One of the things I get asked about a lot is what to gift parents with littles in the NICU. I absolutely love being asked and I always hope my answers are helpful, but it’s important to keep in mind is that every baby’s {and therefore parents’} NICU journey is different and I can really own speak to my own. Our Sam was born very early (during the 27th week of my pregnancy), but not because of one of the usual pre-term labour suspects – because my appendix burst and my body knew it was no longer a safe place to grow a baby. He was quite big at birth for his gestational age (2 pounds 12 ounces) and compared to some of his NICU buds, Sam had it relatively easy… He was intubated for his first night only, none of his head ultrasounds detected a brain bleed, the little open valve in his heart was able to be solved medically and not require surgery, he passed all of his initial hearing and ROP tests, and his only big necessary medical intervention was surgery for a double inguinal hernias a short while after we left the NICU. We had it good.
My gosh, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I didn’t mean to just disappear for the summer, but despite my best intentions, I just never really made it onto my computer for any length of time other than to write my posts for CBC Parents.
It was a crazy couple of months.
Very quick recap. Back in the spring we decided we wanted to buy our own home, but with the Vancouver real estate market being what it is, that meant having to look elsewhere. I wasn’t happy to be leaving, but we agreed to look in Victoria, West Kelowna, and Kelowna. I’m pretty sure we both spent several hours a day looking at house listings, but when we hadn’t seen much of anything we liked within the budget we had set out for ourselves mid-June, a wildcard option was thrown out. Vernon. My hometown. To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about the idea {and I’m still not sure I am}, but after much discussion and several pros and cons lists, we decided it was the right move for right now, as so we went with it. We made several trips back and forth to see houses, ended up putting in an offer on a house at the very end of June, went back and forth with the homeowners for a week, had our counter offer accepted on July 6th, had just over a week to remove our subjects, and took possession at the end of July. {I’m exhausted just replaying all of that in my mind.} We spent 10 days or so camping out in the new house at the end of July / beginning of August, had my family from Alberta up, got a bunch of work done in it, organized some trades workers to come in while we were away, and headed back to Vancouver on August 8th to begin the task of packing up our rental home. With some help from a few of family members, we got that done in just over two weeks, stayed in our empty Vancouver house for a few days to soak up as much of the city as we could, and then headed back up to the Okanagan on the 28th. Brad had an orientation for his school district the next day, we needed decide on a schooling option for Miss G, and then it was September.
Oh my goodness… It’s heeeeere! The first official day of summer vacation!! If I’m being honest, I’ve been ready for this day since mid-May and I could not be more excited to kick off two full months with all four of us at home together. Miss G’s been very anxiously awaiting this day too {well except for the bit about us most likely buying a home and moving cities}, so I figured we’d kick things off with a fun little surprise out on our new Springfree Trampoline {the kids’ absolute favourite spot these days} and turned it into a party trampoline!
While we may not travel the way we did while living abroad, I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job of going on little getaways since we returned home to Canada. We spent Christmas on Salt Spring Island, we’ve been to Victoria a few times, we visited the Sunshine Coast over spring break, we’ve made it up to Whistler, and most recently, we made it back to Harrison Hot Springs for a quick visit. Well, three out of the four of us did, at least. It was a bit of a strange couple of days with it being Father’s Day, Brad having to go up to the Okanagan to look at some houses {yes, we’re buying a house!!}, and having a trip to Harrison booked, but it worked out well and the kids and I had a lovely time {and even had a couple of surprise guests!}
Last year, Miss G’s very first year of school, was a doozy. Beyond having just left her home, friends, and most of her possessions in the Middle East to start over here in Canada, Miss G was also becoming a big sister after 5 years of being an only child and starting school for the very first time. When we got settled in Vancouver, we decided that we’d give traditional public school a try, despite the fact that we’d long decided that we’d homeschool if we were to stay in Kuwait. I had gotten excited about the possibility of homeschooling and wasn’t 100% sure about the decision, but after meeting what quite possibly might have been the greatest principal / office administrator combo EVER, we were hopeful it would be a great year. Our cautious and sensitive girl was even excited about Kindergarten!
My gosh, are we ever on a roll with fun LEGO projects this week! After yesterday’s gorgeous LEGO mandala art, we decided to try our hand at layered LEGO self portraits today and oh my word – we loved everything about the project!
If you were to make me choose one favourite meal, hands down, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, it would be an Asian noodle salad. Yum, yum, YUM. The obsession started while working at Earl’s during my summers off of university, and for a good few years, I probably ate at least a few Thai noodle salads a week.
I don’t remember when or how it came up, but recently, Miss G and I were talking about mandalas… Grae asked what makes a mandala a mandala, and since I’m by no means an expert, we popped online to do a little bit of research. What we learned is that artistically, mandalas are detailed circular designs that often contain repeating patterns and shapes. We took a look at lots of gorgeous mandala images and read a little bit about what they symbolize too, which was really interesting. So when I was thinking about fun and different ways we could use our LEGO collection for LEGO Week, I had mandalas on my mind – hence our LEGO mandala art.
Oh, how we love LEGO and DUPLO in this house! LEGO bricks and sets to add to our collection have pretty much been permanently stationed on Miss G’s wish list since she was 3 and now that Sam’s really taken a liking to DUPLO, I think we’ll have to work on expanding that collection too. He loves making towers, pulling the bricks apart, and banging them together to make music at the moment, and today we added washing them with a DUPLO wash sensory bin to the list.
While it may sound weird, we usually make sure that special days celebrating Brad involve meat. Strange, I know. The thing is, the guy loves meat. But he doesn’t cook, which leaves all of the cooking up to me – the one who would rather not eat any meat at all. And so, we eat vegetarian at home probably 95% of the time. Brad’s an incredibly good sport about it, but when it comes to things like his birthday, Father’s Day {or even his Christmas stocking}, I attempt to be a good wife include some sort of meat.
My gosh… I can’t even believe that it’s already almost June. {I feel like I say it constantly, but honestly – I just don’t know where the time goes these days.} Of course June means Father’s Day, so my little miss and I have been brainstorming ways to spoil her papa this year.
The weather is just too good to go straight home after school these days… It was an unusually long and cold winter here in Vancouver and all I want to do now is be outside and soak up the sunshine. Not to mention the fact that both of our kiddos are happiest when outdoors.
You know what’s awesome about having a trampoline? More motivation than ever to have friends over! And with the summer sun officially here, we decided to host a little get together to celebrate. The best part? The kiddos happy playing outdoors for hours without any real effort on my part.
My goodness… After several weeks of postponing our visit due to the field still being green and then several more weeks because of rain, I wasn’t sure we were actually going to make it out to the Abbotsford Tulip Festival this year {which would have been a shame given we enjoyed it so much last year}. But this morning, on the very last Friday of the festival, I took a peek at my weather app and despite it showing nothing but rain, rain, rain for Vancouver, Abbotsford showed sun! Surely it was a sign. All plans of school were quickly called off, snacks were packed up, kids were loaded into the car, and we were Abbotsford bound in no time.
We’ve been keeping a little secret from the kiddos for the past few weeks and I was SO excited to finally get to do the big reveal today. Thankfully it was it was a gorgeous afternoon, so Sam and I walked to school to pick up Miss G, which allowed me to capture her reaction as we turned the corner onto our street and our front yard came into view. I had no idea how she’d react {kids can be a little bit unpredictable when surprised, can’t they?}, but she was so, so thrilled when she finally realized what it was and that it was ours to keep.
