This is dedicated to my Gram (Part 1)

 

This is my first post since my Gram passed away and it's pretty painful thinking that she'll never read my blog again. We had the van packed and ready to go for a trip up on Saturday but Gram died Friday. I was too late. If you know me well you know I hate being late. It will be a long time before I can let this go but I was late and missed seeing Gram one last time. Saturday was more convenient b/c Thursday and Friday had school for the girls, appointments, and activities. CONVENIENT- I feel like such an ass for choosing convenience. Gram was all about keeping things convenient but in this case I would take inconvenient over convenience if I could do it all again. But this really isn't about me this is about my Gram. When my dad told me she was going into a hospice I was confused. I thought "That's for people who are dying. That's not Gram". Honestly I thought she was going to be in there a long time. She was going to spend her last days resting and reflecting. I mean my Gram is 98 and has always been there. I had always pictured her having her 100th birthday. The local news would do something about it and we'd have the newspaper clipping as a memory. There would be a huge cake and we'd get many pictures of the generations of adults and children. It was going to be an awesome party and a huge celebration of Gram. In all my fantasies of this party it never occurred to me Gram would not be there. Even as my dad tactfully told me it was unlikely Gram would make it to Saturday I kept my plan to come on Saturday. Looking back it seems so obvious I should have gone earlier but Gram has always been around and always been so strong. I only had visions of my Gram of the one above- frail but strong.

My Gram was hilarious. She used to cut the mold off cheese and flick the bugs out of stale crackers. "Here you go," she'd say "There's nothing wrong with this." And who can forget the little glass bowl with the scalloped edge that held the pickled beets? I used to wait in dread for her to put one on my plate b/c as soon as something was on your plate you had to eat it. No getting out of it. She was firm and you didn't sass her. Well, there were rumors of people talking back but we all learned from those who sassed before us.

 I'm picturing my Gram sitting on her old porch, legs crossed and her tumbler of something (scotch? whisky? not sure which....). She's tapping her glass and looking out at the lake. It was nice just sitting quietly with Gram. You didn't feel the need to fill the air with words. I'm going to make damn sure I live my life like Gram Knox and have no regrets.

More to come when my mind (and eyes) are a little clearer.

updates courtesy our camera

Grampa Knox came to vist, Pa and Avo took the big girls to a festa, we've been to Science World a couple times and Miss Cassidy is up to no good- STILL! I started running a bath for the girls and when I went to check on the temp, there she was! She had climbed in (amazingly without slipping) with her shirt still on! She's a climber. We can't leave chairs anywhere. And me? Got my first noticeable wrinkle under my eye and it's really depressing me. Probably doesn't help that I'm so freaking tired. This 2 year old stage is seriously going to kill me. I feel old. On a nicer note I only have 9 more work days left!!!! How awesome is that? We're on the hunt for a nanny for September and I'm meeting one tomorrow. She's currently a nanny for a friend of mine and is interested in doing 3 days a week in the fall. Fingers crossed it works out!

We have guests this long weekend

I brought home our class caterpillars b/c of the long weekend. Two of them are hanging there in "J" position, all ready to go into chrysalis. Or become chrysalis. I'm not sure but I know I'm on the right track with chrysalis. The biggest dude is probably the most active. I think he already fell off once. Looks nasty too doesn't it? I don't even know what the heck is on the bottom of the container. I've just been telling my kids it's caterpillar food and no one has questioned me on it. And the strings are just yucky. They get all caught in them and I'm wondering do I open the lid and help them? Cuz I love animals that much. Luckily I didn't open it and they're all fine. Except maybe the hugest one who I'm going to refer to as Hugo. He's massive- he's almost as long as the container is tall. It took him forever to get up to the top of the lid. He's not even on the ceiling yet. I'm a little excited about the caterpillars. We went to the Aquarium on the weekend and they have a chrysalis display. We actually got to see a butterfly emerge! I could have stayed in front of that display all day waiting for more to emerge. But I was with little people and they do not stay still for long.

Grade one is hilarious!

So we're sorting through our chairs at school and getting rid of broken ones. I get rid of a few but that leaves us with not enough chairs. Not enough chairs- in grade one!!!! Oh this is a disaster of epic proportions people! There are "Mrs. S!"'s all over the place. People are stealing other people's chairs and other's are just left confused as they stand at their desk. I bring some calm to this disorder and we problem solve. But then Mrs. M comes and takes all our chairs before recess to make stacks in our open area so we can see how many we have of each kind of chair from ALL the primaries. It's recess but we have no chairs!!! The kids sit on their desks, this is actually pretty cool they think. Now, meanwhile there are new, blue, ergonomically better chairs in our main foyer. I'm hoping that we get some of those. But I had to be a giant pain in the butt with my admin when I had my behaviour problem child and I'm thinking I'll just take whatever chairs I get. Then Mrs. M tells me that my kids can grab a new blue chair from the foyer on their way back from music and now I have a class set of new chairs! This is super exciting for my kids. And me too. Just getting to take and carry a new chair makes my kids so excited. This is after all grade one and it doesn't take much.
I've been doing a unit on Community Helpers forever. I am not exagerrating. I started before Spring Break but then we had a strike, 2 week Spring Break, and I misplaced the booklets for 1 week. So we're finally wrapping up the unit that will not end and we're writing about what we want to be when we grow up. The kids are working really quietly and focussing on their work. Then, the most dramatic "Mrs. S"!!! I go over to check things out and S tells me that D wants to be nothing when she grows up. S is just not happy about this. I talk with D and try to figure out if she just doesn't know or she's having trouble choosing one community helper. But no, D wants to do nothing. She says "I just don't want to do anything." Me: Umm...D, sweetie, you can't be nothing when you grow up. D says "But I just want to stay a kid forever." Me: That would be fun but it's not going to happen. Please go look through our books and pick something. So D ends up copying S (who told on her) like I wouldn't notice. Especially since S's was a dance teacher which was different from all the other girls who said teacher.

Let's play ball!!!

Doesn't she look so sweet? You'd never know the epic battles that happen over baseball. Things like:

my shoes are too tight! my shoes are too loose!

The socks are so itchy!

I don't want to wear my jacket!

and so on.....

Hanging outside

The girls have been hanging outside in the yard a lot more. I put some paints out for Olivia and Alexis and silly me, I forgot to say "don't paint the grass". Then when Cassidy woke up from her nap (and the paints were away!) the girls started accessorizing with their sunglasses and sandals. As soon as the big sisters want something, little sister wants it too. I can't wait until the sun comes out more. And just because I'm always counting the days until something....I have about 31 more work days until summer.

Easter went down the toilet

Seriously, down the toilet. As in literally down the toilet b/c all of us were barfing. Not at once thankfully but throughout the whole weekend. I've had to wait to even write this post b/c I knew it would hit us all. I wanted it gone and done with. It all started on Thursday night when Olivia comes downstairs at 9:30 as Dan and I are laughing away at the Colbert Report. Poor thing kept barfing throughout the night until 4:20. She then slept until 8 and woke up her old self. Friday was fine but then Saturday night at 9:30 I hear Lexie on her monitor. Now, all barf is gross but some is worse than others. Lexie's was particularly vile. Dan (what a good man!) cleaned up the sheets while I cleaned Lexie. This time instead of putting her back to bed (like I had done with Olivia) I just brought her downstairs to hang out while the barfing passed. About an hour after Lexie woke up, Cassidy starts coughing and barfing on her monitor. She comes downstairs and we're all hanging out. Somebody was barfing about every 20-30 minutes. At one time both Lexie and Cassidy were wretching into the barf bucket. Poor Cassidy didn't really know what to do. She would actually lie down and just throw up that way! Fun times right? So finally after trying to put Lexie to bed a couple times I get her down at 2am. Cassidy and I lie down on her twin bed in her room but there was no rest for us. Every 30-40 mins she would start coughing and then I would get her off the bed and she would lie down and just bring up all the water she just drank. (Poor child kept crying for water, I'd deny her but then eventually give in but she'd just throw it back up!!! Horrible, horrible cycle!) Finally I put her in her crib at 6:45 and she slept for a couple hours. Me, not so lucky. At 7:30 Lexie woke me up to tell me she had to pee and on the way back to bed she's heaving again. Despite all this the Easter Bunny managed to hide some eggs outside. Smart little bunny must have known about all the issues we were having and he hid Squinkies inside eggs instead of chocolate! And Olivia noticed that he gave the EXACT same Squinkies I had in my closet!!! She says he must have known how much she wanted them. She did not for a second question the existence of the Easter Bunny! I love the innocence of that child. Well, I wish I could say that Dan and I escaped the nastiness but honestly after dealing with so much of the girls barf how on earth could we avoid it? I was sick Monday and Dan got some of it Monday night. But we're all good now! Not perfect, the girls have coughs but that seems so much more managable than throw up.