All this beauty is hard work

Part of what we loved so much about our new place when we bought it was the yard. It was big (for Winnipeg) and well established. By that I mean LOTS of perennials. You name the flower we likely have it in our yard. There are flower beds, trees and shrubs everywhere. It's really pretty to look at but it is a lot of work.

It is even harder when you don't know what's a weed and what's a flower. (Note: I am proud to admit that my knowledge of various plants has expanded since my first day at the Sears Garden Centre when I didn't know the difference between and annual and a perennial. However, knowing the difference between and annual and perennial is quite different than knowing the different kinds of Hostas or roses.)

So, here's just a sampling of what's in our yard.

Sibling love

Selfish or unselfish?

Is it possible to want to become a parent for anything but selfish reasons? I can't think of one.

So how is it that in order to be an effective parent, you also need to be incredibly unselfish? When you are in a hurry to get somewhere and your child falls and cuts open their lip, effective parent rules would dictate that you should stay and put on a Curious George bandaid before heading back out on your journey. When you are tired and sick (or perhaps just sick and tired), if your child has a bad dream or is teething and needs you, effective parent rules would also suggest that you should tend to your child's needs.

It makes me wonder why we continue to work at populating the earth. People actively (and at times go to great lengths) to try to get pregnant. Shouldn't all the unselfishness you have to go through stop people from doing that?

Of course it doesn't. It's bizarre. Because, for every unselfish moment you have as a parent, there is a selfish one where YOU are the one that they want when they fall. And YOU are the one that they want when they wake up at night.

There is not enough money in this world to pay for the feeling that you get when your child, in a moment of spontaneous affection, comes to give you a hug and tell you that they love you.

Selfish? Unselfish? Whatever is it is. I'll take it. Any day and twice on Sunday.

Chocolate milk

Trevor and Elijah were enjoying some chocolate soy milk at supper. Elijah asked me if I wanted some. I told him no. He quite seriously looked at me and asked, "Too tasty for you?".

Where do kids come up with these things?

Cookies

Recently I have been trying to eat make better food choices. I like the idea of eating real food - not stuff filled with words that I have no idea what they are.

So I got this cookbook from the library that involves hiding vegetables in a variety of foods. I tried some cookies last week. The ingredients included zucchini, bananas and whole wheat flour. They tasted okay but they definitely weren't the cookies that we were used to.

Yesterday Elijah and I were going to make cookies again. The previous cookies were obviously not a hit for him as he looks at me and asks that we put sugar in the cookies and no bannas (his word for bananas).

Sometimes you just gotta have a real cookie, filled with sugar and chocolate chips and learn to live with moderation.

(I have since discarded the whole wheat flour cookie recipe.)

May Long

We have so much yardwork to do that we figured the best thing to do was head to the lake for the long weekend. It's such a Manitoban thing to do. We spent Saturday at the lake with friends and their kids and then headed to my Aunt Anne's place on Saturday night.

Elijah LOVED the water. We were so glad that the swimming lessons paid off. He spent most of Sunday afternoon in the water. Apparently he didn't think it was too cold. He kept "rescuing" Trevor by pulling him back to shore. He also go a close up lesson on turtles.

And now it's Tuesday and the sun is shining, telling me that the yardwork is infact still there.

Takin' a nap

"My taking a nap."