The boys were very sweet on Mother’s Day – they gave me beautiful cards they had made, and two special homemade presents. Ethan had painted a vase for me and Jack had painted a jewellery box. They were so proud of their work and I got a ton of hugs and kisses throughout the day. I stayed in bed until 12:15(!) but strangely I was tired all day anyway. Both my mom and Mike’s are out of town, so it was pretty low-key.
Mike’s brother Craig arrived home from Australia for a short time before globe-
trotting off again, so we’ve spent some of the last week with him. He left today, but not before making quite the impression on the boys. They were pretty pleased that he came with me to drop them off at school this morning. Just to hear Jack’s little voice “That’s my Unca Dweg” was awesome. (He still pronounces a lot of consonants as D. So “Dar” could be “Car” or “Star” or “Tar” – it’s all about the context, people)Mike was in LA for a week so the boys and I got caught up on a whole pile of playdates. It’s nice to be able to invite people over – but by the last playdate I was glad to clean up and be done with it. We also participated in two more of Surrey’s Environmental Extravanganza events. Every year we plant a tree at one of the local parks, and we release salmon into the streams. This year the city had
chosen Unwin Park and with Mike’s dad’s help we planted two this year. The boys are real experts by now, this being our third year planting family trees, and Ethan was telling the city arborists how to do their job. He was Mister Chatty-pants and was giving all sorts of tips on how to get those trees into the holes we had just dug. We planted our biggest tree yet – it had to be 15 feet tall – then we hung around as long as I could stand it to get our hot dogs, play in the bouncy castle, and get our Environmental passports stamped. It was freezing, with a “lovely” rainy mist that soaked everything. The boys were head-to-toe mud and I had to strip them down to their skivvies and throw them in the back of Barry’s van. Luckily I had thought ahead and had a complete change of clothes for us all, or there would have been a bunch of nudists driving home!
The next day was a little warmer and brighter, and it was our Salmon Send-off day. Ethan and Jack did about 4 buckets each, so we released about 100 salmon to repopulate the streams. The boys had invited Paige and Gavin (with 
Sandy, George and baby Shae) and Miranda and Cabrinha (with Julie) – all the kids had fun.We got good news at the very end of April. A visit to Ethan’s allergist showed that he is now only allergic to peanuts and nuts. It’s still serious, and he still needs to carry the Epi-Pen everywhere, but I can’t help feeling pretty happy that we only have to worry about nuts now. It’s a far cry from the first allergy test where EVERYthing came back positive. Ethan is especially pleased at the fact that he doesn’t need the skin pricks all over his back for two years now. It must be so uncomfortable to have 42 different allergens scratched into your back and then told to sit tight for 20 minutes. I know it must have been awful because when the doctor offered him some liquid Benadryl afterwards he couldn’t have opened his mouth wider if he’d tried. If you recall any of the post-tonsillectomy medicine nightmares, you too would be shocked that he accepted medicine so readily.
It’s getting late and I still have a ton of piddly little things to get done, so I’ll sign off for now with a sample of two songs composed by my boys last week.
Ethan:
“I have girlfriends, oh yeah
I love girrrrrlllllsss
Girls and girlfriends and so are mommies...”
Huh?
Jack:
“Oh mummah, I wuv you
I wuv you because you’re a girlllll
And I wuv girrrrlllllsss”
Lyricists they are not, but they are still pretty cute.
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