G’n'R Out West

Adelle, is doing ok, but clearly not herself.  Well, she is herself but more cuddly and more of a grazer than her typical stuffing food into her face faster than you can imagine self.

However, all that aside we went to our mom and baby exercise class today.  She has a little buddy there, Corra, who is just a few months older than she is.  They usually have a pretty good time together, but today was ridiculous.  They were giggling and running and copying each other and we were all just in stitches watching them together.  After that we went for lunch and they continued to just love each other.  It was so hilarious.  After lunch they held hands as we walked back to the cars.  It was very hard to convince them to let go of hands so we could part ways.  Seemed wrong to separate them.  It is so beautiful to watch you little one have a totally great time with somebody.

Sometimes being a mum is just so much more amazing than I thought it would be.

Our little bean isn’t quite herself.  She woke up a little warm on Saturday, but otherwise seemed fine.  So we went out to spend some time in the mountains with our friend Gen.  We had a great hike and Adelle seemed fine.  Then at a restaurant that night she ate about 3 noodles and not even taste of chicken.  Instead of sitting at the table she opted for some serious cuddle time with her dad.  Given that pasta and meat (or meek as she calls it) are pretty much at the top of her list, it was a bit shocking.

When we got home we offered her a few of her favorites and she VERY clearly told us no.  She went to bed without dinner, and slept silently through the night.  In the morning she had a face full of nose bleed, and was a bit more cuddly than normal, but otherwise ok.  She had a good day with a very long nap and apart from being very sensitive she did well. 

At dinner again tonight, she hardly ate a thing.  Poor little bean.  I hope she gets better before daycare on Tuesday.

Greg and I have found Adelle particularly and ridiculously cute these last few days.  She is just growing up so fast and learning so many new words.  Today it was outside - ‘yide’.  She was really into being outside today.  I love to see my girl spend time outside.  Funny how active she can be on a day that she is cearly not feeling great.  Kids are so interesting.

We had a fun filled Easter Sunday.  For the record…yes…Adelle did get candy!  I thought about not giving her any, but Greg felt very strongly about the Easter candy, so she got some.

I got up early this morning to bake a lemon meringue pie (for us to have for dessert tonight).  Then after Adelle had had a few unwholesome treats we headed off for church.  We came back (Adelle consumed some more candy) and then we took off for a hike in the mountains.  The terrain is fairly well packed so we opted to walk (not snowshoe).  We bought these neat do-hickey’s that you can slip onto the bottom of your shoes that are super grippy so it was very safe for walking on the ice and snow. 

We had a fabulous hike and then went into town for some traditional Easter Sunday pizza.  It is this great little restaurant with wood fired flatbread that has a really fun kids play area.  Adelle had a real blast there.  And now we are all home and all tired and eating pie.

Here is a shot of us in our alpine meadow just before the lake.  You can tell the depth of the snow from this shot, since I am guessing that ’no camping’ sign post is normally about shoulder high.

Adelle and Greg are all ready for the sring and biking season. I think we are going to go check out what bike options there are for Adelle, not sure if she is a bit too young or not.  All we know is she is facinated by them, so it might be fun to get her one.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYBODY

So I was thinking I would stop with the monthly updates.  The changes are a bit slower these days so it seemed to make sense.  Of course, as soon as I made that decision I feel like the last few days have been full of changes:

There have been huge changes in the language department.  We’ve finally hit that ’sponge’ stage that everybody talks about.  She copies a lot of what we say now and uses more than one word in a sentence pretty consistently as of about yesterday.  For example, when we go down the slide at the park she nows says ‘ two, go’.  I always say ‘one, two, three, go’.  Two days ago was the first time I ever heard her say two or go…and suddenly she says them together.

She also actually says thank you ‘de do’ (she used to only do the sign), she still signs please, although she can say it as well.  She loves buses and trucks and will always point them out.  She will also point out ‘big trucks’.  She loves to watch people bike and will ask for ‘more bike’ when she has seen a bunch and wishes she was seeing more.  She has been known to call out ‘Hey Greg’…I have no clue where she could have picked that one up!

Some funny ones:  She loves fire and consistently calls it water, no matter how many times we say fire.  The one that really pulls at my heart strings is that today for the very first time she said ‘burrr’ when she saw a bird.  Bird was one of her very first words (although, she called them ‘ga’).  That word was just such a first that it is sad to see it go.  Another funny bird thing is that when she sees them she makes this very loud pretty ridiculous noise, not unlike what you would expect to hear if you saw about 89 hungry crows all calling out at once.  We will see the tiniest little sparrow and she will storm towards it with this big grin yelling ‘caw, caw, caw’.  It is pretty funny for us, and likely terrifying for the sparrow.

 In other news, she decided quite recently that she LOVES the shower and is more than happy to spend as much time in there as possible as long as nobody washes her hair.  FINALLY…bathing is fun. 

And last but not least I made an appointment at the dentist a few weeks back as she was still missing one of her four front bottom teeth.  They were supposed to be all in months ago.  I never thought much of it until we saw a dentist friend that said we must get it x-rayed and then the health nurse said the same thing.  Well, her appointment is Tuesday, and yesterday morning that tooth, along with her 2 first I-teeth poked through!  Too funny, I guess it just needed the threat of a dentist visit to kick it into high gear.  I am VERY glad to report that we don’t have to go to the dentist.

I think that is about it.

Something I have been meaning to get a picture of for a while is Adelle shhhing.  We don’t do it much around the house (until lately, since it is really fun to shhhh with her).  I think she gets it a lot at daycare as I notice from the logs that most kids sleep at least 1 hour more than her every day.

Anyway, I first noticed it when her baby was sleeping and she shhhhed me.  She makes the normal shhing noise, but what is particularly funny about Adelle’s shhhing technique is the placement of her hand.  She has made an ever so slightly small misunderstanding in the technique.  Instead of putting her finger up to her lips to shhhh, she touches her nose with her finger.  It isn’t super evident in this picture, as her hand orientation is still as you would expect, but often she’ll point her her nose at a weird angle and shhhh.  It just cracks me up and I basically shhh with her as often as possible because it is just too cute.
 

Also, here is a picture of our girl last week enjoying the hot sun in our backyard.  I love it when she scrunches up her nose when she laughs, I don’t know what it is about the scrunched nose, but I find it totally irresistible.

So, for a while now I have been wondering when Adelle will start to say more than one word at a time as it seems like many of the other kids her age have already started doing this.  Last week we noticed she was saying ‘thereyougo’ all one word.  Then she told Greg ‘open door’ yesterday.  And today ‘I need water’…well more like, ‘I knee wawa’.  I did a double take at first but she was happy when I got her water, and then later ‘I need ball’, then ‘I need more (corn)’ and finally ‘I need cake’.  The part that makes me laugh the most is her choice of words.  She doesn’t say ‘I want water’, but ‘I need water’.  The expression in her voice clearly indicates that she does need it, and that the request should be considered an emergency.  It always amazes me how much she changes, and how much she stays the same.  It seems she has always known what she ‘needs’ and has always been really good at getting the message across to us one way or the other.  So it was just so fitting to hear her talk today.

Adelle and I had a really fun day today.  We met some friends at the zoo.  We got their bright and early and even got to see a number of animals have their breakfast.  I found it interesting, Adelle, however, was rather taken with the little birds flying around the grounds, and all the workers there that were spraying water and cleaning the enclosures.  Why watch a 3000 lbs hippo eat and then jump into a pool, when some dude is spraying water on the ground…truly there is no comparison.  I am fascinated by what fascinates her.

Tonight we had the same friends over for dinner and all the kids got along so well.  It was a great surprise as we’ve had them all together in the past and their personalities did not appear to be complimentary.  It was wonderfully relaxing and heart warming  to see them all play together.

Adelle is very particular about what she wears. Sometimes she has a whole outfit picked out, sometimes she is determined to wear very little. Lately she has been confusing shirts and pants and gets very upset when she can’t wear her shirts on her legs. Yesterday she put on her jacket all by herself, it was backwards and upside down, but darn she sure was proud.  Regardless of the fasion statement she is trying to make, she is quite certain about what she wants to wear or not wear.

I had my very first time away from Adelle this past week.  I had to go up to Cold Lake to work for a few days and I left Adelle and Greg at home.  I did better than expected and she did great.  Greg said she spent some time looking for me, but in general was very happy.  She was happy to talk to me on the phone, and didn’t seem that concerned I was gone.  Greg and Adelle met me up in Cold Lake on Thursday night.  When I arrived at the hotel they were watching cartoons and hanging out.  Adelle giggled for about 5 minutes when she saw me.  After 5 minutes Greg turned off the tv and Adelle gave up on my welcome and got mad at Greg.  Well…good to know that I am almost as important to her as tv!

All in all it was good.  Greg was pretty tired by the time he got to Cold Lake, as it has been a fair bit of travelling and Adelle hadn’t been doing her best sleeping.  I was sad to be gone, but in some ways glad that i finally got that first time away over and done with.

We had a great time in Cold Lake, we stayed with our friends Roger and Marie and they were great hosts, it is always so nice to spend time with them.  We spent lots of time visiting with our friends and relaxing.  Cold Lake is so beautiful in the winter.  It was impossible to get Adelle to nap at anybody’s house, so we threw her in the backpack and had some very enjoyable walks while we were there.  The weather was perfect, although, it really cooled down on Saturday night and was -21 when we left!

We went over to our friend’s Sandra and Tony and Adelle had a hilarious time with ALL of Sandra’s dogs.  She chased the cats around, but they were significantly less impressed with her than the dogs.  After a good play outside we went in and Adelle continued to talk to the dogs for about and hour through the window.  She held up some candy for them to look at and jabbered on for quite some time.  Mostly I am not sure what she was saying except occasionally she would call out ‘DOGS! DOGS!’ really loudly, so I can only assume they weren’t always paying the appropriate amount of attention to her lectures.

Dana and Blake were enjoying a good read….Adelle thought she wanted in on that action and squished herself in between them.  Blake tolerated it for a few minutes, but after she rested her head on his shoulder he decided he’d had enough of her….and took off.  Adelle and Blake got along fairly well, or better than they have in the past.  The only time she really upset him was when she dragged him into his room by the hand and then shut the door behind them.  She was looking for a little alone time…and he wasn’t so keen.  Poor Blake…Adelle just loves him a little too much.

Adelle LOVES ring around the rosie, she can play it FOREVER!!!  Or at least it seems like forever some days.

Alex is just 6 days older than Adelle.  His mom Sarah and I worked together when we were both pregnant, so we’ve had lots of fun going through all the stages together.  Alex is very vocal and can count to ten very clearly, and almost to twenty.  Although, Greg pointed out to me afterwards that he says ‘eleven-teen’, so it isn’t really that impressive!  Just teasing!  We just love Alex.  One of the things I love the most about being a mom is watching all the kids as they grow up and watch how they are all so different and the same.  In general Adelle and Alex did great together, although they did have one altercation about this little kid’s couch.  For about 10 min one wanted it up and the other down for about 10 seconds and then they would change their minds at the exact same time.  Each time they would both start screeching and pulling at the couch while madly looking around the room for some parental re-enforcement…they had Sarah and I in stitches.

We had a great drive home.  Adelle played for the first half (we built a pretty cool car fort…she did some reading, we sang…listened to ‘Yr Mama’ on repeat for about 3 hours and in general had some laughs).  We stopped for lunch, we were on our way to ikea so she could stretch her legs and have some fun in the kids section, but she fell asleep on the 2 minute drive there so we skipped the ikea trip and drove straight home…it was a good idea because she stayed asleep until we were about 5 minutes from home.  The poor little girl, she didn’t really get that much sleep while we were away, so I guess she finally had the chance to catch up.  We felt VERY lucky to get home so quickly, she really is a great traveller.