drawings

As I promised, here are just two of the many, many, many drawings Amelia is churning out. Many of her drawings are less detailed (practice, trying things out), but when I sort through them, I have to keep about half.
Other than the cat in the centre, I don't know what else is in the top drawing. The bottom drawing is a family of cows. (the noses are drwn with oe line starting at the top leading into the middle of a sideways figure eight) On the far left is the table, that squiggle above the first cow is the stairs , that coloured in circle is our dining room light (she even included the clips, those little loops on the rim. Off to the right is our living room, with our couches and the christmas tree.

long time, no see

Here is the little boy, he enjoys dressing up.

And the too cool duo

And how cute is this? they walked hand-in-hand for about 6 blocks.

I wiil try to start updating again on a regular basis, sometimes it'll be only pics like today, 'cause I've got a rascally toddler in my lap.

"lizard hat"

Mia's wearing her gnome hat and Burke is wearing her lizard hat. (wizard) Both of these were made by a good friend.

reading

These two have been so sweet together the past few days, even more than usual. this is how they were for about 10 minutes straight while I was cleaning in the kitchen. yesterday and today there have been long stretches of time were they are quietly playing side-by-side, easily sharing toys. Mostly Amelia does the sharing, but Burke does understand too. I have seen him watch her playing with something, then go back to his toy, but go get her toy when she gets up to do something else. Of course it's not always like that, they often tries to grab from each other, and yesterday while they were playing together on the couch, Mia leaned over and bit Burke's finger, hard. I don't know why, but I think she was just happy to be with him and his fingers looked so plump and juicy...

In other news, I attended a birth last week. In the fall, I took a doula training course, and attended my first birth in January. Now this was my second one. A doula is a labour support person, and extra coach for the mother, but also a support for the father (or partner etc.). A doula doesn't do any medical work, but is experienced in birht and can reassure the mother and help support her birth plan and help make sure that she is satisfied with her birth experience. I was more relaxed with my second client than my first, the first time, I had a hard time not thinking all about me and what I was doing and evaluating myself. In most new jobs, the first little while I would ask for feedback from the people I was working with to make sure I was doing things right. But that doesn't work in a birth experience. The last thing the labouring mother needs is to worry about reassuring her doula. But this time was better, I felt more at home with offering advise, helping the mother cope with the contractions and communicating with the father. I have got potentially another birth in June, and that mother is planning a home birth, which I am looking orward to. I think that many people planning births with midwifes tend not to get doulas because they feel that they are already getting that extra 'woman support'. In order to become a certified doula, I need to have attended 3 births. It looks like I will have met that requirement sooner than I had expected (I haven't started putting my name out there yet).

sharing

And here's a sequence of Burke passing blocks to Mia. I wish you could hear the little "here you are" noises he was making each time too.

Crafting

I made these little messenger bags a while ago for two birthday boys. I was quite pleased with the way they turned out, and I want to make more. First I have to do the dishes. And the laundry. And clean the bathroom. But once that is finally done, I will. they're nice because they're small enough that I can easily use all kinds of bits of fabric for the stripes and sides. I appliqued the stripes on these, and I won't do that again, especially not denim on denim...and I have to use something better than ribbon for the straps.

I put this whole post up because I noticed that you put me on your blog, Amanda, and I thought that I'd better do a little more posting than I have been! Thank you for the motivation.

in the garden

One of the things I imagined when we moved here was the children playing in the backyard while I cook or clean. I can see into the backyard from the kitchen as well. this week, they've done that a few times, and I'm so happy about it that I spend half the time sneaking around with the camera rather than doing the chores. They love it, often they're sitting side-by-side. Burke has got little scratches all over his face from crawling through the salal (the greenery in the front left of the bottom picture, it's everywhere). That won't last long, he has just started taking a few steps.

Enerthing

"Enerthing" and "enerbody" are Mia's words for nothing and nobody.

So, I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in such a long time. I really have no meaningful computer time left, unless I get all cranky about it...During the day, whichever children are about climb on me if I sit down, (and Mia doesn't nap, so there are always children around) and at night, if I can do more than veg in front of the tv, the computer is usually already in use.

Burke is not walking yet, he is doing much more free-standing. And he's very close to speaking. He says Mama, and sometimes he specifically means me when he says it, he's been able to shake his head "no" for quite some time, usually just for fun when we say "no", but he does use it when he doesn't want any more food, or has his mouth full still. We haven't really been sighning with him, occasionally Mia and I will do "more" and I've just noticed that he may be doing his own version of that now. We'll see.

And Mia is just growing up and trying more things all the time. She's totally potty trained now, and hardly need us at all. She's even taken to sitting on the toilet without the child's seat sometimes.

Really the best is the way those two interact and make each other laugh. Today, Mia was whacking a beach ball with a mini hockey stick and Burke was sitting in my lap laughing that classic baby belly laugh.

original

beluga

This is another of Amelia's picture editing experiments. We do have to watch out, Picasa is easy to use, which means she can easily click-and-drag pictures out of order and into other folders (I'm guessing the last, I don't know how else she would have done it...). Maybe we'll have to give her her own computer to mess up, or make sure that everything is backed-up (teach her how to back-up and that could be one of her chores...) or, just maybe, wean her off computers, at least until she can read the warning messages!

Burke is not walking yet, that will be soon enough and once he starts I think there'll be no stopping him. I'm glad it'll be spring and we'll just go outside as much as possible. He imitates actions much more than I ever remember Mia doing at this point, I don't know if that's because I just don't remember or if he has an interesting older sister to imitate. Today, he tried to feed me when Mia and I were doing some serious cooking (Chocolate pie, chocolate mousse, soup and two loaves of bread, the first one burnt in the oven, all in under 30 minutes. Sure, they looked like building blocks, but oh, the taste!)

Grandma!

We had a nice time at the Aquarium with Grandma, who is visiting until Sunday.

Cupcakes

We made some cupcakes for Mia to have her candles in.

Happpy 3rd Birthday, little girl!

Happy First, little boy!

potty trained

(Does it count if she just sits on the pot for a long, long, long time until something happens? sometimes more than once in the same sitting?) (She won't get off sometimes.) (I am counting it, because she only uses the toilet now.) Yay! One down, one to go.

Firsts

Amelia had her first full potty-trained day today. No accidents. We started training a week ago Tuesday, when we went out and bought a 12-pack of underwear and just put them on during the day and changed them as we needed to. The first 5 days, we had one 'success' per day, then two and three, yesterday was three for five. Also two days ago she asked to go one or two of the times. Today she asked for some of the times, I suggested twice and then, to my surprise, the last two times she just toddled off and did it all herself. This last situation might be hard to do, I'm not sure how to make the toilet accessible to her and not for Burke. Today he had a cold and fever and so I was holding him all day and left the gate open to Mia's potty. We'll figure something out, the hard part's pretty much done now I'd say. She started dressing herself out of the blue one day about three weeks ago, so that was part of the timing. It's much easier to pull pants up over panties than a diaper.

Also, Burke and Mia had their first fight. And not in a "this baby's in my way" way either. Usually they play well together, they don't often need each other's toys, and if Burke's trying to grab something of Mia's, I;ll intervene and tell him that it's Mia's turn and that he can have a turn when she's done, then give him something else or take him away, depending on the situation. Usually Mia ends up giving it to him 30 seconds after. I actually rarely have to do this anymore. Anyway, the other night in the tub, I went into our bedroom for a moment. All of a sudden, Mia was yelling "I want it, I want it, I WANT IT!" and Burke was doing his particular p*%$$ed off cry/yell (he's mostly good humoured, but he does have a bit of a quick temper). I came back in to see that Amelia had the toy that Burke had just been playing with in one hand trying to hold it away from him and he was holding on hard to, and scrabbling at, her other arm. It was red where he'd been squeezing. It was really very funny.

Here's the picture

Mia and Mommy

On the beach, picture as edited by Mia. This is one of her favourite things to do now. She used to look at the pictures and then she figured out how to play with them all by herself.

"For Grandpa, but grandma can share it too"

Mia didn't say that these were anything in particular, so I guess I'll call them toddler abstract. The only things she did say were that the series of dots in the bottom form were blocks all lined up and that the dots in the donut in the top form were decorations.

Wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alley...

Well, Amelia anyway. They spent a happy 15-20 minutes like this a few nights ago

Here comes trouble