Inaugural Blog

Here’s me.

First came love, then came marriage, now I’m pushing a double jogging stroller.

Nice work if you can get it.

I’ve got an itch to write about it. Hence, this blog.

But enough about me.

Here’s us:

These pictures were snapped on our 10^th wedding anniversary. We took the kids and the dog for a sunset stroll across the North Saskatchewan River.

We are the Flurfels.

We have three kids and a mutt/mongrel cross. We’re pretty ordinary people. We’re neither rich nor famous nor glamorous. I’m a stay-at-home mom. We live in a yellow house in the suburbs. I dress almost exclusively in black yoga suits which I purchase at the grocery store.

When I was younger, I feared being ordinary was a terrible fate. Now I’m quite keen on it.

Remember these guys? They are rich and famous and glamorous.

They got married on the very same day as us  – June 29^th, the year 2000. You’d think they’d be happy, what with the beauty and the wealth and such. But I guess it didn’t work out for them. It did work out for us, though.

Here’s Papa Flurfel and Big Sister Flurfel:

He works in an office building making ones and zeros whiz around. But he’d rather be carrying Hazel around on his head. At least that’s what he tells us.

Big Sister graduated from preschool this summer.

 
She had nine freckles in the springtime, but now she has eleven.

She is pretty committed to truth, justice, and the pursuit of ever higher knowledge.

She loves animals and her baby sister madly. She takes being a big sister quite seriously and is protective and affectionate. With her little brother, though, she thinks it prudent to set boundaries.

After her annual spring leafing-out and growth spurt, Hazel is exhibiting a wee tetch of awwwww-kwardness. She sometimes hollers, “Watch THIS, Mommy!” and then hurls herself into a piece of furniture with vigour. Then, horrified, she screams and looks at me accusingly, like, “How could you let this happen?”

Generally speaking, our Hazelnut doesn’t bottle up her emotions. She lets ‘em rip.

She loves to look up animal facts on Wikipedia, or more accurately, to have some of her people look up animal facts for her on Wikipedia. She has a remarkable memory for them. She often tells us factoids like how male seahorses carry their babies around in a pouch in their belly before they are borned. It’s true! They totally do.

Hazel can get pretty Frank Gehry with the Duplo: 

We think she’s amazing.

This is our boy, Oliver:

He looks like Shirley Temple, but he acts like Muhammad Ali. Not the articulate, early-in-his-career Ali, mind you.

Oliver just turned two.

He speaks Toddlerese. He also says some things in English, such as “No, mine!” and “Mommy, I need you!” and “I need more!”

He also often runs around in enthusiastic circles shouting, “Happy day! Happy day! Happy day!”

We like him best when he’s enthusiastic about life and not wielding anything.

If asked what his name is, Oliver will excitedly answer, “Me!”

His fortes include long naps and supreme hugs.

You probably should know that Oliver should NOT be trusted with a garden hose.

This is our baby, Josephine:

She is almost 9 months old.

Her newest skill set includes eating solid foods and sitting up. She’s a bit antsy to get crawling but so far can only move around by commanding someone (with emphatic gestures and sounds) to move her. She is a remarkably assertive person and very social, I think. She doesn’t like to be left out of the action, no siree. She lets us know when she feels left out.

Her things are very chubby, her toes are super delicious, and she makes the cutest little noises. Gosh.

One of her favourite things to do is to dismantle Hazel’s Duplo creations. They’re symbiotic, that way. Like Fraggels and Doozers.

Baby Jo is delightful, we think.

Her pig tails drive us to utter distraction.

XOXO,
The Flurfels