June!

here's the rundown of the haps at whitekirk...

~the Music Man joined facebook. grrrr.
~I baked a rhubarb pie today.
~Monkey is potty trained. Yay!
~It's finally warm out around here. And our apple tree is only just blooming now.
~Bren and her family moved to town. Yay!
~we planted a garden. Hopefully it grows.
~umm, that's about it for now.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week and enjoying your version of beautiful June weather.

*me singing in an affected Rogers and Hammerstein voice*
"June is bustin' out all over, the feeling is gettin' so intense, and the young virginia creepers have been huggin' the be-jeebers out of all the morning glories on the fence...Because it's June (June June June) just because it's June! June! Ju-u-u-u-une!"

This makes me happy.

Nanking Cherry blossoms on our neighbour's tree, which overhangs our yard. Ahhh.

Little Boy Blue

Heidi is a sweet blogging friend. She always comments and is very friendly and positive. She has two sons, one of which, Little Boy Blue, has Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. I had never heard of CdLS before I started reading about Blue, and coming up this week on May 9th it is CdLS Awareness Day. So Heidi has asked her blogging friends to help spread the word about CdLS.

You can find any information you need about CdLS at the Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Foundation website (the following is from that site). You can also read about Little Boy Blue at Heidi's blog. He's a sweetie and he'll melt your heart! If you would like to help Heidi inform others about CdLS, read about her contest. And now, some of the CdLS basics...

CdLS is a congenital syndrome, meaning it is present from birth. Most of the signs and symptoms may be recognized at birth or shortly thereafter. A child need not demonstrate each and every sign or symptom for the diagnosis to be made.

As with other syndromes, individuals with CdLS strongly resemble one another. Common characteristics include: low birthweight (often under five pounds), slow growth and small stature, and small head size (microcephaly). Typical facial features include thin eyebrows which frequently meet at midline (synophrys), long eyelashes, short upturned nose and thin, downturned lips.

Other frequent findings include excessive body hair (hirsutism), small hands and feet, partial joining of the second and third toes, incurved fifth fingers, gastroesophageal reflux, seizures, heart defects, cleft palate, bowel abnormalities, feeding difficulties, and developmental delay. Limb differences, including missing limbs or portions of limbs, usually fingers, hands or forearms, are also found in some individuals.

A Dream indeed.

If you haven't seen (heard!) this yet, then take a few minutes to go and have a look. It will make your day.

Talk about life lessons on a Variety Show.

Toddler-Vision

Monkey and I were coming up the walk to the house after a long morning of running errands* (including a visit to the doctor who saw me in the ER. He said my finger is healing very nicely, so that's good). I was rushing to get inside to quickly make lunch before nap time when Monkey called out to me, "There's an ANT!" and with no hesitation he got down on his belly to examine this thing - this first creepy-crawly of the season. We didn't have much time to look at it, but I promised we would come out again after his sleep.

And we did. After nap we went outside to play. We had trouble finding any ants this time (although we did eventually), but we found a few lady bugs. "THERE'S A LADY BUG ON THIS ROCK!" Monkey informed me, as though it were the most important thing ever. After we had our fill of bug watching we went splashing in the puddles. Lucky for us (but unlucky for anyone who wants to walk down the sidewalk) the sidewalk is low in front of our house and is covered in water. That ten foot stretch kept my wee boy occupied for the better part of an hour. Actually, more than occupied - engaged and excited.

Thank God for the way our little people see the world, and for the way they help us to see it, too.

* when I was small I thought people were saying "running Erins". It confused me a lot. I figured it out eventually though.

I like to move it move it

So, I signed up for a six-week session at the local dance studio for and adult beginner "Afro-Fusion" class.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, stop laughing now. It should be fun. True, I haven't done any actual "dancing" since our school musical in grade twelve (and that barely counts as dancing.) I tried to convince a friend to join with me, but clearly her common sense is more developed than mine and she declined.

My mom is always taking interesting classes. Jazz dance, belly dance, Flamenco, French. I often wish we lived in the same town so that I could take some fun things with her. But we don't, so I will go, for the next 6 Monday evenings, to a dance studio where I will likely know no one, and try to keep up with "a combination of Hip Hop and African...with style and funky choreography...cutting edge choreography that will bring their heart rates up!...fun and energizing dance class workout!"

Wish me luck...

Don't scare me like that

The scene: This evening at bedtime, in Monkey's room.

Monkey (who had just been watching a National Geographic video about dogs, and was thus not Monkey, but a puppy) was ready to "jump into bed." He took his pillow and put it on the wrong end of the bed, and hung his blanket on the wrong side of the bed. He turned off the light (with daddy's help) and jumped into bed. No story, no nursing. With backwards pillow and blanket. It appeared that this bedtime was going to be completely different than any other.

"Are you going straight to bed? No story?"

Oh. No, he decides he actually does want a story.
The story is finished. He jumps back in bed. He doesn't want to be covered with his blanket.

"Daddy, sing me a song."
Song sung. We are ready to leave him to sleep. We figure if he doesn't want to nurse, we won't bring it up.

Kisses.

Pause.


"Mommy. I want some nuk-in'"

Ah.

So it turns out he is not ready to completely change his bedtime routine. The blanket and pillow went back to their rightful places as well. It's not that I would mind if he started to cut back on nursing. Let's just not start with the bedtime nursing; the calming, cuddling, drifting off to sleep nursing.

Don't scare me like that.