The girl is going strong

Tooth # 12 came through some time in the last 3 days or so. That makes 4 in a fortnight! We've been a tad busy to check every day and it's not easy or wise to stick your finger in Sophie's mouth. Her approach goes something like this "Bite down hard and quick on anything being extended toward my mouth; it might a) be food or b) injure someone (i.e. my annoying brother) and thus persuade them to stop jabbing their finger/foot (don't ask) in my mouth".

She totally charmed people at the local cafe this afternoon. She and her bro were swapping a black and silver wizard hat (I'll try to get a shot tomorrow). She also "persuaded" a lovely woman to read/play books with her for a solid 15 minutes!

M will start back at work tomorrow. He went in today to get signed back on the work schedules, and managed to meet Jian in the elevator!

Seb had a good day - kindergym at the community centre (CC), discovering that the European bakery directly behind us is peanut-free!!!!, eating a doughnut shaped like an "S" (after mum cut off and ate 2 small bits) [see slightly blurry photo of tiramisu that parents secretly shared], return to CC for time at their play centre (which included wearing the wizard hat and performing on his ukelele) and a hot chocolate. Happy kid = happy mother.

Easter weekend

Ikea sure makes "family shopping" easy. Our 2nd run at the Swedish behemoth left us $360 shorter and only 3 things ticked off the original list... But Seb had an hour of fun in their kids' centre and we all ate well at their restaurant, and Seb and I galloped our horses up and down the warehouse aisles. So we have a lovely hall bench / shoe rack that can triple as a bench for dinner guests (the matching coat rack make take longer to get up on the walls as it didn't come with screws...), the larder has extra shelves and is groaning with all the goodies it contains, the kids will eventually have matching red bed linens (to complement the blue check duvet covers and curtains that hung in my childhood room). But we have to go again to return the 3 things that don't fit... M is positive that I will be able to drive there safely myself.

Not from Ikea but we have a new eco-friendlier toilet (City of Toronto will give us $60 back) and a fancy-dancy sit-on-the-counter sink. They are about the only things that Ikea doesn't sell.

Easter weekend was looooonnng with community centres, libraries, etc closed for 4 days. But we bumbled through, with visits to our friends with older kids in Oakville (and a big tent in their basement) and egg decorating with Xin, plus a peanut-free chocolate penguin and gifts on Sunday. We topped off the weekend with some baking and a "high tea" using my new bundt pan.

The big news is that Dewson elementary school will accept Seb into their early kindergarten class immediately as he will be going there in September for French immersion. It wasn't the plan as we thought moving him from French to English to French would be a bit confusing but he wants to go. And after some horrendous behaviour this past week, the structure and agemates might be a good thing for him and I know that Sophie and I would benefit from time alone. It would be afternoons, which would conflict with his footie class but hopefully we can change that. His buddy Xin would be in the same class and he would have a rare male teacher! We have till Monday to decide, until then I will press on with the application to the French language school.

No buyer's remorse

Today, we had our first drop-by visitors and had an impromptu lunch. We even managed to find plates, cutlery and glasses for everyone and the dishwasher took care of the aftermath. We're starting to enjoy the house and the neighbourhood. Though I occasionally think it would be nice to be 10-12 blocks west (closer to the city core, more happenings and more friends), I then remind myself that we are 1 block from one good street car, 2 blocks from another and 2 blocks from the city's best bus route; plus we are so close to the community centre and a great park. All in all, we are pretty darn lucky.

Here are some shots from the past 4 days: of the kids at play and asleep, Seb with a very friendly Andrew the builder, and the ceremonial unfurling of our new-to-us carpet.

Our house was too big anyway

P.S. I think I have mentioned that we are using our super enormous house as a 2 bedroom, 2 playroom, 1 living room, eat-in kitchen lay-out. Well, for the past 2 days we have only 1 playroom, as Seb managed to lock the door to the downstairs playroom... None of our tools will jimmy it open, so we are hoping that Matt our friendly contractor (with a 5 year old himself) will have a solution. We can look in and admire the toys through the French doors but no playing happens. In fact, every door in the house has a lock on it; obviously the renovator wasn't thinking of a family with kids.

Another one pushes through

Sophie has produced another molar - at least part of it. She was up in the night with such a pain-filled wail, that it came as no surprise to find a bit of white poking through this evening.

This morning I took Seb to the semi-weekly kids drop-in gym at the community centre. It was great - complete with a trampoline - and it's free! I think we'll go with Sophie next week, as there were lots of little ones. Seb also went to the ROM today with uncle Coyen - that would be Colin to most. He was desperate to see the dinosaurs (Seb, not Colin), and managed to convince Colin to buy him a stuffed toy dino and a hot chocolate. Mike and I were off to register for Ontario medical coverage. I then pushed Sophie all the way home down Queen W and Dundas - a long long walk but it allowed us some time to get to know order of streets and key buildings, as well as identify local businesses. We've found a new organic store run by a young couple with a new baby (strapped to proud dad's chest as he restocks the shelves) and a tiny one-woman bakery. There's a Portugese fish and grocer round the corner that we have yet to try. Yesterday we stopped in at our local DVD rental shop; it looks pretty good with a wide array of dvds even for kids (tho I had to tell Seb that there will be no Dora the explorer or Diego in our house - foot down).

Tomorrow is our interview with the French school to see if we speak the language well enough and are appropriately committed to "the cause" or something. Wish us "bonne chance". It will also be an opportunity to find out if we like the school. At least Seb has been allocated a French immersion space at a local school where chum Xin is going.

Tomorrow is also the start of the plumbing reno. Should be 2 weeks. I'm leaning toward painting the new "powder" /laundry room berry berry or blackberry delight or some such (foolish) thing. Mike has opted us in for some high tech (high end!) washer and dryer with huge front-load windows which look made for an aquarium.

Speaking of fish, "red and blue" made it to ON but seems to be quite sluggish. Might be that we are so busy we have forgotten to feed him on occasion...

I'd best be off to bed as the big interview is at 9 tomorrow morning.

Arrived safely but barely installed

We landed in TO on Monday only to find that the electrical renos were not so advanced as we had hoped - especially the clean-up bit. Not a single room was liveable (check out the dust in some photos), so we had to camp out in a hotel for two nights. A nice hotel fortunately; we were right over the tracks leading into Union station, so both kids were fascinated by the trains.

On Tuesday, the city inspector visited our street and fined us (and several of our neighbours) $125 for failing to clear our sidewalk of snow. We showed him the moving boxes and he said we should get off on appeal. Hey, that will be a great way to spend a day with 2 small kids! But M turned it into a story by calling the news into his assignment editor and the next day it was the LEAD item on the morning local news. Not us, but the street getting fined without the usual warning. The feeling is that the city is desperate for ways to recoup money that it has overspent on its cleanup of near record snowfalls. Only problem is that they seem to have failed to plow our tiny street.

Then, we got dinged with a $3000 overrun on the electrical work. Needless to say, it was not the smoothest of arrivals.

But we are in and well - even though I have yet to sleep well here (might be the lack of curtains and getting re-used to a city sky that never fades to black). Sophie has a new tooth. George even made it here in our decrepit car and has been a "brick" according to my mum. Seb has started his Y membership and gone skating - proudly sporting a helmet. We have shopped at the tiny but lovely organic market at Dufferin Grove park, plus the inevitable visits to Ikea and Home depot (whoever knew that toilets came in so many styles..).

Seb went up the CN tower today (which we could see straight up from the hotel pool window!) with Gramps. And had an ice cream, hot chocolate, candy and taxi ride... He was so genuinely happy to be reunited with toys; he treated them like old friends. He seems really happy here, and is so eager to get to the ROM to see the new dinosaur exhibit. Ever nervous, we are waiting with bated breath to see if the proverbial penny will drop after Gramps leave tomorrow.

We are assembling our new pantry tomorrow and getting the kitchen organised (plus going to Kensington Market). The electrical work is pretty much over; as you can imagine Sebby loved the workers and filled their ears (while wearing his exact replica mini-tool belt). The plumbing starts on Wednesday. It's a race against time to get completed before our contractor's baby makes his arrival in early April. We live in hope.

Saying goodbye to our market

Saturday is the busiest day of the week at the city market. Last weekend various merchants asked Sebastian to be sure to come back and say farewell tomorrow, so that's where we will be. We'll be well-fed, well-amused and get to ring the bell again (maybe even I will try!).

Here's the link to what might become our "new" market. Give us a month or two and then Seb will no doubt know all the vendors and be able to take you on a tour.

http://dufferinpark.ca/market/wiki/wiki.php#about

Always forgetting

Our days are full. I often catch myself thinking "oh, got to get this lovely moment summed up for the blog, share it with family and friends". But somehow it slips away and I am left late in the evening with no memory of that perfect moment I wanted to share.

Seb has been told the "big news" and seems really excited about it. Yesterday, he told everyone we met that we are moving to Toronto but was stymied by the question "for how long?" It really warmed my heart that people in the market and library gave him parting tokens of affection, their e-mail addresses, etc. One clerk (who has changed employers a couple of times in the past 2 years) was recalling how small Seb was in 2005/06. He has really made his mark uptown!

At 15 months, we made a list of words that Seb understood, so we have done the same for Sophie. It's an impressive list - headed by "nursing", "coughing" (don't ask), "Seb", and other close relatives. It was a fun activity for the whole proud family; Sebastian in particular would double-check that we had all the words written on his sister's list. The paternal grandparents aren't too scientific about the whole thing; George kept adding extra words that I question (like does she really understand "car"? or just that it means going outside the house?).

Good news is that we seem to have rented out our maison de village for 3 weeks in May; that will pay the annual taxes. Bad news is that our home exchange for an Ontario cottage in August seems to be fizzling.