Grey Cup Sunday

How to pass Grey Cup Sunday? Build a gingerbread house of course. I have always marveled at these bright holiday houses with their candy coated exteriors although I've never made one myself. Or participated in making one. So when I saw the kits for sale at Michaels, I bought one on impulse for Nate. After tackling the project this past weekend, I now have a new respect for cake decorators.

Steps to building a gingerbread house.

1. Hide the box from your toddler until you are ready to build it. This avoids the daily whine, "I wanna see it. I wanna look at it. I wanna open it. I got to mom. Moooom."

2. Open the box when your husband is watching the pre-Grey Cup celebration. This guarantees he'll be oh so eager to help you when you realize you need another set of non-toddler hands.

3. Take the instructions at face value when they say that the icing sugar "hardens quickly". Read: icing sugar becomes liquid cement as soon as water is added.

4. "Cut the sides of the pre-baked slabs to ensure a tight fit." Read: Saw through the cement-like gingerbread without breaking it in order to glue the house frame together with the icing sugar which has already hardened in the plastic piping bag and won't come out the tip. (Scowling husband craning to see the TV while helping to hold the sides of the house adds to the festive atmosphere.)

5. "Let house sit for an hour while the icing sugar sets." Read: Try to amuse antsy toddler who can see but not touch his gingerbread house.

6. "Look through the following pictures to learn how to create icicles, lattice work, blah blah blah." Read: Ignore the following fancy icing work if you are doing this project with a 2.5 year old boy.

7. Beg grumpy husband to take photos for posterity's sake (or at least the blog). Promise to bring him a Stella in a few minutes.

8. Proudly watch child glue gumdrops (which taste like they were made and packaged in 1983) with great glee.

9. Admire house for 5 minutes before toddler wants to eat it.

10. Look up number of nearest dentist for inevitable chipped tooth when toddler is fed cement as a food product.















Grumpy husband with baby's rection to the Grey Cup game...

Kids say the darndest...

Last Monday David came home from a tough day at work in a less than perky mood. That's okay, we all have those days.

Unfortunately, it was also the day that Nathan managed to crawl into the storage area and find David's monopod to play with. A monopod is a single leg tripod used to steady a camera or a heavy telephoto lens. Anyway, I mentioned to David, "You should take that from Nate before it gets broken."

David did take it, but instead showed Nate how to release the leg segments to make them expand or collapse. The next thing I knew, I heard Nate say, "Uh oh" as he held up pieces of the release and leg. It wasn't really his fault that it came apart. And I had warned David just minutes earlier. But still.

David proceeded to struggle to get the monopod leg reassembled. It should have been simple, but the leg kept collapsing on itself and the latch refused to reattach. So he continued to struggle. Getting increasingly red-faced. Muttering under his breath. The muttering became louder, his face redder and a stifled, "F..." came out under his breath. I could tell he really wanted to swear. Loudly. It was kind of funny to watch. Except that Nate was hovering around and you could tell that the more red-faced David became, the more worried and upset Nate became.

I explained to Nate, "It's okay. Accidents happen. Daddy is just frustrated trying to fix it."

Nate replied with a touch of wonder in his voice, "Daddy frustrated?" At this point, he loves learning new words.

Then Nate, standing about one foot from David's face, asked, "You frustrated, Dad? Dad? You frustrated, Dad? Daddy, you frustrated? You frustrated, Dad?"

David, now purple with steam clouds escaping his ears, did the worst thing possible and didn't answer Nate, so the barrage continued unabated while I rolled on the floor laughing.

Finally I took pity on David and took Nate into the bathroom to start his bedtime routine.

* * * * *

The following afternoon, Nate was yanking my chain about all sorts of issues. The sticking point came when he dumped all his crayons on the beige chair while I was nursing Jake. I knew the next step would be him threatening to colour the couch while I couldn't do anything about it.

"Nate, put the crayons back where they belong, in your room."

"No, don't wanna."

"Nate, put them away, please. Mommy asked you to."

"Nooooo. Don't waaaaanna."

A similar conversation ensued for about 3 minutes, with me getting more and more upset with my recalcitrant toddler.

"Nate, if you don't put those crayons away, Mommy will take them away forever," I threatened (or something similar).

A two minute silent staring contest ensued. Then Nate cracked a tiny smile and said, "You frustrated mom?"

Anyone want to rent a toddler for a while?

Bedtime

Last Friday, David and I were sitting watching a program on TV. (This counts as quality couple time if you have two kids, one of whom is a newborn.)

Around 9:30pm, I asked David, "Did you hear that?" Normally, I would know better than to ask my husband a question while the TV is on if I expect a response. "Is that Nate?" He grunted something like, "No. He's fine."

I creeped into Nate's darkened bedroom only to find Nate sitting bolt upright, legs over the side of the bed, holding his fishing rod -- a prized possession from Aunt Kathy.

"Nate, what are you doing?"

"Fishing, mom."

What an imagination! And here I worried that Treehouse might be rotting his brain.

Hallowe'en

Last year, Nate was a lion. This year, Nate was a lion. Sense a theme?

Okay, he was supposed to be a lion this year. After a weak costume-buying attempt at London Drugs, I decided to recycle the old one. So what that it was for 18-24 month olds. So what that Nate didn't wear the costume for more than 45 minutes last year. (He created a fuss, so we had to take it off.)

The costume didn't go over well this year either. And it was too small.

So we painted Nate's face with grease paint from last year and he went as a clown. Well, his face did. The rest of his body was in the clothes he wore that day.

We had practiced trick or treating for a few days in the house (using his bedroom door), and all our efforts paid off. David took Nate around our neighbourhood. David knocked on the door, Nate said "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you" before the door was even opened. He did manage to repeat those two mantras (sotto voice) to the households, and by the end of the evening was pretty well trained for next year.

Nate was his normal non-stop talkative self between the houses marvelling at the fireworks (a weird BC tradition on Hallowe'en), the moon, the pumpkins and "all my candy". He filled his Shrek bucket and then some. Welcome to the world of refined sugar!

Here are some photos documenting the actual event.

At the afternoon office party, we were Cardiac Arrest. No one loved the costume except us!



Homage to David... our pumkin carving contest at work.






This is Nate's costume partly on.



Nate enjoying trick or treat spoils from the office staff.



Getting ready.





Ok, he's a sad clown I guess.




Setting out...