Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Meow
Saturday, September 13, 2025
Phoebe did what now?: Reading in the wild and other tales
This morning Andrew texted to say that he was at the airport, beginning his journey home. He's been in Vancouver, BC, for a conference (APSA). His room at the hotel was on the 23rd floor, affording him a beautiful view of the harbour:
Friday, September 12, 2025
Birthday Balloons I (finally)
Zoë! I'm so excited that you are 10! You are such a charming young woman! I'm so proud of how helpful and thoughtful and funny you're becoming! Keep being awesome this year! Love, DadZeal
Optimistic
Ebullient (archaic term)
Watching you grow over this past year has been [groovy?] I love you so much! —BenZoë! How are you already in the double digits? you've grown so much, it's crazy. It has been a joy to watch you grow more passionate about music, especially organ. You are so good at cleaning, and are very quick-witted and funny. I love you so much!!! Love, Miriam
Organ harvest
The keys on our organ are brittle. You can see from this picture—with its jaw pried wide open—that it has a few missing...teeth:
Thursday, September 11, 2025
Saying goodbye to Auntie K
At the risk of getting political...or sharing, like, my immediate lived experience and point of view on a personal mommy blog with low readership...
My sister's visit did have to end at some point...apparently...and it did on Saturday evening.
Research across the aisle indicated that while my sister had ample free time while she was between positions, she did have to return home in time to honour the contracted "start date" of her new position.
Miraculously, Phoebe agreed to sit on Auntie K's lap for a picture prior to going to bed. Sources say this sudden display of affection could have been bought with the gift of a Bluey blanket. There is photographic evidence of the alleged gift, and our gift unit is still investigating this exchange to determine whether or not it violates our household emoluments clause.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?
- A gunman (claimed by Hamas) killed 6 at a bus stop in Jerusalem.
- Netanyahu pledged retaliation against Gaza for this because...whatever else has happened in Gaza should not be considered retaliatory enough as it is?? Or because Gaza isn't suppose to retaliate?? Or some other reasoning I don't understand... I mean, they also killed the shooter, so...I dunno.
- Also Israel bombed a residential area in Doha, targeting—and killing—5 Hamas leaders, and 1 security guard (so, like, wasn't that retaliation?...I guess I don't understand the word very well).
- Russia continues to bomb Ukraine, the bullies.
- Russia also has sent drones into Polish airspace, setting a large portion of Europe on edge.
- NEPAL, friends. What? They overthrew their government, burnt down their parliament building. Props—you do you, boo. But then they also, like, burned the ex-first lady alive and did a bunch of super violent stuff? Less cool—exceedingly uncool.
- There was a school shooting in Colorado. Nice. Neat. Great. Seems we can't get enough of those. Hope and prayers. Pop some popcorn.
Little and Big Kids
A picture of Miriam lives on our fridge. She's four years old, pigtails flying, bandaid on one knee, pink helmet on head, lugging her bike behind her. In this picture she is the most darling four-year-old in the whole entire world.
*****
Today Phoebe was wearing the same helmet (which is now 12 years old...which is old for a helmet), which she calls her unicorn helmet because back in 2014 I used the helmet to create a unicorn costume for our neighbourhood 4th of July parade, which I honestly did not realize would be 100% patriotically themed.
Monday, September 08, 2025
Long Hunter State Park
During quiet time/nap time one afternoon, Auntie K took us to Long Hunter State Park so we could do the Storybook Trail. We got off to a bit of a rocky start because we made it to the visitor's center just as it closed for lunch—and they were very serious about closing for their lunch break. We could see them all in there...and they could see us...but there was no way they were going to ask us if we needed help with anything.
The bathrooms were locked from the outside, only accessible through the main entrance (which was locked). We had a map, but weren't quite sure what we were looking for because the Storybook Trail wasn't on the map.
So we had our lunch and waited for the doors to open.
An Amazon delivery person came by with some packages and they opened the door for them and while the door was open I passive-aggressively made a remark about how I couldn't wait for the next five minutes to be up so that we could finally take our toddler to the bathroom...
And the lady working inside must have heard me because after the five minutes were up and she finally unlocked the door for us, I took Phoebe to the bathroom and the lady made a point of finding Kelli to tell her that the bathroom doors were open, should we have needed to go.
They weren't.
But that's okay. We went potty and figured out where to go (kind of). When we got to the right parking lot we just had to find the "hidden" trailhead for the Storybook Trail. It, again, wasn't on any of the park maps. But we were pretty intimidated by the bulletin board, so perhaps we didn't look closely enough...
Motherscholaring
At Rosie's House
One of the best parts about Rosie's house (according to the little kids, at least) is that it is brand new, so brand new that the rest of the neighbourhood is still being put up right in Rosie's backyard!