Wordless Wednesday: School Picture

I love the tight cropping of this pose from her school
pictures because it really enhances her beautiful hazel eyes.

A Belly Laugh

Tonight, as I was getting Maya out of the bath and into her pyjamas, Jeff and Chloe came upstairs and joined us, hanging out in the hallway too. Maya was dragging her feet about brushing her teeth and so Jeff sprawled himself across the doorway and created a "gate" of sorts for her to crawl through to get into the bathroom ... but it had to be quick, the gate was shrinking down.  Apparently, this turned teeth brushing into fun and Maya went right along, cheerfully. Chloe saw an opportunity to crawl all over Daddy and play. 
I picked up the wet towel and tried to step over my husband and into the bathroom to hang up the towel, which was when Jeff grabbed my ankle and wouldn't let me pass. For a moment, I thought something was wrong, until I saw the twinkle in his eye and realised he was in a playful mood. Thus began the wrestling match, with me trying to free my ankle through the use of such tactics as sticking my finger into his belly button (he's not ticklish, but this move always makes him squirm) and Jeff grinning and steadfastly refusing to let me pass. It ended with us sprawled on the floor, laughing. Maya was delighted, and Chloe thought we were crazy. It was silly and fun, and felt good.  We've been so busy being parents lately, we haven't been spending enough time just being Marianne and Jeff.  It was a wonderful moment and the perfect way to blow off the grump I'd been in most of the day due to the damp and gloomy weather.

In case you're wondering, the damp towel is still sitting on the bathroom floor.

5 Things I like about my home

Because I've been feeling blah lately, I thought I'd stop and look around me this evening and be appreciative of my home.

1. The island in my kitchen.  I enjoy having this island as a workspace and a delineation between the working and eating areas of the kitchen.
2. The main floor powder room.  It was one of the first spaces we made over after moving into the house, and I still like the green paint colour (despite the name "reptilian") and the framed mirror we chose.
3. The guest bedroom.  I love, love, love the blue colour in there so much I almost wish we had it in the master bedroom (though it wouldn't suit the space of our room nearly as well). I also like the high, arched window of the guest bedroom.  It's the room with the most direct sunlight in the whole house and also the best view out onto the street.  It's simply furnished, with just a bed, night table and one chair, but I like that it's always clean and uncluttered.
4. The reading nook in the hallway at the top of the stairs. Right now, it holds a bookcase and a rocking chair, perfect for reading bedtime stories (or middle of the day stories) with our girls.  As the girls learn to read on their own, I can see us swapping out the rocking chair for a couple of bean bag chairs instead.
5. The double garage.  It is a blessing to be able to park both cars in the garage during the winter months.

Advent

While the first of December is still a few days away, Advent officially gets started today with the first Sunday of Advent.  In the Church, Advent is a time of preparing for the birth of Jesus, though it's more secularly known just as the countdown to Christmas.  Last year, my mom gave Maya an advent calendar with a lovely scene from the Christmas nativity and a door to open each day,  Maya remembers the calendar, and has been telling us for weeks that soon it will be time for her "Baby Jesus picture" as she calls it.  (Good thing we saved it ... Jeff wanted to recycle it at the end of the season last year).

I'm not really into advent calendars with chocolates or gifts each day ... I think Christmas is commercial enough already.  Which is why I love the tradition Andrea from A Peek Inside the Fishbowl has for the 25 Days of Christmas. In her words:

"Instead of buying a chocolate advent calendar I decided to surprise the girls with one Christmas-related activity everyday throughout the month of December; a fun task, seasonal event, or craft. No chocolate, no shopping, and no cheap gifts — just family time."

I love this idea, and I"m going to give it a try this year. I'm undecided about whether I'll do the whole 25 days, or start a little alter, maybe on St. Nicholas Day.  It all depends on how many activities I can come up with!  I think I'm planning to use envelopes for the activities this year, but if we enjoy it I'll look into making some kind of calendar with pockets for future years.

ETA:  Lynn at Turtlehead has just posted about the (gorgeous) advent calendar she's created for her family's advent activities. She also lists the activities they'll be doing, so if you're looking for inspiration, click on over!

When do they get quiet?

(Note: this is back-posted.  I tried to use the scheduled post feature to have this come up on Saturday, but I messed up and it didn't post, so I'm correcting it today).

From parents of older children ... is there a tage at which I can expect my children will develop some kind of volume control?  It's been crazy noisy around here lately.  Maya was a pretty quiet child until about a year ago, aroudn age three.  Since turning four, it seems she's ratcheted up the volume again. Menawhile, Chloe has to compete with her older sister, so she's much more vocal than Maya was at this age.  Sometimes we can barely hear ourselves think, with all the chatter and singing and shrieking that goes on. (Yes, Maya has entered the stage of little-girl-excited shrieky-ness.  Yikes!)  It's compounded by the fact that Maya almost alwyas declines to play in the basement or upstairs in her bedroom.

Please tell me there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Another Incident.

This evening I was watching TV while Chloe was happily playing roaming around the family room and playing by herself.  Then she walked right up to me with her hand out and handed me something with a big smile and a coo of delight.  I took from her what appeared to be a tiny (half the size of a pea) piece of brown playdoh.  Except we have no brown playdoh.  Uh oh. Flashback to last week.  Complete the same flip-her-over-and-check-the-diaper move.  Yup.  Poo.

Guess who is sentenced to wearing onesies for the foreseeable future to avoid anymore hands-in-the-pants incidents?

(**Footnote:  There was no other mess this time.  She somehow managed to get just that tiny little piece without getting anything else dirty, including her hands.  In fact, at first I thought it had to be something else, even with the evidence of the dirty diaper, but I didn't find anything else around that she could have gotten into.)

Chloe becomes communicative

In the past week and a half, Chloe's communication skills have really blossomed.  She's been able to say dadadadada and mamamamama and a variety of other sound combinations for awhile, but she didn't appear to be using them meaningfully as words.  Last week, she started to clearly use dada and mama sounds for Daddy and Mommy.  I also figured out that the "ah-ya" sound she makes is her name for Maya.  It is very sweet. 

At the same time, she has learned to shake her head for "no" and to sign "all done", which have started to make things a little easier at meal times.  Though it should be noted that signing "all done" can often more correctly be interpreted as "No more of that food mommy, please give me something different now". We can also no infer "yes" from a lack of a head shake, or her emitting a random excited sound when asked if she wants food or water or to nurse. 

It's a relief to have these first words appear.  Chloe has had quite a few meltdowns lately, where she's clearly been upset about something but we haven't been able to figure out what it was she wanted.  Her little needs and wants have gotten more complex as she develops, such as wanting specific foods, or to be read a particular book but by Daddy not Mommy, but we're often left guessing as to what combination of things she wants at a particular moment. I know we have a long journey until she will really be able to express herself in detail (heck, Maya's 4 and we still have breakdowns in communication at least once a day) but at least we're on the path.

Wordless Wednesday: First snowfall

Child #1: delighted

Child #2: horrified

Five things that make me happy

1.  Chocolate (pretty much any kind)

2.  Kisses from my daughters

3.  A warm cup of tea and a good book

4.  Snuggling into bed and warming my feet on my husband

5.  Getting a letter in the mail

Maya falls for her first ad.

We've been asking Maya lately what she plans to ask Santa to bring her for Christmas.  She's been sticking with her love of animals and steadily requesting an elephant and a hippo.  Until yesterday, when she added another wish to her list:  "Hungry Hungry Hippos that are hungrier than ever".  Yup, directly from the commercial that airs at the start of her (current) favourite episode of Team Umizoomi.  Our baby has fallen for her first advertisement.  I'm not even sure she really knows what the game is about, except that it has hippos and the announcer makes it sound exciting. 

Jeff and I have no intention of allowing Santa to bring her Hungry Hungry Hippos.  While I loved the game as a child, I'm well aware that my sister and I didn't so much play the game as pound wildly on the little levers, creating a cacophony of sound and causing marbles to fly in all directions. I remember my Mom yelling at us pretty much anytime we played the game, and now that I'm a mom myself I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND.  The game would drive me nuts.  To say nothing of how tempted Chloe would be by the little white choking hazards marbles. Nope, Jeff and I were rapidly in agreement that this was not a good idea.

We were, however, at a bit of a loss as to how to let Maya know that Santa might not bring her this coveted toy.  She was oblivious to hints that maybe Santa wouldn't bring everything she wished for. We tried telling her that maybe Santa wouldn't know where to get Hungry Hungry Hippos. "Don't worry, he'll just make it in his toy shop", Maya reassured us.  Thankfully, I finally had a brainwave.  I told her I looked the game up on the computer and the computer told me that the game was only for older children, and Santa would know this and wouldn't be able to bring her Hungry Hungry Hippos this year, but maybe another year when she was old enough, if she still wanted it she could ask again.  Amazingly, she accepted this without complaint.  "Maybe when I am 9, that will be old enough." 

Phew.  Crisis averted.

Now to start planning some media awareness discussions before she falls for the next toy ad ...

Head, meet table

Maya had an encounter with the corner of the coffee table today, and the coffee table won.  Apparently, she was pretending to be a ghost and fell into the table (I was out at the time ... I arrived home in time to find Maya huddled on the couch while Jeff held an ice pack to her head).  It was a small but quite deep cut to the right side of her forehead, more of  a puncture wound in fact. It had stopped bleeding by the time I saw it, although there was still quite a bit of swelling around it.  A few millimetres wider and I think we'd have been spending a few hours at the hospital waiting for stitches or glue. I'm pretty sure she's going to have a little bit of a scar there. Luckily it's fairly close to the hair line, and hopefully it won't be too visible.

Blueberry yumminess

I've been engaged in a fit of domesticity this week, cleaning and cooking and stocking my freezer with spaghetti sauce and my grandma's pizzaburger topping mixture (a post for another day). Today I turned my energy to finally making the blueberry jam that's been on my agenda for .. ahem ... months. 

Jam is actually pretty easy peasy to make.  The not-so-easy-peasy part is that you have to stay with it and keep wtaching/stirring during the process so it doesn't burn, thus making it hard to do with small children underfoot.  I did my best to ensure some uninterrupted time by prepping as much as I could while the kids ate lunch, then I whisked Chloe off to bed for her nap, popped a DVD in for Maya and got to work. 

I made two batches: one regular, and one low-sugar.  I now have 14 jars of lovely purplish blueberry jam sitting on my counter, waiting to be labelled and stored away in my jam cupboard tomorrow.  Mmmm mmm, yummy blueberry jam all winter!

Wordless Wednesday: Movember



Maya and her JK classmates were all sporting mustaches at pick-up time today.

The Incident (or: How I ended up nursing my daughter in the shower this morning)

The day started really well.  Chloe woke early and cheerful, so all four of us had breakfast together this morning.  Maya got dressed and ready with a minimum of fuss, and Jeff took her cheerfully off to school.  I settled Chloe in to play in the family room while I got busy tidying the kitchen, starting the ground beef for some spaghetti sauce simmering, and doing some other cooking. (I'm feeling domestic this week, and stocking our freezer).  I was applauding myself for doing such a good job and getting ready to sit down with a cup of coffee when Chloe started crying. 

I figured she was ready for some attention, so I scooped her up.  She continued crying even when I was cuddling her, so I headed for the couch planning to nurse her.  As I was sitting down with her on my lap, I noticed the front of her shirt and pants were covered in oatmeal from breakfast.  Then I remembered she didn't eat oatmeal at breakfast today.  At which point I noticed her hands were also brown.  The light was beginning to dawn, and I flipped her over only to have my suspicions confirmed:  after 4 years of parenting, I had my first hands-in-the-poop-that-had-exploded-out-of-the-diaper incident.  We quickly stood back up, and I tried to hold her away from my body in order to carry her upstairs, but she renewed her crying with increased vigour, and started desperately clawing at me, trying to get closer.  Resigned to the inevitable, I held her to my chest and dashed up the stairs.

Upstairs, I started the water in the tub and then headed for the nursery to strip her naked on the change pad.  At this point I was able to ascertain that there wasn't actually all that much poop, it had just managed to travel quite a bit.  It look like, having gotten her hands dirty, she did her best to try and wipe them clean on her clothes.  I returned to the bathroom with a naked and still screaming baby.  After checking the water, I managed to pry her out of my arms and set her down in the tub, with the shower hose attachment at the ready.  But Chloe was still refusing to be pried from my arms, and now I had a near-hysterical little baby clutching me with still-poopy hands. I had already realised that my clothes would be going into the wash, but now realised her hands were clutching at my naked arms below my short sleeved shirt and I realised that I might as well shower myself too.  So out she came from the tub and it was my turn to strip naked.  Together we stepped into the shower. 

Normally, Chloe loves the shower.  Today, she didn't seem enthralled.  Her cries subsided, but she continued to grumble and clutch tightly to Mommy.  I finally sat down with her in the bottom of the tub and she immediately threw herself sideways into my lap and latched on to nurse.  She gave one last sob, closed her eyes, and with a great big sigh relaxed into me.  And that's where we stayed for the next 20 minutes, until we were ready to emerge from our warm refuge and try re-starting our day.

I think it'll be awhile before the next time I get lazy and grab a disposable from the change table instead of walking down the stairs to get the clean cloth diapers from the laundry room. My cloth diapers are much more effective at containing messes.  I think I got away lightly this time ... Chloe hadn't wandered, and there was only a small trace of poop on the carpet. I never did get my morning cup of coffee, though.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work he goes

Jeff headed back to work today, after spending the past nine weeks at home with us on parental leave.  This morning, Maya suggested to Daddy that because we will miss him, maybe he could just go to work for some of the day and then come home at lunch time. Lacking her older sister's advanced logic, Chloe just chose to cry her little heart out when Daddy went out the door to work.  Luckily, we had a busy day planned so the girls didn't have too much of a chance to feel Dad's absence today, but they were both ecstatic to see him when he got home.  Hopefully we all adjust quickly to the new routines.

Santa Claus Parade

(Note: this should have been yesterday's post, but it didn't happen)

On Saturday morning, we dressed the kids warmly and headed out to the Kanata Santa Claus Parade.  This was my very first Santa Claus Parade ever, but Jeff took Maya last year (while I stayed home with Chloe, who was only a few weeks old), and Maya was very excited about returning this year.

We had about a half hour wait for the parade to arrive at our section of the parade route. Maya endured the wait very cheerfully, but Chloe not so much.  I feared I might have to forgo the parade and take Chloe on a walk through the nighbourhood instead but to my surprise, once the head of the parade arrived, Chloe was actually quite interested in watching the parade go by and I think she enjoyed it almost as much as Maya. 

Waiting for the parade. Chloe was screaming for
Mommy to stop photographing and start cuddling.

The highlight for Maya was definitely the final float, featuring Santa riding high atop a fire engine.  Maya explained to us that Rudolph wasn't in the parade because he is at the North Pole exercising and resting to get lots of energy for pulling Santa's sleigh at Christmas.

Santa and the firetruck.

It was a great family activity, and I think it may become an annual tradition for our family.

Things I learned about Maya today

Maya has a homework project this month that invovles working with the parents to create a display all about herself on a piece of paper, using pictures, etc.  So today we sat down to talk about what things she'd like to share about herself.  I found out the following:

• Team Umizoomi is her favourite TV show (she in fact listed a specific episode)
• Her favourite foods are Fig Newtons and corn on the cob  (I had no idea)
• Her favourite toy is the Fisher Price telephone Chloe just received for her birthday. I was impressed that Maya specified to me that it is Chloe's toy.  (Maya currently has a fascination with all of Chloe's toys.  It's creating a little bit of friction at times.)
• I asked her to tell me some things that were special to her.  Without pausing, she said "Chloe".  (This made my heart melt!). 
• I pressed her to tell me something else that is special to her and she told me Rudolph.  Because he is her very bestest reindeer and she loves him.  (This one was not a surprise.  She has been enthralled with Rudolph since last Christmas.  The infatuation just started waning in October, but the new Christmas season has brought it to the fore already.)

I Remember

My Grandfather, James Mitchell, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War.  After some time serving as a flight instructor in the Canadian prairies he was sent overseas in November 1942 to fly Lancaster bombers over Europe. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and the Bar to the DFC during his wartime service.  I remember him telling me that the night before D-Day he was flying a bombing mission over Europe, and that upon returning over the English Channel in early morning they saw hordes of aircraft flying in the opposite direction and knew then that the invasion was on.  Happily, he came safely home in 1945.  After the war, he continued his career in the Air Force until his retirement.
I remember.

Jim Mitchell (left) outside Buckingham Palace after receiving the DFC

Sacrifices were made and service rendered on the home front too.  My Grandmother, May Mitchell, married my Grandfather on November 14th, 1942.   The wedding was originally scheduled for the end of the month, until my Grandmother received a brief telegram advising her to move the wedding date ahead by two weeks.  Unspoken in the telegram, it was understood it could mean only one thing:  my Grandfather was being sent overseas.  Indeed, they moved the wedding ahead and were able to spend a week-long honeymoon together before he left for Europe.  It would be several years until they would be together again.  As men were sent overseas, women stepped in across Canada to do men's jobs, while they waited for husbands, brothers and fathers to return home .. or not.  In 1945, my Grandmother and a friend went to a farm in Cutknife Saskatchewan to help stook wheat. 
I remember.

May Mitchell in Cutknife, Saskatchewan, 1945

My Grandfather's boyhood chum, Albert Glendenning, also joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, though he was a navigator instead of a pilot.  Sadly, he did not come home. He died on June 13, 1944 at the age of 30 years and is buried in the Canada Cemetery at Tilloy-les-Cambrai in France.  (See his headstone). He was survived by his parents, James and Olive Glendenning of Islington, Ontario. In 1947, my Grandparents named their firstborn child Glenn Albert.
I remember.



Mr. & Mrs. Glendenning holding
Glenn Albert Mitchell, 1947 

Albert in civilian clothes,
wearing Jim Mitchell's cap, 1941

Book Lover

A few days ago I moved a small book case into Chloe's bedroom and set it up beside the rocking chair to hold some of her board books.  Chloe is already interested in reading (and eating) books, but she sometimes has to battle Maya for the right to have them to herself, so I thought it was time to put at least the ones that rightfully belong to Chloe in a spot where she'd reliably be able to find them. 

Chloe reads with Grampy during his recent visit

The very next time I took Chloe upstairs for her nap she eyed the bookshelf very carefully as soon as we sat down in her rocking chair together.  She was delighted when I read her a book before her nap.  At bedtime, she started reaching for the books as soon as we sat in the chair.  We're now three days in and she not only refuses to nurse in the chair at nap time and bedtime until after she has at least one book read to her, but she's also started clamouring for a book after every diaper change.  

Yup, she sure is my kid.

Wordless Wednesday

Mommy's cupcake helper

Thankful

5 things I'm thankful for today:

1. The shower Chloe had with me this morning. For a long time she just sat in my lap under the warm spray and leaned in to my chest and hugged me. It was very peaceful.
2. That we can afford for me to take this time out of the workplace.  I have been very conscious recently that my year of maternity leave expired with my daughter's first birthday, and I'm thankful I'm able to be home with and for my girls.
3. The delicious peach smoothie Jeff made me this evening.
4.  Maya made a request of me this evening, in a nice voice and using a complete sentence including the word please. Unprompted.  (This is something we have really been working on.  She's gotten in a bad habit of making point-form demands, often in the voice of the baby animal of her choice).
5. The box of household treasures and box of books that are packed up and waiting to leave the house to eventually (I hope) give joy to others as they find new homes at the church bazaar.

New counter

My beloved husband worked like crazy today to install a counter top above our washer and dryer in the laundry room/mudroom.  He bought all of the materials AND completed all of the work today.  This included driving to my parents' place to borrow their truck to buy the counter top, then returning to their house to use my dad's tools and my dad's expertise to get the counter top cut to fit the space, driving the counter top home to install it and eventually, after the kids were in bed, returning the truck to my parents again. My hubby rocks! I am so happy that we now have a space to put keys and purses, not to mention laundry baskets, without stuff falling constantly falling down behind the washer and dryer.    Here it is:

Best Laid Plans

This afternoon we took the kids to the wave pool.  Between the swimming and it being the first day after the time change we knew they'd be starving as soon as we got home. So we planned a roast beef dinner and set the oven timer to come on while we were out.  I crushed garlic and rubbed it over the roast.  I was excited by our domesticity.  We'd be able to walk in the door to the scent of a nice home cooked meal and sit down and eat right away: a nice Sunday dinner to top off a nice afternoon activity with the family.

It was a great plan.

But.

We, um ... skipped the step where you put the roast in the oven. 

We were at the pool when Jeff turned and me and said something along the lines of "you did put the roast into the oven, right?"  My witty reply was along the lines of "No, didn't you put it in the oven?" At which point we both understood that our oven was at that moment heating thin air while the roast sat on the counter.

We fed the girls snacks for supper and Jeff and I ate late.* 

Next time we go swimming, maybe we'll just plan to pick up pizza.


(*The roast was delicious.)

Unwanted Halloween Candy

Maya's strategy for getting rid of her unwanted Halloween candies (the ones she deems "yucky") is to offer them to her parents or other adults who come to visit.  You have to be wary of accepting these gifts, however.  To date, her offerings have included the following:

Nibs -- after she spent the better part of half an hour playing with them and sending them to vacation in "Florida", a.k.a the top of her feet. 

Oh Henry bar -- not the whole thing, just the chewy toffee and peanut centre.  She had already licked off the chocolate.

Sour Patch Kids --  covered in lint. 

Sour Patch Kids (take 2) -- soaking wet.  No, she hadn't licked it ... she'd washed it in the sink to clean off the sour sugar (and probably some lint) for Daddy.

Some of her offerings have been fine, but if you come to visit in the next little while, consider yourself forewarned.

Start of the vehicle search

Our older car is a 2000 Chevy Cavalier.  It has very low mileage, but is starting to show its age and if a large repair pops up the car will be toast.  So we're starting to plan what we'll be replacing it with.  Our newer car is a Pontiac Vibe, which we enjoy driving and is good for everyday use but a little on the small side once you throw in a stroller (though we only have about a year left of regular stroller usage) or for camping or road trips with the family.  So our next vehicle needs to be larger, and for some time we'd assumed our next purchase would be a van, since you can get tons of space for not too much money. I've been becoming resigned to being a suburban mom driving a giant van.

We took advantage of my in-laws recent visit to pop out one morning on our own and check out the Dodge Grand Caravan.  We wanted to see how it felt to drive, and also take it home and find out if it would fit into our garage.  As I drove it off the lot I was surprised at how nicely it drove.  It had good visibility, nice suspension and felt comfortable, not at all like I was driving a behemoth.  Then I drove into the empty corner of our grocery store's parking lot and tried parking it.  Uh oh.  Several tries later, I had clipped several imaginary cars in the spaces beside me.  And we won't talk about what happened as I tried to back it up.  Jeff was sitting beside me, and I could tell he was refraining from commenting on his wife's poor driving skills.  Then it was his turn. More carnage amongst the imaginary vehicles. This was not looking good.  At home, we discovered that the van does juuust fit into the garage, if parked on a slight angle so as to avoid the railing of the stairs into the laundry room entrance.  It was possible to park it indoors, but would be annoying to do so and would require removing a set of shelves on the side of the garage to be able to get the kids in and out on that side.

I think we had both hoped to find that the van fit well into the garage, and that we would love to drive it.  But we both feel unsure about driving something that would require quite a few hours of parking practice and would probably still leave us both fighting to drive the older and smaller family car. We haven't completely said no to the van, but we think it's possible we're just not van people.  Our next step is to research some of the crossover type vehicles that are like an SUV or station wagon with third row fold-down seats, such as the Mazda 5 or Dodge Journey.  If you think there's a vehicle in that class that we should consider, let me know because we're not really sure where to start.

Always my baby

My older daughter turned 4 last week.  Now, 4 isn't exactly grown up yet, but it's nevertheless pretty far from her beginnings as a tiny, 4lb 12oz bundle of joy.  She is smart and funny.  She has strong opinions of her own and can be fiercely independent.  She is loving and gentle, but also mischievous and not lacking in a certain amount of naughtiness either.  I've spent a bit of time over the past week thinking back on her babyhood and remembering the sweet little baby who used to snuggle into my chest and sleep there oh so peacefully. Nowadays it seems she never stops moving, talking, singing. But yesterday, the fever that she's suffered with since the weekend gave me a little gift.  She had hurt herself while playing and got quite upset, to she came to join me in the La-z-Boy rocking chair for comfort.  We snuggled under a quilt, and I rocked and soothed her.  She curled into a ball and fell asleep, snoring gently.  And I held my big girl, who is still my baby, and I loved the feel of her snuggled in my arms.  She is still a bundle of joy at four years old.

Wordless Wednesday

Peeking Through the Window at Grampy
(Alternately titled "Why Mommy Should Own Shares in Windex")

Halloween

Sunday, as previously mentioned, was the joint birthday party for the girls.  Maya was on the subdued side and when she declined to finish her birthday cake, I knew something was up.  Turns out she was developing a bit of a fever. She was up multiple times overnight, feverish and unhappy (it didn't help that Daddy gave only a half dose of Ibuprofen at bedtime, which wasn't enough to keep the fever at bay and let her sleep through the night).  We kept her home from school, and she was chipper enough int he morning but by early afternoon the fever was returning and she was refusing to take any medication, so it looked like this would be her Halloween:

Watching TV with a barf bowl ... just in case

She eventually did swallow down the dreaded medicine and shortly thereafter fell asleep on the couch.  After an hour long nap, she was feeling well enough that we decided to allow her out for trick or treating.  I'm not sure it's great parenting to allow your sick kid to dress up and wander the neighbourhood after dark, but we couldn't bring ourselves to keep her home and tell her she'd have to wait another 366 days (2012 is a leap year) until her next opportunity to trick or treat.  Here she is in her giraffe costume:

Halloween 2011

 The discerning among you may notice a certain familiarity about the costume.  It is, in fact, the third year in a row for it.  Last year I was being thrifty and she didn't really know the difference, so we used the costume that had been large on her the year before.  She insisted this year that she wanted to be a giraffe again, despite the fact that I assured her she could choose something else. I was sure the old costume would be too small and I actually spent quite a bit of time searching online and in second hand shops to find either another giraffe costume or something else that she'd fall in love with and accept as a replacement.  I finally allowed her to try on the old costume hoping to prove to her that it did not, in fact, fit and she'd have to choose something else.  Mommy was the one on the receiving end of the "I told you so's" when it actually fit after all.
Here are the photos of the earlier years:

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2009

She may have grown a lot, but she's still one heck of a cute giraffe. 

Last year at Halloween I was sitting at home handing out candy and anxiously waiting for our baby girl to make her appearance the next day.  This year, Chloe dressed up in her spider onesie and helped Daddy hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters at the door.  (Okay, in actuality she cried at all the strangers in weird costumes.) Here she is:

My little spider-baby

NaBloPoMo

It's NaBloPoMo, a mouthful of letters that stands for National Blog Posting Month.  I'm taking up the challenge to post something daily on my blog for the month of November.  I'm excited to take this journey and see where it leads me.

I hope you'll stop by often and comment so I know you're reading.  If you're playing along and blogging all month too, let me know so I can follow along with you too.