Stephen's birthday

Stephen is my best friend, and today was his 4th birthday, which makes him about six weeks older than me. Another way of putting that is to say he had to wait six whole WEEKS less than me to get his lego star wars watch. Anyway....i've forgiven him because he had his birthday party at one of my favourite places: the Adventure Zone at Granville Island. Joel is going to be mad when he finds out what he missed while he was at school today!

I wasn't too sure about the hot dogs we had for lunch, nor the cupcakes Stephen had instead of a birthday cake, but they did have plenty of icing on top, so i ate that.

All in all it was a very fun way to spend a morning, and now i really can't wait for it to be my birthday!

Back to preschool

After a week of escorting Joel to and from school (not to mention visiting at lunchtime to eat lunch with him and play in his playground) it was finally time for me to go back to preschool.

Even though i was too shy in my parent-teacher interview to say anything to either of the teachers, i did manage to choose a cubby (next to Stephen's - Yay!) and mom had prepared my earthquake kit, change of clothes, inside shoes, duplicate photos, hand towel (named and with a loop for hanging) and so i was all set...or so we thought.

Somehow when it came time to get dressed all my trousers had shrunk about two inches. Hmmmm...... Out came the age 4 trousers, some were good, some were on the short side. On to age 5. Hoorah for Next! My Levis fit in the waist, but i can't undo the button to go to the bathroom on my own, so they're no good for preschool. Anything that doesn't have an adjustable waist is hopeless...even though some of them are seriously cool skater gear. All i can say is Joel must have had a seriously big bum...none of my pants stay up at all without help.

So finally, dressed and ready, we made it. Our last year as a family at Wesbrook Preschool. Here's hoping it's a good one! Mom;s already enjoying just being secretary instead of being the President or responsible for enrollment. Now she just gets to tell everyone else what to do..It's called writing minutes apparently.

Finally....we get to go to IKEA

For the last few months mom and dad have been trying to coerce me into giving up the diapers and using the toilet.

First off they just asked nicely. Next they got cross and didn't ask so nicely. When that didn't work they tried bribing me with a candy machine (Joel was particularly keen on this approach), another failure there then led to blackmail.....but finally, almost by accident, they hit on the proper motivation.

On a family trip to IKEA Joel got to go and play in the kid's playroom, while i had to go shopping with mom and dad. NOT FAIR...but kids in diapers weren't allowed.

Thus started several weeks effort on my part to try and work out exactly how to go pee. Mom and i spent hours in the bathroom. I knew i needed to go...but how? Once mom tickled me until i got hiccups..unorthodox perhaps, but it worked! And then, while we were away at camp on Anvil island, i got it. Instead of sitting for 5-10 minutes, getting up, sitting down again, waiting some more..repeat as necessary...it just happened, straight away.

Phew.

Of course, since we were stuck on an island there wasn't an IKEA anywhere near by, but we got home on Saturday at the start of the holiday weekend and today we finally went. Not only did i get to go in the playplace, we also had meatballs for lunch, and ice-cream afterwards, and our friends Ethan and Stephen came too, to help celebrate.

What a great day!

wednesdays at granville island

On Wednesday afternoons mom and I hang out at Granville Island while Joel has his art class at Arts Umbrella.

Sometimes we go for a snack at PICA (Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts). Ssshhhhh...don't tell Joel. This is a 'snack' in the same sense that dad's grande extra-hot triple white mocha, no whip is a 'coffee'.

Occasionally - when it's raining - we head inside to the Kid's Market and play with the train sets and other toys there.

But my favourite things to do at Granville Island are watching the ball tracks in the studio and at Ocean Cement and going to the playground

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course even just walking around is pretty fun ....

 

 

 

the hour usually passes pretty quick!

 

Play Place

One of my favourite places to hang out in the mornings, when i'm not at preschool, is the West Side Family Place, known in our family as the 'play place'.

Outside there's a huge sandpit to dig in, swings, toys and a really cool climbing frame and slide built around a tree.

 

I've been coming here a long time now. This was back in March 2008

and September the same year.

 

 

I used to be kind of wobbly around the slide and crossing the bridge, but now i've totally got it sorted.

Inside you can do painting, some kind of craft, more sand, dress up. There's books and baby toys (which i actually think are kind of fun still)

 

 

 

but best of all, upstairs in the kitchen, they have snacks from STARBUCKS. YUM.

snow fun?

Mom and Joel had so much fun skiing on Friday that it was decided we would ALL go up the mountain on Sunday, which was not MY idea of fun AT ALL.

Mom and I spent the morning in the cafeteria, doing puzzles and colouring and stuff while dad and Joel went skiing. From time to time i glanced anxiously out of the window, but the skies were definitely blue, and there was no chance it was going to snow. Phew. Mom got up and looked out of the window from time to time as well, but she didn't force me outside or anything, and she brought a great picnic for lunch. I started lunch early...but did leave one or two things i didn't like all that much for Joel.

Once dad and Joel had finished up the remains of the picnic mom had had enough. She bundled me into all my clothes and out the door.

I watched mom and Joel for a LONG time. They seemed to be having fun.

I was good too, just hanging out...watching

but finally i decided to try it, just once...and it was SO MUCH FUN!!!!

dad got involved in the action too

 

setting me up for a run through the trees

 

joel choosing his route

 

and crashing

 

which was pretty funny

 

although joel had a few choice words to say about my laughing....

 

I'm not going to tell you what happened when it was time to leave. You might be as unamused as mom, who'd spent a glorious morning stuck inside a concrete shell. Let's just say i wasn't quite ready to go home yet.....

Field trip to the Buswash

For the last couple of years I've tagged along with Mom and Joel on various preschool field trips. This time it was Joel's turn to come with me. He knew that a trip to the bus wash would be much more fun than a morning in kindergarten!





There was only one disappointment about this year's trip.....after we'd seen a bus in the workshop, been on a tour of the yard, been through the bus wash not once, but twice, we finally went upstairs to the cafeteria to be rewarded for all our hard work. Not really being a fan of watery activities, and really liking food, this for me was going to be the highlight of the fieldtrip: icecream. Except this year they didn't give us any. That made me very sad...especially because mom only brought one small banana which we had to share between three of us. She was expecting there to be icecream too.