My Favourite Child

I'm not sure if this is such a good topic to bring up, but I'm going to do it anyway. I have a favourite child. (Gasp! I've said it.) I don't feel bad for admitting this, because I have my reasoning.

Growing up as an only child, my childhood was very lonely. I have, to this day, wished that I had a sister, or sisters. If my Mom was to bear / adopt a child right now, I would jump up and down for joy. When I was ready to have children of my own, I knew it had to be more than one, not wanting my child to go through what I did, playing board games by myself. So not fun. Since I didn't grow up with siblings, I have no idea what it's like to vie for my parent's attention, to feel being favoured, or less of a favourite. Hence my insensitivity for brining this up! But I've always wondered, the parents who say, "I don't have a favourite child," are they being completely honest?

Why I have a favourite child is because they are different people, they are at different stages in their development, and their needs are different, which leads me to having favourites, at different times. When Atlas was a newborn, Castle was my favourite, because Atlas was very difficult with feeding. We had a rocky relationship those couple of months. Try being projectile vomited on a few times and day, not my favourite. Yet, when Castle started testing the boundaries of authority, especially when he says everything in his whiny voice, Atlas quickly became my favourite. I don't think I will ever love one child more than the other. But I'm not sure how I can love on them equally every moment of the day, because there's only one of me and two of them. This Mommy thing only gets more and more dynamic and interesting. When they get older I'm sure things will be different, especially when their little personalities really come out.

Latest LEGO Things: Gift Box Version 2

Last year on Mother's day, I received my present in a LEGO gift box.

This year, I was expecting the same, because I loved that box so much.

A LEGO gift box received, I did. Along with yellow roses, breakfast in bed, and my big boy rushing in to say happy mommies day.

Unfortunately, this year, my LEGO loving husband didn't hide his creation well enough away from me before the big reveal. There aren't that many places to hide things around here, and I got a glimpse of it a few days before.

In all honesty all I saw were yellow LEGO bricks in a box. He could have casually told me to put it somewhere else.

But no, when I found it in my craft cupboard I asked, "What's this doing here?" He quickly leaped off the couch to take it off my hands. Oh no, that didn't give it away AT ALL.

Inside the box with the really cool hinge was a gift card to my fuel my weakness for Camper. 

And a few words that I never get tired of hearing.

I wonder what next year's will look like. I'm looking forward to it already! (No pressure, boys.)

TV Bench to Vertical Planter

Our Ikea Liden TV bench... I first bought it when I moved to Vancouver, it was the cheapest thing in the TV bench section, it was functional, and it was temporary. I can't believe we've had it for so long, here it is as our TV bench:

 And then as our coffee table:

And now, as or vertical planter on our balcony!

Because with two kids in 800 sq. ft., who has room for a coffee table?

We took the base off and used some extra lumber to build out the planter boxes. Since we can't drill into the side of the building, the planter is pressure clamped on the sides of the column.

Drilled some holes for drainage. 

Lined the boxes with plastic, planted some ornamental grasses, and there it is, our first Ikea Hack!

Potty Training Diaries: Wee bit of Success

Success, a wee bit. Pun intended.

 The big boy has been diaper-less during awake times for a week now.

He takes to Smarties rewards. I was reading somewhere that you shouldn't use treats to potty train. 

I say to that someone somewhere, whatever! In the nicest way possible, of course.

He doesn't care for stickers, or a jumping up and down hooray party. He loves chocolate. LOVES. He responded to, "chocolate treat?" faster than anything else we've tried. 

Candy it is. He gets one Smartie every time he goes.

He gets two Smarties if he tells us he needs to go. You should see his eyes light up when we say TWO Smarties!

Photos are from our morning at Science World, playing at the density sculpture.

Our Weekend

It was sunny, exceptionally warm, and Grandma and Grandpa came to visit for the day.

 The 2 year old goofball spent the day running around until his legs fell off.

 The mini goofball slept the morning away in the stroller, only to wake up after we've all had lunch. Such good timing, baby.

 On this day, Daddy and the boys were not united as to which team they were rooting for.

No one dared to make fun of my little Leaf fans here in the West, how can you? They are too wee and too cute.

If anything, we got more support, people shouted "Go Leafs Go!" as we walked past. We love Vancouver on a sunny day.

Phew!

A few weeks ago my external back up for my computer died.

I tried pretty much everything to get it to work again. It just got worse and worse with each attempt. So I simply left it alone.

It was angry at me and I didn't want to be angry back. I left it alone for a few weeks. In reality I was too busy to think about it.

A couple of days ago, I needed to retrieve a photo off of it. About 5 years worth of stuff is on there and no where else.

I prayed about it and plugged the thing in. 

Well what do you know it came back to life!

I was so giddy with joy.

 To think, all of these memorable photos of my solo trip to the Galapagos Islands in 2007 would have been gone forever. And our wedding photos, those would have been gone, too.

Oh the things I used to do pre-kiddies.

I'm glad I get to relive this.

Yellow Dahlia

We went to the garden store and Castle picked out a pot of yellow dahlias for his plant to go on our balcony garden. His choice may have been swayed by Mommy.

He was going for the red geraniums, at which point his attention was diverted to the flower bed across the way. "Wow, look at all the pretty dahlia flowers here! Which ones are you going to choose, Castle?" Red was not going to work with our colour scheme.

He was not too interested in potting it, he just wanted to use his dinosaur watering can, in other words, all he wanted to do was to play with water.

Being garden loving people, sometimes it's hard to live in an apartment. When we were house hunting, a balcony with good light was on our priority list, so we can at least have a wee bit of outdoor space for some greenery. And a BBQ.