This blog tour, through Mom Central Canada, gave me a writing prompt. I like that. You might be able to tell I’m rather busy lately, and I’m not writing so much. But look! A topic! Handed to me!
Milestones.
Your children’s most memorable milestones may be the obvious ones – like their first steps, their first solid food. When they rolled over. When they first smiled – that ray of sunshine that broke the darkness of those first 6 weeks.
Thinking about my children’s milestones, for some reason, has got me looking ahead. I’m thinking about what’s coming up for Callum and Oliver. Riding a bike without training wheels. Learning to tie shoe laces. Losing their first tooth. Actually, truly, reading the words in a book. I’m excited to document the milestones that are coming up.
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If you’ve got photos of your little one’s milestones, you can head over to the Cheerios website and submit one of them. You could have your child featured on a special edition Cheerios Box and WIN $10,000 towards an RESP from TD Canada Trust. Which is a pretty sweet prize. Their contest closes December 15 2010.
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If you stick around here, and leave me a comment in the next week, you could win a Cheerios playbook for a child in your life. It’s meant to be a fun little book.
Rules:
- One comment per person, please.
- Tell me about a milestone in the life of a little one that you know.
- Make sure your comment includes your email address.
- Leave it before midnight on Friday October 29, 2010.
- Canadians only, please.
Good luck!
Disclosure – I am participating in the Cheerios Milestones program by Mom Central on behalf of General Mills. I received a gift card as a
thank you for my participation. The opinions on this blog are my own.
Where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Homesick in Heaven
This is going to sound really over-dramatic, but last weekend I said goodbye to the only house I have ever really considered home, besides the one that I currently live in. Oh, hell, this isn’t even my home. I’m trying to get away from here. I hope that the NEXT house will be THE home. Our home. For now, the one home I’m referring to?
Is my grandparent’s house. Soon to be sold. Soon to be moved out of. Sigh.
We moved around a lot when I was growing up. This is not a bad thing. Saying “I spent two years living in South Korea as a kid” is a great conversation starter, and all around an excellent experience. But moving around a lot means you have shallow roots. It was great, if I continue the metaphor, that we got moved around the garden, and exposed to different degrees of sunlight and shade, of soil quality, etc. – but there was no one SPOT that was ours.
Except for my grandparents’ house. Their small, yet somehow voluminous, home in Ottawa.
They moved there soon after they emigrated to Canada, my grandmother already having emigrated from Barbados to the UK, and then job opportunities across the pond brought them both here. They started off in Quebec City, and ended up in Ottawa. They raised their family, worked locally, made many friends, and never left. My mother and my uncles grew up there. I was born in Ottawa, and had it as my base from the start.
The house has always been a magnet. I was not the only university student that lived in their basement (from 1996-1999, while I attended the University of Ottawa) – there had been many before me, including my mother’s cousin from Barbados. There was another after me – my brother. They hosted numerous guests from all over the world frequently, managing to hold up to a dozen people overnight, despite only actually having a two-bedroom home.
I can not actually document all the memories this home holds. It would take me days. I wish I had the time.
(Will not forget the feel of that red velvet wallpaper in their bedroom, as seen above, ever. Ever.)
Sitting on the counter in the kitchen, listening to songs on the radio, watching my Gramma cook. Bumping down the stairs with a tea cosy on my head. Sitting on warm laps, reading books in rocking chairs. A hot cooked meal any time of day, 9 times out of 10 perfectly seasoned. The first shower I ever remember having, which felt like a million needles in my back (of course today I love the force of that hot shower on my back). A backyard full of gooseberries and a shed that housed a ceramic skunk. The RCMP horses out front, through the chain link fence. The hot air balloons that seemed like they were going to land on us every Labour Day weekend. The drone of the small planes from Rockcliffe Airport.
I had to go up this weekend, for Thanksgiving. I had to. I had to take photos, I had to pay my respect. I had to bring my family and impose one last time on their hospitality. I had to cook in her kitchen with her.
My kids have their own memories of that home. But only a few. I wish there were time for more.
(a sign in the bathroom, which has been there forever – don’t bump your head)
This is a good move. My grandparents are 90(!) and are still mostly managing to run a home. But they need to stop and have a rest and let someone else do the work. They’re moving to a lovely apartment, sort of luxury retirement living, not too far away. We’re all really pleased for them. The change is big, but will be positive. Plus, that apartment will still feature Gramma cooking and Gramma hugs and Grandad off-colour British Navy stories. (Hey, so talking about my grandparents turns this 33 year old in a 4 year old, eh?)
I’m going to miss you so much, home. I hope I can make a house for my children and potential grandchildren just like you, one full of welcome and love and warmth and good smells.
Maybe that’s the criteria for the next house right there. All that we really need.
Hey, it turns out, it’s lucky to be first.
Congratulations, Sara! I’ll be in touch.
Thanks again, for this opportunity, to Stella & Dot director Sandra Butler.
