G’n'R Out West

Adelle woke up with yet another swollen eye.  The other eye this time.  So we took her to the doctor and this time the doctor said she was sure it was allergies and not an infection…the eye looked identical to me…and the diagnosis was the opposite.  Tiring!!

However, this doctor spent a lot more time with us and actually looked at her eye, unlike the other doctor, so I do feel much better.  She gave us a prescription for some eye drops and gave us lots of advice on how to help her with the allergies.  She also gave us information on signs to look for in case this is another infection.  I really liked this doctor way better than the one we saw before!  A good doctor makes everything so much better.

Anyway, we gave her the drops tonight at bedtime, the doctor thought it might take a while to clear the allergies, so we shall see how she does tonight.

On Monday we had fabulous weather and had the opportunity to meet some friends at the zoo.  Adelle’s little friend Corra was there, and as usual they had a ridiculous time together.   I am pretty sure we looked at the animals for a total of 10 minutes that day and spent the rest of the time goofing around looking for pine cones or playing at the playground.   She was passed out in the car before we left the parking lot.  I just love to see her have that much fun, it is so awesome.

Adelle and Corra spent at least an hour collecting, inspecting and organizing pine cones.

They have a great park at the zoo and she is really old enough to get around it all by herself.  It is so great to just let her explore.

On a slightly less cute note, Adelle has now learned the word ‘don’t’ - typically she says no to us about 400x a day, she has now supplemented that and will also toss in don’t as often as she can think too. sigh…

Adelle and I just got back from a wonderful trip to visit my sister, her family and my dad.  It is so nice when the cousins get to be together.  Adelle had a hilarious time with her cousins, she followed their every move and it seems like she grew up 10x faster in their presence.

She learned lots of new tricks….Lily proclaimed to me at one meal ‘look Auntie Rachelle, I taught Adelle how to make a moustache out of yogurt’.  Sigh….  Has their been a prouder moment in my life?  I do wish I had gotten a picture of the two girls sitting their with their faces full of yogurt.

Adelle also learned my name…well, my name according to her cousins.  She proudly pointed to me one afternoon and said ‘Autie Chelle’, she was very impressed with her discovery.  She has known Greg’s name for quite some time, but she never figured mine out until this weekend. 

Last time we were with her cousins, she drove Noam insane, always up in his business at a time he wanted space.  This time it was reversed.  He was always coming over to give her a kiss, and she was constantly pushing him away.  Unless he left the room, in which case she was devastated and wanted nothing more than to be in his presence.  Isn’t that always the case?  Everything he had she wanted, and watching him do things, made her brave, because certainly she wasn’t going to allow him to be able to do anything she couldn’t.  It was pretty funny.

She also had some great bonding time with my dad.  She can still be very shy around him, but she did come out of her shell and got caught off guard a number of times having a great time with him.  Of course, no matter how shy she was in his presence she was always very upset when he left the room without her.  The nerve of some people!

Adelle had juice for the first time in front of me this weekend.  I know she gets it at daycare, but we’ve never given it to her at home, and she’s never asked.  She was given one in a loot bag from a birthday party we attended this weekend.  She promptly pointed out to me what it was, and then proceeded to ask me for it for the rest of the weekend.  Figuring now that she had taught me about juice she could get it as often as she wanted.  She hasn’t asked about it since we got home…but maybe she doesn’t realize we have it here yet.  I’m not in a hurry to tell her.  I am so evil.

We tagged along with my sister and her family to this totally cool birthday party at a farm.  They had a pony for the kids to ride, a lesson on maple syrop, tons of animals to pet and touch, and the kids even got the chance to sit on this huge work horse.  It was pretty neat.  Of course all that cool stuff paled in comparison to the fact that there was a dog on the farm…and not just any dog, a dog that LOVED to play catch.  Adelle would have played catch with that dog all day (and I think the dog would have obliged her that request).  She laughed non stop this ridiculously infectious laugh the entire time they played.  It was totally awesome.  Second only to the dog were the puddles on the farm.  We don’t get good puddles out here like they get in Ontario and Adelle took full advantage of that.  It was great to see her out exploring and having so much fun. 

Adelle didn’t sleep all that much in Ontario, she was in bed by 11 or so each night and up just before 7 am in the mornings.  She did have a few snoozes in the car, but didn’t really have any decent naps to compensate for the lack of sleep at night.  She was in a remarkably good mood despite the lack of sleep.  I got a bit tired of her antics…and could have done with her having an earlier bedtime, but I was impressed by her non the less. 

The plane ride to my sister’s was great.  Adelle was actually quite scared during take off but had a great time once we were up in the air.  Since we live pretty close to the aiport we get to see lots of planes, Adelle LOVES airplanes.  She totally got that she was on a plane and was very impressed.  When the plane landed I said to her ‘you did it!’.  As soon as we deplaned she announced to everybody in earshot ‘I DID IT!!!’.  It was hilarious.  The plane ride home was less fun, but I think it was mostly becuase we were both overtired.  All in all I really can’t complain.

When we got home she had a great reunion with her dad.  I was a bit worried she’d be mad at him becuase she’d missed him when we were gone.  But she just ran right over to him and loved him to bits, it was great. 

Adelle had one little mishap on our trip, on the second day we were there she woke up with her eye swollen shut.  It was so cute and sad.  She didn’t appear fazed by the situation, although initially she was little confused.  Once she spotted her cousins, she was too busy to worry about being down an eye.  We took her to a doctor I didn’t really like and he gave her lots of anitbiotics.  I am still not convinced she needed them all, or that he did a thourough exam…but since we were going on a plane the next day, I felt like I had no choice but to give them to her.  The good news is that the problem cleared up very quickly, which was just great. 

In one last little peice of Adelle growing up news she figured out how to say ‘water’.  Since she started saying it she has always said ‘wawa’.  This weekend she figured it out, she now very carefully announciates the ’t’ in water.  I am so proud of her.

That little girl is still sick.  We are having some fun days finally, but she is still having a hard time.  She hates a snotty nose and seems totally grossed out by it at times. 

I don’t have any exciting stories to share this week, but just wanted to give a bit of an update.

Adelle is learning to talk so fast.  She doesn’t tend to say multiple word sentences unless they are common ones we use around the house.  If she wants to eat she will just say eat, then you have to ask what she wants and she will say something.  If she sees something she will just say the one word.  However, she has an endless supply of canned sentances most of which I am drawing a blank on but some of them I have listed below:

- There you go. (this was her first)
- I want that.
- Where did it go?
- I need mine! (this one is funny, as she is desperate to get the ‘mine’, so desperate that she can’t tell you what thing that is hers she wants)
- What is he doing?

We bought her a tricycle the other day (one with a push handle, since the pedals are still a little out of reach).  She is obsessed with biking.  She enjoys wearing her helmet as long as she doesn’t have to do it up.  She will wear it (done up) for a good 20 min to go on a bike ride.  We haven’t taken a picture of her on her bike…but needless to say she is pretty proud of herself.  Today, she and Greg were going outside and we were insisting she wear a sunhat.  She refused to wear a sunhat, but we were able to compromise on her wearing her bike helmet.  I think she wore it for about an hour, before they actually went on a bike ride.  Here is a shot of her having her snack outside, protected from the sun by her beloved bike helmet.

Adelle, is slowly showing signs of toilette training.  For a while she has been interested in sitting on the toilette, but has never shown any awareness of what goes on in her diaper!  The last week or so she has started to ask for a diaper change after she goes pooh.  I think the video below shows many of her talents, and hobbies.  She is shown practicing jumping, she pretends to sleep momentarily (you can vaguely hear her say ‘night-night’ when she is lying down), and then she informs us that she has gone pooh (in fact we are pretty sure she is actually saying ‘I went pooh’).  What a clever bean.  I appologize in advance for the soundtrack…I am not exactly sure why exactly we are listening to ‘Hot Stuff’…but anyway, Adelle seems to be enjoying it.

Each day Adelle wows us with her knowledge and understanding. I can’t even believe how fast she is changing right before our eyes. At the same time, I am equally amazed at how much her changes make her exactly the same.  She has been feeling pretty crumby lately, and so between the regular toddler frustrations, and the life of a sick girl, she has been a bit of a mess. Last night everything in the world was against her and she was just a total ridiculous ball of tantrum. The only thing that could make her feel better, and instantly relieved the pain of being Adelle was the old standby: ‘BABY! - BLANKET! - WALK!’. Last night I was given remarkably clear instructions to pick her up like a baby (on her side in the crook of my arm), wrap her in her blanket (a particular blanket which needed to be tucked in just so), and then get off my butt and walk around with her.  Hmmmm….I was thinking, is this child 1 1/2 years old or 3 days old? I seem to recall getting very similar instructions from her at a much earlier age.When she was a baby we used to call it the sleeper hold, because usually it would calm her to the point of sleeping. Last night she went from agonizing tantrum to Zen like inner-calm in less than 3 seconds after securing her in ‘the position’. This is similar transition time to that of her baby days. And like in her baby days, after spending 30 minutes in ‘the position’ I got tired, and tried to sit down. I was quickly  reminded that sitting was not an option. In her earlier days, the cue was a scream, now a command ‘WALK’. Only now, I can remind her to say ‘walk please’ which just seems so much easier to agree to then the screaming.