Ciera is missing home.....

Dawson in particular.
 

Ciera has not quite been herself for the past few days and when I ask her what's wrong she says nothing (literally she does not say anything), I figured something was up but I don't want to put ideas into her head so I keep telling her that she needs to talk to me and she can tell me anything, no matter what.  This morning at the babyhouse I was showing Mr. Baby the pictures in her little baby photo album (it's chewable and hold 5 pictures).  There is a picture of Ciera and I, one of Ciera and Auntie Dada, one of Ciera, Nana and Uncle Geoff, one of Auntie Dada, Shannon, Matthew and Andrew and one of Dawson and Ciera.   Ciera was sitting about 5 feet away from us doing something else, and when I got to the one of her and Dawson, I said to Mr. Baby "and there is Dawson and Ciera, Dawson woof woof", Ciera jumps up and runs over to us "let me see" and she grabs the album from my hand.  She looks at the picture and says in a quiet voice "I miss Dawdaw" (that's what she called him as a baby), my eyes filled with tears (and damned if they aren't now too) as I said to her "I miss him too, but he's happy and safe with Lynne and we will see him soon. I bet he's having loads of fun, lots of walks, and playing" she cuddled onto my other knee and leaned into me as she sniffled.  I just hugged and held both of my girls tightly as I willed the tears to not to stream down my face.  We sat like that for a good 10 minutes, and you know what she's been a different kid ever since, back to her old self.  I kinda thought she was missing home but I didn't know what in particular, she does not pay a huge lot of attention to Dawson, I guess he's just a fixture in her daily life that is missing right now, he's part of our routine.

 

Mr. Baby had a banner day, she is officially creeping now, her legs still aren't into it, but she is propelling herself forwards using her arms.  Lot's of  laughing and smiling, she truly is a very happy baby and a slow eater, surprising when you know how quickly the caretakers feed them but even they told me last week she is a slow eater so it's nice to know they respect that for her when they feed her.  She totally knows the routine now, she knows when I change her diaper and put on her warm socks and her warmer top that she is heading to bed, she now starts to cry when I do that, so this afternoon I tried to psych her out.  I did all that about 10 minutes before she had to go to bed, so she started to cry and I settled her down and then put her to bed, either she was really tired or it worked as she was not crying when we left this afternoon.

 

Ciera cracked us up today, after lunch she decided that mama fish was a baby fish and she got a diaper and put it on her, then a bib and she placed her in the high chair and pretended to feed her.  She then took mama fish out of the high chair and she sat on the stool and put mama fish on her lap, gave her a bottle and burped her!  I was then told that baby fish needed some clothes and could she have some of her sisters?  I did not bring a lot of baby clothes so typically I have one set of clean dry ones, while one or two are dirty and the other one or two are drying.  I told her we had to head out this afternoon to buy some warmer clothes for Mr. Baby so we could get something for her baby fish.

 

As the heat is not on yet and it's cold (it was 0C this morning) Mr. Baby needed some warmer clothes for the babyhouse, this morning when I got her up she had on 2 pairs of pants, they put a pair over the pair I had on her yesterday.  M from Spain had told me about a place with good prices but we'd have to taxi it there, and she gave me their card with the address on it.  So we headed up to the grocery store to grab a taxi, I showed the driver the card and he pointed down the street, I was doubtful that he was right as that place is called Baby Park not Baby Land (but I can see how he was confused). I decided we'd head to the Cosmonaut Hotel to get a taxi as there are always taxis at hotels.  On our way up the hotel driveway I flagged one down, showed him the card, he nodded, I said "tenge?" and he held up 5 fingers, 500 tenge…ok let's go, hoping the place was not just 5 minutes away.   He found the place and we went in.  It was small but they have good quality stuff for good prices, and even their diapers were cheaper than the grocery store.  So Mr. Baby now has some velour pants and tops, and long sleeved onesies and even a cute little pair of fuzzy slippers!  Baby fish selected a Winnie the Pooh onesie, we paid and I said "taxi?", the girl offered to phone one for me and the thing I love about taxis here is they call you back to tell you what # taxi will be there and when they are a few minutes away.  She even walked outside with us to make sure we got in the right taxi, I cannot imagine any person in a store in Toronto doing such a thing.  I find the people here so helpful and so friendly and they truly make an effort to help and try to figure out what it is you are saying.  I showed the driver our address and he took us right to our door…and for 350 tenge!!  

 

As I mentioned it's pretty darn cold right now and the heat is not on yet….so when we got home we both put on fleece tops and fleece socks, when Ciera went to bed she wore her footie one piece fleece jammies and asked to wear her fleece top over it, and she has 2 fleece blankets on her.  I think I will also be wearing my fleece top over my fleece jammies….and no mine sadly do not have feet…I'll be wearing socks.  Let me tell you it's darn chilly when you step out of bed in the morning and with only lukewarm water at the moment, you don't warm up very quickly.  I have however figured out how to help conquer the dry air here, I do laundry at night and hang it in our room to dry, it seemed to help last night with the dry coughs and throats so I'm doing it again tonight!  Can't wait for the heat to come on J

 

Todays pictures are:

 

Baby fish being fed

Baby fish in her new onesie

Mr. Baby's new footwear (it should be fun to see her reaction to having these on her feet!)