Paige sings....

I tried to get her to "sing" a few songs for the camera. The ABC song is the best as you can see/hear.

A new way of eating...

I have seen online, in magazines, and on other blogs about bento box, muffin tin, or ice cube tray lunches and snacks for kids. We have this old ikea ice cube tray that I decided to put Paige's lunch in yesterday. She thought it was great, and deterred her slightly from chucking her food (although--when she decides to chuck the entire thing, then we'll have an even bigger mess). This morning when we went downstairs for breakfast she squealed with delight when she saw the tray in the drying rack. I had to make her bowl of oatmeal as well as the little assortment above. It definitely made her eat more food.

Photo shoot....

New toy....

This morning we took a drive to Toys r Us to get some sidewalk chalk and art supplies and browse around. We found Mr. Potato Head on sale and I thought it was the perfect toy for Paige. I wanted to get her something inexpensive, but challenging, so he seemed perfect! When we got home she played with him for about 20 minutes, swapping out the body parts. At first it was a bit tricky for her to fit the pieces in properly, but she got the hang of most of the pieces. Some of them, like the hat and mustache are too hard for now.

While we were out we also stopped at Children's place to get more socks. Without even realizing it, Paige has outgrown her camo print socks! I attributed it to her being sick, but she was constantly complaining about her socks. We would have to pull them right up and if they slipped at all she would get so upset. I finally realized that they were too small, when she didn't complain with her larger socks! So we did a big sock run, and hope that it helps. I'm sad to put away the camo socks, just as I was sad to put away the mary jane socks (both from the Barr family!). I guess it means she is getting bigger. Probably almost time for new shoes! No matter what (even if it means she can't walk anywhere, jk), I'm going to wait till it is a bit warmer to buy her new shoes so I can get a more summery pair. I actually got her feet measured 3 weeks ago and her shoes were fine, so I have some time.

Bathtime fun

P.S. potty training in the evening is on the backburner since she barely ate/drank for a few days which obviously rendered potty training impossible.

All better....

Almost back to normal now...yaaaaaaa!!

Sick

Paige has the flu. She threw up all of Sunday night and has had a fever for the past 2 days. She is so miserable, and has only just started to eat even 1 bite of food. Poor little thing had only recovered for a few days from the last illness.

Summer toys?

I felt very against getting a huge plastic toy (mainly for environmental reasons) for the backyard until I saw this sandbox/pool and table combo on the toys r us website. My original plan was to check kijiji for something used. I haven't seen anything yet that was what I was looking for, and what I did see was really visibly worn. Soooo....maybe we'll get something new knowing we will give it away in the future!! Anyway, this one from Toys r us seems perfect since our backyard is pure sun all day long (and we have lots of space with nothing but grass in our backyard). I would love to be able to have snacks outside with Paige, and let her play in the pool under the umbrella. I thought at first that maybe the sandbox was a good idea, but hot sand in 35 degree weather doesn't sound as appealing as refreshing pool!!

A conversation at the pool....

me (at the front desk): Is diaperfit running today? (I asked because it is March Break and I wasn't sure. I chanced going to the pool since I thought we could just go to the indoor playground there if the class wasn't on)

guy at desk: um....yep!

me: is it busy?

guy: I'd say moderately busy

(go in changeroom get dressed, shower, go on deck. See no signs of diaperfit...strange...)

me (to lifeguard): am i the only one here so far for diaperfit?

guard: ya, looks like it.

(put paige down the slide a few times, guard comes back)

guard: um, there isn't actually a diaperfit today, sorry!


What on Earth??? Lack of communication or what!?? We played around the pool for 30 minutes since it was public swim.

Food chucking....

We created a problem that I don't know how to fix. The other day, while in her highchair, Paige made a mess so great that we couldn't help but say "No!" "no throwing food", etc. etc. Ever since then she has been chucking food to see the reaction. Yesterday she made another big mess in the blink of an eye by dumping a soup bowl. We made her stand in the corner--Big mistake # 2. She now is throwing food and immediately asking to stand in the corner. She says "corner?" as in, "if they put me in the corner I will be out of my chair! ha ha ha suckers!" Today we had applesauce all over the wall. One second she was eating the applesauce, and the next second it was on the wall. Granted, she has an extremely small appetite the past few days which accounts for why she would just be bored in her chair with her food but still! Can't we just go back to "all done? ALL DONE! down DOWN DOWN MOMMY DOOOOWWWNNN" I prefer that to the food chucking.

In regards to the time out, it generally doesn't work for Paige, I guess we just tried it with the food incident to see what would happen. It reaffirmed that it does nothing. I guess the thing is she wasn't wanting to stay in her chair, so why would she care if she was taken out of the chair for a time out? She responds best to discipline that is directly related to the behaviour. Ie. If she starts colouring on the table I tell her only colour on the paper. If she does it again I take the crayons away which makes her upset. I tell her why they have been taken away, and she is usually fine to continue with only colouring on the paper. If she were to then colour on the table again I take this as she does not want to play with these again (obviously only using them to get a reaction rather than have fun playing with them), and redirect her to another activity. So that pretty much works with no freak outs.

So anyway, applying the same principles to the food throwing is what I have to work with. Take away the food and even take her out of her chair or give her something else to do. I'm just wondering if this is rewarding negative behaviour, or just redirecting?

Oh well, we'll see what tomorrow brings. She's obviously been sick, and today she had so much fun at the pool and the indoor and outdoor playgrounds that she was really tired out by lunch and dinner time. So maybe tomorrow will be better.

More potty...

Tonight in the bathtub she told me she had to poo. I took her out and put her on the potty where nothing happened. After a little playing around in the bathroom she started to go and I put her on the potty and she went. 1 more sticker on the chart! Don't worry....I won't post every time she goes....and this may be it for a while, who knows?

Update: instead of another full post on the potty, I'll add to the current one. We had another poo in the bathroom tonight. Again she wanted to come out of the bath and stomp around for a bit on the bathroom floor. Eventually she started to go in the middle of the floor and I whisked her onto the potty. After this we played around for a bit in the bathroom and she had an accident on the floor before I could get her to the seat again. But while she was on there she peed a bit and I noticed it later. So 2 more stickers on the chart!

A trip to see Dora and Diego!

Dora and Diego were appearing live at Walmart for a couple of hours this morning, so we took Paige and Amy in the same car to go see them. In both Katharine's and my mind we pictured them wandering around the store, but in the end they were standing in one spot for photos while kids and parents waited in a long lineup (obviously--it's March break) . We distracted the girls with snacks in the line and they were really good. They seemed a little unsure of the giant characters in the end, but both did fine for the photos! We then took them to the park in the bright sun and semi-warm day.

A trip to the Potty!

Paige had her first successful pee on the potty last night. Mike was giving her a bath and thought she was staring to poo, so he took her out of the bath and stuck her on the potty, and she peed right away! Apparently she made a surprised/happy face. I was skeptical and thought it was just water that dripped off her into the potty, but I saw it and it was definitely pee! I created a chart for the bathroom and put a nice big sticker on it. We'll see what/ if anything happens next!

Sticker Example....

What you can't see are the 3 stickers in her hair, stickers on her chair, and stickers on the floor.

Keeping busy....

Since Paige has been sick, she's been pretty uninterested in her toys. Instead she has prefered to paint or play with stickers. We were going through paper and stickers like nobody's business so we made a trip to the dollar store this morning for reinforcements. I got 3 big packs of stickers and a pad of construction paper for, you guessed it, $4! woohoo! When she's not stickering or painting, she asks for tv pretty much non-stop. Dora has actually become second favourite to the preferred "In the Night Garden", of which we only have 1 episode. I mistakenly put this show on the other day for her when she was really sick since it is a lot softer than the ever-shouty Dora. Now she only wants to watch "Igo-puggle" as she calls it (there is a character named Iggle Piggle). I much prefer Dora, so I find this slightly irritating, but the show has made her happy the past few days while we have been inside. I don't plan to continue watching tv at this rate, but when you're talking hours upon hours of indoor time, I don't mind the tv being on for a few episodes.

We also looked at our Big Book of the Dog (pictures and descriptions of all the breeds--an adults book) this morning and after looking at a few pictures of dogs ("Abby's" as she still calls them), she says "lots of Abby's". I was impressed as I didn't know she understood the term "lots of". Other phrases she has been saying are "Paige do it", "I'll do it", "mommy do it", and "daddy's home". She still doesn't know to say "Carry me" and instead says "carry you" when she wants to be carried. She'll also say "carry you milk" when she wants me to hold her cup as she climbs up the stairs. I assume she thinks the word is something like "carryu". cute.

oh--and just to add...when we were out i also scored some matching boots for paige's spring coat as well as a new fishing rod bath toy for the bath. She has played with the same duckies and cups for 12 months now and i thought she could do with something new.

argh

I thought maybe I would share my frustration with an article I saw in the Toronto Star yesterday.

http://www.thestar.com/article/599942

There is the link for the full article. Basically it is a soon-to-be-mom journalist who is writing about environmentally friendly diapering practices and her plans for her baby:

"It's not just baby brain. I'm planning to start practising elimination communication: a method that teaches parents how to read their wee one's signals so the infant can go in a potty (with assistance, of course) rather than a diaper."

She's talking about a newborn infant.

"Here's how elimination communication works: In the first months of life, parents learn baby's approximate elimination body clock (infants consistently go after nursing and sleeping) as well as the subtle signals that indicate a spontaneous need to go."

Hey, I'm all for this if it works for her. Who am I to say that it won't work? But what I think is so annoying is that there seems to be no recognition that maybe she will have a baby with colic, or one that won't nap, or will have problems with nursing. These will become huge concerns and putting a squirming, crying, irritated baby on the potty 15 times a day may become not as much of a concern. For myself, I know that I had a lot of misconceptions about babies until Paige was actually born, and it seems that this writer might too! I also love how she thinks that in the first few months parents simply learn the cues, then....problem solved! This one article is part of a 3 part series on environmental issues with babies. I'm interested what she has to say next.

I browsed through the comments and am happy to see that other readers share my sentiments. Comments such as "this article is hilarious, "let babies be babies", "I wonder if you'll post if you fail", and others were fun to read.

Update!

I took Paige to the doctor this afternoon since she had another horrible night last night, and didn't seem that well in the morning. I mean, she was better than the morning before, so we were making progress, but I knew that I wouldn't feel good until I knew she had been looked at.

Anyway, the doctor gave her an inhaler to take 2 times a day. The sad part is that I have to spray the inhaler through a tube with a mask over her nose and mouth since she is just little. It just looks really cute-sad when I put the mask up to her face. I thought she would hate the whole thing considering I have to leave the mask up to her face while she takes 8 full breaths. But oddly enough, she really likes it and just sits there. I think she likes the way it feels to breath into it. And I made sure to show her that there was a picture of a bear on the side of it.

So we'll see if that helps. I would like her to get better so we can go out and do something. This week was the conclusion of this session of programs, so we missed the last swimming lesson tonight (and as a result the night seemed sooooo long), and we will be missing the last session of Our Special Time tomorrow morning. Then next week we have no programs since it is march break. Oh well, I just want her to be better so if it means that tomorrow will consist of sticking more and more sheets of stickers on paper, than so be it.

Croup...

Paige has croup. Imagine a seal barking-- that's what she sounds like when she coughs. Poor thing. On top of it all she has at least 1 new tooth that has just popped through in the past day. She is drooling so much that she has gone through 4 shirts today. She had a terrible fever in the night and we were all up for a few hours giving her a bath and talking to Telehealth. In the night as we were taking turns sitting with her in her room, she would suddenly say "sorry!!! OW! leggies" or "sorry OW! foot!". She would frantically kick her legs and move her arms and hands. It is hard to describe but it was very alarming since she kept doing it over and over and we weren't sure if it had to do with real pain or if she was just confused and had been drifting off to sleep to suddenly be scared when she felt that she was being held. Not sure if that makes sense but it is hard to describe. I described these symptoms to telehealth as well as her fever and barking cough but they told us to stay home, and just gave us some tips to make her feel better.

Anyway, I am posting while she is watching a show, but she wants me now. I'll post tomorrow with an update!

New Spring Coat...

It's only size 18 months but seems to fit just fine with a bit of room to spare. Her winter jacket is still massive, so I wanted to avoid that problem again. She hasn't grown much in the past 6 months, and her feet have only grown a half size since october. This new jacket is from Please Mum and is a waterproof wetsuit material with a fleece lining. In this photo she has a fleece jacket underneath too for extra warmth, but we couldn't resist trying out the new coat even though it was a bit cold today. I think it will be good being that it is both a spring coat and rain jacket in one.

A night in with the Craigey's....

These pictures pretty much sum up the evening. These girls were insane. We stayed in the kitchen for 2 hours while they literally ran around screaming and laughing their heads off and drinking an obscene amount of milk. Then when we went upstairs they busted out this garbage can. Oh--The Craigey's are Katharine and Craig and Amy. That's just what we call them, and in turn we are the Mikey's.

Things I miss about St. Albert, Alberta....

1. You never hear the constant dull hum of the highway. I realized the other day as I went for a walk that I can hear the highway from our house, (which is actually what inspired this list). I knew that I could hear it before but I think it is worse in the winter without the sound of leaves blowing in the wind and birds chirping. You can pretty much hear the highway from anywhere in Burlington. I guess that's the price you pay to get places quickly. Good old St. Albert trail runs right through the city and after 10 lights and 15 minutes or so later you'll reach your destination. But I could never hear it from my house...


2. Crown and Tower, Yesterdays, Blind Pig Pub, (and let's throw in the Grandin Liquor Barn). People have been going to these places since we turned 18, and if they still live in St. Albert these are STILL the places they're going 11 years later. Good old standards.


3. Every neighbourhood begins with the same letter. For example, we lived in Woodlands and our street was Wimbleton. The surrounding streets were Windermere, Waverly, Welland, Etc. If you lived in Grandin the streets were Gervais, Gordon, etc. Now in St. Albert, all of the letters have been used up with the exception of x, and z (and perhaps j and u?) X-ray crescent? Zebra Court?



4. Grocery store parking lots blaring The Bear radio station (the equivalent of The Edge here I think). I noticed this in August and thought "YES!, this is St. Albert personified....or musicified??" You know what I mean...that station just reminds me of St. Albert, or maybe it's just the "teens of St. Albert". Over here they would never ever blare a radio station in a parking lot, but if they were and the teenage workers were to choose the station it would definitely be pop or hiphop/rap, something like that.


5. Speaking of music...when Jen and I had our nails done at the local "Vietnamese nail place", they had CMT playing on the tv (country music!). If a place here was playing that they wouldn't last a week.


6. You get to plug your car in every night in the winter so it starts in the morning. I almost drove off with an extension cord and an entire string of house lights while visiting in December.


7. I wouldn't say this was a positive, PER SE, but it just brings back feelings of nostalgia. There are no snow plows in St. Albert, and as a result the streets are covered in brown, wet, and gravely snow. And all parking lots are covered in hard packed down icy snow. Actually this may really be a positive since that means there is less snow in St. Albert than Burlington. We would have been stuck in our house for 3 weeks straight this winter if the streets were not plowed. Hmm...I guess this is why we never had a snow day when I was in school. Here they have snow days like it's going out of style....kind of like the Crown and Tower....

8. My elementary school was named Keenoshayo. A bit hard to spell when you're in grade 1.


9. Back to grocery stores...in St. Albert everyone returns their cart to the "cart corral", and *gasp*, actually fits the carts together. I mean in -40 degrees I don't think anyone would blame you for ditching your cart and jumping in your (pre-started from inside the comfort of the grocery store) pickup truck and driving through the brown slush to the Grandin Liquor Barn. But everyone actually takes the time to maneuver their cart through the slush back to the base station and line it up nice and tidy with the other carts. Here you just (myself included usually), take your cart to the base station and just let 'er go...SMASH! into the other haphazardly placed carts. I mean if there is some sort of semblance of order I will always fit my cart into the other ones, but this usually isn't the case. Poor guys could probably do with listening to The Bear while they sorted out this mess.


10. Farmer's market in the summer. This is amazing and they could do with something like this here. The main street in Downtown St. A shuts down every weekend in the summer so local farmers and artisans can sell their wares at a good price. We never lived there when I could fully appreciate this. All I remember is being hot and bored, but hey, I wasn't paying the bills or making the meals.

11. Photo radar. You think that's just a randomly parked Ford Explorer? Think again! You've just been fined for speeding. Why do I miss this you ask? Well, I usually don't speed and it's fun to guess whether an innocently parked car is just that, or a radar gun in disguise.

12. Pizza pretzels. Why do they not exist here? Last year I would have added Old Dutch Chips, but now we have those here too. Pizza pretzels, you're next.

13. Probably one of the only places that a Tim Hortons employee could translate the following: "Gimme a suitcase fulla them doohickies" (my mom overheard this one).

14. You can get your licence when you turn 14. That's right....grade 9's were driving to school. You have to have your parent with you if you're in a car. But not if you're on a scooter! You know you're too young to drive when you crash your scooter and think it's a good idea to ditch your scooter and run from the cops?! Ahem..ahem.. mike?

I could spend all day on this. Like I said, the sound of the highway was what made me think about St. Albert. Also something about going for walk while it was nice and warm. Reverse logic, I know, but I think it reminded me of walking home from school in the spring. And for everything I miss about St. Albert, there is something I like about Burlington. Like the shopping cart disaster...it's kind of endearing. And the fact that Burlington has a half decent recycling program where not only does the garbage get picked up every 2 weeks, the recycling and compost get picked up once a week. This is a far cry from driving your own recycling to the depot and sorting it yourself into a plethora of wasp-infested bins (and nothing says teenage fun like jumping into a giant bin of magazines!). But I digress...

She looks like a toddler....

Diaper fit...

Diaper fit was insane today. There were probably 3 times the regular amount of people, and a couple of moms were turned away!! There must have been a baby boom. Since Paige has been going to that class for about 15 months or so (minus the summer months when it wasn't running), she is totally used to it. Paige is the definitely the oldest baby in the class though, and has been ever since september. I'm so glad I kept up with the class though because it is a good work out for me and Paige just accepts that she has to stay in the fishie thing for the duration of the class. I couldn't imagine taking a 19 month old baby to that class for the first time. It definitely only works since she has been going for so long.