Little Dancestress

ELEANOR'S DANCE RECITAL! Oh man, dance is so stressful and so time-consuming and SO ADORABLE but she had her dress rehearsal on Wednesday, which really only took like ten minutes but we had to drive all the way out there and then all the way back, and then she had recitals on Thursday and Friday.

We attended the Thursday recital, and I had thought about leaving Geneva with somebody but everybody else was bringing their baby, and anyway Geneva loves dancing. Every time the lights went down, she'd be all, It's gonna be dark! Dere's gonna be more dancers coming!

I have no photos or video from the performance itself, alas. They're very serious about not filming it so that they can bleed you for the purchase of a DVD, which won't even be ready until August! HOW AM I GONNA WAIT THAT LONG TO WATCH ELEANOR TAP HER TOES AND PLIE THE SMALLEST AMOUNT POSSIBLE ON REPEAT?

Anyway, it was so great. But we got home SO LATE and then I had to FEED THEM AGAIN because we had supper at like 4, so they got to bed late and the next morning, Eleanor woke up looking hung over and was like, I'm all done dancing on a stage.

Obviously by the time I got her up and fed, she was super excited again about her last! dance! ever! And I was helping out in the back this time so I got to sit and chat with my dance moms, who I love, while Geneva ran around with the 'big baweenas.'

And now dance is over! And school ends on Tuesday! (They're having a 'graduation,' which I recognize is super lame and am also clearing my phone off for.) All these things are ending, and they're so tied up with my feelings about leaving Saskatoon, and I'm just SAD about it.

Eleanor is zero sad about it and 100% excited, so I'm trying not to project my sadness on to her. It's gonna be so great, this move, and by August we're gonna be all set up and settled in and it's gonna be GREAT. It's just the time in between that feels so insurmountable.

The cyclist

We bought Eleanor a bike! The tricycle that I got at the thrift store last year for $8 is now WAY to small.

So we got her a bike. Joel took her shopping. She was so nervous about it. 'I'm worried it'll be too wobbly. I'm worried it'll be too big.' 'Dad won't buy you a bike that you don't feel comfortable on.'

LOOK HOW BRAVE SHE IS BEING.

And so she's making her slow, laborious way up and down the bike path, and these two absolute dudebros bike by and she's like, I'M A CYCLIST TOO! And the first dude didn't even glance at her but the second one gave her a grin and a thumbs-up, and she cackled and then screeched her brakes, which is her favorite trick.

Geneva was all like, I wanna ride it Ahlnor's bike. I'm wery beeeg.

You are not wery beeeg at all, little bean. Stick to your scootering.

We are moving.

WE ARE MOVING TO BC, perhaps I have not mentioned it. It is going to be good but right now I am feeling mostly sad about it. We love Saskatoon SO. MUCH. Every time we go to the library now, they go, You're leaving! I say, I know! We're leaving! And then we all make sad faces.

We move at the end of June, and I feel like the clock is ticking, I'm doing that stupid thing where the weather is nice and the parks are great and the kids are happy and one part of my brain is like, Don't enjoy this because it's gonna be gone. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF MINDFULNESS, brain.

Anyway. We have been doing the Saskatooniest things we can think of. There's this sandbar down by the river that people hang out on, so we hung out on it.

It's a pretty alright little beach.

We go to the farmer's market. They have the bouncy castles up on Sundays again!

We get cucumbers and carrots, and eat half of them on the way home.

We go to Kinsmen park, which remains one of the best parks of my life.

We hang out with Josie a LOT. We are going to misssssssss her. We went to a bbq at her place a few weeks ago

and then had her and her husband over for supper, and then saw them at my cousin's place the other night. I know it's normal for people my age to have children but I'm always so delighted when we all get together and there are just PILES OF KIDS and they all move around in this mass of bodies and the big ones look out for the little ones and they all sit at or around the one table, just like in stories.

So we're losing that, that is a bummer. But we're here now! Tryn'a be here now. It's so hard. Every time we walk along the river, I have a little pang. But then there are goslings!

The weather has been amazing. Joel was gone last week and we barely noticed. I took the girls down by the river with their wheels one evening.

IT WAS STRESSFUL FOR ME because I'm trying to keep an eye on them both, and there are cyclists and people jogging by with their dogs. A woman walked by with two large dogs and Geneva was like, Mayyeye pet you dogs? And the woman heard her, and stopped! And Geneva petted her dogs! I dunno, kids having spontaneous interactions with strangers is the best.

We had a little snacknic in the dandelions because wheelsing is HARD WORK.

We went down to the ice cream bus for a belated birthday cone. Geneva got bubble gum because Eleanor got bubble gum but she did NOT LIKE IT so she gave it to Eleanor and came after mine. I got peanut butter cup because I am not a child and I know what's what.

We took forever coming home. We love the river.

We love the weir, we love the pelicans.

We went out for brunch today, a belated Mother's Day brunch, and Eleanor had a sandwich with a banana in it and Geneva had some of what everyone was having, with a side of What Is Your Face Doing

and the whole time I had to keep reminding myself that it was ok to be trying a new place instead of visiting our old places, because trying new places is one of the things we LIKE and we don't like it less because it will never become an Old Place. A friend said last night that it's better to be sad about leaving than to be closing the door on three terrible years and they're RIGHT, but it's still sad to be leaving.

BUT WE'RE NOT LEAVING YET WE'RE STILL HERE STOP  BEING SO SAD ABOUT IT, BRAIN. You can be sad later.

Two, like dis.

It's Geneva's birthday! My little bird. Remember when she was SO LITTLE?

I loaded her room with balloons, which continues to be the loudest thing you can do while your child is sleeping

and hauled out the birthday tree, and when Geneva saw it she was like, ISS A DANEEVA CHRISTMAS!

So that was worth dragging it out of the depths. Our birthday goblet broke, so I got a new one and it is majestic.

I got her a pillow for her bed because she's two now

and she got some stickers and tattoos and a book AND A SCOOTER that I drove all over town looking for and ended up finding at the Indigo next to Eleanor's school, which is where I should have started looking in the first place. ANYAY it was Scooter City in here for the next, like, hour.

Scoot, scoot.

I love you, birthday tree.

And then we dropped Eleanor off at school and did some grocery shopping because bitches gotta eat, and then went down to the river to do some MORE SCOOTERING.

We petted a dog, and it barked a bit because it got excited, and Geneva was like, He sayin' HAPPY DAY DAY TO DANEEVA!

I was initially kind of bummed that Eleanor had school on Geneva's birthday, but it turns out that the first Child's Birthday Which Is Not Yours But Is In Your House is a hard one. This is us having a long and feelingsy talk about jealousy.

And then Geneva woke up (that pillow is gonna take practice)

and we had cake! What those things are on the cake?

She blew on them, like we said

but they just FLICKERED and she was like ACK WHAT IS THIS so Eleanor and I blew them out for her. And like I said, Geneva isn't super about sweets, so she was like, Doop doop

How does this floating cake sorcery work?

Das a bithday tree!

I'm all done dis cake.

And that was the end of that! I was talking to one of the gals at preschool whose little guy is also two today, and She's like, Joe couldn't care less, he has no idea what a birthday is, and I'm like, Geneva cares. Geneva spent all day saying, It Daneeva's birthday! Happy day day, Daneeva! And then you say, How old are you, Geneva? And she says, TWO, LIKE DIS.

Still a mother! Still mothering.

Mother's Daaaaaay! Eleanor made me a present in preschool, and she told Joel what it was and told Geneva what it was but she kept the secret from me for FIVE DAYS. She also drew a picture of me on the envelope.

'Those are your red high heels from Mary Poppins, and this is your hair from that time you got it cut and came to pick me up from school, but I left some space on the top for your bun, and that fingernail is cracked because of when you peeled it with the vegetable peeler. But I forgot to give you ears.'

She made me a teapot out of paper plates, and there was a tea bag in it. I made them into my wall decorations.

Once again, Joel was on call overnight, so there was no guarantee he'd be around or awake this morning, so we just planned to go the farmer's market, as is our custom, and he ended up being able to come with us!

Hoorah!

Eleanor picked the girls' outfits

AND mine. Luckily for me, she picked a floral dress that didn't show the tamarind sauce that spilled on it when we got pekoras for our walk home.

We bypassed our usual farmer's market treat because there's this ice cream place I've been wanting to go to, so after naps, we walked down and over the bridge and up to Homestead.

NIIIIIIIINE scoops of ice cream, three toppings, whipped cream, a cherry, which Eleanor ate because frankly they are disgusting but Eleanor's appetite for treats is pretty indescriminatory.

Geneva is...not like unto this. I mean. She likes a treat!

But she had maybe half a dozen spoonfuls of ice cream and then she was all, I haff a big spoon!

I'm bein' mum!

And Eleanor is over here like *scrape scrape scrape*

And then we went to the park to run off some of that ice cream.

Mother's Day is such a weird holiday. It's like it's your birthday! Only it's also everyone else's birthday! So everything is crowded, and social media is blowing up, and it's just BIZARRE, so I'm trying to reframe it for myself, and to mark this moment. This is me, right now, with my four-year-old and almost two-year-old, this is me being a mother in Saskatoon, and if I don't stop to look at it for a second, for this one day, I'll miss it.