Aurora Wells

Sometimes it’s like a switch clicks in my head, and all of a sudden everything I was interested in yesterday is old hat, and I have a new obsession. For me, a few days ago, I suddenly began to see my house through the eyes of someone who actually cares about dust and grime, and I couldn’t stop cleaning for a couple of days. Yuck! How could I live like this?

But this blog is not really about me. However, I do seem to have a child who, like me, jumps from obsession to obsession. Do you remember the Olympics Guys? She barely ever mentions them now, even though they were best buddies for most of February and March. Now she’s into two things: Puzzles and Buzz Lightyear. Two weeks ago I took Aurora to the Family Centre, and looking around at the shelves, discovered a stack of 24-piece jigsaw puzzles that we had yet to try. Aurora’s not (or so I thought) a puzzle person; she’s never really shown much interest in the wooden toddler puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles, on the other hand, are super-cool. She was so excited about the two at the Family Centre that we stopped at a second-hand store on the way home and bought two Disney puzzles for home. After doing each one several times a day, and then moving on to the Dr. Seuss puzzles I’d put away for a rainy day, I knew she was ready to step up her game. I found a set of eight puzzles for $24, half of which are 100-piece puzzles. She needs more help with those, but they’re also more interesting for Mommy and Daddy, so we don’t mind.

The other obsession, with Buzz Lightyear, just started a couple of days ago. We were reading an old story about Buzz going to school with Andy for show-and-tell (for those of you who haven’t seen a kid’s movie in the past 20 years, Buzz is a space ranger toy, one of the heroes of the movie Toy Story). She wanted to see more of him, but that was our only story about him, so I showed her the clip from the movie where he proves to (most of) the other toys that he can really fly. From that moment on, she was Buzz Lightyear. Wearing a Lightning McQueen t-shirt that day, she told me that she was Buzz, dressed up as McQueen. Later on, with a pair of tiger ears and tail on, she said that Buzz was wearing a Tigger costume. Here’s a picture of Buzz on the way to get her haircut:

And Buzz’s “after” photo:

Now Buzz can fly even faster, because she doesn’t have to stop all the time to brush her hair out of her eyes and mouth (and Mommy can kiss the fuzz on the back of her neck again). She was so good at the hair salon that I got her a collection of Toy Story stories afterwards at the bookstore. Lucky me, I get to be Woody the cowboy. Hopefully Daddy doesn’t mind being Hamm, the piggy bank!

Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself with the alliteration. We celebrated Easter two weeks late this year, so that we could do the egg hunt in Grandma Shaun and Grandpa Bill’s backyard again, with Uncle Jim and Aunt Lori visiting, too. The past several weeks have been really hectic at work for Daddy, with lots of overtime, so it was great to have him all to ourselves for four days in a row. The weather in Armstrong, I mean Spallumcheen, was absolutely perfect, with sunshine, just enough warmth to bare arms, and a beautiful blue sky that cries, “Come out and play!” Here are some photos from our (yes, very sorry) EGGSTRAVAGANZA!

Aurora is totally psyched for the “treasure hunt with no clues,” as she descends the porch stairs.

This basket’s getting heavy, Grandma!

Aurora finds egg number 11 at the far end of the back yard. Thanks again to Jenn Milley for the lovely “Aurora” jumper.

What a haul! Aurora shows off the goodies she can’t wait to consume.

Brawny Uncle Jim helps carry the load back to the house, with lovely wife Lori, too (and baby bump, too!).

Thanks again for letting us come to visit, Grandma and Grandpa. We had a wonderful time!

As promised, here are some pictures of the munchkin in costume for Halloween. Thanks to the Milleys for letting us borrow the Tigger costume – Aurora was totally jazzed about being a character she loves this year.

The Sunset Community Centre (Main & 51st) had a 1-5 year old play gym the day before Halloween. In addition to the usual gym stuff there was a craft table where we made icky playdough worms and a tissue ghost; a Halloween diorama for pictures, although Aurora kept wanting to pick up the leaves; a face-painting table; and a bouncy pirate castle. The castle was like a flame to my little moth. She was inexorably drawn to its door, fascinated by how much fun all the other kids were having and wanting to have fun, too, but completely unable to enter without Mommy (not allowed). She stood in line no fewer than three times, waiting while 4 or 5 other kids entered, then screaming and clinging when it was her turn. Ah, well, maybe next year.

Definitely the best part of the Sunset play gym – a trampoline! None of the other play gyms have one, and she got a lot of good Tigger practice, although after a few minutes of bouncing, the warm costume had to come off.

How to be a Tigger without a costume? Get your face painted!

All dressed up and ready to go!

Our friend Mandy hosts a great Halloween party each year, in fact, her whole neighbourhood goes nuts for Halloween. We visited for a while with our favourite fairy and her little doggie,

got loaded up with candy, and then set out to get some more. Brian took Aurora around Mandy’s block (rumour has it some of the movie people from the Vancouver film scene live here, and they get a little cinematic when it comes to Halloween) while Mommy went home to answer the door and give out candy.

Aurora made out pretty well considering how long it takes her to climb up and down each set of stairs. Daddy says at some houses they were practically throwing the candy at the kids. Her total haul? An impressive .75 kilos!

In case you are not a muppet fanatic, Daddy is Captain Vegetable and Mommy is Bip Bippadotta. Happy Halloween from the entire weird family!

Today our friends J & J have whisked their kids off on a surprise holiday to Disneyland, and at ages 3 and 5 1/2 I’m sure Edmund and Agatha will have a fabulous time. I only wish I were going myself, as Disneyland is my favourite place to imagine myself when I get stressed out. It was my third home (second was Grandma’s house) when I was growing up, and I could have written one of those “insider’s guides” for teenagers.

Here I am at exactly Aurora’s age, waiting to board the train with my mom, on my first trip to Disneyland.

Disneyland always has exuberant flower displays, no matter the time of year.

And just cuz it’s that time of year, and I’m scanning old photos:

Steve and me, ages 4 and 6, looking super for halloween.

Lately I’ve been letting Aurora pick out her own clothes more and more. Of course, when she asks to wear her “party dress” three days in a row, I am deliberately obtuse, and hand her something festive, perhaps, but decidedly not the pink ladybug dress that she’s obsessed with.

This week, a box arrived from her Great-Aunt Laurie, filled with fun new clothes from the Ojai second-hand stores (love it!). Aurora selected this outfit with its fancy embellishments, and was happy to model it with Bear, who unfortunately was forced to wear a pink tank top (”Oh, the humiliation!” Daddy cries). Bear didn’t seem to mind, though, and he was gracious enough to let Aurora do most of the sliding.

Please note: I have figured out how to link the small images with their larger versions, so please feel free to click on the photos to resize them. Now I’ll go back and fix the last few posts.

More outings with Papa this week: Maplewood Farm and the Maritime Museum.

Grandpa likes to have, in his words, an “establishing shot” when we arrive someplace.

By the time we arrived at the farm, around 3pm, the rabbits were long past hungry, so we just sat and hung out with them for a while.

Aurora retracts her pointing hand the moment the cow looks her way. It must be hard to reconcile these enormous creatures with the tiny figurines we call “cows” at home.

The turkey is a bit intimidating too, with its sharp beak and black feathers.

“Hi, Pigs!”

“Bye” is one of Aurora’s best words right now. “Bye-bye, farm!”

Aurora wanted to pick every flower we saw today, but I stopped her after two of our walkway’s forget-me-nots.

Grandma Gail sent this adorable cherries outfit – ridiculously cute!

After all these years of visiting, and then living here in Vancouver, I’ve never been to the Maritime Museum before. I don’t think Papa’s been there, either, so we took the plunge today.

The main building is a dry dock for the RCMP’s St. Roch, the first boat to navigate the Northwest Passage in both directions. We got to go on board and check it out. The quarters are so cramped, it’s hard to imagine life aboard ship for months at a time, but it served a very useful purpose, patrolling the arctic and bringing supplies to Northern outposts.

Steering a pirate ship in the kids’ area.

Aurora found this four-step platform in the Port of Vancouver area, and climbed it about a dozen times. What fun!

“Mommy, why aren’t you wearing your glasses?”