New Year, New Room

     We have been attempting to work on transitioning Laura to a big girl bed for some time now. Ideally we wanted her to be fully switched over and comfortable well before Baby #2 arrived so she wouldn't feel like she was being displaced. We started around 18 months by taking the side off her crib. At the time, we didn't own a bed rail, and she ended up falling out (maybe 8 inches to the floor) once or twice. It was enough to scare her, though, and put an end to all sleeping in her crib unless the side was on and properly secured. So, we tried again maybe two months later, and bought a bed rail for her this time. But the damage remained. Every night, she would faithfully get out of bed and curl up in a heap on the floor directly behind her door. And if she didn't feel like going to sleep yet, she would just bang incessantly on the door. Finally, one night after banging for about 2 hours in the middle of the night, I gave in, and at 3am had Josh put the side back on the crib yet again. He swore it was not coming off until our second baby was ready for a big kid bed.

      Thursday night, after our company left, we spent the evening taking apart our guest bed and assembling what will be Laura's new big girl bed. I have slowly been working on decorating her new room, too, and although it's not finished, I like the way it is turning out in there so far. Laura and I spent the majority of the evening in there making her new bed, organizing her dresser, and playing with her toys in the gloriously large open space she now has (this room is notably larger than the nursery). She really seems to like it. We'll see how that translates to her sleeping in there, though.

    The nursery is now almost eerily empty. There is one sleep sac hanging in the closet that Baby Thumper received for Christmas, and a bunch of empty hangers. I'm sure by this point in my pregnancy with Laura her closet was half full already. Other than the top drawer of the dresser/ changetable that is filled with our cloth diapers (which Laura is still using), all the rest of Laura's things have been moved over. Last night it really hit me hard as to the fact that we do not have a baby anymore. I'm glad another is on the way, because even as it is, I am really starting to feel the void. Laura is talking so much now, and can really get her point across most of the time... she is definitely more like a child now. And for someone who doesn't overly enjoy the baby phase, I sure seem to be having a rough time with the idea that my baby is growing up. Don't get me wrong, she is really fun right now, and probably the most enjoyable she's ever been, but her new room has made me realize once again that I am having a hard time letting go of her babyhood.

 

Laura's little reading nook :)

Still To Do: 

• Make curtains
• Letters spelling LAURA for shelf above bed
• New lamp shade 
• Remove baseboard heater
• Replace stained carpet
• Replace window

Christmas 2011

     So, after my grinchy post about how stressful Christmas is, I ended up having a wonderful holiday despite myself. :)
     We spent a few days at my mom's and everything was really lovely. We drove up on Christmas Eve, and the weather/ drive were perfect. We had a nice dinner with my parents and aunt & uncle, followed by some carols on the piano. Laura wanted to get in on the action and played a few duets with my mom before she got right in there playing and singing along to her own songs. It was impossibly cute.

  
      In the morning around 8:30 my sister and her fiancee as well as my dad came over to open stockings in front of the fire (or as Laura calls it, the 'fida'. 'No touch. Hot!'). Laura even opened most of hers herself. She was very excited by them. Again, ridiculously cute. I was trying not to get my hopes up too high for her to open her own presents and be interested, but she definitely surpassed my expectations.
  
     We went upstairs to open real presents after that, and grab a bite to eat. Laura got sooo many things - almost every other present was for her. A new chair for her big girl room, a keyboard from her grandpa, movies, books, clothes, lots of toys, and five different food play sets for her kitchen Josh and I made her. And we haven't even had Christmas with Josh's family yet! Even Baby Thumper got a few gifts (I have decided that is going to be our in-utero name for him/her based on how constantly I feel like I am being thumped now!)  I got some scrapbooking supplies, and kitchen supplies, and a few other things, but my big gift was a Cricut machine from my mom... will be very helpful in many future situations, I'm sure. :) Josh got a nice pair of headphones he wanted for studio monitoring and a couple gift cards for the music store, which he has already used Boxing Day shopping for a new microphone.We were all finished by lunch time (I think that's a record for us!).
   Laura was tired in the afternoon, but wouldn't nap. We went to the cottage for dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousin and his fiancee. Dinner was really yummy, as usual, and way too filling. Laura ate peanuts and candy before dinner, so only ended up eating a few bites of mashed potatoes and carrots and bread for dinner. No turkey. Her loss.
     In anticipation of our upcoming trip (only 47 days away!), after dinner we watched some home videos of us at Disney World when we were little. My sister and her fiancee are also going a few months after us, so it was fun for all of us to watch and reminisce together. We headed back to my mom's house fairly early because Laura really needed to go to bed, and Josh and I were tired, too. We were all in bed by 9:30.
     Boxing day we got up and got ready to go home. We stopped at a couple stores on our way for a few choice items, but neither Josh nor I like big crowds, so we tried to keep it short and to the point. And Laura was really crabby because she needed a nap by that point, too. We did buy her a twin mattress for her big girl bed, though, which is being delivered on Wednesday. Besides curtains, it is pretty much the last thing she needs to complete her new room. We are planning on moving her in there shortly after the Christmas crazy is over.
     We are expecting Josh's family today for the 'second half' of our Christmas, and then things will finally be able to go back to normal!
     I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas as well, and Happy New Year!

Merry F*ing Christmas

     I used to love Christmas. But now that I am a mom, I have finally found the true meaning... Christmas = stress. Three of the last four Decembers I have been pregnant, and for some reason, I have found it hard to really get into the Christmas spirit. Maybe it is my body telling me to take it easy... I should probably take the hint.
     When I first spent Christmas at Josh's house, his family, his mom in particular, spent the whole holiday season going around saying, "Merry F*ing Christmas". I thought that was very un-Christmasy of her at the time, but now I get it. Baking. Shopping. Wrapping. Visiting. Packing. Travelling. CLEANING. It all boils down to one thing: more stress for Mom. It's too much. I just barely keep our regular lives under control, let alone have time for all of these extra other things expected of me during the holidays. Josh doesn't seem to get it. He will help out if I specifically ask him to do a certain task, but it does not cross his mind to ask me if I need any extra help when he sees me getting super stressed out like this. And that only perpetuates the issue.
    Last night I was up working on last minute Christmas things (of which there are a still a plethora), and Josh informs me that I am making it too hard for myself, "You are making handmade wrapping paper out of fabric - that is more effort than you need to put in." While this may be true, I still needed some way to wrap these oddly-shaped, non-boxed presents. And so I was making fabric present bags. He suggested just wrapping them crappily in paper and blaming it on him. Helpful.
     He ended up staying up later than me, which he does almost every Friday, because he was 'too excited to sleep', (but not for Christmas, no,) because he got his first song on an internet radio show. Normally I would try harder to join him in his excitement, but right now stress and exhaustion have set up camp in all corners of my body and brain. Now, I don't mind him staying up later, as he needs this time for himself to unwind. But sometimes it gets out of hand and he ends up staying up WAY too late, rendering himself unfunctional the next day. And I certainly can't have that. Not today. I still have approximately a million things to do, and at the very least he is going to have to be awake to watch Laura. So, when I woke up at 5:30 this morning, and he still hadn't come to bed, I felt my blood pressure starting to rise. I was not going to be able to go back to sleep until I knew if he had gone to bed. I poke my head into the guest room. Nope, not in there. I poke my head down the stairs. Ahhh, he is on the couch. So he does know what's good for him after all. I guess he heard me puddling around upstairs, so he came up then. He said he went to bed at 2am, but didn't want to wake me up so he slept on the couch. Good. Except last night I really wanted to have a nice little Christmas Eve Eve of our own since we are going to be away and/or have guests for the best part of the next week = not much time for just us. But I guess that wasn't going to happen.
   Anyway, I can't think of a very good way to wrap up this post, and I really can't legitimize any more time spent venting when I still have so many other things to do. I guess next year I will just need to start earlier.
Merry Christmas, everyone! :S

Kids Are Weird

     One thing I can say about Laura is that she is a pro at independent play. When she was a baby I would try to play with her, but her attention span was so short for things that I would do with her, I soon grew bored of sitting on the floor trying to entice her while she was happily playing her own way.
     She doesn't have nearly as many toys as most other kids her age we know, but it's probably a good thing, because most of the toys she does have sit in the playroom, for the most part, untouched. Her favourite things to play with are every day items that you would never conceive of as being able to provide fun for days in and days out.
     I received a stocking present one year that included a small velcro make-up bag containing two tubes of face cream. It lived in the drawer in our bathroom for some time until Laura was able to get around and follow me in there. Her favourite thing to do while I use the washroom is to open and close the drawer, and sort through the various items in there. Taking out random toothbrushes and hair clips... until one day she found the prized make-up bag. This bag has provided her with hours days of fun. She carries it around the house from room to room taking the tubes out and putting them back in. Doing up the velcro, undoing the velcro. Taking the tubes out, putting them in her mouth, putting the tubes back in the bag. All around the house. How this could possibly be fun is really beyond me. But whatever floats your boat, I guess.
     And then one day not too long ago she discovered the joy of pens. But not for drawing or colouring with. No. For taking the lid off, and putting it back on. So there was another week of fun right there.
     Today, I was trying to clear off my counter (which lately has seemed to accumulate way more things than usual) and there was a small bucket with those plastic, reusable ice cubes that I needed to get rid of. I was just going to take it to Goodwill or throw it out, but Laura saw it and demanded to look at it. (I think she thought they were candy to begin with). Well. She has literally not put that bucket down all day. Taking the ice cubes in and out, taking off and replacing the lid. Over and over. We even went to the Early Years Centre this morning for a dancing/ movement program, and it came with us. Laura did not participate in the program, just continued to take the ice cubes in and out. So by this afternoon, I was starting to feel a little guilty about not providing her with some better entertainment/ activities/ time with Mommy. I started looking through my bookmarked websites for fun toddler activities we could do together. I decided to make a sensory bag like this. I whipped one up quickly (using handsoap instead of toothpaste because we don't have 3 extra tubes lying around), and.... she proceeded to take no interest in it. Ice cubes in. Ice cubes out. Share with dog. Take back from dog. Ice cubes back in bucket.
     Now don't get me wrong, she does like to play with 'real' toys some of the time - mostly dolls and stuffed animals, and she pretends with them to some extent. She also really enjoys reading books together, which is one of the only activities I can really engage in with her. Part of me is a little sad, though, because I see all of these totally fun blogs of parents crafting with their children, and I get so excited because I LOVE crafts and I want to try them with Laura... but so far she really doesn't seem to be into creating. She is much more of an explore-her-world-and-experiment type kid. Science brain, I guess.

Gingerbread Weekend

     Since Josh and I were married, we have made a tradition of making an original gingerbread house from scratch each year.

     Our first Christmas together we made a tropical getaway home (complete with palm tree) in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Australia:

(the outhouse was Josh's contribution. They are not actually commonplace in Australia)

    

    The year we came back from Australia we attempted a gingerbread castle. Unfortunately, due to unforseen circumstances, this was as finished as it got:

 

     The next year, we had just moved into our own very first home, so we decided to make a scale model replica: 

Josh felt the need to make it 'realistic' and add dog poop to the yard.

We even did the interior, too! :)

     Then, last year, we made a gingerbread treehouse:

including happy children creepy, drunken old men playing underneath (again, Josh)

     This year we wanted to do something relatively uncomplicated so Laura could help. We ended up doing 'Santa Visits the Great Pyramid':

Watch out for the Santa-eating cobra!

     We didn't actually end up letting Laura help with the pyramid, but she did help decorate cookies:

And she did a good job, too! <3

I'm Back!

Goodbye, first trimester, you will not be missed!

     This past week I was finally able to muster the energy and motivation to resume cleaning my house. Prior to this I had been doing the very minimum required to keep my family alive: coming up with some semblence of food to sustain us (which actually Josh did a lot of the time) and providing clean clothes only when every other item had been used thoroughly. You know, that kind of stuff.
     So this week has been a lot of catching up chores, and the list of things I would like to get done is still quite long. I'm still struggling with insomnia a little bit, but most of the time it is okay. Things are starting to look up - I even cooked some real meals this week! No more Kraft Dinner and cereal. I have generally started feeling better (but not great), and eating is still kind of touch and go. For a while there the only things I could stomach were apple juice and Raisin Bran. I think I have lost a total of 10 - 11 pounds (:S). Hopefully that trend will soon change. Laura has been happy about all the apple juice that has been around though, and now asks for "SHUICE! SHUICE!" on a daily basis. I don't think she is going to be too happy when I can start living without it again and it is no longer available. Also, I think I have felt some movement a couple of times, but nothing definite to report. Soon, though, I'm sure! I'm definitely feeling the belly, though! Here is a progression of belly shots with respectively-sized edible items for comparison of how big the baby is:

5 WEEKS

7 WEEKS

9 WEEKS

 

11 WEEKS

13 WEEKS

Rant-a Claus

     Call me a Grinch, but why do people lie to kids about the existence of Santa Claus?

     I've never understood why parents feel compelled to lie about some magical fat man who completes the seemingly impossible feat of delivering presents to every home in the world on Christmas Eve. I mean, I guess it creates a 'magical moment' for the kids on Christmas morning... but I think that moment could still be created in other, less deceitful ways. Plus, it is uber-disappointing when you finally figure out that your parents have been lying to you about said magical man for the last 6 years. Or, at least, it was for me.
     One Christmas Eve I discovered presents marked 'from Santa' in the basement in the wrapping pile. I was not a snooper - I'm not sure what I was even doing down there - but my 6-year-old-self's logic kicked in and I wondered how those presents could be there from Santa already when Santa isn't supposed to come until after I was in bed... That, and I had older cousins, who I am pretty sure ruined it for me.

      I also feel that the whole Santa business takes away from what Christmas should really be about. Kids generally have a one-track mind and it becomes all-consuming for them to be on their best behaviour to make the 'nice' list in order to get the material gifts that they want. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for best behaviour, but I would rather have the motivation be something more intrinsic and less superficial. The problem is, with our society, you can't get away from Santa. I don't want my children to think that they are being punished or skipped over because Santa doesn't leave presents at our house, but at the same time, I am definitely not going to push the issue. Once our kids are old enough to understand Santa and start asking about him, he might leave one or two gifts for them, but until then, I don't think it's necessary.

     I have read in many parenting books that traditions are very important to children - they give them a sense of belonging and what to expect. I, too, am big on tradition, and so want to create special traditions for my family that honour what we value. These are what create those ever-cherished magical moments, not a fat man in a red suit.
Our traditions include:

• painting ceramic Christmas ornaments each year so our children will have their own collection
• including a year-in-review letter with our Christmas cards
• putting up the Christmas tree/decorations the first weekend in December
• making a gingerbread house/ structure (from scratch) the second weekend in December
• Christmas Movie Advent
• New pajamas for Christmas Eve
• Christmas morning at Grandma's
• Taking down the tree New Year's Day

I'm sure there are more that I have forgotten, or that will evolve as time goes on, but it is important to me to keep them the same from year to year so they will become special memories for our children forever.
Merry Christmas!