New Year's Eve tradition?

Apparently we have a new tradition for New Year's Eve.

Last year we spent Dec.31 at my mother's house in St. Catharines. A friend came over and we played Settlers of Catan (if you've never played, you should!). When we went to check on Rachel, she had fallen out of bed. Rather than risk waking her at the time, we decided to finish our game and put her back in bed later in the evening. Just before midnight, Ben went to check on her and found that she had woken up and climbed back into bed all by herself!

Fast forward to this year. We had some friends over this afternoon and played Settlers of Catan. Amazingly, the kids all managed to not destroy anything or anybody, and the adults got to play and socialize. Rachel went to bed fairly soon after our friends left. Shortly after we sat down to watch some tv, we heard a loud thump. Ben went upstairs to check, and sure enough, Rachel had fallen out of bed! I forgot to tell Ben to get a picture first (we quite enjoy taking pictures of her sleeping in weird places), so he put her back in bed and thankfully she has yet to wake up.

I guess next year we should just have her sleep on the floor.

A mind of her own

Mom: "What's your name?"

R: "Rachel!"

Mom: "How old are you?"

R: "3!"

Mom: "Who's your mommy?"

R: "You are!"

Mom: "Who's your daddy?"

R: "The other one!"

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Lately Rachel has been waking up insanely early claiming that an elephant stomped into her room. Why this should bother her is beyond me since she loves elephants so much.

She is also cracking us up on a daily basis with her story-telling skills. Apparently Arla Elephant has a baby elephant who slept for 2 days straight and then had a dirty diaper that needed to be changed. Can you tell that we've been discussing babies? Hehe.

Pardon me?

Last night at the dinner table, Rachel finished her water and then told me that she wanted some chocolate milk. Since she didn't ask politely, I simply said "Pardon me?" which is an indicator to Rachel that she did not remember to use her manners.

R: "Chocolate milk!"

Mom: "Pardon me?"

R: "Chocolate milk!!"

Mom: "Pardon me?"

R: "Chocolate milk!!!"

Mom: "Pardon me?"

R: "The thing next to you on the table! CHOCOLATE MILK!!!!"

I guess she thought I was hard of hearing or something! After Ben and I stopped laughing, Ben told Rachel that she needed to say "please" and that yes, Mom did indeed understand what chocolate milk was.

Rachel-isms

R: "Mommy, what's that?"

Me: "A duster."

R: "What do you use the bass-ter for?"

*hysterical laughter from Ben*

Me: "No, it's a DUSTER."

R: "How do you hold the bass-ter?"

*Ben is now doubled over practically on the floor. To be fair, so am I.*

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Yesterday Rachel and I shared the last piece of birthday cake leftover from Grandma Fern's birthday party. Rachel demolished her piece in no time and then made the following comment upon observing that I had not yet consumed all of my piece.

R: "Mommy, I'm ready to share your piece now."

Sadly, it worked and she got more!

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Upon receiving a beautiful mostly blue stuffed elephant from Aunt Rebecca:

Me: "Rachel, what will this elephant's name be?"

R: "YELLOW ELEPHANT!"

To be fair, there is precedent for this. This summer my mother bought her a pink & purple foam elephant at the African Lion Safari. It was promptly named Blue Elephant. And yes, she knows her colours!

My inlaws are driving me batty!

We recently returned from a few days up in Toronto. On our last morning there, I was rudely awakened by the sound of something crashing into the blinds in our room. At first I thought it was Motzi, the orange cat with attitude. I could hear him jingling around but I wasn't sure quite how he would have gotten up high enough to mess with the blinds. Then I spotted him in the doorway, so I knew it wasn't him.

A bit worried, I poked my sleeping husband: "BEN! What's that noise? It sounds like something's crashing into the blinds!"

Ben: "It's just the blinds. It's windy out."

Me: "Ben, if it's windy OUTSIDE, that would not affect the blinds INSIDE. Do you know what it is?"

Ben: "Something's knocking into the blinds?"

Me: "Well, would you get up and figure out what it is!??!?!?!"

*Please note that Ben is truly incapable of functioning in the morning before he has showered, eaten, and grunted his way through the morning newspaper.

Right after I requested that my husband get his butt out of bed to deal with the noise (After all, I am over 7 months pregnant and entitled to hormonal moments!), I saw something FLY by me!

"A bird!" I screamed as I went running out of the room.

"No, it's a BAT!" I heard Ben yell as he followed me and yelled something about closing the door to keep it in there.

Soon everyone was gathered in the hallway. Luckily, Ben's parents are no strangers to bats, having had them in various cottages over the years. Ben's father headed for the bedroom, turned the light off, took the screen off the window and waited for the poor winged creature to make its way out of our bedroom. His only regret was not getting photos of it before it headed back out into the cold.

The only remaining mystery is how exactly the bat got inside. We're all assuming that Motzi chased it upstairs and into our room. And to think that I was starting to like the orange cat...

It's hard to believe...

...that we have pictures of Rachel from 3 years ago! Here she is in her sled at 8.5 months old on Dec.22/04:



And here she is on Dec.17/07 in the same sled:

My Canadian Girl

Rachel really likes the snow! Here are some pictures of her standing beside the snow piles after the driveway was shovelled, standing on top of the snow pile, and pulling her little sled along one of the streets near our house. Sadly, the sled is too small for her so we may be going toboggan shopping soon.

Rachel also enjoyed sliding down the snow piles at the side of the driveway. I'm glad we're home this winter so she can have this kind of outdoor fun!

Funny or not? I guess I'll know soon...

Last night we talked at length with Rachel about how she can only get out of bed before 6am if she needs to use the bathroom. We told her that she could come and get us for that, but that after going to the bathroom she would have to go back to her room until her clock said 6:00. Rachel heard it as 6:30 since we had told her that a few weeks ago although I don't think she was ready to follow through at that time. I didn't argue since 6:30 is infitely more civilized than 6:00.

Ben had Rachel in bed by 5:40 last night because she'd been up since about 5:20. We knew that she was pretty overtired, so I figured that she'd sleep at least until 5:30 if not later. At 6:12 this morning I heard her calling, "Mommy! Daddy!" I told her that she could come out of her room and I'd meet her in the bathroom. She told me that she couldn't come out. I repeated that it was ok to come out to use the bathroom, but I'm pretty sure that she is sitting there stubbornly because she wants me to come in and get her. Since she has two working legs, I have no intention of going in and lifting her off the bed like she wants.

It's now 6:26 on my clock. Rachel has only spoken up once to tell me that she can't come out because her clock doesn't say 6:30 yet! I did tell her again that it was ok to come out to use the bathroom and that I really hoped she hadn't peed in her bed. I suppose time will tell.

6:27 now. Don't worry, I'll update you on the bed situation very shortly!

It's now 6:33 on my clock. Right after I posted at 6:27, Rachel called for me. She told me that she was reading a book (which thankfully we had left on the bookshelf part of her headboard!). She's still reading it out loud to herself. I asked her if she had checked what time it was and she told me that she had checked a minute ago. I'm still very curious as to the status of her bed, but I'm impressed that she is reading in there. We might be going lamp shopping pretty soon! (I did turn on the hallway light when she first called for us since she was saying that it was too dark to get up and come out.)

Perhaps I shouldn't be so optimistic so soon, but if this continues to work I will be thrilled!!!!

Edited yet again at 7:05 to update. Shortly after I last posted, Rachel checked her clock and told me that it wasn't 6:30, it was 6:40. Um, ok. If she wants to stay in bed until the next 6:30 that's fine with me. She told me that 7:00 was a good time and she was not ready to come out yet!

I eventually went in to her room at around 7:10. She asked me to read her some books on her bed and I did. Then she got off the bed (finally!) and we chose another book together. Thankfully she was dry, as was her bed!

If our mornings continue like this, I will be very very happy indeed.

Snow. Real snow, that is.

The view out our living room window on Tuesday afternoon. May I add that schools did not close down for this?

Piles of shovelled snow after some of it had melted on Wed. afternoon. (I shovelled a good foot of light fluffy snow off our driveway on Tuesday. Ben also shovelled at least that much since it kept blowing & drifting!)


The view out our back yard on Wednesday afternoon. I think we'd likely lose Rachel in some of the snow drifts back there!

Ha! I should have known...

This morning I left the house early to get some groceries before my doctor's appointment. As I was pulling out of the grocery store parking lot, the car ahead of me stopped. A guy got out wearing just a long-sleeved shirt & pants, no jacket or gloves or anything. He opened the back door (I'm guessing maybe there was a child back there, but I couldn't see) and then a moment later got back in to drive away.

When he got out of the car, what went through my mind was, "Why would anyone be out in -3C weather (that's 20F for you Americans!) without a coat on?" When he got back in and started to drive away, I noticed the license plate:

MISSOURI!

I obviously need not say more.

An update on our least favourite service provider

The new phone books came out about a month ago. Despite the fact that we pay an extra $4/month to have a second number in order to get both of our names in the phone book, Ben is not listed in the book this year. This is odd since the Rogers bills are all set up in Ben's name, not mine. To be fair, the phone book is put out by Bell. To put the blame back where it belongs, Rogers was responsible for submitting correct information to Bell. They did not do this.

When Ben called to complain, he was offered one month of free phone service. He took it, with the intention of eventually calling a higher-up to pursue further compensation. It is actually a big deal that he's not listed since we both free-lance and have different last names.

Fast forward to tonight. The weather is kind of sketchy out there. It's been snowing & blowing off and on all day. I had several no-shows at Kindermusik this morning, and parents were calling me this afternoon to see if I was going to still run orchestra rehearsals tonight. At about 4pm, I decided to call off both the orchestras that we run since we're supposed to get about 20cm of snow tonight and I'd heard that the weather was bad all over the city.

Luckily we got all of our calls made before 5pm. Shortly after 5pm I was on the phone with my mother when my phone died. All of my phones are dead. I do not have a dial tone. I really hope that all of our messages got through to people.

I wonder how Rogers will compensate us this time. I find it odd that my internet and cable work when my *digital* phone line does not.

Observations from the trenches

1. If the conductor schedules a concert for 2 hours and it lasts for 3 hours and 17 minutes, no-one will be very impressed.

2. Even if said concert "only" runs 3 hours the following day, people will still not be impressed.

3. Walking out of a 3 hour dress rehearsal that has gone into overtime is a very liberating thing to do.

4. If a concert runs at least an hour overtime, don't be surprised if half the orchestra walks out the second it's over, and can't be bothered to stay for the group picture.

5. Sleigh Ride on the organ is just wrong. Enough said.

6. Taking bets on what time a concert will end is sometimes the only thing keeping people awake past the 3 hour mark. (It's even worse when the orchestra members need to have a discussion prior to the concert in order to determine what will denote the exact end of the concert.)

7. If a conductor wants to talk about how he has hired a professional orchestra, then he needs to treat said orchestra professionally.

8. The paltry honorarium is most definitely not worth the aggravation and overtime.

9. When this conductor says the cheque's in the mail, you have to wonder what year he means when he says that it will arrive by December 20th.

10. I had a great weekend. How about you? ;)

My 3 year old is obviously having a tough day

Mom: "Rachel, what are you doing?"

Rachel: "Just playing."

(Mom looks out in the hallway and sees Rachel laying down on her tummy playing with some toys.)

Rachel: "Actually, I'm lying here miserably with my feet up."

Show and Tell

Things Rachel has brought to Show and Tell at preschool so far this year:

Purse Elephant
Baby Aurora
Disney Princess jewellery box
Nets from Elefun
Elefun (but she wouldn't let the teacher turn it on to try it since we'd told her it was a basement toy!)
A picture of an elephant that she coloured
The WWF-Canada brochure from which we chose our animal to "save"
Hebrew animal picture book (more importantly, she showed the elephant page)

Apparently the kids in her class now guess "elephant" for whatever Rachel brings in. (The teachers have the kids give hints as to what they brought.)

I'm always amused by what she chooses to bring in. Oh... and for those of you who "know" them, Rachel has once again decided that she no longer needs Olly and Phil. They were sent to our room to take a nap yesterday and she doesn't want them back. I suppose we should be grateful that they are still out in plain sight. Rachel has requested that we let Grry hibernate year-round, out of sight. I know that Ben and I are finding it much harder to let go of Olly & Grry than Rachel is!

Profound statements

Said to me at 6:19 this morning as she came down the hall:

"Mom! All that sleeping made me awake!"

Shopping with Daddy

Just as Ben was about to leave to go pick up Rachel at preschool, I saw an ad for dirt-cheap tux shirts at a store not too far from the school. I sent him with some snacks for Rachel so that they could go check out the store before coming home.

Rachel accompanied Ben to the change room and the following was heard after he took off his shirt:

"Dad, you have a LOT of hair on you!"

When we were talking just now, Rachel informed me that Ben also tried on pants and he had a lot of hair there too. She wanted to know why Daddy has so much hair.

The end result was that Ben got 2 nearly-new tux shirts and a gently used pair of tux pants for a total of $45 including tax! Considering that I'd figured on spending $45 just on ONE tux shirt, this was a great find indeed!

Tzedakah Take Two

We recently got some mail from WWF-Canada (World Wildlife Fund) asking people to help save various endangered species both in Canada and the rest of the world. There were pictures of each animal along with information about what needs to be done to help save them.

We asked Rachel if she would like to help save an animal & of course she jumped at the chance to save an elephant! The cost was $40, so we opened up her tzedakah box and got to work adding up all of the coins. She had $32.80 so we pilfered the rest from Daddy's wallet. Rachel helped me find the word "elephant" on the form where we needed to check off the animal that we wanted to save. She happily mailed off the letter & accompanied Ben to the bank where they deposited all of the coins.

She doesn't quite understand what the money will be used for though. She's been asking us if her money is there yet and if the elephant has run out of food yet. We did talk about how it would help elephants to be in safe places (no, poacher is not in her vocabulary yet!) and that was a good thing. So now Rachel is convinced that we have to keep saving elephants because we don't want them to run out of food or not have a safe place to live.

Ironically, when Rachel learned that the money would go to save an Asian elephant, she specifically requested a girl Asian elephant with no tusks. (Female Asian elephants do not have tusks.) However, the literature we were given indicated that the money would go to help stopping poachers and the ivory trade.

Rachel knows that she will be getting a letter soon saying that she helped save an elephant, but she doesn't know that WWF-Canada will also send her a plush elephant. I don't even want to think about how many elephants that will make! Some girls play with dolls. Mine plays with elephants.

Today Rachel was sad because her tzedakah box was empty. She told me that she wants to save an animal every day. Hehe. She's torn between saving a sea turtle or an orangutan next. We did give her some more coins to put in, but it will be awhile before there's enough to do anything again.

Random comments

Mom: "Rachel, stop eating your hair!"

Rachel: "But it makes me smarter!"

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Mom: "Rachel, what's wrong?"

Rachel: "My feelings are hurt. I need some ice for them."

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I'm attempting to refrain from blogging about today's adventures in "who needs a potty when you can squat down and pee on the floor" land. Oh. Wait. I will say that Rachel fluctuated between two extremes today. She took herself potty (when requested) three times and refused to let us help with anything. The rest of the day involved multiple outfit and bedding changes. If you're old enough to talk in full sentences, you are old enough to get OFF the bed in the morning instead of sitting there and calling "Mommy, Mommy!" and then peeing in your bed because Mommy was in a deep sleep and did not hear you calling until it was too late.

The answer is not 42.

Instead, the answer is 5:39. It could have been worse. When Rachel came into our room at 2:30 to go potty, I was worried that she'd think it was morning then! Thankfully she was easily convinced to go back to bed.

One day I will not have to worry about the toileting needs of other people

Until then, here's the current saga:

Rachel has been going through yet another phase of not telling us when she needs to go potty OR when she's already peed or pooped her pants. GRR.

This morning she was doing pretty well. After we dropped Ben off to adjudicate at Contemporary Showcase we headed for the mall to run some errands. As we were in line at Sears, I looked down at Rachel and saw "the look". I asked, and sure enough she needed to go. Fortunately, she hadn't gone yet, so we raced up the "magic stairs" (escalator) and made it to the bathroom in time! Yay!

As an aside, that was the first time that Rachel willingly went on an escalator without being carried. Apparently calling it magic stairs went over much better with her.

We got home a couple hours later after doing way too much grocery shopping. I suggested that Rachel use the bathroom and got this response:

"I've already went potty two times today. I think that's enough."

About 20 minutes later Rachel peed her pants. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I'm aware that it's partially an attention-getting thing and partially something that SHE can control so she does, but this is getting ridiculous. About half an hour after she got changed (proving that she can indeed dress herself since I pretty much refuse to dress her after "accidents") she came in to me with another look on her face. Sure enough, she'd started to poop her pants but stopped just in time.

We had a very long discussion about telling Mommy and Daddy. She knows that we will not be mad if she tells us, even if she tells us after the fact. It's the not telling at all that is very frustrating. On a funny note, when I pointed out that she was putting on her last pair of clean underwear, Rachel asked me, "Will we not have underwear tomorrow then?"

And how ironic is it that Rachel can wake up 2-3 times per night to go potty yet she can't tell us during the day!??!? She fell asleep in the car tonight at 4:55pm and basically stayed asleep while we transferred her and changed her into her pjs. At about 7:15, I heard footsteps and crying. I ran upstairs to find poor Rachel sitting on our bed sobbing. I reassured her that I had just gone downstairs for a bit, took her potty, and put her back in bed. She still hadn't really opened her eyes or woken up.

I suppose that we should be rather afraid of what time she will surface for the day tomorrow.