on the road

This picture was taken just after we got off the plane. A KLM flight attendant made this doll to entertain Kaspar while I was dealing with Stella during the flight. I was so impressed! He just made it out of scratch using some tissues, a white cloth and plastic forks for a base and drew a face on it with a pen. He gave it to Kaspar while apologizing that they did not have any other kid stuff to give away on this flight. Kaspar loved it and the man was so thrilled that he was able to make an impression. It was so sweet!

on our way and allready here

Well, we've arrived! It seems like it's been days since the morning I took the subway to the dentist's and sat there worried if I'd have enough time to finish packing before we have to go to the airport. But it all happened only yesterday. And today we're here. A whole different scene...

About a month ago we decided that "mommy and the kids will be spending the summer in Latvia, while daddy works and travels with the band in Canada." Thus, I was way too busy to even think about the blog for the last month, because I needed to make all the necessary preparations for us to travel. That involved, of course, having to get in touch with a handful of my galleries and making sure they are stocked for the summer. Oh man! I still refuse to understand fully how much I lack time and how futile it is, trying to run my own business while having two young kids at home! I often want to just pack my studio and give up entirely... Anyhow... this is a whole other chapter I could rant on.

Well, we left Toronto on April 28th. Today is the 30th and I feel like we've traveled for two straight days. And the two straight days feel like two weeks, because everything that happened on the morning of the 28th feels like it happened on a different planted, in a different time zone and to a completely different me. How is that possible? Indeed, sleep does perform magic in a person's brain!

Traveling on your own by plane for more then 4 hours with two kids under the age of three is sheer maddness. I'm happy that I did not have to do that! I must have suffered only a very mild brain infection, while I signed on for this trip. In fact I was well enough to convince my mom to come the same flight there and back with us. Thank GOD for my MOM! I might have to think about tattooing that on my forearm :-) I have no idea how I would have done this on my own. I promise to devote the next entry to flight details and trip curiosities. I just don't have the time for that now, because my boobs are about to burst, and I have to try to wake up a very sleepy child and convince her to EAT NOW!

If you're wondering - yes - the kids have major jet lag! They stayed up for most of the night and now are fast asleep. It's 11am here now and they are not even stirring. But I have to to the sacreligious thing and go and wake up a sleeping baby right now. Wish me luck!

better late, then never ???

I’m getting awfully forgetful in my old age! So… it turns out I wrote this blog entry almost two weeks ago and just forgot to post it. And the picture was taken by Steve, a couple of weeks ago (just the day before the warmth arrived!) at the Toronto Zoo. I love the way the image turned out... I wonder what is the reflective object he's used.

We just had one of those extra busy and social weekends and I was so thrilled that despite the occasional minor breakdown the kids managed it quite well. It’s usually during the days, when activities are planned one after another and we’re amongst friends and other children for hours at a time, that my kids fall into complete breakdown mode. I’ve learned to limit social outings to one per day and now I’m trying to also learn to catch that magic moment called “time to go”. Otherwise… well… we all end up having meltdown, myself included.

A great example was Sunday! As we were leaving our friends’ place around 6pm, Kaspar threw himself down onto the pavement, threw away his subway ticket and announced that he does not want to go home. Uh, “announced it” is a slight understatement… he pretty much screamed it for a good four minutes on top of his lungs and I’m sure that at the very least a good 50 cars passing by on Eglinton could hear him despite the noise of the traffic and the closed car windows. Unfortunately, he did not get any sympathy from me! I had my hands full with Stella in a ‘baby bjorn’, a large diaper bag slung across one shoulder, desperately trying to get my two year old across the street in one piece.

time warp

I feel like I've been living in this weird time warp for the last three weeks. In some ways I've done more then I usually manage in a couple of weeks. On the other hand, I feel like I've accomplished nothing at all. The kids have gone through a whole truckload of changes and challenges and growth spurts and such... but I'd have too hard of a time trying to list it all. I've managed to handle the kids and the house all on my own for a few weeks and then also learned to live with a house full of guests for a couple of weeks following that. Stella has begun sleeping five to six hours at a time, which is much more then I had ever hoped for! (Especially since Kaspar still does not manage more then four hour long intervals of sleep!!!) However, her chosen hours of sleep are between 6pm and 12am, which really does no good to me, because I can hardly leave everything and fall asleep at 6pm. I did try keeping her up for a few extra hours in the evenings, but it did absolutely nothing. She woke up at midnight regardless of the hour she fell asleep at. Go figure! So, I'm still waking up every couple of hours a night with one kid or the other. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever end? And when it does... will I be able to sleep, after years of not sleeping? Maybe that's why so many women are insomniacs as they get older. Ah well. Life is definitely NOT boring! And that's more then some people can say. Ha!

bambi saves the day

Last night was one of those "walkabout" nights. You know, like that movie about the Australian aboriginal boy made sometime in the seventies, where he walks and walks and walks. That was me last night. It was a good thing I actually went to bed at a reasonable hour myself. It gave me a solid hour of sleep before it all began.

Stella has begun teething, I think. She’s a bit more cranky then usual, keeps biting my hand and at times both of her own fists are in her mouth being chewed and sucked at the same time. She’s got rosy cheeks and a drippy nose and is not interested in sleeping much. Personally, I think she was awake most of the night. But that’s probably because I’m tired and cranky, too. I’m sure it wasn’t all that bad, but I did have to do the walking back and forth from one corned of th room to the other for several half hour intervals, several times during the course of the night. However, it’s understandable. Teething must be a real nuisance!

On the other hand – Kaspar’s reasons for waking me up a whole five times during the course of the night are not so clear. There was the "I had a bad dream, mommy!" then there was the "Do you want to be Stella? I’ll be Sam… ok?" and my exasperated reply of - "NO! NO! NO! It’s night and people sleep at night. Even Sam and Stella sleep at night." But my oldest is not so easily convinced. Even in the middle of the night he an come up with a reply that throws me a curve ball. He said something along the lines of Stella and Sam not being real people, and people in the books stay awake all night and all day. And then to top it all off, he tried to convince me to turn the light, so that he could prove to me that Stella and Sam are still out playing with the snow, even though it is night for us. Of course, I was not going to fall for it. But I did set myself up for it… didn’t I?

Well, this morning Bambi saved the day. I know that once upon a time I blurted out the words: "I’d never have a TV babysitting my kids!" But that was before I had any. And I guess it’s just a good lesson for me – never say never! This morning at 6:15 while I was trying to make myself a cup of coffee, feed the kids and get them dressed and all the rest of the jazz that comes along with the morning… Kaspar was quietly and happily watching Bambi in his pyjamas. C’est la vie!

Sam & Stella

When Stella was born, many of our friends considered it their duty to introduce her to the other Stella – Stella, Princess of the Sky; the Forest, the Snow etc. I immediately fell in love with the books, because of the gorgeous drawings and the quirky, sweet dialogue. Of course, since Stella is a little young to be reading just yet, the books ended up on Kaspar’s book shelf. And believe me, when I say it’s a big book shelf with a lot of books in English, Latvian and French!!! So, it was no surprise that it took Kaspar a few months before he discovered his true love of Stella and Sam. But ever since that first day, when "Goodnight Sam" was read to him at the very least twenty times over the course of twelve hours, Stella and Sam have become a part of our every day, friends of a sort.

Occasionally Kaspar will catch me by total surprise… "Stella, are you sleeping?" I’ll hear a faint whisper of a question behind my back while I’m folding the laundry. "Yes, Sam! Aren’t you sleeping?", is supposed to be my answer. However, sometimes I’ll stray off course and Kaspar will go back to his normal voice and scalding me a little, firmly reminding me of my lines in the play. He’s managed to memorize the dialogue from every one of those Stella and Sam books and we can spend hours pretending to be Stella (me, of course) and Sam (Kaspar) chasing snow flakes, listening to frogs snore or trying to find Fred (Sam’s dog), who tends to be a chameleon like creture in our house - taking on the visual appearance of a stuffed rabbit one day, a cat rattle another and sometimes he’s just an orange on the kitchen table. It’s not easy keeping up with the imagination of a two year old!

Today I finally went to our local Library and took out a library card for Kaspar. We’ve gone there before, but rarely have we signed books out. We usually go and just spend some time reading and looking at stuff before going back home again. Today we found the only Stella and Sam book that we don’t own and Kaspar just had to have it! I had one happy child on my hands. We read and read and read and read and read and read the book front to back several times. He took the book to bed with him so that "we can read it tomorrow morning again, mommy, ok?". And as he was beginning to drift off to sleep, he started another Sam & Stella dialogue with me… only this time I was not prepared and a little caught by surprise and I could not remember exactly what it was that the polar bears ate with the snow for breakfast. Oh man! I caused the biggest meltdown on this side of the universe. It took me no less then an hour to calm him down. I had to read the story one more time and cross my heart and promise to learn the lines tomorrow. Thank God the real Stella was a good little camper and slept through the entire ordeal.

Sadly, I don’t think he still understands the concept of having to return the books to the library. I’ll have to deal with that one of these days. Uh… leave it ‘till next week, I think.

good days and bad

You know how sometimes work can be the kind of a place, where you can have good days and bad days. Well. I'm finding that taking care of my home and two kids is sort of like that, too. Children can almost be compared to co-workers, co-inhabitor's of the same functioning universe. Except that there is no time away from them. They are the co-workers you room with, sleep with, work with, eat with... they are always there!!! They can be the best thing to have around one day and then the next day they can just be the biggest pain. They can be totally logical and then totally illogical the next minute. Perdictable and under controll yet also creators of inexplicable chaoss and cause for complete loss of all controll. They are the one thing in your life you love so much that you have a hard time explaining it to anyone else (except for another parent, perhaps?) yet you cannot wait to have a few hours all to yourself at the end of the day. Extreme joy as well as work, work... work. It all can be so demanding that you dont know how to find more time in the day and also such a relief of your stress that you wonder how you ever lived without them... talk about "catch 22". Hmmm. Today was good day! p.s. Stella has turned white! Yeah, it only took a couple of months. My kids are from the same father after all. Ha. Really bad case of baby jaundice? Maybe!

what's wrong?

What's wrong with this picture? If you can guess, you'll have a chance of winning ... ok, ok. There is no winners here. Yes! It's snowing again. I wish I could say it's raining cats and dogs, because I just love that nutty saying. But it looks more like it's snowing cats and dogs. What’s wrong with the world? It’s March! Easter is two weeks away. It just should not be like this. No, no, no!!!!!

look who's growing up

The baby days pass so quickly. I had forgotten how quickly. Stella is starting to grow out of that little baby stage and she's not even three months old yet. She has stopped sleeping all day and night long and is much more of a handful during the day. (Lucky me!) But she's also a lot more interactive and Kaspar totally appreciates that. She responds to all sorts of facial expressions, smiles back, giggles and talks back in full sentences. Yeah, right! Full sentences in baby language, I mean. The ghoo, ghoo, ghaa, ghaa kind of stuff. And she loves "tummy time"! I remember the first few weeks, when Kaspar was placed on his tummy... he despised it. He'd start to cry even before he was put down, in anticipation. Not this chick! She loves sleeping and hanging out on her belly. And she has this amazing little body that's able to bend into a letter C while she's on her belly. It's so cool! The legs go up, the head comes way up... It's amazing what babies are capable of. I could not last for more then a few seconds lying like that.

mommy in a baloon

Just in case you were wondering what I look like, when I'm stuck in a balloon ... This is the great little drawing done by my two and a half year old. Unfortunately, whenever he does do a cool drawing, like this one, he also likes to take the largest marker and "colour it in". Which really means just scribbling over the drawing again and again and again until there is no trace of the original object dawn. So, I'm thankful for my digital camera, which allows me occasionally to capture one of these great little pictures before the get coloured in.