Family Life – Page 40 – a hippie with a minivan

Cabane à Sucre…

We went to the same place as we did last year… it is so hard to find a great Sugar Shack… there are so many here and they are so commercial that often the feeling of being at the Sugar Shack is lost….

Anyway… here is our day… and mostly our food… (all traditional Québécois “Cabane à Sucre” foods!)

I forgot to upload the Animal pics… but first we saw the animals that live there and then we went on a horse and sleigh ride…

Khéna wasn’t too sure….

It was beautiful out… but still cold at about -4

Inside for food…
Cretons (spread made of pork and spices)

Pea Soup

Lunch… Omlette made with maple syrup, small potatoes, sausages, maple bakes beans, and maple smoked ham… with a side of “oreilles de Crisse”….

Sadly there is no sap running yet this year… winter is lasting long… so they have been using last years syrup… and the syrup is put on pretty much everything on the plate…

then dessert…

Maple Syrup Pie and fresh doughnuts

Maple Cake

and my favourite… “Beignets” (fried doughnut) smothered in maple cream sauce….

then the traditional Maple Taffy…

Syrup is heated to a certain temp.. then poured on snow…

then poke….

and roll…

(and then the boys played to work off some of that sugar)

a little funny…

Colin just came up to me to cuddle… but wanted some sympathy also… so he said…

“Mommy… I am so sad”

so I asked why…

“I hurt myself…” he said…

I asked his where he hurt himself and he said that he hit his head on the fridge…

So I said that I don’t mind cuddling him of course, but that it wasn’t true because he had not been in the kitchen…

so he said… “was that a lie” and I said yes….

he got off of my lap and went away…

then I heard a thump in the kitchen… and he came back and said again… “mommy, I hit my head of the fridge… I am so sad… I want maju”

he now has a red spot on his forehead…

Endo appt…

We had the appointment at the Endo on Monday…

and… as I expected and really just knew all along, everything is completely normal with Khéna….

He is a big healthy boy.

Yes, He is very overweight, and off the charts at a bit over 18 kilos or 40lbs… but everything is normal…

They did mention that if he maintains the weight that he has now, he would come into the 97th percentile on the charts at age three… so they do think that he should not be gaining more… but there is nothing they can recomend for him not to gain weight… and because they could not blame overeating, because he really doesn’t eat much… they did try to hint that my milk might be too rich in calories and that he should be eating more solids… but then didn’t mention it again after they couldn’t explain why that would be when his two big brothers had the same nursing patterns and were/are pretty small..

I also asked if it was OK if ever he lost weight because with the spring and summer on the way and more outdoor play, swimming etc… and they said that there was no problem with that…

So for those IRL, and who read the blog and have been worried about Khéna’s weight… don’t worry… he is a healthy, beautiful and yes… big boy…

Xavier got a haircut!

We have been asking him for a while now if he wanted to get it cut and he always says no… the problem with the long hair though is that he doens’t want to brush it and never wants to tie it… so it was always in knots and in his eyes…

Over the weekend though we were able to talk it out and gave him the choice between caring for his hair by brushing and tying it when it is getting in his eyes… or cutting it…

I also gave him the choice of me cutting it, or going to the Salon to get it cut… he chose the Salon…

So today… after he had to hold his hair back to lick the syrup off his plate after eating french toast, I took an appointment…

here is just before…

during…

and after….

I am so tired of being sick…

We though we were doing pretty well this year until a few weeks ago… then our systems started to fail us…

colds, coughs, stuffy and runny noses, junky lungs and fevers have made us all miserable in the last few weeks…

during the night, the night before last, I asked Simon to stay home because I was feeling so awful… awful enough that I dreamed that Simon wrote on my blog that I was no longer living… Thankfully, I am still living and Simon did stay home yesterday and helped with the kids even though I was feeling a bit better…

Xavier however was the worse hit yesterday… he stayed on the lounging chair in front of the TV all day, feverish and in and out of sleep only drinking a bit of water, emergen-C and a bit of juice and once in a while shakily walking to the bathroom…

He is still sleeping at the moment, but his fever seems to have broken and hopefully today will be a better day even though we are all becoming a bit stir-crazy…
It seems to fit of course that we are having another winter storm, 25 cm of snow complete with freezing rain to top it off…