Walter's Second Birthday (only 5 months late...but I started writing it in August!)

My darling Walter,

Today you are two years old! Time has certainly flown and it is so disconcerting to see you acting more & more like a “big boy” and needing me less & less for the basics (like moving you from place to place or eating). You certainly know your own mind and are very quick to let people know that you mean business when you’ve expressed “mo” or “yeah”.

Every day with you is a delight and parenting you is becoming less of a mystery now that you can communicate a little better. You are most definitely Mommy’s Little Man and we usually spend an hour or more snuggled together, reading books, watching a show or taking a nap. You really get drawn into your playtime and love lining up & parking all of your trucks (arrrrrrrrrrrrrr), trains (eeeeeeeeeeeee), and cars (spee bars). Your sister drives you mental because she makes constant chaos of your ordered world, but you are very loving to her when you relax enough to stop worrying about what she’s going to destroy next.

You love going to Mass and identify anything related to it as a “Jeezaba”. You usually sit on Daddy and act like a perfect little gentleman. You’ve learned to say “alleluia” so we try to get you to follow along, but mostly you prefer to soak it all in and occasionally stack the hymnbooks.

Ash Wednesday, 2014

Trains are your absolute favourite thing. You’ve been riding on them since you were seven weeks old and you are becoming a fast collector of all things train-related. I loved surprising you with a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday party because you were so excited with all the train decorations that Uncle Johnny had designed for you. You were a good little host and your guests had a wonderful time.

After your ride on the Stanley Park Miniature Train in July -- You were reluctant to leave!

You’ve been hitting or surpassing all of your milestones. Lately your talking has really taken off and it’s fun listening to you come out with your own thoughts & phrases, instead of just mimicking what we try to get you to say. You love to play jokes on us & can always be counted on for a good laugh.

You are a little shy of strangers & no one can make you be friendly to anyone you don’t want to be around, although we’re working on acceptable ways of communicating that. Once you get to know people, however, you are a friendly & constant companion.

Two years ago, you crashed into my world and you’ve had me racing to catch up with you ever since. I treasure so many memories with you, like our special time together sightseeing in Berlin or the “Mummy & Walter” time we share when ‘Baby Annie’ is taking a nap. Daddy calls you a special little boy & he is 100% accurate in that!

Lovingly,
Mama

Zero

One

Two

 

 

 And a few shots from Walter's Thomas the Tank Engine Birthday Party:

Last of the Old & New Year Celebrations

I still have to clear up the minutiae of December-January celebrations. There is always so much crammed into those few weeks between December 22nd & January 7th.

David’s Birthday

David’s birthday was fairly low-key this year, as we had too much going on to do anything that involved a lot of planning/people. But as we’re both really family-focused, our low key fêting of David still managed to make him feel loved and keep him as the center of attention. His birthday happened to fall on a Sunday, which is great as we both try to keep that as a day of rest.

Being Sunday, we kicked off the day with Mass in the morning. Then it was off to Peacock’s for chocolate scones & tea. And then it was back home for presents & pictures & naptime (for the kids). Meanwhile, I went off to make supper (ribs two ways (honey garlic & bbq); popovers; brussel sprouts; pineapple upside down cake with ice cream & whipping cream; beer).

Written down, it doesn’t sound like much but with the crazy hours that David had been keeping due to PhD work it felt like a gift for all of us just to be able to have a whole day with him.

the official commemorative photo

And, as an extra birthday treat, we sent him off to Cambridge so that he could see The Hobbit. I really wanted to go with him, but we didn’t think it was prudent to take the babies and it’s a bit awkward to find a sitter when you don’t know anyone in town! Fortunately he had a good time and I managed to survive a day alone with the kids.

New Year’s

We’re really rocking the low-key celebrations right now. New Year’s actually ended up being a blast, even tho’ it was centered on staying in & watching movies (Strange Days & The Hudsucker Proxy). We got a spicy curry box and some appie trays from Tesco, along with beer & a fine bottle of cava. At midnight we had our cava (and the cork managed to do a fantastic ricochet off of two walls and onto a sleeping Emily) and watched the countdown, I made my annual phonecalls (in which my family seems to think I’m really wasted because I find it really neat that I’m calling them From-The-Future in a completely different year and this just really doesn’t seem to impress them and hence they talk to me in loud, slow voices) , and I fell into a deep, cava-induced sleep.

On New Year’s Day we headed out for our annual tradition – New Year’s brunch. We went to Street Cafe to greet the day with a Full English (or beans & eggs if you’re Walter). This is the first year that we’ve actually seen people out & about on New Year’s Day, a big change from Cambridge (and even Victoria). I’d hoped to go for a family walk but the weather was so blustery that we had to scrap those plans and head home to warm up.

this is actually on Boxing Day, but her state of confusion remained the whole time it was cold & we were outside -- she's pretty sure that responsible parents keep their babies at home, indoors, & bundled up when the weather is bad!

 Ukrainian Christmas

While [most of] my Protestant friends have their Christmas decorations down by January 1st and my Catholic friends are happily taking them down on Epiphany (January 6th), we’re still going strong for at least one more day. Ukrainian Christmas falls on January 7th and we use it as a day to celebrate my heritage. We eat Ukrainian, or pseudo-Ukrainian, food and sometimes there are presents and always there are phone calls to my family. Calling Gramma for Ukrainian Christmas is one of my favourite things to do, because she is always so excited to remember that she’s Ukrainian. Ely has a few “continental grocers”, which a few years in England has taught me means Polish food. With a little creativity it’s not too difficult to assemble a meal that sort of picks up on elements from the food we had on special occasions as a kid – pierogie ruskie (perogies filled with potato & cheese), smoked sausage, kapusta (sauerkraut), dill pickles... I am so thankful for these Polish grocers, as it is so difficult to find these foods outside of them. This year we had perogies with fried mushrooms & onions, kielbassa, pickles, and some ginger cookies. It was a delicious meal, all the more so because it had been a year or so since we’d been able to indulge in these foods, and it was nice for me to spend some time introducing the babies to some family traditions. With the violence & unrest currently going on in Ukraine, we’ve all been thinking about our ancestral land a lot of late and blessing the luck of foresight & fate that pushed my Great-Grandparents to leave their country and start afresh in Canada.

My Thirtieth Birthday

A scarce two months and a day after Walter’s birthday comes mine, and this year it was a big event as I was turning thirty. Puzzling over what to do with my birthday had been on my mind for months – with a new baby and David just completing his work I wasn’t sure if a big party was the way to go. So I thought about it, and thought about my introvert personality, and decided to skip the party and aim for a family day. It meant a lot less stress and something different from the usual.

By a stroke of divine grace both children slept in until after seven on the morning of my birthday. And then they gave me a fuss-free morning. David made breakfast, Walter went for his nap, and Emily cuddled on me while I stayed in bed reading The Return of the King and feeling spoiled.

I’d hoped to go on an autumn picnic, but the day was gray and the parks were insufficiently dry. So we spent a picnic lunch indoors. As I was assembling our lunch, Walter came barreling down the hall with a gift for me – a box of truffles from the local choclatier. Emily, meanwhile, was holding a giant card and a limited edition Loreena McKennitt cd for me. The cd has all of my favourite songs on it and is a real treat (I’m a big fan).

After lunch (moroccan humous, cheese baguette, french brie, tomatoes, victoria sponge cake, crisps, and cherry cola) we went for a walk. Over the past few weeks, David had been scouting out a fenland nature walk for us to take on my birthday. He wanted to ensure that we could get the buggy down the trails and that the route was one that could get us home easily at the end, in case the kids were freaking out or I was really tired. Knowing that I was on a custom-planned walk was one of the best gifts of the day. The weather cooperated beautifully, the kids were well behaved, and we prowled in the fens for nearly two hours.

My boys

standing on a bridge over the Ouse

enjoying the fresh air

The area between the River Ouse and town is, to the naked eye, mere pastureland with cows, horses, and the railroad. In actual fact there are hidden lakes, where water has flooded the deep clay pits. There are sail boats, fishermen, and all manner of flora & fauna. Brambles overhang the path, and at this time of year they are full of delicious berries. It was so wonderful to be out in the country and gave me a very memorable birthday treat.

boats moored in the clay pits

Ely Cathedral across the Water (sort of what the medieval view was like)

pasture on the way home

bramble berries! I love feeding these to Walter on our walks

Because we don’t eat meat on Friday, and because I’m very fond of our normal Friday routine, I opted to postpone my birthday dinner until Sunday and we went ahead with our regular pizza night. As it was my birthday, David obliged me in my movie choice and we watched the 1985 Anne of Green Gables, which is one of the first movies I remember seeing.

Fast forward to Sunday – David spent the afternoon cooking my birthday dinner (made to order, no less!). We had roast beef, roast potatoes, beans & carrots, yorkshire pudding (which I made, because we long ago agreed that every couple needs some secrets and my yorkshire recipe should be one of those), and my favourite chocolate cake (with many comments on the butter & sugar content, because some people don’t understand that when it’s birthday cake the sugar & butter NO LONGER COUNT). It was a lovely meal and such a treat to have it all cooked for me.

My twenties were jam-packed with adventures. I got my BA & MA, lived in seven different cities and three different countries, found a career that really suits me, married my soulmate, had two children, and got to participate in a style of life that my wildest dreams had only touched on (balls, formals, garden parties, punting, etc). My resume has grown with the various jobs I’ve taken all over the world, and my personality has grown with those different experiences. It’s not been without excruciatingly hard parts: verbally abusive work environments that made me sick with stress, the pain of realising that the Academic Dream wasn’t for me, and the dark uncertainty of the last year of David’s PhD. But the memory of the hard parts fades, and the beauty of the life that I am creating with my husband and our children remains.

I hope that my thirties bring us to a place where we can be a little more settled. Moving every few years is expensive and tiresome, even if it is exciting to discover new cities and countries. I’d like the opportunity to pay down our debts, to really get involved in a community without knowing that it was only for a short period of time, and to focus on building our home. These are, I guess, my material goals.

I hope that I’ll be able to spend the next decade indulging my creativity a bit more. I want to learn to play the harp, and I’d like to get into better physical shape through some sort of dance class. I’d like to have a couple, or a few, more babies, and if there is any time remaining I wouldn’t mind learning a new craft, like mosaic making. And, if circumstances come together in the right way, I would like to join a choir again. These are my goals for continuing to develop into the person I want to be.

I hope to spend the next decade learning how to raise a Catholic family. I want to see my children learn from my example, and I want to see my own faith deepen and grow as I try to express it to them. I want to increase my prayer life into something meaningful and important. I want to increase the happiness and joy of those around me. I want to take part regularly in Adoration, sitting face to face with Christ and learning to commune with Him that way. These are my goals for developing into the holy person God wants me to be.

I’m looking forward to it.

Walter's First Birthday

I am, touch wood, almost caught up on blogging about everything that’s happened in this past crazy year. My handwritten travel journal is still stuck somewhere between 2011-2012, but at least I can reference back here when I’m filling that in. Anyway, the last big thing from the past that hasn’t made it into these pages is Walter’s first birthday.

I had wanted to do something big and spectacular for his first birthday, but as Emily was due the day after, and as I was giant and pregnant and exhausted and cranky we thought it best to keep the day low key. Turns out that this was a good idea because the one year old struggled to handle a whole day devoted to spoiling him.

Birthdays were always a big deal when I was growing up. For one thing, we never had money for new toys (lots of used ones, tho) so birthdays and Christmas were the only time of year that we could reasonably expect something shiny and new. For another, my mum always loaded them with fun. We were allowed to wear one of our special outfits to school (which probably had more meaning for me than for my brother). We had three celebrations – a party with our friends, which was never anything over the top but just good ol’ fashioned fun; a dinner with our extended family, in which we got to pick the meal; and a dinner with just the immediate family, which at least in later years meant going out to a restaurant of our choice. And, to top off the excitement, mum could never just give us our birthday gift. Every year she took the time to hide the present and leave a series of clues hidden around the house, guiding us towards the gift at the end. It was always great fun and made the expectation of present that much greater.

my official First Birthday portrait

Of course, my memories of birthdays don’t extend to being one year old, and I was at a loss for how to impart all this fun and magic into Walter’s day when he couldn’t even communicate what he’d like. And, silly as it is, there was all my maternal guilt from the “what ifs” of Emily’s birthday being possibly too close to Walter’s and he’s already having to give up being an only child and oh no... But I think we managed the day quite well.

the giant box of gifts that arrived a couple of weeks before Walter's birthday -- he's spoiled by his family in Canada!

Once Walter was up for the day and in a good humour, my mum went off to the kitchen to make him a special breakfast of French Toast, while David brought him his first present of the day – a lovely Paddington Bear that we’d picked up in Cambridge. They’d been watching the show together for a few weeks in anticipation of this, and after letting him investigate the bear, David took Walter to his office to watch an episode of Paddington – apparently Walter kept looking at the screen and then looking around for the bear, trying to figure if it was his very own bear that was starring in the show.

waiting for French Toast

We spent the late morning opening and playing with presents, and then Walter went for his nap while us tired parents went that way as well. When he woke up it was time for more presents (he’s one, he opens them at a snail’s pace and is easily distracted!) and time to make his special birthday meal – pizza! This was the thing I could come up with that combined his love of bread, cheese, and tomatoes. Eventually we got around to his cake. Walter loves the Gruffalo and my brother had found an online tutorial for making a Gruffalo cake, so mum & I had busied ourselves with that a few days in advance. I hate decorating cakes so it was a labour of love and I’m glad mum did most of the icing work.

attacking his present pile

serious business

Walter was afraid of the candle and hesitant to touch the cake. Once he realised that he could do his worst, he very carefully picked all of the candy decorations off and put them in his mouth (only to have David fish out the choking-hazard ones). Then he was done. I tried tempting him with some icing but he would have none of it.

Gruffalo

looking for more candy to destroy

By this time the excitement and changes to his schedule had gotten to him, so the evening was mostly a tearful Walter trying to convince us that it was bedtime. Thus his birthday photos are not quite the glamorous ones we were hoping for. But all in all it was a lovely day and I think he really enjoyed himself :)

a not very successful family photo