On Being Unique

This spring and summer, I have been observing my 18-month old daughter and finding out who she is.  I have come to accept the fact that she doesn't play with dolls or girly stuff much, she is a very unique child and I love her for all her quirks.  She doesn't play with kids her own age, she will stand in the corner and watch them play.  She doesn't say much around people but when she is in her room with her monkey, she has a full vocabulary (thank god for baby monitors).  What she does say around us is mostly babble still but usually followed by a "bad dog" "bad dad" or something like that and including room for the usual F-bomb.  Yes my child uses the F-bomb and says "Shit" in context. We try to sensor her from what we think is excessive but most of the time, she comes with us everywhere we go.  We went to a friend's farm for a birthday/father's day BBQ, when most of the kids were going to bed, my daughter was just getting started.  She is a party animal and danced to popular, country, folk and rock music until close to 2am when I pulled the plug and decided it was time to go home.   My girl doesn't like to wear shoes, eat indoors and loves animals of all kinds (including magpies which are considered pests here, she would rather share her lunch with them).  She is a kind spirit that would run free as she tries to do every opportunity she gets when we leave the front door open.  She has figured out how to communicate what she wants without words because she doesn't like to talk.  She will repeat words like a parrot when she feels like it otherwise we get "DON'T".  She doesn't use the word "No" as we try not to use no with her, she is gentle when she wants to be and worries if someone gets hurt or is crying but doesn't break out in hysterics over someone else.  She throws herself to the ground and arches her back when things aren't going her way, her version of a tantrum which ends up with all of us laughing most of the time.  What I Love most of all about my daughter is the fact that when I tuck her into bed every night, she looks at me and says "Je t'aime!"  It makes every moment of letting the little things slide and letting her discover who she wants to be without trying to shape her in any way all that more better.  On a closing note, she now rubs and kisses my belly and calls it "Baby" but I am not entirely convinced she knows what is going on.

Thanks for the thoughts...

Since we spilled the news of my pregnancy to our family and friends a few weeks ago, I have had an outpour of imput from people.  Lots of opinions on how to go about birth and dealing with two children.  Thanks for all your thoughts but I am at a point now where I can't handle hearing anymore criticism, opinions and suggestions from anyone.  Be it negative or positive, I am tired of feeling inadequate as a parent and as a woman because of someone else's ideals.  Being at a very hormonal stage of my pregnancy, I am at a point where I will burst into tears over someone's stupid comments. 
So my conclusion is now to not discuss parenting, birth or pregnancy with anyone aside from my husband and a very select few people (you will know who you are).  What choices that Laurence and I make this time are about us and our growing family and what is in all of our best interests.  So when it comes to my life, details are on a need-to-know basis for now.  I will start to post again one I have regained a level mind.
Good Bye for now,
Carlee

Shopping with a toddler...

This weekend, we went grocery shopping with Anomantia and she stayed in the cart the whole time (this never happens).  After the grocery store, we made a quick stop at the Body Shop for some lotion, Anomantia insisted on coming inside with Nadia and I.  While we were in the store she made a point of making a break for it every two seconds until I discovered a bin full of shower puffs at her height.  All of a sudden she was thrilled to have something to play with while I paid for my lotion and waited on Nadia.  When Anomantia realised that her dad wasn't with us, she started heading for the door again, totally ignoring the puffs.  Meanwhile I had purchased one for her... mine is kind of old and needs to be thrown away anyways.  I gave it to her outside of the store, she took one look at it and started back into the store to put it back giving me a dirty look like "mum, don't you know we're not supposed to take stuff that isn't ours".  I found it so funny and the ladies in the store were certainly amused with her behaviour.  At least she knows (maybe) not to shoplift.  She has all sorts of quirks that make my life so interesting right now.  And I know that we are sure thrilled with who she is.

Gardening

Today we started off going to Canadian Tire to get a thatching rake for the lawn and ended up coming out with a bunch of other stuff and not a thatching rake.  We came home and started in on our garden, getting the greenhouse all ready and planting in the front planter.  After her nap, Anomantia, decided to join me outside in the greenhouse.  I was in the middle of installing our new in-planter watering system in the greenhouse.  Anomantia managed to dig it all up before I even got it totally installed so I had to start from scratch again.  The same went for the seeds I tried planting.  Meanwhile she managed to eat two fist fulls of potting soil and a few seeds too, dropped one marker between the slats in the floor and starting planting rocks in with my already planted seeds.  My conclusion is that gardening with an almost 17 month old should be avoided when in tight quarters, with the exception of the little dirt covered hands on my shoulder and little face leaning in to say "hi" and "what's up?" every few minutes.  And her helpful ways of pulling twigs out of my potting mix and licking the excess dirt off the twigs before throwing them on the floor.

too long...

I guess that leaving this for two months is just too long.  We have changed, done and accomplished so much in a couple of months. 
In March, everything was a bit of a blur and all I remember is working lots and hanging out with Anomantia on my weekends as Laurence worked his butt off to get the business off the ground.  Laurence and Anomantia made a trip to the coast to visit his parents while I stayed home and worked.  I know I swore that I would never allow it and believe me it was a brutal seven days without my family.  I will NEVER do that again. 
In April, we opened our arms to Nadia, Laurence's cousin from Denmark who is staying with us here in Gurneyland for awhile before heading to visit more family on the coast.  For Easter long weekend/ Nadia's birthday, we went to the W.E.M. and had a blast in the waterpark and exploring the city.  Anomantia is finally feeling better after her first (and hopefully her last) ear infection.  She is growing into such a wonderful girl.  And the best part of April, we found out that we are expecting again.  Ironically I have the exact same due date as I did with Anomantia.  
And now it is May, with mother's day and Laurence's birthday approaching, we have absolutely no plans in the works, as we don't celebrate these two holidays.  Laurence doesn't like to celebrate his birthday so that is by his choice and well, mother's day always seems to be just forgotten except for the phone call to my MIL. 
We are all keeping busy now that the warm weather has arrived and I realised that there really are only two seasons here: winter and construction.  Because when one ends the other begins again, there is no in between or peace and quiet... Perhaps that is why I like the winter so much.  Even after six months of white stuff, I am ready for the spring but already being so warm, it jumps straight into full blown construction.
On my drive home tonight, I saw a hotel on fire.  There were five fire engines and several police cars there to control the scene already.  I had never seen a building on fire in person before.  The air quality was poor and smokey and the visibility was limited.  It was a unique experience, one which I hope I will never have to relive.

I will leave on a upbeat note, we are going for our first ultrasound on the 11th of May and I am looking forward to seeing my little sea monkey.

is it spring yet??

So I guess I am ready for a change in weather.  Since we moved here in 2006, our winters have been relatively mild.  This winter, feels incredibly long and cold.  Our snow base is more than we have had in five winters.  Really I am ready for the two and half feet of snow to melt and for the sun to shine once again.  It has been grey here, really grey and all I really want to do is hang my laundry on the clothesline and air my stuffy house out.  I want to get the saw out of the entrance way and finish off all the renos and have the house put back together sooner rather than later.  But I know better than to get my hopes up because something always gets in the way.  I can't wait to plant my garden and for the local farmer's market to start up again.  I always love the beginning of spring.  When the white snow melts away and the green starts to come back.  And being able to walk around the ponds again looking for the pussy willows and buds on the trees.  I am looking forward to sewing Anomantia's Easter dress and getting ready for family visits.  With all the work to do around our home, it keeps me ever so busy but not too busy to enjoy the little things.  I am enjoying all that I can on my days off, unfortunately I still have to work four days per week.
This weekend, Laurence had to be out for work, so Anomantia and I travelled with him.  We also got the opportunity to go to a couple of pet stores.  Anomantia LOVES animals and gets so excited when she gets the chance to see them upclose.  She even got to hold an albino bunny.  It was so cute.  She loves cats and dogs and horses and pretty much anything that is fuzzy and makes noises.  With all of Laurence's allergies, we are not able to have pets in our home and we feel our yard is too small to accomodate an animal, plus the weather in the winter is far too cold for a cat or dog to survive strictly outdoors.  As much as I would love to get a dog for Anomantia, this will NOT happen.  Our home will remain animal-less until we can afford to move to a larger property with a barn for animals.  I am starting to get impatient for the spring to come so that I can take Anomantia to the zoo either north or south of Gurneyland but it all depends on how work is going. 
Lately I have been suffering from severely stiff hands and joints.  I am hoping that this is a temporary thing but it has been two weeks of barely being able to hold a pencil and getting white knuckled from only a few minutes of operating my grinder.  My GP wants me to see the surgeon to have scar tissue removed from the middle of my hand but this would result in lost time from work (not what I want right now).  I have kind of lost faith in him and his decisions since Anomantia's birth and since he decided to put me on medication with which I couldn't breastfeed anymore.  I stopped taking the meds after four days and gave it a few days to clear out of my system, then tried to get Anomantia to breastfeed again, but she wouldn't.  She weened herself, even when I wasn't ready for her to do so.  I am still suffering from engorgement and really unhappy that I was pressured into taking meds even when I didn't want to.  If I could change doctors at this point I would but the doctors here won't take a new patient unless they are without a current doctor.  Back to my chores and renos.

Family Day Weekend

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This weekend flew by in a blur, I feel like we spent the whole weekend in the kitchen playing on the floor.  Saturday, we did all of our errands, including Anomantia's 1yr immunizations and running around so that we could spend 2 full days as a family at home or doing activities that we enjoy.  Sunday we started our day off with our usual waffles and bacon breakfast only this week to mix it up with Blueberry waffles and ham instead of bacon.  Anomantia spent the better part of my preparing breakfast sitting on the floor next to where I was working eating frozen blueberries.  By the time she was done eating breakfast, her face was covered with blueberries. (pictures1,2,3).

After breakfast, we cleaned up and played a bit before Anomantia went down for a nap.  While she was napping, Laurence and I managed to finally get the casing around our living room window installed.  One window down five more to go.  After her nap, Laurence made Anomantia a new toy because she kept on stealing the potatoes I was trying to peel for Sunday evening's dinner.  (picture 4).  Meet our new addition, Beaver the potato head.  We are oh so creative with names in our house, her toys are all like: Bear, Monkey, other Monkey, Moose with calf, you get the point.  She doesn't really play with dolls, she prefers her trucks and trains and cars better. 

Sunday evening after dinner, we decided to make cookies.  Anomantia wanted to help, so I let her be my tester. (pictures 5,6).  By the time is was bedtime, she had Blueberries and chocolate all over my kitchen floor and walls and cabinets, on the fridge, the front of the dishwasher and oven door.  I am still finding little sticky hand prints all over the place.  By Sunday night, I felt like I had spent the entire day in the kitchen. 

Monday, was a statutory holiday for us here in Gurneyland.  Meaning NO WORK! Yahoo!   For Family Day, our community organisation (we are on the board of directors) had planned their annual Sleigh ride in the park.  We lucked out with the weather as it warmed up to -5ºC for the afternoon but it is supposed to cool off to -20ºC again tomorrow. (sigh!)  With all the warm then cold weather we've been having, I am ready for spring and for the 2 to 3 feet of snow in my yard to melt. 

This evening, we made red berry syrup for our ice cream dessert.  It came our very similar to Danish rødgrød med fløde only we didn't thicken it as much.  Anomantia loved it!  (pictures 9,10,11,12)  She spent the first part of dessert walking back and forth between Laurence and I eating out of her bowl and finishing off most of Laurence's too.  Finally she sat down in front of the fridge and finished off her bowl full.  I think she wore most of it, but at least she enjoyed it. 

This weekend Anomantia let me look in her mouth and not just probe it with her toothbrush, she now has 2 molars on her left hand side and the top right hand one is ready to break through, the bottom one still looks like it will be awhile though.  She also demonstrated her vocabulary to us by taking a clean sock from the laundry bin and handing it to me and said "sock" and then again tonight she handed it to me and said "chausette" (which is french for sock).  She is ever changing and growing.  As of Saturday morning, she was 30.5 inches long and 22lbs 8oz.  She has gone down in weight since we last weighed her, but she has also started crawling and walking since her last weigh in too (I think). I am a little confused with her weight issue as she weighed 22lbs at 8 months old and here we are 6 months later and she is back to 22lbs after being weighed in at almost 30lbs a little under 3 months ago.  I guess I will have to talk to her doctor about all of this because the public health nurse was unsure about it all.  Any how it will be another early morning tomorrow so I am off to sleep. I hope everyone had as good of a weekend as I did and that you all enjoy your week.  Good Night.