The world’s just catching up to me.
This past Christmas was the first with a tree in the house since the twins were born, and Liam and Morgan had a couple of near-bouts of pneumonia this winter. They're pictured here at home a few weeks ago in the midst of a nasty flu virus.
I have had an even busier schedule at work, and there have been no real opportunities to take the kind of pictures worth sharing, so the blog fell silent - until today.
Maybe it’s no coincidence that we’re welcoming the end to a lousy winter here, and I’m returning to posting something. The occasion which prompted pulling out the camera was a trip to see Steve and Cheryl in Whitby. They're about 160-170 kms from Brantford. As you might imagine, that kind of trek makes for quite an undertaking with three-year-old twins, so it doesn't happen often.
Steve and Cheryl and I got along with each other almost immediately upon meeting more than ten years ago. Having said that, we haven’t seen each other in close to two years, and it’s been even longer since I’ve seen their kids.
Cheryl may be the most conscientious entertainer/hostess I’ve ever known.
From the moment of arrival – every time I have ever visited – she keeps herself busy ...putting out finger food, supplying drinks, getting a meal together and then serving it, and, all the while, conversing as if you’ve got her undivided attention AND making sure their two girls, Jocelyn and Elia, are following the 'house rules'. As a guy with four jobs, I’m just a little envious of her ability to multi-task that efficiently.
Speaking of the finger foods, I think Liam was a little more interested in his reflection in the glass coffee table -
although he did manage to devour almost all of the “circle crackers”, as we call them around here.
I managed to “let go” a little bit, too. While home, Liam and Morgan are restricted by baby gates at both the tops and bottoms of staircases, as well as away from the ceramic-tiled foyer and many potential hazards of the kitchen. Steve and Cheryl have taken the baby gates down in their house, partly because they have Jocelyn, who is older, to help watch over Elia. It seems to be working out quite well. So, I nervously sat back and watched Liam and Morgan negotiate the stairs up and down to the playroom – many times...and there were a lot of things to do - including many movies to watch - in the playroom.
At home, Morgan and Liam like to do the stairs themselves without assistance, but they know I always prefer to be right beside them. They did just fine at Steve and Cheryl's.
Was expecting Dave and Leslie with their two boys, Connor and Cole, but Cole was a little under the weather, so Dave kept him home. Leslie brought Connor, and although he and Jocelyn were a little bored with the 3-year-olds’ level of play, they at least had a bit of a chance to hang out together.
It was fun to watch how Elia reacted to sharing her stuff with a couple of kids very close to her age.
Having spent many hours explaining to the twins how important it is to share (only partly because we can’t afford two of everything, and wouldn’t have room to keep most of it anyway), and knowing that Elia doesn’t have to worry about that on a daily basis because Jocelyn wouldn’t be the least bit interested in playing with the same things, being four years older, these pictures really amused me.
It shows Morgan waiting for a turn to play with one of Elia’s toys and eventually giving up.
The funny part to me is that – if it were Liam playing with the toy (it’s a water-filled gadget on which you push a button to try to propel little plastic balls into a hippo’s mouth – kinda cute), Morgan would simply rip it out of his hands and run with it. Liam would cry, and I’d be back in the middle of a conversation about sharing, explaining to Liam to let Morgan have a turn occasionally, and to Morgan that forcefully taking the toy from Liam is not the ideal way to initiate the sharing process.
However, something must be getting through to Morgan, because she was polite enough to wait until Elia was bored with it, and then took her turn.
All in all, a good day with good friends.
Still wish MY life-long friends lived closer, though. Nova Scotia is too far away from me...
Going to have to get to work on that teleportation room.
