Worst blog month in a while . . .

Sorry, loyal readers, about the recent lack of submissions. This has been an interesting month so far, sprinkled with sicknesses and a good dose of getting back into a social schedule of sorts. A week after Max's strep episode, Holly came down with a vicious flu that left her not really remembering much of a Saturday and pretty achy and spent throughout the Sunday. This meant trial by fire for me as I had to manage both kids, including feedings, for about a day and a half (aside from night feedings for Leo, which Holly was thankfully still able to do). Things went really well and a friend of ours pitched in, inviting me and the boys over to her place for an hour or so before dinner. I was really glad that Leo was good to go with the bottle, otherwise that would have been a lot worse!

The BIG advantage of Leo taking the bottle has been that Holly could finally feel free to go out and be social for more than 90 minutes at a time on evenings or weekends. So far, Holly has enjoyed dinners with friends, some tubing, movies and a play. Now that the good weather is upon us (15 and snow-free!), we're hoping to spend more time outside of the house in general so I guess things are about to get busy for everybody.

Since our last post, there has been a lot going on, including Max's last gym class for a while, Leo's first outdoor stroller ride, Leo's first ride in a vehicle outside of his bucket seat (his Britax seat is just like Max's, but charcoal instead of denim), multiple family dinners and (FINALLY!) Leo's first tooth breaking through. That makes for quite a month and we're only halfway through.

There's also a bit of news that quite a few of you are aware of that I wanted to share with the rest, that I'll be taking an extended leave of absence from work starting at the very end of May to raise Max and Leo at home. Despite the fact that it will likely break Max's heart (and ours, frankly) to separate him from his daycare provider, this is definitely something I've been thinking about doing for a while and I'm really looking forward to it. This seems to be a window of opportunity here while Max is not quite school-aged to be closely involved in the boys' day-to-day lives. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of things that happen at daycare of which I'm blissfully ignorant and I'll have to deal with them in good time, but I think it will be pretty cool to expose the kids to all sorts of things around Ottawa and allow them to bond together. We've also decided to enroll Max in preschool starting in September, to give him an activity that's a little more structured. We're really excited about the program (click here to check out their website) and when we went to the open house, Max refused to leave, putting on a really sweet tantrum for the other parents. Dude REALLY wanted to stay.

In any case, it's still just sinking in that I have 10 weeks to go at work and then I'll be at home for a year with the boys. I have to extend a big thank you to my colleagues and the work environment in general at Stats Can for being so supportive. It's really no wonder that they keep winning those Employer of the Year awards. I've been afforded a lot of flexibilities over the past couple of years in order to be there for my family and it's much appreciated.

That about all I have for now. I should leave you with a video or something, although there's no guarantee that you'll actually be able to watch it. Oh well. Here is a brief glimpse of Max going bonkers on the parachute during his last gym class. And Leo loving himself some mango pit (Thanks to Auntie Melody for this suggestion from her experience in Bangladesh!).