Lessons from Maxman

Last night at dinner Maxman told us a story out of the blue. It goes something like this:

"Did you know that there is one god for the whole world?" he said.

Hmmm...this is a little unusual I start to think.

"And, if you really need something you pray for it," he continued.

Hmmm...who exactly has he been talking to I think.

"Did you know that there is a prime minister in charge of Canada. And there is a prime minister for all the provinces. And the prime minister is God's special helper?" He ended his lesson there.

"Max," I ask, "where did you learn all this?"

"From my teacher at school."

Time to talk to the teacher and get some context to this I think to myself.

Max's has the most wonderful, sweet, energetic, clever, musical, lovely teacher in the whole, wide world.

I talk to her this afternoon and she almost chokes when I tell her what he said. Then she starts laughing. Turns out they have been talking about aboriginals in class. She had been telling them about how aboriginals believed in different gods and prayed to them, etc...

Maxman has taken this information and applied it to the whole world.

First problem solved. Have since clarified some things with the little man.

As for the prime minister thing - she was stumped. She called the French teacher at home to ask her about it. She tells her the story and the French teacher starts howling with laughter.

Turns out the poor French teacher read the kids a Robert Munsch book in class the other day and there was a mayor in it. The kids asked what a mayor was. She tried to explain the concept and talked about different people in charge of cities and provinces. She adds that the prime minister is in charge of the country.

One of the little cuties pipes up at this point and says, "but I thought God was in charge of everyone?"

What a kettle of fish for that poor French teacher.

Not sure what connections Maxman made at this point, but somehow in his brain this ended up with the prime minister as God's special helper.

Kids are soooooo cute!

Tomato Attacks Dandelions

Have been waging war like crazy on our dandelions lately. I get funny comments from people like,

"Do you hate dandelions?"

No, I just like my neighbours more and don't want their wrath when my weeds spread to their yard.

We unleashed our killer tomato on them last weekend. He is very good with the Weed Hound.





p.s. Maxman wears his tomato costume all the time. He had strep throat a couple of weeks ago and wore it to the doctors office for his check-up.

Beautiful Boy

Maxman loves to play outside in the snow.

The other day I peeked out and couldn't see him. I threw my boots on and found him lying on the sidewalk with his head on the snowbank by the house and his feet on the other snowbank.

He was quietly contemplating the sky while eating a snowball.

He is a beautiful kid.

Marriage

The kids have never really asked about marriage before.

I know some of my friends have talked to their kids about it, but the subject has never come up with us, and I don't bring anything up at this point that I don't have to.


Setting the Scene:

We are getting in the car after picking up ice cream to make sundaes before bed. Maxman, Hops & Barley and I are planning on having a perfect ending to a wonderful party of a day.


We're driving home and the word "wife" was used (the following is paraphrased of course):

"What is a wife?" Maxman asks.

"I am daddy's wife and he is my husband and we are married." I say. "When two people love each other they have a wedding and get married."


"Is there a party and dancing?" Max asks.

"Um, of course." I say.

"And is there cake?" Hops & Barley pipes up.

"Yep! There is cake and dancing and a party and you exchange rings."

Maxman then decided that he would like to get married and that he will marry his best girlfriend A. Banana.


Hops & Barley decided that she too would like to get married and will marry her best girlfriend D. Doo.

"I will be D. Doo's wife, and D. Doo will be my wife." Hops & Barley says.

Then they started chatting about marrying more than one person.


I explained to them that you can't marry more than one person at a time, but that when some married people fight a lot they can get very sad and some of them get something called a divorce.

Maxman assures me that he and A. Banana will not be getting a divorce because they will not ever fight because they will not have any swords.

Tomatoes and Witches and Candy, Oh My

(was going to fix the pics below, but thought I'd leave them "as is" in the spirit of the post).

Halloween was a blast.

One of my favourite holidays of the year.

Tons of excitement and candy and pumpkins. So much fun that I forgot to take any pictures that night (bad mama).

Have recreated the costumes (Maxman was not happy about this as you can probably tell from the picture).

Hopping

Maxman loves to hop.

Sometimes he hops most of the way to and from school.

Ahh...School Crafts

Maxman brought various school crafts home today.

This is my personal favourite: the Word Bubble:


I am keeping this one FOREVER!

Use Your Grumpy Voice

(Max on his first day of Junior Kindergarten)


Max comes in to the computer room during his dinner tonight, looks at me and out of nowhere says,

"carrrrrrrrrotte."

He sounded like a demon; his voice all low, whispery and growly.

Wow, I say, that sounds great Max (he had French lessons at school today).

JEM pipes up and says, "that's great Max. I can't even say it like that."

Max looks him up and down and explains, "Um dad, you just have to use your grumpy voice."

That's what I've been missing all these years trying to perfect my French accent - my grumpy voice.

The Grocery Cart Chronicles

At the grocery store.

Trying to pack the groceries and get out of the way.

Told the kids to put their hands on the cart so they would stop pressing the button that makes the conveyor belt go and piles our groceries up on top of each other.

Turn around to finish packing and hear a huge crash.

Hear all customers in line and cashier GASP.

Turn back around and Hops & Barley is PINNED under the cart (one heavy bag of groceries is already in cart).

Kids have done what I asked and held on to the cart, then took it a step further when they both climbed up on the same side of grocery cart.

Heroically lift cart of H&B's legs (okay it wasn't that heavy but it felt heroic).

Hug her like crazy and check to make sure nothing is bleeding, broken, crushed, etc...Make her wiggle her legs. She tells me she's okay.

Finish packing groceries quite calmly.

Give very long lecture on what you are NOT allowed to do with the grocery cart.

TaaDaa!!

What They Are Up To

Hops & Barley is 2.5 years old now, but thinks and acts like she is four. I can't believe that she has two more years before she goes to school like her big brother.

She has spent the last 1/2 hour climbing up the arm of the big green chair, standing on the arm and jumping into the middle of the chair. She started off using the little rocking chair to boost herself on to the green chair, but this kept falling over. So as any responsible mother would do, I told her to stop using the dangerous chair to climb up the tall arm of the bigger even more dangerous chair.

I didn't word this properly because instead of stopping the whole thing, she got her little white stool to use instead of the rocking chair. I then asked her if she could stop jumping entirely.

She looks at me and says, "I'll do it carefully."



Maxman started JK full-time yesterday (full-time = every afternoon). He only went three times last week. He likes it...sort of. He doesn't like the playground and tells me every time how much he really dislikes outdoor play time. Drop off is especially sad. He sits on a bench by himself and watches the other kids play on the baby structure while H&B and I walk away.

His feelings have to do with getting kicked off the "big kid" play structure on his very first day (you have to be 5 to play on that one he was told). I have no doubt his dislike of outdoor time will pass by.....ummm.... the end of this week.

He has come home each day with something new to sing or tell me. Yesterday he informed me that this - he pointed to his head - is his tete. And this - he pointed to his foot - is his piete.

I said do you mean pied? Yes, he says my pied. Then he said that it sounds just like the letters P and A together. I said yes it does, good work. Good for him for working that out.

Then I rock his reality, because he asked me how you spell pied.

I spell it for him and he looked at me like I'm CRAZY and SILLY and flat out WRONG.

I can totally see why he thinks it's ridiculous that a word that sounds like PA (totally rational) is spelled PIED (try working that one out phonetically).

Maxman Says...

Maxman: "I'm going to be a great dad when I grow up."

Me: "That's so nice honey."

Maxman: "I'm going to be a great dad when I grow up, just like my dad."

Flattering???

Apparently I am the best for snuggling because, according to Maxman:

I am the squishiest.

Update of an Old Classic

Maxman was playing his ukulele yesterday.

He was patiently plucking each string with his pick. After a while I told him that he was playing "My Dog Has Fleas."

He listens to me sing the catchy little ditty, nods and goes back to playing.

This time he sings, "My dog has a fleece."

Happy Birthday Little Man

He is the BEST guy in the world.

He tells me that he will love me for one hundred days.
(when you are almost four, one hundred days seems like forever)

I tell him I'll love him for one hundred more.

He says he'll love me for one more day after that.

I try not to cry.

He is four tomorrow and I can't express how amazing he is. He can do just about anything now and is so very, very clever.

We love you Maxman. Happy Birthday!

Tulip Festival

There is a huge (I mean huge) tulip festival here in May. It's now the end of June, I have my new computer, so here are some pics: (pictured in no particular order are kc, maxman, hops & barley)

Works Of Art

The kids wanted to paint the other day so I stripped them down and let them go at it.

Of course they stopped using the paper immediately and used themselves as canvases.

Oh what fun!!

A Normal Day In Our House

Kids get up at 6am-ish.

JEM gets up for work and feeds the animals (Maxman and Hops&Barley).

JEM tells me he has to leave for work and I roll out of bed.

H&B greets me with shoes in her hands and says we must go for a walk.

"Later," I say. "I must eat breakfast."

Before eating I decide the mound of dishes should be done.

While washing the dishes I notice H&B rooting around for a different pair of shoes. She sometimes changes her shoes five times in half an hour.

After rooting around, I hear H&B fall down ALL the basement stairs.

I run to the top of the stairs and she's lying at the bottom on her back crying, a runner clutched in each hand.

I tear to the bottom of the stairs and kiss her head asking if she's okay. I'm trying to decide whether I should move her. I'm trying not to cry.

H&B says, "I okay. I get up now." She takes her shoes and runs off.

I sit on the floor for a second marvelling at a) how tough she is, b)how lucky I am she's not hurt, c)that I still need to finish the dishes.

I go upstairs, pick up the cutlery I dropped on the floor in my mad dash for the stairs and finish the dishes.

That was before 7:30am.

Now we go to the beach. Have I mentioned that the beach is a half hour walk from our house - yippee!!!

Maxman Is One Cool Dude

Have not posted in a while b/c while my computer is trying very hard to keep up with things around here, it just can't. It's been crashing like crazy every time I try and post something. I've had to resort to using the oldest Internet Explorer program ever just to do this. Hang in there little iBook.

JEM sent me this story the other day:

Max is the man. This morning he asked, "When I grow up can I drink coffee?" I said yes. Then he asked if he could go to work with me. "Yes." Then he asked if he could go curling. "Yes." Then he went and found his curling broom, we came back up stairs and we pretended to curl together in the kitchen. It was cool.

He's the best!

Then he washed the dishes. Even better.

The Best Brella In The World

Maxman doesn't ask for much. He's one of those kids you can take into stores and he doesn't beg you to buy him anything. Once in 3.5 years did he pitch a fit over something and we had to leave a store (a used board game from Value Village, and I take partial responsibility for the meltdown that day).

Usually when I ask if he wants me to buy something he'll say, "No thank you."















Hops & Barley on the other hand is a little different. If we're out of apple sauce, for instance, she'll look at me and say, "Buy some." That's word-for-word what she says to me.

We've been stalking our new house daily for the last couple of weeks and we pass by a luggage store on the corner each time. Maxman spotted an umbrella in the window the first time we passed by and has pointed it out ever since.

We did buy cheapo umbrellas at Dollarama the other day and his broke the next day.

So, I asked him if he would like to go buy an umbrella.















We took all our spare change in the house and went down with our sack of pennies to the Coinmaster machine at Superstore. It is the BEST thing that has ever been invented. I loved it!!
We ended up having about $23 worth of pennies in our house.

After getting the money for the umbrella we went down to the store. Maxman knew exactly which umbrella he wanted and no other would do. The sales lady had to get the one from the front window for him. It is beautiful b/c it's exactly what he wanted.















Unfortunately for Maxman it hasn't rained here for days. As you can see from the pictures, yesterday I made it rain for Maxman so he could try out his new treasure.

Piles and Piles

The kiddlings were in their room for quiet time the other day (Hops & Barley was put in there, Maxman asked to go with her).

That day, quiet time consisted of taking every single thing they could carry and dumping it on the other side of the gate - including every book on the bookshelf and their sheets.

JEM briefly tried to talk them out of it, but their giggly little faces soon persuaded him that it was too much fun to stop. I told him shortly after that they often do this in the afternoons and I let them b/c it keeps them happy so I can eat lunch quietly and this, of course, makes it okay.

Note: they cleaned everything up with a little bit of help after. They had to b/c they couldn't get over the pile of stuff to get out of their room otherwise.