Is it Winter yet?

Sonja keeps asking me if it's Winter yet. I know she's asking because she believes that it can't really be Winter until there is snow. 

When it snowed last February, Sonja just loved it. She especially loved eating the snow off her mittens (so superior to eating the ice out of the produce bins in the grocery store when I'm not looking - don't ask). She wasn't a huge fan of how cold the snow was or how chilled she became, but she loved the snow despite its flaws.

Today she asked me all about snowballs and making snowmen. "How does the snow stick to the snowball when you roll it to make the snowman?" "Hmm. Maybe all the snowflakes are friends and they just really want to hold onto each other." Her silence and semi-frown told me she was humouring my silliness. Oh well.

Photo essay: Oh, Summer.

Glow sticks.

Alright, this one will need some explanation. 

The girls got a whole bunch of glow sticks at a race we ran on new Year's Eve. As we were leaving the race, a friend suggested I put the glow sticks in the freezer so that they would last longer and the girls could play with them the next day. Great idea! So I put them in the freezer and forgot about them until today.

Sonja and Haven were very pleased to have their glow sticks again and they were playing with them in Haven's bedroom with the light off when Peter suggested I get my camera.

And this is what happened.

Sonja with her glow-stick necklace over her head; Haven waving hers around.

Haven trying to put her glow-stick necklace around Peter's neck.

Sonja pulling her glow-stick necklace apart and turning 
it into one long multi-coloured glow stick.

Intact once again, Sonja puts her glow-stick necklace around her neck.

Peter, the glow-stick creature.

I love this one: Haven was putting her glow-stick necklace around her neck
when Peter threw the other one and it landed behind her.

Then Sonja threw it and it bounced off the floor.

And then Peter asked Sonja to go long and try to catch one.

Not that I necessarily plan to take many more photos like these ones, but I am definitely planning to buy a box of glow sticks sometime soon. That was too much fun.

Give thanks.

I know that traditionally people are supposed to "give thanks" at Thanksgiving; we've all had to endure family dinners where everyone at the table is put on the spot, having to tell the group what they are thankful for. It's a nice idea in theory but we all sit there sweating, knowing that it will soon be our turn, just hoping we don't sound like fakes or saps or both.


I say screw it; New Year's Day has always been the time that I take stock. It's hard not to romanticize the first day of a new year and hope that it really is a clean slate where all your optimistic dreams can unfurl. 


But please don't mar that pristine, open space of possibility by mentioning resolutions. I don't want to change anything, but I really want to appreciate what I have. I want to remember that without the little things in the foreground, my big picture would be pretty uninteresting. 

So today I was definitely thankful for little girls who ride on their Daddy's shoulders while holding their toy phones. Pretty easy to be thankful for that.

And I was extra-specially thankful for little girls who wear their fairy-princess tiaras underneath their strawberry toques. There's something so super-hero-dressed-in-pink-girls-totally-rule about that.

But most of all I'm thankful that this is my life and this is my family. Tomorrow I'll likely lose my cool about some minor triviality and my rational brain and my reactionary brain with have a showdown. 


But for now it's all good.