a hippie with a minivan

Six…

My sweet Colin turned six yesterday…

My boy is growing so fast. He still loves to draw and can spend hours doing that but recently a few video games have also really caught his attention. He is such a great kid and it is so fun to talk to him and just hang out. He has such an amazing imagination and loves to tell stories and does so with so much expession in his voice and eyes. He loves numbers and he counts to 100 and beyond… he just counts everything and add things up and subtracts and numbers just make sense to him… it is so cool to hear him…

He is such a happy and easy kid (though he can have his moments, don’t be fooled) He loves to look good and be well dressed with his hair combed and teeth brushed… he is very proud when someone compliments him and loves to be the centre of attention.

Colin is my social butterfly. He will talk to anyone, anywhere… he is often drawn towards older kids and adults but this summer he made a best friend at SMUG, the Summer Montreal Unschooling Gathering that we went to at the end of June. Luckily, his best friend feels the same way and the other kids and us parents also enjoy each others company so we have been trying to get together more often even if we live a bit more then an hour away…

(playing a game with the older kids at SMUG)

Colin of course is still my mover and jumper… he will climb anything, jump from anything, run and dive and ride and is just always moving… He was climbing well before he could walk and continues to impress me with his moves…

There is so much more I could say… this kid is amazing…

Happy Birthday Colin! I love you kid!

7 Months…

My sweet Wilhelmina is 7 months old today…

I can’t believe time has gone by so fast… She is growing so quickly, changing so much and even got her first tooth today! (top tooth at that)

She truly makes us smile. She wakes up in the morning with the biggest grin, she cuddles and kisses and loves being in anyones arms… She loves to hang out with her brothers and wherever they go she wants to follow… Though I do know that Khéna misses being the baby at times and has given her the permission to go back into my tummy more than once, he is such a great big brother along with Xavier and Colin and she loves them all…

Talking about Colin, it is amazing how much she and Colin look alike. She is seriously his double… everyone notices it and there are some pictures that we have of Colin that we can almost not tell the difference if it weren’t for the picture quality….

Xavier and her seem to share something very special. He wears her and carries her and has gotten her dressed and just loves to help take care of her. Not having a sibling of my own, I am amazed at the closeness all the kids have and their genuine love for each other. I think she is so lucky to have three big brothers to watch out for her, help care for her and who make her smile and laugh…

So, yes her first tooth has pierced and though she is not eating yet, she loves when I give her a carrot or piece of apple or cucumber to suck on… she has also loved licking the straw of my smoothie (made from frozen fruits and coconut milk) and loves to try to get water from my straw… I love this phase of experimenting, tasting. but not yet actually eating and swallowing anything…

I am going to write a more extensive post about EC but to mention is quickly, it is going great. We catch most pees and virtually all poos. With her crawling and interested in everything there have been a few more misses and puddles, but having her diaper-free all the time makes things easy. She still has the routine of having a pee before bed and waking up dry in the morning… We are so confident in her staying dry that she sleeps bare bum and we are not nervous at all….

Wilhelmina is just a happy little girl… when we are at home she can spend hours playing and discovering. She also loves to be worn around the house and loves to go outside… She doesn’t mind when we are out for the day and will quietly stay in the sling and nurse and sleep and people watch and just be with me while I get things done. The only thing that she doesn’t enjoy after a long day is the drive home. She nurses less when we are out so often the drive home reminds her that she is hungry… I stop and nurse her and then we are on our way again..

So wow… 7 months old… what an amazing kid and I am not ashamed to say that I am enjoying having a daughter.

Last day…

Well, it is here. Simon’s last official day of parental leave.

After nearly 7 months of being home and being a full-time family, Simon will be going to work tomorrow morning. I remember when Wilhelmina was born and would try imagine what she would be like when he would go back to work. Would she be stitting? Crawling? Cruising? how big would she be? what would she look like?

Now the day is here and she is more amazing than I could have imagined.

It has been amazing have Simon around the house. He does so much to help with the kids and let me devote time to Wilhelmina and even myself… Wilhelmina is such a Daddy’s girl and loves to be on his back while he is doing things around the house. The minutes she sees the Ergo, she craws to him or calms down if she is upset and it is her favourite place to fall asleep…

As much as I wish Simon could always be home, I am also looking forward to getting back into a daily routine. Giving birth and then having him home has made me feel lazy which is something that I can no longer do when I am back to being to primary caregiver to all four kids. I don’t mind being lazy sometimes, but after a while, it becomes a routine that is hard to get out of and I start feeling crappy and impatient with myself which then reflects on the kids. It is not the person I strive to be, and hopefully, doing more will mean that I will drop off a bit more weight which will also help with my energy and some negative feelings I have been having about myself.

I am not expecting to be 100% back to what I was doing before right away, but being home alone will do some good and going back into the role of primary caregiver will also feel quite nice.

I went and did the grocery shopping yesterday and made sure I had food for the week and a good list of meals that I can make without too much preparation to ease into this first week… soon I plan on getting back into the normal routine of baking bread on a regular basis, doing more baking in general and getting back into a better house keeping routine…

So this long long weekend has come to an end… the house will feel quite empty tomorrow morning when we wake up without Simon in the house…

I feel so thankful that we were able to have such a long time as a full-time family…

ears… ears…

We have been battling ear problems these last few days.

For the first (and maybe second time), one of my kids has an ear infection. Xavier came down with a fever and an earache early last week and is just now coming out of it.

8 years and 4 kids, and this is the first time that we have ever had to deal with this. Luckily, though not for him, it is Xavier and he is able to share what he is going though, understand what to do and not to do and he has been getting through it.. I can’t imagine having a small baby with an ear infection… it has been awful for him especially when his ear was as its worst and he was waking from pain.

When we just thought that we were done, Khéna had a very wakefull night with a sore ear… though the pain was gone in the morning, he has been with fever for two days now. I am not too sure what exactly is happening with him, but hopefully the pain won’t come back again and the fever will just subside.

On the subject of ears and Khéna, we have been wondering for the last little while if Khéna has trouble hearing. He doesn’t seem to hear us often when we talk and makes us repeat often. He doesn’t hear when we call him from another room, or talk from behind him. He has been asking us to look at him when we talk so that either the sound is coming from in front or he can see our lips when we talk and will often say that he didn’t hear something.

This is pretty new and it seems to have been escalating quickly in these last few weeks so a few days ago I called a specialist and have an appointment set up for in a few weeks.

I am looking forward to understanding more what is happening with him and am hopeful that it is something temporary.

I would love to hear stores from others who have seen this before or have any insight…

Newness…

Colin decided that he would try riding his bike without training wheels… though he is still nervous and tends to lean a bit too much he did it! I can’t believe that me little Colin is getting so big… he was just a baby when I started this blog and now he can do triple flips underwater and ride his bike…

And of course, if I am talking about getting big… Wilhelmina is surprising us every day.. she has started cruising so we got the Radio-Flyer walker out and she loves it! I can’t believe she can do this already…