Nutritious snacks

A weekend of creativity in the kitchen. Some Valentine's Day baking

and some ants on a log

Let's go swimming . . .

Earlier this week's trip to the pool:

And yesterday's:

It's good to be home, but vacation sure was nice!

Pizza Night

Friday night was going to be the perfect kick off to a great weekend. We'd had a good a week. The wee man became an expert at getting his winter gear on and off, sometimes before running throughout the house in his winter boots. We'd stuck to our menu plan, eating some meals, on time and on budget. This was going to be a night of relaxation. After their screw up on New Year's weekend, we called in our free pizza from Pizza Aiolo.

Mommy ordered before she left work with the plan that it would arrive shortly after we got in from our commute home. The whole car ride we discussed the yummy pizza dinner that was awaiting us. When the delivery guy knocked on the front door, the little dude wasn't even shy and thanked the "pizza man".

Mommy was still a few minutes away but we settled in at the table to get started. Opening the box revealed this:

"Salad Pizza" according to the little guy. And his reaction?

I hadn't seen this big a meltdown in quite some time. Lego was destroyed, pizza thrown (notice the two missing slices in the first photo), tears fell and the cry was genuinely mournful.

Thankfully Mommy was able to stop at another pizza joint on the way home and grab a couple slices of cheese pizza. Crisis averted and parental lesson learned.

Bed time

As the little man has aged, our bed time routines have become, for lack of a better word, routine. Sure he's still got us wrapped around his finger, but now we anticipate the extra trip to the potty, the extra glass of water and put a cap on the number of stories somewhere around 5 (although 5 dozen fits this rule). Usually after Mommy reads from this vast library, Daddy has to "sit two minutes". It's not quite the penalty box found in your standard hockey game, but pretty darn close. I sit on the end of his bed until the requisite time is up, although in toddler time two minutes often extends beyond a five minute major.

To cap off bedtime is his innumerable menagerie, beasts which co-exist in remarkable ways. A lion, some bears, a penguin, an alligator, a gorilla, a gruffalo. I'm pretty sure there's tiger and some dogs, an octopus, and a giraffe. And of course we can't forget the various forms of juvenile sheep.

Who can blame the little guy. If his animal friends keep him company (and better yet asleep) then where's the harm. I've only started taking a bit more notice as I'm repeatedly waking with one or two members of this personal zoo blocking my airway. He's taken to a nocturnal prowl that ends with him creeping into our bed with as much of the wild kingdom as he can cram in his surprisingly encompassing toddler grasp. And this week I've started to have a bigger problem with the recent additions to his nighttime cuddle buddies. Last night it was Francesco Bernoulli and this evening it is a mobile phone.

I don't mind the characters, but my ribs miss the forgiving lambs of nights past.

We be cookie eatin'

Winter (Parenting) Breakdown

Today Toronto got it's first real icy blast of winter. Turns out the Great White North isn't white this year and sometimes you'd be hard pressed to guess it North.

Prepping Ollie for daycare, the first real day back after the holiday season found us still in that holiday fog.

Winter coat. Check.
Toque. Check.
Winter boots. Check.
Mitts. Check.
Random toddler request to accompany us on the drive. Check.

With enough time to even warm up the car, we had it sorted.

At least until we got to school and I realized that the boots would be the footwear for the day. At least they slowed him down for his teachers.

Happy New Year!

All the best in 2012!!!