G’n'R Out West

We finally made it out camping…first trip of the year.  It was super fun.  We were meant to go out on Friday night…but decided that a severe thunderstorm warning was enough to convince us to head out Saturday morning instead.  It was a good call as we ran into somebody at the campground that told us they’d had 6″ of hail the night before…sounds super fun…but no thanks!

Since our car was all packed and ready to go Friday night we got there bright and early on Saturday morning.  We met up with my Cousin and his family and had a terrific time.  Adelle was particularly enamoured with her cousin Aidan who was in constant need of her help (or so she felt).  It was very cute.

We had a nice walk in the mountains on Saturday afternoon and then had some friends visit us at the campsite for a fire on Saturday  night.  It is always so fun to have a whole crowd around the campfire…i was so happy….  And so was Adelle, many of her favorite people were there including 3 big kids that had endless attention for her.  They spent a fair bit of time wrestling in the tent (well, the older kids wrestled).  Adelle was both terrified and fascinated by the wrestling so she stayed well out of their way, but close enough to ensure she still felt involved!

Some mentionable things about Adelle these days:

Excessive use of ‘y’
I am not sure where she picked it up as Greg and I don’t talk to her like that, but in the last few days she has started putting ‘y’s on things that don’t have ‘y’s on them and that she never put ‘y’s on before.  Examples of this are: birdy, anty, carty, and even Gregy…I find it a little tiring, although the Gregy one makes me giggle.

Taking Care of her Baby
She finally figured out how to get a diaper on her doll all by herself.  Usually she gets most of the way there and then we have to make sure the tabs are stuck down properly.  NO longer, she is a little independent diaperer now.  On Sunday she changed her baby’s diaper.  Then took the ‘dirty’ wipe, wrapped it up in the ‘dirty’ diaper, folded the diaper (securing it with the tabs), then announced to me that she was going to throw it in the garbage.  I think she has that deal down pat…hopefully she’ll be just as keen to help out with the real thing come November!

Greg and Adelle doing some exploring

Adelle and Aidan. Aidan was very patient with Adelle’s helping. I think she tried to force feed him puffs for about 20 min…after forcing him to drink the better part of a sippy cup of water. Poor little dude.

Adelle got surprisingly little sleep on Saturday night.  I am not sure what kept her up, the confusion over where she was sleeping or the 30 marshmallows she consumed at the campfire…but she got 4 good hours of sleep and about 3 more VERY restless hours.  She was a bit of a train wreck on Sunday.  She refused to sleep in the backpack while we hiked. She did however, seriously pass out on the car ride home from the mountains.  Normally she falls asleep a bit cuddled in with her legs crossed at her ankles…not Sunday…she just had to let it all hang out.

As per usual we spent Friday morning with Kerri, Corra and little baby Andrew. Unfortunately, Andrew didn’t manage to make any of the photos as he basically slept the entire time while we chased the girls around.

For something different we headed over to the amusement park. Corra was far more adventurous on the rides than Adelle but she did have lots of fun…mostly they both had fun riding the trucks. I think they rode the trucks 20 times. It was one of only a few rides that they could ride alone and they could not get enough.

Adelle attempted the Merry-Go-Round a few times, but it was quite intimidating. She thought really hard about going on the horse, but at the last minute she had to pull the shoot. In the end she decided she wanted to ride on the stationary seats and even that was a little scary at times! I don’t see too many roller coasters in our future. Corra, on the other hand, probably would have been on the roller coster that day if she was tall enough!

Greg has been gone all week…and Adelle and I have missed him like crazy…he gets back in an hour and I can hardly wait to see him. Unfortunatly, the little bean is sleeping, so unless she wakes up tonight, she is going to have to wait until morning.

We have another fabulous weekend planned….this summer is just flying by!

The summer continues to be a world wind of fun.  We’ve just spent most of the week with my friend Missy her husband, and her mother.  They were in town for a family wedding, but we got to spend the entire week with them!

As per usual, Missy’s family is a bundle of crafty energy and appeared to spend the majority of thier vacation working on redecorating Adelle’s new bedroom.  They did do a few other things while they were in town, but it does seem like we got pretty spoiled while they were here. 

Here are a few little snippits from our week together:

The major project for the week was Adelle’s new room.  She now has a room that she loves, for her to move into when she is ready to part with the room she has now.  We aren’t in a hurry to move her, but we are hoping she’ll choose to move on soon so there is lots of time in between so she doesn’t feel kicked out of her own room. 

Adelle pretty much adored the flowers

The finished project…aren’t they amazing crafters?  I couldn’t thank them enough.

And another wall…most of this stuff was supposed to be the decoration above the bead (in lieu of a headboard), but the creative team got side-tracked and we ended up with two decorated walls.  Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of the room so as to continue with the spirit of the work they did!
 

Our little monkey playing at the playground at the zoo.  
 

Last time I wrote that Adelle was learning twinkle twinkle little star.  She is now quickly adding to her singing repertoire both Baby Beluga and The Wheels on the Bus.  She is loving to sing.  I love to watch her remember.   Tonight when we were reading one of our regular night time books she actually recited a few words from the page we were on.  Kids just retain so much!

Lately I have really been looking forward to her being a big sister.  I know you can never tell how kids will react, but so far she is just eating up all the older sibling helping stuff that comes along with being the toddler when there is a baby around.  Just the other day we watched her do the following tasks: clip her baby’s finger nails, sit her mouse on her lap in the car and point out to the mouse all the scenery that was passing us by, putting her babies to sleep in a little basket that she calls their crib…and then being shhhh’d because we were being too loud while they slept.  There has also been a lot of diaper changing going on these days.  She has almost figured out how to get her baby in a diaper.  She often makes a big deal of the whole procedure and tells us if the baby’s diaper is stinky.  She has some high standards for her babies as it appears as though she has already started toilet training them.  They look to be just a few months old…so I think it will be a long road for her babies and the potty!  Apparently, there is a new baby at daycare and I am told that Adelle is the self appointed helper.  So I guess that is where she is learning all this stuff.  The only thing I question about her parenting is that her babies are exclusively bottle fed.  While I know bottle feeding is necessary for a number of families I don’t know that Adelle has really thought that choice through…once our new baby comes along she will be seeing lots of breastfeeding so it will be interesting to see if she keeps her babies on the bottle or if she opts to follow my lead !

We had our midwives appointment this week and were told our ultrasound showed a normal baby.  That was wonderful news.  To be completely honest the pictures we got made the baby look so wonky (compared to the ones we saw from Adelle)…so I was a little bit concerned.  It is always reassuring to hear that everything is going well.  So far the new baby is proving to be VERY different from the old one.  I was sick for three months, all I think about now is food (I don’t think I was ever like that with Adelle), and this baby hardly moves at all.  By this time Adelle was a squiggly little entity that was constantly reminding me of her presence.  If I wasn’t so uncharacteristically hungry all the time I would completely forget about this baby!  I wonder if they will continue to be different.  It would be nice to have a baby with Greg’s temperament instead of mine next time around!!!

Greg and I have gotten to start to know our new little baby.  Last Friday when I was 18 weeks I felt my very first kicks.  Then this past Thursday (19 weeks) Greg got to feel the baby kick.  The big ones he can feel are few and far between…so we were just lucky he was close by when the baby started kicking, and that the baby kicked long enough for Greg to feel it.

Today we had our first ultrasound.  Our baby looks pretty nice…we think.  The ultrasound technician was surly and she didn’t bother to get very many clear pictures….but we thought we’d post a few anyway, just because you just have to give the new baby face time, it isn’t the baby’s fault the ultrasound technician was in a bad mood!

This is our new baby’s face….it is sort of scarey looking.

This is our new baby’s disjointed looking arms.

We have just returned home from a week in Halifax (and Sydney) and a week in Ottawa.  Greg was with us in Halifax, but Adelle and I were a two person team in Ottawa.  We had a fabulous time.  She did great with all her grandparents.  I am amazed at how well she adjusts to change.

We had a few challenging sleeps, and she certainly wasn’t sleeping as many hours out east as we might have dreamed about, but I think she did just fabulously.  She is such a great little traveller.  Below are a few of the many highlights!

 
WIth Nana (Greg’s Grandmother)

 
Goofing Around with Grandpa Ron

Greg taught Adelle a new skill on her trip….how to show Grandma Fran you really enjoyed her Blueberry pie (As always, please excuse my video skills, and I apologize if anybody gets a neck cramp trying to watch this).

 
On the receiving end of some big splashes (courtesy of Grandpa Gary).  Adelle had a great time in the water with my dad.  We got kicked out because of a thunderstorm….but were it not for that, I have no clue how long they would have been goofing off in the water.  I think there were thunderstorms everyday that we were back in Ottawa.  Like me, Adelle seems to enjoy weather.  I had her out there a few times splashing in the puddles and listening to the distant thunder!  I miss rain in Ontario.

Once again I was grateful for the sling.  Adelle had a great time at the beach with my dad, but it really did tire her out.  About 10 minutes into the walk home she said ‘I sleeping’ and then put her head down and passed out.  Sometimes I just find her too cute to deal with.

Goofing around with my mom

More goofing around.  Adelle had a blast with my brother, his girlfriend Amy and their cat that she tormented.  This little clip offers a few interesting things to note: a spectacular wipeout, some cute talking, a very determined girl pushing a very heavy toybox and her ridiculous new habit of eating rubber…sigh.  Unfortunately, erasers was just one of many things she ate that I would have preferred she passed on.  My mother’s little stuffed Koala did not fair well during one of Adelle’s naps.  Needless to say I am starting to be a lot more careful watching what she has in her mouth and what I leave her with in her crib.

We had a quick visit with Lori and Andrew in Ottawa.  Adelle was on cloud nine at their house…cats and fish!  At one point she was staring at the fish and the cat ran buy.  Paralyzed in a state of over stimulation she froze for a minute then yelled ‘cat - fish’…it was an internal battle trying to decide who should get her attention.  The cat won (or maybe the cat lost…either way, the cat got chased).  Lori and I were raised like sisters among a few other kids in our beloved co-op.  A more ideal childhood I could not envision.

Some other cute stuff:

A funny little story about Adelle from the airport:  We had an early morning flight and Adelle had the treat of a muffin from Tim Horton’s for breakfast.  She was very pleased and was walking around with it in her bag as proud as punch telling anybody in earshot that she was eating cake.  When we went through security she reluctantly handed it over to the security guard to go through the scanner with the rest of our carry on stuff.  We walked through the screening and then patiently awaited our bags to make it through the xray.  Adelle saw the top of her little tim’s bag and immediately shrieked in excitement.  A nearby security guard took if for a different kind of scream and jumped 2 feet in the air.  Then we all had a little laugh at Adelle’s over dramatic reactions to small situations.

While Adelle and I were off in Ottawa we talked a lot about Greg but I didn’t say much about when we’d see him, figuring she didn’t have a good concept of time.  When we got on our airplane home I told her we were going to see Dada.  She seemed mildly interested but it wasn’t a very impressive reaction. I pushed it fora a few minutes and then moved on.  About 10 min later she looked at me and said ‘MY DADA?’.  I said yes and then she totally flipped out from excitement.  I think after spending a few weeks listening to us call our dads ‘dad’ she got a little confused about what the term precisely meant.  When we landed, she threw her toy she had been playing with out her hand and started clapping and screaming ‘dada, dada’.  When she saw Greg she ran full speed over to him arms in the air and squeezed him tightly for a very long time.  I’d say he was rather touched.

Adelle has also started learning her first song: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  It sounds a bit like ‘tinkle tinkle, star, tinkle, tinkle high, tinkle tinkle sky’.  She will often sing it to herself when we are driving and just loves it when we sing it with her.  It is pretty priceless to hear…or at least it is for Greg and I.

We had a fabulous and busy weekend.  Our friends left to head back to Ontario, we had a first birthday party to go to, the honour of becoming Godparents on Sat night, a visit with some friends from Vancouver on Sunday morning, a baby shower…and we had a babysitter for Adelle for the first time ever.  Well the first time she has ever had a teenaged baby sitter.

Adelle did great with her new babysitter Rebecca.  She didn’t cry at all, and asked about her a lot after she left.  Pretty cute.  Greg and I are now looking forward to a few fun nights out now that we know we have something that will work.

The big highlight of the weekend for Greg and I of course was becoming Godparents, well… Greg the Godparent and me the witness.  It was a very big honour.  My cousin and his wife had  a baby back in November and asked us to be his Godparents, the ceremony was this weekend and it was wonderful.  Aidan did well, despite the fact that he is teething. 

With our Godson Aidan, and his parents Kevin and Kathleen.

We have been having such a great few weeks with Adelle. I am not sure if it is because she is feeling better, or because she has just hit that age of ridiculous fun…but whatever it is I am loving it.  We’ve had friends (Roy, Tammy and their daughter Priya) visiting from Ontario for the last week.  It has been great fun.  Adelle was very eager to help Roy and Tammy with all their parenting needs…I am sure they were just so grateful!

Priya is shy, but Adelle just adores her. We have all managed to get some smiles and waves from Priya, but touching seems to be forbidden.  As long as we all keep our distance we seem to get along great.

We took a trip to the mountains for a few days and had a fabulous time.  We don’t often go and stay the night in the mountains, so it was fun to have everything so accessible.  While we were there I think I had my happiest parenting day ever.  We did a little hiking in the morning (and Adelle even walked for a good 1/2 hour…i think we made it about 200 m in that time, because there was a high cuddle to step ratio, but I was still proud of my little hiker.  After her big hike she took a nap in the backpack, then lunch, then we went swimming at the hotel.  Adelle likes swimming, but it isn’t often that the whole family is in the pool together.  I think having both of us there took swimming to a whole new level.  She was squealing and splashing and just having a great time.  She was even practice splashing on the way to the pool.

After the pool it was time for Priya’s nap so we decided to keep our hyper daughter away from the cabin and went to this huge 4 story playground at the hotel.  Adelle wasn’t quite old enough to do the climbing alone so Greg and I took turns with her.  There were two other kids there and Adelle thought that they were her buds (as usual).  She was climbing around after them.  We couldn’t keep up so I kept telling the other girls that they were too fast, then Adelle started screaming ‘I fast, I fast’.  She was in heaven chasing those girls.  We played for over an hour, and then she started to get tired.  She found a little dark black tunnel and lay down, and pronounced ‘I sleeping’.  So I said if we was tired we should go home, she immediately jumped up and said ‘I playing’ and took off.    She was so exhausted, but powered on through the rest of her play time, dinner and even actually ran around town as we did a few errands after dinner that night.

Afger dinner as we drove back to the cabin Greg and I were listening to her babble on in the back and wondering how we were ever going to get her to bed.  As it turns out that night went down as the easiest bedtime in history.  I guess she must have just been so releived to be put to bed so she didn’t even complain for 1 second.

The next morning was the icing on the cake.  She woke up in her little playpen and started playing.  She was in there with her guys (one of which is a dog).  Well wasn’t that darn dog misbehaving.  I had to giggle as I heard her repeatedly ask that disobedient dog to sit.

I just feel like so much has changed with Adelle lately.  She is talking so much and learning so much every day.  She has finally hit that age where you can really find things to do for her and with her that she really enjoys.  I felt for the longest time that I would take her places and do things with her, but mostly it was just to get a change of scenery for her.  Now she seems to really enjoy the things we do together and it is so great. 

Our Ontario buddies have left to go back home.  We are all a little sad they are gone, because we had so much fun.  Poor Adelle is so confused by the whole thing.  She keeps asking about where her friends have gone.  She got very attached to them by the time they left. 

Big news is that we are having another baby, due at the end of November!  We are very excited.  Adelle likes to give my belly kisses and appears to have some understanding of what is going on.  For a while she thought we all had a baby in our belly, but we told her that there was just one baby and it was all of ours and that I was growing it for all of us in my belly.  She seems to accept that answer and hasn’t mentioned any other babies for a while.  We haven’t talked about that new baby coming out and the implications associated with having a screaming demanding baby who will probably enjoy being carried as much as Adelle…but for now she is very interested with the idea of a baby and we are enjoying this stage together.  We have some friends with babies, and Adelle doesn’t seem to mind if I hold them…as long as there is room for her on my lap.  When she is on my lap she spends lots of time fussing over the baby and usually has lots of kisses and occasionally feels the need to scold the baby when she feels they have misbehaved.  Usually the scolding comes in the form of shaking her finger and saying no very sternly.  She really doesn’t like it when other people misbehave and she sees no reason for babies to be exempt from rules.

This pregnancy has been significantly more difficult then the last.  Not sure if that is because I can’t really just relax when Adelle is running around or if things are really harder this time.  On the plus side, I’ve had the pleasure of company on my mad dashes to the bathroom…and Adelle is a great mimic…so you can just imagine how fun it is to hear her copying the sounds of me barfing, while I am in the moment myself.  What a great thing to get to teach  your daughter…good times.

As for the poo incident.  I posted a while ago when Adelle changed her own diaper after bed time.  Well, two weeks ago we had some people over, Adelle announced to the group that she had to go poo, and then went to the washroom.  Greg followed her in, but she insisted on privacy (until then we weren’t aware Adelle thought bathroom time was private time).  Greg gave her the privacy she requested.  She sat on her potty (clothes on), apparently went poo, and then proceeded to take her diaper off.  Greg caught her mid-act and there was minimal mess, but another impromptu bath was required.  She is so funny.

We’ve had a great few weeks here, despite my morning sickness and Greg and Adelle’s allergies.  Some days we are a bit of a mess, but with the recent warm weather and the promise of summer it is hard to be unhappy. 

Our friend Nicki came up for the night this weekend and we took Adelle to the park.  I think it might have been one of our most fun trips to the park, there was lots going on and Adelle had a great time playing as well as people watching.  One detail to notice in this photo is that Adelle’s hair is now long enough for pigtails, or ponies as she calls them.  She will request them most days and takes considerable time to pick out just the right two elastics for the job.

Adelle has recently got into bugs.  We saw a movie about them at the science centre and mostly she thinks every bug is an ant.  While we were at the park this weekend she saw a bee and started running madly away from it yelling ‘ant! ant!’.  Funny that she has this fear of them, but doesn’t actually know what they are…

In the shot below we are checking out an actual ant.

Well, I think the Benedryl officially worked because most of the swelling was down this morning.  We still went to the doctor because there was one localized swollen bit and the doctor told me it is a stye, which I guess is quite common in kids.  It isn’t really related to the original swollen eye, except the doctor said she was probably at increased risk of getting one since she’s probably been rubbing her eyes a lot.

Anyway, she is off the Benedryl as it is ridiculous to keep her drugged up all day just to keep the swelling down.  In general I don’t think it bothers her that much, and I think we have confirmation it was an allergy, so if it flares up again and starts really bothering her we’ll give her some benedryl to help her sleep at night.  As for the stye, hot compresses and time will heal that.

Poor thing.  She was a total train wreck today.  Between her eye bothering her a bit and a cold I barely put her down all day.  Luckily she was very into being in the sling today, so I threw her in there, swung it around to my back and got a few things done.  Normally she resisits being in the sling on my back, but for some reason today it was hilarious.

Hopefully she will recover quickly!  Poor little thing.

And by love, I most clearly mean hate.

We had our first official poo ‘incident’ since the end of baby blowouts and accidents associated with premature diaper changes. Adelle has been hopped up on Benedryl for the last day or so and it has made it extremely easy to leave her in her crib awake after reading and cuddle time. She has been so out of it that I think she just drifts off quietly. Well, tonight, was different. She just didn’t want to fall asleep. Eventually Greg decided to leave her in her room awake and happy. We could hear her up there happily conversing with the guys (her trio support team of a stuff dog, rabbit and a doll). After about 20 minutes she started crying. I ran upstairs to find quite the interesting scene.

As it turns out she wasn’t falling asleep because she had gone poo. When she realized nobody was planning on changing her diaper she decided to give up on her incompetent parents and change it herself. Everything seemed to be going along swimmingly until she realized how messy a prospect it was. When I arrived in her room she was crying, diaper-less and had her turd in hand.

She was very upset by the whole experience, and the necessity for an impromtu bath certainly didn’t help matters. Anyway, all in all I think it could have been worse. Our daughter’s adversion to mess left her paralized with poo in hand until I rescued her so there was minimal clean up.

As for the rest of the weekend it has been ok. Adelle has been a bit out of sorts, which we aren’t sure if we should blame on her eye, a cold, or the Benedryl. We took her to the farm down the road and she would have normally had a ball. But after an hour she said to me ‘I home’. So I decided to try to feed her lunch to see if that would help. We walked to the car to grab our lunch and she tried to get into the car, when I stopped her she said ‘no, I home’. I got her to eat a bit of lunch but eventually she was quite insistent that it was time to go home. She was asleep before we left the parking lot…poor thing and so uncharacteristic of her.

Adelle has refused the eye drops insisting that they hurt. We were warned that they were hurt as they are not officially designed for children under 5. They are safe, but are quite irritating to younger eyes. The Benedryl is nowhere near as effective and our child has been walking around in a half state of consciousness since we started dosing her with it. I am really hoping to get in at the doctor’s tomorrow so we can get some more help with this whole situation.