The Stardoms do Canada Day on Parliament Hill

Despite the promise of very large crowds and scorching weather, we decided to head downtown for Canada Day. Max wanted to see Will and Kate and John and I were curious as well. We weren't planning on going onto Parliament Hill but the gates opened just as we were walking by so we went for it. We got a nice piece of lawn and the boys were super, super patient while we waited an hour or so for the big show to begin at noon. It was quite the show, with the pomp for Will and Kate, a very low and loud fly-by of CF-18s, the Snowbirds, Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics, and very good music on stage. We stayed for almost an hour of the show and had a very good view of the Duke and Duchess. Then it got way too hot and crowded so we bid a hasty retreat. All in all, it was an experience that I will never forget and that is saying something for someone who mostly avoids Canada Day in Ottawa altogether.



Our first stop as we headed up Sparks Street to the festivities was a great display by the Currency Museum. They told us to come back later for more games and treats as they were just getting set up.


A wee picnic before the Hill got much more crowded.






The boys finally hitting their heat and patience limits. We left VERY shortly after this photo was taken.



Free ice cream in the blissfully cool garden atrium to cap off our time downtown - many, many thanks to the Currency Museum.

We spent the early evening at Kerry's for a delicious BBQ and then early to bed to get ready to head to the cottage in the morning for Leo's birthday and family extravaganza. More photos and stories to follow!

My boys are moving out :(

Gradually, at least. Two days ago, Max started daycare. Yes, I'm still home. Yes, Max is not yet in school. However, over the next two months, there will be a lot of changes in Max's life (including introduction to daycare, introduction to school and having Leo crash his space when the two boys start sharing a room). We felt like spacing these events out as much as possible would probably help ease any trauma that the changes in Max's routine might cause.

The daycare is a facility that cares for JK-Grade 6 kids from 7:30 in the morning until 5:30 in the afternoon. While it is located in a school, it's not the school Max will be attending. The daycare and Max's future school, though, have an arrangement whereby kids are bussed to the daycare at the end of the school day ("day" should be in quotes, given that Max is done his "day" sometime around 11:00 in the morning).

The caregivers/educators (still not sure what exactly they're called) in the daycare center work with the kids using an emergent curriculum approach, so they encourage kids to learn through play, in particular using playthings that fit into what the kids are currently interested in (bugs and pirates are on the list at the moment). I'm not sure if Max cares too much about all that, but he does care that they have lots of Mega Blocks, a big play house and a bunch of books.

Max's daily schedule (for now) is: arrive at 9, play, eat lunch, have rest time, play outside (weather permitting), eat snack, play, get picked up at 4. Some days of the week are designated special days, such as Wednesday pizza lunch days, Thursday special event days and Friday water play days. For example, yesterday morning Max and the rest of the kids were visited by Dr. Kaboom the magician and his traveling petting zoo and pony rides. Eclectic.

I was a little surprised that the careducators pretty much said nothing about his day after day 1 - Max's previous caregiver and preschool teachers were always full of information about Max's day. However, it is a big bonus that Max is now old enough to remember a lot of what happened during the day so I can at least get some details. Even if they're filtered through the brain of a 3-year-old. Max apparently cried a bit for me in the afternoon of day 2, but still speaks highly of the place so we'll probably visit 3 times next week.

It's a little sad to be reminded at this point that the end of my stay-at-home adventure is not that far off. I'll try my best to get some quality time with both boys before they're squired away in care for the next year. It probably won't be that hard, given that the weather has been super awesome lately. Well, except on day 1 of daycare (see below).

Road Trip – June 2011 Edition

John was once again invited to play in the Canadian National Scrabble Championships, a biennial (or so) tournament that takes place in Toronto. It had been a while since our last excursion to Toronto (in fact, it was the weekend before Leo was born) so we decided to all go down together as a family to take the opportunity to visit family and friends in Toronto and Guelph.

We left Ottawa at about 11:30 am on Friday. Leo started to nod off about 20 minutes into the trip so we made a quick decision and pulled off the 416 to have a picnic at a Rideau Valley Conservation Area site. We had hoped to make it a bit further before stopping but it worked out fine. The sun was shining, we had some good food packed in our mini-cooler and the boys were fascinated by the caterpillars on our picnic table. Leo kept trying to feed the closest caterpillar to him. Perhaps an homage to The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Leo was asleep shortly after we got back on the road and Max and Holly quickly followed suit. John got bogged down in construction around Kingston, but the kids cooperated and managed to hang in there until we got to a rest stop near Trenton. We enjoyed some treats and truck watching there and then made it the rest of the way to Toronto. The traffic was fine until we hit the Don Valley Parkway but even then, it was reasonable. We arrived at our friend Jenn’s place at about 5:45 pm. John had time to unload the van and get us settled in before heading off for his first games. Jenn and I took the boys out for a walk and a sushi meal at a neighbourhood place. I eventually got the boys down for sleep around 10:30. Yikes.


All ready for a few hours in the van.


Leo and his caterpillar friend.
On Saturday morning, the boys got up at their usual time (before 7 am) and we had breakfast with John before he left for the day. We soon set off for a packed day of adventures – riding on the “buses with sticks” (streetcars), touring Little Italy, finding ground cherries for Max, browsing Kensington Market, eating outside at a restaurant called The Grilled Cheese, and seeing the Toronto edition of World Naked Bike Ride Day go by. Max thought that The Grilled Cheese was really, really funny – “Daddy, we ate a place that only served ONE thing! Can you believe it?” The grilled cheeses were absolutely divine – the boys devoured one with tomatoes, spinach, and black olive tapenade and Jenn and I shared one called the Beast with all sorts of toppings and another one with assorted mushrooms. Grandma, you would have LOVED that one! The sandwiches were served with chips and giant dill pickles so the boys were in heaven.






After a park visit, we headed back to Jenn’s and packed up for our next visit – our friends Greg and Isabella in another part of downtown Toronto. I got a little bit lost on the way (I blame the summer construction!) with the added bonus that both boys fell asleep on the way over. I got a choice parking spot directly in front of their place so we left the windows rolled down and let the boys sleep in there while we sat outside and caught up. And sleep they did! They both napped for over two hours. After they woke up and had a quick tour of the inside of the house (including, of course, a survey of the toys), we headed off to the park just down the street from their place while Greg slaved away on a gourmet dinner. By the time we got back, John had arrived. We had a wonderful dinner and the boys were in great spirits despite the hour. I eventually headed to bed with Leo around 10 pm.


Sadly, no pictures of Greg or Is but we got this one of Leo making himself at home on their couch.
On Sunday morning, we packed up again to head to Guelph to visit Krysta and Steven. We put the car seats in Steven’s truck and headed out for lunch at A&W and THEMUSEUM in Kitchener. The museum has an awesome special exhibit on – Animal Grossology – about all kinds of bodily fluids. Leo especially loved the giant cow that burped and farted and Max loved the toilets with poop in them. You could climb through an octopus’ intestinal tract, match the animal with its poop, and take a quiz on different colours of animal blood. There was also a demonstration of different animal scents that Krysta and I participated in – yuck! The rest of the museum is amazing too with a planetarium, a giant room filled with foam Lego blocks, a toddler area for the little ones, and tons of hands-on activities. If you are ever in Kitchener with kids, don’t miss this place!













After a quick dinner and birthday cake for Steven in Guelph, we headed back to Toronto to pick up John. After two late nights and long days of adventure, the boys were a little cranky but finally settled down to sleep in the van for the ride home. We got back to Ottawa at about 12:30 pm. It was a looooooooooooooong weekend but a really great trip. Thanks to everyone who hosted us!!!!

April in review

With a couple of days left in June, it seems like a fitting time to check out everything that happened in April. Ahem. Here goes:



My first impression of this picture is: what are those clothes? About a month ago, we rotated Leo and Max into 2T and 4T clothes, respectively. The old ones weren't fitting as well (particularly for Leo) and summer called for some more shorts and outdoor wear so now I don't even recognize these outfits. The second impression is: man, those kids are quiet when you throw cookies at them.


Early on in April, we drove up to Almonte to visit with our friends Jenny ("Jenny with the shovels", to Max) and Toby. The two of them had tapped a maple tree on their property and were in the process of making their own syrup. So we got to go out there and check out the operation and see the syrup at about three different stages of processing. Oddly enough, I took precisely 0 pictures with any sort of syrup in them...but feel free to enjoy the above two pictures from the trip.

Yes, this is the 827th picture posted from Sushi Kan, but it underscores that the restaurant is still a big hit with the kids. In fact, I'm already starting to dread Max turning 4 because then we'll have to pay for him. I'll have to sneak Leo in on the sly, I suppose. This is a picture of Max and Maddie getting squirrelly after a face full of yummy Japanese cuisine.

This is the aftermath following round 1 of Max vs. Nutella. I would say he liked it as much as he did peanut butter the first time around:)

This picture makes me think about how the kids have really started playing with each other cooperatively over the past couple of months. Yes, Max teases Leo a lot. Yes, Max still asks me every day how long it is until Leo's nap time and he enjoys playing alone in his room. However, he is often a really good big brother too and teaches Leo lots of things (obviously, we'd like him to skip some of his lessons...HEY LEO, TRY TO STAND ON THIS, e.g.).

Lastly, this is a reference to a picture Grandma took last year (see here). It's crazy to see how kids grow at this time in their lives. Max was like this too, but I have a different perspective on Leo's growth over the past year, given that it covers the time I've been off with him. Did he really look like that a year ago? Were we really writing blog posts about Leo being able to crawl a year ago? NUTS!

Whirlwind weekend

It was a whirlwind weekend of activities at Casa Stardom so I thought we should update our small but loyal group of readers with some photos.

On Friday, Max’s class at preschool had their end of the year field trip at Valleyview Farm. The Farm is a favourite spot for the boys so we knew it would be a big hit.






On Friday evening, we went to a “Spring Fling” fundraising event at Max’s new school, Woodroffe Public School. It was a great opportunity for Max to check out the new digs and get excited about starting kindergarten in the fall. We took part in a fire safety demonstration with firefighters (including fake smoke and evacuation out a window), took in a magic show, ate some BBQ meat, and got a few books at the indoor book sale. Max got a big kick out of watching the dunk tank and a run through a bouncy castle/obstacle course midway ride. Sadly, the line-ups for the ponies and the spinning strawberries were a little too long. Next year! We took no photos for some reason.

On Saturday, Max and I joined Nana, Auntie Melody and Grampa Wayne for some garage saleing in the neighbourhood. There were many treasures looking for new homes and the boys scored a few new-to-them toys, as well as some books to keep them occupied for our road trip to Toronto and Guelph this weekend.

Later on Saturday morning, we joined Max’s preschool gang again for a picnic at Champlain Park, a great park just down the street from Nana and Auntie Karen’s old house. The group included the 2s class as well as the morning and afternoon 3s classes (Max is in the morning 3s) and some children and parents who will be attending next year so it was a big group. The food and the activities were great: face painting, Little Ray’s Reptiles shows, marshmallow bobbing and an obstacle course with handmade felt medals for all of the kids. There is a great play structure there and an empty pool so plenty of places for kids to play.








On Sunday morning, Kerry and I took the boys out to the Robert O. Pickard Environmental Centre, the 3rd largest wastewater treatment facility in Canada and the largest industrial site in Ottawa. We didn’t go underground to experience the 1.7 km network of tunnels (it was 80 steps down with no elevator so that would have been a little tough with the kids) but we saw lots of other cool stuff. There was a great Kid’s Zone area with science experiments, magnetic fishing for invasive species (for prizes – Goldfish crackers!), face painting and crafts inside. Kerry picked up an energy conservation kit for her place. The site is 150 acres so we hopped on an OC Transpo bus for a tour of the site. We saw giant sewage tanks, aeration pools, the pumphouse and other stuff. Max was mainly interested in finding out what happens when we flush the toilet and I think he had that question answered. They also had a display of all of the strange items they have sifted out of the sewer system, including 2 x 4s, Social Insurance Cards, and balls of all sizes. The site was open as part of Doors Open Ottawa, an annual free event that allows visitors to explore various buildings in Ottawa, many of them not open to the general public. We capped off our east end adventure with lunch at Eastside Mario’s. Needless to say, the boys both had long afternoon naps after all of the excitement. A BIG thanks to Kerry for taking the boys out with me and giving John some solo time.








Sunday night, we headed over to Nana and Auntie Karen’s for our regular Sunday night dinner but with a twist. Monday, June 6th is my mum’s birthday so we brought and made a BBQ dinner and enjoyed some cake.


I think we need another weekend to recover from this weekend but it was great.