May round-up

Eventually, I'll get caught up with these pictures. Likely not this month though. Here's May.


May marked the first time that Max was left alone at another child's birthday party. Technically, Holly wasn't going to leave him there, but when all the other parents ditched, she felt weird sticking around. So out she went. The party was held at 4Cats, a children's art studio in the neighbourhood we lived in when we first moved to Ottawa. The studio has lots of cool programs for kids and for birthdays, they let kids go bananas in the splatter room à la Jackson Pollock. A canvas on the wall is sent home with the birthday kid. After the party, Max came to the prize ceremony at my Scrabble tournament...thankfully, he hadn't washed up yet! Max is registered for a few workshops at the studio in August and September

The kids on their 26th (estimated) trip to the Aviation Museum. Possibly the first day that I might be fooled if I didn't know my kids and someone told me Leo was the older brother.

One of our best recent investments - the Strider bike. Max was having some difficulty pedaling a tricycle, which made going long distances on foot with both boys a little tricky. In the late winter, Max started doing a drop-in class at the local Rec Center where kids could learn to get around on these "push bikes" - two-wheel bikes that kids move by walking. Eventually they pick up enough steam to just lift their feet and coast...if they can balance. It took Max 3 or 4 tries to be able to get all the way to the library and back in reasonable time, something that he would never have been able to do on foot. It took him about 5 more outings to figure out how to balance. Now, he's a regular pro at coasting and he has actually been on one 3 km trek with me to one of his playgroups at the end of June.

Here's Leo, trying his hand at balancing things while waiting for service at a diner in town. Note to self, if Leo can stack and destroy 43 times over, the service is too slow and we should not go back to that restaurant.

It seems like half the big cities and small towns in Canada have these sorts of painted things all over town from cows to fire hydrants to mailboxes. These wooden tulips come out every year around Tulip Festival time. Here's Max, posing with one depicting Parliament Hill.

Here's Max, making his first batch of peanut butter cookies. Jenn from Toronto was running the show, although she ducked out of the frame of this shot. Verdict: the cookies were delicious.


So Max and I went to the first birthday party I'd been to that had been organized by the parents and just put every idea I've ever had to shame. The bar has been set high by this space party. Handmade helmets for all of the kids. A star scavenger hunt in the backyard. A bike ride "trip to the moon". A 5-foot-tall nosecone in the backyard for kids to sign as a card. A lunar landscape cake made by the grandmother. And the centerpiece, a handmade space shuttle pinata. I think this is what all birthday parties are supposed to be like, from a kid's perspective. From a parent's perspective, it seemed pretty intense. I have no idea how long they were ironing out the details, but the birthday boy was loving it.

It's funny - back when I took this picture, it was one of our first sunny days and I had thrown Max in this outfit for Beach Day at preschool. Now that it's summer a) he wears this type of thing all the time, so it looks like a normal picture and b) Leo is the one who wears this swim top. Crazy.

Back in May, our great friend Kerry ran a try-a-tri and murdered it. We all went out to cheer and had a blast high-fiving at the finish line. While waiting for Kerry to finish, we also scored a lot of fun, sunny cuddle moments like this one.

One fine day in May, we took in some sheep-shearing at the Ag Museum with the Screids. We showed up just in time for the final shearing, which was perfect as they saved the big ram for last. I don't know how strong the shearer was, but it was surely STRong, if not STROng. Start to finish, it took about 5 minutes and the giant hunk of wool that came of was worth about $6, if memory serves. In any case, it was just another one of those things that the kids and I all experienced for the first time together.


We were cheering on a friend who was running the marathon for National Capital Race Weekend, so of course, we busted out our orange regalia for the event. For whatever reason, Dovercat was at the spot we had chosen for cheering. I guess he/she/it was celebrating the race route coming close to our neighbourhood for the first time too.


Finally, we also Touched-a-Truck for the second consecutive year. This year's event was really wet and the kids got pretty soaked. I managed to keep their feet dry except when Leo snuck out of the Bookmobile through the side door and beelined right for a massive puddle. Oh well. Here, the boys are "driving" a dump truck and a crane. Afterwards, we went inside the mall next door to watch a strongman demonstration and ride mini-ATVs around a road safety course (I'm hoping to get that video up pronto - it's a riot).