Still waiting...

(At my friend Jeannie's wedding, July 21st)

Of course I would love for this to be the post where I put pictures up of our lovely little bundle of joy and I talk about how actually the labour really wasn't as bad as I was anticipating and Luke just adores his new sibling and life as 4 is grand. But this is not that post. No, this is the post where I say, yes, I'm STILL waiting, yes, I'm 4 days overdue, yes, I've heard numerous stories of people who go at least 2 weeks overdue (is that supposed to be encouraging somehow?!?) and yes, at church on Sunday I did get 6 or 7 "oh, you're still here!" comments. I figured instead of getting annoyed at them I should just count them and make it a game. It's funny, I'm a games person but it wasn't my favorite game in the end. Oh well. If you're reading this and you told me you went 2 weeks overdue or said "you're still here" at church, don't worry about it, I'm starting to find it all rather amusing. Why do doctors bother giving due dates anyway!?? I was going to be so good this time about not fixating on a due date but that's turned out to be impossible. Probably also because for the last two weeks I've had mini contractions and keep thinking I'm going into labour, but as you can see, no such luck. I'm actually starting to believe that maybe this is just my new look and I should get used to it. I've actually had so many compliments on my pregnant body that I should probably not be so eager to give it up. I mean, truly, when have my abs been tighter?

In other news, I did deal with the kitchen papers. I just feel better about you all knowing as opposed to thinking that my husband is working like a dog and I just sit around eating m&m's all day. I'll have you know that I've varied my diet slightly today and ate an ice cream cone and a half (Luke didn't finish his), an oreo, toast (today surprising without nutella) and some watermelon. I'm a firm believer in a varied diet.

I fear if I continue I'll just be pleading with you all to pray for my uterus to contract and that may just sound a bit desperate or ridiculous (but go for it if you'd like) so I think I'll just post a few pictures and call it a day.

Luke in the Mr. Rooter van...

Self-portrait using our new camera Babysitting my nieces...I answered a phone call and came back to see Alexandra reading a story to Victoria and Luke. Maybe we should look into getting a six-year-old as well as a baby.My beautiful friend Jeannie getting married a little over a week ago. What an absolutely beautiful wedding it was too!!!

Waiting for baby

(Almost 37 weeks here...due date, July 26th!)

So, my life these days consists of the following:

Trying to get as much sleep as possible

Making lists, either mentally or on paper, of things I neither have the ability or the energy to do but feel it absolutely necessary to get done before the baby comes

Lying awake at night wondering how to get sleep and to get the items on my lists done.

Isn't the end of pregnancy grand?

Really we have accomplished a TON in the last month, as now our basement is fully carpeted and even has furniture and toys down there, but it seems like the lists are never-ending. Oh well, in the end all a newborn needs is some clothes, diapers and milk and they are as happy as they are going to be. So I'm telling myself not to worry about my lists. I still think I may go fabric shopping tomorrow and try to make curtains and an easy quilt for Luke's bed though. Is that unrealistic? Probably.

Besides all that, summer so far has been great. We've been to the wading pool, back to the cottage and even had a week of "Pioneer Days" at my mom and dad's place. My parents took care of my two neices for a week and my mother is probably one of the most creative people I know, so she decided it would be fun (and a lot of work) to put together "Pioneer Days" for the kids, every day from 12-2. It happened twice and was amazing both days. She made little bonnets and skirts for the girls, put together a general store with cans stacked in a pyramid and baked goods to be bought, made a well out of a hanger and a bucket and margarine containers, organized a field day with races and high jump, and made up a little school complete with lunch pails and Oh Canada and age appropriate activities. (Luke got his very own slate, boy was he proud). I keep hoping my mom's creative genetics will somehow jump over to me, but I still haven't mastered the art of abounding creativity with limited resources. She is a true pioneer.

Another thing I've decided to take on (because as you can see I'm obviously not busy enough) is to start selling Norwex products. Actually, now that my first two parties are done I think it'll be quite do-able and I'm really excited about it. The products are amazing (great for the environment and health, easy to use, much cheaper in the long run) and after my first fairly successful go at selling the stuff, I have made no money but will have a lot of great cleaning products which will, of course, make my life easier and save me time and money. I truly do believe this, all sarcasm aside, which is why I wanted to get a bunch of stuff BEFORE the baby comes. So tomorrow I get my mop and toilet bowl brush and that's why, if you come over tonight, you will be quite unimpressed by the state of my bathroom and floors. Actually, my floors aren't bad as long as you don't look under the couch. I haven't been that keen in a while. I wish they had an environmentally friendly way of organizing kitchen papers because I'm sure I'd spend through the nose for it, but I have this funny feeling that that particular chore might require a human brain. I'm wishing it wasn't mine. The way I like to deal with all the paperasse (French for paper crap) that comes into my life is to put them in various piles throughout the house and hope that sometime I go back to it. I even got so keen one time as to organize the junk into a little filing system, but I suppose the only useful thing about that would be to go back and look through it once in a while. Instead, I now have a bunch of papers beside my little filing system, to be filed, as well as the more pertinent junk sitting in another pile in my kitchen. Julio will probably groan severely or wonder why I'm writing about this instead of dealing with it, but somehow this is much easier. Julio is an amazing organizer, I feel that spouses should compliment each other in giftings and I'm more than happy to let him have this one. The only problem is he's also the furniture mover, the kitchenette for the basement installer, the electrician, the plumber, the swing set putter-together-er, and, oh right, family provider. I'm feeling convicted, I think tomorrow is my day to deal with paper. Surely that isn't an evening job, right?!?

Okay, this is a babble post. Sorry about that. On to more exciting things. Here are a few pictures of our recent lives.

Pioneer Days:

Luke peeking out from the horse-drawn carriage (my mom was the horse, she's probably glad she's not in the picture). Note lunch pails (aka yogurt containers with handles). Luke walked around with his proudly for a long time.

School. Luke is very intent on his work, I'm so proud.

Alexandra and the one-room school house woodstove. She was the oldest so it was her responsibility to stoke the fire once in a while.

More cousin fun, not during Pioneer Days. Luke loves Auntie Marcia because he gets pedialyte freezies from her. I love Auntie Marcia because this was taken while I was out fabric shopping, sans Luke.

Another reason to love Auntie Marcia and her stuff. They have a kid's golf set which he requests when we go over there. Papa Ron would be proud of this pose I should think!More cottage fun. We do the same things every time we're there (walking, beaching, hanging out inside) so there isn't much variety from the last post, except for the shirtless beach shots this time. Don't worry, I didn't participate.

We saw these two baby foxes on the road by our cottage. If I had Robyn and Kevin's paparazzi abilities you'd be truly impressed.I went out for about half an hour and came back, only to find out that Luke and dad had a major photo shoot with all the forts they made. Julio is more fun in half an hour than I am in a week!
Luke was "tucking Bear in" here. Bear is suffocating at the bottom of the pile somewhere.Don't worry, Bear made it.

And now for some Luke stories. Current favorite Luke phrases:

"I show you works" (translation: I'll show you how this works)

"Be back!" (spoken like a tough guy with his index finger in the air, as in, I'll be right back).

"Big truck" or "Big tractor" or "Big van"...again, spoken in a lower, more masculine tone.

Any number of random comments, followed by, "hey mom?".

He has also decided that men need vehicle/power tool associations. For example, "daddy...van". Or "Papa Ron...big truck!". Or "Stan...lawn-mower" (he's never even seen Stan's lawnmower but he says this almost daily). Or "Uncle Nino (Dino)...big truck!". Those are the most common. Once in a while Papa Ron gets a table saw or Nannie or Gramma Anne get a car, but the afore-mentioned are the most common. His other new favorite thing is a little song I made up to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus". It goes "daddy in the van says I'll fix it, I'll fix it, I'll fix it...". I'll often hear him singing when we're in the car, "daddy, fick it, fick it". It's way too cute. Sadly he almost never sings the mommy verse. He more often requests the "bear" verse which goes, "Bear in the van says What is plumbing?" because I figure Bear doesn't have a whole lot upstairs. So I'll often hear "Bear...plumbing, bear...plumbing". Oh well, I've given up being jealous of a Bear. I have too many lists to think up.

My sweet Luke

The other day Luke and I were lying down to take a nap, and as he was lying there he suddenly asked me, "mommy, sad?". And I said, "no Luke, I'm happy". And then he smiled, and paused for a second and said, "happy...too".
And on the topic of sappy Luke stories, tonight I was having a moment, as I was singing Luke songs before putting him down to sleep, of hoping that once our new baby comes the cuddles with Luke won't have to stop too much and that I'll still get to hold him and rock him and feel that closeness with him that I've been feeling so much lately. And so I started to cry a little and Luke looked at me and said, "hug?" and of course I said yes and he gave me the biggest squeezer hug. But I wasn't done my moment so I still had a few tears and so then he looked at me again and said, "daddy, hug?". He's really connected with the fact that Julio can fix stuff. I thought it was sweet. I'm so glad he's such a sensitive little guy, for as busy and active as he is. Sometimes I can't imagine a more amazing kid, but I guess we'll meet another version of amazing in a few weeks...
(To perpetuate the sap, check out the "see a falcon, live!" link on the side. It's a mom and her falcon babies on top of the Radisson Hotel in Winnipeg and you can watch it live all the time. Luke doesn't like it when "Big One Bird" (the momma) is gone though, so we mostly only watch it when she is around giving her babies "snacks" as I refer to them (dead pigeons, etc). It's quite addictive, really! Okay, we don't have a tv, but still...!!)

Weekend fun with Keena and Jello (Luke's now on a first name basis with us)

After endless days and nights of working on the basement, the drywall is up and we took a much needed break. Julio sometimes laughs at my "we", when I say things like, "we" should do this in the basement, or how much do "we" have left to do...but you get my point. I feel like I needed a break too...So, here's our weekend in a (potentially long) nutshell.
Julio had Friday to Sunday off, so we joined a friend of mine who teaches at TCI in a family studies class where they run a nursery school and went to the zoo with teenagers and toddlers and my pregnant teacher friend. It was a gorgeous day, but I think Luke enjoyed the puddles he found probably a bit more than the animals. They were so hot and tired that Julio referred to the leopard as looking like just a big rug so why would Luke care, but at least the bison were massive enough to get noticed. The bears were a hit, however, and we stood there for a good long time watching them roam around. After days of rain and drywall, we were happy just to be out! And it was great having huge "roads" without cars for Luke to run around on. So we had fun.
Luke and Julio enjoying the bears.
Apparently just me enjoying the monkeys.Attempt #5 at getting a family photo. Sorry Julio doesn't get more face, it's the best we could do. After our zoo excursion, we finished our packing and headed out for the lake. Luke slept the whole way down which was awesome and was ready for some serious fun when we got to the cottage. The weekend was a blast. Basically our routine was the same for the two days we were there: Get up way too early (thank you Luke!), eat a massive breakfast, clean-up toys and dishes and get ready to go for a walk by 9am. That felt far too productive for a morning on what was supposed to be a lazy weekend, but I'm realizing that lazy needs to get redefined, i.e., going to bed at 9pm as opposed to wishing you could sleep in until 9am. Anyway, we went for a walk both days, Luke gathered up stones and put them in his pockets to throw in the lake, we visited a bit with my uncle and aunt who have a cabin down there too, spent a couple of hours on the beach, ate again, slept, tried to convince Luke that swimming and getting all gross wasn't fun twice in one day, played with fun toys on my aunt and uncle's deck, ate some more, Luke went to bed, Julio and I played games, we crashed. It was truly great. The weather was amazing and Luke was way too much fun. He always amazes us with his continual enthusiasm and energy and all the funny things he comes up with. So, here's a glimpse at our fun:
Our "walk". The normal 15 minute loop took us about an hour. To be honest, it was the perfect pace for me. Luke didn't want to sit in his stroller, so he meandered here and there and did the occasional sprint with Julio.

Gotta be just like dad. Fun at the beach. I look huge. Wow. (I'm 32 weeks here, for those who are interested. It's just the angle, really...)
Burying our toes...the only really "relaxing" activity Luke would let us do at the beach. We buried our toes A LOT.

The "sa-wide"! This is the stupidest slide I've ever seen, as it is too wide, the stairs too steep, the slats too narrow and the slide too fast for children under 12 basically...very annoying but Luke loved it and seeing as my balance is questionable, Julio was the designated "sa-wider" all weekend. While they slided, I worked hard on my rock art. (see next picture)

Luke's favorite thing was to throw rocks in the lake, so I bum-scooted around the beach (quite the sight I'm sure, we were, thankfully, the only ones on the beach) finding him rocks and he would run to me, get the rocks, run back to Julio and they would throw them in. A brief visit by Papa Ron and "A-Anne" (Gramma Anne officially). For all of you worried about heavy machinery and small children, the tractor was not running with Luke in the vicinity. (happy Marcia?!?)
On Uncle Don and Aunt Betty's deck...they had a bunch of tools that Luke happily stored in the trunk of this car and drove around with. At one point he actually tried to take off with the entire car and bring it to our cabin. And I can't be certain he didn't stash their hammer in a pocket somewhere...the boy LOVES hammers! Finally, back home. In the last week or so, Luke has seriously bonded with his stuffed bear. "Bear", or "Beer" as it often sounds to me (I've been secretly calling him "Labatt" but don't tell Julio...), has his own place at the table now. Directly across from Luke. We must hold Bear's hands to pray, we try to feed Bear but he hasn't quite mastered the chewing thing yet, we very nearly even gave Bear a time-out yesterday. It's been interesting. As is Bear's smell...I really must wash him soon...

sushi and cousin fun

Julio took me out to Wasabi for Mother's Day, my favorite sushi place in Winnipeg. It was so great. We hadn't been on a date in a while so we kind of went crazy and ordered way too much and ate for sure way too much and it was wonderful. I remember going to bed that night still feeling full and we had eaten hours earlier. So here are some shots of before, during, and after. For sure my favorite moment of the evening was watching Julio eat a massive hunk of squid. We ordered mostly rolls but like getting a few sushi pieces too (hunks of raw fish on rice) and they had a "chef's collection" thing where we get whatever the chef wants us to eat. So the tray of it comes and Julio and I check it out and started eyeing the squid rather suspiciously. It was white and bumpy and looked like an albino hunk of rubber and didn't appeal to either of us very much. But Julio, being the man he is, dove in. I could tell from the first moment it was in his mouth that he wasn't having that glorious let-me-savour-ever-bite experience. It was more, what do I do with this unchewable mass. I don't think I've ever seen him chew so long in his life. I kept asking "is it good?" "do you need to spit it out?" and eventually "are you okay?" to which he just continued chewing with a disgusted look on his face. I couldn't help but laugh and feel like I was watching "Fear Factor" but eventually he did swallow it. The rest of the meal was definitely amazing, hence the "I'm so full I'm going to burst" picture of me at the end. We were going to go out to a movie or go for a walk or something afterward but I was so full all I could think about was lying on the couch. Definitely not the squid moment. He's smiling.On Saturday I watched Luke's cousin Eli for the morning and it was so cool to see Luke and him interact. They're 4 weeks to the day apart and it's fascinating to see the similarities and differences in them. I'm so glad he has a cousin so close in age. I was actually kind of looking forward to having him over as Luke usually does better when he has someone to play with whose ability to sit on the floor and play for hours or run circles around the island is far superior to my ever decreasing ability. So they had a blast. I realized when he was over that having more kids isn't more work, it's different work. You're off entertainment duty and more on clean-up messes duty. And strangely enough, I think I'm okay with the clean-up mess duty! I vacuumed once and swept three times while he was here and was totally glad to do it. Because Luke and Eli were just so content and having such a great time. Maybe having another kid won't be so bad...except that they won't be any fun for Luke for, hmmm...years maybe?!?!?

Basement renovations

I'm happy to report that our basement renos have really been taking off these days. We found a guy to do our mudding and taping of our drywall and have booked him for an exact DATE even, and so the pressure is on to get the drywall up. Julio has been working really hard at it and it's coming along great, although I don't really know much about drywalling, so just seeing walls up in any form makes me more than happy. I think this whole basement reno thing has really deepened Julio and Luke's relationship. He's asking for "daddy" more than "mom" these days and will often say to Julio as he's waking up first thing in the morning, "daddy? stairs?" (as in, downstairs). And often throughout the day he mentions "daddy" and "nails" or "tools" or "hammer". I've been feeling a little left in the dust, so the last few days I've been trying to up my status with Luke and have taken him downstairs to do some hammering with him. He looks at me with such admiration when I get that nail to stick in the board that I can't help but be somewhat proud, even though the "nails" we're using are actually drywall screws in a piece of scrap 2x4 that only goes in a quarter of an inch. But he's impressed.
Today my status really got bumped up a notch as I cut out my first sheet of drywall. I got to use a drywall level and one of those chunky flat pencils and an exacto knife. I kept the pencil behind my ear for a good hour afterward, just reveling in my new talent.

Luke is downstairs right now with Julio and "Tata" (Julio's dad) and I've heard a few "touche pas" so I should probably go give Julio a break. But not before sharing a few pictures of our family work day:

twinkle, twinkle

I couldn't believe he did this for me on video, he usually gets camera shy. Had to share.

And a picture.

Toddler translation

I have a few new favorite words. They are, of course, all thanks to Luke. I have always loved the way kids mispronounce words and have adopted their version as my own on many occasions, and now, to my great delight, I have my own little person to imitate. So here are a few of the latest: pumbers = cucumbers, broccolideli = broccoli, peek kee goo = peekaboo. Those are topping the charts but I find everything he says quite witty and cute. One of my favorite Luke moments this week was one day at lunch while we were all three outside and Julio and I were eating strawberries on a blanket while Luke had a hammer and was doing something important with his tricycle. Julio asked him if he wanted a strawberry and he said, "No, I working". I think I laughed for five minutes straight, I had to ask Julio if I heard him right because I couldn't quite believe he said that. Another common Luke phrase these days is "I'll help you" which is really his way of asking for help because if he's in a jam I usually say "I'll help you" so I guess it works both ways in his mind.

And now for a little video, some outdoor fun and giggles.

I have to say, this great weather has been wonderful for all of us. I think we (Luke and I) spend more time outside than inside these days. And I'm finally getting off my butt and doing some walking which is great, I had quite a lethargic winter! Although I must say, with my ever growing belly and a busy kid, the ten minute walk to the park is often a twenty minute walk on the way home. But I can't stop, I still have three months to go and we can't live in our backyard! We are actually seriously contemplating buying/making a sandbox. I think we need to make our backyard a bit more exciting so that Luke has stuff to do back there, because once this baby comes I can't imagine that I'll have as much time to go to the park and I'm already feeling more fatigued due to my size with three months to go! So yes, that's our new excitement, a sandbox.

Another exciting event was receiving a package from Switzerland! We got a whole bunch of great wooden animals from our friends out there as well as a musical French book. I told Sandrine (my good friend from there) that I was teaching Luke French and now she has taken it upon herself to provide us with music, books, etc in French. She is lovely. Did I mention there was amazing swiss chocolate in there too? Yes, truly lovely. So, here's Luke enjoying his new book, this is mostly for their benefit to see him using his new gift in action, but I thought his moves were good enough to post: (Actually, after re-watching this I realized it wasn't quite so exciting...but the grandparents will approve I'm sure...)

And finally, a few pictures:

A day at the park

The wooden toys & new book

Self-portrait