Jan
2020

The “I’m Bored” years…

I got to go to Open Gym again for Cheer with my friend Dhiya.

He said

The week for the most was for the most part back to the regular routine around here. Danielle had daycare kids coming back into the fold and after some days off around Christmas, the store continued to move at holiday pace. The only one who had trouble navigating that was Emelia who has officially graduated to the “I’m bored” years. While two weeks off for a kid can be a dream about two hours into that this week, Emelia very quickly, began to realize how much her regular schedule of school, acro, balet, and gymnastics five days a week really filled in all of the hours of the day and week.

To say it was a challenging break would be a bit of an understatement but I also got off lucky as Danielle was the one who got to bare the brunt of a 12 yr old suddenly with no schedule. Typically Emelia will then turn her focus to being Danielle’s helper with the daycare which for the most part can be fine, but also comes with challenges when Emelia stubbornly decides the daycare programming is her responsibility. It makes for challenging moments at times for Danielle, but it also it gave Emelia some good perspective on all that Danielle does in her days with the daycare kids.

Tuesday was New Years Eve and while we’re not big into kicking in the new year with any sort of festive frivolity, we did make plans to have a nice, quiet evening with friends. After I got done work, I came home, gathered up Emelia & Danielle and we were off to Emelia’s friend Kathleen’s house to spend New Year’s Eve with her family who we’ve become good friends with. There were nibblers and some drinks and while Kathleen, her school friends and Emelia played, we had a nice, quite goodbye to 2019 and welcome to a whole, new decade. And the best part was we were home and in bed by 1:00am without incident.

Wednesday, with everything closed because it was New Years Day and a 12 yr old that had spent no less than eleventy-jillion times this week telling us she was bored, we took Emelia and her two besties to Victoria Park to go skating. Emelia hadn’t been skating in at least a couple of years and had been chomping at the bit to go out again. Thankfully, the skates we bought her a couple of years ago were adjustable and we were able to get them readjusted. After, a few laps around with me, she was good to go off with the twins. We spent an hour skating and had a good time. Aside from one fall, the skating trip was a big success.

The rest of the week was mostly work for Danielle & I. The World Junior Championships (hockey) were on which is holiday tradition in this house so we were closely in tune with those games as the week came to an end. Canada ended up winning today in stunning comeback fashion. We wrapped our week with a wonderful sirloin tip roast dinner that Danielle made with her new Sous Vide immersion circulator cooker and are now digging in (begrudgingly) to the last bits of Christmas Break homework Emelia had a whole two weeks to get done. I wonder if any of those I’m Bored hours could help us now?

She said

This week was more about winding down and taking things easy after a week of Christmas bedlam the week before. Emelia and I tried to fill our days because without school and her regular activities Emelia was ‘bored’. Now she did work things with some of her school friends so she was able to entertain herself with her friends for a few of the days. But yes the I am bored is not making me look forward to what our summer vacation is going to look like. Emelia missed her regular routine and turned into a teenager which meant full on lazy mode at times. We tried to stay active but the good thing about the break was that it gave her the chance to heal some gymnastics wounds and hopefully start the new year with a renewed drive to move to competition season healthier and rested.

As the week moved along we were moving closer to the new year, John and I have never been one to celebrate big on over the new year but we love spending time with our good friends. This year we had a quiet celebration at our friends Greg and Danielle, we met them through their daughter Kathleen who was on Emelia’s gymnastics team a few years ago. The girls have stayed close friends since even though they haven’t been on the same team in years. I love their friendship, they really do love each other – and we like her parents too! We had lots of laughs, a great time all in all.

New Years Day we had a glorious sleep in, even Emelia! We had a great quiet family day before we moved to planning something fun to do. Emelia had been wanting to get back on the ice to get skating. A few years ago I replaced her ice skates and thankfully the sales person at the store and suggested these new adjustable skates that work great for kids who do not skate as often, they had more padding in the boot to make things much more comfortable. Emelia’s feet had grown a lot in the last two years, we were able to adjust the skates to the bigger size and a perfect fit.

Emelia’s best friends came over and we made our way downtown. The twins both play hockey so naturally are much stronger skaters. At first Emelia was embarrassed she needed to hold on to her dad for stability. But after a few laps she got the hang of it and held her own. The girls were great about taking things at Emelia’s pace and it was a great night. After about an hour I was freezing so we opted to come home for a hot chocolate and play here before the girls headed home.

Thursday things started to return to normal sort of around daycare land. I had 3 of the 5 girls back in care. We had a lazy pace the first day just letting the girls settle back in, Friday the weather was very mild so it allowed me to get the kids to the school playground for more than 2 hours which made for some tired kids and a nice long break in the afternoon so Emelia and I could have some time together. Saturday I was determined to get us moving. I had planned a visit with one my best friends and one Emelia’s oldest friends (they have know each other since Emelia was 6 weeks old and Dhiya was 8 weeks old). The girls are both gymnast so it was a perfect fit to have the girls go to Emelia’s soon to be cheer gym for open gym to show off some tricks. They had a great time! After we wrapped up we took Komal and Dhiya to Emelia’s favourite store Plato’s Closet and scored some amazing deals for Emelia.

Today was the return to gymnastics after 2 week, with Emelia being sick last week and the cancelation of her training over the holidays it had been 2 weeks since Emelia had been training. She seemed to have a good practice and we were happy to have her back in the groove. Tomorrow reality really kicks in! Emelia returns to school, I have a new daycare baby starting and we are currently getting a lot of snow. Tomorrow should prove to be a shitshow!