Family outing

It was a beautiful sunny day today.  It started off at 15C and we decided to go for a drive in the countryside towards Niagara-on-the-Lake (not quite to the Falls.)  The leaves are fully ablaze, and although it’s been windy last night and today, the trees are still rather full.  We all were out without needing sweaters or scarves, but definitely with sunglasses!  My niece and nephew wore theirs for a few minutes then found that they bothered their ears, so off they came.  We went to the Outlet mall in Niagara for lunch, finding when we arrived that there was a food truck festival.  So rather than eating in the food court indoors, we headed out to the festival, occupied a picnic table and bought poutine, pulled pork, butter chicken & rice and lamb curry & rice.  My niece ate most of my butter chicken, much to the awe of the rest of us — it was somewhat spicy, but she just drank some water and ate extra rice before sipping the gravy like soup.  Later we had some beaver tails, and I’ve bought some apple tarts for tonight’s dessert.  It was a fun day — I’ll need another trip to the mall to shop for some grown up stuff, because it’s hard to browse clothes and purses and coats when you’re trying to manage the Small People.  I saw two dogs who were twins of my Jerry; both were black schnoodles; one was 14 years old and the other 7 (same age as my little monster) and made me a little homesick for the boys.  Don was fine when we spoke this morning, and he seems to enjoy when I share my location, so he knows where I am 😊  I also like doing that; it’s almost as good as having him here with me.  So I share my location for a while, and he’ll sometimes text back with comments on the location like landmarks to look out for, etc.  He’ll also know when I get back home, so we can talk about our days.

I enjoy watching cartoons, which is very helpful when the Small People want to watch something on TV, as you can imagine.  So I have been watching several Disney cartoons (mostly princesses) every evening for a while now.  When we’re done with those, we watch YouTube cartoons for babies, and at the moment I’ve heard multiple renditions of Old MacDonald; The Wheels on the Bus; 10 in the bed; Goldilocks and The Gingerbread Man… I’ve been providing some editorial commentary on some of the stories, like saying that Goldilocks was very naughty, breaking into someone else’s house, stealing their food and breaking their furniture, and she deserved punishment.  Then I’ll say things like the gingerbread man deserved to be eaten by the fox, and the Little Mermaid didn’t live to marry Prince bland… My sister rolls her eyes at me, and my elder niece has banned me from watching any movie that features teenagers, because I’ll ask what she calls silly questions.  I admit to great admiration for those people who can repeat the same story hundreds of times!  The SP know certain of their books by heart, so any deviation is strongly criticized and we have to start again.  I’ve learnt that it’s much easier to just read exactly, as any changes mean that I’ll have to tell it from the start!!  New books have a little leeway, as I can modify what I say and not be corrected.  Cartoons and shows can’t change either… I changed the language track on one and was ordered, “The movie is broken.  Fix it Auntie!!  Mamma, fix it!” 

It will be interesting to see how they manage when they start French immersion in elementary school, since they don’t seem to want to hear any other languages.  They have a few books in both English and French, and I’ve been reading the French and translating sentences for them.  They’ve heard me ask, “qu’est-ce que c’est?” and “qu’est ce qu’il dit?” Plus I’ve been giving them the names of various animals and foods in both so it should not be too unusual for them.   I’m not sure how effective it is, since they aren’t otherwise exposed to French, but I’ll try getting them used to hearing it so it’s familiar when they start school.

It was a very fun, busy day today, and I will need some rest.  The SP haven’t run out of energy yet, and are trying to see who can jump higher on the mat.  I hope they’ll be tired after baths and milk so storytime should be nice and restful and they’ll hopefully sleep all night.  I think I may need to provide a distraction before they get into trouble, so I’m off!  Good night!