. I love simplifying our lives by getting rid of those things, that 'stuff' that I spend so much time sorting, tidying, and taking care of.

My problem lies in the fact that this is an annual thing, especially since I've had kids. I get a huge 'yardsale pile', sometimes actually have a yardsale, sometimes not, and the remainder goes to the charity bin. It's still good stuff, just unused in our house. But will they actually be able to sell it to someone who will use it? Or is it really just unusable garbage created in our consumerist cycle. (Take twenty minutes here and watch Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff. It's useful food for thought.)

This year I've been brewing on some ideas to put an end to this cycle. Where do we get this stuff? A lot of it is clothes. I'd have to swallow my pride to get over this hurdle. The pile consists of clothes that are a little worn from use (or from washing, it's debatable), I only keep the really nice ones to hand down to the next kid, knowing full well that between birthdays and holidays and my finding deals that they will never have a lack of newer, less worn clothes. The pile also consists of clothes that are just not quite my 'style' or 'in style', both terms created in the 50's to create 'the consumer', to keep us buying and support the economy. An ideology that is killing the environment. We buy much more than we could ever possibly need!

A lot of it is also toys. Ones that never seemed to capture the kids attention in the first place, or were annoying so ended up never having the batteries replaced, or ones that they already have eight of. I feel like I can battle this one. I think for the kids birthday parties with their friends I'm going to request no-gifts. And I genuinely think the kids will support me on this one for their birthdays. They get excited for their birthday parties for the chance to have their friends over all at once, do something fun, and eat cake and ice-cream. One of Thane's favorite birthday gifts was a drawing he received from his buddy. They'll still receive a handful of gifts between their grandparents and us, and they'll be more likely to be meaningful gifts that the kids are actually interested in. I know when I shop for another child's birthday that one of mine is attending, I often don't know this birthday child's likes and dislikes at all and buy a generic gift that may or may not even be appreciated. I'm sure I can back off at Christmas, no one needs or can possibly appreciate the copious amount of gifts Christmas often brings. Introducing the concept early to my kids that less is more can't hurt.

And what better way to celebrate Earth Day than to make a few Earth Day resolutions. Any other ideas?

I have more to chat on about the Spring cleaning itself, I'll get back to you!