What Santa *might* bring to our house this year OR NOT.

We recently visited friends with a new golden retriever puppy. They are people who don't yet have children in their lives but would like their dog to be comfortable around the smaller set.

Zoe loves dogs. Really all the kids love dogs but she does most especially. Once when she was not yet three years old she tried to trade me for a dog. She told me that she should get a dog and that I could get my own house away from the dog but not to worry because she would come and visit me. I am allergic. My poor children will only ever experience the joy of pets through fish and visits to friends and family with pets. At this point in my life I am not particularly disappointed that I will never own a dog or a cat. I can barely keep the six of us cleaned up and presentable, let alone throwing another the needs to eat and sleep and poop into the mix. Zoe knows this but that doesn't mean that she accepts it.

And so she has hatched a new plan to get herself a dog: ask Santa. Bizarre, I know that my eight and almost ten year old children still believe in Santa. It's a choice they have made. We have had long discussions about beliefs and why people need to believe certain things. Like how I need to believe that people are basically good, even though I know it may not be so. Zoe is smart. Smart enough to know that there is power in numbers and so she has started a campaign to convince her siblings that if they collectively ask Santa for a dog it's a near certain thing.

Avery is not so willing to give her wish to the dog. She pipes up with great authority, "I'm going to ask Santa for a baby." Here is the point in their discussion that I decide to intervene just for clarification.

"Like a brother or a sister baby?"

"Yes, like a brother or a sister baby only I think it should be a girl so definitely a sister baby." At which point Aidan interjects "HEY!!" He, being the only boy child in this family feels outnumbered and has for the past three years been trying to convince Steve and I that we should indeed have another baby so that he can have a brother (even if it turns out to be a sister? well sure, but the preference would be a brother). So Avery concedes.

"Okaaaaaaaay then, a brother baby. I'm gonna ask Santa for a brother baby." SO I ask Ruby how she would feel about having a baby living in our house and unlike previous conversations where she insists that she is the baby, she decides that it's time for there to be another baby.

For clarification, there are NO plans for more babies in this house. Our hearts are full at the moment and we don't have any pressing need to add another person to the craziness that is our life. But I can't help thinking that it is super cool that my children feel like we have room for more.

the sweeter air

Ruby was seven weeks old last time we camped, three summers ago. We are tent campers of the fairweather, car, tent camping variety. We will hike but not carrying the piles of gear that one needs to set up camp and even more importantly not the piles of gear that six need to set up camp. I was deeply affected by a friend's mishap with a fire pit in which the fire had been out for several hours and her toddler fell into hands first. The incident prevented me from camping with toddler in tow.

Last summer I announced that I thought I had outgrown camping. We roadtripped. We stayed in nice hotels with swimming pools, in large cities with Open Markets and playgrounds galore. We visited museums, art galleries, government buildings, riverfronts, oceansides and other such areas of beauty and entertainment.

This summer feeling emboldened by enthusiasm for life, enamoured by the idea that we don't know how long our time here in this life will last. I decided that we really needed to give it another go.

Steve seemed less excited than I thought he would be considering how much he once loved camping. Obviously his memory is better than mine when it comes to the emotional attachment of an experience. "We need a new tent" was his response. We've gotten bigger and softer and squishing six of us to space for four is no longer acceptable.

While we were looking for a tent I came across and airmattress on a cot. I really have become a soft camper.

Our weekend was a success, except for the broken fingernail (mine) when I took the tent out of our front yard and attmepted to pack it back into it's original bag. That was a disaster.

But otherwise our forest exploring, tent setting, chair sitting, beach combing, paddle boating, volcano building, campfire tending, coleman lantern fire, campstove cooking, marshmallow roasting, s'more eating, gin tipping, ice cream treating, playground playing, crow squaking, sunshining, living, loving, laughing, birthday celebrating weekend was a success. Well, except for Steve's sunburn. Ouch.

Now if only I had a magic laundry fairy...

seeds grow in hearts too

Ruby is our surprise baby. She is a gift. She is a gift that grows bigger in my heart everyday. She keeps me young and on my toes and laughing and smiling and exasperated sighing all day. She is my helper. She is the one who is fiercely independent and completely in love with all of us. The world is a better place with Ruby in it.

Our yard is in the midst of our renovation project. It has not yet been graded, mostly because we are having problems finding a landscaper who it reliable and has time to fit us into his schedule. Since the yard is a mess of weeds and mud I have been letting the kids dig madly, where ever their hearts desire. After one such front yard digging session Ruby knocked on our front door. When I opened it she was holding a small trowel in her right hand and hold out her left hand palm up.

"Now I need a seed."

And so I gave her a seed. I choose beets because the seeds are large and thus easy for her to manage. The ground was dry and hard but she had made some holes just perfect for planting. She watered with her itty bitty watering can. It snowed. Yes, it snowed because we live in Northern Alberta and it commonly snows at the end of May. And now? Now we have beets growing in odd places around our front yard which Steve lovingly mows around. Heart swells.


She turned three, just three weeks ago. She had been telling people she was two and showing her two fingers for months and then reminding them that she would be "this many" holding up three fingers in July. On the day after her birthday as we were preparing breakfast together, she turned to me and said, "Now I am three" holding up three fingers.

"Yes honey, you are three"

"And on my birthday in July I will be this many," she stated holding up four fingers.

Oh baby girl, yes you will be but not for almost a whole year and please don't wish away your childhood. I didn't cry but it was a struggle.

Four years ago I never imagined that my heart could be this big, this full, this happy. It was my lesson in letting go, in not needing to be in control, just going along this road of life and enjoying the journey. Being thankful for the beautiful moments that we don't plan and the beautiful people that we love along the way.

Top Ten Tuesday (only it's Wednesday)

Top Ten Things That Keep Me From Blogging:

1. Top Ten Tuesday was yesterday and here I am now just writing this post. I am either distracted or disoriented. If I ever end up in a hospital the best GCS score I can hope for is 14/15. We'll blame it on shift work, or motherhood or both.

2. Aidan*

3. Zoe*

4. Avery*

5. Ruby*

6. Steve*

7. The rest of my family and friends**

8. YOUR blogs. God, my computer time is taken up just trying to read a small handful of all the amazing bloggers out there. I have become a skimmer which I am ashamed of. I comment far less often than I should which means if you are in my feed reader I probably don't even get counted in your stats. Wholey unfair to all of you. I am trying but you know: LIFE.

9. YOUR blogs 2: If I have turned into a skimmer, surely most of you have too. It seems unfair. I don't give enough attention to so much that who you are gets lost and your messages float indistinctly between my ears. It is sad enough to me that I often think, WHY BOTHER?

10. My Hot Tub. Yep, another part of our large renovation project. Obviously distracting. And where I am headed as soon as I hit publish.

*I considered lumping them all together but they have such different, important and individual needs that I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

**yes, I am aware that all your needs are different and separate and while I love you all, clearly this list will be far too long to ever publish. Love to you all. I have needed you and loved you all and am grateful for every single one of you in my life, well except maybe one of you but whatever.

Goodbye Sugar

I've decided that I won't cook or bake anything with sugar in it anymore at least until next week. This week I made a rhubarb crisp and baked radishes to use up the last of the vegetables that came in our Organic Box. I love this company because it is a local company making a go at a business and also because it fills a specific need for my family. I hate to shop. HATE IT. So much so that I am extra fond of frozen veggies and canned goods because they last like forever and if I buy enough I don't have to go to the grocery store very often. Right now, once a week, a box of fresh produce shows up on my doorstep. Beautiful, perfect. And it is forcing me to be creative. I have to find recipes for everything in the box. I wouldn't really, I have the option of changing what they send me but I am kind of enjoying the adventure it has brought me and the challenge to try new things.

Back to the sugar. It makes things sticky. Who knew? Clearly, I don't use enough of it. Getting it off of the pans I baked in. UGH. I gave my dishwasher to one of my cousins who needed it more than me a couple of weeks ago and now I am without. Don't worry, it wasn't a true altruistic act, Steve has been trying to convince me that I needed a stainless steel dishwasher to match the rest of the appliances in my new kitchen. But our old dishwasher was only three years old and it worked better than any dishwasher I've ever used so I was having a hard time justifying the need for a new one. Alas, my new dishwasher had to be ordered and it comes from Turkey which means I won't have a dishwasher at least until next week. So no more sugary baking until then.

And BAKED RADISHES? You can keep them. Even with the gobs of butter, honey, cinnamon and sugar I still don't like radishes. Sorry Dad!