House Reno et al

Let me start off by stating that winter has officially arrived here in Vancouver! "Why do you say that?" you ask. Allow me to explain. Granville Island Brewery's "Winter Ale" is now being brewed. Now that I'm a father of two and rarely get to the pub, I'm sure that today wasn't the first day it was served, but it was on tap when I stopped into the Raven after my yoga class tonight(a whole other story). I was let down to discover the pub's Cold Beer & Wine store didn't yet stock the Winter Ale. I will head to the government Liquor Store tomorrow to investigate and will report back.



Now looking back, I see it was November 5th I last wrote. It has been a rather busy house since then. On Thursday the 8th, Ed of Green Monkey Renovations, started finishing the work in the kitchen that I hadn't finished and also demolished our bathroom. The bathroom demo went well and most of it was out in day one. All we had left was a bathtub. That was the case till Wednesday, when the plumber came and started his work. Thursday saw the electrician come around and tell me nothing was up to code, I needed a new fuse box, the fellow who had previously done the wiring didn't know what he was doing. On closer look the fuse box would do, seeing as our oven was gas not electric it was wired correctly and he would be more than happy to help.



Thursday also saw my wife catch the 6:30 am ferry, over to the island for work. Ella was not due back till Friday 7:00 pm. Which left me in the house with two builders, a plumber, a sparky, two boys under the age of two (one of whom is breast feeding and won't drink formula), no wife and oh yes I'm late for my dentist appointment, can't find his number and my parents aren't picking up their phone(they, bless them, agreed to baby sit the boys while I was at the dentist, and the bank, and Homedepot). The house is covered in plaster dust, but I'm not stressed. I'm not sure who was more relieved to see Ella back home, me or the boys.



Ella came home just as Fin was in the final stages of being put to bed. Ewan was crying in his room. So Mummy swooped in, picked up crying baby, we had a family bedtime story in Finlay's room and all was well with the world. Thursday had gone really well. Mum and Dad had the boys for a good portion of the day while I ran around getting things for the builders. They also fed us dinner that night. By the time we got home they were both tired and went to sleep no problem. More importantly they slept through the night. We did fairly well till Friday afternoon, no chance of a nap, with all that was going on, we had a meltdown of Chernobyl proportions. I ended up with both boys on my lap, both crying, and screeching, faces red, tears rolling down their cheeks, snot from their noses. It was awful, I felt terrible for the poor guy filling my house full of dust, who was working right there and had to listen to it all. It was wonderful to see Ewan just beam and chuckle because his mum was home.

Some highlights from the last couple of weeks;

• Fin enjoying his Granny's apple pie with vanilla ice cream. He was wolfing it down with his spoon while holding the other one up in a stop sign motion as if to say, "No no no, too busy eating to answer your questions"
• Ewan grinning and laughing, he's such a happy sole
• Fin letting us know on more than one occasion he has to go potty
• Ewan enjoying his food, his portions sizes have doubled and tripled from when we first stared feeding him solids
• Discovering all the words that Fin has learned, I think star is the latest.
• Watching Fin interact with his Grandparents over in England by webcaming. How amazing is that. I remember my Grandparents not having a phone and getting to speak to them at Christmas when they were over at my Granny's brothers place!

Ewan and Fin interacting is probably the most memorable and enjoyable. Today while I was washing Ewan face, Fin grabbed his facecloth puppet of Winnie the Bear and started to help. Ewan started laughing at Fin, Fin laughed back and all three of us were laughing. Same thing happened in the car driving over to Nanny's. Ewan can make raspberry noises now and was practicing his new found talent. I copied him and Fin joined in and there were all three of us driving along blowing raspberries and laughing. On that note I bid you all good night.

PS One of my three regular readers, also writes a blog, and I've not seen any updates on her space lately. You know who you are Auntie Louise. I hope you get as much grief from your faithful readers as I do from mine ;)

One Week in and Still Standing

Here we are, one week in and the house hasn't fallen in, both boys are clean and well fed, although I think Ewan may be coming down with a cold. In fact overall, I think it went quite well. The house was tidy, very little laundry to do on the weekend as I had kept on top of that. By the end of the week, my timing was getting better for dinner as well.

Tuesday night we carved out our pumpkins and made Jack o'lantrens from the pumpkins that the boys had harvested from the pumpkin patch with Ella and Auntie Catriona on the weekend. Fin quite enjoyed his first pumpkin lobotomy, although he wasn't so keen about all the squishy innards. We did get him to spoon out some seeds and stick his head in the opening at the top and shout in to hear his echo.

Wednesday saw me venture out of the house for the first time. Admittedly,it was just with Finlay. Mum and Dad, aka M&M, Granny & Granda, or as Fin says Nanny & DA, came over to Baby sit Ewan while Fin and I went off to our Kindermusic class. I was feeling quite pleased with myself as we drove down the road, the boy was chatting away, I had left in plenty of time as to not show up late, and despite the fact it was Halloween and neither of us was in costume I felt no guilt. No guilt until I realized I had left the house without the diaper bag(more importantly diapers or wipes). Luckily Fins bowels held. Could you imagine my embarrassment and the looks from the other parents(mothers) if I had had to ask to borrow a diaper. There was a brief moment during class when I thought I would have them all "tisk tisk" me but luckily it was the kid dressed up as a cowboy that was smelling up the place.

The class itself was fun and very well run. The children all get different rhythm instruments for the parents and themselves each song. They learn tempo, rythm, loud and soft, while they sing songs, dance, etc. That along with story time and quiet time packed into 45 mins. You can tell the lady that hosts the class has had training as an educator. She even counts off the lights when they are turned off for quiet time. The Skye Boat song was played for quiet time, so needless to say I was quite impressed.

As it was Halloween, Ella came home to a spicey roast pumpkin soup, that bordered on historic, and her salad was sprinkled with roasted pumpkin seeds. That night we had no trick or treaters, I think our street is to much work for very little yield. Considering no one knocked on our door we managed to get through an awful lot of candy.

Thursday saw my friend Chris come by with his two lovely daughters Abbey and Megan. Abbey was the first little one we got to see grow up when we moved back here and she is a gem, love her to pieces. She used to call me Cotts and it made my heart melt. Megan is also a little character. She is only about a month older than Fin but that months always seems to be a huge difference. She can say a good few words now and can sing her ABC's( although it was AB AB AB E AB AB AB B). They came by with coffee and donuts, Hmmm donuts.....

Friday finally saw the Misfeldt men leave the house alone together for the first time. And yes, I did remember the diaper bag. Save on Foods is remarkably quiet at 8:30 Friday morning. Both of the boys were very well behaved. Fin didn't seem to mind being in a regular cart, as opposed to the car shaped ones. Ewan I think slept as he was strapped to me in our baby carry thing, though that may have been due to a lack of oxygen as it was a little tight. Finlay still has a way with the ladies behind the deli counter and got himself a slice of ham to snack on as we shopped. Although I forgot a couple of things on the list, over all it was a positive outing and not as daunting as I feared. Will try again this Friday. I was feeling quite domesticated with a pot of chili brewing on the stove, and an ice cube tray of broccoli, steamed and strained in the freezer.

It's after midnight but I'll try to fill the rest of the week up to date tommorrow. No promises though. Take care all