Train park

We went to Confederation Park in Burnaby for the daycare's going away party. It was very cool, these are 1/8 scale trains, and the one we were on was a real steam engine. (They use propane instead of coal to heat the boiler). There's a picture of me and Molli (hair down) kissing Amelia and that's Lance pointing out another train to Amelia.

and the new hat 

water baby 

playing with the big kids

Today was our last day at the daycare where I've been covering mornings once a week. there were three 3-year-olds, and Amelia. At one point, two of the children were drawing with those scented felt pens from crayola, and the little girl had me smell it. Then we all started smelling these stinky pens and going "peugh" and wrinkling our noses. I would let Amelia smell too, then the other children also very carefully let her smell (no-one got pen on their nose during this game!). Amelia started to wrinkle her nose too and make little noises trying to imitate us. What was so neat to see was the expression on her face as she had her turn and the others had their turns. To my eyes it was like the expression a child would have when playing with older children and the older children don't mind and just accept the younger one into their play. But I just realized that Amelia is too little to have that feeling (she's never been excluded or noticed that she wasn't playing with the others) and what she was so pleased about was just the experience of playing with other children for the first time.

Play time

water

I've been enjoying watching Amelia play, and have plenty of time to do it. Unstructured time when she can watch water pour from a cup again and again and again, or see how digging in the dirt with a twist-tie or face-cloth works, or standing in our side-yard off the kitchen and yelling to see how the echos bounce off the walls of the houses and garages around us. Anouther favourite activity when it's too wet or cold to be outside has been to get up and down into her little chair and read books to herself there. She is becoming more and more self-entertaining and is happy to spend time alone doing these activities.

A friend sent me this article about how children's time has become more and more scheduled and busy. It's a very interesting article, a bit of a long read, but there are some interesting points beyond the loss of time for children to be children. How the amount of activities a child is enrolled in has become a status symbol for the parents. We're not at that stage yet, but I think that most of the parents in my 'circle' will not be drawn into this spiral and our children can go looking for bugs and frogs together or play house or sell lemonade for hours together...and even *gasp* be bored sometimes! (I think there will be some organized activity, but I want to keep it to a minimum.)

spoke too soon

the clown pants

So, Monday night, after writing the last post, Amelia woke up around midnight and couldn't stay asleep. She tried, but I guess she couldn't get all the way back asleep over the discomfort. She had a few good cries and more whining and sqirming. Finally, at 3:30 am, I bundled the both of us up and walked around two blocks, slowly and humming while she rested her head on my neck and hummed with me. She fell sound asleep on my shoulder, and stayed asleep the rest of the night (3 hours).

Just for you, Molli

This is one of the sweet dresses Molli brought from Europe last summer. We bought Amelia some sandals yesterday. We bought them a size too big to last the summer, so they're huge right now.

And: Amelia cut her first molar sometime in the past few days. Other than some drooling and a bit of restlessness going to sleep at night there were (luckily) no other symptoms. It's a lower molar and, as with all the other pairs of teeth, it's her left molar.

Yes

Amelia has started nodding yes to almost every question I ask her, no matter what the actual answer is. It's very sweet, she stops squirming or whatever she was doing and very earnestly nods. "Are you poopy?", "Are you hungry?", "Are you thirsty?", "Shall we read that book?", and the best; "Do you want to nurse?". When she wakes up after about two hours from when she first goes to sleep in the evening, she is usually tossing around and crying, but when I ask her if she wants to nurse, she stops and nods then opens her mouth. Last night, I was in bed reading and she was asleep next to me, she woke up and just nodded. And on friday, our regular lunch date with C., we had fries. I had given Amelia a little one, we only have fries on fridays, then took one for myself. She saw me dip mine into the ketchup, so she held hers out, whined "mmm-mm" then nodded. So I dipped hers (the amount of ketchup she got was miniscule- do want sugar with your fat and salt?). Thereafter, she would just hold out her fry and nod, (she was sucking the ketchup off the fry).

Another cute story, later last night, as Lance was coming to bed, Amelia raised her head up from her bed , gave us a little look and went "phlphphph"! and layed her head back down. Message heard and understood!

Mother's Day

Van Dusen Gardens

We went to VanDusen Gardens on Mother's day. Notice that Amelia is wearing her finished hat.

A case against dresses

lilacs!

First, here's a picture of Amelia enjoying the lilacs.

Now to a story about another baby trap; We went for a family Mother's day brunch with as much family as lives around here, and so for fun and cute-ness I put Amelia in a dress. When we got home she climbed up the stair, but got her dress completely under her foot, so as she went to stand from her squat, she was stuck, she was held in place by the dress. She was too tired, and too unfamiliar with the mechanics of dresses to understand what was happening to her. I was on the toilet and couldn't help her, so she just tried to stand up a few more times. I was chuckling, so she laughed a bit too, but at the end after the 5th or 6th try, she just hunkered town and squawked her frustration. She was well and truly trapped. Needless to say, sleep came easily.

Happy Mothering Day

With Mother's day coming, I've been thinking about the experience of being a mother. I don't think anything I'm going to say is new, but learning something for myself by doing has always been different than just learning by thinking or reading about it. Mothering (by whoever does it) is such an important task. When I think about how much these children learn in the first few years, I know that any and all support I can give to this child is deserved. I don't think that caring for her is a chore (although there are moment, but those usually have more to do with the chores that I'm trying to do while she needs me), and the miracle of the relationship is how rewarding it is.

I take baths with Amelia, and sometimes lately I haven't wanted to and she enjoys herself fine when I'm not in the tub with her. But she's just started something that wouldn't have happened if I didn't bathe with her. She will be sitting with her back to me and slowly start to lean back until I've got her head in my hand and then she lays back all the way ultil she's floating in the water, her head in my hand. I almost missed it the first time she did this, and I don't know what prompted her to it, because as much as she loves her baths and doesn't mind water on her face, she was always hesitant about it when I layed her back to rinse her hair. This action and her complete trust that I'll catch her, and the upside-down "conversations" we have while she's lying there make my heart sing.

Muddy-Buddy

All done raining?

This is from a couple of days ago, we're now back to warm and sunny.

Mud Pie

She doesn't like the dirt in her mouth, she complained when it got in there, she's very bright, I'm sure she'll stop putting it in there any day now...