here's hoping...

that we don't have a baby this weekend.

We don't plan to. It's just that my midwife is away in Saskatchewan for the weekend, so Murphy's Law would dictate that it would happen now. (we would still have access to a midwife, just not one that we know, or who lives as close by).

So, we're aiming for anytime AFTER Monday evening. Just so you all know.


in case you didn't know, or forgot, our actual due date isn't until January 1st.

Christmas Appreciation 101

with Professor Erin K.



Christmas, like all good things, is best enjoyed in moderation. By following a few simple rules you can ensure that your anticipation and appreciation of the Christmas Season is maximized. Please do not think that I am a Scrooge. Far from it. I am a true lover of all things Christmas. I just happen to see the folly of our society's tendency towards earlier and earlier Christmas-y-ness.

Let's begin.

Christmas Music
Recorded Christmas music may be listened to as of the 1st of December. For the days preceding Dec. 1 but following the beginning of Advent there is an opportunity to listen to music that is less Christmasy. (example: Loreena McKennit "To Drive the Cold Winter Away")

There are a few exceptions to this rule. If you are doing Christmas baking or working on homemade Christmas gifts prior to this you may listen to Christmas music, if it helps you get in the right mood.

If you are feeling desperate for Christmas music and Advent is still days or weeks away, try Christmas Music Substitution. For example, if you traditionally listen to Canadian Brass Christmas, try listening to another Canadian Brass album. Or if you prefer A Charlie Brown Christmas, try a Vince Guaraldi album. This really does work. Also, an album of madrigals stands in nicely for an album of carols.

Exterior Decoration
Set up exterior decorations as late as your autumn weather will permit, but you should not light exterior decorations until the first day of Advent.

Interior Decoration
Decorating for Christmas inside your house may begin as you see fit beginning on the first day of Advent. The Christmas tree should be erected later in the month, but not so late that you do not have time to enjoy it prior to Christmas Eve. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the tree decorating happen in between answering the door for Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween. (yes, the music man knows someone who does this)

Well, class, I think we have made a good beginning. I hope that you are able to fully Anticipate and Appreciate Christmas by following these rules. Class dismissed.

He's his Father's Son

A conversation from earlier today...

Me: Should we put on some music?

Monkey: How 'bout Bob Dylan?



right then.

Halloween-y

Music Man the Jester and Monkey the Knight.

Erin K the Witch Pumpkin. (What? It's a thing. Right?)

Warning: These photos will self-destruct.

Pregnant, much?

There is very little doubt that I am pregnant. You know, besides the 30-week belly and the fact that I can't sleep.

I have, in the last month, made a dough recipe in which I forgot the salt, not once, but TWICE. The first incident was pizza dough (on a day we had supper guests, no less). The second was bread. Not just one loaf, but a batch of three beautiful, salt-free loaves. Luckily for me, the Music Man insists that it's really not that bad, and it just makes him think of his Aunt who, apparently, always baked without salt.

Further evidence of pregnancy - Today I cried while reading "The Lorax" to Monkey. I cried. At a Dr. Seuss book. (a sad Dr. Seuss book, I will admit.)

Things have been chugging along around here. Nothing too exciting is happening, but we're keeping busy. Monkey turned three last Tuesday, and now has a plethora of fun and amazing toys. He also had his first dentist appointment this week (they call it a "Happy Visit". Like the rest won't be quite so happy). The hygienist was really great and showed him all the cool tools and he let her look in his mouth and count his teeth, so I'll call it a success. He is enjoying a "Dance Exploration" class at the local dance studio, in which his is, not surprisingly, the only boy. Oh, and he is excited for Halloween, now that I have finished sewing his Knight costume.

That's it for now. I may get around to posting a prego pic one of these days, but then again, maybe not. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Putting Up

We're finally having summer weather here, now that it's actually autumn. But I have been busy doing autumnal things, like canning. Here is a list of foods I've been preserving so far this season (going back into Spring. Why don't we call Spring "Vern"?)

*Frozen strawberries
*Strawberry jam
*Strawberry-rhubarb jam
*Frozen spinach
*Frozen chard
*Frozen basil
*Pesto
*Frozen zucchini (shredded)
*Spaghetti sauce
*Salsa
*Apple sauce
*Apple juice (well, okay, beverage)
*Pear juice/sauce

I have a number of things left on my list, like
*more frozen chard
*maybe another batch of spaghetti sauce
*beet pickles
*apple pies (I like to make a bunch and freeze them)
*frozen apple slices (for future apple crisps, etc.)
*possibly apple jelly, or apple-basil jelly

It all makes me feel very domestic. And it is mostly very fun, but I am usually very tired by evening. Speaking of which - - we have our ultrasound appointment tomorrow. It's pretty late, I'll be 26 weeks tomorrow. Okay, that's it for now.

Happy Autumn.

sing it!

We sing a lot at our house (which is no surprise, since we are both musicians). Sometimes actual songs, sometimes actual songs with new words, sometimes totally improvised things. So it is also no surprise that Monkey has picked up on this habit. It is, of course, exceeding cute to hear what he sings about. Sometimes he sings nonsense words until he finds some syllables that strike his fancy and then he repeats them over and over. Sometimes he sings about what he is doing or thinking about.

Yesterday in the car he started singing in the back seat. This is what I heard...

"Jesus is in Heaven. Jesus is in Heaven" (repeat)
"Jesus had to carry the cross
it was very heavy
and he fell three times
on his way to the gallery."

Be still. my. heart.

and Amen.

camp sad

I'm feeling camp sad. You know - the feeling when you come home from summer camp and regular life just doesn't cut it, and you only want to hang out with your camp friends and no one at home seems to "get it". That's how I'm feeling today about Fiddler being done. Just like that - a few days ago it was opening night and now it is all over. So I was a bit mopey yesterday, and will probably be today too, but then things will get back to normal and I can look forward to the rest of summer.

We had a really great show though. Well, aside from the fact that on opening night a really heavy pine table landed on my foot in the last scene of act 1 (In the wedding scene when the Russians come in and cause a ruckus. They knocked the table over and my foot was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No broken bones though, I went for an x-ray Friday morning.) Now I have a really spectacular, perfectly rectangular bruise on the middle of my right foot. We had to delay curtain on Friday and Saturday nights to make sure everyone got in. The show went great. Of course, Sat (closing) night was the best and if we had had more shows it would have gotten even better.

So today I'm doing laundry and being a bit mopey. But how can you help being mopey when the forecast calls for 18 degrees on the August long weekend...

Opening Night

Tonight is the opening night of Fiddler! I am excited, and not nervous (yet!) We only have a three night run, so by closing night on Saturday, we will just be getting into the swing of things.

[The pictures are from dress rehearsal last night. (The Music Man and Monkey came to watch last night, but they only stayed for the first act.) The first one is during Sabbath Prayer. I am in the centre beside Motel (in the hat/glasses). The second picture is Tzeitel (me) and Motel trying to convince Papa that we should be married.]

New. and News.

I did a few things today that I've never done before...

* I cooked greens for supper. This may sound weird, but we just don't eat a lot of cooked greens around here. Fresh greens, yes - we've been eating lettuce and spinach from the garden on a daily basis for a while already. But today I fried up some greens. Swiss Chard from the garden in a little bit of olive oil. And man, was it tasty.

* In the line of homey-things-involving-garden-produce, I blanched and froze some spinach. In spite of our aforementioned daily spinach eating, the stuff is getting a bit out of hand. So, hopefully I was able to follow instructions well enough and we can enjoy some garden spinach later in the year.

* I washed the supper dishes. Okay, this is not the first time that I've ever done this. But it is the first time in, oh, say, 10 weeks that I've done it. You know, since I started feeling like crap when I was 5 weeks pregnant.

* Oh yeah, did I mention I'm pregnant! Yay! A baby sibling for Monkey is expected to arrive on or around January 1st. So, that's one of the reasons I haven't been blogging much lately. I haven't been doing much of anything lately. But things are looking up, as evidenced by the fact that I washed dishes this evening without gagging.

I've also been busy with rehearsals for an upcoming community theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof. I'm playing Tzeitel and I'm super excited about it. We're just getting to the point when we realize that opening night is only a few weeks away and the thing is still a total mess. But that means it will really start to come together this week. I'm having lots of fun. I haven't done anything like this since high school and I'm realizing how much I have missed it. As long as I don't look *too* pregnant by the end of the month. (won't the seamstress love me if she has to keep letting out my costume...)

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Wishing you all perfect beach weather and no mosquitoes.

June!

here's the rundown of the haps at whitekirk...

~the Music Man joined facebook. grrrr.
~I baked a rhubarb pie today.
~Monkey is potty trained. Yay!
~It's finally warm out around here. And our apple tree is only just blooming now.
~Bren and her family moved to town. Yay!
~we planted a garden. Hopefully it grows.
~umm, that's about it for now.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week and enjoying your version of beautiful June weather.

*me singing in an affected Rogers and Hammerstein voice*
"June is bustin' out all over, the feeling is gettin' so intense, and the young virginia creepers have been huggin' the be-jeebers out of all the morning glories on the fence...Because it's June (June June June) just because it's June! June! Ju-u-u-u-une!"

This makes me happy.

Nanking Cherry blossoms on our neighbour's tree, which overhangs our yard. Ahhh.

Little Boy Blue

Heidi is a sweet blogging friend. She always comments and is very friendly and positive. She has two sons, one of which, Little Boy Blue, has Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. I had never heard of CdLS before I started reading about Blue, and coming up this week on May 9th it is CdLS Awareness Day. So Heidi has asked her blogging friends to help spread the word about CdLS.

You can find any information you need about CdLS at the Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Foundation website (the following is from that site). You can also read about Little Boy Blue at Heidi's blog. He's a sweetie and he'll melt your heart! If you would like to help Heidi inform others about CdLS, read about her contest. And now, some of the CdLS basics...

CdLS is a congenital syndrome, meaning it is present from birth. Most of the signs and symptoms may be recognized at birth or shortly thereafter. A child need not demonstrate each and every sign or symptom for the diagnosis to be made.

As with other syndromes, individuals with CdLS strongly resemble one another. Common characteristics include: low birthweight (often under five pounds), slow growth and small stature, and small head size (microcephaly). Typical facial features include thin eyebrows which frequently meet at midline (synophrys), long eyelashes, short upturned nose and thin, downturned lips.

Other frequent findings include excessive body hair (hirsutism), small hands and feet, partial joining of the second and third toes, incurved fifth fingers, gastroesophageal reflux, seizures, heart defects, cleft palate, bowel abnormalities, feeding difficulties, and developmental delay. Limb differences, including missing limbs or portions of limbs, usually fingers, hands or forearms, are also found in some individuals.

A Dream indeed.

If you haven't seen (heard!) this yet, then take a few minutes to go and have a look. It will make your day.

Talk about life lessons on a Variety Show.

Toddler-Vision

Monkey and I were coming up the walk to the house after a long morning of running errands* (including a visit to the doctor who saw me in the ER. He said my finger is healing very nicely, so that's good). I was rushing to get inside to quickly make lunch before nap time when Monkey called out to me, "There's an ANT!" and with no hesitation he got down on his belly to examine this thing - this first creepy-crawly of the season. We didn't have much time to look at it, but I promised we would come out again after his sleep.

And we did. After nap we went outside to play. We had trouble finding any ants this time (although we did eventually), but we found a few lady bugs. "THERE'S A LADY BUG ON THIS ROCK!" Monkey informed me, as though it were the most important thing ever. After we had our fill of bug watching we went splashing in the puddles. Lucky for us (but unlucky for anyone who wants to walk down the sidewalk) the sidewalk is low in front of our house and is covered in water. That ten foot stretch kept my wee boy occupied for the better part of an hour. Actually, more than occupied - engaged and excited.

Thank God for the way our little people see the world, and for the way they help us to see it, too.

* when I was small I thought people were saying "running Erins". It confused me a lot. I figured it out eventually though.

I like to move it move it

So, I signed up for a six-week session at the local dance studio for and adult beginner "Afro-Fusion" class.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, stop laughing now. It should be fun. True, I haven't done any actual "dancing" since our school musical in grade twelve (and that barely counts as dancing.) I tried to convince a friend to join with me, but clearly her common sense is more developed than mine and she declined.

My mom is always taking interesting classes. Jazz dance, belly dance, Flamenco, French. I often wish we lived in the same town so that I could take some fun things with her. But we don't, so I will go, for the next 6 Monday evenings, to a dance studio where I will likely know no one, and try to keep up with "a combination of Hip Hop and African...with style and funky choreography...cutting edge choreography that will bring their heart rates up!...fun and energizing dance class workout!"

Wish me luck...

Don't scare me like that

The scene: This evening at bedtime, in Monkey's room.

Monkey (who had just been watching a National Geographic video about dogs, and was thus not Monkey, but a puppy) was ready to "jump into bed." He took his pillow and put it on the wrong end of the bed, and hung his blanket on the wrong side of the bed. He turned off the light (with daddy's help) and jumped into bed. No story, no nursing. With backwards pillow and blanket. It appeared that this bedtime was going to be completely different than any other.

"Are you going straight to bed? No story?"

Oh. No, he decides he actually does want a story.
The story is finished. He jumps back in bed. He doesn't want to be covered with his blanket.

"Daddy, sing me a song."
Song sung. We are ready to leave him to sleep. We figure if he doesn't want to nurse, we won't bring it up.

Kisses.

Pause.


"Mommy. I want some nuk-in'"

Ah.

So it turns out he is not ready to completely change his bedtime routine. The blanket and pillow went back to their rightful places as well. It's not that I would mind if he started to cut back on nursing. Let's just not start with the bedtime nursing; the calming, cuddling, drifting off to sleep nursing.

Don't scare me like that.

Thumbs down.

I was going to write a nice little post about the first day of Spring, but instead I will write about how we spent FRIDAY EVENING IN THE ER.

Yep. Because I was careless in the kitchen, and somehow managed to slice up my finger with my hand blender. (taking the words "hand blender" too literally, I guess. groan.)

If you are very squeamish you may want to stop reading at this point.

I was making pesto for supper with my hand blender (something I wouldn't have been doing in the first place if the food processor attachment was still working. This is all your fault, Cuisinart!) and I somehow managed to cut my finger. Don't ask me how because I honestly don't know. Without looking at the wound I wrapped it up in toilet paper and held it tightly with my other hand and raised it over my head. I tried to get Monkey to sing me a song to help me feel better, but he just spent the whole time deciding which song to sing. I called the Music Man and caused him to rush home in a panic thinking I was very injured.

When he got home he unwrapped my finger to look at it and decide if we needed to go to the hospital. Let's just say I had to finish re-wrapping it myself because he felt like he was going to throw up. He assured me it wasn't that bad, but he thought it probably needed stitches. I had it very well wrapped with gauze and a big band-aid, and we all got dressed to go to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at 6:15, we hadn't eaten supper yet and just had a water bottle and a bag of trail mix along. It was well over an hour before we saw the doctor. It took me a long time to unwrap the finger because I had done it so well. The doctor froze my finger (the most painful thing up to this point) so that he could clean out the wound and decide what to do. So it turned out he couldn't even give me stitches because, *deep breath*, there wasn't enough skin to stitch together. So, now I have a humongous gauze bandage around my finger (so that it won't bleed through.) We got home around 8:30, got Monkey something proper to eat and got him to bed. Then we baked the pizza (sans pesto) and ate it at around 10pm before going to bed ourselves.

The thing that sucks is that we planned an overnight getaway to The City tonight to stay in a hotel and do some shopping and swimming. We will still go, but I guess I won't swim, since I can't get my dressing wet. And I have to go back on Sunday to get the dressing changed and then I have an appointment with the same doctor on Tues. to check and make sure everything is progressing okay.

The worst part of the whole thing, though, is that we didn't get to eat the pesto. (it might have had finger in it!) I grew that basil on my window sill and it took nearly half the leaves to make up the 1/2 cup I needed for the recipe. It will be a while before I can pick more leaves of the basil without killing it. *sigh*

I guess I should go pack our bag for tonight! Wish me luck.

Well, golly.

Here I am. I've been thinking for a while now about blogging again, and now I'm doing it. Don't go thinking this means I actually have something to say, because I don't. Not really. But sometimes saying nothing is better than, well, saying nothing.

Here is a quick update from the months I've been away.

October: Monkey turned 2! I became a La Leche League Leader.
November: Um, I don't remember. It probably snowed.
December: I turned 29. The Music Man turned 30. Christmas happened.
January: It was cold. My parents went to Niagra Falls.
February: Still cold. I made ginger snaps.
March: Hey, it's still cold. (well, that's not quite true. Today it is finally not frigid) I made bread for the first time without a bread machine.

There you go. All caught up.

Now, a funny Monkey story before I hit "publish" (do I even remember how to do this?)

Monkey was pretending to be Uncle Mike (my brother). You could tell he was Uncle Mike because he was wearing a hat. Duh. He made some pretend sandwiches to bring to work. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the real Uncle Mike doesn't like sandwiches.

Me: Where are you going to work, Uncle Mike?
Monkey: In my truck. Does Uncle Mike have a truck?
Me: No, but he has a car.
Monkey: I'm a different Uncle Mike. This Uncle Mike has a truck.

Of course he does.