Why 7 is not your lucky number (public service announcement)

So, we have a LOT of plastic around here. Plastic has been the name of the game for a good 5 years - indestructible, cheap and... safe? If you have kids using plastic bottles, cups and plates, you should maybe take a quick look at this and just check to make sure the items you are using are safe. Other links of interest may be this and this...

Things I am loving right now...

Summer fruit



The kiddie table



Punch pizza



Baseball caps on little girls



Cameo stainless steel cleaner (that's my sink)



Lilacs (you knew that). The smell comes in through my kitchen window. And keeps on reminding me: I am loving lilacs right now.



Cupcakes, just for fun.



With candles. (why not?)



Extreme bravery in the face of reptiles (yes, that's a snake the Lamb is touching)



Hand-me-downs that fit perfectly and are weather-appropriate



When 2 little girls share a joke...


... life doesn't get much better.

Good times at the park

... necessitate a good hand/foot washing.


Thank God for double sinks.

for the love of A-R-T

Partly because of this book, I began to think that we needed to make a commitment to our art around this house. The Lamb makes a piece of art just about every day. Sometimes it ends up on the wall, or in the mail, or sometimes not, but every day she had to climb into THIS space for paper and supplies:


That is the bottom of our coat closet. Coats from the waist up, and from the waist down: glue, scissors, sticker books, paper, sequins, paint, brushes, crayons, markers, playdough, tape, ribbon, glitter, colouring books, pom-pom animals, collage cut-outs, pipe cleaners... am I missing anything? Well, no one could find anything - as much as I tried to keep it organized, it was impossible. The Lamb herself had to crawl in on all fours to get a good look for what she needed.

Time to make a commitment to being a creative family, showing our kids we respect what they like to do and facilitating that for them. Time for... IKEA!!


Ah, self-assembly. The Professor's absolute favourite thing to do.


I started on the organizational end. It wasn't pretty.


Meanwhile the Professor continued to build the shelves which he always says will take 45 minutes but always always always take 2 hours.


Meanwhile the kids were having a hard time staying awake, but remained committed to the project.


It was all worth it, and by the morning...


TA-DA!!!

In bloom...

In which child lives in 'Time Out'

Time-outs in our house take place at the bottom of the stairs. The intersection between the bathroom, linen closet, the Lamb's bedroom and the dining room. But it is essentially closed off, a perfect "thinking space" for contemplating one's wrongdoings. The Lamb doesn't end up there very often, but she's allowed to drag her soft chair over to make her time there more comfy. The LionCub has just started on time-outs, because she's only 2 years old. I don't use them a lot, but right now she gets a 2 minute time-out for hitting. Which she's been doing a bit of recently... So much so that I guess she feels she ought to set up camp:


In what I consider to be a possibly subversive toddler tactic, after her time-out was finished, apologies made and hugs exchanged, she returned to that spot and stayed there another 5 minutes at least. Smiling all the while.

Rent: "Unknown White Male"

Just watched a fascinating documentary called Unknown White Male about a 37 year old man who found himself on the subway in New York one day and had no idea who he was. He was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops and carried no identification. His only connection to the real world was a phone number on a scrap of paper tucked in a book in his backpack.

Doug Bruce suffered a retrograde amnesia that erased every single memory. He could sign his signature, but didn't know his name. He could speak English (with a British accent) but didn't know his hometown, or who the Queen was. He could swim but he had never seen the ocean.

The documentary follows this grown man as he begins to live his life as if for the first time. There is footage of his first snow and fireworks. He falls in love - in his mind the first and only love he's ever known. He discovers Mexican food and sushi and a hamburger. He sees a baby for the first time and is mesmerized by his tiny little hand. It is beautiful in many parts and there were lots of insightful comments about the nature of memory and personality and how we become who we are. How much of you would be left if you couldn't remember a single thing about yourself? if all your memories disappeared?

It was sad too in a way, that he seems a lot of the time to be holding up a facade for his friends and family. Long after he seems to have made peace with the idea of starting a new life they are still trying to fit him back into the old friend they knew. He tries, mainly for their sakes, but he seems awkward meeting his oldest friends for the first time - one of whom makes a joke in the pub about cricket and he asks "is that a drink or some kind of insect?"

Very enjoyable film with lots of food for thought on science, philosophy and psychology, anchored by an interesting situation and compelling subject...

Bush gives up golf in sympathy to Iraqis

I just watched this on a friend's blog. It's intense, but I think there are some of you out there who will enjoy it. If political talk makes you queasy then, uh, skip it.



I thought this guy's head was going to explode.

Baggu!

A friend of mine had this at our playdate this morning, and I am SO ordering myself one (or 8).


The nylon Baggu bag folds into a tiny little square that you can keep in your purse, diaper bag, glove compartment... just about anywhere. It's perfect to bring out when suddenly your children start shedding their coats, perfect for groceries, perfect for bringing along rainboots just in case.


I'm sure I'll be writing a product review sometime soon...

4 year old overheard playing

(when Polly Pockets and dinosaurs mix)

"Oh no, we never should have brought this pet home! Look at what he's doing to all our clothes!!"

(roaring noises while small plastic dinosaur takes off with Polly's pink high heel cowboy boots)

"No! No!"

Bean

I got the news today - long expected and yet still so sad. We have lost a friend, our friend has lost his wife, and two little girls have lost their mother. I feel for them and for her. Her daughters are not much older than mine. She was not any older than me. Too soon, too fast and so very sad.

But what a fight Jeannie, you put up the best fight.

If you have some time today or tonight read a little bit about Relay For Life. Jeannie's team raised a lot of money last year - like thousands. It was her signature event these last few years and part of the legacy she leaves behind. This year we want to show her family and her children how inspired we are by her life and her spirit. If you can, put your wallet where your heart is. Donate something, anything at all, to Jeannie's relay team.

Follow THIS link and select "Make a pledge" from the menu to the left. Next select "Pledge a Team." The team name is

TEAM BEAN

and the location is Orleans - Millenium Park.

Thank you.