our imperfect dogs & an unpleasant woman

Our dogs are not perfect. I am reminded of that fact when someone comes to the door. I am reminded of it when they bark at the neighbour's dog. I am reminded of it when they swipe food from Quincy.

And this morning I was reminded of it by a rather unfriendly woman at the dog park. She is a dog walker and had two large boxers with her. She yelled at my dogs for being, well, for being dogs. Then she said to them quite gruffly, as if they understand English, "Come on, let's not make this personal." Well, whenever we see these two dogs when we are out walking, they bound up to our dogs. They even come up to our open car door, which is pretty unpopular with Kai. I must say, they aren't very fond of them and they have tried to tell them off, as dogs do, on more than one occasion. So unbeknownst to her they have history, and maybe for the dogs it is personal.

This morning my dogs had been playing nicely and uncharacteristically quietly for 30 minutes with a large pack of dogs before this woman turned up. You know, not all people get along, in fact, I don't like this woman, so why should we expect all dogs to be best mates?

Maybe I should add that Kai was attacked last year by a large, brown, muscular dog. It was completely unprovoked. Jeremy was walking the dogs on the footpath and this tied up dog just lunged at her. It wasn't a boxer, but ever since she has taken a disliking to many other dogs that fit that description, including a lot of boxers. She was already slightly timid, but that incident unfortunately has made her more suspicious of certain other dogs. When she's off the lead though, she is generally fine because she is able to remove herself from the situation. But some dogs don't pick up on her signals and follow her and continue to sniff her bum. Unrelentlessly. Let's just say, she's not overly keen on that. Can you blame her?

gymnastics

Last term, for one reason and another, we didn't participate in many of the local kiddie activities. So this week, when the new term started, Quincy and I were both ready for action. Today we tried something new...an open gym for 2-5 year-olds at a nearby gymnastics centre. It's a casual session from 10:30-11:30 and you just pay when you go. My style. As soon as we entered the gym, Quincy was off exploring. So carefree and curious. As usual he loved watching the bigger kids swinging on the rings, flying around on the tramp, and rolling down a ramp. He did his best to do the same, and even though he can't get both feet off the ground when he jumps yet, he thought he was pretty cool on the tramp himself.

This was exactly what I didn't realize I was looking for.

I suspect that the only thing that could have made it better in his eyes was if he was let loose in there with a basket of cars. Imagine the traffic he could make on the balance beams.

To you and I, it might just look like toilet paper,

but are you curious what this really is?

It's chocolate marshmallow fudge delight like in the Rattletrap Car book.

A child's imagination. It's an awesome thing.

visit from Poppa

Jeremy's dad was down for a few days and not surprisingly Quincy wanted his attention the entire time. He brought him a tow truck and Q couldn't stop saying "wowww" while Peter was wrestling it from the box. The big hit, though, was this tickling game he played with Jeremy when he was little. Fits of laughter, cries for more, and the declaration, "Poppa so funny" always followed.

fyi: I am currently sitting in my bathrobe on the bathroom floor under the heater. I have been (gently) kicked out of bed by a certain someone who has to work tomorrow. I couldn't go to sleep with this layout unfinished though. Ahh, the beauty of digital scrapbooking. It truly can be done anywhere!

ode to my little bookworm

Funny thing, while I was preoccupied putting laundry away, he worked very hard picking out and stacking all those books and really thought I would read them all!

(As usual all digital supplies apart from the tiny alpha stickers are from Designer Digitals.)

And now, my father-in-law is in town and as soon as Q wakes up, we're headed out for an early dinner. Better get ready...

toddler heaven

The playground...two days in a row...toddler heaven.

And today he wore better slide pants. Bonus.

change of plans

For the last ten days, Quincy left the house twice, once to the grocery store and once to the post office and library. He's had a nasty cold so we've been hibernating. Because of the swine flu pandemic, people are being strongly encouraged to stay home when they are sick. Besides the weather hasn't encouraged us to do otherwise, so we've been pretty happy playing cars and trains and trying to stay warm. As of yesterday, no more cough, so we were really looking forward to a playdate with my antenatal group this morning. But the hosts ended up sick. We were gutted. Q said, fighting off tears, "Ashton be there. Play cars." Sorry Buddy.

So, change of plans. I was determined to get out of the house and so was he.

We went to a big library we haven't been to before

and played at a playground along the way.

Like most kids, Q loves playgrounds. He never wants to leave. But he's not overly zealous. Nor is he especially daring. You won't find him zooming down the slide backwards or going nuts on the swings. He's the kind of kid who slides down 75% of the slide and then scoots the rest of the way. He tries most things. He runs. He climbs. He just does it with caution. He's an observer. And he notices all the little details. When he sees other kids playing with abandon, he laughs and says, "funny kids." He appreciates the craziness and once at home he mimics the things he has observed. I guess, for the most part, he just practices crazy at home!

On that note, I had to laugh when I saw these four pictures from this morning.

The ones on the left were taken while we were the only ones on the playground. He gave the bouncy bike a go, but he was content to just sit there, look around, and talk to me about the postman's bike. After a short time, he said, "All done," and I helped him off. The ones on the right were taken twenty minutes later, after he'd watched an older boy ride that thing with gusto. This time he tried to climb up himself, just as the boy had, and spent ages bouncing back and forth before climbing off all by himself when he was finished.

It's amazing how much they learn from other kids.

working it all out

Sometimes when you're two and your understanding of how the world works isn't that great, and your grasp of complex human emotions isn't that good, and your notion of inappropriate behaviour & consequences isn't too advanced, and you're just trying to figure it all out, you put yourself in time out. For no reason at all.

For the record, we have overheard him on more than one occasion say, "Tinty looooves time out."

The only reason we've needed to use time out so far is for throwing things. He is the master of throwing toys when he gets frustrated. When he is "released", he says his obligatory "Saya Mama," but then he adds, with a touch of desperation and a lot of optimism, "Mama happy now?" Even when I'm annoyed, that part gets me every time.

recap of the holiday weekend

Our fourth (and fifth) included...

a pancake breakfast followed by donuts,

a runny nose that just wouldn't quit,

cars,

and trains,

a few rounds of This Little Piggy,

lots of laughter,

chocolate chip cookies,

a little bit of crazy,

a few tears,

a guitar concert,

and, of course, sparklers,

and fireworks. (note: Our display was not as good as my face might indicate. If you average mine and Quincy's expressions, that'd be about right. Q asked for more after each and every one. He's pretty easy to please though.)

The neighbour shouted "Happy Independence Day" during our little display and then shot off a few fireworks of his own. And then someone across the bay shot one off too. It was pretty cool that they acknowledged it. It's hard to explain why. Maybe it made it feel like more of a celebration. Like I wasn't living quite so far away from the States. Or maybe it was just nice to have my culture respected. To feel a little bit more understood.

Now I'm guessing not many neighbours of Kiwis living overseas have acknowledged Waitangi Day, the closest thing NZ has to a national holiday. But then again, there wasn't a big Hollywood blockbuster entitled Waitangi Day. And really all you need to do to make an ex-pat Kiwi happy is know where New Zealand is on the map. Talk about easy to please!

stars & stripes

We wish we were celebrating in Cincinnati with the entire family, but alas, not this year. Quincy would have loved mixin' it up with his cousins, that's for sure.

spying & evidence

I love seeing what he is up to while he thinks I am in the shower.

And a little bit of evidence that a toddler does indeed live here: