Left Coast Mama » Anthony

A Blank Page

Gwen — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:48:56 +0000

Right now I am looking at a blank page. I am looking at blank page and wondering how I keep going for NaBlaPoMo. I need to write, and I like to write, but today has been a day and a half. Anthony is crazy busy at work. Quinlan and Aidan have school in two very different places at almost the same start time. Quinlan had his vaccine study appointment for a blood draw and flu shot. Our fridge was replaced today and the delivery window was 5 hours long. Anthony needed to come home for a bit because I forgot about the vaccine study appointment and because he couldn’t be home for long (see crazy busy at work) I had to get Aidan from school early.

Quinlan and the blood draw and flu vaccine. Well, there were lots of tears. Tears for the thought of loosing blood. Tears because the nurse put numbing cream and a bandage over the numbing cream. Tears when the bandage was taken off. Tears when the blood was drawn. Tears when the vaccine was given. More tears about 5 minutes later and the whole car ride home.

Aidan was quite happy to be home. He was able to make a really cool set of drawings for his Glow Book and make it look like a car was going down a road. I feel a little guilty that we needed to take him out of school so we could get our new fridge delivered, but sometimes we have to do what we have to do. I think that is my new mantra, sometimes we do what we need to do and forget about the guilt. Maybe that should be a new mantra for a lot of us.

Father and Son

Gwen — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 04:17:35 +0000

Just before all the sick took over the house we had a sunny Sunday at Granville Island. I was able to take this picture of Quinlan and Anthony. I love it.

Sick Boys

Gwen — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:13:09 +0000

All I have going through my head at the moment is the Social Distortion song “Sick Boy.” You might remember that the drowning of the iPhone this weekend was because of a sick boy. Then last night Anthony was feeling unwell. It was not until 3:30 this morning that Anthony was also a very sick boy. Quinlan was puke free all of Sunday, but after we dropped Aidan at school he was also a sick boy again. A sick boy who cuddled with me until nap time. At 2:00 or so I got a call from Aidan’s school, and guess what? Yes, you have the picture, another sick boy.

Since I don’t want to contemplate what my evening is going to be like, and as to whether we shall be adding a sick girl to the mixture I am leaving you with a youtube video of Social Distortion.I am also embedding Story of My Life which has much better sound.

PS I fully plan on posting on something other than sickness tomorrow.

Happy Hallowe’en or Halloween, however it is spelled now.

Gwen — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:50:48 +0000

My boys love Halloween. I love Halloween. Anthony likes Halloween except when we get a parking ticket. Our love of Halloween and the relative closeness of Quinlan’s birthday gives us a week or so of Halloween celebrations.

Ghost train theme this year: Circus of Disaster.

We have Quinlan’s Halloween themed birthday party, other Halloween activities like the festival at Aidan’s school and the Stanley Park Ghost train and of course trick or treating. We also added a Halloween themed geocaching weekend in the mix.

Quinlan picks up a geocache on our Geo Monster Ball weekend.

Aidan and some of his friends at the Halloween Howl at his school.

On the weekend we had Quinlan’s birthday party at the pumpkin patch and came home with four pumpkins.

Four Muddy Friends

Aidan already had a pumpkin from his school the week before so we had a total of five. The upside to the plethora of pumpkins is that everyone got to carve or plan the carving of a pumpkin. We had Quinlan’s scary faced pumpkin. (I wish you could see the face and hands to go with the pumpkin, but alas we did not get a picture of Q describing what he wanted Anthony to carve for him.)

Quinlan's scary pumpkin.

We had Aidan’s self carved (mostly) ghost pumpkin. We had my double duty robot and owl pumpkin, and a quickly carved Frankenstein’s monster pumpkin. Last but not least was Anthony’s adrino powered pumpkin complete with fading lights and sound.

Halloween dawned bright and dry but cold. Aidan was happy to be able to wear his wizarding cloak and hat to school, and Quinlan was happy to be a robot on our way to swimming lessons.

Boys ready for some trick or treating fun!

I love how many people smiled and let Quinlan know that they thought he had the best costume. Mostly because he was making so many people smile and he was happy, but also because except for the head, I made the whole costume and it was a lot of work. Once we had a decent supper in the boys we headed down and parked near the coop and started our trick or treating about 6:30 pm. The coop went all out again this year and by the time we were finishing about an hour later lots of houses were running out of candy. After we finished we headed back to the car where a shiny parking ticket was waiting for us. It looked like Easy Park was not being charitable this year and all the cars had parking tickets. Happy Halloween to us.

© 2011 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | No comments
Related: Aidan, Anthony, Family Time, Gwen, Halloween, Quinlan, Vancouver.

Aidan’s Video Review of Pharaoh Serket

Gwen — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:18:28 +0000

In our house Anthony is the video editor. He puts in an incredible amount of work to make Aidan’s videos look and sound good. Thank you for staying up way too late Anthony, Aidan and I really appreciate it.

Munscha Mia: Aidan’s Video Review

Gwen — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:19:58 +0000

Benjamin Elliot (back), Laura Jaye and Samantha Currie

This weekend Aidan and Anthony went to see Carousel Theatre’s production of “Munscha Mia.” Both Anthony and Aidan really enjoyed the play. When they got home we got out the flip and I interviewed Aidan about the play. He liked “Jonathan Cleaned Up and Then He Heard a Sound” the best, though the video doesn’t reflect this as he acted out the entire story and it was edited from the video. I will get Anthony to edit that portion so you can see Aidan’s version later.

Munscha Mia runs from March 5th to 27th at Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island. Call Carousel Theatre at 604.685.6217 for tickets.

*The Photo is Courtesy of Carousel Theatre, Photograph by Tim Matheson

Wow, Look at the Lights

Gwen — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 07:03:56 +0000

Just a few pictures from tonight’s sojourn to Bright Nights at Stanley Park.

The Imp

Quinlan is entranced.

Aidan also entranced.

Waiting patiently for the train.

The train is all lit as well.

On our way to a winter wonderland.

© 2010 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | One comment
Related: Advent, Adventures, Aidan, Anthony, Christmas, Family Time, Gwen, Quinlan, Vancouver.

We Have a Very Cool Son

Gwen — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 05:55:02 +0000

I love my son Aidan, and not only because he is my son. He is always inventing things and figuring out what The Aidan Company can improve on. He has invented so many things that I have totally lost count.

Tonight Aidan is at a Giants game with Anthony. He really wanted to go see a hockey game and Anthony was happy to oblige. During the first intermission Anthony tweeted about the conversation he was having with Aidan.

“First period conversation with my 5 yr old included the inequity of boys-only hockey leagues and debate over if zero is actually a number.”

@AnthonyFloyd

“He decided HIS league would have boys and girls. And I couldn’t convince him zero was a number. It’s an absence of a number according to him.”

@AnthonyFloyd

“Now he’s wondering why there’s not a para-hockey league we can watch. I love this kid.”

@AnthonyFloyd

We have these kinds of conversations all the time. Aidan thinks about all kinds of issues and he asks hard questions. He tries to figure out how he can make things better, whether it be by inventing a pain removal machine, or a quick train. I love that he wanted to have a league of men and women in hockey. I love that he was so excited by the paralympics that he wants to be able to see these athletes perform all the time.

It is these conversations that give me hope that Anthony and I, despite our inadequacies, might just be doing something right as parents. I think Aidan will stay a person who sees the good in people and the amazing things that people can do. I also think that he will be a fabulous entrepreneur one day.

A Day in the Life

Gwen — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 06:33:29 +0000

Today in the life of Anthony, Aidan , Quinlan and me.

6 am: Anthony gets up.

6:30 am: Quinlan gets up and calls for “Mommy-daddy” “Hello Aidan”

6:35 am: Anthony get Quinlan and brings him into the room to get changed. Quinlan says “Good Morning Mommy. Mommy awake?”

6:40 am: Quinlan and Anthony get up.

7:30 am Aidan gets up and goes upstairs. I turn on the radio and think that I really want to be asleep.

7:45 am: Anthony sends Quinlan downstairs and he and I get dressed.

7:50 am Anthony sends Aidan down to get dressed. We tell Aidan about 6-10 times to get dressed.

8:00 am Anthony brings down my tea and his lunch and I try to get the boys shoes and coats on.

8:10 am Aidan finally gets his coat zipped up. We head downstairs to the car.

8:15 am We all head up to UBC to drop Anthony off.

8:50 am: After we dropped Anthony off at work the boys and I head home for a few minutes before we head to swimming.

9:30 am: The boys and I leave for swimming.

9:45 am: After parking we run into the change room and try to get into the pool.

10:00 am: Aidan is set up on the bench with his iPod and Quinlan and I have his lesson. Today he went full face in the water and blew bubbles and did three full head under water swims.

10:30 am: Aidan goes for his lesson and he is also doing really well. Quinlan and I swim and play for another 15 minutes and then we get dressed.

11:00 am: Get Aidan out of the pool and showered and dressed.

11:15 am Get in the car and head home.

11:30 am: Get lunch for the boys. Cheese sandwiches.

12:00 pm: Get the boys in the car and head to drop off Aidan at school.

12:30 pm: Drive home to get Quinlan down for a nap.

12:45 pm: Quinlan down for a nap.

1:00 pm: I almost fall asleep on the sofa. Get off my butt and get the dishwasher loaded and on.

2:30 pm, go into Quinlan’s room to get him and pick up Aidan.

2:45 pm: park at the school and listen to the radio.

2:55 pm: Put Quinlan’s backpack (leash) on and go play hopscotch till the bell rings and Aidan’s class gets out.

3:05 pm: Take Aidan and Quinlan to the Safeway at King Ed.

3:20 pm: Get the grocery cart and take the boys in and make sure that at least we get some veggies, bananas and cat food.

4:00 pm: go home and run inside to put the groceries in the fridge.

4:30 pm: get back in the car and head back up to UBC to drop off the car.

4:50 pm: call Anthony and then he gets in the car and drops the boys and I down at the bus loop.

5:00 pm: get on the 99 and try to keep Quinlan on my lap and Aidan on the seat beside me.

5:4o pm: get off at Heather and walk over to Michael’s to check out some craft ideas.

6:00 pm: stop at A&W for supper.

6:30 pm walk the rest of the way home.

6:40 pm: get the boys ready for bed.

7:00 pm: change the cat box and bring down the garbage and recycling and put them outside. The boys are in their room listening to The Father Christmas Letters and reading books. Vacuum the hall and boys bedroom.

7:45 pm turn out the boys light and then go downstairs to take out the recycling and garbage.

7:55 pm: reset the boys and then get my pyjamas.

8:05 pm: I am upstairs watching tv and checking twitter and the boys are asleep.

9:00 pm: wrting this post waiting for Anthony to come home, and watching The Vagina Monologues.

10:20 pm: finishing this post and still waiting to hear from Anthony.

Canada’s Worst Driver

Gwen — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 05:24:11 +0000

Anthony and I like to watch the train wreck that is Canada’s Worst Driver. I am not sure why except that the drivers are so bad. I can hardly believe how bad, except that we live in Vancouver and I see these situations all the time.

There are a lot of small traffic circles in Vancouver and I have almost been hit a number of times when I have the right of way. It seems like people think that the car in the midst of a left turn in a traffic circle doesn’t have the right of way, when in fact, they do. The number of times I am in the midst of turning left in a traffic circle that I have been cut off by someone who then blasts their horn at me is innumerable. I wonder if these same people would cut me off in the middle of a left turn at a 4 way stop when I have right of way.

My driving horror stories are nothing compared to the crap that Anthony gets every single day. I sometimes wonder why Anthony even rides his bike to work. The number of people who use the bike routes to get around the city faster is horrible. They cut off the bikes, blow through stops signs and generally make life a hazard.

Watching Canada’s Worst Driver, both Anthony and I cringe at the damage, but we both think that it would be a fantastic opportunity for someone to have those kind of driving lessons and tests for people that want to become better and safer drivers. Wouldn’t you love to spend a week or so learning to work through all those challenges? Wouldn’t you love your teen to learn to drive from experts who would teach them to avoid accidents? Maybe someone will get on that.