Paige hates hoodies....

For right now. We're going to avoid putting them on her in the house as they cause too much grief! She had a brief meltdown over getting dressed this morning as usual, and then stopped when I just put her in a t-shirt. Later Mike was trying to put on her hoodie and I ran in saying noooooo, and she said "thank you mommy" and handed it to me. Almost as if to say, mommy said I didn't have to wear it, so now I'm ok.

This morning we had a nice family outing to Speckled Frogs. Daddy got to take Paige down the slide a dozen or more times.

As Paige was falling asleep today I heard her talking away to herself as usual. She likes to use the time alone in her crib to practice her talking. I always hear her making up little Q & A scenarios...sort of like..."milk?" "oh ok", "all right". She seems to mimic our conversations. Today I heard her *fake cough/sneeze* "bless you", *fake cough/sneeze* "bless you" over and over again.

Most. Tantrumy. Day. Ever...

It all started off as Paige flipped out in the morning as I attempted to change her out of her pyjamas into regular clothes. My plan was to go to a free drop in at tansley united church (not a churchy thing). Run by OEYC (ontario education youth council?), they have them at various locations in the city on different days for free. Just lots of toys and circle time, etc. Anyway, can't remember anymore how I convinced her to come with me, but as soon as we got to the church she was FREAKING out... NO NO NO NO NO. Didn't want to take off her jacket. I think she was worried that I was taking her to play in a coat room since that was where we had to leave our jackets. It probably didn't help that a friend of Katharines was in the coat room leaving with her little girl and i said, hi blah blah blah, so Paige probably thought that we were really going to play in the coat room. Anyway, I then carried her screaming all the way up the stairs to the play room, where i let her look through the glass window on the door at all the kids playing. "Do you want to go inside?" I asked. "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!" Well, i brought her in anyway, and she was able to calm down, but was horrible with sharing the entire time. When we got home (after asking to stay in the car and having a slight cry??) she was fine as i made myself a much needed second coffee. In the meantime, of course, she pooed. I had to go change it which threw her into a 20+ minute tantrum complete with lying on the floor and everything. Nothing i did or said would calm her down. It wasn't until i said, ""mommy's just going to go watch wonderpets by herself" that calmed her down (I felt guilty using the TV as a bribe, but it was the best distraction, and Wonderpets is short). She stood far back where she couldn't see me. Somehow I then was able to get her downstairs after the wonderpets and feed her some food. She is in her crib now, not sleeping, but seems happy. Still not wearing pants though since I changed her diaper. Oh Paige, I love you, but this is a little much!

(P.S. Cara--good thing you couldn't make it!)

Cleaning machine....

Wow, i think the only thing I do in my spare time is blog...I've posted way more than usual lately.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to do some cleaning and let Paige "help". She helped clean the bathtub with a wet cloth and pushed her toy vacuum around while I vacuumed. But what she loves doing and is really good at, is throwing garbage in the garbage can. If she sees a crumb on the floor "OH! garbage!" and off she goes. I can sense she really likes to feel like she is helping.

After we came in from our snowy driveway at lunchtime our boots made a bit of a mess. All on her own she went into the kitchen, grabbed the tea towel and said, "oh! clean!" and ran off to wipe the floor. She didn't really wipe it very well, but it was the thought that counted!

Freakishly similar....

This is me at 10 months...This is me at 1.5 years (but maybe slightly older than Paige's age)

more of them....

Today it was a tantrum in the grocery store...this one was partially language related considering she didn't want her boots on OR off, or in the cart, or on the seat, or in her hands or in my hands. Also, I think she was hungry so I broke tantrum rule #1 and gave her some raisins I pulled off the shelf (since I didn't have a snack). This worked well until she dropped a raisin ("uh oh RAISIN!! WAHHHHHHHHHHH"). It was a huge multipack of raisins which we needed anyway, and I obviously bought them. Oh--pet peeve--when I see people giving their kids things like buns from the bin at the grocery store. I think...are they going to pay for that?

I am going to take the advice from my new book and log these tantrums (time, location, etc.) so I can get a sense of what is going on here. This morning when she freaked at the grocery store we had already been at Diaper Fit, and then for a play in the tree house room at the rec centre. She used to be so portable and could make multiple trips like this, but she could just be changing I guess.

Paige is usually quite wonderful, I promise. These tantrums just came on suddenly and with a vengeance!

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word combo of the day:

"one yucky bottle" don't know what this means??

Update: latest word combo: "one chair dora" as in sit in her chair and watch an episode.

Everything is beginning to start with "one" as in the #1. I think she realizes it doesn't makes sense to ask for "more" of something that she hasn't had in the first place. Because she would say "more dora?", "more snack?" etc. when she was asking for it for the first time. For her snack I gave her a few fishie crackers. She finished them and asked for "one fishie", so I literally gave her 1 fishie and she giggled. I tell you, these last few days are monumental in terms of everything she is doing.

Yesterday after the tantrums....

Paige got a new backpack, mainly so we can make outings more fun. We'll put her toys and snacks in it. We made 2 forts yesterday and played in it with a flashlight.

Paige is definitely changing. Yesterday Katharine and Amy were over and Paige was just acting a little odd. The biggest thing was she asked to go downstairs and then wanted to go in her highchair to eat some raisins. In retrospect, maybe she wanted in her highchair so she could have her snack to herself without sharing. But usually they play perfectly fine upstairs for the entire time. Paige was also constantly asking us to take her hand and follow her to various places. Just strange behaviour. I think she is definitely going through a developmental growth spurt.

More and more word combos...

A few from yesterday...

"thank you daddy"
"NO amy!" (disciplining amy)
"open please"

tantrum like crazy....

This morning Paige was totally tantrum-y again!! It all started, once again, with trying to put her sweatshirt on. She refused to wear any shirt but a t-shirt this morning, and I am wearing a long-sleeved shirt and sweatshirt. "No no NO"'s all over the place. I think I have discovered it is worse on the days I wash and blowdry my hair when she is up. If she gets bored, or thinks she is getting ignored, she gets a little crazy.

I had to go to Zellers this morning to pick up some new sippy cups [and chuck the other ones since they were old and were starting to be un-cleanable (not a word, I know)], so I decided to pick up a toddler book. At this point in time, I was willing to get anything and picked up the only toddler behaviour book they had which was kind of rough and beat up looking (the "moms frantically flipping through the book deciding whether to buy it before their kid has yet another tantrum in Zellers" kind of beat up). But it is by the same author of our baby book, so I thought it would be pretty good. We'll see what sort of insight it gives us.

My daughter resented me....

On Saturday we dropped Paige off with Grandma and Grandpa so we could go into Toronto to meet our friends Caroline and Phil. Since we'd be home after 8:00, we dropped her off for a sleepover. They apparently had a great time, she ate her meals, she slept all night, etc. She has slept over there before.

When we got there to pick her up and stay for dinner she wanted nothing to do with me. If I tried to come close to her or, God forbid, pick her up, she would yell "no no no!". She was clearly mad at Mike too, but mainly me. We're thinking that even though she had a good time, she was angry with me for leaving her. Mike is always going to work, so she somewhat forgave him, but me? nope. She finally came around a bit when I picked a crayon up for her. Things got better from there, but went downhill fast when it was time to leave Grandma and Grandpa's house and get in the car. Oh well, by that point she was tired and it was to be expected.

Early in the morning (before it was time to get up), she started yelling "daddy! daddy! daddy!" and he went in to find her standing up and looking for her soothers. She has never yelled our names in the night before.

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So yes, since Paige stayed at their house for all of Sunday as well, we had a chance to go out for breakfast. The wait was about 20 minutes long, but we just stood there patiently without a toddler in tow. Then we looked at dream homes on MLS, and got ready to go out to a movie. We saw "Last Chance Harvey"....I recommend seeing it. Then we shopped a bit at Home Outfitters, and took a long and leisurely drive along Lakeshore to my dad and Maura's house. Nice to have a day around town to ourselves, it totally brought me back to times before Paige where we would just do random stuff all day. It felt really weird. Now we are so bound by, and used to, Paige's nap in the afternoon. I don't mind the routine of going out in the morning and being home for the afternoon to read or go on the internet, or whatever. But it was fun to have a different sort of weekend, and definitely fun to go to a matinee.

Mommy is exhausted...

We climbed up this thing about 15 times....

Out of Paige's mouth...

Paige looking at a 1L tetra pak of wine on the counter:

"Daddy juice"

Our morning of fun.....

This is the calming down of a full on tantrum we had this morning....

I somehow managed to get her in the car and she was fine the rest of the morning. I didn't dare put on her boots or hat though (common items of detest), and we listened to some "baby einstein classical music" in the car to relax.

Bye Bye....

It's the end of an era. Paige's final bottle of the day is gone. It's actually kind of sad, as I knew it would be. I think we held on to it more for our sake than hers. I managed to take out her nap time bottle a few months ago, in favour of just reading more books. Recently at night we have tried to focus more on book reading as well, and have decreased the bottle. Last night we didn't even offer her the bottle and she went to sleep no problem. When I saw the doctor yesterday she reiterated that she should be off bottles, so that was the impetus to get rid of the last of them. The timing couldn't be better though since she suddenly likes cold milk at meals.

So it's sort of sad not to hold her in the dark and feed her that last bottle (well, for Mike I think, I rarely put her to bed unless he isn't home). BUT, without them taking up room in the cupboard I have to admit I'm happy to clean that cupboard and use the space.

The next challenge: Get rid of the "num nums". That will be HUGE! Those are here to stay for now! Luckily she only has them at night. We tell her they are for sleeping babies. Then she occasionally sees a kid with one and yells "NUM NUM!!" She probably gets confused by this.

Stats

Paige went to the doctor today for her 18 month appointment. She's still coasting along in the 25th percentile with these stats:

Height: 30.7"
Weight: 23 lbs
Head circumference: 46 cm (too bad I don't have this measurement from any other visit)

She had 2 needles, one in each arm. She didn't cry at all for either of them. Like didn't even care the slightest. When they put the bandaids on her, I think she thought they were stickers (which she is obsessed with), and then they put real stickers on top of the bandaids. I then put another sticker on her hand to distract her. "Bye bye!" she says as we leave the room. The nurses were all laughing at how cute/good she was. The next needles aren't until age 4.

Ba-bahm-bahm....

Obama aka "ba-bahm-bahm"

Repeat.

Today I heard Paige say "Oh shoot" twice. Good thing I'm not one to swear....

Little sickies

Paige's friends are sick, so when she suddenly got a fever we assumed she was also sick. This is yet to be determined. She seems to be teething as well, which can cause a fever, so who knows. Friday was spent with Paige napping, lying on the couch, and then sitting with me and watching american idol, and some disney show. She just wanted to be held. She was better yesterday, but seemed a bit warm for an hour or so. She has also been waking up at night quite frequently. I took the bumper pads out of her bed since she was ripping them off before her nap. It was silly to keep taking them off and putting them back on. But since then she has been waking up when her soothers fall out, or when her head hits the side. Remember I put them in her crib in the first place to avoid all of those problems? Since it has been about 10 months since those things went in, I wasn't sure if she needed them any more, but clearly she does. I am hesitant to put them back in though since she needs to learn to problem solve by herself...like move herself away from the side, snuggle under her blankets, etc. Now she just cries until I come in to fix her problem. Until she can do these things, though, I think we're looking at some long nights. Last night she was up 4 times. And she never wakes up in the night normally. I might put them back in to get some sleep tonight. Mike and I are getting sick too, so sleep would be good.

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I have been trying to finish Paige's scrapbook, but I have realized I'm more into blogging and picture taking than scrapbooking. In my scrapbooking magazine I see such lovely pages that I can't even come close to producing. And scrapbooking is expensive if you're not going to really put in 100% effort. I'm still only at "getting the baby room ready" stage in my book. I think it is easier to scrapbook vacation pictures--there's less pressure.

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Paige and Dora: I just wanted to point out that although Paige really likes Dora, by no means does she sit in front of the tv all day. Every day she will watch 1 or sometimes 2 episodes of Dora, and no other tv. So that's only 30 mins average. I thought I would mention this since there seems to be a lot of articles lately about television watching and babies. In the 1 article it says that some babies spend 40% of their day watching tv!!?? I guess if the parents watch tv while the baby was present. I used to do this when Paige was younger--partially watch something while playing with her. Even if I wanted to do this now she wouldn't let me--"No people?" she says if I turn the tv on. Now we just listen to the music channels...mix it up a bit...little treehouse, little classical, whatever kind of mood we're in. I don't think she likes seeing real people talk to the camera. Only when she wasn't feeling good the other day did she want to just veg in front of American Idol. Since we get our Dora from the "On Demand" feature on our tv, it's the same 15 or so episodes. Now Paige can name a couple of her favourites. She asks for the "mambo" or "star pocket" episodes. And she yelled out her first word in Spanish yesterday when Dora told her to...whatever the word for "jump" is (salta??)

Oh--another thing from the article I read was that there is a channel called "baby tv" (!!??--brutal)

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So embarrasing.....I have been getting an extreme eye twitch lately, and I can't even feel it. This means I could be anywhere and my eye is twitching out of control and I DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT!! This used to happen when I was at work and I was stressed. I'm not stressed, am I?? I don't think so...maybe about this scrapbooking....

the railing....

This evening Paige discovered that she could throw things through the railing upstairs and watch them fall downstairs. I have to admit I can't believe she hasn't done this before. As I was getting her bottle ready I heard *smash* "uh oh", *smash* "uh oh", *smash* "uh oh". Uh oh? ya right! Luckily she did it right at the end of the day before bed, so.... maybe she will forget about it tomorrow.

strolling down the street in a 1980's sled...

This morning we had a ton of snow so Katharine came over via walking with Amy in her sled. When they were leaving Paige watched Amy happily be dragged away in her sled. Paige was smiling and looking envious so I asked her if she would like to go in her sled. She agreed. After lunch I brought up my old baby sled and pulled her around our crescent twice. "Gen?" she asked, so we went around again. "Gen?" she asked, and around we went a fourth time. "Gen?"--but this time it was getting late, so I let her sit in the sled while I shovelled for the second time.

This is a big improvement on last year's unenthusiastic sledding attempt:

If I can figure it out, I might try to recover the pink cushion, it looks really worn.

McLaren post-Christmas Christmas....

We got together with "my side" of the family on New Years day for our Christmas gift exchange and dinner. Yum yum!!

Paige was thrilled with her new Dora Chair, baby, and baby stroller (don't blow up the picture of her with the stroller--her face is filthy!!!) She played with these all day long today. We haven't tried it yet, but the new baby is the same brand as her other baby (corolle), but is a "tidoo" which means it can go in the bath. We'll try this out tomorrow, but at night so she dries by morning in case she needs to be strolled around all day again.

Here's a picture from New Years Eve. When I was vacuuming she picked up her vacuum and helped.

On New Years Even we had Katharine, Craig, Amy, Christy, and Clara over for dinner. Paige went to bed and the other 2 girls stayed up late late late!!

Our time out West (or was it the Arctic??)

Even though it was freezing it St. Albert, we still had a great time visiting with everyone over Christmas. Paige got a taste of what mommy and daddy dealt with while growing up. It was so cold that Paige barely complained about having her jacket/scarf/mitts and hat on while in the car. At home she cries and takes off her hat and mitts, and I have never put her scarf on in the car. Since it was so cold, we did a lot of our visiting inside Jen and James' house (where we stayed), and didn't leave very often. Here are a few pictures (out of order) of what we did:

Boxing day:

Christmas day at Auntie Judy and Uncle Greg's (I love how all the older kids are spinning and Paige is just taking it all in):

Jen and James at the Sobey's cafe:

Grandma Val and Paige on Christmas Eve:

Grandpa Jerry and Paige at Sobey's cafe:

Paige with her 2nd cousin (born only hours apart) on Christmas day watching the massive dog:

Paige and her beloved Abby. A blanket, dora cup, and a Dora video with your best friend? Who could ask for anything more? This was near the beginning of the trip when Paige hadn't quite begun to seriously annoy Abby yet...

At the Barr's house for a fabulous dinner and visit with Riley (wiley). More dog tormenting...

Paige and Uncle Tyson:

Sooo many pictures this trip, so I just selected a few to put up. One thing that I have to write down in the odd chance that I would forget this story and not remember to tell it to Paige in the future....ok...well basically I'm doing my hair or makeup or something and I hear Mike say "NO PAIGE WE DO NOT EAT DOG FOOD". Paige had shoved FIVE pieces of dog food in her mouth and one of them was all crunched up! Yuck! I grabbed her and brushed her teeth 3 times and washed her face and she still had dog food breath. Until your child has dog food breath you will never quite grasp how disgusting this is. It made me feel sick to my stomach. I made her eat more human food to try to mask the smell. This worked slightly, but as I was washing up some dishes I caught her with 2 more pieces! This was it, I had to pass her off to Auntie Jen to clean her up for the second time.

This probably all came about because we had let Paige feed Abby a few times. She used to feed Abby cookies, but realized that cookies were only given sometimes. She noticed that Abby's food was always sitting there, and well, why not feed it to her piece by piece. "Abbyabbyabbyabbyabby" she would yell, and then when Abby would take the piece "good girl" she would say. Then grab another piece and repeat. I guess this is how she got used to handling Abby's food. And well, if Abby eats it, why can't I?!

Our visit started off with Paige being fairly gentle towards Abby, but progressed to annoying Abby. Always in her face, touching her feet, poking and proding her. Abby was very good and never got mad, but you could tell she was irritated.

Having Abby around was great as Paige was always in great spirits first thing in the morning, and right after her nap. Before we went to St. Albert, Paige had begun to cry a lot after her naps for some reason.

Something else I don't have any pictures of is the $27 swimming extravaganza. Jen, James, and I took Paige to a swimming pool which was really quite a cool place but...seriously so expensive for swimming with a baby! It was fun for me to go with other people since I got a chance to swim around and go on a crazy slide on my own!

I also forgot my camera when we went to Andrea's house to visit with Emerson, Lisa, Natalya, and Cadence. Too bad we can't see each other more often since the babies are all within 7 months apart.

A couple of non-Paige related activities were the annual Christmas dinner at Janice's house, and Bridesmaid dress shopping with Janice.

Anyway, tons of fun over Christmas, sad to come home, but a great trip over all (.....minus the dental surgery to be completed on Monday)