december twenty-one

Mack decided that he wanted to get up for the day at 3:45 am this morning. We put him to bed early last night, but not that much earlier than normal. Usually he goes to bed between 7:30 and 8pm latest, but it's usually closer to 7:30 am. Last night, we put him to bed around 7 pm as he was slap happy and hadn't napped all day. I am not sure why he thought he could get up at 3:45 am, but I wasn't too happy about that. I tried to put him back to bed in his crib after a bottle, but he had no interest at all. He started to scream. It took me until 5:30 am to get him asleep and back into his crib. I'm not fully rested this morning and not so happy about this. But I do what I gotta do...

This morning Mack went to his Christmas Party at daycare. I brought Oatmeal cookies that I made late last night, after almost forgetting to make them. I baked the exact same ones that I made for Sean's class last week with the Santa faces and all. I wrapped them in the same way that I wrapped Sean's and Mack's teachers were impressed. I gave each of his 3 teachers their holiday gifts and I told them that when I came to pick up Mack to have his things ready, as today was going to be his last day. I ran 2 errands after dropping him off, I needed to go to the post office and as well, I wanted to pick up the supplies to make Sean's Thank you cards from his birthday party. Instead of buying ready made cards this year, I wanted to make my own. I've been in a huge creative mode lately, so I wanted to go with that and make it work. I ran home for a little bit until it was time to go pick up Mack from daycare. They gave me the whole "We miss you already" bit and his one fave teacher of mine (from his 3 teachers) was almost in tears, crying. She mentioned again, that if Mack has troubles adjusting to his new daycare that I should call her and she would speak to the coordinator, who is really nice (I've met her only twice when registering Mack), and that she would see what she could do about getting Mack his spot. Honestly, I am not worried. Mack know Sean's school because he's been bringing Sean there since Mack himself was about 3 months old. There will be an adjustment period, but it too shall pass. There is a reason why I'm leaving that daycare, and I won't be coming back. It's funny, his teacher said that if I ever have another child, I should come back to that daycare with the new baby, but if I do have a 3rd child one day, if I can ever convince Jamie to go for number 3, then I would either stay home with the baby until he or she is 18 months old and can get into Sean's & now Mack's daycare, or find somewhere else to send him or her until he or she is old enough to go to Sean & Mack's daycare. I would never bring another child into that environment. I was desperate and had to go back to work, and had to bring Mack somewhere. I am so happy that now this chapter in our life is over and I no longer have to go up & down those stairs to bring Mack there. In this case, you really do get what you pay for. (Cheap daycare = shitty "babysitting").

I was playing with my camera this morning and took some nice shots of my nephew who is staying with us until Thursday, with his mom (my husband's sister) and her boyfriend. He's gotten so big, it's crazy.

I remember my silly nephew from July of 2006. My fave picture from the two weeks he stayed with us that summer is this one. Gosh they grow too fast these kids. I've seen him since 2006, but I was just remembering back to that time.

I don't think he was too impressed that I was taking a LOT of pictures.

Sean is absolutely smitten with his cousin.
Merlyn is Sean & Mack's only cousin. Only Jamie's sister has a son.

We played this afternoon for a while with my XL Window Writers. They are a lot of fun!

Everyone contributed to the sliding doors.
What a great fun afternoon activity!

Some reason, mid afternoon, we decided to head to the park to go skating. It was VERY cold.

Sean got to to skating for the first time ever in his life on cheese cutters.

He was doing pretty good.

He skated around with his cousin. (Recognize my nephew's hat?)

And he had a lot of fun. Until his cheese cutter snapped in half (this was already after one of the buckles snapped as we were putting it on him, and we had to improvise to get it to stay). I will have to get him new skates. The ones I got from Canadian Tire were no good.

I even put on my skates and headed out on the ice for a bit until I couldn't feel my feet anymore. I have very poor circulation in my feet and my toes go numb in extreme cold weather (ok, in any cold weather...) Mackenzie was NOT impressed either, not even bundled up in layers and in his new snow suit. He screamed the entire time we were out, so I left early and headed back. He wasn't impressed either by my SIL's boyfriend skating and pulling him in our wagon. He wanted nothing to do with outside. I don't blame him either. It was that brutally cold. -19°C that felt like -29°C with the winds. Ick!

Tonight my in-laws came over for dinner and we just took it easy. I'm jonesing to knit (or even crochet). It's been a few days since I've worked on anything... been so busy with birthday planning and now with visitors at our house... I just feel like there is no time. Tomorrow!