Trev’s “graduation”

A week and a half until Trev starts kindergarten. He is going on a bus safety training tomorrow. His school is 1.6 km away from our house. My elementary school was 500 m away and my middle school was 1.2 km. The middle school was in a completely different part of town and I would take the tram to get there sometimes. The two elementary schools available to us are both about that distance away from us and they are still “really close”. I’ve lived in the suburb for over a decade and this still blows my mind.

Anyhow, Trev is really excited and I hope we have made the right decision. From talking to other parents and teachers, the school he is going to is decent (better than the alternatives in the neighbourhood anyhow). A lot of his friends from the daycare, including one of his two best friends, will be going there and the school has just introduced grade 4 french immersion so we will not need to move him to another school if we decide to put him in that program.

Penguins

Despite the penguin fever that swept his older brother, Owen is indifferent. I made a penguin suit for him, but so far he is not interested in wearing it.

I found that I really enjoyed sewing these. Now that the seeing machine is out I might try and get the other projects finished. My quilting project got put aside when I got pregnant because I was too tired to sew, but now I feel a very different kind of exhaustion which makes sewing actually relaxing.

Pool

This year Chris got a really good system for keeping the pool in good condition on regular basis. I think I used the pool a bit more than previously though that could be mostly due to the fact that we stayed in Ottawa throughout the summer. We did not have people over this year as much as previous years which makes me a bit sad, but the back yard needed some maintenance and I was in no state to spend energy on it. Hopefully next year. I would like to see the return of our yearly BBQ and some more playgroup dates.

They had these really cool monkey suits at Trev’s daycare. Trev liked them so much he asked us to buy him one. We said, “Ok, if you earn twenty stickers we’ll go to the store and get you a monkey suit”. Trev diligently earned his twenty stickers so I asked the teacher at the daycare where they order their costumes from. Turns out that one of the teachers picked it up at the Goodwill. Oh.

Mental note: do not promise your kid you will get them a costume unless it is a month leading up to Halloween and you are physically in front of the said costume. We turned to the Internet because you can find anything on the Internet. You can find monkey suits on the Internet but they are too expensive. Or really, they are not expensive but when you add the shipping cost they become too expensive. Additionally, the costumes on the Internet were not even half as cute at the one at Trev’s school. We did the next best thing, we ordered monkey costume sewing pattern from the Internet and told Trev that we are “on it”.

Fortunately for me, by the time the pattern arrived and I was ready to start sewing, Trev hit the penguin phase. Penguin costumes are much easier to sew and it was quite easy to find a good tutorial.

So here is the result. Trev seems pleased with it and so am I. Now, should I make a matching costume for Owen?

Today I filled out my mat leave paperwork. I have not submitted it, I will keep it for a few days to make sure I am happy with the dates but essentially it is all done.

Trevor is supposed to start school in September and the week (we think) he starts will be the first week of my mat leave. Despite the fact that I am not sold on the whole concept of kindergarten, I am really excited for Trev. I almost cried today when I was thinking about how he is moving on to a new school. I am really nervous and hope that it all goes well.

I had all the intention of blogging about the above picture a few weeks ago after we came back from the medieval festival, mostly for my sister’s amusement, but then I had stuff to do and it became old news.

However, today, my sister posted (completely unaware of the first one) a matching picture on her blog and now I have no choice but to compare and contrast.

See those three figures in centre right of the above photo? Those are the paramedics monitoring the jousting match. It was a little bit after 1PM on a stupidly hot day and they were standing there all straight and strict looking with no hats on. Frankly, I was more worried about the paramedics suffering from heat stroke than the metal-clad guys knocking each other off the horse with a stick.

And here is the contrasting picture (shamelessly stolen from “Sjever i Jug”)

So, the similarities… Three paramedics/emergency room doctors in uniform, one girl, two sameish looking guys observing a subcultural sporting event (for non-Croatian speaking public, the second picture is from youth firefighters games). The differences are striking also, though the Canadians have a much neater uniform, the Croatian team is at least dressed for the weather. Look at them all smiling and relaxed, leaning against the fence amongst the crowd.