Honeybees Deux: The Winter of Our Discontent

But I do protest, right off because I'm walking around INSISTING that everything considered, it's really Spring. Snow is melting into itself. Shrinking. No new snow for quite a while. And - blue sky -5C days.

Whaaa!

We have been taken down by a flu or something. An actual diagnosis is elusive. It may have begun on the first day of March Break, which was Burl’s birthday, 28 Feb. Ryan was sick for several days back then and Ivo’s been sick since last Tuesday, 9 March. It has been hectic and unpleasant. Seasoned with brightsides, for sure, but rocky waters, crashing against regressive-behavior volcanoes.

Also, I am having trouble moving photo files and am running out of room on my internal hard drive – so, pictures are piling up, like rush hour on the speedway in some massive urban metropolis.

This is the first time we have been really SICK since we got here. Ivo had a gastro period, had blood work – all good back - in ?Oct? – symptoms dissipated. But besides that, there has only been some growing pains treated with Ibuprofen. For both Ivo and Burl. Though Burl is sick less intensively, less lengthily, than is Ivo. This may be attributable his continuing breastfeeding. That aside, we all arrived in Canada, braced to face new germs and different viruses going around. But it never happened. There was no adjustment onslaught. Our bodies, aside from withdrawal from the humidity, barely noticed the difference. Oh wait, there were definitely lots of allergies over the summer. Mild, too. Lots of trees around. Grasses. Anyway, we were sick much more often, we went to the dr much more often in Taiwan.

If nothing else, I must report that tonight, during an Ivo Tantrum, Burl looked at me and said “My Booby! All Day!”

We laughed over it.

Burl got "ALL DAY!" from Ivo. Burl is also catching on to the importance of being first. Up until a week ago, when Burl wanted a book read, he would say "Book." and "Read Book." and sometimes he'd add even a little more direction, "Mama. Read Book. Livingroom." Now he says, "My book. First" when he wants to read a book - in a premeptive-stikey kind of way.

Also, Burl can accurately point and count up to 2. From there he goes to 5. Always. Then 7, 8. After that, who knows? 13. This is amazing because when Ivo stared to count, on a different continent, in a different language, he said, "yi, er, wu."

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Pics of Ivo and Burl riding Grampie Doug's tractor, Sunday, 8 March, last day of March Break