From one extreme to the other - boredom to crazy busy

Lara will be going from the extreme of boredom at home in August to not-enough-hours-in-the-day in September.
This is how the Armstrong family calendar looks for September:

As well as going back to school, skating starts up again, and she's got three sessions a week after school - Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
She still has piano lessons on a Wednesday, and that gets more complicated now by throwing guitar lessons in there too. Then there's practice time at home everyday (fat chance!)
On Saturday afternoons she'll have dryland training for her skiing club, this is fitness and balance work initially in a park during September, then it moves indoors from October, until the actual skiing starts in December.

We'd known about these activities for some time, and in putting them on a calendar, we noticed that there was a glaring hole on Mondays (Sundays we decided to keep activity free, at least for now!), and Lara has been pestering us for karate lessons. So Olga did some investigating, and found that there is a taekwondo school that operate from Genesis Place (the sports centre near where we now live), and lo and behold they have lessons for beginners on Mondays and Wednesdays, and they were having an introductory lesson today, so Lara went along, loved it, and has now been signed up. By Canadian sports standards, it's very good value, with 2 x 1 hour lessons per week for $65 a month. I think it will be really good for Lara, not just in her physical development, but also helping to channel those emotions - that are getting stronger - in the right direction, as well as keeping her busy and tiring her out.
On top of all this, we should try and fit in some reading and writing practise for school...

As for Dan, he resumes his skating lessons, twice a week, in October, and then he has 5 skiing lessons in December at the Olympic Park in Calgary.

Back to School (at last) and tales of poop

Lara returned to school today, after 2 months and 6 days off. She's been counting the days for a week now, it's great that she's been so excited about going back. It's also a reflection on her getting bored at home, of course! Olga and I have to work, so we're not there to play with her or do crafts with her, and this caused friction from time to time.
We used one of my old phones to set an alarm for 7am, and she got herself up, and into the shower (complete with shower cap!), and dressed all without any interference from us. She packed her own school bag and was ready to leave 10 minutes earlier than necessary. Long may it continue!

Somehow she has convinced us to buy her a guitar, and split her piano lessons into piano/guitar lessons. We'll see how long the enthusiasm lasts, but at the very least it gives us grown ups something to use to keep her behaviour under control!
Only yesterday I was accused of ruining her whole school year, as she was too upset with me to go to school today - I'd taken her guitar off her because she wouldn't get her apple core out of the truck, where she'd left it on her seat. We had a stand off for 20 minutes or so, with Dan acting as mediator, passing messages between us, that bit was very sweet! In the end I got a very begrudging apology out of Lara, and she got the "I'm your dad, not your friend, you have to do as I tell you" speech. I had to get the apple core though!
Within an hour she was all sweetness again, and offering to help me to get Dan ready for bed, and she got her guitar back today ;-)

Speaking of Dan, for the first time last night he told Olga that he needed a poop, and he made the toilet in time, so that's very good news. Tonight he put himself on his potty in front of the TV, he thought to do a pee, but the look of complete surprise on his face when he discovered a poop in there was priceless!

Nursery home time

OK, sometimes, just sometimes, I'll admit that the kids can be quite cute, like today on the way out of nursery..

And Dan is wearing the same clothes on the way out as he wore on the way in, for the second day running - good boy!

Let sleeping dogs lie... On new beds

We felt it only fair that given we have moved to a new home, the dogs were entitled to new beds to go with it. What we've found in the past is that we buy a large bed for Mishka, and a smaller bed for Jackson (Jackson's last bed was actually better quality and probably more comfy than Mishka's), but Jackson doesn't respect this idea - he decides which bed he'll sleep on, and it's usually the bigger one. We can tell him to move, and he begrudgingly slopes off to his smaller bed, and Mishka sheepishly creeps onto his bed, but it doesn't last.

So, in order to try and make things fair on Mishka, we've bought them the same, large bed, now that we have enough room to put them down (although not quite enough room to put them next to each other!). 

Both a re a bit wary about lying on them, Mishka initially resorted to dozing on the floor yesterday, which Jackson found the pile of towels we use to wipe their feet after walks more appealing. But I think they'll soon realise that those beds are them and not the kids (who could easily sleep on them too!) and equality will reign.

Dan's potty time

Dan was off nursery for a few days at the end of last week, so we took the opportunity to start him on potty training. Today was a red letter day, as his third day in nursery without diapers, and he's come home wearing the same clothes that we sent him in this morning. So he's heading in the right direction..