“I Love You”.
I think that one of the things I have been waiting for as a Mom was to hear my child say “I Love You”, without being pushed or prodded or coaxed along. This week it has started. Out of the blue, I hear him say, “I love you Mommy”. Makes my eyes well up with tears and my heart very happy.
“J” is a very sensitive boy, I am sure he gets a lot of it from his mother, but he is always looking out for others to make sure they are ok. Rubbing his cousins back asking “are you ok?” or making sure he has snacks and treats for both of them when we go out somewhere together. The way he hugs me and holds my neck so tight, I knew in my heart that he loved me. To hear him say it out loud just makes it all worth while.
In addition to the “I Love You’s” being passed around, the newest trick around here is to talk on the phone. We have been trying to get him to talk to his Opa in Vancouver on the phone for a while now. Normally he would listen and smile, but all of a sudden last week he realized that he could talk too! He walks around the room pointing out all his toys and telling his Opa what he played with that day. It is really great. The only drawback is that he now picks up the other extension and talks to whomever I am talking to on the phone. Not so bad when it is family, but have to keep an eye on him when it is not! One of the best phone calls yet was when “J” picked up the phone to sing “Happy Birthday” to his cousin “LJ”, the two of them chatted and talked and I was indeed shedding a few tears. We are now entering a whole new era with “J” and I have to say that I really like it a lot.
Those three words, “Good Job Mommy” was what I heard when I voted today. My little “J” was so proud of Mommy, even though he did not know what on earth I was doing. The people manning the voting booths thought it was pretty funny. It was cute indeed, but truthfully, I vote because I have to.
If I don’t vote, then who am I to say about what goes on in our Country?
If I don’t vote, then what on earth did all those women (Nelly McClung) do for us so many years ago?
If I don’t vote, then what will happen to Canada in the future, the future for “J” and “A”?
I vote because I have to. Even though the choices this go round were still not the best, no matter which party you are going with, you still have to choose one of them. These men and women chose to become politicians as a career, we have to decide which ones will work the hardest for us, to make Canada the best Canada it can be.
Have we made mistakes over the years? Sure we have.
Have we learned from our mistakes? Probobly not as much as we should have.
Will we make more mistakes as time goes on? Most likely.
In the end, whichever candidate is elected tonight should know one thing. I cast my vote today, so I will be watching, waiting, listening. Hoping to see Canada continue to shine as the great country I know it to be. And yes, I may complain once in a while, but alas that is my right, for today, I cast my vote.
Did you?
When I was a kid, we lived in house on a cul-de-sac. On an acre of land, where your neighbours were close, but far enough away. In the spring they would tar the street and in the winter the ditches became our forts. That street now has real ashfalt and there are no more ditches. The willow trees that we crawled under have been cut down and the house that we loved is starting to look run down and not well kept (it hasn’t been painted on the outside since my Dad last did it in 1978!).
Now my kids will remember that we made them go out and play in the snow. Yes, made them. “A” was not too sure if it would be fun and since he is too cool to own snow pants and proper boots we had to outfit him. Thankfully for him, I went through a stage of owning guys things so he had mens slush pants, men’s Doc Martins and men’s ski gloves to make him look pretty cool. And I must say in the end he did! “J” of course wanted to only do what his brother was doing, so until “A” started getting ready “J” did not want to go outside. I promised them it would be fun once we were out there. And sure enough, I was right.
Sadly, we only have one adult shovel. Something we are going to correct today. So, “A”, Hubby and I traded off shovelling the heavy, dense snow off of the driveway. “J of course used his shovel, but was putting more back onto the driveway than he was takikng off.
After a good area was scraped clean “A” & “J” started to play some hockey. I love it! It reminds me of when I was younger playing outdoor games with my Dad while he was shovelling. The only difference being that he was always still shovelling. Hubby switched gears while I had a turn at piling the snow, he decided the kids needed a snow fort!
So he created a fort worthy of a two year old, with caverns and seats. Of course the dogs wanted in on it and tried to help and when the kid next door came out to play with “A” the two of them used the fort as cover. But, that was ok, it was the best two hours of yesterday! When everyone got to be a kid for a couple of hours and play in the snow.
I hope my kids will look back on days like today and remember them fondly. Yesterday was definately a good reason to love winter. And days like that make winter not seem so bad after all. If only every winter day was as perfect as that.
