Randomly unscheduled updates

It's been a long, long, time since I posted here! For some reason it became harder to blog about being a parent after becoming a single parent - maybe because the challenges are different, the rewards are tempered with the reality of spending half of our time apart due to shared custody, and the struggles are real in terms of never-ending shortages of time, money and patience at times.

But, today in the car, driving to Aqua Camp with an 8 year old Coco sitting beside me, I realized that I should come back to this, even if it's occasionally. We began chatting about words - I don't remember how we got going. He asked what his first word was, and I said "mama" because I remember watching and waiting to see what his first word would be. And off the top of my head, today, I don't remember if it was different than that! He asked what his first 3 syllable word was, and I remembered that one - "coconut" - first said on a trip to Mexico when his Dad and I were still together, and he was about one and a half.

It made me realize the value in this old blog, as a place to park memories when they're fresh, before they really even become memories. And it made me want to come back, even occasionally, to leave my stream of consciousness, or the photos that don't always fit neatly into Instagram or some other distilled version of reality. So that's what I'm going to do, as part of my own personal commitment to writing down these things I have to be grateful for, and probably struggles too. And a place to go back to later when the journey is one with sign posts that make sense only once you get further down the path. 

So that's what I'm going to try to do. Stay tuned.

Then & now

Left: September 2010, 2.5
Right: March 2013, almost 5

Hey funny face

Family day

We headed up Mt Seymour last Monday for family day in the snow. One small sled, two hot chocolates, snowpants and several trips up the hill. A great first Family Day!

Sauce

catching up with a dew of my favourites of late.

hello there

it has been a long time. a very long time. too long of course. but let's put that aside and focus on what you came here to see (hi mom). here are a few fall photos to catch up ever so slightly.

coco is closing in on five. he's spirited, he's loving, he's funny and charming. he's engaged to a little girl at preschool named Big Caitlen, named so on account of her being the older of the two girls named caitlen, the younger having left the school a few months back. he is in a phase of wanting to dress always like a "handsome man" which means a collared shirt with a cardigan and coloured pants. if his favourite version of this outfit is in the wash the same description applies to three collared shirts worn over each other, or anything topped with his homemade superman costume.

he snuggles at night, crawling into my bed around midnight. soon enough he'll be big and he won't want to, so although i know i should march him back to his own bed i hold the covers open.

i'll try to get back into writing about our days. i miss it, but i don't have time. and i'm afraid one day when i do i'll look back and wish i had now. for the time being it might just be photos, and it might not be regular, but it will be something and it will be us.

more photos soon. xmas and general hilarity. :)

supermen likes popsicles too

we had a good afternoon popsicle break today, thanks to the sudden arrival of the sun and my sudden remembering of the popsicles we made a few days ago with our homemade blackberry lemonade. cole thoroughly enjoyed them. he declared that popsicles were the best sugary surprise, and ate his until there was nothing left, which surprised me (only a little) because the molds i bought recently at superstore create HUGE popsicles.

it comes in quite handy that he's developed a sudden love of running on the lawn and getting sprayed with the hose. he has adapted the classic kid's game "what time is it mr. wolf?" to include spraying instead of chasing and he also quite likes to pretend to be superman (hence the undies and towel cape).

here's looking at you, first days of summer.

springtime evenings

we live at the 3/4 point of a really steep hill. in front of the house is a modestly busy street at the bottom of a very steep driveway and a yard with a small area to play. the lawn is landscaped and has a little bridge and small water feature, but is largely taken up with a rock garden. we sometimes play out back in the alleyway - it's good for bike riding and chalk, for hopscotch and general cahoots.

we moved in here in the fall, right at the point of the season where going to the park seems more like something you do deliberately, to provide exercise and fresh air, rather than a relaxing amble as part of your sunny day. this spring we realized that the school around the corner can be reached entirely by alleyway - just two blocks, really. we have been taking advantage of this proximity, but now that we suddenly (and please, continually!) have some nice weather it seems even more enticing.

last night after dinner we walked and cole rode his balance bike up to the park, and had a great time spinning, climbing and so on. cole is a sudden climber - it seems as though he got some sort of certificate in secret upon turning four, because all at once he's part monkey and less timid. 

 

 

four: birthday bonanza

cole's fourth birthday turned into a week of celebrations! 

he had his friends party early, almost a week before the actual date. kid & parent friends, nearby family, queen's park playground and lots of cake. we had, at cole's request, a pinata. i'd witnessed once before how challenging it can be for folks of small stature to break a pinata, so i'd riddled the thing with punctures to weaken it. eventually the taps knocked it from the rope, at which point the children wormed their way to candy and toys through a crack. loot was had and enjoyed by all! it was freezing in the park, but we survived. cole kept warm through a combination of bike riding and very awesome clothing - he picked all the accessories above himself. ;)

on his actual birthday he was with his dad, but we had another family celebration here the day after. cole's wish that morning was to spend all day in his underwear and not wear pants, so we did just that. we loitered around the house, opening gifts, listening to his favourite song (blitzkrieg bop) and playing with lego. 

  

  

happy birthday, coco. xoxo!