“Whatchoo talking about?” Is one of Gabrielle’s most favourite things to say these days. She wants to know what is happening, why I said something, why we are doing something else and what road everyone lives on. So, I have to remember or find out what road every one of her friends live on. Also, she is a bit confused when I say Cora doesn’t live on a road. She lives on a boat. Otherwise, the world is categorized by streets of where everyone lives.

The constant talking, which I’ve been waiting for, it is exhausting! When my mom offered to take Gabrielle for a sleep over, I heartily agreed. I spent the last two days with a lot of silence. And in the absence of toddler tears which appear frequently, I sipped tea and did not say one word.

Gabrielle is a proper little lady, who carries her bag out to the car to get groceries, because she believes in green living. When we were in Vancouver, she was asking for a fern “sweeper” to clean up the dirty roads and was dismayed to find out that ferns do not grow in cities. “What ferns don’t grow in cities about, Mommy?” Yeah, does that question even make sense??

Gabrielle’s inquisitive nature about every living and non living thing on the planet can often be invigorating too. Her brain soaks up every single thing, so it can take us as long as I will allow to walk from our front door to the car. Because she’s poking the bugs, collecting rocks or sticks or leaves, singing about her cousins, and asking me a thousand questions. Bless.

This wheel barrow is filled with tomato plants. The tomatoes are forming on our bushes and we have two long rows of tomato plants. Marc says that every day I should look up a recipe that uses copious amounts of tomatoes so that when it dumps tomatoes, I’ll be ready. Do you have any favourite tomato recipes that you care to share, in anticipation of these beauts?

I had this phenomenal weekend a couple weeks ago where I visited friends, went to a book sale, went to the yarn store, picked up bees with a friend dressed completely in flowers (I love her!) and that was only Saturday. Sunday, I spent at a birth. Yup, I don’t use the word phenomenal lightly.

So to pick up bees, in case you’re wondering, I drove up to Cobble Hill from Victoria (about an hour) with a friend, loaded all these boxes of humming bees into the back of the truck. We tried to wedge them in really tight so they wouldn’t bang around because the boxes are made of mesh wrapped around a wooden frame. We only had one empty cardboard box fly out of the truck on the highway and no bees were harmed in our transporation.

The ferry workers can be quite gracious with the transportation of live stock like bees, if you call ahead. They put me in the shade and let me park on the ferry where I wanted. Then I got home and dumped the bees into their new homes and headed to bed. It is always a full day when dealing with bees.

So then the next day, I was up to my armpits in the beehive when I got the call that labour was really rocking. I stripped out of my bee suit and grabbed my doula bag and headed out on the next ferry. I got there with plenty of time before the baby arrived, and I traveled all the way to Vancouver (that means two ferries, and an hour waiting in between ferries) and got to assist in such a sweet sweet birth.

The blonde mohawk on this baby stole my heart. Seriously, heart was a puddle on the floor…

My mom watched Gabrielle while I was at the birth, which meant that she had to catch a ferry and sort of meet us in transit. But because of this funky arrangement, I got my birthday present from her. One of them being these fancy feather earrings all the way from the Northwest Territories. As a doula, I think that hippy garb is part of the package, I mean, if you want to be taken seriously. (I am totally joking…) Feather earrings equal major hippy points. Can ya feel it?

There are two things about the picture above that I love. Obviously, my daughter and her daisy chain. But perhaps something overlooked by a quick glance, she is holding beeswax. She is swiping at it with one finger like it is her “smart phone” and she takes pictures, she texts her friend Paisley, and then she makes phone calls to Grampa. How cool is it that my kid imagines with bee-comb? Plainly, she is completely my daughter.

Plainly, Marc lives in a house with all girls. And he tolerates it so so well.

To reward this toleration, I have decided to knit him socks. This is my first pair of man socks and it is totally intimidating. Yeah, his feet are huge. Especially since the last pair of socks I knit were for Gabrielle. I should have geared up gradually for this. But 6 days in, I am almost done one *gulp* sock!

Now that the baby we were waiting for arrived right on time, we are headed camping. I’m sure there will be scads of pictures to follow. Happy Mid May, Friends.