Tag: Parenting

I was quite bummed to arrive yesterday and find the farm almost completely snow-free. Mother nature sorted that for us today. It snowed pretty much all day.

Mallory and I threw a bunch of stuff into the car and drove off to visit Grandpa Mike today. Despite the Ottawa area getting 30 cm or so of snow last night the roads were clear and only slightly damp until 401. Then it got positively November-like. A scattering of

For the first time ever, Mallory gave Irene and I presents. And handmade ones at that. I got a paper snowflake and Irene got a bunch of ghosts. I love the fact that she sees it as an exhange of gifts rather than The-day-I-get-a-bunch-of-presents.

So last night Mallory went to bed at the usual time. As often happens, I hear her fumbling for her water bottle. This is followed by a short period of silence, which is followed by more sounds of water bottle being put back on shelf. This is followed by silence.

She was talking about going to summer camp at dinner time tonight too. Afterward, she wanted us all to go watch TV together. We said ‘sure, but daddy will join after he does the dishes’. Then she said she wanted to help me do the dishes.

I had this plan to take a picture of Mallory playing at her first piano recital this evening. She wanted me to sit on the bench with her and I figured I could use the front-facing camera on my phone to get a shot of her rocking out on Batter

I went up to say goodnight to Irene and she told me that the evening had been uneventful but that Mallory had been sad that she wouldn’t say goodnight to me. I neglected to warn her that I wouldn’t be home before her bedtime.

She’s got two songs: Batter up and Mary Had a Little Lamb. Today’s lesson was devoted to preparing for Friday’s recital. Including the proper way to approach the bench, leave the bench and bow afterwards.

Playdate in the morning. Choir practice at noon. Tree climbing and general horsing around after. Two hours at Brewer Pool, swimming lengths. Straight off to the Muppet Movie (Miss Piggy is her favourite, she says) and then straight back home for a bit of a TV wind down, then bed.

Since Mallory just up and decided to sleep by herself in her own room (November 19) we’ve had one hybrid night, where she came into my room at about 2am, one fallback night where she decided she wanted to sleep in my bed, one night where we had a guest

Mallory and I spent a couple of hours going around and around Brewer Arena, today. On skates, that is. Irene and Mallory went skating yesterday and they had so much fun Mallory wanted a repeat today.

Second night in a row. I don’t want to jinx it, but it looks as though this whole sleeping on her own thing might take. Because I have said it before.

Archiving Mallory’s artwork from the last little while.

Not the Christopher Cross version. Note to self: iPhone videos work better in horizontal mode. Note also to self: say something about those bloody cops in UC Davis. Will they get fired after getting videoed doing something awful?

Mallory had her piano lesson this evening. She’s quite impressive, I think. But then I would say that. She’s very good at the sequences of notes and moving her fingers around the keyboard. Even with both hands. But she is missing rhythm. It’s not even …

That was pretty exciting. For some reason Mallory picked out two much younger books for stories tonight. I figure it’s because she’s bored with her usual favourites. They were a learn to read book and Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop. I told her “I bet you could…

Well, actually it’s in her mouth, still. But I’m trying to be… uh… hip. She was tired this morning, sleeping in to 7:10. We crawled downstairs and after starting in on her fruit, she complained to Irene that she was tired and wanted to go back to b…

Whoever thought of that as an upside for changing the clocks in fall did not have a young child. I carefully set the clock in our room back an hour before bed so that I could still observe the iron rule without having to explain the whole time change t…

Genuine excitement today as Mallory and I bounded home from daycare to gird for Halloween. Oh the candy. But first, there was so much to do. The candles, the candy, the costume, the meetups, the tombstones.