Winter vacation ~ Day 1

Yesterday was day one of the first winter vacation we've taken in quite some time. We loaded up the car with snowboards, snowshoes, skates, snacks, toys and enough clothes so that I won't have to entertain the thought of laundry for at least a week! We left home about an hour behind schedule which is par for the course when you're traveling with either O'Flanagans or small children. Our first way point was Cornwall Ontario where we would cross into the United States of America. Arriving at the border we marveled at the seemingly countless camera's pointed at us from every angle. At some point the flashes startled us and I was left quietly wondering how many images of surprised motorists were being stored on Homeland Security servers across this land. It's the only time I hoped Keenan was up his nose to his second knuckle! Getting across the border went smoothly enough. The nice border guard passed a pen along with Sean's passport back through my window and reminded Sean that he needed to sign his brand new passport in order for it to be valid. I've never heard Sean use the word "sir" so many times. We made it through just fine and our second surprise came at our first stop for gas. Full service, squeaky clean windows and the tank three quarters full all for a mere $30! Thanks Ricky at the Twinleaf Gas and Tobacco in Hogansburg. You're a gas artist! Our first stretch of secondary highway took us through Mohawk territory, an Akwesasne reserve and the ever predictable casinos which alternated with billboards that read "Gambling is not part of our history". Here's hoping they can pry it loose from their future. The landscape gave way to rolling fields sectioned off by lazy streams with vertical accents of birch, pine and cedar. Then legions of huge, triblade wind turbines marched off into the horizon on either side of us. There were very few farms but there seemed to be quite a few folks settled in along the road. A great many of their homes were in advanced stages of disrepair. The vast majority were either mobile homes shored up with multiple plywood additions or very small shack like structures with muddied yards and generations of retired vehicles trying in earnest to be reclaimed by Mother Nature. Tyvek is about as close as folks can get to finishing their homes. Either that or they're just using using it as a band aid. We saw one place where the top floor had caved in and people were still living on the main floor. Yet another which must have been quite stately in it's day was perched on columns on the edge of a river. The back quarter of the place lay in a heap on the riverbed and the remaining rooms glowed with light. There were lace curtains in the windows. Does someone's grandparents live there? Who calls these less than humble shelters home? How do they get by? After a while we started noticing that most folks had some service to offer or goods to sell. Seems just about anyone can sell gas or diesel and then the ultimate in hope, a full on bridal salon. In 2.5 hours of driving we saw 3 prisons and only 1 school. Horses chained to poles instead of fenced. And oddly, it seems to be popular to encase in glass, statues of Jesus, scenes from the birth of Jesus or wildly decorated birdhouses. I've never been a MacDonald's fan and just recently broke a 12 year stretch of avoiding the place but yesterday I was pleased as punch to cross the thresh hold of Mickey D's and tuck into a Chicken burger. Sitting there we reminded ourselves that we were still in New York state, one of the most populated states in the US and we were one bridge away from Vermont, the 2nd least populated state in the US. What the hell were we getting ourselves in to? After hearing "those 4 words" over and over from Keenan sure enough, we were indeed finally there. Smuggler's Notch is gorgeous and the service is impeccable. We checked in and settled into our room with a new found appreciation for what we have.

Keenan's first sleepover

Tonight is Keenan's first night away from us which is very exciting for him cause he gets to stay at tante's without "us two".  Tomorrow morning will be our first morning waking up without him which is going to be kind of weird.  I'm going to miss waking up to our little man bounding around.  It will be the first weekend morning in years that I won't have to say "put your socks on before you go downstairs".  Not sure I'm gonna like it :(

Quotable Keenan: Lego Batman

Keenan and Sean are playing Lego Batman and Keenan just says to Sean...

"You're lucky old man, I'm giving you a chance to win at this game"

 Now they're having a conversation about the meaning of the word hideous.

As a reminder, Keenan will be 5 in May.

Quotable Keenan

That guy's as angry as a Sith Lord.

Classic.

Only $30 more needed and Sean will shave the whole lot off!

Click here to donate to Sean's Movember campaign!

 

 

There's only a few hours left!

Mo' money needed to bring back this baby face!

There's only a couple more days to donate money to Sean's Movember campaign! Sean is raising funds and awareness for Prostate Cancer research by growing an increasingly horrifying mustache. He's also let his goatee, sideburns and the hair on his head grow wild for the month of "Movember". It looks like he's wearing an assortment of wild mammals all about his head!

He just needs another $50 in donations and he'll shave the whole lot off and keep it off for 4 months! Come on folks, head on over to Sean's MoSpace page via the link below and drop a few bucks for the cause!  If for nothing else give for that sexy dimple we never get to see anymore!
ca.movember.com/mospace/1168972/

Using the Lord's name in vain...at 4 years old...

At an ultrasound appointment last week...it wasn't going well...Keenan was not impressed with being held down by myself and Sean while Gerry, the ultrasound tech was desperately trying to take some images...

"Jesus Gerry, Gerry Jesus, Gerry please turn off the computer, Jesus Gerry"

 Gerry was a really nice guy and great at his job but it soon became pretty clear that he deeply regretted his attempt at making Keenan feel at ease by using the whole "we're on a first name basis so you can trust me" tactic.

 Then today, after a visit to the doctor, we're back at home...Keenan has had enough of doctors, medicine, coughing, his fever and just wants cuddles on the couch and simply won't tolerate anything but my complete unwavering attention...

"Mom, this is a Jesus Crisis and I'm NOT going to wait for you to go to the bathroom before I get my cuddles."

 Thank Jesus for my high capacity bladder.
 

Double, Triple even Quadruple your Dutch!

I love my people!  Check out what Onderwater, a little bike company out of Holland has been up to.

Makes me want to have 2 more kids before next summer!

Past, I'd like you to meet Present

So, here I am on the eve of my 40th birthday and I've chosen to have all of our stuff that has been in storage since 2002 delivered to our home.  The truck pulls up and as the 3 friendly fellows unload our former life, Sean and I stand on the sidelines and exclaim "oh, geez, I forgot we had that" every 2 minutes.  That seemed pretty bizarre until we started opening the boxes.  Photo's, wedding gifts, gear, books, cd's, my CuisiPro measuring spoons, everything was new to us again.  The first thing we tackled was putting together our bikes.  Keenan was exceptionally impressed to learn that we have 4 between the two of us!  We went for many "bike rides" up and down the street today and can't wait to hook up the trailer and hit the trails with the kid in tow.  So far almost everything we've unpacked has survived the 8 years in storage.  The big shocker was the considerable damage to our kayaks.  Some form of rodentia got into them while they were in storage in Peterborough, built themselves a huge nest and totally chewed through one of the bulk heads in my boat and partially chewed through the same spot in Sean's.  Both of our seats need to be replaced because they're so consumed but it's all do-able and the trucking company is going to take care of the repair.  So, I won't get to go kayaking on my birthday but I'll get to fawn over all of my long tucked away kitchen gadgets and my stockpile of shoes!  Oh, how I missed my shoes!  As of right now our place is in that very frustrating stage of being agonizingly messy as we're sorting through the boxes and moving them to where they should be.  It's an odd feeling to be moving into a house you've lived in for almost 3 years and it's even more odd to have this sense of our past and present lives suddenly colliding.  Keenan is so full of questions.  He wants to open all the boxes right now and everything that comes out needs to be examined and discussed.  It's a lot to manage on top of the nostalgia.  We've already got several boxes set aside for charity and we've tossed some things as well.  This stuff has been out of our lives for 8 years and we're either fiercely attached to it or could case less if we ever see it again which really helps in the sorting process.  If I were to vacillate over every t-shirt that no longer fits or tea-light holder I'd likely lose my mind inside of a week.  I've got mixed feelings about the closure this brings to our lives.  This is truly the end of the adventure we started what seems like a lifetime ago.  Time to embark on a new adventure I guess.  Just short local forays as we'll need to get through these boxes and we do enjoy the feeling our roots digging deeper into homeland soil.

Mom! Dad! I got dressed all by myself!

For the record, yesterday was the first time Keenan got dressed, on his on accord and without any assistance or prompting but most importantly "all by himself"!  With his shorts on backwards and likely without a fresh pair of undies on his butt he came tearing into our bedroom to declare his first independent act of both picking out his clothes and then putting them on.  All.  By. Himself.  It truly was a really big deal for him.  And for us too.  We've been dealing with the "no, I'll do it all by myself" stuff for the last couple of weeks and he often picks the more dangerous stuff like cooking eggs or driving the car.  Dressing oneself is much less of a hazard than the other two when you're all of four years old!  I guess this means the start of wacky outfits, mismatched socks and inside out t-shirts.  Makes me want to buy all sorts of kooky stuff to fill his dresser just for the entertainment value!  Pictures surely to follow.

Sean and Keenan have such awesome bonding moments...

Keenan was chasing Sean in circles around the main floor, then Keenan suddenly stops and the following exchange took place...

Keenan "Dad can you sit down so I can fart on you?"

Sean "Sure, hold on."

Sean sits on a chair, Keenan climbs up on his lap and then...

FAAARRRRT, fffffft, FART

Keenan "Jesus, hehe, that was a big one!"

I found my camera power cable!

On the heels of a crappy day and 4 days after my new camera arrived no less.

Dear Sickness,

You have consumed one Friday night and an entire weekend with your evil congestion, headache, fever and tiredness.  You have 22 hours to leave my body before I start ignoring you and continue getting on with my life.

Sincerely,

Nancy O'

"Mom, why didn't you take any pictures of me when I was three?"

Ok folks, I have once again misplaced the power cord for my beloved Sanyo mommy camera.  I bought it in Japan and it's tiny, cute (naturally) terribly convenient and I'm so emotionally attached to the damn thing that I'm reticent to replace it.  I actually can't remember the last time I recharged it which means that it's been months upon months since I've taken a photo of Keenan.  If you have any unrecognizable Sanyo power cords kicking around your abode could you please let me know otherwise I may have to force myself to buy a new camera.

P.S. Could someone please invent a one size fits all types of devices no matter what brand they are cord?

Introducing....the Easter Bunny!

Yesterday was the first time Keenan experienced the magic of the Easter Bunny!  When I put him to bed on Saturday night I told him that he was not to go downstairs on Sunday morning until he woke us up first.  Sean and I watched a movie and at 1:30 in the morning we stashed chocolate eggs all over the house including in our bedroom and Keenan's.  He woke up the next morning totally unawares of what was to come and when he climbed into bed with us I started to spin the tale of the Easter Bunny that came and hid treats in our house in the middle of the night.  He was a little disbelieving at first but all his skeptic notions dissolved when I pointed out the first two hidden eggs in our room.  We went to his room and found another egg balanced on the doorknob of his closet door and I pointed out that his window was open a crack.  "Keenan, the Easter Bunny must have come in your bedroom window last night".  With eyes as big as saucers a low and slow "yaaaaah" crept from his lips.  After that, it was totally on!  He was all "daddy, daddy look what the Easter Bunny brought me!" and then the speculation and scenario's kicked in.   "Maybe him come in my window, ohhh that's not safe...maybe's he's really tall...maybe he must be very tiny to be soooo quiet, he didn't even wake us up and he was right in our bedrooms!"  Then I showed him his Easter basket in the sunroom off our bedroom.  It was a mind blowing event!  Again, the windows were open and we considered how in the hairy heck a bunny could drag a basket up through a second floor window.  "Maybe he can jump really high?"

He opened his basket and then we emptied it out so we could hunt more eggs.  First we had to wait for Sean to get dressed so Keenan and I camped out on the stairs.  He spotted an egg in between the spindles of the railing and his eyes just filled with wonderment.  It was really fun to watch him run around and seek out the eggs.  Even Sean the grump got into it!  At one point Keenan was so consumed with the hunt that he couldn't see the eggs that were right in front of his eyes. We gave him hints on where to look which we all really enjoyed.  I have very clear memories from my childhood of feeling just like he did.  Mom would be making breakfast, my dad would be in the big chair and my sister's would be telling me I was getting hotter or colder as I tried in near uncontrollable excitement to find every last egg.


Throughout out the day I would raid his Easter basket and "re-hide" some of the eggs.  He got so excited every time he found another.  At this point I have no idea how many eggs we hid but I know for a fact there are at least 3 he hasn't spotted yet.  A little bit of fun reserved for another day so long as Sean doesn't find them first!

It is found! Darth Vader's head is once again upon his little Lego shoulders!

A couple of weekends ago Sean exposed Keenan to his first non Duplo sized Lego set, an Anniversay edition of Darth's Vader's TIE fighter.  I bought the set for Sean a couple of years ago and he's held off on opening the box until Keenan was old enough to "appreciate it".  An out of practice Sean toiled for about an hour to complete the TIE fighter.  Keenan thought it was cool but he clearly favoured Lord Vader and his bitty light saber.  So Sean tucked the fighter up on the top shelf where we keep all the other stuff Keenan is forbidden to touch but Keenan kept Vader to himself.  Within a few hours a very sad and apologetic Keenan approached Sean to tell him that a certain tiny Lego head somehow rolled 15 feet across the floor and fell down the register grate.  However unbelievable the story was Keenan's attitude lead us to believe that it was simply one hell of an unfortunate accident.  Sean was an understanding as possible given the circumstances but inevitably there were cuss words and in short order the shop vac was deployed.  All manner of grossness was sucked into the canister but after careful, archeological style sorting, Vader's head was nowhere to be found.  Until today.  Keenan found  Darth Vader's head in the corner of the room under a cushion.  There was much rejoicing, a round of high fives and then Sean ceremoniously reunited Vader's head with his body.  He now resides on the top shelf, safely tucked into his TIE fighter until Keenan turns 21.

Beware of explainations starting with "It was an accident..."

I went to bed late last night.  My sister was over and after she left Keenan woke up coughing and claiming there was a giant spider in his room so he couldn't be on the floor or the bed.  So we crawled into mommy and daddy's bed around 12:15 am and fell into a cozy, spider-free sleep.  I seem to remember Sean lifting Keenan out of our bed around 5 am.  He recently borrowed the Batman XBox game from Kev at work so he was likely up late chasing nutbars around Arkham Asylum.  I woke up in a bit of a haze and totally alone this morning which means Sean ended up sleeping in Keenan's bed and Keenan must have slept with me and then he went downstairs to play.  I got up, got dressed and then Keenan came upstairs to tell me that "It was an accident, there's water all over the kitchen floor mommy, I was trying to clean the fridge".  "How bad can it be?" I thought to myself.  In my attempt to rush to the kitchen sink tap to turn it off I slipped and nearly cracked my head open on the table.  The floor was half covered in water. Our son had built an aquaduct from the tap, over the edge of the counter, across the top of a chair and the water was cascading down onto the chair seat and to the floor.  It was literally 2 inches from the wall where it would have surely  leaked down into the basement.  To be quite honest the setup was quite an accomplishment for a kid his size and in hindsight I'm sad I didn't take a picture of it.  I did however seize the moment and I poured cleaner all over the floor and mopped the whole mess up.

Keenan wuz here

We can always tell when Keenan has been on the computer when we open it up to find..."Your search-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ KKKKKK DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD 3eewddff - did not match any documents" as the most recent Google search!

Sweetness

Keenan called me Sweetheart today. It was the loveliest thing ever. I love you too Sweetheart.

Go Go Gohan!

Yay! We made rice for dinner tonight and to quote Goldilocks, "it was just right"! Three years of cooking rice in a rice cooker in Japan killed our stove top rice cooking skills. In utter disappointment we've actually not eaten home made rice in our home since we've been back from the land of "Sugoi! My rice cooker makes banana loaf, pudding, stew, bread and perfect veggies." From here on out it's gonna be a gohan hodai at the O'Flanagans!

Halloween 2009

There's a shark in our kitchen!
Originally uploaded by kuckibaboo.

We had a great Halloween. Etienne and Erin came by just before 5pm. Erin we miss you and hope you have a good trip back to Tokyo! Then Mark and Gill came by about half an hour later. We had cupcakes and made some hot drinks fortified with yummy Starbucks coffee liquor (thanks Mark and Gill!). Sharon and Paul came by to see Keenan decked out in his costume. We ate cupcakes (Yay! More cupcakes!) and waxed on about the new offerings from Apple. Around 6 pm we hit the neighborhood streets with Mark, Gill, our beverages, the trailer as back up vehicle and a slightly apprehensive Keenan decked out as a shark! It took about two houses for him to get a grip on the concept of trick or treating. After that, there was no stopping him from running door to door. In about a block I think he realized his treat bag was slowing him down and I became the bag lady. Shortly thereafter we convinced him to growl when people opened the door. Not long after that he rounding out the package by adopting the stick-machine gun accompanied by his realistic machine gun sound affects! It was Keenan tv at it's finest! About a block before Leslie-Anne's Keenan retreated to the 3 wheeled comfort of his trailer. We did a few more houses, Leslie-Anne's was the second last and then we swung by Dovercourt for a bit of jumping in the bouncy castle and a turn through their maze It was a fantastic night. Marc and Gill were with us for the whole event and Marc was so overcome by cuteness that he proclaimed they were going to home to make a kid of their own! Keenan got a good haul of treats and he went sleepily off to bed with a few in his tummy. This morning he asked us if there was going to be trick or treating again tonight. He doesn't yet understand the concept of "next year" so I suspect we'll be getting that question every day until Christmas!

Rambling 3

Our friends Ghis, Heather and Morgane have taken a year off to travel North America. Reading about their adventures has awoken my wanderlust. Follow their journey too.

Man caught 'carpooling' with teddy bear

Anywhere else in the world it would have been a blow up doll. CBC News - Ottawa - Man caught 'carpooling' with teddy bear

I see you had corn for lunch today

Sean took Keenan to the park right after we picked him up from daycare today. I dropped them off on the way home. I was home for about 20 minutes when I remembered the conversation we had with our daycare provider about Keenan's poop in the toilet success at daycare today...

"he pooped in the toilet today, started out as a pee and ended in a poop!"
"wow, great job Keenan, has he been without a diaper all day?"
"yup, he's in underpants right now even"

...oh God. Keenan went off to the park with Sean totally diaperless and he has been less than forthcoming with us when it comes to admitting his need to use the toilet. Two things were certain; 1)There's no way in hell Keenan could go an hour without using the toilet and 2)If he does have to go while they're at the park he won't tell Sean. For a brief moment I entertained driving over to the park and then I became preoccupied with making dinner and forgot. Within 15 minutes they were at the front door. Keenan's jeans were darker in the front from his crotch to the ankles. Oh shit. And then I smelled it.

"did you poop your pants?"
"no"

It amazes me how kids think they can get away with that kind of response to that particular question when they stink to high heaven and their underpants are loaded. I cleaned up the abundant and mostly undigested grossness and then Sean scrubbed down our child in the bathtub. We finally sat down to dinner and had a great time together.

Later in the evening we were rewarded with "I have to poop in the toilet!" followed immediately by "hurry!". I grabbed that kid and flew up the stairs. We fumbled getting the pants and diaper off but we did get his butt on the seat for the majority of the event! Finally, a happy ending.

Multi surface poop event

Just in case you didn't already know, poop doesn't stain walls. It is also easily wiped from ceramic tile and hardwood. Cotton/nylon blend pants (mine not his) and carpet are a bit more of a challenge and require a little extra scrubbing. Recommended cleaning agent: Lysol Fresh Orange scent 4 in 1 spray. It kills 99.9% of the germs and the pleasant odor inhibits your gag reflex.

Sorry Tom and Pat for pretty much having to hang up on you tonight. Just think, only five more sleeps until you're here!