G'n'R Out West

Last night I gave Adelle her dinner.  She took one bite and said ‘mmmmm’.  So I said ‘It’s good isn’t it?’.  She said ‘no’. She put her bowl up on the table and made the sign for all done….and that was the end of dinner.

I can’t believe that she gave up eating a dinner that she liked…just to make a point.  Irritating, yes.  Hilarious….yes.

I really do love it when she asserts herself, even if it does drive me crazy.  I love how sure she sounds when she says no.

I know I say it every month, but this kid is growing up.  I forget what she was even like last month…let alone a year ago.  

Bathroom Fun
There have been a few changes in the bathroom.  The one I am the most excited about is that Adelle LOVES having a shower.  It seems like we’ve been fighting her since birth to keep her grime free.  Suddenly she has decided that the shower is the best thing ever and she has a hilarious time in there.  The hair washing is still a little painful, but in the shower it is pretty fast and so the screaming is minimized. 

Another interesting development is her interest in everything to do with the toilet.  She has been pretty interested in poop for a while and spends lots of time talking about it and changing her baby’s diapers.  However, ever since her little toilet trained friend Paityn was over a few weeks ago she has been wanting to spend time on the toilet.  Sometimes she is clothed sometimes she is naked.  Nothing has ever come out of her body while on the toilet but she talks as if it is when she is sitting there.  I suspect it is a first step anyway, I think life could start getting a bit messier around here soon! 

Sleep:
Most night she sleeps really well.  But once or twice a week we get a little late night visit from the cuddliest baby I know.  Sometimes she sleeps with us, sometimes she rolls around hoping we wake up soon. 

Napping is still going great – we are so fortunate to have such a great sleeper. 

Eating:
The big news on the eating front is that my girl is weaned…I think.  A number of months ago I started to have lots of nursing issues.  I spent a lot of time trying to work out the problems at the breastfeeding clinic, but to no avail.  In the end I slowly weaned her to bedtime nursing only and only on one side.  We had some discussions about the daytime and late night weaning, but she eventually understood.  For the past few months it has only been at bedtime and she has been totally ok with that.  If I am not around at bedtime and Greg puts her to sleep she never even asks for it.  I never pushed the issue one way or the other, I would nurse her if she asked for it, and I wouldn’t if she didn’t.  Mostly she did, although she hasn’t in 3 weeks.  I am a tiny little bit sad, but in the end it seems like we were both ready.

As far as eating goes…it seems like she has slowly come around to the idea of having to eat everything we give her before she gets more of any one thing.  So we are now able to fill her plate with all the foods on the menu (instead of staging the meal from the least favorite to most favorite food).  We still have lots of arguments with her about meals, but in general it seems like we are all settling into the rules.   

Getting Around:
She has totally learned how to use the stool as a tool and uses it to get up on the couch or to reach something on the counter.  On one hand I am excited she has gained access to more things, on the other hand I am scared that she has gained access to more things.  We are currently in a new adjustment period while we re-assess what is safe. 

She has also really mastered the stairs and sneaks up them all the time.   I still don’t want her sneaking up there on me, but I trust her to go up and down and don’t worry too much if she escapes for a few seconds while I get something done. 

Hair:
We are at a new stage.  It is getting long again and I am trying to decide if I should let it grow out (and therefore put it up every day) or keep it short and low maintenance.  So far so good, she gets really excited about berets or elastics and will sit perfectly still while I get her hair done in the mornings, although, apparently she pulls lots of faces during the process.   She has also started to get excited about our hair and enjoys brushing it.  We are still working on the gentle thing, but it is pretty fun.

Eyes:
Mostly brown…sometimes green.

Language:
She has many words, still most of them are only words that Greg and I (and probably the daycare workers) know.  She has started to try some people’s names.  Her favorite little kid at daycare is called  Dean and she says his name a lot.  As well as ‘teach-teach’ for her daycare teachers. 

She knows more words than I can remember to put down here today.  My favorite these days are the ’sn’ words like snack and snail.  She can’t say sss so instead she just has a really nasal ‘n’ sound when she means ’sn’.  It is so freakn’ cute I try to get her to say those words as often as possible.  Each day there are new words that take us a while to figure out.  So far she only uses one word sentences with the exception of ‘bad boy’ last week and ‘no mama’ today.

Bird is still a ‘ga’.  But she has now realized that the name for her beloved ‘woofs’ is really ‘dog’. 

Personality:
As always she is a goofy joy to be around.  She has recently taken her love for music to a new level.  She has a favorite song.  ‘Yr Mama’ by Duplex.  If you would like to know the words I can sing it for you.  As soon as it ends she asks for more!  She has always enjoyed music, but this is the first song I have really seen her react to so strongly.  She also has started spinning when she dances.  

Stuff that happened this month:
- she got her final one year molar, but still only 3 bottom front teeth
- She learned to like snow
- She is starting to learn peoples’ names.

Proof positive that she is growing up.  She just looks so old!!!  Where did my baby go???

Adelle has had some kind of a bad weekend.  She caught a cold late last week.  There were some sleepless nights and a little bit of yelling.  On Friday night we were at a friends house and she fell asleep in a bright room with people talking at 7:15.  However, last night we spent hours trying to get her to fall asleep…finally at 9:45 she was down for the night…or at the very least the better part of the night.  It was actually really funny…I have no clue where all her energy came from.

Today I had one of those great parenting moments…  Since she was miserable at home I decided a change in scenery was required.  I took her out to run an errand.  We were at the checkout and she lost her shit.  I was holding her while handing over my money while she was doing a back flip dive out of my arms.  I was calmly requesting no bag, while she was hanging upside down, silent and purple from not breathing because she was so angry.  It all started because I brought her a fruit leather for a snack…and she would have preferred if I had brought her 30 (my mistake).  The kid has hardly eaten in 4 days, yet she has a bottomless pit in her stomach for fruit leather.  This is not the first fruit leather related melt down…and I suspect it will not be the last.

Yesterday Adelle kept getting mad at us because she wanted the blanket wrapped around her in a very particular way.  Both Greg and I managed to piss her off a few times when the blanket shifted and we were unable to get it back in just the right position.  Here is a shot of our little girl, we have spent lots of time cuddling on the couch…and rocking chair, and of course a fair bit of time running around trying to distract her after one of the aforementioned blanket incidents.

Here’s to hoping that tonight she has a great sleep and tomorrow she has a fun day.

With my dad leaving we were once again left feeling pretty sad that we lived so far from home.  BUT lucky for us we had something great to look forward to….

My mum, sister, sister’s kids, brother and his girlfriend all came out to visit us for a long weekend.  It was great.  Adelle thought it was hilarious having people here all weekend.  Unfortunately, she and her cousin Noam had some frequent misunderstandings which led to a few tears every now and again.  One of the misunderstandings lead to her very first 2 word sentence.  Adelle really wanted a toy that Noam was playing with.  He was not interested in giving it up.  Before we could intervene, she gave him a little smack to the head with a pretty large toy and then proceeded to grab him by the collar and call him a bad boy.  I am not sure where she learned such wonderful language…but it wasn’t exactly my proudest mum moment.  I am just glad it was with my nephew and my sister and I could laugh about it, instead of at some random playgroup.  I really need to get better at the whole discipline thing…I often just get caught off guard and it is all I can do to not laugh which encourages her behaviour.

Adelle and Lily do very well together.  Lily is very patient with Adelle and Adelle LOVES the attention she gets from Lily.  It seems like just yesterday that Lily was the one and only baby.  Now she is 5 and sometimes it seems like she is one of the adults.  She has a gift with words and can be so insightful.  My goodness do I ever miss those kids and they were here just this morning.

We had a highly scheduled weekend and my family put up with the planning well.  Typically I am a bit more planny then they are so it was wonderful that they tolerated my schedule.   We spent some time in the mountains hiking and hot springing.  Adelle did great on the hike sleeping for the majority of it in the backpack.  Lily and Noam mostly walked which helped me to realize that although I often find the backpack quite heavy I understand that once Adelle starts to walk on the hikes, hiking will become much more difficult! 

We had some family photos taken, spent some time catching up and laughing with some family we have in town, and we also got to take the kids swimming a second time.  I FINALLY got to meet my brother’s girlfriend Amy, I’d been hearing lots about her, since EVERYBODY else had already met her, but it was finally my turn!  She is wonderful and I am glad she is still with my brother after hanging out with the lot of us for the weekend. 

It was all in all a fabulous weekend, and I am so sad it is over.  

Lily told my sister this weekend that Uncle Al was the perfect amount of fun for her.  They had lots of fun together.

Reading with Grandma Sue

ChiChi, being the sweetest nephew an Auntie could have.

Greg and I are still both on vacation…we return back to work next week. I think it will be a rude awakening for us both.  Usually we spend most of our vacation time visiting family out east.  My dad was here for a few days, but for the majority of our time off it has just been the three of us.  I can’t even remember the last time we felt so relaxed.  It is so excellent…although, at the same time it would have been wonderful to have seen more family.  It is always such a hard balance.

Anyway, a little update from the last few days:

Adelle was a pro-star on new years eve. We had a few friends over and she was on fire.  Sitting in everybody’s lap, making the rounds getting a good feel for who would carry her around all night.  By about 8pm I started to get nervous about the potential for a total breakdown so we changed her into her pjs.  She continued to party until after 9.  She started to get more and more hyper and looked more and more tired.  So we took her to bed.  There was about 1 min of screaming quickly followed by passing out.  It was very cute.  She hasn’t been sleeping well and has been pretty tired since…so I think we may be paying for keeping her up…but sometimes you just have to break the rules.

I have been meaning to mention for a while now about something really funny that Adelle has been doing.  She is communicating with us very well these days with her words.  So she has developped very high standards for us meeting her needs.  When she wants more of something and we have decided she has had enough (take cookies for example), she will ask for more (using both the word and a sign).  When we refuse, she cocks her head to the side, waits for eye contact and and then very very slowly and purposefully she will say the word more and make the sign for more.  It is almost impossible not to laugh when she does this…which is an incredibly rude reaction…but sometimes you just can’t help yourself.  I wish we could get it on tape, because it is priceless.  Poor girl…no wonder she gets so mad at us sometimes.

We have been out snowshoeing once more with more great success…it is such a fun pass time.  Adelle does ok…although she is fairly immobilized in her snowsuit so she basically zones out.  We try to plan if for around her nap time so she is usually sleeping for part of the hike anyway.  It makes me really look forward to this summer when we can hopefully do a combination of backpack carrying and walking with her.  I hope it will be more interesting for her then just hanging out in the pack.

 The teeth have really come out in full force lately, here is a picture of our girl’s grown up smile.

A little goofy shot

Checking her bib for lost peas, she doesn’t want to waste a single bite