Last Friday kids and I had fun spring-cleaning. As soon as dad came home I started emptying, cleaning and reorganizing kitchen cabinets one after the other. After I guess two of the cabinets, my son came and told me he wants to help. He started helping in emptying and wiping the cabinets. My daughter as well asked if she can also clean something, so I gave her a clean wet towel and told her to clean the cabinet doors.  They had a blast helping me and they were proud of themselves telling dad that they are helping mom getting ready for Nowruz.

This lasted only about half and hour, but it was the most enjoyable half an hour of my life. They had a goal, a purpose. We all enjoyed working together. They still like to help but not that excited about it.

This experience reminded me of my mom telling stories of her childhood and Nowruz cleaning (spring cleaning). Unlike now they used to live in big houses with grandparents, uncles and cousins and for Nowruz the kids each, had a section of the house to clean. She always tells the story with such joy, remembering all the fun they had cleaning the house as a family all together.

I hope to create that joy for my kids too. Maybe these memories stay with them a life time.

I have only 8 days left to finish my project. So far so good with organizing, more than half the kitchen is organized. The spice cabinet is done which is the most important and difficult one. But!  Yes, there is a big but, my whole house is upside down due to my son’s birthday party couple of days ago and his sickness the day after.

Until later,

Vancouver winter Olympics ended today and I already feel something is missing. We were so used to watch the games and follow the scores even my children were in the Olympic mood.

What I’m happy about is the effect of Olympic games on my 5 year old son. He was always in to wearing Batman or Spider man costumes and being obsessed with them. For the past two days though, he has been wearing one of his old thermal underwear, looking almost the same as the athlete’s uniforms, running around the house and saying he is wearing his Olympics clothes. He even said that he’s interested to participate in the Olympics when he is older.

I love the positive effect the Olympics had on my son. My job here is to keep him interested in sports, and remind him of Olympics and the athletes. Having Olympics in out city was very exciting and somehow even involved my 3 years old daughter. My only concern for the Olympics was the ads of McDonald and Coca cola.  I know these two where good sponsors and the Olympics needed funding. But do our athlete really feed on big Mc and Coca cola? I thought this would send a mixed message to our children specially teenagers. At the end of the games I can see that the positive effect of Olympics are stronger than the mixed messaged of these advertisements. It is 40 minutes past midnight and people are still celebrating in the streets of down town.

Until later,

It is easy to get caught up in day to day life and forget to attend to small but important stuff. I spend all my time with my children. We are playing, reading or doing some kind of craft. (By the way, I have great ideas for toddler valentine cards, I just have to gather all the pictures and post it. Soon I hope!!) If I’m doing house chores or work they are either playing together or help me and I’m watching and guiding them in their play.

The thing is that I don’t get to spend time with each of them separately. In the mornings when one goes to preschool and I’m with the other, I’m left with very limited time to get ready for lunch, set up everything for when they are together and I’m more in need, that I don’t get to spend maybe as much time as needed with the one at home. Unfortunately, my husband gets home late from work, there is no time there to spare, and weekends are family time.

Yesterday, dad left home early and I had to tag along my son to drop off my daughter at preschool. As I knew this would be our schedule for the day, I asked him the night before what he wants to do on our special time. Of course, he wanted to go and get a toy and then go to the coffee shop with me and have hot chocolate. (We did the coffee shop thing the first day my daughter went to preschool.) Read the rest of this entry »

_What did you do in school?

_Nothing? Just played!

_Who did you played with?

_My friends!

_What are their names?

_They didn’t tell  me yet!

This is my conversation with my son for the past year and a half. I can’t really get anything out of him to know what exactly goes on in his preschool.

_How was school?

_Good

_Did you find any friends?

_Not yet!

_What did you do?

_Made a bracelet with big beads

_My teacher told me not to touch the alphabet section She said it’s not for my age but know all the alphabet and I want to work with them

This is my daughter starting the same preschool today, and she was in gradual entry, spend only 1 hour in the class. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past three months, I was quite busy, from the online course I had for Fall to the kids and their programs and classes and best of all, my mom was in town since September.

The busiest was the past three weeks that my father was in town and my aunt and her family joined us from LA for 10days. It was a nice and enjoyable family gathering, especially for my children who don’t have a that many family around.

It is amazing how kids sense the family bonding, how they get friendly and comfortable so quickly around family. Even my son had his guards down after couple of hours of seeing my aunt and her family for the first time. I can say this was a first for him. My husband and I were quick to notice the difference in our kids in how they are more happy and playful and how they love the crowd and family around them.

Now that I’m writing everyone is back to their home, and here life is back to normal. Although I’m not sure what normal is, is it the way I live my life here alone with the kids, programs, play dates and our friends or the way I spend my past three months adding my family to the mix. What I really like is to have at least my parents around full time so that I can live a normal life around them. Now, when they are in town, I change our routine and our life to be with them because: 1- Our normal routine doesn’t include them  2- We want to spend as much time as possible together to make up for the times we are not together.

This year was a blast for my family as we got to decorate out Christmas tree with all the grandparents from both side. I decided to put the tree earlier than usual so that my family could also join us. I was so enjoying having all of them together to decorate the tree for the first time that I didn’t mind what they were doing with the tree. To us this is the perfect tree because we had fun with our family decorating it. When the tree was all done, my four-year-old son turned off all the lights in the house except the Christmas tree lights, told everyone to sit and look at the tree.

Then he said, “This is a happy time we have our family here and the tree”

This is going to be a great Christmas especially now that my sister in law said they are coming for Christmas, we will have family around to enjoy on Christmas eve too

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas with his or her loved ones.

Merry Christmas