Christmas-ready.....

The house is all decked out. Looking around barely anyone has their lights up yet, but since we leave for Edmonton in 4 weeks we wanted time to enjoy the lights and tree as a family. Within the 4 weeks there are dinners and Christmas parties to attend, so we wanted maximum time with the decorations on the weekends and evenings. Paige has been attempting to pull the ornaments off but oh well.

This is Paige today in her sweater-dress. Mommy is jealous and is desperately looking online for something similar....

Walking in a Winter Wonderland (for the first time).....

This was the scene we woke up to this morning at the cottage. After the rain had stopped and the snow started coming down, it created the perfect conditions for these snow-covered trees. The snow was actually quite deep in some spots, and when Paige walked in the snow for the first time, it was definitely up to her knees. She got the hang of it after a little while but at first she was only able to do a little shuffling. Also, the only suitable footwear was a pair of too-big rubber boots, which were probably tricky for her to walk in. She was definitely confused and excited about the overnight landscape change. SNOW! she can now say...

Paige wore pyjamas all day, under her snowsuit and to the store. Here she is with her new slippers on playing with a flashlight....

correction!!??

I can't believe nobody corrected me.....

Paige's length on the right side of the screen was listed as 19.5cm, rather than inches. I just noticed that now! Yikes! That's one tiny baby!

Randoms...

I felt around in Paige's mouth at lunchtime and discovered that she has 2 random top molars--one on each side. On the bottom of her mouth on each side, directly below the top randoms, are huge swollen lumps where 2 more molars are making their way (painfully, I assume) up. Poor thing. The only way I could look in her mouth was to feed her raisins and get my fingers in there at the same time. She discovered she likes raisins and she thinks she has to sit on a certain spot of the kitchen floor to get them.

Extreme meltdown....

Even though it is freezing out, I really thought that a bit of fresh air would be good for Paige. She had slept in this morning and I wanted to ensure she had a really good nap this afternoon. I also wanted to test out her winter coat that she detested. I brought the coat out, no problems. Put it on, no problem. Went out on the sidewalk...smiling laughing, seemingly liking the new winter coat. That was my biggest worry.

We got to the other side of the crescent where you can exit to another street that leads to the park. "Ya?" she says, and points to the park..."slide?". I let her continue to walk to the park, and as we get closer I say, "mommy carry you?". "Ya", she says. So, I carry her the rest of the way to the park...all smiles. She goes a few times down the slide, but the temperature is about 1 degree and windy and she has taken off her mitts. Time to go after about 10 minutes.

So, I pick her up to carry her to the path. SCREAMING!!!! Now, I can understand that she would like to stay at the park, so this doesn't alarm me and I carry her further down the path away from the park and put her on the ground. Still screaming, trying to walk back to the park, pulling off hat. So, I have to continue to carry her farther, but this makes her more and more mad to the point where she is jerking her body and screaming, and I can barely carry her. At this point if I put her on the ground she just sits down and waves her arms frantically saying "no". She resists being carried, but really what can I do? I have to pick up a spastic screaming child and carry her home. Then she starts screaming "jacket!!". It is too cold to take off her jacket so I leave it on until we get a little way into our street. At this point I am carrying a jacketless, mittless, hatless, screaming, spastic child down the street along with all of her discarded clothing.

When we got to the house we sat on the floor and I was whispering to her...why are you so crazy? why were you crying? She was just silent, staring at the floor sniffing. Then..."do you not like your mommy?" shakes her head and says no (hey!!!) She grabs her baby from the stairs and proceeds to take off the shirt and hat. "Hat? Shirt?" she says and them to me to put back on the baby. So that was that.....??

I realize the entire thing boils down to extreme tiredness as she passed out when i fed her a naptime bottle. I am never going to the park without a stroller before naptime again!!! Better to go first thing or not at all. My arms and back are killing me from carrying her so far.

Trip to the Royal Winter Agricultural Fair....

Hmm... it's snowing outside, nice...

Anyway, on Saturday we decided to go for a day trip to the Royal Winter Fair. The main attractions there are the petting zoo, the animals (cows, pigs, goats, chickens, etc.), the food, and the dog show. Of course, if you own a farm, there are also plenty of exhibitors there selling horse equipment, etc. I have to admit, I was mainly excited to show Paige the dog show since she loooves dogs. However, when it came time for the dog show to start, there were no seats left in the auditorium. The next show wasn't until 2:30, but we had left the house at 9:15. We knew she wouldn't make it. Mike was right when he said we should get seats early, but we decided she probably wouldn't last waiting in the auditorium for it to start. I was quite sad about that, but we were able to spend a lot of time at the petting zoo which she loved. She learned how to properly feed the animals, and was trying to kiss them constantly. She even went in for a little snuggle with a goat. I had to pull her away from that one since it made me nervous. In the end, I'm excited to take her back next year when she is interested in even more, and we can allow more time to be seated for the dog show.

Conversations with Paige....

Scene: Paige is poking the electrical outlet and touching the cord that is plugged into it.

Mommy: Paige, no, don't touch that...danger.

Paige: Danger.....no....hot..

Mommy: Exactly

Paige: Exactly (Acty)

Swiming lessons today...

Actually, come to think of it, I have not mentioned anything about her new swimming lessons. Since our last lessons wrapped up in June, she is significantly different in these set of lessons (water explorers) than she was during the last session. She is a lot squirmier and ready to participate than she was in the last session. And when we are practicing "jumps" off the side, she likes to stomp in the water and try to run away. Now that she is talking as well, she can tell me what she is interested in doing....always "slide", or "boat".

The lessons are pretty much identical to the lower levels (same songs, etc.), but it is kind of nice to see how she has changed. We're grouped in with the older kids from Water Stars, so there are some things that are beyond her abilities, but at this age it really doesn't matter.

Today at the lesson, the one instructor was making a surprised look at Paige with his mouth open. Everytime he came around her she would imitate the surprised look. When it came time to go down the slide for the second time around, I put Paige on the ledge of the pool as the other female instructor was going to lead her to the steps of the slide. Paige turned around and grabbed my neck in a big hug as if she wanted me to go with her. Then as the instructor took her hand she turned around and said "Mama!" and then saw the male instructor and made the surprised look that he had been doing. At that point she was ok. I basically think she is starting to get a little mommy-clingy in certain situations, but when she saw that she had a bit of a connection with the instructor she was ok to leave me.

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I find it funny that Paige often points to a little boy in her swimming class and says "Baby!". She says this about the smallest boy in the class. I love how she doesn't know that she is pretty much a baby herself...

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Speaking of the swimming pool, we have been doing Diaperfit on Tuedays, but not sure for how much longer. Paige sometimes tries to escape from her little fish seat in the water, to the point where I wonder if she might actually get out eventually. I really love Diaperfit, so it might be sad to leave it behind, but in the winter there is a Baby and Mommy Ballet class that is at the same time. We'll see....

She knows the neighbourhood....

I find it so odd that Paige has a sense of what everything is in the neighbourhood. For example, outside the grocery store she points to the left and says "Abby!" (puppy), "ya?". What she means is, "I know the pet store is down there...let's go!"

Also, upon pulling up to the swimming pool yesterday she said clearly, "Swimming". And today she said "slide....weeee".

When we pull up to Amy's house she says, "Amy". And when we pull up to Grandma and Grandpa's it's "Bampa!"

I mean, I know she is getting older and this is normal, it just reminds me that she is so aware of everything, and is able to recognize buildings and her surroundings so well.

Halloween night...

Paige had her first trick-or-treating experience. After a little coaxing, daddy was able to get her to walk across the street with him to visit 4 houses. She got quite a bit of loot. The highlight of the evening for me was when she was directly across the street at a house and turned around and yelled "MAMA" and waved. Brought tears to my eyes. She caught on very quickly that the procedure was to get a candy from the bowl and wait for a kid to come and open their bag. She would then drop the candy in and get a new one. Since the night was so warm we had our door open most of the night, watching the kids and waiting for them to arrive. Paige would often just stand with an outstretched arm and a candy ready to go. After she got used to handing out the candy, she thought it was a better idea to leave the house and run down the driveway repeatedly. That's when we finally had to close the door and let her eat her first mini chocolate bar.