At least she's never said that about my cooking!

"This icing is atrocious!" Rachel informed Ben after tasting the icing on her piece of cake after shul this morning.

"Is it? Do you know what that means?" Ben replied.

"Yes, it means AWFUL!" said Rachel indignantly. "I'm never having anything with coloured icing at shul ever again."

(A few weeks ago she had a piece of cake that had lemon icing. Jaded for life, I tell you.)

Bad dreams? I'm not so sure...

Rachel has been coming downstairs shortly after we put her to bed lately, claiming that she had a bad dream. I usually give her very little sympathy, send her to the bathroom (yes, she almost always has to go!) and send her back upstairs telling her that I've put a good dream in her bed.

Well, now she thinks that we stock her bed with good dreams. This would be funny, except that she also wants details about these dreams. Most of the time, the dreams feature elephants, princesses, candy, fairies, butterflies, rainbows, and other happy things. We've also taken to reminding her before bed that there are lots of good dreams in her bed.

Tonight she came down, and I sent her to the bathroom. As she was finishing up, she started to say, "Mom, I have to tell you something..." I cut her off, and explained that I had no desire to hear it since it was past her bedtime and she was going back to bed.

"But I did have one good dream, Mom! It was about gummi bears! And elephants!"

Needless to say, I walked her right back upstairs, told her there were good dreams in her bed and I didn't want to see her again before morning. So far, so good.

Captain Oblivious Strikes Again!

Ben took Rachel and Anna to the bookstore this morning to give me a break since I've got the nasty head cold & allergy combo that has knocked me right out.

As they were getting in the car to come home, Rachel said to Ben, "Are you the only grown-up that came with us?" She was evidently concerned that I might have gotten left behind at the bookstore.

The Absent-minded 5-year-old

I think that Rachel just hit a new low. She finished her snack (a bowl of veggie chips) and said to me, "Mom, what was snack?"

Me: "Rachel, you just had it."
Rachel: "But what was it?"
Me: "You just ate it. You don't remember?"
Rachel: "No."

I should point out that she had her nose in a magazine the entire time she was eating her snack. She's now moved on to apple pieces with a book. That's my girl!

How do we not need these?

I suspect a certain friend of mine from U of T days will back me up on this one! At least she'd better...

http://www.popdeluxe.net/food-face-plate-fred.html

Sorry, I can't get the site to come up as a link. I have no clue why not.

Insert creative title here

Today Ben taught Anna to say, "Hi, stinker!" She also said "Why?" when I asked her something.

The girls went to the zoo with Ben this morning. Anna liked the mom-keys and Rachel of course was all over the elephants. Tonight we are going to Penguin Park. Actually, that's not quite true. I am going to play a crazy wedding about 2 miles from Penguin Park, so Ben and the girls will play while I am working.

Anna's Vocabulary List

Hi
Bye-bye
There-you-go (said very quickly as one word)
Here-you-go
Good-girl
Good-job
Yeah
Yay
No
This
That
Anna
Rach
Mom
Mom-key (her word for her new stuffed monkey! So cute!)
Dada
Bobbow (bottle)
Ball
Up
Down
Book
Bookssssssssssssss (yes, s is her new letter sound and must be repeated at all times!)
Nice
Baby
Go
Highchair
Olly (aw-eeeeeee)
Thank-you
Shoes
Two-Three-GO! (after Ben says one)
All done! (ah-duh)

I know there a a few more that I'm forgetting.

Fork! Fork! I have a fork!

Stats

At 15 months, Anna is 32 inches tall and weighs 28 pounds, 9 ounces fully clothed (no shoes).

At 5 years and 1 month, Rachel is 45 1/4 inches tall and weighs 46.5 pounds fully clothed (no shoes).

Clearly my children are wasting away.

I am more than a little annoyed right now though. I dearly love our Britax Marathons, but I wish that Transport Canada would make up their minds what weight limit to put on them. I was just assuming that Anna's current Marathon (bought in 2007) was rear-facing to 33 pounds like Rachel's was. Then someone on a carseat forum told me that they have changed the weight back and forth from 30 to 33 pounds, meaning that I really needed to check what our seat said.

Sure enough, Anna's Marathon (which doesn't expire until 2013) is only rated to 30 pounds rear-facing, while Rachel's old one (expires in Jan.2010) goes to 33 pounds. We had left Rachel's seat with my mother to be used as a seat for Anna in her car until it expires, but now we will have to take it back with us so that we can keep Anna rear-facing a bit longer.

I know that we could turn her around now. We turned Rachel forward-facing at 13 months, and I'm pretty sure she was not much heavier than Anna is now. But all of the current research is pointing towards keeping kids rear-facing as long as possible, so we might as well get those extra few months. I'm sure that Anna will be thrilled once we finally turn her forward-facing, but she hasn't complained yet!

And go figure, the Marathon in Ben's (US) car is rated to 35 pounds rear-facing. So here's the real question. Is Transport Canada more stringent regarding safety laws or is there something else going on here? I actually tend to believe the former, because we are required to tether all rear-facing seats here and it's so much more securely installed that way.

Oh, come on!

Anna's been up for a little over an hour. Rachel just kind of half-surfaced and told me she was not awake. I suggested that she might want to hurry up and go to the bathroom before bath was ready, and that she could have a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast. (Nothing wrong with a little hotel bribery! We've also got cheese, yogurt and fruit in our room and I know she'll eat that too, so no lectures for me please!)

Rachel finally got out of bed and told me she just didn't have the energy to go to the bathroom. Ha! I told her that the chocolate chip cookie would give her some energy and she retorted, "No it won't! It's junk!"

An answer for everything

Aunt Rebecca sent Rachel an awesome pink kids' digital camera for her birthday. Rachel was thrilled the second she saw it. She read all of the packaging and was extremely excited that it was waterproof. On her first day with the camera, she took 374 pictures. Basically, it felt like we had a little spy wandering around the house since she was crazily clicking pictures of anything and everything. Apparently we now need to delete pictures of the babysitter's cleavage. ;) (Hey, Rachel's only so tall, you know?!)

The other day, we stopped at Grant's Farm in St. Louis on our way home to London. Grant's Farm is an awesome place! They have lots of different animals (including elephants) and there is free beer. Yes, free beer! I'm not arguing...

Rachel was being a bit careless with her camera, swinging it all over and just generally not paying attention, so I admonished her to be careful with it or she'd end up dropping and breaking it.

"But Mom, it's built to survive drop after drop after drop!" she told me as if I should have known that all along. Clearly someone is still very susceptible to advertising, this time the printed word on the packaging!

Bottomless pits and growing up too fast

Anna ate TWO pieces of pizza for dinner. You'd think we never feed her or something.

Our babysitter put Anna's hair up in a ponytail with one of Rachel's fancy bows today. She looked so much older all of a sudden!

For the past few nights, Rachel has been coming out of her room multiple times. Last night I just about throttled her. She woke up Anna at least twice, and just would not stop talking in her bed. She'd come downstairs with a little smirky smile on her face to tell me she'd had a bad dream, yet she ran back upstairs BY HERSELF after I promised her the good dream about the elephants/fairies/princesses/candy/flowers/butterflies/whatever was back in her bed. Ha!

It came to a head at 10:30 p.m. I finally had to go in and tell Rachel to "SHUT UP AND GO TO SLEEP NOW AND DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT COMING OUT OF YOUR ROOM UNTIL MORNING." She showed up in our room at 5:30. Luckily she went back to sleep until 8 a.m. Unluckily, Anna got up just before 6. Oops.

It's true. Every day you learn something.

Today I learned that one of the higher-ups in the nursing faculty at UMKC thinks that the American health care system is the envy of the world. I admit freely to snorting back my laughter.

I was even less amused a couple of hours later when another person in the nursing faculty commented how ridiculous it was that (for example) a history major would complain about having to be on campus for 12 hours of classes when nursing students clearly do so much more. Right, because those essays write themselves. And the books read themselves. Full of yourselves much, UMKC nursing school?

Ah, convocation. Gotta love it. I did find it interesting that no-one sang the national anthem along with the singer though.

In a few days we'll be playing for Western's med school convocation for something insane like the 12th or 13th year in a row. I can already tell you that I prefer the brevity of the UMKC convocation ceremony. We were done in just under an hour! Mind you, we probably don't sit on the stage at UWO for much more than that and it's paid social time. Hehe. I wonder if they serve drinks on campus at 11 a.m.? If they do, that's where you'll find us on Friday morning!

More of the same

At the post office this morning, the postal clerk and I were discussing postal rates and I commented how I didn't think US postage is expensive at all. When it came out that I was from Canada, he asked if we celebrated Mothers Day there. Yes, yes we do. In fact, we celebrate a lot of the same holidays. Go figure.

And to think that I once thought Rick Mercer exaggerated...

Yesterday I got my hair cut for the first time in a very long time. I found a great coupon online for first-time visitors to a nearby salon, so I figured I'd take advantage and get a good haircut for a good price!

While we were chatting, it came up that I hadn't had a haircut in over a year. The hairdresser asked me where I'd gone last time, and so it came out that we'd moved down here from Canada.

"So you're all fluent in French there, aren't you?" she stated in a not-really-questioning kind of way. Much to my chagrin, I had to admit that I speak French, but reiterated that NO, not all Canadians do, even though it's taught in the schools.

"So is it really freezing up there all the time?" she asked next. I politely responded that yes, it was colder there than in KC, and that my hometown of London gets up to 7 feet of snow every winter. I made my usual comments about how it's all what you're used to, and I won't do well in the heat down here this summer.

She then said something about a movie that I didn't catch, and finished up with, "Do Canadians really think all Americans are dumb?" Now tell me, how was I supposed to answer that? I thought I was very diplomatic when I responded with a truthful thought. I told her that I think all countries have some stereotypical ideas about other countries.

Her response? "Oh, I don't think I have any stereotypes of what Canadians are like."

You think that's all? Let's fast forward to this morning. Ben was at the barbershop. Yes, this week was family haircut week since Rachel also had hers trimmed today! (No haircut for Anna though!) He's been to this particular barber before. Last time, the barber who cut his hair asked Ben if Canadians had a civil war like the Americans did.

This time, there was a man in the adjacent chair who was talking about having met some Canadians the Royals-Jays game last week. He said they chatted over a couple of beers, and then ended with, "Those Canadians are all really nice!"

Clearly he hasn't met me! ;)

Oy

Remember my post a while back about Rachel putting boogers on her wall?

I commented to her this morning that she's had a nice clean nose for quite a while now. She seems to be over all of the continuous drippy running nose stuff that's been going around for months now, so I haven't needed to help her blow her nose that much. (She can almost do it by herself but just isn't quite there yet. You know what? That's ok!)

I (stupidly) followed up my comment by asking her where she was putting all her "snot". (Rachel refers to our nose-blowing sessions as "Snot Time" - I have no idea why!) She smiled secretively and muttered something about putting it where we wouldn't see it... WHAT!??!?! After a bit of questioning, it turns out that Rachel has been putting her boogers under her pillow, on the elephants on her safari sheets.

I just went upstairs to verify this, and, while it's not as bad as I'd thought it might be, apparently I will have to wash sheets more frequently than I have been doing!

I should know better by now

I have a little literalist with the memory of an elephant. Tonight Ben and I were both exhausted (so why am I still up at 11 p.m.!?!?) and couldn't wait for the girls to go to bed. Anna went to bed at 7 p.m. but Rachel claimed that she wasn't tired. Since her bedtime is usually between 7:30-8, this made sense.

I thought for a moment and then told her tonight was special. She would get special Rachel reading time in bed, while Mommy and Daddy would get special adult time. She was very excited about this, and rushed to get ready for bed. "Mommy, will you and Daddy have special adult time the whole time I'm reading?"

Ben called his grandma just before Anna went to bed. Rachel wanted to talk to Bubbie so we handed her the phone, only to hear her say, "I get special reading time in bed while Mom and Dad have special adult time!"

I would like to explain that our special adult time involved us eating a frozen pizza while chatting about things and getting the calendar up to date in between phone calls. ;) Just in case anyone was wondering...

Uh-oh.

We weaned Rachel from the bottle at 18 months. Shortly thereafter, she stopped drinking as much milk. Although Anna eats a wide variety of foods, I'm not ready for her to have a drastic drop in milk consumption just yet.

That said, I'm tired of constantly replacing her bottle nipples because the little imp chews on them and grins as she carries them around the house while drinking. Grr. We are down to one bottle again and I'm really reluctant to go buy more nipples, only she's not quite 15 months old yet so it feels early to be switching her fully to sippy cups.

Before anyone jumps on me and says "But she should have been drinking from cups at a year!" or some similar such nonsense, hear me out. No-one really blinks an eye at nursing babies beyond a year. So really, what's the difference? Anna's "bobbow" is as much for comfort as for nourishment, and I'm not that concerned about her still needing to suck a lot. (Nope, not taking the sucky away any time soon either!)

I have tried offering her milk in various types of sippy cups (hard spout, soft spout, take'n'toss, straw cup) and she takes a sip or two, then laughs at me and throws the cup down. She then heads for the fridge, saying pitifully, "Bobbow, bobbow!"

Why do I think that she's not going to accept the cold turkey approach the way Rachel did?

Anna's latest unwelcome trick is climbing onto the first stair, then waiting for me to come and find her there. When I do, she looks at me, wiggles her butt, and giggles like a maniac. I remove her. She does it again. It's a wonder that anything ever gets done around here!

As for sleeping, Anna is getting better! She still needs to be settled usually at least once per night, but she's slowly learning that the crib is her friend. ;)

Naptime isn't quite so fun. She's in the process of transitioning from two naps to one. This means that while she needs 2 naps, if she takes a long morning nap it's a fight to get her down for an afternoon nap. This resulted in a 6 p.m. bedtime last night. Today she got a 10 minute morning car nap on the way to pick up Rachel, and she easily took a 2 hour nap this afternoon.

She is still eating us out of house and home. Actually, both girls are doing that. Ben just finished giving his final exams today, so he was home for more of the day than he usually is. I think it was a bit of a shock for him to see how snacktime goes around here. He sat down at the kitchen table with the girls and seemed surprised that I wanted him to get up because he was in the way. ;) There's a lot of back and forth from the kitchen to the table because Rachel and Anna are bottomless pits when it comes to bedtime snack. More cheerios. More cheese. More fruit. More, more, more... no wonder Rachel needs all new clothes this summer!