Ouchie.

My stomach grew 2 inches this week. No wonder I felt so wiped out and uncomfortable at the end of every night. And no wonder my pants all felt tight.

An imaginary friend...

Paige appears to have an imaginary friend named "Me". Although when she says the name I think of it more as "Mii" because of the characters on the Wii. When we are downstairs she often says that she has to go to Mii's house. This involves finding Mii in the basket of winter accessories. Apparently Mii is a girl and is a monkey and is "just small" and is her friend. The winter things keep her warm I guess. Paige then puts on the winter things and goes for a "sleigh ride".

I'm sure for a 2.5 year old, the correct term is not "imaginary friend", but I am not sure what you would call this.

Lately she has done very well with playing on her own. Give her a bucket of My Litte Ponies, and other little figures and she can play for quite a while, making up little stories with them. It gives me a bit of a break, as she goes through phases where she needs me all the time, and then not as much.

Wow.

There is a class offered through the City Of Burlington which is called "Little Chefs" for ages 3-5. I was quite excited to enroll Paige in this class one day, especially since it coordinates with a class for 1 year olds, and I could take her baby sister one day. Well, no more. The same ladies have always taught it from what I remember seeing, and today we witnessed something that I didn't think was right.

As Paige and I were lingering behind in our class, as per usual, the Little Chefs people came in. A little girl got upset about her chair and the instructor proceeded to drag a chair loudly a few meters away and force the girl to sit in it saying, "Sit here until you stop crying!" 1980's Care Bear show style. I was quite shocked. I didn't think that this was how kids were disciplined in this class. I mean, I'm not sure if this girl had been a big nightmare all day, and if this was the last straw, but it just didn't seem right. It makes me sad to think that if Paige had a bad day at a class that an instructor would lose it on her.

I actually did register Paige in a class for the next session called "On My Own". I go to the first class and then wean myself out. It helps to transition the kids to going to classes fully on their own. I thought it was good timing since she will be 3 in the summer and the 3 yr old programs are all for kids without their moms. Not to mention, I will have the baby sometime during the session and I will be able to drop Paige off and wait outside with the baby to occupy my time. Not to worry though, we know the instructor and Paige really likes her. No chair slamming and yelling. I'm not sure who will handle the class worse, Paige or myself. We'll see who cries first...Paige wanting her mommy, or mommy peering in the room to see Paige playing nicely with other kids all by herself. I thought the class may help her to learn to socialize nicely without my intervention.

Barenaked Ladies "Snacktime" CD

This is my new favourite kids CD. I ordered it off recommendations from a few other moms. It turns out that the songs are a bit too old for Paige right now, but I laugh out loud at this one. They have a crazy alphabet song that has lyrics such as:

A is for aisle
C is for czar
O is for Ouiji Board

Way too funny!!

Great CD for adults as well as kids...

Paige's favourite things...

1. Care Bears: She likes the movies, a book she has, and the stuffed one I found in my old collection. I had Bedtime Bear from 1985 ish, but I also had another very new one that i have no recollection of getting. I think maybe I got it from Mike, but he doesn't remember either. At any rate, it looks new and she loves it.

She prefers the newer Care Bear movies to the old ones. I got an old one from the library and it has that scary guy in it. Also the parents say things like "Go to your room! Wait till your father hears about this!". I feel like a lot of 1980's cartoon shows had very similar values. The new episodes and movie are more cutesy and friendly.

2. Franklin: She loves these books. They used to feel painfully long to read to her, but now I am used to it. She has gotten past board books for the most part and likes longer stories. The only hard part is that she doesn't realize that 5 boardbooks are not the same as 5 Franklin books! We have to limit her at bedtime which doesn't always go over so well. These books have nice messages in all of them.

3. CD player: I bought Paige her own $30 CD player for her room (not great sound quality, but small). It is on her floor and her CD's are on her dresser. She can do the whole thing by herself. As I write this she is in quiet time and she is on her second CD. It is really loud, and next time I have to remember to turn it to a quiet level before she starts it up.


4. Smoothies: I make these for afternoon snack time. Paige and I split one.

1 banana
4 frozen strawberries
4 ice cubes
splash of milk
splash of OJ
2 spoonfuls of vanilla yogurt.


Sneaks fruit into her, and is a healthy snack for a pregnant mommy too. I put chocolate syrup in it once and she liked that too.

5. Markers: Messy messy messy, that's all I have to say about that one.

6. Sweatpants: She only likes sweatpants or fleece pants. Putting her in anything else is like pulling teeth. Not that Paige is in school, but I don't think I ever wore sweatpants to school until University. Mike, on the other hand, probably stopped wearing his sweatpants in university. So we wonder where she gets it from. Mike said "uh oh, just like daddy". He would be in sweatpants in school pictures and everything.

My favourite thing : The library

As Paige needs longer books and more variety, the library is the place to go. I can't imagine being stuck with few books, or having to buy a ton. Also, we don't ever get sick of reading the books. We can also get CD's and movies from the library. Although, this week she scratched a DVD. I offered to replace or buy it, but as they could see it had been well-loved over the years, and Paige probably wasn't the one to ultimately ruin it...maybe just the straw that broke the camel's back. I do worry about her alone in her room with her CD's though. Who knows what she's doing with them!

Cross Referencing...

Paige constantly needs to cross-reference everything. Constantly. Some things recently cross-referenced are:

1. Things that need batteries. I told her I was replacing the batteries in the remote since it wasn't working. "Just like the puppy!" she says. "I show you something!" She runs off to show me the puppy toy we had put batteries in.

2. Pictures on the back of books. Children's books that are in a series often have little pictures of the other books in the series on the back of the book. She looks on the back of her Franklin and Harriet book and says, "I show you something!!" and grabs the other Franklin books, and then says, "see it's like the same!".

3. Care bears. This one is a triple cross reference. She has to show me that bedtime bear is the same on the movie, in her book, and in real life with her stuffed one. She holds them all close together. "See?! See!?"

Picnic and a movie

Paige and I had a dinner picnic and watched Cinderella. Don't judge my choice of popcorn as a dinner item, she was really excited by it. :) Also, I would have gotten chips and everyone knows that popcorn is healthier! The other things are grapes and Subway sandwiches. What you can't see are the cookies we had after. Not your best picnic dinner, but it was fun, and that's what counts! Next time I hope for more picnic-y items to eat.

As you can see, she is stuffing her face with popcorn. This made up the largest food group of this meal, followed closely by the grapes, and a few select portions of the sandwich which i hand fed into her mouth. The large cookie was part of dessert and thus, does not count as part of the "meal" per se.

hilarious...

Paige: There's bunny poop in the backyard. A bunny stinks out of it's bum.

me: A bunny stinks out of it's bum???

Paige: Just like a skunk.

Dentist...

Today was Paige's first trip to the dentist. Although I had to force her into her jacket and into the car, she was fine when we got there. I don't think it was neccessarily the dentist that made her uncooperative, but rather the early morning out the door, which she doesn't handle very well.

Anyway, I set her up in a chair with some books and the movie Shrek on the tv while I sat in the dentist chair to have my teeth cleaned. She was a bit scared and said "mommy!". The dental hygenist suggested that she could sit in my lap. Since I am pregnant she didn't recline the chair anyway, and it was easy for Paige to sit with me. She watched the movie and would occasionally turn around to see what was going on. After I was all finished, it was Paige's turn. The hygenist asked her to open her mouth and she counted her teeth. She showed her a "barbie mirror", Mr. thirsty, Mr. water, and the tickle toothbrush (just the regular tools!). She polished her teeth with the tickle toothbrush (the polishing thing)and some pink "princess toothpaste" (again regular stuff), and squirted water in her mouth and suctioned it. Paige actually seemed to enjoy it, and the hygenist made it fun for her. She opened her mouth again for the dentist to take a look with the mirror. She got a toothbrush after the teeth cleaning. The hygenist told her that Dr. Pong would give her a prize from the toy chest. This was forgotten, and good thing she doesn't remember!

She didn't want to go there, but didn't want to leave either. They have a room full of books and toys which caught her attention on the way out. Mike is getting 2 wisdom teeth out on Friday, and we have to drive him anyway, so I told her we would drop Daddy off in a couple of days and she could play with the toys then.

I had hoped to take a picture, but with her sitting on my lap, it didn't work, and I didn't dare make her sit on her own just to get a picture.

Friday Movie Afternoon...

Enough was enough. Friday afternoon came along and we were bored and going stir crazy. I decided to show Paige how to pop popcorn in the air popcorn and settle down to the movie "Cars". We both had our own bowls and watched the movie until the last 20 minutes when Paige said she was "all done". It did seem kind of long for her. It was a good movie, and I wanted to see how it ended, but we turned it off at that point. A very good time killer, and I could tell she was ecstatic that I was sitting with her (if I turn on the tv I usually go on the computer or do some housework).

Hmmmmm....

Wait a minute....Did you hear that??.....

Wow!!

Quiet time...

In case you forgot, Paige does not nap. Paige's great Grandma (Mike's Grandma) told me that all 4 of her children did not nap past 2.5, and my dad tells me I didn't nap much after 18 months. So, we wonder where she gets it!

Anyway, I believe I wrote before about how I had implemented quiet time. I used to go into it frustrated and upset that it would be so short. Now that I know there is no illusions that sleep will be had, or that it will be very long, I take it as time for me to rest and lie down while I read her lots of books. I also remember that when the baby comes I won't have as much time to spend with her one-on-one. So I try to enjoy it for what it is. After I read her the books I tell her I'll be back in half an hour. That worked at first, but now she usually starts calling me 10 minutes in. This is not enough time! Firstly, she needs the time to chill out by herself. Secondly, she needs to learn to do this so she can do this when the baby comes. Some strategies I have tried are bringing a toy into her room and taking her out of her bed. I still close the door and watch tv or read a book, but she is stuck in her room doing imaginary play. The other thing I have done when she refuses to stay in her room (and i don't want to turn quiet time into jail time) is to bring her with me into my room where we both read books quietly. If she tries to talk to me I tell her "shh it's quiet time". So this is where we're at. I look at other mom's who have napping 2 and 3 year olds with jealousy at how much stuff they can do with that 2-3 hour time block. But, this is what we have to work with. I'm sure there are things that Paige does that other kids don't do which are frustrating to their parents. So I'll take it.

"Mom-Mom"

This is what Paige calls me 90% of the time now. I have no idea why.

Child of the times...

Paige was playing with her alphabet floor puzzle this morning. It has painted drawings on it of the letters and corresponding pictures. Paige put the television picture on (which is an old fashioned t.v. with antennae on the top) and says, "there's a bug behind that t.v! How'd that get there?"

Hahahahaha. I laughed out loud at that one. We do have a t.v. with antennae at the cottage, but she probably has never noticed.

Visitors from afar!

From Thursday night to Saturday morning we had my oldest friend Lisa come for a visit (we have been friends for...gasp...24 years!!!) along with our new friend Gordon, her fiance. It was a nice visit, and we had only ever met Gordon for about 60 minutes total during Christmas trips back to Edmonton in the past. Gordon is from Scotland and moved to Canada (Edmonton) to be with Lisa. They then moved to Kingston so Lisa could do her Phd at Queen's University. So they are closer to us now, but far enough that we can't exactly meet up. They happened to be coming home from Christmas in Scotland and flew to the Toronto airport.

We had a very relaxing time, got caught up, and has some yummy food. They didn't even mind sleeping on a futon mattress on the floor in the baby room! And luckily they were so tired from the time change that they didn't wake up to Paige's night time raging!

Hope they come back again soon!

Sick but OK!

Paige has a bad cold, but she is now able to blow her nose, and asks to do so when it's needed. This avoids lots of the "flying snot sneezes" we used to have. Although I help her to blow her nose as much as I can, she inevitably follows up with a final wipe with the back of her hand. The back of her hands are getting all dry and chapped. Yesterday I caught her trying to blow her nose with kleenex she had retrieved on her own. She then stuffed the kleenex back in the box, along with a few other squished ones that were in there.

She is also teething as every few days she gets bright red cheeks at bedtime. Last night she even said, "my cheeks are red! I need some cream!" and then started to whimper. She denies that her mouth or teeth hurt though.

We have started to implement the "cough/sneeze into your sleeve" policy with Paige. She remembers 25% of the time. Another 50% she does a few fake ones into her arm after a real one. The other 25% of the time she forgets completely.

Torpedo....

I can tell right now that I will have another torpedo stomach. It just goes sooooo far out since I am short and there is no other place for it to go! I just have to hang in for 14 more weeks...

Torpedo stomach is not the best for sleeping, walking, bending over, balance, or basically anything requiring comfort, balance, or space.

update: time to do yet again more shopping at Thyme maternity. My shirts are all getting short from the stomach problem...I need small shirts that are super long. And my shirts from the last pregnancy are all the wrong season. Oh well, who doesn't like shopping?

3 funny things said by Paige this week...

1. "Watch out! The sun is headed right for us!"

2. "Stop! Get me out of here! I don't like the Touareg!"

3. I asked if she wanted to read "Franklin and Harriet", a book I got her at Christmas. She says, "that book's too scary!" (there is a part where a stuffed dog's tail gets ripped off in a tug-of-war between franklin and his little sister). Apparently I was scared of rips and the word "rip" as a child as well.

Puzzles...

She loves them. We have now graduated to 25 piece puzzles. She can even do the one from Uncle Greg with the animal shaped pieces once she had done it a few times. Occasionally she asks for help if she gets frustrated, so she likes if someone sits with her while she does it, but she can do the entire thing by herself. She understands the concepts of edge pieces and looking at the picture on the box. She is so squirmy that she often kneels on the puzzle and has to put it back together. When she is a little bit crazy she gets her pretend vaccuum to bust it up when it's all done. I know it was just Christmas, but the puzzles at Zellers were $1.60 and I want to get more.

We even have a beautiful floor puzzle from Pottery Barn Kids from Auntie Amanda that is a bit tricky. It requires help, but it is nice for downstairs on the hardwood floor as a project to do together.

Back to School Blues??

The Christmas break was relativerly tantrum free. Yesterday when I tried to take her to Book Nook she went ballistic. I know she was a bit tired, but it took over an hour to get her ready and out the door. Luckily, we normally spend some time at the library beforehand so we had to cut that short to make it to the class on time. She had fun at the class as she always did before Christmas. But even before Christmas, it was hard to get her to go to the class. Before Christmas I just attributed the blow ups to her needing a little break from classes, and more time at home. Now that she has had that I thought she would be excited to get back to a class with other kids. Nope. If this happens every week we may have to drop out. It isn't worth it.

I don't understand why she is fine to go to the grocery store normally, but won't get ready for the class. Maybe she doesn't like being around other kids that she doesn't know. Tomorrow we have another class and I am already dreading it/planning our house exiting strategy in advance.

Paige's First Bad Word...

Paige repeated her first swear on Christmas day. The "S" word. Thanks Grandpa.

Now, there is no fear she will repeat one from me and I attribute it to my parents being cautious as I grew up. Apparently that all goes out the window when you have Grand kids....

Happy New Year!!

We rang in the New Year by jumping into bed at 11:00 and falling asleep. Primarily, my back injury was at the peak of agonizing, we were just too tired to stay up. Mike was even too tired to play video games. Good thing though as Paige went to bed way too late, and as a result woke up at 5:30 asking to go to the bathroom but refusing to go. After this it was a big battle with her waking up again at 6:30 and eventually going to the bathroom at 7:00, and then demanding to sit with me in the loft. By this point there was no reason in trying to put her back to bed, so I said,"you want to get up for the day? fine. Let's turn on the lights!". After this she only wanted to sit with me, so I put on an episode of Project Runway which resulted in this:

She slept for about an hour and a half like this while I had cereal and watched almost 2 episodes of the show.

Paige went to bed late as we were at Katharine and Craig's house until "late"--9:45. Paige was so tired and looked like she was going to pass out while we were there so we left and she fell asleep on the 1 minute 30 second car ride home (they live really close--walkable in summer, but not walkable with injury in the winter cold!). We had a nice dinner, and the 2 girls ran around like crazy people for a few hours making a HUGE mess while we played Beatles Rock Band.

New Years Eve Swimming...

Daddy and Paige went swimming in the morning while Mommy watched from the sidelines with a tea. Mike has this week off after leaving one job and starting on his own business full-time.