A fortnight

Well, it certainly seems like my posting is once a fortnight.  I really wish it were more frequent, but life just moves so very, very fast.

I don't have much to offer, but I thought that I would check in anyway with a mediocre photo of my favourite preschooler and toddler sitting in their bigger brother's birthday chair.  I have a habit of realizing the day before one of the kids' birthdays that there will be disappointment the next day if I don't buy just one more thing.  If I shared this conversation with Dave, one more thing would never be bought.  However, vestiges of gift disappointment from my own youth rear their ugly heads and I find myself in a major (and sometimes not-so-major) department store looking for something, anything.

Fortunately, the day before Ben's eighth birthday coincided with Hannah, Sarah, Isaac and I travelling to Ottawa for the March for Life.  Thus, we were in much closer proximity to major department stores than our usual locale affords.  I found myself in Target searching the toy aisle for Ben's birthday delight.    I realized that my search was probably in vain and broadened my wanderings to the storage and bedding aisles.  And there I saw it:  a beanbag chair!  Only a mother can predict how well received one's very own chair could be for a child.  If Dave had been there, he would have screwed up his eyes and asked if I was sure that Ben would really want his own chair.  Dave wasn't there, so I made my way to the self check-out and managed to pay for the chair twice before pressing the assistance button.  Country mouse.

Anyway, long story short:  my maternal instincts were correct.  The chair was a highlight of the birthday and most of the siblings fight over it quite regularly.  (Such fights are a mark of birthday-gift success.)  For a while Ben actually had to sleep with the chair in his bed to make sure that it would still be his in the morning.  In fact, I often sit in it and find it surprisingly comfortable, if not a little difficult to get up from.

I could show you other photos of our gardens, both veggie and flower, that are very much in progress. The potatoes are in and Dave is still deciding what else he would like to add.  I ripped out the entire front flower garden, which really consisted of overgrown dead shrubs that had to be dug out by me and my boys.  (This is another milestone:  the boys are big enough to be strangely useful with a shovel and wheelbarrow.)  I added new soil and compost and an exorbitant amount of perennials are waiting to be transplanted.  Dave said, "Ah, just in time for First Communion."  Ben's First Communion is on Sunday and the flowers will be ready - and no one will see them as I am taking full advantage of the fact that the church provides a cake after the mass and, thus, there is no need for a party.   Standards must be kept very low at times if we are to survive.