"A wonderful pair of Gitch."

My children have a favourite book, "Something from Nothing" by Phoebe Gilman. She is also responsible for the amazing Jillian Jiggs books. It is a wonderful story of a Grandfather that continually recreates a little boys blanket as it ages into something new.

One day his mother said to him, "Joseph, look at your blanket. It's frazzled, it's torn, it's unsightly, it's torn. It's time to throw it out."
"Grandpa can fix it," Joseph said.
Joseph's grandfather took the blanket and turned it round and round.
"Hmmm," he said as his scissors went snip, snip, snip and his needle flew in and out and in and out, "There's just enough material her to make..."
... a wonderful jacket.


and so on.

Little known fact about my husband, he is amazing at taking a perfectly wonderful, and completely normal song/story/poem and turn it into a gut splitting "Weird Al"-esque example of potty humour. You know he gets 2 year old boys mentality when he can simply read a story with a few words changed and your child can not breath for an hour. Oh the hysterics at our house!

"There's just enough material here to make..."
... a wonderful pair of gitch.
Joseph put on the wonderful pair of gitch and went outside to play.
But as Joseph grew older, the wonderful pair of gitch grew older too.
One day his mother said to him, "Joseph, look at your gitch. It's shrunken and small, doesn't fit you at all. It is time to throw it out!"


Now at this point, you would think Grandpa would make something else. But no. The gitch live on. Through the whole story, somehow, Grandpa makes a new pair of gitch every time. Here some of the highlights from our new story. Honestly, only the red words have been changed.

Joseph wore the wonderful gitch to school the very next day.


"Joseph, look at your gitch! It's spotted with poop and there's pee on it too. It is time to throw it out!"


"Joseph, look at your gitch! This big stain of poop makes the back of it droop. It's time to throw it out!"


Joseph wore the wonderful gitch on his suspenders to hold his pants up.

and my personal favourite:

Joseph used the wonderful gitch to keep his pebble collection safe.


Now, before you judge, we DO have rules about the time and place that this type of humour is appropriate. And let's face it, when my children are asked, "Were you raised in a barn?!" They can answer "YES!" regardless, and I am proud of that fact. Just try and read the above lines without cracking a smile. I dare you!

I think we could all use a little more "barn" humour. Have a good giggle. Go on.....

(By the way.... this book is not at all about gitch. It is actually a beautiful book with an inspiring ending. I recommend it.)

The great flood.

With the weather getting so very beautiful, my desire for all things summer has begun! Problem?.....

It's not nice enough for ANYTHING summer, and we can't even watch TV. Can you say GOING SQUIRRELY?

I had an idea. I still think it's brilliant.

Put the kiddie pool on the new kitchen floor (It promised to be waterproof) and fill er up!

Luckily I noticed the leak after only two mop buckets of water.

We enjoyed the water as it leaked slowly out the bottom of the pool and then mopped up the remains. Hey, it filled an afternoon.

"Are you bringing more water?"

Just cute.

Resigned to the fact that Mom won't bring more water as the wet spot seeps ever larger......

....and larger.

Trying to "rescue" the floor.

and then there was one...

In what can only be described as a valiant effort, my Dear Husband decided to take my two oldest toddlers out of the house for an errand, leaving me with a one-year-old with a serious third child complex. Honestly! This kid has no idea how to be by himself!

At first, I was more stressed than ever, thinking, "How am I going to entertain this adorable little boy?" I needed to do a century's worth of dishes and had no idea how this was going to happen. But wait... Didn't I always do dishes with one. There is unfortunate photographic evidence to prove that I managed to do dishes without a dishwasher, WITH a nine-month-belly, and a one-year-old. I pulled up a chair, plunked him up there and got to work.

The poor boy had no idea what to make of this seemingly terrifying experience. You have to understand, putting a third child at an elevated height that is still low enough to be reached by his/her siblings is like putting a sign on his back that reads, "Free candy to the first one to knock him to the floor!"

After assuring him that there was no such sign, and continuing with my scrubbing, he relaxed. Almost to the point of enjoyment.

Then I realized something.

I am missing out on relaxed time with my son. We have lots of great time together. (Mainly because he is an adorable little Momma's boy-cuddler supreme) But I can count on one hand the number of times where I have enjoyed his company without my eyes darting around to locate the kamikaze warriors sneaking in for the kill. I managed to spend ten minutes doing dishes with my son without my heart rate launching to Jillian Micheals' levels.

Finally comfortable.

It is my goal to find moments like this more often.

Construction and no TV

So....The idea that I cannot get anything done without TV has now extended to the tradespeople of the world!

A vastly talented friend of ours is diligently working in our home to put the finishing touches on our flooring/paint/vanity project. Until today, I have taken the kids from the house, even driving through our lovely Manitoba winter days, to allow him the space he needs. Today, there were no such options available. (Aside from maybe driving around the countryside in search of something interesting, which in the prairies would constitute a grass fire, or maybe a pay loader pushing snow.)

So, here we are, underfoot. They idolize him. Oliver will only answer to "Mr. Hiebert". They need to SEE everything, and TALK ABOUT everything, and touch, smell, and lick........EVERYTHING! I get two of them doing something else only to find the little one pulling tools out of the tool box and "helping". This project is going to take twice as long. Oh dear! Nap time cannot come soon enough!

Oli needed a hard hat. 

So did everyone else!

Hard hats for everyone!

Which turned into hard hat races.

So much fun!

I would feel bad for the guy, but I just realized: We are paying him by the hour.