Laying Low

We've had a few quiet weeks since Christmas, which has eased the reintroduction of our routines.  Evelyn's piano lessons and ballet class have started again, Malcolm and I are back to our Wednesday morning playgroup, and have added one of our favourite activities - Toddlertime at the Library with Margaret - to our roster.  The Ducklings have had a relatively smooth transition back to school, but that has been thwarted somewhat by illness (more on that later).

We had our first PD day of the year on Friday, and with my mother and Myriam in charge of the home front, I actually went grocery shopping by myself.  I had about a month where I either went with all 3 boys in tow (which went swimmingly until I had to make an emergency bathroom run on a different floor), or with Evelyn and/or Malcolm or some combination of the above.   

Myriam brought out the playdough and an impressive collection of toys which were greatly enjoyed by everyone.

Keith in full creative mode

Colin concentrating

Peek-a-boo

What do you mean I can't eat this?

The dog didn't listen to my advice and ate a lot of playdough, which reappeared shortly thereafter.  He spent the rest of the day guzzling water and needing to go outside RIGHT NOW!!  I would like to think he learned his lesson, but this might be asking a little to much self-awareness from an animal who is terrified of any person he knows and loves who is - gasp - wearing a hat.  He recognizes the person, but not the alarming, brain-sucking creature sitting on their head.

I digress.

Friday was also the day we managed, by sheer luck, to get Evelyn seen at our pediatrician's after hours clinic because in the bath, we noticed this:

It turns out that Evelyn likely had a reaction to the penicillin she was given to treat the ear infection she developed the previous week.  Keith was concurrently on penicillin, also for an ear infection, and midway through his treatment, he too developed a really odd rash.  It looked like someone had taken a thick red marker and drawn a line around his chest, back and upper arms.  I didn't think much of it, until Evelyn's rash appeared a few days later.  We're assuming that Colin is, or will be, similarly allergic.

Truly, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner, because I've had a penicillin allergy since I was their age.  We'll have them conclusively tested by the allergist when we get their tree nut and peanut sensitivities re-tested in a year or two.  We're VERY fortunate that despite our near constant state of illness, we haven't had anything severe since Keith's bout with pneumonia last winter - so we haven't had too many occasions to require antibiotics.  Let's hope our good luck holds!

Welcome To 925 Evelyn's Place....

As Edward and I were moving out of our last house in June, 2011, he casually asked me if I wanted to take a dollhouse he found in the (dank, dirt-floored) basement with us.  

Initially, I said no because quite frankly, anything emanating from that basement was a mouldering mess and was best left to continue its quiet decay in peace.  But Edward mentioned that it was in pretty good shape.  After I agreed to take a look, I was really pleased with its potential, and made room for it on the truck.

Its provenance is a mystery, but the multiple layers of paint suggest that it's at least 40 years old.  It's completely home made from various scrap pieces of wood, which add to its charm, but doesn't make it square or level by any stretch of the imagination.  

Most dollhouse purists would shudder at the thought of giving a 4 year old a fully furnished, "adult" house, but the stars briefly aligned to allow me time to work on it (ie. baby still napping in the afternoon, me still off work).  There would never be another opportunity like that!  

So starting in September, I carved out a few hours a week to work on it - and it took a lot of work.  Coats of primer on every surface, seven coats of paint on the floor, 4-5 coats of paint on the walls, wallpapering the master bedroom, stencilling the bathroom floor, sewing curtains and pillows, putting in baseboards, shingling the roof one piece at a time and staining it, painting the furniture, putting down "grass", putting up lights, making a fireplace and art.... the list felt endless, but it was a ton of fun and some much-needed creative problem solving.  My mother kept teasing me about who the dollhouse was really for, but much to my surprise, it's been a hit with all of the Ducklings... and Malcolm, who is gentler with it than the others.  

I'm very glad I took pictures of the finished product on Christmas Eve, because it has since been loved into a state of partial destruction.  The curtains are ripped down, the fireplace destroyed, the bedrooms turned into forests, airports and train stations.... I've gathered the rubble, and at some point - but not too soon - I'll fix it again.  Perfection made imperfect by excited little hands and big imaginations is perfection in its own right.

You can click on each picture to make them bigger.

The dollhouse in our current workshop, in its original condition.  It was covered in grime, cobwebs and other squicky things.  It got a really, really good cleaning.

The finished dollhouse, Christmas Eve.  I used left over house paint for the interior and exterior.  The path is made of small pebbles set one at a time, and the address on the black plaque reads "925", the Ducklings' birthdate.  The lights on top are battery-powered "fairy lights".

The original interior.  I was puzzled by the choices of paint colour, until I realized they were originally various shades of white with more than a hint of tobacco smoke.  I left the black paint around the edges as a testament to the house's history - but not before I tested it for lead content.

The finished interior.  All the dolls are in bed, ready for their adventures on Christmas morning! 

A closer look at the different rooms:

Living room.  All the material used for the pillows, curtains and rugs in the house came from my fabric stash.  The ceiling lights are battery powered LEDs that you can tap on and off.  I put tissue paper over the lights to warm up and dim the light they gave off, but the paper lasted less than a minute once they came in contact with small children.

The kitchen.  It also has a stove and a counter on the other side.  

Big girl's room (leads out to balcony).  I made the bead banner on the wall; the heart centrepiece was repurposed from a broken necklace of Evelyn's.

Master bedroom.  The wallpaper is dollar store contact paper.

The nursery

The bathroom. I stencilled the floor with a Sharpie to create a tiled look.

A close-up of the fireplace, on.

The various components of the fireplace: twigs cut and glued together with red, amber and yellow beads added for effect.  I glued the twigs to cardboard I bent into shape and painted black.  The red feet are beads.  The "fire" is a small (florist-sized) battery operated LED twist-on light covered in a few layers of orange and yellow tissue paper.  It isn't too robust, but it was lovely while it lasted!

I bought all the furniture from various on-line sellers.  The living room sofa and chairs, the kitchen, most of the master bedroom furniture and the bathroom fittings came from an Etsy seller in the UK, and was the cheapest I could find, even with shipping included.  It was a bonus that she custom made it!  I also bought quite a few pieces through Amazon.ca.  These were cheap but surprisingly well made.  However, I did have to paint them to cover the mismatched wood tones, or just to spice things up a little.  I bought a few pieces from Canadian on-line dollhouse stores, but the mark-up with them is considerable.  Had one of the Amazon sellers not lost my order in the mail at the last moment, I would not have gone that route.

The dollhouse furniture I chose is scaled 1:12, which is the most common scale available.  One inch in miniature equals one foot in real life.  As our dollhouse is home made, it isn't a perfect match for that scale, but its absolutely fine for our purposes.

Christmas 2015 and FUN STUFF!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season! We had a relatively quiet Christmas morning (if you discount the rather calamitous, gift-drunk children...), and since then, we've taken advantage of Edward's time off work to visit a few museums, play hide and seek in the dark with new flashlights, play new board games, tinker with new building toys, sleep in (!!! okay, only until 7:00, but that's huge in our house) and eat a certain amount of chocolate.

We even have photographic proof of most of the above:

Christmas

Christmas morning.  Santa was VERY good to us.  Colin didn't want to stay in his pjs for the morning, but he certainly was keen on the gift part.  I think Keith was about to explode.

I'm probably saying something totally futile, like "can we try to keep our gifts in our own piles so we know who got what?" (crucial with lots of littles), or "slow down, this isn't a race!".  I'm no fun at all.

Malcolm playing with his car ramp from Uncle Sepp (who is also one of his Godfathers)

Concentrating....

What's incredible about this series of pictures is that NO ONE else is trying to usurp Malcolm's gift at that exact moment in time.  I'm sure there is a Duckling Vulture lurking just out of the frame.  Poor little guy spends most of his time running after his vanishing toys crying "Myyyy... MYYYYY!".  Sigh.  He will eventually learn, as we have, that it's hard to keep three busy bodies and six grabby hands at bay.

Children's Museum - Museum of History

We, along with what appeared to be a million other people, had the brilliant idea to visit the Children's Museum this past Tuesday.  Edward and I have visited the Museum of History a few times, but I have not set foot in it's Children's Museum since I volunteered there (I think from ages 12-16?).  It's changed a lot, including a massive increase in floor and exhibit space.  Edward thought the whole thing was a little overwhelming... there's so much to see and do, you could probably go at least 5 times before you see it all.  The kids enjoyed it, but their favourite part was the temporary Bob the Builder exhibit.

The best bus ever!  A heavily decorated bus from Pakistan

My chauffeur.  Honestly, I think he's probably already a better driver than many - he's got at least one hand on the wheel, his eye on the road, and nary an electronic device to be seen!

On a motorbike taxi from Thailand

A studious moment playing chess in a souk in Morocco

Oooo... having a plumber (or two) in the family would be awesome... Keith and Colin are puzzling together the pipes

Aviation Museum

Unlike the Children's Museum, we are members of the Aviation Museum, so we've been a few times already.  Even though it is nowhere near as flashy as the former, and the plaque-and-plane display format is way over their heads (literally, too), they always have a fantastic time here.  There are plenty of hands on activities for the pre-literate... and energetic.  Major plusses:  it is a huge open space, and it is usually pretty quiet.

Yikes.  A runway SNAFU.

Sittin' in a fighter jet, pushin' buttons.  What did you do today?

Keith and his co-pilot. 

A crowded Cessna cockpit

They could have spent half an hour in here

Pseudo helicopter flight deck.  Evelyn did get her turn, too.  However, she much preferred contriving and alerting her brothers to various alarming scenarios that required rescue.

We also returned to a perennial favourite, the Experimental Farm (aka the Museum of Agriculture).  I guess we must have forgotten to pack the camera, which was a shame, because among other photo-worthy moments, Malcolm got a gentle calf lick on the cheek.  

I'm not sure who was more smitten....