SPD

Park-ing

Much as our yard is fun, it's nice to have more than 33X100 (alley notwithstanding) to roam around in.

So hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Centennial Park we go.

Sebastien drove us there. Felix is only pretending to steer.

And food tastes so much better outside, especially when there's pitch, dirt and a few blacklies rubbed into it. Nature's condiments.

Just So You Know

That last entry was a blip. The weather here has been astonishing ever since. We've been barefoot for ages, been to the real beach, eaten radishes and greens from the garden, and some of us are tanned, and some of us are dirty. Actually, we are all a combination of the two.

And at the end of every day, everyone is really, really tired (but not sleepy...) from the whole day spent outside. It might just make up for last year's non-summer.

Not Your Typical Day at the Beach

I think Barbara Kingsolver once said - or rather, one of her characters said - that if you can't be beautiful, you might as well be memorable. Some days are like that, and as a parent of kids growing up in a smallish Northwestern Ontario city, you have to really embrace that sometimes.

So, on a grey, windy, so very windy day at the beginning of May, with our favourite go-to spot on the shore inaccessible (for the entire summer!) due to (highly controversial) construction, we thought we'd go see the float planes.

One strong headwind did nothing to hold us back, just made the cycling Mama gleeful at the thought of an easy ride home.

And float plane means float, which means water, which in Sebastien's mind means beach...and so we ventured forth across the road to find said beach.

And it's funny how MY version of a nice day at the beach (or even a nice beach) has nothing to do with their reality.

It was windy, and flippin' cold, the view was industrial, and they were thrilled.

Because they are boys, there were sticks, there was sand, and we were outside. There was also glass, an astonishing amount of glass, thankfully worn soft and harmless by Lake Superior's restless waves. There was a clamshell, tiny, but big enough to examine.

At the end of the day - we got out of the house, and there were feathers, rocks, sticks, logs...and floatplanes!

Not a beautiful day in the typical sense. We do what we can with what we have.
And the day after, we played in the sunshine in our (mostly) hazard free yard.

One Year Later

Now that we have two boys, we have to celebrate each birthday twice. Right?

So we celebrated once at home, giving each boy a ginger cookie with raspberries and a candle, conveniently dovetailing everyone's favourite things.

And we celebrated once with a small gang of friends, where Felix got an icing-less cake - for he eschews all things creamy and sweet - and everyone else got cake with strawberry mousse on it, dished out by big brother, no less.

First birthdays are always bittersweet, I suspect. That sweet chubby baby growing up - so exciting, and tinged with a bit of ache, too. Though there is such fun to be had together now in the sandbox, and though Felix eats dirt with a spoon, and cake with a shovel, he is starting to know what those trucks and digging implements are all about. Of course, in his case, they are mostly about removing sand from the sandbox. But that's ok, we got extra.

And if it ever rains again, we can always do this.