A few shots of our little family taken this Thanksgiving weekend by my sister-in-law's sister, Tyla Lippai.

There has been a pretty big change in our household lately: Mommy's got a job! I've taken on a contract teaching ESL to adults with the Calgary School Board's adult ed department. It's only four mornings a week and only until Christmas, but since Elianne still naps in the afternoon, I see much less of her. Luckily, it worked out that Mehdi could be at home with her two mornings and she goes to a good friend's in the neighborhood the other two days. While it's gone relatively smoothly so far, the teaching and all the prep and correcting makes for a lot more juggling and much less "flex" time than we're used to.

Being a working Mom for the first time has me appreciating even more the time I get with the girls...like the day we took this photo, on a "hike" we went on at Nose Hill Park near our house. It was gorgeous, and lasted about...well, 10 whole minutes. Elianne was in an especially whiny mood and wouldn't walk at all, so we packed it in and went to Costco for lunch instead.

I was downstairs in the kitchen this evening and heard Elianne calling from the bathroom. "Nobody come wipe my bum?"

Mehdi, who was also upstairs, offered to help then corrected her, saying, "You mean, somebody." Her reply, "I want my Mom to be somebody!", had me laughing. I will try harder to be somebody, my little one.

I wrote this 11 days ago and never uploaded it:

11 days and Anissa is back at school. Grade One! I was picturing her sitting at a desk, doing actual work -unlike the dress-up, toy kitchen, circle and nap time activities of kindergarten - and I got worried that she would be disappointed with all the changes. I brought it up with her today (after a shopping trip for new school shoes, during which the only purchase was a pair of shoes for me), hoping to gently break it to her that grade one was less play and more work. "Oh, don't worry, Mom," she said, "We went to the grade one classroom and the teacher showed us the bigger kid toys." I asked her what they looked like and she shrugged and said, "I don't know what they were. I'd never seen them before." Maybe they're manipulatives for math? Puppets? I taught grade one ages ago during my practice teaching and don't remember many toys around. I think Anissa's going to be fine. The one who will suffer most from the return to school will be Elianne, as her big sister and full-time Activities Coordinator will be no longer be around to schedule the day with craft time, story time, gym and role play.

August, like July, has been flying by at a crazy speed. The girls and I spent 10 days up at my parents' sort-of farm, and Anissa can now identify more garden vegetable plants than I can. The girls did all the usual - riding the tractor and quad, gardening, helping Dad take care of the horses - and I attended my 20 (!!!) year high school reunion. Mehdi met us up there for a weekend of camping and boating with all the family. One night as the sun was setting over the lake and we were sitting around the campfire, Anissa came up to me and whispered, "Mom, I think this might have been the very best day of my whole entire life. I'm not sure yet, because it's not totally over, but so far it's been fantastic." Her voice was giddy with joy while she described all the things that were so great about that day: roasting marshmallows, boating with her cousins, playing on the beach, watching fireworks, and sleeping in a camper.

Yup, summer is good. Maybe too short, but I guess that makes us appreciate it more. At least that's what I tell myself whenever I question our sanity over choosing to live in a place with such a harsh climate!

Well, today was Anissa's first day of Grade One. All went well, and her only disappointment was that she didn't get any homework yet!