18
January
Towards Independence
There are times when I am astounded by how quickly the lils grow up. Some days I see every little change and difference in them, including apparent over night growth spurts. Other times I find myself realizing that they have new tricks, and have seemingly been up to them for weeks. Willy and I frequently have conversations that centre around statements like “did you know that Woo/Goose can now…” Over the last week or so I have noticed a few of these changes, and am starting to put them together.
Goose has progressed from a little girl who wore diapers to a big girl who goes to the bathroom all by herself, telling me “I don’t need you, Mommy”, as she goes. This has happened in the last month. Sure she has the occasional problem getting her pants down or she gets tangled up in them and makes a mess, but it is progress. When she makes those messes, she even tries to clean them by herself!
This week Woo has become a skating machine. He has always been keen, and enjoyed his time on the ice. We got him on cheese cutters when he was not yet two, and moved him to skates last year. He loved it, but was somewhat tentative. He used a chair to shuffle around the ice, but didn’t understand why he wasn’t moving as easily as he did on the cheese cutters. This week, he moved from the chair to shuffling on his own! The boy can skate! He now begs to skate everyday – and gets to whenever we can take him.
I think that the best part is that they are also moving to independence together. When they go down to the playroom in the basement, they no longer fight over who gets to turn on the lights at the bottom of the stairs. They have just figured out that only Woo can reach the lights at the top of the stairs, so he gets those, and Goose gets the ones that she can reach at the bottom. They used to fight over silly things like who gets which milk glass, but now they agree on which glass for the current meal, and plan to trade for the next. When they play together in their rooms, Goose will ask Woo to read a book to her, and he DOES.
How long before they get their own breakfast on saturday morning?
17
January
Setting a good example
Right before I got pregnant with Woo, I was in the best shape of my life. This also meant the lowest weight that I have been as an adult, but most importantly, I was in shape. Fit, healthy, and happy for it. It’s gone downhill since then. The children are not to blame for this, but they have been a convenient excuse.
“A week til the baby is due, then the baby is late, I’ll just lie on the couch and eat bonbons while I wait. For two weeks. And gain FIFTEEN pounds.”
“I’ll exercise when I feel better/recover”
“I’ll exercise when he sleeps through the night”
“I’m pregnant again, I’ll exercise when the baby is born”
“I’ll exercise when she sleeps through the night”
“I’ll exercise when I sleep through the night”
You get the picture. The thing is that I am out of excuses. So I recently started getting some exercise. I’ve started the 100 push-ups challenge (just finished week five!), do sit-ups every time I turn the computer on, and am making good friends with my elliptical again. In the first few weeks of this year, I think I have worked out more times than I did in the last four years. I have no idea if I have lost any weight in the last few weeks, but I feel great.
The neat thing is that the lils have noticed. I have started doing the push-ups and sit-ups with them around, and they now mimic me all the time. Today I learned that Goose can count to twenty, because she was doing a set of “sit-ups”, just like mommy. They also love to watch me on the elliptical, choose music for me to work out too, and like to get on with me. This is part of my cooldown now, although I am pretty sure that adding a 38 or 45 pound weight is not the best way to cooldown. They think it is hysterical though, and frequently ask when we can exercise again.
I have noted that I need to set a better example in one other facet of the workout regime that we have created together, and that is my music selection. It needs to be cleaned up because of the language in some stuff. Wearing my iPod doesn’t help, as apparently I like to sing out loud.
15
January
Post up at Kids in the Capital today!
I have a post up at Kids in the Capital today, talking about our new lunchtime favourite, the cheese train! It’s what we had for lunch today, in fact!
14
January
Creature of habit
I love my local Tim Hortons. It’s handy in that it is walking distance from my house, but in the opposite direction to my office. Still I go there on the two days that I travel into the office, even if it delays me. It’s not the food, or the coffee that keeps me coming back, although I do like the mildness of Tim’s coffee. The people there are what makes it worthwhile.
It’s one of those Timmies where the drive-thru is always lined up onto the road (I realize that this does not narrow it down at all), so I opt to go inside. Inside, where I get to meet the great people who work there. They are always happy to see me, greeting me with a smile and hello, and asking after my family and me. They miss me when I don’t come in, and worry if I am gone for more than a week without warning them. On the rare occasion that I have brought Woo and Goose in, they make a big fuss over them, and sneak them as many timbits as they can. They are just really kind people.
This month they have been training a new guy on the cash, and this was his first week working it solo. On his first day, I walked in and gave him my order of two coffees. Yes, two coffees, both for me. The coffee at my office is terrible. He started pouring and was stopped by one of his colleagues, who told him that I wanted extra larges, my usual. I let her know that it was OK, that was my order today. I also reassured the next person who tried to correct him, and the next, and the next. Four people were concerned enough to about my order that they needed to correct him. That is why I love my Timmies.
New guy wasn’t there the next day. I hope I didn’t have anything to do with that, I am sure that he is really nice.
10
January
Best Friends
When Woo started daycare at N’s there was just one other little person there, Cecil. We met him when we went to interview her, and the two dudes hit it off right away. He is just two months older than Woo, and very similar in temperament and disposition. He was Woo’s first friend, and they quickly became inseparable, best friends. Shortly after we started, two little girls joined the group and we thought that things would change. They didn’t. Woo and Cecil tolerated the girls and played with them, but they were really happiest in each other’s company.
N calls them her two old men, as they love to sit and chat for long periods of time. When they are not playing, they are usually on a bench, talking and snickering about who knows what. This wasn’t always the case though. When they first met Cecil wasn’t much of a talker. So they still sat, but Woo did all the talking.
They eat beside each other, sleep beside each other and play together constantly. They play hard too, running and rolling around, always laughing. About the same size, they are a good match. They know each others limits, and don’t often push them. The little girls try to join in on their tomfoolery, but it doesn’t always work out for them.
Then Goose was born, and a year later joined the little group. We wondered what would happen, and I worried that she might be the odd one out. She wasn’t though, she just joined right in with Woo and Cecil. The duo became a trio and they were happy playing together. She could keep up with their craziness, and contributed some of her own.
As they have gotten older, and started to play with each other outside of daycare, we’ve gotten to see more how their friendship works The biggest thing that we have noticed is just how important Goose is to Cecil, and how little it bothers Woo. He makes room for her, happily sharing his best bud with his little sister. I love this.
9
January
Big Day
There is something monumental happening in our house right now. It’s a load of laundry. Something I have done every second day for the last almost four years, but that I won’t be doing after today. I’m washing diapers, giving them their last super wash before I find new homes for them. We don’t need them anymore, as our little girl is now a big girl. One that only uses the “potty”.
She started just before Christmas, declaring that she was ready to wear underwear. We had been talking it up for weeks, and were pleased that she was buying in. We put them on her the first day of the holidays, curious to see what would happen. We have not looked back. She was a little timid at first, only going to the washroom when asked told that she needed to go, and sometimes fighting us on it. She has gradually started telling us, and we are at the point where we don’t need to ask her anymore, unless we are out of the house. She just tells us. Or pulls her pants and undies down in the middle of the room to let us know.
She had her fair share of accidents though, but no more than two in one day. Those accidents freaked her out too. She did not like the mess that she made, and was quite ashamed when it happened. With her last accident she begged Daddy not to tell Mommy. This was not because she thought I would get upset, but because she didn’t want anyone else to know. We’ve now gone ten days with only one accident!
She loves all the fun undies, and hates to take them off. From the start, we had to leave them on under her diaper that she wore for naps because she refused to let them be removed. She has started asking to do the same at night, although we know she is not ready for that quite yet. We are encouraged by the semi-regular night wakings with calls of “need to pee” that we have had this week.
This is so liberating. I have loved cloth diapering, but the washing can be a chore at times. We don’t need a diaper bag when we go out anymore, except maybe to carry spare clothes for the time being. Travel just got easier too, as we don’t have to figure out laundry or pack diapers. There are bonuses for her too. Her wardrobe has expanded, as she can wear jeans and cords now, most of which aren’t cut for cloth. She will have to learn that there is less padding there now. As I remember from Woo, those first few falls hurt a lot!
I don’t want to jinx it, but I think this might really be the end of our daytime diapers!
5
January
Wordless Wednesday, some my favourites from 2010
Decisions, decisions
Woe is Woo
Good Day
Frosty Dock
Memorial Ride
When Queen Anne’s Lace dies
Three Strikes
My grandfather, husband and daughter
X is for Xcited
Discovery
4
January
Just like me
Goose looks like me. She is a virtual twin of me at the same age (though she has my sister’s nose). I am told that she has my disposition, which makes sense given that she is so smiley and happy all of the time. I love that she is my mini-me, and can’t wait to see her grow and mature, and see if we remain similar, though I have no expectation that she will be like me at all. Still, in some ways it will be like watching myself grow up.
I have this problem though. I am stubborn. Not just the a little stuck in my ways stubborn, but the dig your heels in – I will never back down kind of stubborn. I come from a long line of stubborn people, on both sides of my family. My mom and my father’s father are probably the most stubborn of the bunch, which explains why they do not get along. This week it has become abundantly clear that I have passed this little trait on to Goose.
At this time of year, I expect to have small battles with the lils about their winter clothing, but the lure of outside usually wins and they get dressed and we go to play. Occasionally hats and mittens come off in the course of that play, but the cold air and wet snow convince them to put them back on and we continue to play. Goose has been going through a phase of late where she refuses to wear her mittens outside for very long and it gets worse with every trip. I previously thought that she would give up and put them back on when her hands got cold, but it has become clear that I was far to optimistic. She continues to play until her hands are little icebergs and the tears start.
Today I took a stand, and told her that she was not going outside without the mittens on her hands. She kept insisting that she would not, but I kept dressing her, knowing that she would relent when she saw that I was serious and she wasn’t getting out without them. Once the boots were on she marched to the door and asked that I open it. “Not without your mittens”, I said, and held one up. She shook her head and stamped her feet and insisted that there would be not mittens. I tried a few more times, but her answer never changed. Even when I walked away, she stood quietly by the door, fully dressed including her hat and scarf, and she waited. A couple of times we played the game where I asked if she wanted out and she said yes, only to refuse her mittens. Finally I told her that she had to either put the mittens on or stay in. “NO MITTENS” was her response.
So I undressed her and told her she could go outside tomorrow, if she wore her mittens. “Yes, Mama”, she said, and went running off to play. A few minutes later I noticed that she was playing with her new baking set, and wearing her oven mitts.
Goose, AKA mini-me