5 Years

     Five years ago today I birthed our first child. I kind of feel like I deserve a badge or something. Its an under-appreciated milestone, because, as they say, "The years before five last the rest of their lives." (No pressure or anything.)
     I mean, I have stumbled and fallen and done things I am not proud of, but I have come out of these first five years with so much more than I ever knew. I am a completely different parent than when I went in. Granted, I knew next to nothing about parenting then, just all the things I thought I knew. I used to say I would never make my kids separate meals for dinner. Now I know that, sometimes, when your child is underweight and failing to thrive, you make her a dinner she will eat because you have to. I used to think I would be pretty strict and enforce limits, etc. Now I know that treating your children like subordinates does not foster a warm and caring relationship, and that listening to their reasons goes a long way to achieving harmony. (I still enforce limits, but the manner in which I do is much more respectful.) I have learned that barking orders and expecting compliance is not a respectful way to treat anyone, and children will treat others the way they are treated. And probably the most important thing I have learned is that we need to model the behaviour we want to see from our children, so I have done a lot of work on myself in that department.

     Today we celebrated Laura, and had a really lovely day. I made her cherry oatmeal for breakfast, her favourite, and added chocolate chips because it was a special day. We went to the library for story time and brought mini cupcakes to share with our friends. We went out for dinner at Kelsey's, her favourite restaurant, and the girls were really well behaved. We had such a nice day and I could just sigh happily and contentedly, right now. I am so happy with our life at this time and I just love being a mom to these two so much.

A Very Frozen Birthday

     Last year Disney's 'Frozen' came out, and along with seemingly every other little girl on the continent, my girls fell in love with it. I thought that it would have been good to have a Frozen themed party for Laura's birthday last year, but we had been planning the Little Mermaid party for so long already! Alas, we decided that this year's party would be Frozen themed instead.


     I dreamed up a skating rink in our yard, and, of course, we would need an ice castle. Her birthday is in the middle of winter after all. But how exactly would we make one? Rectangular? Cylindrical? Much deliberation went into the planning of it. After spending some time with Google, I was still coming up blank. Apparently amateurs don't make ice castles. So, I put my brain to use and decided that, most realistically, an ice wall with a peaked arch separating the back yard/ ice rink area would have to suffice. Two-litre milk cartons would be a good size to make ice bricks. So, in October, we started saving all our used milk cartons, and come January, we had almost 40! This was great, we would be done the ice castle in about a week! Unfortunately, I had not accounted for the milk cartons ripping apart when the ice inside them expanded, so, after attempting to duct tape, and re-duct tape them again and again, we had to solicit the neighbourhood for more cartons. Several of my friends started saving theirs for us, as well. (Thanks, everyone!) And the project ended up taking much longer than the week I had originally estimated! Plans were modified along the way, but in the end, it all worked out, and the little lady was happy with it, which was the outcome we were aiming for. :) Grandma, our never failing, custom costume maker, made Laura her Elsa dress (and gifted an Anna dress to Rachel for Christmas, which she was quite excited about.)
After browsing Google and Pinterest to see what people had done for other Frozen parties, I wanted to do something a little different. I thought it would be fun to recreate the coronation celebration aspect of the movie, and have the cake and table spread modeled after that. The invitations were also modeled after a royal coronation invitation, rather than the more common blue and icy style ones. (Laura even helped me tea-stain the paper they were printed on.) :)
My mom owned a bed sheet that somewhat resembled the wall paper in the castle, and with the addition of some criss-crossed gold streamers, I satisfactorily recreated the look. I also hand painted the table cloth to match as closely as possible to the scene. The cake was iced styrofoam on the bottom two tiers, but the 'beautiful stranger tall and fair' on top was edible, modeled out of rice krispie treats with modelling chocolate features.

(Daddy helped make this!)

The table spread was a bit of a challenge, because the table in the movie is clearly only a dessert table (there is a fleeting view of another table in the movie with chafing dishes on it, so presumably they had more to eat than just cakes and pies at Elsa's coronation). So, I got creative and made savoury, non-sugar filled cupcakes, and a pumpernickel loaf in a bundt pan. A chocolate fondue fountain was not pictured on the table, but it is mentioned in one of the songs, and I thought it would be a fun and memorable addition for the kiddies, so we scored a new one off Kijiji for a fraction of what they would normally cost. The kids had lemonade to drink, and there was hot glogg (as mentioned in the movie) for the adults, which is a mulled wine. 

Of course, no Frozen party would be complete without a wintery scene, so we did the living room up to resemble the part where Anna and Kristoff meet Olaf, and all the beautifully iced tree branches hang in the background. I had toyed with the idea of turning our piano into the North Mountain, in order to steer kids away from playing it, but in reality I tried it and it was difficult mainly due to its shape. I settled for North Mountain on top of the piano instead (and no one tried to play it, anyway).

A large Olaf balloon was also in attendance. My mom helped with the 'iced' branches, taking clippings from a shrub of hers and spray painting them. I used an inexpensive bag of iridescent confetti I found at the Party Store to try to recreate the icy sparkle. In addition to the paper snowflakes I made with Laura one day and our own plastic ones, my mom also donated a bunch of snowflakes with which we decorated the ceiling (and also scattered a few hanging in the trees around the rink outside).

After lunch and skating with our friends outside, we all came in to enjoy a hot chocolate bar (which I didn't get a good shot of) and the birthday cake! 










Laura decided on the favours this year. Originally, she had dreamed up these really neat sounding lollipops that involved the characters from the movie being inside, and she had a bunch of different flavours chosen for them, as well. So we went to the local candy-making shops in town to inquire about it, but both places said they could not make something like that. So then we were going to go with her plan B, which was lollipops with snowflakes on them. Grandma Dawn had also found a snowflake candy mold, so I had intended to make a hard candy and pour them in the molds and add sucker sticks. Alas, when I read the instructions for the molds, it said it was not intended for hard candy (hard candy must be very hot when you use it, so presumable would melt/ damage the mold). So, plan C was to use the molds in their intended way, which was to use melting chocolates to create chocolate covered cookies with a snowflake design on them. We wrapped them up in little clear bags, and tied them off with some Olaf ribbon. Luckily, Laura took it all in stride and was cool with it. We also got Olaf cups to serve the hot (warm) chocolate in, and the guests got to take those home with them, as well.

Kiwi Crate

I liked the idea, in theory, but was skeptical about how it would be received by my craft-loathing child. My friend really wanted us to try it, though, so bought the girls a three month subscription for Christmas/ birthdays. This month's box crate revolved around story telling.
Aside from a meltdown about accidentally ripping the paper when she was trying to cut something out, Laura has seemed to really enjoy it so far. We have practiced fine motor with cutting and colouring, we have learned about stage set up, we have been creative drawing a stage scene, we have created a marionette type puppet, and learned some new vocabulary words, too! (punching something out of paper does not mean to punch something out like you would a person!)

The End of (Another) Era

We had originally wanted to keep Rachel in Parent and Tot swimming classes for at least one more session, but Laura was ready to move up to the Swimmer series classes, and the Swimmer One level started at 9:00. Rachel's Parent and Tot lesson didn't start until 10:00, which wasn't really a problem, as we could both be in the pool with them the whole time, but Rachel has really mastered everything in Parent and Tot, and the only thing holding her back from graduating to parentless Preschool swimming lessons was her comfort level without us. The problem was that if we held her back from the Preschool set, she would perpetually be behind Laura's lesson times (eg. Laura would be in Swimmer Two at 9:30 when Rachel started Preschool One at 9:00, Laura would be in Swimmer Three at 10:00 when Rachel started Preschool Two at 9:30, etc), so we decided on the fly today to see if she could be in the Preschool One class at 9:00 this morning, and they had room for her! It is the same teacher who has taught her Parent and Tot class for the last year or so, so she was already comfortable(ish) with her, and with only a small amount of coaxing she enjoyed her lesson with out in the water! Josh and I enjoyed a relaxing half hour pool side to just chat with each other while the kids had their lessons.
So although it was a somewhat abrupt end to a fantastic era of Saturday morning family pool time, I think it will be for the best in the long run. And although Josh and I now have to pay to swim because we are not part of Rachel's lesson anymore, we can make a point to enjoy the mornings we do.

A Star is Born

     We got the call this morning that Laura has officially been cast in the Wizard of Oz community theatre production after her audition last Sunday! She was the youngest one to audition and be cast. To say I am excited and proud would be an understatement. I've been nearly jumping around the house.

     The director said she was particularly impressed that Laura has been taking vocal lessons for nine months already, and that it shows dedication and focus. She was also convinced that Laura was stage ready because, during her audition, she successfully improvised a skit with another child. Laura will be playing a munchkin, with her own special part as one of three members of the Lullaby League which will feature a dance and a verse sung in trio. She has also been cast as a poppy, in a later scene of the show. 

     I think this kind of thing is right up Laura's alley, and this is a perfect introductory show for her.
Come and see her on stage April 23 - 26!! :D

Weaned

    As of the new year, I am officially done breastfeeding. It's kind of bittersweet, but I'm mostly okay with it, I think.

     I started this post a long time ago, over a year ago, as I have anticipated Rachel weaning for a long time. Our breastfeeding relationship has been rocky. I had a beautiful, textbook breastfeeding relationship with Laura: comfort, bonding, mutually agreed upon weaning, and it was just so different the second time around with Rachel. From the time she was born, she was always a good but quick nurser, and it didn't seem particularly comforting to her. I had been so happily anticipating the amazing bond it creates, but I perceived that she was really just mostly in it for the nutritional aspect. And when I got pregnant when she was five months old, and my supply dropped, our real struggles began. At first, she was fussy because she was going hungry. I would flip out on anyone who dared interrupt us, including my two year old. Once we realized the problem, we had to start supplementing. I remember crying at the grocery store buying our first can of formula. I felt so guilty and like such a failure. And then when we tried to give her a bottle, we struggled more because she didn't want to take it. So we both sat there many nights, both crying, because of all this. Eventually we started dipping the bottle nipple in maple syrup so she would accept it. And thus began the downward spiral. I couldn't take anything to boost my supply because I was pregnant, and the more bottles she drank, the more negative feedback my body received about how much milk to make. After I lost that pregnancy, my supply was really tanked. I started taking herbs and nursing tea to help boost it. For a while, we were doing fairly well - less than one bottle a day. But because Rachel had realized that bottles were less work for her, she wasn't keen to give them up entirely. I beat myself up every time she wanted one. Whenever we would have a bad day or she would nurse less frequently than normal, I would be upset. I wanted to nurse her until at least two years old because I felt that was only fair, since that was when her sister self-weaned. But it was becoming very difficult to keep it up, physically, and emotionally.  We struggled a lot, because I didn't feel like she liked or wanted it, really. She rarely asked for it, though when she did, I was over the moon. It was all very emotionally draining and psychologically unhealthy. But there were things that I still adored about breastfeeding: I was fascinated to watch my infant stay healthy when other family members would come down ill, I loved her playing games with my face, pointing to eyes, ears, nose, pushing my face to other side to see other ear, etc. And I loved how easy it was. Warm milk, ready on tap whenever you needed it (which, granted, was not quite as easy once we were battling supply issues). So you can see the bittersweet aspect.

     Then, before she had fully weaned, I randomly stumbled across an article that had a story very similar to ours. However, the mother had a different spin on it: 

            Although I was sad that he weaned, I chose to focus on the positive. We had beaten the odds, 

           and when he needed breastmilk the most (while in the NICU and during the first winter), he had 

           it! We had a really good, loving nursing relationship, and it ended on a positive note. I missed

           nursing him, but I celebrated nine hard-won months of breastfeeding.

      And it was then that I realized that I really should be celebrating the achievement we made by making it as far as we did after struggling so much. When Rachel turned two, I stopped taking supplements (that was a year and five months, if you're keeping track!) because I had made it to my goal with her. I was shocked, really, that we had made it that far, considering where we had come from. She was supplemented from the time she was about six months old, but still met the criteria for the breastfed growth chart. At around 14 months (I think?), we switched from formula to a coconut/ almond milk mixture because she could not tolerate cow's milk, and she still drinks that now. I had secretly revised my goal to nursing for 30 months, because I felt like I wanted her to have the extra six months of breast milk that she had partially missed out on while she was being supplemented with formula, and lo and behold, we made it to that goal, too! She stopped nursing about a month ago, so between 30 and 31 months. I am pleased she held on so long, especially considering that she was solely in charge of maintaining supply without lactation supplements for the past six months, and I feel like we are ready to be done. Mutually. I'm sure I will miss it, but I definitely won't have regrets of not trying harder. <3




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Laura-isms III

They are getting fewer and further between :( but here is what I've compiled from the last while

Winter 2014

• "Oranges are orange, just like bees' bums are yellow"
•  Playing pretend train (from Dumbo), Laura is mistakenly saying, "All D'aboard!" So, I try to correct her, but she keeps mispronouncing it. She then says, "I'm just glitching."
• Found a panty liner, took the backing off it, said, "Man, this is a sticky phone!"

Spring 2014

• Mom! When Daddy is spinning on my chair and I have to go poop, the poop opens up my bum and says, "Yaaaahhhhoooooo!!"
•  Earlier, while playing, Laura had banged her face (just under her nose) on her bed. At bedtime, we were 'talking guys' with Pooh Bear, and Laura was recounting her day to him, "... and I banged my chin on the bed!" I interjected, "That's your lip." Laura: "Well, I haven't worked out all the details, myself."
• while playing with sidewalk paint on the driveway, I say, "I painted a heart. What did you paint?" Laura says, "A dragon's heart. And see that crack right there? That means it's broken."
• While at Disney World (and a little sleep-deprived!), the alarm went off at 6:45am. Laura says, "DAMMIT!", rolls over and goes back to sleep.

Fall 2014

• "What the heaven is she doing?!"
• In the bathroom, alone, I hear Laura say, "And soap is called hand toothpaste!"