aaahhhhhgust

August has been wetter than usual but we have continued to enjoy our summer this past month! a nice dose of friends and family and equal parts lazy days and crazy days :)

Sasha is a pure delight to play with as her imagination continues to become more and more creative (though sometimes a little too repetitive for our taste, teehee) Her pretend time includes some favorites like playing doctor, serving coffee to everyone and many races around the living room.

She is still an avid boogier, and to add to this musical nature of hers she has also developed a very large repertoire of songs to sing...and now we understand them all well enough to sing along - lol

The flip side to her positive nature overall is the downright bossy side capable of total tantrum epics! Though it is usually easy to find a way through it, her sheer stubborn will goes wild when she's not getting her way. we just keep remembering to breathe and practice patience...this pictured tantrum below (have to get those bad days on record too, hehe) ended with a compromise - she could take a picture as long as she held the camera the way mommy wanted, and the pic of our feet she took was what brought us back to a moment of peace :)



Post-surgery life there has been a big difference in her ability to control the movement of her eyes. In this bathtime pic you can somewhat see the redness from the incisions in the inner eye area only a couple of days after. That little bit of redness was the only sign of the surgery at all. She did not need a patch and aside from some minor irritation for a couple of days and some sensitivity to light, she was back at child care by tuesday (where our only concern was potential spreading of pink eye which fortunatly ended with only 3 kids infected...and it wasn't Sasha - yay!)

While her eyes still turn in once in a while, with the glasses on it happens rarely now. Last week we had her 3 week follow up appointment and Dr. K was very happy with her progress. He says that it is a good thing that both eyes occasionally turn in, rather than the right eye only, as it shows she is gaining control and working them both out. We'll have another follow up in October, at which point we'll have more insight to share.

Sasha has had some nice grandparent time for family meals, and on occasions we needed help with our schedule of childcare. She is loving the Mount Pleasant child care, and mainly we need help with every other week when we both work the same tuesday night.

Penny gave us another gift of taking Sasha overnight so we could have a date nite. Mark and I went to Granville Island for dinner at the Backstage Lounge before seeing the show 'The Back Kitchen Release Party' at the Arts Club theatre which was brilliant fun -I really loved it!. After the show we enjoyed a long walk along the seawall taking in the calm of false creek in the evening and the awe inducing construction and waterfront development of the soon-to-be Olympic Athletes Village (we are only a 15 minute walk from this area). and we even had an ice cream en route home too. absolutely fabulous evening!

Though we've had a bit of out and about time, we have mainly been enjoying more settling into home activities. I've had a long list of things 'to-do' around here, and we have slowly been crossing off many tasks - feels good! The funniest (in hindsight) was my fridge epic. Ever since we moved in we have wanted to reverse the direction in which the fridge opens. Before, it opened right beside where the oven opened which really cramped that corner of the kitchen. I decided it would be a good idea to switch the handles and other hardware on my own one day (working my way through writers block makes for a really organized home, hehe) I learned the hard way that this is not easily a one-person task. I persevered and managed to get the job done...only to find that I had put something on wrong and the doors opened - but not properly! arggg. but at least they closed so the food wouldn't spoil...and Mark and I finished the job together when he got home ;)

We continue to love our little garden of zen and food! Our herbs continue to flourish, and now our tomatoes are popping up all over, cucumbers on the way, swiss chard a plenty and the zucchinis are out...we ate our first last night. Sasha is seen here holding the first of our harvest to hit our plates - sooooo yummy! the plants have gotten even bigger since these pics were taken...insane and fascinating watching natures magic work on our patio so up close. it makes a difference having everything at eye level. the busy bees, birds, bugs and constantly evolving colour scape of our tiered garden leave us gushing daily...and we now have a new addiction in gardening that has proven restorative to all of us.



I'll finish with a highlights summary of the time we've had with friends and family so far:
Thomas, Kristina and Keyan came over for brunch one day - and Tom ended up doing all the cooking! Nice having a chef for a friend - especially one who knows what life with toddler is like! generous meal and so nice to invite folks into your home so they can spoil you - lol.

I spent an evening with our friends from our old neighbourhood at Jones Park. I was invited to MC, but as the Family Fun park event had been moved from Sat to Fri nite (rain delay) I ended up arriving too late after work to play the role. So I helped with tear down and clean up after spending lots of time catching up with everyone and enjoying the music. Then I enjoyed some excellent quality time around Brad's fire in the wheelbarrow...I have officially passed the torch of backyard fires in that 'hood and look forward to future evenings of flame at their house now, teehee. Great night!

Kirsten was another friend who came bearing gifts - a headband for me and a lovely dress that Sasha can grow into that she picked up in Guatemala for us, plus a fantastic sweater made of hemp that she knitted for Sasha to wear now. Here's a pic of Sasha wearing both - cute :)

I've been on a search for some kind of fun physical activity to boost my cardio that works with our family schedule - difficult! most things I would like to try are on wednesday nights when I work! Well, there is a Capoeira club near here and my buddies Ali and John came with me to try it out one saturday and it was a blast. hard work and a fun too...but Sat afternoons have proven not to be the perfect time I thought they were. still committed to finishing the remaining 6 intro classes though - just to say I did it ;)

We've also enjoyed ferry rides to and from Granville Island from dad's place, and a great sunday visit with Karli and Brett. Our patio has been a perfect summer hangout place and having friends and family over to enjoy it makes it even better!





The last week of august Mark and I are both off work, and Sasha is missing child care so we can have a family fun week. Next post will have pics and highlights of our week of play together. Hope you all have a good time finishing summer off with a flurry of fun!

Video for this post features Sasha enjoying water play with her containers on the patio: