We rested and relaxed and ate and hardly left the beach and visited Wiarton Willie and bought new shoes and watched a ton of movies and made a ton of memories.

I cried when we left.

But it’s oh so good to be home.

WATER! SAND! TOYS!

Gratuitious husband shot (new swim trunks!)

Alice spent the entire week plotting ways to run away from us. Frequently she was returned like this.

We spent each day during Alice's nap watching movies. Our favourites: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Up!

Next year both girls will be in the bunk beds (deargod how did that happen?), so we let Lucy practice being on the top on our last day.

Fresh corn from our famer's market bought before we left.

Spencer snuggles

Ingredients for a successful camp fire.

Eric says that the cottage always knows when it's your last night, and gives you the best weather. The water was spectacularly warm and calm for Lucy's late night dip.

Too written out from  Uxbridge Town Talk (our August issue is in production). Gur? Mrwebplp69t?

Photos!

Meet DeeDee. He's a rat from Ikea. He's adorable, but the hardest little bugger to keep track of.

Auntie Jenni (Eric's brother's wife) and Lucy shelling fresh peas. That's my nephew in there!

Me n' our babysitter, Shelby, at her family's neighbourhood Canada Day barbeque.

Some of my best girls, from our cottage trip a few weekends past. Seems like a lifetime ago. It'll definitely be a yearly adventure.

Nana and her Star

Lucy got the coolest bike EVER. More on this soon.

My loves

Mumma, do you love me?

Of course, my Lucy.

How much?

More than anything in the world.

More than an elephant?

Absolutely.

More than a mountain?

Yep.

More than outer space and the sun and rockets and castles?

More than anything.

Do you love me even if you’re angry at me?

And here, I take her still-chubby, 4.5-year-old face in my hands and look right in her eyes.

I will always love you no matter what. Even when I’m angry.

OK, Mumma. I’m going to stay here with you, even when I’m a grown up, because I love you and will miss you.

And then I melted into a puddle on the carpet. They don’t call my Lucy an old soul at daycare for nothing. I have birthed the most sensitive, sweetest girl on the planet.

1. From practicing somersaults to copycat head bonking to desperately wanting to play Barbies, Alice’s world revolves around wanting to be bigger. Nothing makes her happier than being handed a spoon at dinner to feed herself like the rest of us; this is actually a great trick to get kids to eat! Some foods she outright refuses until she can shovel it in herself.

2. Over the past few months, Alice has really started watching Lucy. I catch her just staring at her big sister, absorbing every move Lucy makes.

3. Thursdays, when the girls are home with me, have an unspoken rhythm. We don’t get dressed, and tend to lounge around in the morning watching TV or colouring. It also means I’m more slack with cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

1-3 combined with Alice’s climbing abilities and her want to be big like Lucy have resulted in this:

Climbing into Lucy’s chair, putting on Lucy’s bib, and finishing Lucy’s breakfast on Lucy’s princess placemat.

I was engrossed in my computer a few weeks ago, and didn’t even notice what she’d done until I heard the wet chomping of milk-soggy Mini Wheats. Followed by choke-coughing as she drank Lucy’s leftover milk from the sippy cup without a valve she’s not used to.

I fight a daily internal battle: So happy to be done the newborn stage, and loving the girls’ growing independence. But sad Alice is growing up and Lucy is starting school and we are so obviously leaving the baby stage behind.

You can’t slow the march of time. But a camera and memories help preserve the now.

Stop growing and keep growing, my wee girl.

There’s this box in my closet:

It’s been in my closet, getting fuller, since 2005 when I got pregnant with Lucy and started growing out of my clothes. Each year I’ve added to it. Some stuff has come out and back into my wardrobe, but more has gone in.

The other weekend I decided The Box and I had to have it out. It’d been mocking me for years. That stack of clothes that I’d One Day Fit Into Again When I Lost Those Last 5 10 15 lbs. (surely you have a collection, too?). I was sick of looking at it.

I gave away all the pants but these ones. My once beloved favourite pair of jeans, and a pair of fuchsia cotton casuals from Jacob that (used to) make my ass look great.

Two kids later:

Great butt (ha!)...

But yeah...so NOT getting these babies done up!

Hellllooooo muffin top!

Know what? Purging everything felt great. I made peace with myself with this exercise. While I learned a long time ago to accept my body for what it is post-babies, I realized this weekend that that box was really holding me back. Just like I am not the same person I was in 2005 before kids, my body is not the same as it was — nor will it ever be.

Muffin top and bustin' buttons. I kept this shirt though, too -- an old, timeless love from Old Navy.

This does not at all mean I’ve given up. A few months ago I started to make time to exercise. The old adage of not having enough time just wasn’t cutting it anymore. I know this extra weight took almost five years to put on, and it’s not going to come off over night. And I’ve started walking in the mornings with my girlfriend Corrie more for the health benefits than to lose weight. I want to be healthy for my kids. I want to be around as long as possible.

That, I feel, is the best gift I can give them. Even though Lucy squeals, “Mumma, you’re SWEATing! That’s yucky!” when I come in at 6:45 a.m. and give her a wet hug, I’m proud to answer, “That’s right!” when she asks if I was out “exercisin’ with Rowan’s mumma Corrie?”

Now those pants and that shirt sit atop my closet. Still in my line of sight as a gentle reminder of what I was, and what I’d one day like to be again. But not so mocking as The Box.

_________________________

On a funny note, I kept this, too:

That, my friends, is a skin-tight black cat suit. I used to wear it clubbing. And wore it to the top of the CN Tower in 2000 for Eric and I’s one-year anniversary (he gave me a silver bracelet). I’m keeping it for kicks. Surely Lucy and Alice will appreciate it one day? Not that they’d EVER be allowed to wear it in public or anything…

This is my journalism t-shirt from Ryerson University. It was back when shirts were bellybutton-baring — remember those, circa 1999? I didn’t try it on this weekend, but swear I’d have underboob if I did.

I love the back the best (and will never give it away!) because it’s so very true about us journalists: