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.

When bloggers unite....

This morning Paige and I went to meet some new friends (Cara and her daughter Leyla) at a drop in play group. We met through our blogs, and after months of exchanging blog comments decided to get together. You could call it a blind play-date (except I knew who to look out for from the pictures on the blog...and felt like I knew a lot about them, so I suppose it wasn't a blind play-date at all). And there was one time over a year ago when I saw them in a drugstore, knowing very well that I recognized them from the blog, but didn't say anything since that would come across and stalkerish and strange since I didn't even know they lived in Burlington, and I hadn't introduced myself as a reader online. How weird is that?

But anyway, it was fun to meet some new friends since we have been reading about them for a long time! Unfortunately the drop in place was a zoo, and looked like a daycare from Hell with kids running all over the place (it was in a church though so I guess I shouldn't say that). It's really nice that they offer these things for free though, and even have crafts and circle time.

I normally do a lot of cleaning on Friday afternoons, but instead I'm blogging and banking online. The reason for this lack of cleaning can be attributed to the following: We have a door mat in our house that I had never cleaned before. I'm embarrassed to say that I thought it was something that you used until it was too dirty and then threw out. Well, apparently it can be cleaned. After I washed it and then had to clean both the washer and dryer from 3 years worth of mess from the mat, it was spotless. Now our hardwood floor is immaculate since Paige isn't traipsing dirt all over the place. I was about to mop and thought, "what's the point??". Now I will just wait till Paige is up so I can do jobs that might, God forbid, wake her up.

Paige is off to a sleepover tonight so Mike and I can go out with Amanda and James for dinner. I promise at some point over the weekend I'll take some Paige pictures and put them up since I have been seriously slacking lately.

Boy vs. Girl

It dawned on me the other day that I could try to teach Paige boy vs. girl. So I said "Paige--girl, mommy--girl, daddy--boy". And then I name off other people and she guesses if they are a boy or girl. I say guesses because I'm not quite sure she has grasped the concept of gender yet. She said "Tyson Boy!" right away, but has gotten mixed up a couple of other times. I think she can basically understand it, she just needs to get the words memorized. Now I often find her pointing to herself and saying "Paige girl", or saying it as she is in her crib.

Next semester...

I keep referring to each round of sessions of programs for Paige as "semesters". haha. So next semester we have Diaper Fit on Tuesday morning, Water Stars on Wednesdays at 5:30, Our Special Time on Thursday mornings, and Tumble Tots on Friday mornings. That should keep us busy. Add in grocery shopping and playdates, and we're good to go! I felt like we could do with one more thing (gymnastics is new) since Paige wakes up so early now and by the time 9:00 hits she has played with most of her toys and done a craft (and watched a Dora or Wonder Pets). I don't feel like I need to get her any more toys since I know she won't play with them. She just likes getting out of the house and seeing new things and burning off energy on slides and that sort of thing. Summer will be great for that when we can just go outside. I've been looking into kids tables or a sandbox for outside. I'm thinking we need something for her outside that has an umbrella. Our backyard has sun for the entire day. But anyway, we've got a lot of time to think about that.

Back to the toys though. When I see her at Our Special Time, her favourite thing to do when she is in a room filled with toys is collect things. She will find anything matching...like these coloured ball things. She will then walk around with all of them at once. Or get the baby stroller and push them around. This is the exact same thing that she does at home. So I'm not seeing anything new in the way of toys that I have to get her. Actually, I think she could do with a new puzzle. I like that...educational, easy to store, lasts for a long time.

Trip to the zoo.....

We decided to go to the zoo this past weekend since it wouldn't be busy and I had a super long week with the "no napping malarkey". We had a fantastic day, and there were only ever about 3 other people looking at each exhibit. Paige said hi and bye to all of the animals. We spent around 3 hours at the zoo and Paige slept in the car on the way there and back, so she was in good spirits all day. I think her favourite part was walking around on her own in the pavillions. The floors were inclining and declining and she kept saying "climb climb climb!!!". She got enough walking in that she didn't mind going back in the stroller every so often for a rest.