Chippie, the adventure-seeking chipmunk

First, with peanuts in hand, the call is made, "Chippie! Chippie! Where are you?"

"Oh Chippie! There you go chippie!":

Chippie runs off to eat his prize:

Not even vast amounts of bugs can deter us from feeding chippie more peanuts, so we suit up for the task:

If you think these chippie feeding photos are a fluke, you're wrong, I have dozens of them. That chippie has no fear of wild peanut wielding toddlers.

More weekend pictures:

Grandpa bought Paige a Dora fishing rod:

Then we went for a ride in the boat:
The nice-ish weather from Saturday didn't stick around for long, and by Sunday morning we had this!:

Hard to believe it will be June tomorrow! This snowfall didn't last for long but the flakes were massive!

Poor little hummingbirds were flying around in the snow and stopping at our feeder every couple of minutes since it was sheltered:

Words and sayings I don't want to forget...

"The Ba-ard": That's how Paige currently says backyard

"That's funny mommy!"

"mommy yook!"

"mommy yisten!"

"I need food!" She tends to say this as she is actually eating, or wants something different.

"Na-NACKS!": This is how she says gymnastics

"Second num num": When Paige goes to bed she needs to have one soother in her mouth and another one in her hand. If I "forget" to give her another one she asks for a "second num num"

"no clothes?": She says this when she is bored of shopping with me in clothing stores.

"a couple of....": She has figured out that when she has just 2 of something that it is a couple. Today she had a full mouth of mini bear paw cookies and 2 in her hands and said "Mommy all done?" and passed me the empty bag. I said "oh you have some more!" to which she replied with the stuffed mouth..."couple of bear paws!"

"Ka ka": this is what she still calls Katharine.

"Papa": She still can't say Grandpa.

"I know!": apparently she knows everything!

"No stepping bees/spiders!"; "bees are ok".

"hug": nice when she says this to me, but sometimes the flowers outside need hugs too.

Some that didn't make the list of favourites include: "PAIGE'S _____(snack, book, etc. )!!!!!!!!" said with an angry tone, and "PAIGE DO IT!!!" while I am trying to hold her hand in a parking lot as she is trying to sit down and squirm away from me in attempts to run dangerously across the parking lot.

Clara and Amy turn 2!

Since Clara and Amy turn 2 three days apart they had a joint birthday party. As part of the party they loaded up a wagon with snacks and cake and off we went to the nearby park for a picnic and to park fun.

Uncle Greg's 20th Birthday!

Chef Greg actually cooked his own birthday dinner since, as a starving student, is not used to barbequing or cooking big meals unless he is winning Iron Chef at Milestone's! Greg was only in town for a few days but will hopefully come back home next month for a bit.

The floor...

Paige is back at it. Food is being thrown on the walls and floors. I now have to watch her like a hawk. Today I was particularly up to form and not only got her to eat a ton of fruit but also averted any food disasters. Nevertheless, we have food stains on the wall, in the plants, and all over the floor. Daily sweeping and bi-weekly floor washings are a must. I had to sweep a few times in the past few days and even noticed an ant carrying a crumb across the floor....bad sign (don't worry...our house isn't dirty, we just have all the windows open and our door was left open for a while last night, hence the ant). Perhaps today is an indicator of future positive behaviour? All I know is I have been acting all crazy-like as Paige is eating, "wow--good girl, eating all your food, giving mommy your spoon nicely, wow, show mommy your bowl...coooool!!" etc. I haven't had a chance to praise good food eating behaviour lately as there was none to praise. Time to scrub the wall....

Paige's eye....

While at the cottage playing outside with sticks, Paige got bit by a black fly in the corner of her eye. I saw it happen. At first it was just a red mark, but then slowly got worse. We just got back from Shopper's drug mart to get some Benadryl. She keeps rubbing it, but she understands that medicine will make it better.

Long Weekend

Our first Long Weekend of the year at the cottage was filled with bugs, rain, and cold. We did have some nice weather the day we arrived on Friday (we arrived at 3:00), and the day we left (we left at 1:00). The days in the middle were quite cold. The good news was that the bugs were everywhere when it was nice outside, but since it was mainly cold we could be outside minus the bugs. I would have loved to have taken a photo of Paige in her bug jacket but it made her even more fearful of bugs, and she wouldn't let it put me on her a second time. It was a child's size small, but on Paige think "bug dress". Way too cute. Even though we were a bit cooped up, there were 6 of us so Paige seemed to have a lot of fun. When we were almost home Paige was saying "back Cottage?"

I think Paige looks like Harry Potter in this picture (wand, crazy hair, wizard-like expression):

"Relaxing" on the dock. Ya right, it was way too hard to manage both her and the camera on the dock so we had to go back on land. She was stomping her feet and being crazy, and getting far far too close to the edge:

Look at her crazy hair. No wonder there are sticks in it. My plan was to grow out her bangs, so I haven't been cutting it. I realized, though, that the hair in her eyes is from the back of her head. I have her a trim in the bathtub last night and it looks way more tidy. Mike took this picture with the tripod on a slow shutter speed. It came out really nicely:

Gymnastics

On Friday morning we loaded up our cottage stuff and went to gymnastics before making the long drive. Since Mike was there he took some photos:

Update

So people were wondering about the sleep training. "

Day 1:

• Naptime: talked and talked forever while I was outside gardening. Did one check up. Continued to talk forever. I realized that I didn't check her diaper when I went in the first time so I broke my own rule and went back in. She fell asleep after that (no diaper change, just gave her soothers etc.)
• Nighttime: Called out for us, talked, etc. for quite a while. Left her until she sounded tired. Then she fell asleep after going in once.

Day 2:

• Naptime: Talked and talked. I went in once to check on her. no nap.
• Nighttime: Fell asleep right away from no nap

Day 3:

• Naptime: fell asleep right away
• Nighttime: Apparently fell asleep on her own after talking for a bit (I was babysitting Amy at the time while Mike was home...Amy goes to bed very nicely at night I might add)

All three nights she has woken up in the night. The first 2 nights I had to go in after letting her whine for a bit but last night I heard her, and I never had to get up. Unless Mike got up, but I don't think so. Hopefully we are making improvements.

So this is the sleeping thus far. If you scroll to the counter at the bottom of the screen you can see that we're off for the weekend. We'll see what improvements, if any, we can make over the weekend since we won't be at home.

We definitely haven't made improvements on the food chucking issue. If anything it has gotten worse....argh...

Sleep Training....

I decided enough was enough. Paige wakes up at least once a night, and has for the past few months. She only wakes up for a few seconds, but requires me to go into her room and reposition her, give her soothers, and find her Abby. I have become completely accustomed to this, but I know that it would be much, much better if this was not happening.

After reading an article in Today's Parent about sleeping, I realized that she is not able to fall asleep in the middle of the night if she wakes up since she is often unable to fall asleep at night or naptime without a few visits to her room to reposition her, give her water, retrieve her chucked soothers, etc. So now, I am leaving her on her own for as long as possible. I am only going into her room 1 time for naptime, and if she doesn't sleep after that she will just not nap. For bedtime, I am leaving her in her room until I can sense that I will only need to go in 1 time....(more tired sounding, starting to get upset). In the middle of the night I am letting her cry/shout for a while before going in. Until this week I was going in instantly to avoid Mike waking up. But now we are all on board with this new plan in hopes of rectifying this situation!

Funny cause it's true....

I haven't read any more of this blog, but when I saw part of it quoted in the Toronto Star I had to check it out. The way this guy explains old playground equipment cracks me up. Especially since it perfectly describes the park at my old elementary school (minus that twirly thing).

http://1000awesomethings.com/2008/07/18/980-playground-equipment/

Is this what the Keenoshayo park still looks like anyone?? What about that park at another school with the old huge tires? Or how about that park behind the tennis courts in the same field as Keenoshayo...the one with the giant turning kite on a pole that had 2 swings attached. Where did they find that thing?

I can kind of see how the old parks used to be a little more exciting than what we have today. As a parent, I prefer the imitation sand, and safer structures. But who didn't like the wooden rickety bridge, or picking sand out of your hair after recess?

"Mommy yook!"

All day long I hear "mommy yook!" (look). Pointing at spiders, balloons, signs in stores, etc. Everything she sees has to be pointed out to me so I can acknowledge it too!

Today she played in the sandbox for an hour and a half. I warned her we would be having lunch soon numerous times, and I finally had to drag her inside kicking and screaming yelling "no lunch! no lunch!". She loves that thing. And now she has been talking in her crib for 2 hours without a nap at all. Should have just kept her in the sandbox for a little longer.

Pictures of the slide...

Paige has suddenly developed a fear of bees (wonder where that comes from...mike). She sat at the top of her slide for the longest time while watching a bee. She talked about the bee non-stop, repeating phrases that I said to her (It's ok, don't worry about bees, etc. ) and when it flew near her she would say "sorry! sorry!"

Here she is pointing in the direction of the bee:


And then jumping up in fear at the bottom of the slide as she thought she spied the bee!

4 teeth - 4 teeth = 0 teeth

From what I can tell without being bitten, all four of Paige's canine teeth have come in now which makes her teeth total 16. Yesterday I went to the dentist and got all four of my wisdom teeth removed. So that makes my teeth total 28. So the title of this post is the equation that best sums up our recent teeth gain as a family. hehe.

I was so happy to have our backyard play area yesterday. I just felt like taking it easy yesterday, and they had told me to do so. Mike watched her in the morning, but in the afternoon it was up to me. It was a fairly warm day and after Paige got up from her "nap" (she didn't sleep), I let her watch a couple of episodes of Dora, then we went in the backyard where she went down the slide a ton, and played in the sandbox. The most I had to do was occasionally shuffle my chair backwards to take advantage of the dwindling sun. She was out there for more than an hour, and even had a yogourt as a snack on her little table. Sometimes it's nice to be able to get out of the house without going anywhere, you know? We can easily go for a walk in the morning, into the backyard in the afternoon, and for another walk after dinner on a nice day. I'm looking at the weather now and it looks like rain. We're stuck at the house for another 2 hours or so until it has been 24 hours since my teeth came out (I can then finally brush my teeth and rinse my mouth!).

I don't think I even mentioned it, but I had been looking at Kijiji to search for a used toddler slide. When one came up from someone in Burlington, I jumped on the offer and went to pick it up a couple hours later. It is faded from the sun, but does the trick for sure. I can let her go up and down it without worrying about her hurting herself if she falls off since it is so small and close to the ground. Such a great addition to the backyard as she goes from the sandbox to the slide, back to the sandbox, kicks a ball around, has a snack, etc. We can spend an hour or so out there easily.