In a startling turn of events, we are "snowed in" while everyone back home seems to be enjoying a relatively green Christmas. I say "snowed in" because of course we could get out if we had anywhere to go today.
Last night was the crazy church-hopping night. It started with our sitter calling at 5 p.m. to find out if we were still going out or if our gigs had been cancelled due to the weather. At that time, there was sleet and some ice/snow pellets but not much accumulation. She said that her dad would drive her over, and I volunteered to take her home later.
When we arrived at Church #1 (the Presbyterians) it was deserted. I think that less than 100 people showed up for the 9 p.m. service. When we left, it was snowing but the wind was also blowing enough that scraping the car wasn't an issue. We headed out for Independence and Church #2.
The roads were somewhat snow covered but visibility was just fine. I wished that I had brought my camera when I saw the following road sign:
"Blizzard warning. Travel not advised."
Hmm, I thought. And what are we supposed to do when we're already on the highway with no easy way off since the minimal plowing that was done managed to nicely block several of the exits!??!
We arrived at Church #2 with about 10 minutes to spare before the pre-Midnight-Mass concert began. Mass ended at 1:15 and we headed out to see what awaited us in the parking lot. We were met by bitter winds and drifting snow. Thanks to our super-long scrapers, we had the van cleaned off and were on our way in no time.
The drive home took a little over an hour instead of the usual 40 minutes. There were a couple of points with poor visibility, but it was mostly slow due to snow-covered roads and lack of snow removal equipment. Ben would think it wrong if I did not mention the plows we saw driving by with their blades in the air doing nothing!
Once we reached the main road that leads to our street, we ended up behind a couple of snow plows. This would have been good were it not for the fact that they were nicely plowing the main road but effectively blocking the side streets. Luckily for us, they turned around at 155th St. and we had to turn in on 157th. Ben gunned it around the corner and we happily sped down the drifting snow on our street.
No, we weren't stupid enough to pull in the driveway. Instead, Ben turned around and parked the car at the end of the drive so that I could easily get out to take the sitter home. I warned her that she was in for an adventure, and off we went gunning it up the hill and back to the main road.
Unfortunately, the sitter's house was off the beaten path. The first road we turned down had tire tracks but after that it was all up to me and the good old Canadian van with snow tires! I apologized to her for not pulling into her driveway and asked directions home, hoping that I wouldn't have to attempt to turn around on her street. I was able to head down the hill, around a few corners, and back out to the main road, albeit driving on the wrong side of the road for a few blocks since that side had been cleared!
When I arrived back in our neighbourhood, it was as if I hadn't even been there a few minutes prior. "Eh, I drove through more snow than this in a 2-door Civic while 7 months pregnant with Anna," I thought as I cheerfully gunned the van down the street and onto the driveway where I beached it in a lovely drift of snow.
Rachel and I went out for a bit this morning and I did shovel some snow, but I will need to go back out later to get it right down to the driveway. She had a great time playing in the snow - Grandma Karen, the fleece pants over leggings worked just fine for now, but we still eagerly await the pretty purple snow pants at your house!
And while this could have been mentioned earlier, I should say that Anna woke up at 2:45, just after I left with the sitter. When I got back, she was in our bed with Ben. I got changed and then Ben got up to get changed. During this time, Anna decided that she was done sleeping for the night, thank you very much.
So Ben headed downstairs with her at 3:30 a.m. Before anyone feels sorry for the good doctor (more on that in another post!), he has been napping for 3 hours now. Anna took a 2 hour nap from 10:30-12:30 and woke up screaming. It's now almost 3 p.m. and I cannot wait for bedtime to arrive. I "slept" from 3:30-7:30 and I need to clean the house and get packed since we are leaving first thing Sunday morning.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Friday, December 04, 2009
In case you didn't know...
...the pumpkin pie I baked this afternoon would be infinitely better if I had remembered to put the sugar in it.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Apparently we're on a break
From homeschooling, that is. December is insanely busy for us and I would rather spend the time baking or doing other things with the kids. I'd rather sleep more too, but that doesn't really factor into the homeschooling time!
So, the semester in review:
Rachel can read, and more than that, she understand what she's reading. She flew through 2 phonics workbooks and is now very confident about long and short vowels, as well as basic blends. She has been doing some "reading comprehension" and if the cover of the book is to be believed, she finished a Grade 2 level book in a whopping 2 weeks or so. Yes, I'm bragging. I get to do that in my blog! Her printing is getting better, and she is starting to figure out how words are spelled using her new phonics skills.
Rachel also finished up a little book on "map skills", where she learned about directions, legends, and other stuff that I can't remember. This was apparently a hit since she has asked me several times if we can get another map skills workbook.
She's been working her way through a Grade 1 math book but we're temporarily stalled at subtraction facts up to 10. She can do them, but it's not intuitive the way the adding has been, so I think we'll go back and do some review. I need to go back and look at the Math-U-See curriculum I picked up last year to see if it would be helpful to finish up the Primer level of that or not.
Religious school has gone extremely well this fall. Kindergarten Consecration is next Saturday night and Rachel seems to be pretty excited about it. Her teachers are wonderful - they understand her, and she is able to confidently participate without being pushed too far out of her comfort zone. When the kids acted out the story of Noah's Ark, it was (too) conveniently arranged that Rachel would get to be an elephant. Needless to say, we have no trouble getting her out the door each Sunday morning. (Yes, I am daring to type that for posterity. Someone can throw it in my face in a few years!!)
We've done a few science-y things this fall, but not a lot. I think that I'll try to find some more experiments that we can do in the new year. We've decided to put Anna in preschool two mornings a week starting in January. She will love it, and that will give me some good focused time with Rachel. It will also give me some good, uninterrupted time at the coffee shop with a good book since preschool is on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-12 and Rachel is doing a 7-week art class from 9:30-11 on Tuesdays starting in mid-January! I will fully admit that I'm looking forward to this. While I have no desire to work full time, I have a fairly high need for personal space and "me" time, and that's been difficult to obtain this past semester.
Although Ben will "only" be working full-time out at UCMO in January, his schedule is more scattered. He will be gone from roughly 8-3MWF, 6:30-6 on Tuesdays, and 6:30-3 on Thursdays. So Tuesday does seem like a nice day for some Jane time, wouldn't you say? :)
We're also planning to try Rachel in private swimming lessons in January. She's taken Preschool I about 3-4 times now, and the only thing holding her back is her reluctance to put her head underwater on a regular basis. I can't say that I blame her, but she does need to learn to swim. I'm not concerned about when she learns, but since she's been enjoying her lessons, we might as well keep going.
Anna was attending a gym class at My Gym where we used to take Rachel, but we'll be pulling her out at the end of December. The class time conflicts with preschool, and she also would need to move to a different age group with less convenient times. Ben might take her to a parent and tot gymnastics class at the local rec centre, but that's dependent on me remembering to get up early and register her next Monday morning. I've heard that the spots fill up FAST.
And now I should stop taking a break myself, and get back to the kitchen. Oh wait, I'm in the kitchen. I should step away from the computer and go make the pumpkin pie I've been meaning to make for a few weeks now. Yum!
So, the semester in review:
Rachel can read, and more than that, she understand what she's reading. She flew through 2 phonics workbooks and is now very confident about long and short vowels, as well as basic blends. She has been doing some "reading comprehension" and if the cover of the book is to be believed, she finished a Grade 2 level book in a whopping 2 weeks or so. Yes, I'm bragging. I get to do that in my blog! Her printing is getting better, and she is starting to figure out how words are spelled using her new phonics skills.
Rachel also finished up a little book on "map skills", where she learned about directions, legends, and other stuff that I can't remember. This was apparently a hit since she has asked me several times if we can get another map skills workbook.
She's been working her way through a Grade 1 math book but we're temporarily stalled at subtraction facts up to 10. She can do them, but it's not intuitive the way the adding has been, so I think we'll go back and do some review. I need to go back and look at the Math-U-See curriculum I picked up last year to see if it would be helpful to finish up the Primer level of that or not.
Religious school has gone extremely well this fall. Kindergarten Consecration is next Saturday night and Rachel seems to be pretty excited about it. Her teachers are wonderful - they understand her, and she is able to confidently participate without being pushed too far out of her comfort zone. When the kids acted out the story of Noah's Ark, it was (too) conveniently arranged that Rachel would get to be an elephant. Needless to say, we have no trouble getting her out the door each Sunday morning. (Yes, I am daring to type that for posterity. Someone can throw it in my face in a few years!!)
We've done a few science-y things this fall, but not a lot. I think that I'll try to find some more experiments that we can do in the new year. We've decided to put Anna in preschool two mornings a week starting in January. She will love it, and that will give me some good focused time with Rachel. It will also give me some good, uninterrupted time at the coffee shop with a good book since preschool is on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-12 and Rachel is doing a 7-week art class from 9:30-11 on Tuesdays starting in mid-January! I will fully admit that I'm looking forward to this. While I have no desire to work full time, I have a fairly high need for personal space and "me" time, and that's been difficult to obtain this past semester.
Although Ben will "only" be working full-time out at UCMO in January, his schedule is more scattered. He will be gone from roughly 8-3MWF, 6:30-6 on Tuesdays, and 6:30-3 on Thursdays. So Tuesday does seem like a nice day for some Jane time, wouldn't you say? :)
We're also planning to try Rachel in private swimming lessons in January. She's taken Preschool I about 3-4 times now, and the only thing holding her back is her reluctance to put her head underwater on a regular basis. I can't say that I blame her, but she does need to learn to swim. I'm not concerned about when she learns, but since she's been enjoying her lessons, we might as well keep going.
Anna was attending a gym class at My Gym where we used to take Rachel, but we'll be pulling her out at the end of December. The class time conflicts with preschool, and she also would need to move to a different age group with less convenient times. Ben might take her to a parent and tot gymnastics class at the local rec centre, but that's dependent on me remembering to get up early and register her next Monday morning. I've heard that the spots fill up FAST.
And now I should stop taking a break myself, and get back to the kitchen. Oh wait, I'm in the kitchen. I should step away from the computer and go make the pumpkin pie I've been meaning to make for a few weeks now. Yum!
Here we go again
It was very busy at Costco this morning. The lady ahead of me and the cashier were discussing this, and then I heard one of them say, "Probably everyone is trying to get their shopping done before the snow comes."
Ah, yes. The big, bad, NOT EVEN IN THE FORECAST UNTIL TUESDAY snow. Scary stuff, especially on a sunny, cloudless day like today. While the temperatures are in the low 30s (so just below freezing), that is really the only sign of snow that I can see at the moment.
I'm driving out of town four days in a row this weekend for gigs. Do I seem worried? We don't have our snow tires on yet. Again, do I seem worried? And *gasp* I haven't stocked up on bottle water in case it snows. That's because if it snows so darn much that you can't get water, um, there's this thing called SNOW. It melts. Then it becomes water. That, my friends, is called the water cycle.
I'll spare everyone the rant on inappropriately dressed people and cold weather. Suffice it to say that my children know how to dress for winter. I even found an adorable pink kitty cat hat that Anna loves, so no hat throwing for her this year!
Ah, yes. The big, bad, NOT EVEN IN THE FORECAST UNTIL TUESDAY snow. Scary stuff, especially on a sunny, cloudless day like today. While the temperatures are in the low 30s (so just below freezing), that is really the only sign of snow that I can see at the moment.
I'm driving out of town four days in a row this weekend for gigs. Do I seem worried? We don't have our snow tires on yet. Again, do I seem worried? And *gasp* I haven't stocked up on bottle water in case it snows. That's because if it snows so darn much that you can't get water, um, there's this thing called SNOW. It melts. Then it becomes water. That, my friends, is called the water cycle.
I'll spare everyone the rant on inappropriately dressed people and cold weather. Suffice it to say that my children know how to dress for winter. I even found an adorable pink kitty cat hat that Anna loves, so no hat throwing for her this year!
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
December madness
Oh, the insanity. Here are the highlights of the upcoming month for us:
*One thesis defense
*4 final exams for Ben to give, plus serving on the piano proficiency and composition juries
*One final theory project for Ben to hand in
*Two choir performances
*Kindergarten consecration
*Family Hanukkah party at shul
*Ben's convocation
*14 babysitters in 24 days plus an additional 7 services for me that don't require a sitter since Ben isn't playing
*1 wedding
*1 drunken Christmas party gig
*2 churches on Christmas Eve
*1 cheesy Christmas concert
*2 performances of Messiah
*2 choral concerts with cello
*1 church gig with possibly decent music (we'll find out in a couple of weeks!)
*1 church gig with awful music (last year included real snow falling on the choir members' heads during White Christmas and what Ben has dubbed Mary Potter, aka a ballet version with Mary dancing on/with a broomstick)
*1 visit from the piano tuner
*1 quick trip to London for Ben
*1 "big girl" excursion to the play version of "Little House on the Prairie" with a friend and her daughter
December 25th can't come soon enough! In addition to all of that, Rachel wants to do a 3-day "Mommy and Me" skating session, they both have 2 more Kindermusik classes, Rachel has 3 more piano lessons, and I think that Anna still has 3 more gym classes. Ben and I are teaching our two students, and I think I have at least 1 client meeting scheduled this month.
Someone will have to remind me in January that I was craving calm. Oh wait. Who am I kidding? I love the craziness!
*One thesis defense
*4 final exams for Ben to give, plus serving on the piano proficiency and composition juries
*One final theory project for Ben to hand in
*Two choir performances
*Kindergarten consecration
*Family Hanukkah party at shul
*Ben's convocation
*14 babysitters in 24 days plus an additional 7 services for me that don't require a sitter since Ben isn't playing
*1 wedding
*1 drunken Christmas party gig
*2 churches on Christmas Eve
*1 cheesy Christmas concert
*2 performances of Messiah
*2 choral concerts with cello
*1 church gig with possibly decent music (we'll find out in a couple of weeks!)
*1 church gig with awful music (last year included real snow falling on the choir members' heads during White Christmas and what Ben has dubbed Mary Potter, aka a ballet version with Mary dancing on/with a broomstick)
*1 visit from the piano tuner
*1 quick trip to London for Ben
*1 "big girl" excursion to the play version of "Little House on the Prairie" with a friend and her daughter
December 25th can't come soon enough! In addition to all of that, Rachel wants to do a 3-day "Mommy and Me" skating session, they both have 2 more Kindermusik classes, Rachel has 3 more piano lessons, and I think that Anna still has 3 more gym classes. Ben and I are teaching our two students, and I think I have at least 1 client meeting scheduled this month.
Someone will have to remind me in January that I was craving calm. Oh wait. Who am I kidding? I love the craziness!
Little comedian
The other day at breakfast, Ben looked over to see Anna gnawing on the edge of our kitchen table. She was very proud of being allowed to sit on the "big girl chair" and not in the highchair.
When she spotted Ben looking at her, she looked up and said, "I eating table!" Then she changed to a lower voice as if she was imitating one of us and said, "Don't eat table!"
Yesterday while Ben was in the shower and I was still in bed, Anna was running around in our bedroom/bathroom. There isn't a door to the master bathroom, so she likes to zip all around while we're getting ready in the mornings. I heard a crash, followed by "Oof! I fall down!" "Are you ok?" I called out half-heartedly from underneath the warm covers. "I ok!" she yelled back cheerfully.
When she spotted Ben looking at her, she looked up and said, "I eating table!" Then she changed to a lower voice as if she was imitating one of us and said, "Don't eat table!"
Yesterday while Ben was in the shower and I was still in bed, Anna was running around in our bedroom/bathroom. There isn't a door to the master bathroom, so she likes to zip all around while we're getting ready in the mornings. I heard a crash, followed by "Oof! I fall down!" "Are you ok?" I called out half-heartedly from underneath the warm covers. "I ok!" she yelled back cheerfully.
An update of sorts
First of all, a public apology to Karen D. who has probably endured many a sleepless night wondering what happened with the Anna pj experiment! (Ok, she probably has been having sleepless nights because she has a little baby - yay! - but I digress.)
We have concluded that the pjs have nothing whatsoever to do with Anna's ability to sleep through the night, although she does get unreasonably excited when the monkey jammies come out! Socks also do not have a noticeable impact.
We are fairly certain that Anna is almost done teething until the 2-year molars come in. She's been drooling a lot, and it looks like there are only 2 more top teeth that need to poke through. Since I still have a baby tooth, Rachel has yet to lose any teeth, and she didn't get her 2-year molars until she was closer to 2.5, I suspect that we will have some time without teething pain and sleeplessness.
I don't want to jeopardize the pleasantness of the past few nights, so I won't say that Anna has slept 9-10 hours straight and has woken up in a cheerful mood at 5:30 or even 6 a.m. several nights in a row!
We have concluded that the pjs have nothing whatsoever to do with Anna's ability to sleep through the night, although she does get unreasonably excited when the monkey jammies come out! Socks also do not have a noticeable impact.
We are fairly certain that Anna is almost done teething until the 2-year molars come in. She's been drooling a lot, and it looks like there are only 2 more top teeth that need to poke through. Since I still have a baby tooth, Rachel has yet to lose any teeth, and she didn't get her 2-year molars until she was closer to 2.5, I suspect that we will have some time without teething pain and sleeplessness.
I don't want to jeopardize the pleasantness of the past few nights, so I won't say that Anna has slept 9-10 hours straight and has woken up in a cheerful mood at 5:30 or even 6 a.m. several nights in a row!
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