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.

Update

So after the week long rage-fest at bedtime I implemented the sticker sleep chart. After 1 night she was sleeping through the night every night and going to bed fine. This was particularly nice to have some rest over Christmas. I think that not only did the chart help, but the new very nonchalant attitude regarding quiet time helped as well. I began to put her in her bed for quiet time after lunch, read her a few books, and then tell her I would be back in half an hour. After half an hour was up I would come in and say that quiet time was over. I would tell her what I did for quiet time as well (usually lie down!). I think this made her feel like her bed was less of a jail and more of a fun place to be. Half an hour is just enough time before she starts to call for me to come in and get her.

At bed time she now reads books with daddy or mommy, looks at them on her own for a bit, and then calls me in to take her to the bathroom one last time. It is usually quite a long time in the bathroom as she will wait until she forces out the most tiniest amount, at which point she is happy to get back in bed. While in the bathroom she talks and talks and talks, and I try to minimize my responses and stay quiet! This whole thing is quite the production, but I much prefer this to the rage-fest, obviously. And if squeezing out the tiniest amount on the potty is what makes her sleep all night long, then fine!

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Paige's talking makes me laugh. She adds on so many expressions to her sentences, like these couple from the past day: "didn't we?", and "I don't want to do that anymore, nope". She does it all the time that I find it hard to keep track and remember them all. I am constantly laughing and smiling from all of the new things I hear her say. I find myself jumping on bad grammar as well. This morning she said, "I didn't do nothing with the tv". UGH. I had to tell her "I didn't do anything" was the more appropriate thing to say. I just can't let it go. Using the word "nothing" instead of "anything" makes me feel ill. Blech! Along with using the word "seen" instead of "saw". Blech! Blech!!