Where does the time go?

So Myles is now in a big boy bed, and yesterday as I was taking down his crib I had this sudden thought. "Hey, there are no more babies in our house and there won't be a crib in our house again!" The thought came with a fleeting pang of sadness and then an exhilarating feeling of "wow, this time next year I might not have a diaper bag anymore either!"

Naomi started senior kindergarten this week and was thrilled to be with her friends again. It was amazing to see her excitement at heading off to school this year. Even more amazing is hearing her little mind explore new things. Not surprising, school has added a whole new level of vocabulary to her repertoire again. A conversation from two evenings ago went something like this . . .

mom - "Naomi and Lilah, dinner is ready. Please go and wash your hands."
a few minutes later . . .
mom - "Naomi and Lilah, please go wash your hands and get ready for dinner."
a few minutes later . . .
mom - "NAOMI AND LILAH, GET IN THE BATHROOM AND WASH YOUR HANDS!"
Naomi - "Oh mom, just RELAX!"
A conversation and a few minutes later,
Naomi -- "So what's for dinner?"
Mom -- "Noodles"
Naomi -- "Do I like those noodles?"
Mom - "Of course you like those noodles"
Naomi, getting ready to take a bite -- "Well, here goes nothing!"

Joel being the financial guy has also been trying to teach the girls about money these days. The latest lesson came this morning as he dropped Naomi off at her classroom.

dad - "Ok Naomi, time for me to go to work and for you to go to school."
Naomi - "No dad, I'm coming with you to work."
dad - "Naomi you can't come to work with me today."
Naomi - "But I've been to work with you before."
dad - "Well not today."
Naomi - "What's that jingling in your pocket? Money? Well let me see."
dad pulls money out of pocket.
Naomi - "Ok dad, I'll have one and then you can go to work."
dad hands over the loot that he won in a 50:50 draw at a golf tournament yesterday.
Naomi - "Thanks dad, see ya, have a nice day!" (Dad grumbles, nice doing business with you).
Mom hears the story and thinks that perhaps she should be taking lessons from her eldest!

Lilah is also starting to demonstrate a spark of humour too. Her latest is "Trust me mom"! She and Naomi have been cooking up a plan to get her into Jr. Kindergarten early. Lilah is completely ready, but must wait another year in Nursery school before she can "ride on the bus and go to big girl school". This is quite disappointing to her, so she's constantly asking when she's going to be big. Yesterday Naomi decided she was going to start "teaching her" all the stuff she needs to know to get into Kindergarten. Stuff like, "Lilah, repeat after me. . . " and "Lilah, I'm the leader today and you can come with me to hand in the attendance". She's also trying to teach her all the songs that are in the typical kindergarten repertoire. Everything from "There was a farmer had a dog and Dingo was his name oh", to "Sing oh well, Sing Oh well, Oh well, Oh well" (hint - oh well = noel).

Myles is also testing new language skills these days. We're starting to progress from "NO" to "NO tankwoo". His favorite person in the world seems to be Naomi, and when he can't find her he calls, "OMI, whe-aah-oo". Bet you are thinking right now that understanding the written toddler vocabulary is almost as hard as the spoken!

Oh where does the time go?? It seems like only yesterday that I was buying a crib for a hypothetical little gal who wasn't even born yet. Now our house is filled with babbling little one's. While I might complain that it's craziness, taking down the crib this week reminded me that it's also a dream come true!

Enjoy these pictures of the last days of summer: the Klassen Christmas in August, beach days, a trip to Sara and Tim's cottage (where we caught lots of fish), the Zhuzhou Gals travelgroup reunion, a trip to the Bowmanville zoo (where Myles overcame his fear of hungry baby goats) and kicking around the house.

Cheers,
Karen