Deja vu! Yes, you read the title correctly. We're going back to Kansas City in August, likely for 2 years while Ben works on his M.Mus. in Theory. He'll actually work on it, but the subject matter is music theory. ;) Hahaha. I'm so funny.
Although Ben didn't get a job this year, he did have one interview and he was told that he was high on the list for a 1 year position (they didn't interview for that one, just offered it out and apparently the first person accepted it). Given that we put out applications for about 8 jobs, that's not bad.
The downside to returning to the US to add another M.Mus. degree is that Ben is not technically allowed to complete his doctorate until he finishes with the masters program due to silly immigration rules. We really think that he's going to need the theory degree anyhow though, so it's not that big a deal. A lot of the jobs that have been posted indicate that they would prefer someone who is qualified in more than one area. Also, when Ben called to check on the status of several of the jobs, he asked and was told directly that it would definitely have helped to see more academic qualifications.
We'll leave London mid-to-late August even though the house doesn't close until September 8th. That's a whole 'nother story in itself. It involves bargaining, stupidity, and typical behaviour from a culture that shall remain nameless since I don't want to appear discriminatory on the world wide web. Feel free to e-mail for further details if you're truly curious. ;)
Rachel is already registered at Beth Shalom's preschool for the fall, and we're flying down on Monday morning (without Rachel!) to find a place to live.
We could stay here, but we'd never get ahead and we'd spend the rest of our life working evenings & weekends while wishing we could cut back on the after-school hours and actually get to see the kids. So we're giving it 5 years or so. If Ben doesn't have an academic job by that time, you may see us back in London yet. I somehow doubt it though. I'm choosing to remain optimistic that something will work out career-wise and that I too will be able to do something professional in addition to parenting the two cutest little girls on the planet!
Rachel: "Your name is Mom!"
Me: *thinks that once upon a time my name was Jane*
Rachel: "M-O-M. That's how to spell your name."
Me: *thinks that their childhood will be short and I'll regret it if we don't make an effort to get things organized so that we can afford to live decently and still raise our kids ourselves*
(Please note that I am not slamming daycare. It's not an option that we'd like to use for our children, that's all. Besides, if anyone remembers the insanity of BK [before kids, NOT Burger King!], you'll recall that 3-9pm and weekends made up the bulk of our crazy schedules. I'm really not enthusiastic about seeing my children for a couple of hours in the morning and then not at all until possibly after bedtime. Yes, I could homeschool and it's not off the table yet - did I mention that my 4yo reads at a Gr.1 or 2 level!?! - but we've thought long and hard about this, and so we're moving back to the US for a bit.)
Saturday, June 28, 2008
I'd forgotten...
Rachel is at Grandma Karen & John's for a few days followed by a visit at Grandma & Grandpa's house. Although we aren't leaving on our trip until Monday morning, logistically it was easier to drop Rachel off in St. Catharines yesterday.
It's so quiet. I'd forgotten how peaceful life could be with just one small baby. I know a lot of people who didn't enjoy the baby stage at all. While I didn't enjoy Anna's first couple of months as much as I remember enjoying it with Rachel, I do like the fact that she is small and cute and QUIET a lot of the time!
We love Rachel very dearly. Really, we do. But she never stops talking. She will get up in the morning and immediately continue a conversation that we were having the night before. It's comical, but also very tiring. Ben told me that he thought Rachel was going through a phase of talking all the time. I had to break it to him that she's female - it's likely not a phase!
Anna is currently napping in her crib. I'm not counting on her staying asleep while Ben and I enjoy some fresh fruit and a strawberry brie puff pastry from M&M, but we're going to at least attempt it.
It's so quiet. I'd forgotten how peaceful life could be with just one small baby. I know a lot of people who didn't enjoy the baby stage at all. While I didn't enjoy Anna's first couple of months as much as I remember enjoying it with Rachel, I do like the fact that she is small and cute and QUIET a lot of the time!
We love Rachel very dearly. Really, we do. But she never stops talking. She will get up in the morning and immediately continue a conversation that we were having the night before. It's comical, but also very tiring. Ben told me that he thought Rachel was going through a phase of talking all the time. I had to break it to him that she's female - it's likely not a phase!
Anna is currently napping in her crib. I'm not counting on her staying asleep while Ben and I enjoy some fresh fruit and a strawberry brie puff pastry from M&M, but we're going to at least attempt it.
Monday, June 23, 2008
My girls are funny.
Rachel first crawled when she was exactly 10 months old. Of course she couldn't reach this milestone at home. Instead, she waited until we were in Payless Shoes at the Birchwood Mall in Port Huron. I was shopping with a friend. We were looking at shoes for her daughter, and I decided to take Rachel out of the stroller while we looked. I set her down on the floor, not worrying about her since I knew she'd stay put... a minute later, I turned around to find that she'd crawled over to the shoes and was reaching for them!
Today we were up in Bayfield (about an hour north of here, along the shores of Lake Huron). I needed to change Anna, and the nice lady in the bookstore said that I could use her washroom as long as I took the diaper with me. I told her that I use cloth diapers so that wouldn't be an issue!
I set Anna down on her blanket (because I seem to have accidentally left her change pad mat somewhere else, most likely in Chapters since that's the last public place I remember changing her. Grr.) and was getting out a new diaper when she rolled onto her side. I decided to wait and see what she'd do. A moment later, she rolled over from her back onto her tummy! Her arm was still stuck underneath her, but then she figured it out and ended up on her tummy looking very proud of herself!
I think that most babies roll first from tummy to back, but I have to admit that with Anna's spit-up tendencies, she has had very little tummy time. So she rolled from back to front on the floor of the bookstore washroom!
Crawling for shoes and rolling for books... my funny girls. Coincidentally, Anna's first roll happened 13 days later than Rachel's. I still think that Anna will be an early crawler though. She seems much more motivated to want to get places. I guess that time will tell!
Today we were up in Bayfield (about an hour north of here, along the shores of Lake Huron). I needed to change Anna, and the nice lady in the bookstore said that I could use her washroom as long as I took the diaper with me. I told her that I use cloth diapers so that wouldn't be an issue!
I set Anna down on her blanket (because I seem to have accidentally left her change pad mat somewhere else, most likely in Chapters since that's the last public place I remember changing her. Grr.) and was getting out a new diaper when she rolled onto her side. I decided to wait and see what she'd do. A moment later, she rolled over from her back onto her tummy! Her arm was still stuck underneath her, but then she figured it out and ended up on her tummy looking very proud of herself!
I think that most babies roll first from tummy to back, but I have to admit that with Anna's spit-up tendencies, she has had very little tummy time. So she rolled from back to front on the floor of the bookstore washroom!
Crawling for shoes and rolling for books... my funny girls. Coincidentally, Anna's first roll happened 13 days later than Rachel's. I still think that Anna will be an early crawler though. She seems much more motivated to want to get places. I guess that time will tell!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
A rant against Americentric society
I would like to preface this by saying something. I AM CANADIAN. Yet even though I am Canadian, I allow for the possibility that others may not be. Heck, probably over 50% of my blog readership is not Canadian and should know not to take this post personally. ;)
I just registered Rachel on www.bookadventure.com - sorry, I don't know how to make that a clickable link. Anyway, I heard about it in Good Housekeeping (I think?) and thought I'd give it a try. It's a website with book recommendations for kids from kindergarten to Grade Something (can't remember what, too lazy to look). You can enter your child's grade level and ask it for books that are either at, below or above grade level on a variety of topics.
After you read the books, you can take quizzes online about the books to earn points. I signed Rachel up last night and she has already taken 10 or 11 quizzes. We went to the library today in search of animal books that we looked up yesterday.
Once you have a certain number of points, you can redeem them for prizes. Although the registration allows for people from other countries, it seems that many of the prizes are only available to US addresses. We're hoping that the 6 months Highlights magazine subscription will be available to us here. Rachel has 1100 points and only needs 2000 in order to get it!
I actually think this website is a great idea. Rachel has been very motivated to read the books on her own, and she is reading and navigating through the quizzes by herself. She does tend to look at me and say "What?" if she doesn't know the answer to a question, but we've talked about problem solving and now she goes back to look in the book to see if she can figure it out.
Part of me is impressed by my 4 year old's ability to surf the net, and part of me is just plain astonished at how things have changed since I was 4 years old. Internet, online and email were certainly not words in my (extensive) vocabulary back in 1979!
Are you wondering when I am going to get to the reason for my title? When I registered Rachel, I had to put in my information with a valid email address. I entered our primary email address: festivo_strings@yahoo.CA. Ah, I can hear you exclaim knowingly. We've gone down this road before.
"Please enter a valid email extension."
So I re-entered it: festivo_strings@yahoo.CA
"Please enter a valid email extension."
.CA IS A VALID EMAIL EXTENSION!!!!!! CA is for Canada. Just like AU is for Australia and NZ is for New Zealand and DE is for Germany (Deutschland if you're unsure), etc, etc, etc.
I feel like writing some web administrator somewhere and pointing out that there are many valid email extensions out there, not just .com. For that matter, does anyone else think it's funny that there's no .US extension?
One day when I'm really bored I'll get around to blogging about all of my difficulties with the .CA extension and the inability of others to understand it. But not tonight. I need to sleep. Anna doesn't care about email extensions. She just cares about availability of food and a warm body to snuggle. Maybe we should all be more like her.
I just registered Rachel on www.bookadventure.com - sorry, I don't know how to make that a clickable link. Anyway, I heard about it in Good Housekeeping (I think?) and thought I'd give it a try. It's a website with book recommendations for kids from kindergarten to Grade Something (can't remember what, too lazy to look). You can enter your child's grade level and ask it for books that are either at, below or above grade level on a variety of topics.
After you read the books, you can take quizzes online about the books to earn points. I signed Rachel up last night and she has already taken 10 or 11 quizzes. We went to the library today in search of animal books that we looked up yesterday.
Once you have a certain number of points, you can redeem them for prizes. Although the registration allows for people from other countries, it seems that many of the prizes are only available to US addresses. We're hoping that the 6 months Highlights magazine subscription will be available to us here. Rachel has 1100 points and only needs 2000 in order to get it!
I actually think this website is a great idea. Rachel has been very motivated to read the books on her own, and she is reading and navigating through the quizzes by herself. She does tend to look at me and say "What?" if she doesn't know the answer to a question, but we've talked about problem solving and now she goes back to look in the book to see if she can figure it out.
Part of me is impressed by my 4 year old's ability to surf the net, and part of me is just plain astonished at how things have changed since I was 4 years old. Internet, online and email were certainly not words in my (extensive) vocabulary back in 1979!
Are you wondering when I am going to get to the reason for my title? When I registered Rachel, I had to put in my information with a valid email address. I entered our primary email address: festivo_strings@yahoo.CA. Ah, I can hear you exclaim knowingly. We've gone down this road before.
"Please enter a valid email extension."
So I re-entered it: festivo_strings@yahoo.CA
"Please enter a valid email extension."
.CA IS A VALID EMAIL EXTENSION!!!!!! CA is for Canada. Just like AU is for Australia and NZ is for New Zealand and DE is for Germany (Deutschland if you're unsure), etc, etc, etc.
I feel like writing some web administrator somewhere and pointing out that there are many valid email extensions out there, not just .com. For that matter, does anyone else think it's funny that there's no .US extension?
One day when I'm really bored I'll get around to blogging about all of my difficulties with the .CA extension and the inability of others to understand it. But not tonight. I need to sleep. Anna doesn't care about email extensions. She just cares about availability of food and a warm body to snuggle. Maybe we should all be more like her.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
That was one rockin' Canon!
There are a lot of caterpillars at the London Hunt Club. No, actually, there is a gosselope of caterpillars at the London Hunt Club.
We had an outdoor wedding there today. While it was a nice thought that the staff put up their little pop-up tent for us (not secured to the ground and not really securing us all that much shade, but it did the job!), the caterpillars seemed to think that the tent was for them.
During the prelude, all three of us experienced the joy of knocking caterpillars off of various body and instrument parts. But that was nothing compared to the processional.
We began to play the ubiquitous Canon by Pachelbel. Out came the bridesmaids... one.... two.... "WHAT THE @$#&*#$( JUST FLEW INTO MY GLASSES LENS?!!??!"
No, I didn't actually say that, but it's sure what I was thinking. I could see that some sort of bug had flown onto the inside of my lens (ie. the side closest to my EYE!) and was wildly flying about in there having a grand old time while I began what must have been a rather entertaining version of head-banging in a futile attempt to knock it out. A few seconds later, it was clear that the bug was not keen on going anywhere, so I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and yelled out "Count the bridesmaids!" Ben claims that would have been fine except that he never heard me tell him exactly how many bridesmaids there were!
In the end, Heather stopped playing for a couple of seconds, expertly flicked the bug out of my glasses and we carried on without having missed a beat.
Just another day in the life of Festivo Strings.
Bugs, burning flowers, falling flowers, falling trees, falling people into holy water... boutonniere attaching, broken glass clean-up, angry grooms, rings in the grass... random cats, dogs as ring bearers, cows mooing, bees up the bride's dress... we've seen it all. And soon, we'll write the book.
We had an outdoor wedding there today. While it was a nice thought that the staff put up their little pop-up tent for us (not secured to the ground and not really securing us all that much shade, but it did the job!), the caterpillars seemed to think that the tent was for them.
During the prelude, all three of us experienced the joy of knocking caterpillars off of various body and instrument parts. But that was nothing compared to the processional.
We began to play the ubiquitous Canon by Pachelbel. Out came the bridesmaids... one.... two.... "WHAT THE @$#&*#$( JUST FLEW INTO MY GLASSES LENS?!!??!"
No, I didn't actually say that, but it's sure what I was thinking. I could see that some sort of bug had flown onto the inside of my lens (ie. the side closest to my EYE!) and was wildly flying about in there having a grand old time while I began what must have been a rather entertaining version of head-banging in a futile attempt to knock it out. A few seconds later, it was clear that the bug was not keen on going anywhere, so I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and yelled out "Count the bridesmaids!" Ben claims that would have been fine except that he never heard me tell him exactly how many bridesmaids there were!
In the end, Heather stopped playing for a couple of seconds, expertly flicked the bug out of my glasses and we carried on without having missed a beat.
Just another day in the life of Festivo Strings.
Bugs, burning flowers, falling flowers, falling trees, falling people into holy water... boutonniere attaching, broken glass clean-up, angry grooms, rings in the grass... random cats, dogs as ring bearers, cows mooing, bees up the bride's dress... we've seen it all. And soon, we'll write the book.
Friday, June 13, 2008
As promised...
Rachel is really into drawing chalk pictures on the driveway lately. She likes to draw princesses and has recently branched out to elephants. But after the trip to the dairy farm, cows were fresh on her mind.
Matching dresses!
I don't know how long Rachel will let me get away with buying the girls matching outfits, so I plan to enjoy this while it lasts!
Anne Geddes meet Jane Eady
I've never been a huge fan of those baby-in-a-flower-pot pictures, but baby in a dinner pot is a whole 'nother story!
Art Camp
Since April, Rachel has been going to a weekly parent-child art class at ArtVenture, an art studio literally around the corner from us. Although she loves the class and the teacher, she has indicated many times that she wouldn't want to do it without us.
Her last day of preschool was today, and I was really hoping to convince her to try at least one activity *without* us this summer. The art studio is running half-day camps for several weeks during the summer, and I have been trying to talk it up to Rachel without much success.
This week, she changed her mind and told me that she wants to go to art camp! We talked about how it would be just like pre-school in that I would drop her off and pick her up, but grown-ups didn't get to come in and have all the fun, only the kids did. We said that we would call the art studio and find out exactly what would happen at art camp, and who the teachers would be.
Today Ben called and got lots of information. Rachel is so excited, it's ridiculous. Art camp would terrify me, but not Rachel!
We're tentatively registering her for afternoons (1-4pm) the first week of camp which is also the same week that Ben and I teach at a local music camp. Any grandparents reading this blog can thank us at any time for ensuring that they won't be responsible for watching a 4-year-old and a baby all day!
They're going to let Rachel try it out the first day and if she likes it, she'll continue all week. I'm not telling Rachel that though. She thinks she's already signed up to go all week. The art teacher has also offered to continue on with one-on-one art lessons over the summer. (Her group class has 4 kids registered but she's been the only one there for the past 2 weeks & she's loved it!)
When I asked Rachel about one-on-one art lessons, she said it sounded fun but she's decided to go to art camp for all 3 weeks! I told her we'd take it one week at a time. I hope she does end up enjoying it. We purposely picked the afternoon session because there are currently only 6 kids enrolled as opposed to the 12 kids in the morning session.
Her last day of preschool was today, and I was really hoping to convince her to try at least one activity *without* us this summer. The art studio is running half-day camps for several weeks during the summer, and I have been trying to talk it up to Rachel without much success.
This week, she changed her mind and told me that she wants to go to art camp! We talked about how it would be just like pre-school in that I would drop her off and pick her up, but grown-ups didn't get to come in and have all the fun, only the kids did. We said that we would call the art studio and find out exactly what would happen at art camp, and who the teachers would be.
Today Ben called and got lots of information. Rachel is so excited, it's ridiculous. Art camp would terrify me, but not Rachel!
We're tentatively registering her for afternoons (1-4pm) the first week of camp which is also the same week that Ben and I teach at a local music camp. Any grandparents reading this blog can thank us at any time for ensuring that they won't be responsible for watching a 4-year-old and a baby all day!
They're going to let Rachel try it out the first day and if she likes it, she'll continue all week. I'm not telling Rachel that though. She thinks she's already signed up to go all week. The art teacher has also offered to continue on with one-on-one art lessons over the summer. (Her group class has 4 kids registered but she's been the only one there for the past 2 weeks & she's loved it!)
When I asked Rachel about one-on-one art lessons, she said it sounded fun but she's decided to go to art camp for all 3 weeks! I told her we'd take it one week at a time. I hope she does end up enjoying it. We purposely picked the afternoon session because there are currently only 6 kids enrolled as opposed to the 12 kids in the morning session.
A Canadian Tantrum
When Rachel gets upset and doesn't want to do something, her tantrums often start like this:
"No, SORRY, I can't do that! I don't want to do that! Sorry, I will not!"
Etc, etc.
It cracks me up.
"No, SORRY, I can't do that! I don't want to do that! Sorry, I will not!"
Etc, etc.
It cracks me up.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Wow.
Here's the breakdown of Anna's laundry for the past 4 days:
6 dresses
9 pairs of pants/shorts/capris
2 pairs of overalls
11 sleepers
20 onesies
3 t-shirts
If we hadn't also used 6 "waterproof" bibs, I'm sure the onesie count would have been even higher. The word waterproof is in quotes because nothing is immune to Anna's spit-up!
And I thought 17 sleepers and 11 onesies in 3 days was bad...
6 dresses
9 pairs of pants/shorts/capris
2 pairs of overalls
11 sleepers
20 onesies
3 t-shirts
If we hadn't also used 6 "waterproof" bibs, I'm sure the onesie count would have been even higher. The word waterproof is in quotes because nothing is immune to Anna's spit-up!
And I thought 17 sleepers and 11 onesies in 3 days was bad...
A comparison of my big babies
Birth:
Rachel 9lbs 9oz
Anna 9lbs 5.6oz
1 month:
Rachel 11-13
2.5 months:
Rachel 15-6, 25"
3 months, 3.5 weeks:
Anna 15-8
4.5 months:
Rachel 19 pounds!!
6.5 months:
Rachel 21 pounds!!
I'll come back and fill in some more of Anna's stats later (ie. when I find them) but I'm amused that she isn't quite as big as Rachel was. I know that breastfed babies tend to gain slower, and I have often thought that Anna is smaller than Rachel was, but everyone that sees her thinks she's so big!
Rachel 9lbs 9oz
Anna 9lbs 5.6oz
1 month:
Rachel 11-13
2.5 months:
Rachel 15-6, 25"
3 months, 3.5 weeks:
Anna 15-8
4.5 months:
Rachel 19 pounds!!
6.5 months:
Rachel 21 pounds!!
I'll come back and fill in some more of Anna's stats later (ie. when I find them) but I'm amused that she isn't quite as big as Rachel was. I know that breastfed babies tend to gain slower, and I have often thought that Anna is smaller than Rachel was, but everyone that sees her thinks she's so big!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Rachel's concert experience
Last night Ben and I had our joint concert for the adult and kids string orchestra programs that we've been running all year. I decided to just leave Anna with our sitter so that I could bring Rachel along with us.
We dropped Ben off to teach Kindermusik just after 5 p.m. I then proceeded to drag a 4-year-old, almost-4-month-old in a stroller, and a shopping cart through the Superstore to pick up pop, cookies & a veggie tray for the after-concert reception. Rachel helped me set the cookies out on the trays (and only ate 1, I think!) and then we picked up our sitter and went home briefly to get Anna settled.
When we got back to the church, Ben was rehearsing with the orchestra while we set up a few more things. Rachel was very concerned about where she would sit, so I told her that I would reserve her a seat. We made a paper sign that said "Reserved" on it, and Rachel placed it on the chair she wanted. (Incidentally, her chosen seat was the 3rd chair in the front row.)
We headed out to pick up the pizzas (and garlic sticks for Rachel, the kid who won't touch pizza!). When we got back, Rachel insisted on sitting in her "reserved" chair to wait for her food to cool down.
She sat quietly through the whole concert even though neither of us was with her. I don't think she knew the people on either side of her and it didn't seem to phase her at all!
At the end of the concert, I was up at the front talking when Rachel interrupted me:
"Excuse me, are you done yet? I have a question!"
*cue audience laughter*
"I liked the Nitalian Trumpeter best. That's because it sounded like an elephant!"
(Italian Trumpeter, but she was pretty close!)
She paid close attention to everything. Ben, Heather & I played Golliwog's Cake-Walk at the very end of the program. Afterwards, Rachel asked if our piece was about cake. She also told me that she liked the high parts and it would be good if I played it at home for her so that she could dance to it.
We got home to a sleeping baby. All in all, it was a great night!
(We'll discuss the pending offer on our house later.)
We dropped Ben off to teach Kindermusik just after 5 p.m. I then proceeded to drag a 4-year-old, almost-4-month-old in a stroller, and a shopping cart through the Superstore to pick up pop, cookies & a veggie tray for the after-concert reception. Rachel helped me set the cookies out on the trays (and only ate 1, I think!) and then we picked up our sitter and went home briefly to get Anna settled.
When we got back to the church, Ben was rehearsing with the orchestra while we set up a few more things. Rachel was very concerned about where she would sit, so I told her that I would reserve her a seat. We made a paper sign that said "Reserved" on it, and Rachel placed it on the chair she wanted. (Incidentally, her chosen seat was the 3rd chair in the front row.)
We headed out to pick up the pizzas (and garlic sticks for Rachel, the kid who won't touch pizza!). When we got back, Rachel insisted on sitting in her "reserved" chair to wait for her food to cool down.
She sat quietly through the whole concert even though neither of us was with her. I don't think she knew the people on either side of her and it didn't seem to phase her at all!
At the end of the concert, I was up at the front talking when Rachel interrupted me:
"Excuse me, are you done yet? I have a question!"
*cue audience laughter*
"I liked the Nitalian Trumpeter best. That's because it sounded like an elephant!"
(Italian Trumpeter, but she was pretty close!)
She paid close attention to everything. Ben, Heather & I played Golliwog's Cake-Walk at the very end of the program. Afterwards, Rachel asked if our piece was about cake. She also told me that she liked the high parts and it would be good if I played it at home for her so that she could dance to it.
We got home to a sleeping baby. All in all, it was a great night!
(We'll discuss the pending offer on our house later.)
She cracks me up
Rachel has been drawing a lot of pictures lately. When she heard that Ben had asked the families in one of his Kindermusik classes to make drums for the next class, she immediately volunteered to help him make some too! She drew a bunch of circles on pieces of paper, added smiley faces to them, and drew sticks beside them. Apparently you are supposed to cut them out and then play with them. She told this very seriously to our babysitter last night.
When we were in Toronto over the weekend, Grandma Fern read Rachel some poems from Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" - if you don't have this book, you should! There was one poem that talked about drawing invisible things. So Rachel has been drawing invisible animal pictures this morning and asking us to label them for her. She drew a circle on each sheet of paper and told us which invisible animal was inside.
When we were in Toronto over the weekend, Grandma Fern read Rachel some poems from Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" - if you don't have this book, you should! There was one poem that talked about drawing invisible things. So Rachel has been drawing invisible animal pictures this morning and asking us to label them for her. She drew a circle on each sheet of paper and told us which invisible animal was inside.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
A Gosselope of Cows
My mother-in-law has been after me to blog about Rachel's invented word "gosselope" and the opportunity came up today on our trip to the dairy farm. Rachel's preschool class had a trip arranged since it's almost Shavuot and they have been learning all about how it's traditional to eat dairy at that time.
This morning we saw a gosselope of cows. What is a gosselope, you ask? Apparently a few weeks ago Rachel was reading a dictionary to her grandparents. This in itself is not really an unusual act since Rachel loves dictionaries. (She's also addicted to game shows. Her current favourites are Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud!) As she was going through the dictionary, she decided to invent her own word and that word was gosselope.
According to Rachel, a gosselope is a very large number of something. Specifically, it refers to a large number of the same thing that all live outside. So you could have a gosselope of trees, but not rocks.
The girl at the dairy farm told us that they have 1800 cows. This is apparently enough to qualify for gosselope status. The barn was open to the outside, so I can see why Rachel decided to use her term.
There was a brand new baby calf and Rachel got right in there to pet it with the rest of the kids. Here are some of her choice quotes about the whole experience:
"Mom, you missed something silly! Morah Lu (one of the teachers) got her hand licked by one of the cows! I didn't want my hand licked because then I would have cow spit on it."
When discussing how it was only a cow farm and there were no other animals:
"They don't even have a chicken to wake them up!"
My personal favourite occurred tonight when Rachel was outside doing chalk drawings on the driveway. I had suggested turning one of the drawings into a cow. Just as we were heading in for the night, she ran back out with a piece of chalk, exclaiming that "I forgot to put on the milking parts!" Sure enough, she added a lovely udder with four teats. I will upload a picture as soon as I can find the cord to transfer pictures from camera to computer!
This morning we saw a gosselope of cows. What is a gosselope, you ask? Apparently a few weeks ago Rachel was reading a dictionary to her grandparents. This in itself is not really an unusual act since Rachel loves dictionaries. (She's also addicted to game shows. Her current favourites are Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud!) As she was going through the dictionary, she decided to invent her own word and that word was gosselope.
According to Rachel, a gosselope is a very large number of something. Specifically, it refers to a large number of the same thing that all live outside. So you could have a gosselope of trees, but not rocks.
The girl at the dairy farm told us that they have 1800 cows. This is apparently enough to qualify for gosselope status. The barn was open to the outside, so I can see why Rachel decided to use her term.
There was a brand new baby calf and Rachel got right in there to pet it with the rest of the kids. Here are some of her choice quotes about the whole experience:
"Mom, you missed something silly! Morah Lu (one of the teachers) got her hand licked by one of the cows! I didn't want my hand licked because then I would have cow spit on it."
When discussing how it was only a cow farm and there were no other animals:
"They don't even have a chicken to wake them up!"
My personal favourite occurred tonight when Rachel was outside doing chalk drawings on the driveway. I had suggested turning one of the drawings into a cow. Just as we were heading in for the night, she ran back out with a piece of chalk, exclaiming that "I forgot to put on the milking parts!" Sure enough, she added a lovely udder with four teats. I will upload a picture as soon as I can find the cord to transfer pictures from camera to computer!
What a year...
Ben's grandfather's funeral was yesterday. Although his death was something that I think was not entirely unexpected, that doesn't necessarily make it any easier to cope with now that it's a reality. It's been a hard year for a lot of people. Too many deaths too close to home.
I've always been fascinated with the Jewish custom of sitting shiva (not shitting shiva as my father-in-law apparently said by mistake this morning! Yes, Lance, I will edit that out if you would like me to.). Judaism forces mourners to step back and take a break from life, so to speak. Time to reflect, think, remember and also time to pick up the pieces and carry on. Work is forbidden for the first week. Family & friends come together to bring meals and ensure that the mourners are taken care of and not alone during this time. Kaddish is said.
I will admit to not having gotten to know Ben's grandfather as well as I perhaps would have liked to. However, I saw him as a strong man who had not only a great sense of humour, but also a great ability to draw people close and forge relationships with them. (Is that paradoxical of me to say since I just admitted to not thinking I knew him that well?)
I'm sad that Anna will not have the chance to personally know her Zadie (or her Bubbie Rae for that matter) - I suppose she'll learn about them through the memories of others. Rachel has some memories of her Bubbie Rae, and only 1 or 2 of her Zadie. Whether or not her memories are real or from seeing photos and hearing stories, I don't know. I do know that she enjoyed the time that she spent with Zadie playing ball.
Rachel didn't ask much at all yesterday. This is the 3rd funeral that Ben has been to this year, and the 2nd for the rest of us. I guess that Rachel is just accepting it in the innocent way that only children can. She made flower pots for her cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma, grandpa & Bubbie to make them feel better - I had explained to her that people would be sad at the funeral but that perhaps she could cheer them up. She took this role very seriously and we worked hard together to make the flowers for the pots.
I've always been fascinated with the Jewish custom of sitting shiva (not shitting shiva as my father-in-law apparently said by mistake this morning! Yes, Lance, I will edit that out if you would like me to.). Judaism forces mourners to step back and take a break from life, so to speak. Time to reflect, think, remember and also time to pick up the pieces and carry on. Work is forbidden for the first week. Family & friends come together to bring meals and ensure that the mourners are taken care of and not alone during this time. Kaddish is said.
I will admit to not having gotten to know Ben's grandfather as well as I perhaps would have liked to. However, I saw him as a strong man who had not only a great sense of humour, but also a great ability to draw people close and forge relationships with them. (Is that paradoxical of me to say since I just admitted to not thinking I knew him that well?)
I'm sad that Anna will not have the chance to personally know her Zadie (or her Bubbie Rae for that matter) - I suppose she'll learn about them through the memories of others. Rachel has some memories of her Bubbie Rae, and only 1 or 2 of her Zadie. Whether or not her memories are real or from seeing photos and hearing stories, I don't know. I do know that she enjoyed the time that she spent with Zadie playing ball.
Rachel didn't ask much at all yesterday. This is the 3rd funeral that Ben has been to this year, and the 2nd for the rest of us. I guess that Rachel is just accepting it in the innocent way that only children can. She made flower pots for her cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma, grandpa & Bubbie to make them feel better - I had explained to her that people would be sad at the funeral but that perhaps she could cheer them up. She took this role very seriously and we worked hard together to make the flowers for the pots.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
100 days!
Today is the 100th day that I have been nursing Anna. She's 105 days old today. I suppose that technically I first nursed her on her 5th day of life, but that was more of a "Hey, let's see if you latch on" experiment than an actual feed.
She hasn't had formula since the 2nd can "expired" back around April 20th or 21st. She's thriving. I'm still a little shocked at that, although I had a friend tell me recently that with each subsequent child her body made more milk. If that's the case, my body is playing with extremes since I had next to none with Rachel and I have enough with Anna. I think I'm a little afraid of what could happen with a third child! (No, we are not "done". Don't look shocked. Despite the total chaos and craziness, we are still open to more kids.)
Anyway, I just thought that it was cool that today is Anna's 100th day of enjoying Mommy milk. Perhaps enjoying isn't quite the right word. Today she was punching me with her free arm while we enjoyed a nursing/nap session on the bed. I've heard that some babies pat, knead, or touch you gently. My child punches. Maybe she thinks she'll get the milk out faster that way. ;)
She hasn't had formula since the 2nd can "expired" back around April 20th or 21st. She's thriving. I'm still a little shocked at that, although I had a friend tell me recently that with each subsequent child her body made more milk. If that's the case, my body is playing with extremes since I had next to none with Rachel and I have enough with Anna. I think I'm a little afraid of what could happen with a third child! (No, we are not "done". Don't look shocked. Despite the total chaos and craziness, we are still open to more kids.)
Anyway, I just thought that it was cool that today is Anna's 100th day of enjoying Mommy milk. Perhaps enjoying isn't quite the right word. Today she was punching me with her free arm while we enjoyed a nursing/nap session on the bed. I've heard that some babies pat, knead, or touch you gently. My child punches. Maybe she thinks she'll get the milk out faster that way. ;)
Monday, May 26, 2008
This is going to be fun!
Lately Rachel has been asking about playing the piano, but she is totally not ready for music lessons. She told me that she only wants to learn the tunes to certain songs and that she would leave the room if the teacher tried to teach her other music. Hmm. Something tells me that we're not going to be signing her up anytime soon!
This morning, Rachel asked to go play "Old MacDonald" on the piano. She took her storybook in, set it on the music stand and then got upset because she didn't know how to play it.
I decided to have a little fun with her. She now knows all the names of the keys on the piano:
Aardvark Bird Cat Dog Elephant Frog Gorilla
She can even play Dog-Flat and Elephant-Flat! Haha. She also knows their "real" names - ABCDEFG. I wasn't planning to teach her myself, but I might see where this goes. We could always have some fun and then sign her up for lessons when she's more developmentally ready to sit through them! (Mind you, as a private music teacher, it always drives me nuts when well-meaning Mom or Dad has "taught" their kid the basics because it inevitably needs to be re-taught.)
As she went out the door to go to preschool this morning, she was singing a lovely natural minor scale: "Aardvark, Bird, Cat, Dog, Elephant, Frog, Gorilla! And then Aardvark again! How come there's no H?"
This morning, Rachel asked to go play "Old MacDonald" on the piano. She took her storybook in, set it on the music stand and then got upset because she didn't know how to play it.
I decided to have a little fun with her. She now knows all the names of the keys on the piano:
Aardvark Bird Cat Dog Elephant Frog Gorilla
She can even play Dog-Flat and Elephant-Flat! Haha. She also knows their "real" names - ABCDEFG. I wasn't planning to teach her myself, but I might see where this goes. We could always have some fun and then sign her up for lessons when she's more developmentally ready to sit through them! (Mind you, as a private music teacher, it always drives me nuts when well-meaning Mom or Dad has "taught" their kid the basics because it inevitably needs to be re-taught.)
As she went out the door to go to preschool this morning, she was singing a lovely natural minor scale: "Aardvark, Bird, Cat, Dog, Elephant, Frog, Gorilla! And then Aardvark again! How come there's no H?"
Friday, May 16, 2008
Iowa evidence
The infamous mile marker just before the van died last year.
3:55 p.m. 1 year and 1 day after the van died at 3:55 p.m. on Wed. May 2/07.
3:56 p.m. and the van didn't blow up!
Look, it's Montezuma, final resting place of the Odyssey!
The truck stop where we negotiated a price for the van last year... it's amusing that it's now closed up and abandoned!
More Anna cuteness
"I can hold my own bottle at 2.5 months old!"
"Check out my little sister - look what she can do!"
"What? You don't think 2.5 month old babies can stand?"
"I'm cute!"
"My bouncy chair is not supposed to be up on the kitchen table but I'm kinda comfy up here."
Anna is 3 months old!
On Wednesday, Anna turned 3 months old. She weighed 14 pounds and 12 ounces at the doctor's office in her clothes & diaper! At just over 2 months, she was 13 pounds in just her diaper so she has gained a fair bit of weight this month.
Flower Girl: A Dangerous Job
We went shopping today for Rachel's flower girl dress for Aunt Rebecca's upcoming wedding. Rachel loved trying on all of the pretty dresses, especially the "fluffy" one that made her look like a cake. Some of these dresses are seriously over the top. We found a really pretty one that will have a built-in sash to match the bridesmaids' dresses:
No, there are no wings on the dress that we are getting!
Anyhow, tonight we were discussing what the flower girl does at a wedding. Rachel somehow knew that a flower girl might have petals to throw.
As we were chatting, she made an offhanded comment about how she would have to be closer to the bridesmaids. Since we had been talking about who would walk in, how & when, I asked her why she thought she needed to be closer to them.
"So I can throw the petals on them!"
Um, no, Rachel. That is not exactly what the flower girl does.
Luckily we still have 3.5 months to work on it!
No, there are no wings on the dress that we are getting!
Anyhow, tonight we were discussing what the flower girl does at a wedding. Rachel somehow knew that a flower girl might have petals to throw.
As we were chatting, she made an offhanded comment about how she would have to be closer to the bridesmaids. Since we had been talking about who would walk in, how & when, I asked her why she thought she needed to be closer to them.
"So I can throw the petals on them!"
Um, no, Rachel. That is not exactly what the flower girl does.
Luckily we still have 3.5 months to work on it!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Rachel just fell in the toilet
And I am a bad, bad mother because I really wanted to run downstairs for the camera to take a picture before fishing her out!
She thought it was hysterically funny, and since she's fairly big, at least she didn't land in the toilet water.
Still, it's not been one of our better weeks.
She thought it was hysterically funny, and since she's fairly big, at least she didn't land in the toilet water.
Still, it's not been one of our better weeks.
GRRRRRRRRRRRR
This morning Rachel pooped in her pants. She claims that her body didn't tell her it was time to go. Whatever. I think it was more likely because Mommy was upstairs in the shower and Daddy was paying attention to Anna.
Anyhow, we had a good long talk about whose responsibility it is to get Rachel to the toilet in time. I told her that she has to go when she gets up, before we leave the house to go somewhere, and before bedtime. I was prepared to let her go any other time that she needed to, and she thought that was a good idea too.
Fast forward to after lunch today. We had just finished watching Jeopardy when Ben got home from teaching. He and I started chatting. A few minutes later we heard,
"Oops! I'm peeing!"
*loud sigh*
She isn't bothered by consequences either. At this point, I'm not really sure what to do with her. So I grr.
Anyhow, we had a good long talk about whose responsibility it is to get Rachel to the toilet in time. I told her that she has to go when she gets up, before we leave the house to go somewhere, and before bedtime. I was prepared to let her go any other time that she needed to, and she thought that was a good idea too.
Fast forward to after lunch today. We had just finished watching Jeopardy when Ben got home from teaching. He and I started chatting. A few minutes later we heard,
"Oops! I'm peeing!"
*loud sigh*
She isn't bothered by consequences either. At this point, I'm not really sure what to do with her. So I grr.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
It's not all sunshine & roses...
Yesterday had to be one of the worst days we've had with Rachel in quite a long time. She decided that she didn't like the way Ben drew a number 4 (My math score was apparently 4. Don't ask me why!) so she screamed at him and got sent to her room.
I let Rachel know that screaming was not acceptable and that she would be in her room until she could apologize. She's rather stubborn, so we figured it might be awhile. She ended up missing Kindermusik because every time I went in to ask if she was ready, she'd say things like, "Well, I don't know about that. But I AM hungry!"
*Mommy grrs silently*
Finally, I suggested that she give Dad a hug & kiss, along with a picture to make him feel better. She liked that idea and soon all was well except that she refused to go potty for the next 6 hours. At one point, I let her know that if she ended up peeing in her pants, she would lose her computer privileges for 3 days. Since one of Rachel's current favourite activities is playing on the My Little Pony website, this was a pretty serious consequence even though it didn't seem to bother her when I told her what would happen.
We haven't been forcing Rachel to go to the bathroom, other than to have her go first thing in the morning, before bed, and generally before leaving the house or after meals if it's been awhile since she last went. She's been fairly compliant about this, so yesterday's absolute refusal was a change from the norm.
I finished teaching a lesson yesterday at 3:30 p.m. and came out to the news that Rachel had peed on one of our living room chairs because she wasn't able to get to the potty on time. Before you feel sorry for her, let's step back and remember that the last time she went was at 9:30 a.m. and she had been asked just before 3 p.m. if she needed to use the bathroom. Ben and I both told her that we were upset, and she was told that she had lost computer privileges for 3 days.
This morning she asked me about printing something out and I had to remind her that she was not allowed to use the computer right now. I just about cracked up when I picked her up at preschool though, because she had drawn a picture of me with a happy face and herself with a sad face. I guess that even though she's not acting sad, she is upset at the loss of computer time. I highly doubt that she's upset that her pants were wet. "Oh, I need new pants!" is a fairly common saying around here when she doesn't get to the potty in time. (although I should say that she had not had any accidents in quite some time before yesterday)
She has also told us several times today that she needed to go potty, and commented on the fact that she got there in time.
I really hope that Anna is easier to train than this.
I let Rachel know that screaming was not acceptable and that she would be in her room until she could apologize. She's rather stubborn, so we figured it might be awhile. She ended up missing Kindermusik because every time I went in to ask if she was ready, she'd say things like, "Well, I don't know about that. But I AM hungry!"
*Mommy grrs silently*
Finally, I suggested that she give Dad a hug & kiss, along with a picture to make him feel better. She liked that idea and soon all was well except that she refused to go potty for the next 6 hours. At one point, I let her know that if she ended up peeing in her pants, she would lose her computer privileges for 3 days. Since one of Rachel's current favourite activities is playing on the My Little Pony website, this was a pretty serious consequence even though it didn't seem to bother her when I told her what would happen.
We haven't been forcing Rachel to go to the bathroom, other than to have her go first thing in the morning, before bed, and generally before leaving the house or after meals if it's been awhile since she last went. She's been fairly compliant about this, so yesterday's absolute refusal was a change from the norm.
I finished teaching a lesson yesterday at 3:30 p.m. and came out to the news that Rachel had peed on one of our living room chairs because she wasn't able to get to the potty on time. Before you feel sorry for her, let's step back and remember that the last time she went was at 9:30 a.m. and she had been asked just before 3 p.m. if she needed to use the bathroom. Ben and I both told her that we were upset, and she was told that she had lost computer privileges for 3 days.
This morning she asked me about printing something out and I had to remind her that she was not allowed to use the computer right now. I just about cracked up when I picked her up at preschool though, because she had drawn a picture of me with a happy face and herself with a sad face. I guess that even though she's not acting sad, she is upset at the loss of computer time. I highly doubt that she's upset that her pants were wet. "Oh, I need new pants!" is a fairly common saying around here when she doesn't get to the potty in time. (although I should say that she had not had any accidents in quite some time before yesterday)
She has also told us several times today that she needed to go potty, and commented on the fact that she got there in time.
I really hope that Anna is easier to train than this.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Rachel gets an allowance
Today Rachel got an allowance for the very first time. We've been reading "A Birthday for Frances" - in this book, Frances spends two whole allowances on a birthday present for her baby sister!
Rachel has been pestering me lately to buy her new things all the time, so we figured it was time to teach her a bit more about money. She will be getting $4 each week since she is 4 years old.
We told her that she had to save some and put some in her tzedakah box but that she could spend the rest. She has a basic concept of money, but she doesn't have logic down yet. I gave her 4 loonies this morning. She decided to put one in her piggy bank to save, two in her tzedakah box, and one in her wallet to spend. She was pretty cheerful when we told her that there was no way that she had enough money to buy a new toy this week (she wants a Strawberry Shortcake doll) and that she would have to keep saving her money. Ben told her that it would take a few weeks to have enough and she accepted that pretty easily. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
We did tell her that while there are certain things that she is just expected to help out with, she will have some opportunities to earn extra money. She can't wait for it to stop raining so that she can go out and help Dad pick all the weeds out of the back lawn for 25 cents! ;) Depending on how much work she actually does, I might up that amount. We'll have to see!
Rachel has been pestering me lately to buy her new things all the time, so we figured it was time to teach her a bit more about money. She will be getting $4 each week since she is 4 years old.
We told her that she had to save some and put some in her tzedakah box but that she could spend the rest. She has a basic concept of money, but she doesn't have logic down yet. I gave her 4 loonies this morning. She decided to put one in her piggy bank to save, two in her tzedakah box, and one in her wallet to spend. She was pretty cheerful when we told her that there was no way that she had enough money to buy a new toy this week (she wants a Strawberry Shortcake doll) and that she would have to keep saving her money. Ben told her that it would take a few weeks to have enough and she accepted that pretty easily. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
We did tell her that while there are certain things that she is just expected to help out with, she will have some opportunities to earn extra money. She can't wait for it to stop raining so that she can go out and help Dad pick all the weeds out of the back lawn for 25 cents! ;) Depending on how much work she actually does, I might up that amount. We'll have to see!
A great Mother's Day!
Although I could have done without the 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. feedings, today has been a pretty good day overall. Minus breakfast in bed, I think I got everything that I could possibly have wanted!
Rachel made me a gift at preschool - it's a pen with fake flowers attached to it using green tape to look like a stem. She also drew me a picture last week at art class and made a "card" at preschool as well. Ben took my very direct hint and got me a gift certificate to a local spa type of place where I can have a pedicure/foot treatment done. He also got a card and signed it from both him and the girls.
Anna napped well today, and since I had a nice big 4oz bottle pumped, Ben took both girls to our friends' son's 2nd birthday party while I went shopping and hung out with Kate who was in town for the weekend! Prior to that, we (ok, the adults) shared a FREE pizza from Panago, a new pizza place in the neighbourhood. (We'd received a coupon in the mail just prior to Passover - how cruel is that!?)
Rachel also got me some flowers and dictated a note to Ben:
"I love you Mommy, from Rachel"
Rachel was in bed by about 7:10, and Anna nursed to sleep shortly thereafter. Ben is currently rocking her in our room since she's been drifting off and waking up off and on, but it looks like she'll be sound asleep soon!
Rachel made me a gift at preschool - it's a pen with fake flowers attached to it using green tape to look like a stem. She also drew me a picture last week at art class and made a "card" at preschool as well. Ben took my very direct hint and got me a gift certificate to a local spa type of place where I can have a pedicure/foot treatment done. He also got a card and signed it from both him and the girls.
Anna napped well today, and since I had a nice big 4oz bottle pumped, Ben took both girls to our friends' son's 2nd birthday party while I went shopping and hung out with Kate who was in town for the weekend! Prior to that, we (ok, the adults) shared a FREE pizza from Panago, a new pizza place in the neighbourhood. (We'd received a coupon in the mail just prior to Passover - how cruel is that!?)
Rachel also got me some flowers and dictated a note to Ben:
"I love you Mommy, from Rachel"
Rachel was in bed by about 7:10, and Anna nursed to sleep shortly thereafter. Ben is currently rocking her in our room since she's been drifting off and waking up off and on, but it looks like she'll be sound asleep soon!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
How about an Anna update?
Anna is 12 weeks old today. 84 days old. It's hard to believe that she will be 3 months old already next week. In some ways, she is just like Rachel, and in many others she is just the opposite.
Anna is a total "sucky" (pacifier) addict. She also enjoys spitting them out in order to make us pop it right back in. She smiles (and has done so since about 4 or 5 weeks, maybe sooner? Yes, I'm a bad 2nd-time mom who has yet to write down anything about Anna.), laughs & can stick out her tongue. I wonder who taught her that, haha. (It was Rachel. Not me. I only suggested it to Rachel.)
Lately she kicks her legs a lot and has started babbling to us. Up until about a week ago, her adorable little coos generally signified an impending spit-up incident of great magnitude. Now she is actually trying to communicate, and it's very cute to watch. One day I will get my act together and post some of the videos we have.
Anna did very well on our long road trip to and from Kansas. I actually think she napped better when we were away than she does at home.
She hasn't had formula in 19 days. I'm still amused at how that is turning out. As a side note, we have about $125 in store credit from Zellers and Toys'R'Us for returning all our Avent products since Canada has now banned the sale of products with the evil BPA chemical or whatever it's called. I'm not that alarmist about this kind of thing (and thankfully, neither is my doctor!), but I jumped at the chance to return the Avent hand pump that I bought from a former neighbour and hardly ever used. We also returned the steam sterilizer and most of our bottles. We kept a couple to use while we wait for the bottle parts to come in for the bottles that came with the pump my amazing friend K sent me when Anna was born.
Although we have been cloth diapering Anna, I will admit that I am very tempted to stop. Doing disposables while travelling was so much easier, and I have to say that I really do not like washing cloth diapers in a front loading washing machine. I find that I have to run a lot of extra rinse cycles to really get them clean, so how environmentally friendly am I really being!? We'll see what we end up doing.
Anna still likes to be held a lot, but she has started to really enjoy being on her playmat and in her swing. We bought her a Bumbo seat while in the US, and she's almost ready to use it! We will probably put the Exersaucer together soon since she is holding her head up quite well most of the time. It's hard to believe that she's already getting so big.
She was 23 inches long and about 13 pounds at 2 months. We actually have an appointment next Wednesday so I will get to post her 3 month stats then.
Anna is a total "sucky" (pacifier) addict. She also enjoys spitting them out in order to make us pop it right back in. She smiles (and has done so since about 4 or 5 weeks, maybe sooner? Yes, I'm a bad 2nd-time mom who has yet to write down anything about Anna.), laughs & can stick out her tongue. I wonder who taught her that, haha. (It was Rachel. Not me. I only suggested it to Rachel.)
Lately she kicks her legs a lot and has started babbling to us. Up until about a week ago, her adorable little coos generally signified an impending spit-up incident of great magnitude. Now she is actually trying to communicate, and it's very cute to watch. One day I will get my act together and post some of the videos we have.
Anna did very well on our long road trip to and from Kansas. I actually think she napped better when we were away than she does at home.
She hasn't had formula in 19 days. I'm still amused at how that is turning out. As a side note, we have about $125 in store credit from Zellers and Toys'R'Us for returning all our Avent products since Canada has now banned the sale of products with the evil BPA chemical or whatever it's called. I'm not that alarmist about this kind of thing (and thankfully, neither is my doctor!), but I jumped at the chance to return the Avent hand pump that I bought from a former neighbour and hardly ever used. We also returned the steam sterilizer and most of our bottles. We kept a couple to use while we wait for the bottle parts to come in for the bottles that came with the pump my amazing friend K sent me when Anna was born.
Although we have been cloth diapering Anna, I will admit that I am very tempted to stop. Doing disposables while travelling was so much easier, and I have to say that I really do not like washing cloth diapers in a front loading washing machine. I find that I have to run a lot of extra rinse cycles to really get them clean, so how environmentally friendly am I really being!? We'll see what we end up doing.
Anna still likes to be held a lot, but she has started to really enjoy being on her playmat and in her swing. We bought her a Bumbo seat while in the US, and she's almost ready to use it! We will probably put the Exersaucer together soon since she is holding her head up quite well most of the time. It's hard to believe that she's already getting so big.
She was 23 inches long and about 13 pounds at 2 months. We actually have an appointment next Wednesday so I will get to post her 3 month stats then.
That's my girl!
"Mom, Polly Pockets is almost wearing enough clothes!"
Rachel knows that I'm not a fan of Barbie, Bratz & any other doll with skimpy clothing. When we're in the toy section of any store, she will announce which dolls have enough clothes and which ones need more. So it cracked me up tonight when she informed me that her Polly Pockets doll was almost wearing enough.
Rachel knows that I'm not a fan of Barbie, Bratz & any other doll with skimpy clothing. When we're in the toy section of any store, she will announce which dolls have enough clothes and which ones need more. So it cracked me up tonight when she informed me that her Polly Pockets doll was almost wearing enough.
Monday, May 05, 2008
It was going to come up sooner or later...
The other day Ben took Rachel to the bathroom and he had to go too. Rachel has never really paid much attention or asked about the difference between boys and girls if she has noticed anything. They were in the family washroom and Ben told me later that he was very thankful to be there and NOT in the main one.
After Ben used the facilities, Rachel observed that "Dad, you let out a LOT of pee! Did all that pee come out of your vagina?"
Ben deflected the question. Grr. So I explained to Rachel that we have different parts and she accepted that quite cheerfully.
I'm sorry I wasn't there to hear this one in person. ;)
After Ben used the facilities, Rachel observed that "Dad, you let out a LOT of pee! Did all that pee come out of your vagina?"
Ben deflected the question. Grr. So I explained to Rachel that we have different parts and she accepted that quite cheerfully.
I'm sorry I wasn't there to hear this one in person. ;)
Sunday, May 04, 2008
A potty update
Remember back when Rachel was first potty training and that awful toilet flushed on her at Barnes & Noble? These days she sometimes asks if a toilet will flush or not, but she hasn't seemed too concerned. The other day we were in a mall in Kansas and Rachel needed to use the bathroom. The toilet flushed on her just as she finished but before she got down. I told her that it wasn't a very smart toilet since it didn't know to wait for her to wipe first & she thought this was absolutely hilarious! She has been discussing smart and silly toilets ever since. She's also highly amused that Daddy likes to use toilet paper to cover the toilet's "eye" so that it can't flush too early.
Of course, she also thought it was hilarious to keep running in front of the automatic doors at a rest area in Iowa yesterday to make them open over and over.
Of course, she also thought it was hilarious to keep running in front of the automatic doors at a rest area in Iowa yesterday to make them open over and over.
Out of Iowa & all is well!
In case anyone is wondering, we drove across the state of Iowa yesterday unscathed. I took lots of pictures out the window right around mile marker 188, and we jokingly discussed stopping off in Montezuma to see if the van was still there. Hahaha.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
She can read!
Rachel can actually read books all by herself! On the way down to Kansas she was reading all of the road signs and asking lots of questions about them. She has also been reading the signs in the hotel.
Yesterday we went to Borders and I told her that since she could read so well, we would pick out a new book. Here's what she picked:
I'm not saying that I'm thrilled with the "literature" but she was able to read all of the words in the book! There are a few "picture words" where a picture is inserted in the middle of the sentence, but it's mostly just words!
I shouldn't be surprised. During Pesach she was reading all of the instructions and ingredients on the sides of boxes.
She just finished reading descriptions of about a dozen Dora and My Little Pony books on Amazon.com.
Grade 1 might be a little boring by the time we get there in 2 years! ;)
Yesterday we went to Borders and I told her that since she could read so well, we would pick out a new book. Here's what she picked:
I'm not saying that I'm thrilled with the "literature" but she was able to read all of the words in the book! There are a few "picture words" where a picture is inserted in the middle of the sentence, but it's mostly just words!
I shouldn't be surprised. During Pesach she was reading all of the instructions and ingredients on the sides of boxes.
She just finished reading descriptions of about a dozen Dora and My Little Pony books on Amazon.com.
Grade 1 might be a little boring by the time we get there in 2 years! ;)
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Gullible doesn't even begin to cover it
Rachel has developed an obsession with flowers lately. More specifically, she has developed an obsession with picking flowers. "The flowers are a special sign for our family, Mom!" The other day, she picked some dandelions and insisted on bringing them in the car.
Since I have a lot of allergies, I didn't really want a lot of half-dead flowers in my van, so I got rid of them at my first opportunity. When Rachel noticed, she was upset and asked where they went. "Oh, your giraffe ate them," I said mostly as a joke, not realizing that Rachel would take me seriously. (She bought a stuffed giraffe at the Wichita Zoo the other day. Yes, she bought something that wasn't an elephant!!)
She picked some more flowers and this time I decided to leave them so that she could see what would happen. She was sad when I explained that the flowers had died and that wildflowers and weeds don't last long after they're picked, especially when they're not in water.
Yesterday she was talking about how she needed to pick more flowers but she wanted them to last longer. She was also discussing her bad luck with flowers that she's picked:
"First they got eaten. Then they grew dead."
Apparently today she told Ben that the stuffed giraffe is no longer allowed in the car because he ate the flowers.
Since I have a lot of allergies, I didn't really want a lot of half-dead flowers in my van, so I got rid of them at my first opportunity. When Rachel noticed, she was upset and asked where they went. "Oh, your giraffe ate them," I said mostly as a joke, not realizing that Rachel would take me seriously. (She bought a stuffed giraffe at the Wichita Zoo the other day. Yes, she bought something that wasn't an elephant!!)
She picked some more flowers and this time I decided to leave them so that she could see what would happen. She was sad when I explained that the flowers had died and that wildflowers and weeds don't last long after they're picked, especially when they're not in water.
Yesterday she was talking about how she needed to pick more flowers but she wanted them to last longer. She was also discussing her bad luck with flowers that she's picked:
"First they got eaten. Then they grew dead."
Apparently today she told Ben that the stuffed giraffe is no longer allowed in the car because he ate the flowers.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Addendum
It has come to my attention (Thanks, Terry!) that I should have mentioned that the events of the previous entry took place in Missouri, the "Show-Me" state. ;)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Questions I just should not have brought upon myself
Rachel: "Mom, why isn't your breast big enough?"
Me: "WHAT!??!?"
Rachel: "Why wasn't it big enough to feed Anna in her carseat?"
Yes, we got desperate enough at one point on the drive down that I scooted my (back) seat up as far as I could and attempted to see if I could breastfeed her while Ben drove. For the record, even with my porn star cleavage it was not possible. ;)
(I presume that no minors read this blog. If you're easily offended, it's too late now anyway. Sorry!)
Me: "WHAT!??!?"
Rachel: "Why wasn't it big enough to feed Anna in her carseat?"
Yes, we got desperate enough at one point on the drive down that I scooted my (back) seat up as far as I could and attempted to see if I could breastfeed her while Ben drove. For the record, even with my porn star cleavage it was not possible. ;)
(I presume that no minors read this blog. If you're easily offended, it's too late now anyway. Sorry!)
Detained at the border courtesy of UMKC
It should come to no surprise to anyone that once again UMKC's International Students' Office dropped the ball on providing us with the correct documentation for our trip to Kansas City.
We left for KC at about 5:15 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, only 2 hours behind schedule. At 5:30 p.m. we stopped for gas in Strathroy and Anna kindly chose that moment to loudly fill her diaper. We reached the border at 6:17 p.m. and were across by 6:34 p.m. Great! No, not so fast... we handed the nice man our papers and passports, explained where we were going, and were told that we needed to go inside to have our papers stamped. Never mind that we have not had them stamped by the border officials at all since moving down to Kansas almost 3 years ago! Apparently they are supposed to send us in every time. Interesting.
We got in, and the nice man who got us had no clue what to do so he passed us off to another officer. It was then discovered that although we have J visas (thus enabling me to have gotten a work permit), we are in the American system as having F class visas, a completely different animal.
It came as absolutely no surprise to me that of course Anna should have been issued her own J-2 visa papers so that she could get an I-94 card in her passport. No surprise to ME at all. Nope, not a surprise. In fact, we spoke to the not-so-intelligent lady at the UMKC International Students' Office several times about this need, both before and after Anna was born. Then again, we're talking about the same person who supposedly only realized in DECEMBER that we were actually living in Canada this year.
The border guy (Officer Mang, if you must know.) was actually very nice about it. We explained that this was the final step in Ben's doctorate and that we would only be gone for 10 days or so. He ended up issuing Anna an I-94 card for the low cost of only $6. Good thing we had American cash on us!
At 7:19 p.m. we were on our way. We drove all the way down to the first exit on the highway to stop for dinner! Just before 8:30 p.m. we got on the road and started driving. We stopped somewhere in Michigan for the night. I think it was outside of Kalamazoo but don't quote me on that. I'd actually have to look at the hotel receipt to know for sure!
The next morning we got on the road at 7:50 a.m. ready to make tracks down to Kansas. At some point in the morning, Ben clued me in that we would "gain" an hour due to switching to Central time, so we decided to try to get all the way down to Overland Park by 6:15 p.m. in time for Tot Shabbat! We actually got there at 6:28 p.m., in time for Rachel and Ben to zip in for the last few minutes and get the post-service snack. Yay for sugary Passover fruit slices! Chag sameach indeed!
We actually drove 10 hours in 11 hours and 40 minutes with a 4-year-old and a 10-week-old. And there were only a couple of hours in which we all wanted ear plugs to drown out poor Anna's screaming! She's actually done amazingly well so far. As I type this, she is asleep on her very cool new "Tummy Time" playmat. Yes, she's on her back. I think that she will eventually be a side-sleeper though.
(The most eventful part of our trip down was definitely Ben puking in the Home Depot parking lot just outside of Florissant, Missouri. He'd been sitting in the back seat trying to keep Anna happy. I kept asking if he was ok since he tends to get carsick and he'd forgotten to check if we had Gravol before we left - we didn't, and they don't sell it down here. I'm sure he could get something generic, but I don't think that either of us is really willing to put him in the backseat again for awhile.)
We left for KC at about 5:15 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, only 2 hours behind schedule. At 5:30 p.m. we stopped for gas in Strathroy and Anna kindly chose that moment to loudly fill her diaper. We reached the border at 6:17 p.m. and were across by 6:34 p.m. Great! No, not so fast... we handed the nice man our papers and passports, explained where we were going, and were told that we needed to go inside to have our papers stamped. Never mind that we have not had them stamped by the border officials at all since moving down to Kansas almost 3 years ago! Apparently they are supposed to send us in every time. Interesting.
We got in, and the nice man who got us had no clue what to do so he passed us off to another officer. It was then discovered that although we have J visas (thus enabling me to have gotten a work permit), we are in the American system as having F class visas, a completely different animal.
It came as absolutely no surprise to me that of course Anna should have been issued her own J-2 visa papers so that she could get an I-94 card in her passport. No surprise to ME at all. Nope, not a surprise. In fact, we spoke to the not-so-intelligent lady at the UMKC International Students' Office several times about this need, both before and after Anna was born. Then again, we're talking about the same person who supposedly only realized in DECEMBER that we were actually living in Canada this year.
The border guy (Officer Mang, if you must know.) was actually very nice about it. We explained that this was the final step in Ben's doctorate and that we would only be gone for 10 days or so. He ended up issuing Anna an I-94 card for the low cost of only $6. Good thing we had American cash on us!
At 7:19 p.m. we were on our way. We drove all the way down to the first exit on the highway to stop for dinner! Just before 8:30 p.m. we got on the road and started driving. We stopped somewhere in Michigan for the night. I think it was outside of Kalamazoo but don't quote me on that. I'd actually have to look at the hotel receipt to know for sure!
The next morning we got on the road at 7:50 a.m. ready to make tracks down to Kansas. At some point in the morning, Ben clued me in that we would "gain" an hour due to switching to Central time, so we decided to try to get all the way down to Overland Park by 6:15 p.m. in time for Tot Shabbat! We actually got there at 6:28 p.m., in time for Rachel and Ben to zip in for the last few minutes and get the post-service snack. Yay for sugary Passover fruit slices! Chag sameach indeed!
We actually drove 10 hours in 11 hours and 40 minutes with a 4-year-old and a 10-week-old. And there were only a couple of hours in which we all wanted ear plugs to drown out poor Anna's screaming! She's actually done amazingly well so far. As I type this, she is asleep on her very cool new "Tummy Time" playmat. Yes, she's on her back. I think that she will eventually be a side-sleeper though.
(The most eventful part of our trip down was definitely Ben puking in the Home Depot parking lot just outside of Florissant, Missouri. He'd been sitting in the back seat trying to keep Anna happy. I kept asking if he was ok since he tends to get carsick and he'd forgotten to check if we had Gravol before we left - we didn't, and they don't sell it down here. I'm sure he could get something generic, but I don't think that either of us is really willing to put him in the backseat again for awhile.)
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Good to know
"Mom, it's ok to nurse on the pirate ship."
Rachel is very much into pretend play lately. If either Ben or I are told one more thing about the upcoming (very much imaginary!) Great Elephant Festival, I think that we will scream.
Today it was all about the Treasure Race which apparently involves pirate ships. You are not allowed to bring swings, carseats or strollers. Babies must be "on shoulder" and you are encouraged to bring blankets, onesies, sleepers, and even the booger sucker. It is ok to nurse on the pirate ship, but only when it is moving. Moms are not permitted to nurse when the pirate ship stops at a treasure chest.
Rachel is very much into pretend play lately. If either Ben or I are told one more thing about the upcoming (very much imaginary!) Great Elephant Festival, I think that we will scream.
Today it was all about the Treasure Race which apparently involves pirate ships. You are not allowed to bring swings, carseats or strollers. Babies must be "on shoulder" and you are encouraged to bring blankets, onesies, sleepers, and even the booger sucker. It is ok to nurse on the pirate ship, but only when it is moving. Moms are not permitted to nurse when the pirate ship stops at a treasure chest.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Only my kid...
Last week Rachel was given a Disney princess colouring poster that came with the Crayola Colour Wonder markers. These markers only colour on the "special" paper. This is not as great as it sounds. There is no mess, which is nice, but there is a delay between colouring on the paper and the colour actually showing up.
Rachel was getting mad while colouring because she kept saying that the markers didn't work. I explained to her that it was simply a case of delayed gratification. Of course she had to ask me what that meant, so I explained it to her. From then on, every time she coloured on that paper, she yelled out "Delayed gratification!" at the top of her lungs.
Rachel was getting mad while colouring because she kept saying that the markers didn't work. I explained to her that it was simply a case of delayed gratification. Of course she had to ask me what that meant, so I explained it to her. From then on, every time she coloured on that paper, she yelled out "Delayed gratification!" at the top of her lungs.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Oops!
How did I miss blogging on Rachel's birthday? In any case, her actual birthday turned out to be quite a fun day! We went to Kindermusik in the morning, and the whole class sang Happy Birthday to Rachel at the end. It was a gorgeous day, so in the afternoon we went to Springbank Park to feed the ducks. Too bad the ducks weren't back from the south yet! We ended up feeding the geese instead. Anna kindly napped in the stroller the whole time we were out, and didn't even scream that much when we stopped at Tim Horton's for a birthday donut (and ice capps for the grown-ups!) on the way home. Rachel played on the playground equipment at Springbank for a long time, and even climbed the chain rope ladder multiple times. She also made friends with a 2 1/2 year old girl and the two of them spent a few minutes happily handing rocks and sand to the mommies. Of course, it wasn't rocks and sand - it was ice cream!
We went out for her birthday lunch on April 7th instead of the 8th, because kids eat free on Mondays at East Side Mario's. Mind you, it wasn't so free after all since Ben and I decided to share a dessert that cost the same as the kids' meal would have been! Rachel had a great time and spontaneously thanked us for taking her out for a birthday lunch.
Her actual birthday party was on Sunday. Again, the weather was gorgeous, so we were able to get outside for awhile to play my ridiculous party game. A few days before her party, it occurred to me that maybe I should try to come up with something fun for the kids to do. Rachel has an elephant pool that she loves, and I thought about having rubber ducks in the pool for the kids to fish out. I figured that this would be easy to do. We'd write numbers on the bottom of the ducks and somehow make that correspond to prizes.
Little did I know that rubber ducks are scarce in London in the spring! Although I saw a bag of a dozen different colour rubber ducks about a week before Rachel's party, I could not find them anywhere after I decided to try this game. Ben and I went to Wal-Mart the night before the party (thanks, Grandma Karen! We had a really fun date, haha. Oh, wait. We did go to Starbucks and Ben got a free sandwich.). At Wal-Mart, it quickly became apparently that I was going to be the coolest Mom on the planet since I found juice boxes with ELEPHANTS on them. No ducks though.
On Sunday morning, I headed out to pick up a few things that we needed. I figured that either the Superstore or dollar store would have rubber ducks. Nope, no ducks there either. At 12:15 p.m., I called Ben to say that I was zipping down to the Westmount Zellers since I vaguely remembered possibly seeing rubber ducks there. Rachel's party was supposed to start at 2 p.m. No ducks at Zellers, but I did find a huge pack of temporary tattoos that I decided would make marvellous prizes.
Finally, in a moment of absolute desperation, I sprinted down to the dollar store in the mall. Well, sprinted is a slight exaggeration since my pelvic rotation has not yet gone away. In any case, I was moving as fast as I could! The dollar store had no ducks either. Thankfully, they DID have rubber seals and turtles. Rachel has a pretty good sense of humour, so I grabbed a bunch of seals and turtles and headed for home. (Yes, I stopped to pay on the way out.)
The kids all loved the game. Rachel and her friend Sarah were easily the most enthusiastic. Sarah's mom and I cheerfully (and sneakily) kept recycling their prizes by putting them back in the prize container instead of holding them in our hands. The game lasted much longer that way and the kids never noticed!
Rachel quite enjoyed being the centre of attention and having everyone sing to her, and she successfully blew out her candle and later talked about how she blew out the candle "and the fire went out!"
Her "birthday week" ended on Friday when she celebrated her birthday at pre-school during the weekly Shabbat party. Anna and I came in for the last 45 minutes of pre-school, so I got to see a little of what Rachel does there. Every time someone has a birthday, the other kids draw a picture of what they wish for the birthday child. Apparently Rachel has a little boyfriend at pre-school. ;) Evan wished her a blue birthday elephant. We've heard about Evan before. Rachel talks about him when telling us about show and tell: "Evan always guesses elephant!" Apparently Evan likes elephants too. When I asked Rachel if she'd like to have Evan over for a playdate, she thought that would be fun to show him all her elephants. I might actually have to pursue this.
We went out for her birthday lunch on April 7th instead of the 8th, because kids eat free on Mondays at East Side Mario's. Mind you, it wasn't so free after all since Ben and I decided to share a dessert that cost the same as the kids' meal would have been! Rachel had a great time and spontaneously thanked us for taking her out for a birthday lunch.
Her actual birthday party was on Sunday. Again, the weather was gorgeous, so we were able to get outside for awhile to play my ridiculous party game. A few days before her party, it occurred to me that maybe I should try to come up with something fun for the kids to do. Rachel has an elephant pool that she loves, and I thought about having rubber ducks in the pool for the kids to fish out. I figured that this would be easy to do. We'd write numbers on the bottom of the ducks and somehow make that correspond to prizes.
Little did I know that rubber ducks are scarce in London in the spring! Although I saw a bag of a dozen different colour rubber ducks about a week before Rachel's party, I could not find them anywhere after I decided to try this game. Ben and I went to Wal-Mart the night before the party (thanks, Grandma Karen! We had a really fun date, haha. Oh, wait. We did go to Starbucks and Ben got a free sandwich.). At Wal-Mart, it quickly became apparently that I was going to be the coolest Mom on the planet since I found juice boxes with ELEPHANTS on them. No ducks though.
On Sunday morning, I headed out to pick up a few things that we needed. I figured that either the Superstore or dollar store would have rubber ducks. Nope, no ducks there either. At 12:15 p.m., I called Ben to say that I was zipping down to the Westmount Zellers since I vaguely remembered possibly seeing rubber ducks there. Rachel's party was supposed to start at 2 p.m. No ducks at Zellers, but I did find a huge pack of temporary tattoos that I decided would make marvellous prizes.
Finally, in a moment of absolute desperation, I sprinted down to the dollar store in the mall. Well, sprinted is a slight exaggeration since my pelvic rotation has not yet gone away. In any case, I was moving as fast as I could! The dollar store had no ducks either. Thankfully, they DID have rubber seals and turtles. Rachel has a pretty good sense of humour, so I grabbed a bunch of seals and turtles and headed for home. (Yes, I stopped to pay on the way out.)
The kids all loved the game. Rachel and her friend Sarah were easily the most enthusiastic. Sarah's mom and I cheerfully (and sneakily) kept recycling their prizes by putting them back in the prize container instead of holding them in our hands. The game lasted much longer that way and the kids never noticed!
Rachel quite enjoyed being the centre of attention and having everyone sing to her, and she successfully blew out her candle and later talked about how she blew out the candle "and the fire went out!"
Her "birthday week" ended on Friday when she celebrated her birthday at pre-school during the weekly Shabbat party. Anna and I came in for the last 45 minutes of pre-school, so I got to see a little of what Rachel does there. Every time someone has a birthday, the other kids draw a picture of what they wish for the birthday child. Apparently Rachel has a little boyfriend at pre-school. ;) Evan wished her a blue birthday elephant. We've heard about Evan before. Rachel talks about him when telling us about show and tell: "Evan always guesses elephant!" Apparently Evan likes elephants too. When I asked Rachel if she'd like to have Evan over for a playdate, she thought that would be fun to show him all her elephants. I might actually have to pursue this.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Ha.
About 2 minutes after I published the previous blog post, Ben called to say he was on the way home. Too bad Anna woke up when he called.
Friday night and the lights are low...
You think 10 sleepers is the way to go...
La la la la la la la la la
You are the spit-up queen, young and sweet, only 8 weeks old...
la la la la la la la
You can spit, you can spew, having the time of your life.
See that girl, watch that scene, diggin' the spit-up queen!
************************************************************************************
As I typed this, Anna finally fell asleep on the nursing pillow on my lap. I guess I'm not moving for a couple of hours until Ben gets home. I guess that Anna will sleep in a sleeper with a wet arm instead of moving on to sleeper #11. I guess that last night's lovely sleep from 8:15 p.m. to 3 a.m. was a fluke. I guess that I would like my working body back so that it would be easier to climb in and out of bed, up and down stairs, and carry a baby around. I guess that maybe I'm having some chocolate when Ben gets home.
La la la la la la la la la
You are the spit-up queen, young and sweet, only 8 weeks old...
la la la la la la la
You can spit, you can spew, having the time of your life.
See that girl, watch that scene, diggin' the spit-up queen!
************************************************************************************
As I typed this, Anna finally fell asleep on the nursing pillow on my lap. I guess I'm not moving for a couple of hours until Ben gets home. I guess that Anna will sleep in a sleeper with a wet arm instead of moving on to sleeper #11. I guess that last night's lovely sleep from 8:15 p.m. to 3 a.m. was a fluke. I guess that I would like my working body back so that it would be easier to climb in and out of bed, up and down stairs, and carry a baby around. I guess that maybe I'm having some chocolate when Ben gets home.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Friday, April 04, 2008
Watch out, fly!
I recently bought Rachel a deck of pre-schooler Crazy 8 cards. Instead of using the traditional deck of cards, there are 8 categories with 6 cards in each category. Each card also has a different colour. You can either match category or colour, or play a Crazy Card to change the category. It's very fun. This is good since Rachel has been wanting to play almost non-stop since we got the cards!
One of the categories is bugs. Yesterday I saw a fly in the kitchen so I called out to Ben to come get rid of it. Rachel asked what I was doing, and I told her there was a fly in the kitchen. She went running to get the category card, yelling "Fly is in the bug category! I'll get the category card!"
When I asked her why she wanted to get the category card, she explained that she thought it would help Dad to catch the fly.
As an aside, she was reading most of the words on the category card. She doesn't really read phonetically for most things. I'd say that she recognizes letters and has memorized which letters are in different words. I'm constantly surprised by how literate she really is though.
One of the categories is bugs. Yesterday I saw a fly in the kitchen so I called out to Ben to come get rid of it. Rachel asked what I was doing, and I told her there was a fly in the kitchen. She went running to get the category card, yelling "Fly is in the bug category! I'll get the category card!"
When I asked her why she wanted to get the category card, she explained that she thought it would help Dad to catch the fly.
As an aside, she was reading most of the words on the category card. She doesn't really read phonetically for most things. I'd say that she recognizes letters and has memorized which letters are in different words. I'm constantly surprised by how literate she really is though.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
A fun age
Rachel was in the office while Ben was reading an article that mentioned the CBC. She commented that "those people are silly with their alphabet. It's not CBC, it's ABC!"
She also has a couple of Rachel-isms that crack us up:
Poem = Pwom
Warm = Worm
It doesn't matter how many times we correct her, that's how those words come out.
She also has a couple of Rachel-isms that crack us up:
Poem = Pwom
Warm = Worm
It doesn't matter how many times we correct her, that's how those words come out.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Pre-schooler logic
Dad: "Rachel, what does snow turn into when it melts?"
Rachel: "Grass!"
A little later...
Rachel: "What does rain turn into when it hits the ground? MUD!"
Rachel: "Grass!"
A little later...
Rachel: "What does rain turn into when it hits the ground? MUD!"
Sunday, March 30, 2008
She's very articulate
Mom: "Rachel, would you like to have cheese quesadillas for lunch?"
Rachel: "Actually, I don't think so, Mom."
I was somewhat surprised by her response since she was so excited to have them the other day.
*************************************************************************************
Rachel has been asking me lately about counting the money in her tzedakah box again to see if we had enough to save another animal. She was set on adopting either a polar bear or a panda. We sorted and counted all the coins yesterday and there was $36.02. We needed $40. Rachel suggested that we get the rest from Daddy's wallet. Since she was so close to having the right amount, we did.
We then went online to WWF's website to see if we could arrange to adopt the animal online. When we got to the right page, I scrolled down and started to tell Rachel all what her options were. She saw the Asian elephant and abandoned all thoughts of adopting anything else! "Let's adopt another elephant! Then TV will have a sister because they will send another elephant!" Um, so much for altruism. And yes, the stuffed elephant that WWF sent along with the adoption certificate has been named TV. I suggested it as a joke after Rachel tried to convince me that the elephant wanted to go watch a video, and Rachel decided that it would be a good name.
We did adopt another elephant. Rachel was happy to know that she was helping animals, and I'm sure she can't wait to get the elephant in the mail!
Rachel: "Actually, I don't think so, Mom."
I was somewhat surprised by her response since she was so excited to have them the other day.
*************************************************************************************
Rachel has been asking me lately about counting the money in her tzedakah box again to see if we had enough to save another animal. She was set on adopting either a polar bear or a panda. We sorted and counted all the coins yesterday and there was $36.02. We needed $40. Rachel suggested that we get the rest from Daddy's wallet. Since she was so close to having the right amount, we did.
We then went online to WWF's website to see if we could arrange to adopt the animal online. When we got to the right page, I scrolled down and started to tell Rachel all what her options were. She saw the Asian elephant and abandoned all thoughts of adopting anything else! "Let's adopt another elephant! Then TV will have a sister because they will send another elephant!" Um, so much for altruism. And yes, the stuffed elephant that WWF sent along with the adoption certificate has been named TV. I suggested it as a joke after Rachel tried to convince me that the elephant wanted to go watch a video, and Rachel decided that it would be a good name.
We did adopt another elephant. Rachel was happy to know that she was helping animals, and I'm sure she can't wait to get the elephant in the mail!
Friday, March 28, 2008
Eleven o'clock and all's well!
Yes, I should go to bed. Of course, by this time there's almost no point since Anna will likely be up to nurse in an hour or two.
I would like to report that I read the newspaper, my kitchen is clean, the laundry is all where it's supposed to be, and I think I'm even caught up on my e-mails!
I would like to report that I read the newspaper, my kitchen is clean, the laundry is all where it's supposed to be, and I think I'm even caught up on my e-mails!
I feel the need...
... to post that Anna is still asleep in her bassinet and it's now just after 10 p.m.!
No, I don't plan to update hourly. Don't get too excited now. ;)
No, I don't plan to update hourly. Don't get too excited now. ;)
They're both asleep!
I'm sure I'm jinxing myself by typing this, but it's just after 9 p.m. on Friday night, and both girls are asleep in their beds! I'm celebrating by sitting down with a bowl of ice cream and typing with TWO hands! It only took 2 hours of nursing/rocking/jiggling/bouncing Anna to sleep, but she's been in her bassinet for a whopping 20 minutes now and I *think* she's out for her long stretch!
Monday, March 24, 2008
Our Purim Alien
I've had this costume for quite awhile now, and we were hoping to have a baby to put in it! ;) For those of you who are unfamiliar with Megilat Esther, I'm quite positive that there were aliens frolicking along with Mordechai, Queen Esther, Haman & the gang!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Anna, aka the spit-up queen
These pictures were taken way back on March 10th. I'm sure that I'll update again once we get more pics in the computer!
As for why Anna is the spit-up queen... let's just say that burp cloths work for some babies. Not ours. We've resorted to using receiving blankets as burp cloths. It's the only way to hopefully contain most of the mess. Hahaha. I think that Anna spits up as a direct result of us ordering new living room furniture last spring. We got the furniture on Thursday June 14th in the morning. At about 5pm that same day, I got a positive pregnancy test. There's obviously a direct correlation! ;) (We'd always said that there would be no point in getting new furniture only to have it spit up on. Guess the joke's on us.)
Why does every post require a title?
The other day I was nursing Anna on a chair in the living room. Rachel wanted me to read a book to her, so I asked her to go and pick one out from the shelf. Her response? "Why do you make everything so hard for me?"
(for the record, I do not recall ever saying that to her, so I'm not sure where she picked that up!)
In other news, Rachel is surprisingly literate. She's more of a sight-reader than sounder-outer, but that's fine by me. We've been giving her snack menus lately. I'll list several options, and she checks off the one that she would like to have. This has cut down on the fights we were having over snack. If I verbally offered her 2 choices, she would reject both but refuse to tell me something she did want, or just melt down because none of the choices were what she wanted. Now she reads her menu, checks off what she wants, and we have no fuss! I don't do it all the time since I think the novelty would wear off, but it's certainly made life easier over the past week.
*knock on wood* Everyone seems to be healthy again now. Rachel still has a bit of nasal drip and is coughing some at night, but I plan to send her to pre-school in the morning unless something drastic happens overnight. Of course, my pelvic issues are sadly still here as is the nasty pain in my lower back. I tried sleeping in the bed for a whole 20 minutes last night and I'm paying for it today with more pain than I've had in probably a week or more. Since we leave on our trip for Kansas in 34 days, I'm really hoping for healing soon. I doubt that hotels provide recliners, even in the suites we've managed to book!
(for the record, I do not recall ever saying that to her, so I'm not sure where she picked that up!)
In other news, Rachel is surprisingly literate. She's more of a sight-reader than sounder-outer, but that's fine by me. We've been giving her snack menus lately. I'll list several options, and she checks off the one that she would like to have. This has cut down on the fights we were having over snack. If I verbally offered her 2 choices, she would reject both but refuse to tell me something she did want, or just melt down because none of the choices were what she wanted. Now she reads her menu, checks off what she wants, and we have no fuss! I don't do it all the time since I think the novelty would wear off, but it's certainly made life easier over the past week.
*knock on wood* Everyone seems to be healthy again now. Rachel still has a bit of nasal drip and is coughing some at night, but I plan to send her to pre-school in the morning unless something drastic happens overnight. Of course, my pelvic issues are sadly still here as is the nasty pain in my lower back. I tried sleeping in the bed for a whole 20 minutes last night and I'm paying for it today with more pain than I've had in probably a week or more. Since we leave on our trip for Kansas in 34 days, I'm really hoping for healing soon. I doubt that hotels provide recliners, even in the suites we've managed to book!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Why we love Rachel's pre-school
Rachel has been looking forward to Purim all year, especially when we told her that we wouldn't be doing Halloween again. (Halloween falls on Shabbat this year, so it's just out. Purim is basically the same kind of thing... well, other than the wildly different reasons behind the celebration! We don't see the need to do both.)
The Purim elephant was ready to make a second appearance, having first showed up last year at Beth Shalom in Kansas. Unfortunately, Rachel still wasn't up to going to pre-school today. Her temperature is totally back to normal but she is still very tired and if it hadn't been the Purim Parade today I wouldn't have even thought of sending her.
Ben had to drop by the JCC to return a shoe to school since Rachel's dress shoes got mixed up with another little girl's shoes last Friday. When he got there, he found Morah Basie dressed up as an elephant trainer and Morah Lu was the elephant! Since elephants and trainers do not have a place in the Purim story, we know that they did this to make Rachel feel more comfortable with the costumes and wildness of the day. They have been very good with Rachel throughout the year, and she has really warmed up to both of them as a result. I wish that Rachel could have seen them, because she would have thought it was great that one of her teachers was an elephant just like her!
Technically we still have one more chance for the Purim elephant to show since we might attempt going to services tomorrow morning. We'll have to see how everyone is feeling.
The Purim elephant was ready to make a second appearance, having first showed up last year at Beth Shalom in Kansas. Unfortunately, Rachel still wasn't up to going to pre-school today. Her temperature is totally back to normal but she is still very tired and if it hadn't been the Purim Parade today I wouldn't have even thought of sending her.
Ben had to drop by the JCC to return a shoe to school since Rachel's dress shoes got mixed up with another little girl's shoes last Friday. When he got there, he found Morah Basie dressed up as an elephant trainer and Morah Lu was the elephant! Since elephants and trainers do not have a place in the Purim story, we know that they did this to make Rachel feel more comfortable with the costumes and wildness of the day. They have been very good with Rachel throughout the year, and she has really warmed up to both of them as a result. I wish that Rachel could have seen them, because she would have thought it was great that one of her teachers was an elephant just like her!
Technically we still have one more chance for the Purim elephant to show since we might attempt going to services tomorrow morning. We'll have to see how everyone is feeling.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Too smart for her own good
Rachel has not been feeling well at all this week. On Sunday she had a temperature of 105 and it kept spiking back up as the Tylenol wore off, so off to the ER she went with Daddy. The ER doctor couldn't find anything wrong so she was sent home with instructions to alternate Tylenol and Advil. *WARNING BELLS GO OFF HERE!!!*
We have never given her Advil. There is a good reason for this. We have reason to suspect that Rachel has issues with ibuprofen since other similar drugs have given her diarrhea. Needless to say, we got the Advil but thought it would be prudent to keep Rachel close to home. That turned out to be a smart decision, although I think that taking out shares in OxyClean would be an even smarter thing to do.
Since Rachel has been sick, she's been watching a lot of videos. She's definitely been watching way more than I would normally allow. Yesterday afternoon she asked to watch another video and I said no. I explained that she'd already watched too many and we didn't want her brain to rot. (No, I don't know why I said that!) She thought about it and said, "But my brain's already rotted from watching too many videos so it's ok to watch another!"
No, that didn't work.
We have never given her Advil. There is a good reason for this. We have reason to suspect that Rachel has issues with ibuprofen since other similar drugs have given her diarrhea. Needless to say, we got the Advil but thought it would be prudent to keep Rachel close to home. That turned out to be a smart decision, although I think that taking out shares in OxyClean would be an even smarter thing to do.
Since Rachel has been sick, she's been watching a lot of videos. She's definitely been watching way more than I would normally allow. Yesterday afternoon she asked to watch another video and I said no. I explained that she'd already watched too many and we didn't want her brain to rot. (No, I don't know why I said that!) She thought about it and said, "But my brain's already rotted from watching too many videos so it's ok to watch another!"
No, that didn't work.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Food Art
I would just like to state that Rachel came up with this all on her own. "I made a face!" she proudly told us. She's got a long way to go before recreating scenes from plays like her mother once did, but we're proud of our budding artist just the same! (If anyone cares, I once made the set for Waiting for Godot out of a dinner at my residence at the University of Toronto way back when. Amanda, if you're reading this I'm sure you can vouch for me!)
Monday, March 10, 2008
Typing with two hands!
I finally have a few minutes while Anna is napping IN HER SWING! No-one is holding her! And she's asleep! (and yes, I'm probably jinxing it by having typed that...)
I was considering titling this entry "I am Jane". For those of you who have known me for a long time, those three words need no explanation. For those of you who might be unsure, let's just say it refers to a kind of Murphy's Law in which things just never go as you think they will/should.
I had a lot of difficulty nursing Rachel. She wouldn't latch on properly until she was almost 3.5 weeks old and we saw a lactation consultant at the hospital when we were in for Rachel's unexplained fever. (Coincidentally, the same night I ended up in another hospital ER with gall stones and several days later Ben got food poisoning. My pelvic and back issues seem like a breeze in comparison...) I also had supply issues, and constant pumping & domperidone (the lactation drug) really didn't do much to help. Since my mother had the same supply issue, I wasn't totally surprised by this.
Fast forward to Anna's birth. I had decided that I wouldn't bother trying to breastfeed. I didn't see the point in being set up for disappointment, and it's not like formula is baby poison or anything, despite what some people seem to think. When she was born, the nurse in the delivery room asked me if I wanted to try nursing her. I said, "Sure, we can try, but I don't really care if it works." (I did also explain my history.) Anna wouldn't really latch on quickly, so I told the nurse to not worry about it.
She was bottlefed for her first four days of life. On Monday Feb.18, I woke up and said to Ben, "Um, do these look larger to you?" Hmm, I thought. Could there be anything in there? "Hey Ben, let's see if the baby will latch on, just for kicks!" She did. "Hey Ben, could you go rent me a breast pump so I can see if there's really anything in there?" Oh look. There was.
The next day we had a lactation consultant come out to the house. I figured that I wanted someone professional to tell me if there was any point to trying this out, given the bottlefeeding start and seemingly random nursing success. She got me set up and showed me a few different ways to nurse Anna.
At Anna's next check-up, she hadn't gained anything in 8 days. Needless to say, this had me freaking out. I had not been exclusively nursing her, but she was only getting about 1-3oz of formula in a bottle every day. (We call it the sanity bottle. As in, "I can't take anymore of this 24/7 latching on to Mommy thing! Someone else can feed you now!") My doctor wasn't alarmed, but agreed to have me come back the following week just to check.
8 days later we had our follow-up appointment. Anna had gained 9.5oz in 8 days. So, um, there is milk in there. Apparently the key to breastfeeding success is to:
a)not care
b)not try
c)wait a few days and then play "latch the baby on" just for kicks
d)laugh hysterically (and a bit sadly) as your plans to play a concert at Easter go up in smoke
This morning I decided to try pumping at around 7:30 since Anna was still asleep. Amazingly, I had 3 ounces within minutes. So I was able to get Rachel ready for preschool very easily and quickly while Ben fed Anna! Yay for an easy morning!
I won't say that I'm in love with this nursing business though. She's finally starting to mellow out a bit and not need to latch on 24/7, but I do feel very tied-down by it. I'm trying to only give her one bottle of formula per day, and I suppose if I'm ever able to pump enough to put aside, then we can switch to no formula. I'm not that motivated though, to be honest. We'll go with whatever happens. And apparently I'll get a little more time off of the orchestra circuit.
I was considering titling this entry "I am Jane". For those of you who have known me for a long time, those three words need no explanation. For those of you who might be unsure, let's just say it refers to a kind of Murphy's Law in which things just never go as you think they will/should.
I had a lot of difficulty nursing Rachel. She wouldn't latch on properly until she was almost 3.5 weeks old and we saw a lactation consultant at the hospital when we were in for Rachel's unexplained fever. (Coincidentally, the same night I ended up in another hospital ER with gall stones and several days later Ben got food poisoning. My pelvic and back issues seem like a breeze in comparison...) I also had supply issues, and constant pumping & domperidone (the lactation drug) really didn't do much to help. Since my mother had the same supply issue, I wasn't totally surprised by this.
Fast forward to Anna's birth. I had decided that I wouldn't bother trying to breastfeed. I didn't see the point in being set up for disappointment, and it's not like formula is baby poison or anything, despite what some people seem to think. When she was born, the nurse in the delivery room asked me if I wanted to try nursing her. I said, "Sure, we can try, but I don't really care if it works." (I did also explain my history.) Anna wouldn't really latch on quickly, so I told the nurse to not worry about it.
She was bottlefed for her first four days of life. On Monday Feb.18, I woke up and said to Ben, "Um, do these look larger to you?" Hmm, I thought. Could there be anything in there? "Hey Ben, let's see if the baby will latch on, just for kicks!" She did. "Hey Ben, could you go rent me a breast pump so I can see if there's really anything in there?" Oh look. There was.
The next day we had a lactation consultant come out to the house. I figured that I wanted someone professional to tell me if there was any point to trying this out, given the bottlefeeding start and seemingly random nursing success. She got me set up and showed me a few different ways to nurse Anna.
At Anna's next check-up, she hadn't gained anything in 8 days. Needless to say, this had me freaking out. I had not been exclusively nursing her, but she was only getting about 1-3oz of formula in a bottle every day. (We call it the sanity bottle. As in, "I can't take anymore of this 24/7 latching on to Mommy thing! Someone else can feed you now!") My doctor wasn't alarmed, but agreed to have me come back the following week just to check.
8 days later we had our follow-up appointment. Anna had gained 9.5oz in 8 days. So, um, there is milk in there. Apparently the key to breastfeeding success is to:
a)not care
b)not try
c)wait a few days and then play "latch the baby on" just for kicks
d)laugh hysterically (and a bit sadly) as your plans to play a concert at Easter go up in smoke
This morning I decided to try pumping at around 7:30 since Anna was still asleep. Amazingly, I had 3 ounces within minutes. So I was able to get Rachel ready for preschool very easily and quickly while Ben fed Anna! Yay for an easy morning!
I won't say that I'm in love with this nursing business though. She's finally starting to mellow out a bit and not need to latch on 24/7, but I do feel very tied-down by it. I'm trying to only give her one bottle of formula per day, and I suppose if I'm ever able to pump enough to put aside, then we can switch to no formula. I'm not that motivated though, to be honest. We'll go with whatever happens. And apparently I'll get a little more time off of the orchestra circuit.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
One picture
I don't know why blogger is giving me trouble but it's currently only letting me upload one picture. This was taken after Anna's naming on February 23.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Antarctic Elephant
According to Rachel, there is a white elephant who lives in Antarctica. Its main predators are polar bears, but the polar bears do not eat the elephant because they are not carnivores. They are messy eaters. Instead of eating meat, they eat snowflakes and mud. The mud turns them brown and then they lick themselves clean with a white tongue but the brown gets all over the tongue and can't be wiped off. Then the polar bear will get a wipe, grab it in its teeth, put it on its tongue and leave it on its tongue until all the brown and snowflake goo is gone. (If you're wondering, snowflake goo is something that comes out of snowflakes.)
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Rachel is funny
On the day before Anna was born, Rachel and I decided to make cupcakes. Since we were out of the little cupcake papers, I asked Rachel and Ben to go to the store for them.
Rachel was riding in the cart, and she spotted the cupcake papers before Ben did. "There they are!" "Where?" said Ben. "Right there, next to the [whatever it was]" answered Rachel. "Where?" repeated Ben. After a couple rounds of this, Rachel got annoyed and responded, "Oh, just let me out of here and I'll show you where they are!"
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Rachel is often silly when I get her dressed in the morning. She likes to goof off, and usually she just makes me laugh. She has recently named her feet. One is called Foot and the other is called Foot-ah! (emphasis on the "ah") She gets very indignant if I forget which one is which.
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Bathtime = silly time at our house. Recent discussions have involved the asparagus in the bathtub. Neither one of us knows where this comes from, but Rachel is adamant that Anna is too young to know about the asparagus.
Rachel was riding in the cart, and she spotted the cupcake papers before Ben did. "There they are!" "Where?" said Ben. "Right there, next to the [whatever it was]" answered Rachel. "Where?" repeated Ben. After a couple rounds of this, Rachel got annoyed and responded, "Oh, just let me out of here and I'll show you where they are!"
*************************************************************************************
Rachel is often silly when I get her dressed in the morning. She likes to goof off, and usually she just makes me laugh. She has recently named her feet. One is called Foot and the other is called Foot-ah! (emphasis on the "ah") She gets very indignant if I forget which one is which.
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Bathtime = silly time at our house. Recent discussions have involved the asparagus in the bathtub. Neither one of us knows where this comes from, but Rachel is adamant that Anna is too young to know about the asparagus.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Chana bat Binyamin v'Rachel
Anna's naming was today. Amusingly, she slept through it while big sister Rachel was fussy and whiny, mostly due to hunger. (Hey, if you don't eat enough breakfast or snack, then yes, you are going to be hungry halfway through an almost 3 hour service!)
We've been asked a lot about how we chose Anna's name, and who she is named after. In Judaism it is common to name children for deceased relatives. Rachel is named after my grandmother (although she went by Reita, her first name was Raechel - not a typo, that's how she spelled it!). Rachel's middle name, Eve, has a slightly more practical reason behind it. When Ben and I got married, I took the Hebrew name Rachel as a way of honouring my grandmother. It never occurred to either of us that we might want to use the name for a child one day. Rather than have Rachel be "Rachel daughter of Rachel" we chose a biblical middle name and so Rachel's Hebrew name is actually Rachel Chava.
As for Anna's name, she is technically named after my mother's grandmother. There's slightly more to it than that, though. When Rachel was 3 months old, Ben and I started to talk about having a second child. We saw no reason to wait, although we did end up waiting until Rachel was about 6 months old before trying to conceive again. Strangely, this time around we experienced secondary infertility. There was never a cause attached to it, but it took just over 2.5 years before I became pregnant again.
Anna is the Greek derivative of the Hebrew Hannah (Chana). For those of you who are unfamiliar with the biblical Hannah's story, she was infertile for a lengthy period of time. She prayed for a child and eventually conceived. Anna is that child for us.
Anna's middle name, Rose, isn't quite as simple to explain. I don't feel the need to have matching names for children, but I did like that Rachel Eve and Anna Rose were the same in terms of syllables. The Hebrew version of Rose is Shoshana, which I have tried to get Ben to like but obviously haven't succeeded! However, he did like the English version. I will say that Rose has NOTHING to do with Valentine's Day. In fact, much as I didn't want a Valentine's Day baby, I'm glad that we had Anna then because now we can more easily get away from celebrating V-Day!
We've been asked a lot about how we chose Anna's name, and who she is named after. In Judaism it is common to name children for deceased relatives. Rachel is named after my grandmother (although she went by Reita, her first name was Raechel - not a typo, that's how she spelled it!). Rachel's middle name, Eve, has a slightly more practical reason behind it. When Ben and I got married, I took the Hebrew name Rachel as a way of honouring my grandmother. It never occurred to either of us that we might want to use the name for a child one day. Rather than have Rachel be "Rachel daughter of Rachel" we chose a biblical middle name and so Rachel's Hebrew name is actually Rachel Chava.
As for Anna's name, she is technically named after my mother's grandmother. There's slightly more to it than that, though. When Rachel was 3 months old, Ben and I started to talk about having a second child. We saw no reason to wait, although we did end up waiting until Rachel was about 6 months old before trying to conceive again. Strangely, this time around we experienced secondary infertility. There was never a cause attached to it, but it took just over 2.5 years before I became pregnant again.
Anna is the Greek derivative of the Hebrew Hannah (Chana). For those of you who are unfamiliar with the biblical Hannah's story, she was infertile for a lengthy period of time. She prayed for a child and eventually conceived. Anna is that child for us.
Anna's middle name, Rose, isn't quite as simple to explain. I don't feel the need to have matching names for children, but I did like that Rachel Eve and Anna Rose were the same in terms of syllables. The Hebrew version of Rose is Shoshana, which I have tried to get Ben to like but obviously haven't succeeded! However, he did like the English version. I will say that Rose has NOTHING to do with Valentine's Day. In fact, much as I didn't want a Valentine's Day baby, I'm glad that we had Anna then because now we can more easily get away from celebrating V-Day!
Friday, February 22, 2008
The moment you've all been waiting for...
Introducing Anna Rose Gitter!
Anna was born on Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 10:03am after an approximately 9 hour labour. Since she weighed 9 pounds 5.6 ounces at birth, I'm very happy that she decided to show up a week early! At my 38 week appointment on February 8, my doctor tried stripping my membranes. That got me contractions that peaked at 7-8 minutes apart. I was supposed to have another appointment on the 14th at 10:45am. Instead, I managed to go into labour on my own at about 1am that day!
In keeping with the rest of the pregnancy, my delivery experience with Anna was about as opposite to my experience with Rachel as possible. With Rachel, we got to the hospital and got the tiny little back room for delivery since there were lots of women giving birth that night. With Anna, the nurses were fighting over who would get the first patient to walk in the door since it had been such a quiet night. I ended up with the best birthing room in the hospital! Even though I was in the ward room afterwards, there was a period of time where I had it to myself, and also a period of time where there was just one other person there.
I will say that my dietary experience was just as amusing this time around. Shortly after being moved up to my room, lunch arrived - sweet & sour pork. Oops. We nicely requested kosher meals and thus started the process of being brought sealed kosher meat meals with milk cartons on the side. My last lunch there included a hodgepodge of kosher food items, ranging from (dairy) pudding to beef. We suspect that they just looked for kosher labelling and didn't worry about whether or not there were any other restrictions. Oh well.
Rachel enjoyed visiting us in the hospital, although I suspect that her favourite part was going to the patient lounge to get packages of bread and crackers! She also appreciated getting to share the "special juice" on my meal trays.
We came home on Friday February 15th and have been settling in ever since. Anna prefers to be held 24/7. She is not content to be set down anywhere for more than a minute or two, although she finally crashed about 20 minutes ago which is why I finally have time to sit down and blog! Anna is currently sleeping in our bed at night - Ben loves it, and it's very cute to see the two of them together. I'm still sleeping in the recliner because it hurts too much to get up from the bed if I lie down. If my physical issues haven't resolved themselves by the end of this coming week, I apparently get to go for x-rays. I have a feeling that I will be headed in that direction given how long this has been going on.
Anna was born on Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 10:03am after an approximately 9 hour labour. Since she weighed 9 pounds 5.6 ounces at birth, I'm very happy that she decided to show up a week early! At my 38 week appointment on February 8, my doctor tried stripping my membranes. That got me contractions that peaked at 7-8 minutes apart. I was supposed to have another appointment on the 14th at 10:45am. Instead, I managed to go into labour on my own at about 1am that day!
In keeping with the rest of the pregnancy, my delivery experience with Anna was about as opposite to my experience with Rachel as possible. With Rachel, we got to the hospital and got the tiny little back room for delivery since there were lots of women giving birth that night. With Anna, the nurses were fighting over who would get the first patient to walk in the door since it had been such a quiet night. I ended up with the best birthing room in the hospital! Even though I was in the ward room afterwards, there was a period of time where I had it to myself, and also a period of time where there was just one other person there.
I will say that my dietary experience was just as amusing this time around. Shortly after being moved up to my room, lunch arrived - sweet & sour pork. Oops. We nicely requested kosher meals and thus started the process of being brought sealed kosher meat meals with milk cartons on the side. My last lunch there included a hodgepodge of kosher food items, ranging from (dairy) pudding to beef. We suspect that they just looked for kosher labelling and didn't worry about whether or not there were any other restrictions. Oh well.
Rachel enjoyed visiting us in the hospital, although I suspect that her favourite part was going to the patient lounge to get packages of bread and crackers! She also appreciated getting to share the "special juice" on my meal trays.
We came home on Friday February 15th and have been settling in ever since. Anna prefers to be held 24/7. She is not content to be set down anywhere for more than a minute or two, although she finally crashed about 20 minutes ago which is why I finally have time to sit down and blog! Anna is currently sleeping in our bed at night - Ben loves it, and it's very cute to see the two of them together. I'm still sleeping in the recliner because it hurts too much to get up from the bed if I lie down. If my physical issues haven't resolved themselves by the end of this coming week, I apparently get to go for x-rays. I have a feeling that I will be headed in that direction given how long this has been going on.
Monday, February 11, 2008
And the phone came back...
...17 hours after it went out. I wonder how much Rogers will compensate us for that. I guess we'll find out soon enough!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Roger, Roger? Oh wait, the groundhogs have taken over.
We've been experiencing a number of dropped calls lately so once again Ben got on the phone with Rogers to insist that someone come out to replace the modem. Surprisingly, he was told that not only would a $20 credit be placed on our account, but someone would come out tonight (on a Sunday!) between 5-8pm to look at the modem.
At 4:55pm, the Rogers technician called to say he'd be right there. He decided to replace the modem since he thought that was possibly the cause of our problems. He went ahead and did this, but apparently there is a problem on our account that needs to be taken care of in their computer system so we currently have no phone service. Supposedly we will have a phone back within 10-24 hours.
Let's just say that Ben has plans to call Rogers tomorrow and demand serious compensation given that he will be out for most of the day tomorrow leaving me with no way to reach him if I go into labour. (To be fair, I could use our American cell phone in a pinch but that is so not the point.)
And that $20 credit? Well, I'll believe it IF I see it.
At 4:55pm, the Rogers technician called to say he'd be right there. He decided to replace the modem since he thought that was possibly the cause of our problems. He went ahead and did this, but apparently there is a problem on our account that needs to be taken care of in their computer system so we currently have no phone service. Supposedly we will have a phone back within 10-24 hours.
Let's just say that Ben has plans to call Rogers tomorrow and demand serious compensation given that he will be out for most of the day tomorrow leaving me with no way to reach him if I go into labour. (To be fair, I could use our American cell phone in a pinch but that is so not the point.)
And that $20 credit? Well, I'll believe it IF I see it.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Almost-4-year-olds are funny
This morning Rachel told Ben in shul that she had to go potty. I was telling her this afternoon that I was proud of her for telling Daddy and going to the bathroom. Her response? "I didn't pee on my shul seat!" Oy.
This afternoon Rachel and Ben went to see the Backyardigans. Other than an exploding volcano, Rachel really enjoyed the show. She was very excited about her "souvenir", a blue light-up wand with a star on it.
Later this evening we were talking about getting things ready for the baby. Rachel knew that we had bought a Dumbo sleeper, so she was asking if the baby could wear it after coming home from the hospital. I made the comment that it wasn't newborn size, so it might have to wait a while. This precipitated a comment from Rachel about when the baby would be "oldborn".
This afternoon Rachel and Ben went to see the Backyardigans. Other than an exploding volcano, Rachel really enjoyed the show. She was very excited about her "souvenir", a blue light-up wand with a star on it.
Later this evening we were talking about getting things ready for the baby. Rachel knew that we had bought a Dumbo sleeper, so she was asking if the baby could wear it after coming home from the hospital. I made the comment that it wasn't newborn size, so it might have to wait a while. This precipitated a comment from Rachel about when the baby would be "oldborn".
Friday, February 08, 2008
Busy girl
"Mom, I don't have time to potty!" This is what Rachel told me the other day while sitting on the couch looking at a book. She tried that line again this morning while getting ready to go to pre-school. Nice try, kid!
Tomorrow Rachel and Ben are going to go see the Backyardigans. She's rather excited about it, and I'm looking forward to a nice long period of quiet time for myself!
Tomorrow Rachel and Ben are going to go see the Backyardigans. She's rather excited about it, and I'm looking forward to a nice long period of quiet time for myself!
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Ok, I'm lazy.
I'm too lazy to set my blog to private right now so I haven't done it yet and who knows if I'll ever get around to it!
Oh wait. Perhaps I'm not lazy. Perhaps I'm just 38 weeks pregnant and done with everything! I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I am both dreading and looking forward to it. There are a few things it would be nice to have done before the baby gets here, but all the basics are set up and ready to go.
Rachel keeps asking when our baby will come out. I keep telling her that I wish I knew! She was sad tonight because I didn't go into her room to say goodnight. I physically just didn't have it in me to get down by her bed... so she contented herself with hugs and kisses and a promise that I'd sneak into her room later and kiss & hug her goodnight.
Here's hoping that we all sleep through the night tonight. Rachel was up 3 times between midnight and 1am yesterday due to "lost" elephants the first two times, and just feeling awake by the 3rd time. She consented to "read" in her room at 1am. I sneaked back in around 3 to turn off her lamp since she'd fallen asleep flat on her face with the book open on her pillow. Then at 4am I woke up to find Ben heading for the hallway. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that some water had spilled and he needed to find a towel to clean it up. He does this occasionally. I convinced him that he was asleep and it was time to go back to bed! Mind you, if he was foreshadowing my water breaking, that'd be fine by me! After all, one night about 5 years ago, Ben sat bolt upright in bed and started talking about "3 a.m.! Midwest!" and lo and behold, we ended up in Kansas for two years.
Oh wait. Perhaps I'm not lazy. Perhaps I'm just 38 weeks pregnant and done with everything! I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I am both dreading and looking forward to it. There are a few things it would be nice to have done before the baby gets here, but all the basics are set up and ready to go.
Rachel keeps asking when our baby will come out. I keep telling her that I wish I knew! She was sad tonight because I didn't go into her room to say goodnight. I physically just didn't have it in me to get down by her bed... so she contented herself with hugs and kisses and a promise that I'd sneak into her room later and kiss & hug her goodnight.
Here's hoping that we all sleep through the night tonight. Rachel was up 3 times between midnight and 1am yesterday due to "lost" elephants the first two times, and just feeling awake by the 3rd time. She consented to "read" in her room at 1am. I sneaked back in around 3 to turn off her lamp since she'd fallen asleep flat on her face with the book open on her pillow. Then at 4am I woke up to find Ben heading for the hallway. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that some water had spilled and he needed to find a towel to clean it up. He does this occasionally. I convinced him that he was asleep and it was time to go back to bed! Mind you, if he was foreshadowing my water breaking, that'd be fine by me! After all, one night about 5 years ago, Ben sat bolt upright in bed and started talking about "3 a.m.! Midwest!" and lo and behold, we ended up in Kansas for two years.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Since people keep asking...
This was taken last Sunday, so 36.5 weeks. I had Ben take pictures tonight, but I refuse to post them.
Random Rachel-isms
Said at dinner out last night: "Look! We got a boring light for good luck!"
(Most of the lights near our table were fun colours like red, blue and green. Then Rachel looked up and spotted an ordinary light on the ceiling. She likes fancy lights apparently.)
We recently picked up some new activity books for Rachel. She was telling me how to spell elephant and elephants, so I started asking her different words to spell. When I asked her to spell cat, she told me that she couldn't, but she could spell it backwards. She proceeded to do so, announcing "T-A-C!" quite cheerfully.
Rachel is still in her 5-point harness car seat and will be for hopefully quite some time yet. She has never made any effort to get out of the seat on her own, nor is she interested in learning how to do up the buckles. This is fine by me! We like to tease her when we arrive somewhere by saying, "Time to free the captive!" Rachel often responds, "I'm the captive! I'm the captive!" She thinks this is hilarious.
Yesterday we had some friends over and the kids were tossing soft balls around inside. I tossed one at Rachel and it bonked off of her head. She thought this was great and spent the next few minutes repeatedly saying "Hit me in the head, Mommy! I want you to hit me in the head again!" Let's just hope that one doesn't come out in public...
(Most of the lights near our table were fun colours like red, blue and green. Then Rachel looked up and spotted an ordinary light on the ceiling. She likes fancy lights apparently.)
We recently picked up some new activity books for Rachel. She was telling me how to spell elephant and elephants, so I started asking her different words to spell. When I asked her to spell cat, she told me that she couldn't, but she could spell it backwards. She proceeded to do so, announcing "T-A-C!" quite cheerfully.
Rachel is still in her 5-point harness car seat and will be for hopefully quite some time yet. She has never made any effort to get out of the seat on her own, nor is she interested in learning how to do up the buckles. This is fine by me! We like to tease her when we arrive somewhere by saying, "Time to free the captive!" Rachel often responds, "I'm the captive! I'm the captive!" She thinks this is hilarious.
Yesterday we had some friends over and the kids were tossing soft balls around inside. I tossed one at Rachel and it bonked off of her head. She thought this was great and spent the next few minutes repeatedly saying "Hit me in the head, Mommy! I want you to hit me in the head again!" Let's just hope that one doesn't come out in public...
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