It's a dogs life....

Long time no blog......seems now that I am back at work spare time is a very precious commodity, just ask our dog who is sadly lacking in the walking department.  Prior to Ciera he was walked twice a day, Ciera came home and he was reduced to once a day, then when I went back to work it was once every other day and weekends, Tienna came home (mom off work) he was back to maybe once a day...mom back to work now and he's lucky if he gets walked twice a week.  This explains why he does things like......stealing precious stuffed animals from small children.  I regularly hear Tienna "ahhhh..... MINE...awson.... NO!" as Dawson has stolen baby right out of her arms and walked away with it.  He knows better though than to go after Mama fish, Ciera's pride and joy!!!

Last weekend Ciera and I made (ok it was premade we just had to decorate it) a gingerbread house, it came with a marshmallow snowman and a gingerbread tree and it was very cute.

 I placed it on the sideboard in the dining room....it looked great...for about 3 hours.  Then I noticed the tree was missing I looked on the floor and there was half of the tree, needless to say gingerbread and a dogs digestive system are not overly compatible and he spent ALOT of time outside that night. 

Lesson learned I moved the house to the middle of the kitchen table...yesterday Ciera asks "where is the snowman?"...hmmm...I don't know...it's gone.  My best guess is that the cats and the dog joined forces for this one.  Likely scenario is the one of the cats knocked it to the floor and the dog ate it.  Either that or the cats decided it would be fun to play with and I will find it somewhere in say....June?!

Yesterday Dawson somehow got tangled in the lights on our tree, thank goodness he knew to stand still and wait for me or the tree would have been knocked over completely.  It took me quite a few minutes to untangle him.

Hard to believe he is almost 11 years old , he still acts about 11 months at times, but I know he is sorely missing the walks and the attention he used to get, and just like a human kid when he will take any attention negative or positive.  It's one of my resolutions to ensure he gets more attention starting NOW, putting it in writing make me accountable for it!

Today is a beautiful sunny, reasonably mild December day....I think Dawson and I will head out for a quick run....we could both use the exercise!!

Who could resist this face?!!!

Dawson in his new spot...on the couch.  He doesn't even get down or try to look guilty anymore when I catch him there!

Best $20.00 I've spent in awhile

Now don't get me wrong I love these kids,

love love love 'em but yesterday was one of those days.....both kids were driving me insane, both had been great for 2 days.  For 2 whole days I had not listened to whining, had not had to threaten anyone with anything it was like a dream come true!  Then yesterday the whole image was shattered.

Started out with Ciera making 3 distinct play messes in 3 different areas of the house....seemingly all at once, she knows better, once you are done with something clean it up before you move onto the next thing. HA, that daycare lesson seems to have been lost.  The dog needed to be walked so I issued an unachieveable task, "clean all of this up before I am ready to leave or you will be napping after lunch", that gave her about 2 minutes which I knew she could not do.  Fair?  Nope but I knew I needed some "me" time, needless to say she did not make the deadline and she must have been tired as she didn't even argue about the nap and then said she wanted to go in the stroller for the dog walking and not ride her bike.

So she slept for a bit when Tienna did and then I had to wake them for a Dr.'s appt.....they were both awful from the moment we entered the inner sanctum at the office....ok no not quite true, they were not bad until the Dr came in.  I hate that they take my blood pressure there as I am sure everytime it will be sky high!!  Why do kids like to make their parents look bad, I'm sure I never did that!!!

Then on our way home we had to go to Costco and Canadian Tire.  No where in any child rearing book have I ever read that age 6 is the "I want" years, sure you hear all about the terrible 2's and the nasty 3's but the 6's they leave out.  All thru Costco, all I hear is "I want...." until I start to loose it on her and threaten her with nothing for the rest of the summer.   Tienna was tired and she just wanted to lay her head on my arm, which I love but it's tricky to push a cart like that!  So we get to the cash, they ring it up and I asked "can I trade you 2 kids for that?!", the cashier laughed and said "no thanks I already raised 3". 

Back into the car and off to Cdn Tire where I only needed a price adjustment for something I had bought last week, it was a $30 difference so well worth stopping in for. I put both kids in the cart and head to the returns desk, the man in front of me notices I have nothing to return and quips with a nod towards the kids "I hope you have the reciept for them".......I laughed as with the way they were behaving a return wasn't a 1/2 bad idea at that moment!

Ok so back to my $20.00, I had arranged for a babysitter to come after she left work at 6:00 with the original intent of taking Ciera to a movie, but I decided I needed to get out and run by MYSELF!  So out I went, I got to my original intended turn around point and thought "nope not far enough" so I ran more.  It felt soooooo good to be out running without pushing a stroller, pulling on a leash, talking non stop and stopping to pick up poop!!!  By the time I got home my head was clear, and I had run over 7K, BONUS!  To top it off she stayed for dinner and then after the kids went to bed I got to talk to an adult for a whole hour without interupption.  It felt so good she's coming back on friday and I hope to convince her to come Sunday morning so I can attempt a long run so I can see if the 1/2 marathon is attainable for October!

Best $20.00 I ever spent....got my sanity back with one run and today the kids behaved better.....hmm wonder if they needed time away from me too?!

Just look at these angels how could they possibly misbehave!!!

Where has the summer gone?

My gran was right...as you get older the time just flies right by....

I honestly started to hyperventilate when I looked at the calendar this week and realized it was just over 3 weeks until school starts and worse yet…..shudder….5 weeks until I go back to work…shudder. There was so much I was going to do this summer, move the shed, clean out the garage, paint my garage door and front door, clean out the basement, go visit friends in the US and in Ottawa and have loads of fun with my kids. I have abundantly done the last one!!!!  

We have been camping twice (so far), splashed lots in our little pools (decided not to put up the big one this year as it would be too tricky to watch 2 kids in 2 different pools!), been to Centre Island 3 times, Wonderland countless times, playdates, splashpads, been to the ROM, just us 3 hanging out, spending time with friends, and marveling at the change in my daughters.  I cannot believe I have not even had my bike out yet. But pulling 2 kids in the trailer might be a bit heavy but I should at least try it :-) and today Ciera was downhearted when she saw another little boy on the street had his training wheels off, she has tried it but she panics everytime her bike tips and I keep telling her "you will get it you just need to stop going "uuuuu" everytime I let go and you tip". 


For every busy fun day we have we seem to spend the next day as a quiet day, Tienna catches up on her lost naps, Ciera chills and watches classic Disney movies (she has found my VHS collection in the basement, from back when they first came out and I bought them thinking I'd have kids much earlier!).

While Ciera is freaking about grade one, I am freaking about work, and how I am going to manage to drop off Ciera (no earlier than 7:30) , then Tienna, get to work (30-40 minute drive), work 8 hours, drive back 30-40 minutes, pick up Tienna and have Ciera picked up by 6:00. I feel awful for her, it’s going to be long days for her, much longer then when she was in daycare. Not to mention that on Wednesdays she will have dance at 5:00 (seriously who thought of this one?!) and Fridays hockey at 6:00, that’s dressed and on the ice, which is picking them both up then backtracking to the arena. This is when a husband would come in handy! I know lots of people who are in the same boat but right now it just seems a bit overwhelming, I’m sure it will all work out in the end.

In the meantime here are some fun pictures of the summer so far……

Tienna's first ride

A gaggle of geese walking down our street!!!

Ciera, the dragonfly whisperer, she does this all the time!

How many kids can you fit in a Costco bag?

Snorkeling in the backyard!

Scary isn't it?

Ciera feeding a groundhog a frenchfry at Wonderland, he was picky he would not eat the bread only fries.

On the boats at Centreville

Ciera unearthing dinosaur bones at the ROM

Tienna unearthing dinosaur bones at the ROM!!!!

Warrior Dash aka Mom's afternoon out

If you have not heard about the Warrior Dash, you need to, it's serious fun!!  I have not smiled so wide for so long than I did for the 51:28:45 that it took me to run this, and for hours afterwards!!

I had not heard of it until my friend Marlea mentioned it, I googled it and it took me about 3 seconds to email her and say "I am so in".   It's a 5K run but it's filled with obstacles, and not just your run of the mill ones.....but more on that in a minute.

So we signed up back in April, I think, and shortly after that I hurt my heel which kinda sucks and does not help in the running world, so needless to say my training was lacking seriously.  Then a week before the run Marlea separated her shoulder and said she would not be doing it, she was seriously down about it and I was bummed.  Not only was my friend hurt, I didn't think it would be overly fun to do this run alone.  I'm normally ok with running solo, but this seemed like something you had to share with at least one friend.  Marlea said she would still come and perhaps just run alongside, then she said well maybe I can do the easy ones....turns out she did them all!!

Our wave time was 3:30 and we left home about 12:30 for the 1:30 drive there as they said to be there an hour before.  Holy smokes, good thing we left lots of time as the traffic was crazy (turns out that over the course of the day on Saturday there were likely over 10,000 people there!!!).  The sheer number of people there was amazing, but more amazing was the organization of the event, it was stellar.  But we make it, picked up our race packs...which included these awesome warrior helmets...

I can see us wearing these babies out all year!!!

Anyhow....Marlea's niece had joined us for the ride up and we loaded our stuff into her tote bag (thanks Kiera!!!), left her to suntan and headed off to the start line

Here is our before shot...please note how clean we are!

Note in particular my white socks!!!

Found out later there was over 9200 people that participated in this event (at this particular dash), the crowds were large, but calm and it was by far the best organized run I've been on.

Not sure how many people were in our wave but it was at least a couple hundred, our start was signaled by the warrior flames shooting upwards and those babies put out alot of heat!!!

Not long after we started running we heard shouts, laughter and screams from ahead.....ugh thick stinky gooey deep mud to go through, people were actually loosing their shoes when they pulled out of the knee deep mud, I chickened out and skirted around the edge where it was only ankle deep.  Some people just left their shoes and did the rest of the run (about 4.5K) in just their socks or bare feet, now those folks are tough!

Did I mention this was held at a ski resort....so you know those nice long sloping trails you love to ski down....we ran up them and encountered obstacles such as....a "web" of ropes, a dark tunnel (on our knees), a wooden walls (there were ropes), a stack of hay bales, through car tires, over 2 junked cars, over another web, up a black diamond run, down a large "slip and slide" (I was ticked as my shorts stuck to it and I had to schooch down it rather than slide), up a rope wall, over and down, jump over 2 rows of fire (duraflame logs) and the piece de resistance......the mud pit......get down on all fours (and your tummy) and slide under chains that were about 12 inches off the ground, this mud was soupy and there was a layer of gravel at the bottom (ouch that stuff hurt!).....but it was fun!!   Laughed pretty much the whole way through it and it felt great.

Ciera had heard me telling a friend about it and she made me promise I would go around the fire....so don't tell her I jumped it :-)

We crossed the finish line and we handed a medal (wahoo!), some water to drink and a banana which we looked at and laughed (had to get the girl to peel them for us as we looked like this)




check out the socks and shoes now!

 To clean up there was a pit with 2 guys manning fire hoses connected to a water truck, that water was COLD!  These guys looked like they were having a blast....you'd be trying to just get wet enough to try to rinse off the mud when BAM you were hit full force with the water, but it did rinse off most of the muck.

As a reward we all got a free beer, it tasted darn good, and we headed back up to watch some others finish, what a hoot it was watching some people literally dive into the mud pit.

Too soon it was time to head home, we got on the school bus and headed back to the parking lot and on the way I heard the funniest comment from the women sitting behind me, overheard one saying to another "and you were worried that you forgot to put on deodorant today?", I choked back laughter.

we got to the car and took off our shoes.......

sat on garbage bags and headed down the highway. Kiera made us have windows open as she said we stank...huh really, wow how insulting, I can't imagine why!!!

We stopped at McD's for a healthy dinner on our way home and encountered many other fellow dashers.  Heard the odd few say "I would not do that again", but I so will, it was the most fun I have had in awhile, it challenged me and I did things that I would never have done 5 years ago.

I will so be a Warrior next year even though it took a week for the dirt to come out of my knees and the little scrapes on my knees were all gone......and somehow I managed to get a large bruise on my arm and sadly I don't even know how, but I will so do this run again only next time I will do LOTS of hill training and better my time!

Seriously far behind on blogging!!!

Wow, I knew I was far behind but when I looked at the date of my last post I gasped out loud......yikers....lot's of catching up to do.....so here is a recap of what I will catch up on and a promise to do the real posts realllllllly soon!!!

- Ciera's 6th birthday
- Tienna's baptism
- Disney World
- Kazapalooza
- Ciera's Senior Kindergarten graduation
- Ciera's dance recital
- Start of soccer
- Camping (Tienna's first camping trip)
- life in general
- oh and I still have not blogged about the trip home with Tienna

Holy cow no wonder I have no time to blog!!!

Tienna's new favorite past time is pushing around a doll in a doll stroller/highchair and she places all sorts of stuff on the tray for her "baby" and if you ask her where her baby is she will go and look for the stroller and get it.  She is understanding pretty much everything you say to her these days and she is starting on some words.  More, up, down, hi there (usually said to any animal she sees), bye, buh bye (this is cute as she will say this, wave and walk away from me).

Ok, I logged on to pay some bills and need to get to that...so here are a couple of recent pictures!

Ciera and Tienna on the beach in St Pete's

Waiting for the bus on our first day at Disney!!!!



Ciera swimming under the water in St Pete's



What?!  No one told me I was not supposed to eat sand!

"Jane Cool", I see the future here and it's not good!!!!

Me!!!  At the Pearson Runway Run, very cool running with planes taking off around you!

Tienna tkaing her baby for a walk in the living room

Ciera lost yet another tooth today, so she is down 3 on the top and one on the bottom, with still several more loose.  Will need to start pureeing her food soon :-)

Life changes.....

I was thinking the other day....wow has my life ever changed since I became a mom, don't get me wrong I knew it would but it struck me how much it has changed in ways I would have never imagined.

• Long gone are the days I'd spend $200.00 on a sweater or a pair of shoes just because I liked them (I was finally able to part with an expensive sweater recently that I have held onto for years just because I had paid alot of $$'s for it).   I now buy nothing full price, for me or the girls
• I used to be a Walmart snob......now I sing their praises
• I used to buy a new car every 4 years, mine is now 8 years old and needs to last another 4 or 5, until Tienna hits grade one, although I'd love a bigger SUV it just ain't gonna happen anytime soon
• Shopping for clothes is no longer a luxury that can take hours it's more like "I need a white shirt....ok I can likely get one at whatever store" so I run in with 1 or 2 kids and find what I am looking for pick up 2 sizes that I think may fit, pay and leave.  Once home and the kids are in bed, I try on said shirts and the one that does not fit gets returned.  I bought a new bathing suit last week in this manner, the woman at the cash thought I was nuts as I bought 6 bathing suits.....5 went back!!!!
• I now cook real meals...ok not every day but I do...no more bags of chips for dinner, this is a good thing though :-)
• I rarely watch TV when the program is actually on (other than Treehouse) ...I am so glad I made the jump to a PVR
• Chores are broken down into 1 to 2 hour segments, the maximum amount of free, reasonably uninterrupted time I get at a time
• While I have always been active, I am more conscious of it now, I need to stay fit and healthy for my children and also show them a good example (this is why I eat my junk food after they are in bed, yeah I know bad mom!!)
• It will be another 7 years or so until I can go into the washroom by myself, both at home and in public, it's typically like a party in there for me now, especially at home where I am also usually joined by the dog and a cat!!
• I am way more adventurous with trying new foods now, again trying to lead my example......I now even eat broccoli (still hate it but I grin and eat it!) and I have found I actually enjoy most of the new things I try, so bonus
• I never really felt like I was a part of my community....now I do.  I always felt like I was missing out on something and now I finally feel like I belong and I really love and enjoy it.  
• I have met a ton of people I never would have otherwise met as other than through our kids our paths would have never crossed,  many of these people have in turn become great friends

Ah changes.....what would life be like without them....they keep us guessing at what's around the next corner and you just have to roll with them, embrace them and enjoy them.

I have to get up at what time?!!

This past Saturday Ciera was performing, with 3 other girls, in a dance competition......45 minutes away from our house.......at 8:19AM....and had to be there 1.5 hours beforehand.   YIKES!  I asked her teacher "do we REALLY need to be there that early?"  After all the competition didn't start until 8:00AM how far ahead could they possibly get in 19 minutes?  She thought that no later than 7:30 would be ok.  This meant getting up at 5:30AM for me.........now I know some of you get up that early every day but for me I'm used to getting up at 7:15 so 5:30 is darn early!!!

I had every thing packed and ready to go before I went to bed, I had also asked Ciera "do you want to eat breakfast here or just have me get you out of bed and carry you to the car?" she said she wanted to eat breakfast here, I reminded her it would still be dark.  "That's ok"...all right then.

Flash forward to 6:00AM when I go in to wake her up....."just carry me to the car when we are ready" and she rolled back over and went to sleep!!  So at 6:20 I bundled her into a blanket, carried her downstairs and put her in a chair, went back up and got Tienna up, changed her, rolled her into a blanket and put her in the car, then went back and got Ciera and put her in the car. This of course was after 2 trips to the car already putting our necessary stuff in.  Whew!!  On the road by 6:40.  It surprised me how many people were on the 407 at this time on a Saturday morning.

We arrived at exactly 7:30, everyone and everything out of the car and headed to the entrance...great a flight of stairs and me with a stroller.   Thanks to other moms who have also been here and done this, they just grab the front of the stroller and up we go.

By 7:50, Ciera was in her dance costume, makeup on, and hair done.  Confession time....to those who know me, you know I don't wear makeup....so it's tricky enough putting it on let alone on someone else who happens to be a squiggling almost 6 year old.  But we got it done, by the way the lipstick is the worst part to do.  I also confess one of the other moms did her hair....I had no clue how to use the bun "net" nor how to put her fake ponytail on, and since I didn't even watch as I was doing her makeup at the time so I still don't know how, other than there were about 4,000,000 20 bobby pins in it.  This was the end result...



This is a $40 ponytail, which her teacher then lopped off to shoulder length...I almost cried!

I took advantage of the time and quickly fed Tienna breakfast and changed her out of her jammies!!! Tienna has quite a fan base at dance, there is a group of 9/10 year olds who adore her and she had quite an audience while she ate her breakfast and then lots exclamations like "oh look how small her pants are!"

Just after 8:00 we dropped the girls off with their teacher backstage...Ciera is too young to even think about being nervous her comment was "I'm so excited" so a hug and a kiss and she was off.   Their dance is very cute...it's jazz and done to Madonna's "Holiday", which brings back memories of the Dominican Republic for me at age...never mind....!!  But they did a great job and all smiles as they came off stage. 

Now the waiting started, we had to wait until 10:00 for adjudication....Tienna is not known for her waiting skills.   Lots of walking around, going in to sit and watch others perform, then more walking around, got Ciera out of her costume, then back in it to go on stage for adjudication (yes I know....why?)  She needs to wear it 3 more times without it being dirty!!!  

Finally it's 10:00 and they go back on for adjudication...by now Tienna is totally out of sorts, she had been up since 6:30 and her body was telling her it was soooooo nap time.  Way too much talking by the dance dude and they finally get to the scores.  Our girls were in Novice and got a score of 83.11 which earned them a Gold (there is amethyst, gold and platinum).   Well done girls!!!!

Now Tienna is out and out crying and thrashing around......get Ciera dressed to her asking about 15,000 50 times "Can we go back in and watch some more?"  "no honey I'm sorry we need to go home".  Back out to the car, this time helped down the stairs by a mom...seriously a man was standing there watching me bump the stroller down the stairs and a mom came over to help.  Granted Tienna was laughing at the bumping but still why would he not think to help?

Tienna fell asleep before we were on the highway, Ciera refused to give in to it..  Once home we had lunch, Tienna went to bed for a 3 hour nap, Ciera changed into her dance outfit from 2 years ago (yes it still fits!) and proceeded to put on an entire recital  in the kitchen

me?  I napped off and on for 2 hours in the afternoon on the couch.  These early  mornings are just too much for me!!!!

Officially waterlogged

Victoria, Ciera and Tienna "we're here......"

Last Friday could not come soon enough for Ciera, she had been looking forward to this day for weeks....we were heading to Niagara with her friend Victoria (and her parents) for a night at Great Wolf Lodge.   Thursday night Ciera came downstairs with her little suitcase packed, when I asked what was in it I was impressed...she had a pair of PJ's, 2 shirts and 2 pairs of pants, I asked "what about underwear and socks?"  "oh yeah" and she scooted back upstairs for them. 

We were in the car all of 5 minutes when she asked "are we there yet?", she does it as she knows it drives me insane!!!  I had planned our departure to coincide with Tienna's naptime, my thinking was...ok she will sleep on the 1.5 hour drive and she will be good for the afternoon, Ciera was under strict instructions not to play, tickle, or talk with her sister in the car or there would be "big trouble", Ciera stood up to her end of the bargain, Tienna however did not.  Tienna was wide awake the whole drive there...sigh.

We arrived at 2:00PM and by 2:30 we were in our bathing suits and in the waterpark. 

Victoria and Ciera all ready to hit the water



The whole family set to go!



What a fun place, Ciera was up and on a waterslide before I could even blink, I was surprised that she was not even hesitant, and proud that she is really coming into her own and out of her safety shell.  Tienna was in baby glee...all this water!!! 

She would lead you to where she wanted to be, in little water fountains, puddles, it didn't matter.  By 5:00 her little knees were all scraped from crawling around on the tile floor.  

Ciera was up and down slides, in and out of the water all afternoon.  Our friends were wonderful and would watch Tienna so Ciera and I could go on slides and spend some time alone.  3 hours of water fun and then a bath for the 3 kids, life is good!

We signed the older girls up for the "PJ Party" and we dropped them off in their PJ's at 7:00, and we put our bathing suits back on so we could enjoy some almost kid free time at the waterpark.  Again we took turns with Tienna and I had a blast.  

Ciera had a great time at the PJ party, again no hesitation about me leaving, I had to call her back for a hug and a kiss.  By 9:45 we were all back in our room and Tienna was having her bottle and we all thought wow she is going to crash hard, she had been up since 8:00 and going hard all day.  By 10:00 she was crashed in her pack and play.  We had some snacks, some quiet time and then it was off to bed for the older girls.......Tienna woke up as they were coming in.  When I say woke up, she didn't just cry softly this was full out wailing....for a good 15 minutes, but somehow Victoria managed to fall asleep while Ciera lay in bed with her hands over her ears.  Ok, the kids were now all asleep...phew...back to the couch for mom to relax for a bit.

I finally went to sleep and poof at 11:30 full out wailing again from Tienna, rigid body, eyes not even open just wailing...loudly.  I understand, it was dark, she had no idea where she was and why, heck last time she slept somewhere different her whole world turned upside down.  It took me an hour to get her back to sleep.   I flaked out.....until 1:30AM full out wailing again..........nothing I could do to console her...I gave her a bottle....nope...I rocked her..nope....changed her diaper...nope.  Poor Victoria got down off the coveted top bunk and went to the bed in the other room with her parents.  Ciera woke up, "why is Tienna cuddling with you?" I get asked accusingly "I'm trying to get her to sleep Ciera, I did the same with you when you were a baby".  Finally I decided to just have Tienna lie down on me and we'd sleep this way....bear in mind I am in a small single bed, thank goodness on side was up against a wall.  Tienna settles down...it's now 3:30AM...I hear soft crying from the other bed....Ciera.  "what's wrong?"..."why does Tienna get to sleep with you?"....oh for crying out loud..."ok come over here and don't knock her she's asleep now".  So Ciera curled up at the bottom of the bed across my legs, I had pillows on one side to allow me to not sleep with the wood frame on my back and Tienna on me with a pillow on my other side she if she rolled she would not hit the wall.  She woke up a couple other times but I was able to settle her quickly.   Not much sleep for any of us that night.

By 11:00AM we were back in the waterpark......with a bit less enthusiasm than the previous day.  We stayed for about 2 hours and then after asking Ciera "are you sure you don't want to go on anything else?" "no mom I want to go to the arcade", we hung out in the arcade for an hour as Tienna got more and more miserable......yep she was tired...really?  I can't imagine why :-)






Tienna on her first "ride", please note Ciera with the big sister  hand protectivley on her sisters leg!



End of day 2......too pooped to smile

As we walked to the car Ciera was sniffling..."why are you crying?" "I don't want to go home, I love Niagara Falls, I wish we could live here","I wanted to go on more water slides" this continued for quite a while until she fell asleep.   Tienna was asleep pretty much before we left the parking lot!  I drove home the long way so they could both get some sleep.



Princess Ciera on the way home



Princess Tienna on the way home (it's hard to catch a car shot of her as she is still rear facing!)

 Even that night as Ciera went to bed she was crying "I wish we could live there, it's fun"..."yes honey and that's why it's called a vacation".

Ciera is still refusing to take off her wrist band.....guess she had fun!!!  Let's just say Saturday night was a quiet and early bed night at our house!!!!



Tienna when I went in her room at 6:00PM when I went to wake her up for dinner!!

Hmm...... no wonder she was not overly thrilled when I took her swimming yesterday morning, I guess she was still waterlogged!!!

Firsts and lasts......

Wow, Tienna is changing so fast it's hard to keep up, as a result we are having lots of firsts and lasts. I have to admit that most of the lasts do make me sad as I know this is the last time I will get to experience them and I am reasonably sure Tienna is not only my second child but also my last.

It's hard to believe that just a few short months ago Tienna could not even crawl, she dragged herself "army style" across the floor, she now crawls at what seems like the speed of light, typically laughing as she does. She can stand on her own for longer periods of time and can take 3 or 4 steps but she always falls (typically into my arms) as she is not just trying to walk, she is trying to run, while laughing herself silly!! Her favorite thing to do is be on the move, she loves "walking" around the house with me behind her holding her hands, my back aches but it's well worth it. She has finally paid attention to me telling/showing her how to get downstairs and can do it pretty well. I catch her ½ way up the stairs quite a bit…hey she moves fast!!!

She now likes to cuddle (on her terms!), comes to me for cuddles and hugs, has sort of learned how to kiss…ok it's more that she puts her open mouth on yours but she is getting the idea. She will hug and is trying to tickle people, might have something to do with the fact that everyone tickles her, especially Ciera. My absolute favorite thing (and Ciera still loves this too and asks for me to do it) is when she places her little cheek on mine and just cuddles into me…hand down my absolute favorite. Tienna will now also put her arms around my neck and hug…awwww so sweet eh?

This girl loves to "talk" and "talks" loudly!! Non stop…..and she has a great sense of humour, she will be by herself in the back seat of the car (rear facing still) babbling away and then hysterical laughter follows, I'm not sure I want to know why J. Tonight I caught her glaring at me with a twinkle in her eyes and then she burst out laughing…oh yes this child is going to be my troublemaker!!

For some odd reason now that the warmer weather is here, every time she gets her jacket on she holds up her hands and say "aah?" she wants her mittens on, I oblige her and then she laughs….why do I feel she is mocking me? She would not wear them all winter and NOW she wants to wear them?! She still however hates socks and shoes and takes them off at every opportunity. Every time we get out of the car I have to conduct a search for at least one sock and shoe if not both.

Her favorite expression is "aaahhh?" she says this for lots of stuff, I guess enquiring minds do want to know. She seems to understand a lot of what is said to her, however the word "no" still makes her very angry. I am pretty sure she said "uh oh" today and my sister swears she said "banana" the other week .

Oh…. another great first (not!)…..her first temper tantrum. My Auntie J had given her a couple sips of tea and then was not giving her anymore, so Tienna threw herself on the floor and proceeded to have a tantrum, which we all ignored. I have a feeling this is the first of many, this child is very headstrong and has quite the temper.

Tienna finally eats more normally now, by that I mean she is not loudly squawking if the spoon is not at her mouth the moment she has swallowed the last mouthful, she was so used to it being shoveled into her at the babyhouse that anything less was not fast enough. Her mouth also now does not open to its full width, while it was cute….. again I know why it was and now she is opening it "normally". At meal time now she will actually look away, at the dog, at Ciera, and not totally pay attention to the meal which is great progress and allows me to eat at the same time!  She is also not stuffing everything into her mouth when she is feeding herself, she is now waiting until she has swallowed to put the next bite in...yeah!

The head banging is almost gone, thank goodness. This was one behavior that I wanted to see go, it's very disturbing to see your child banging her head on the highchair (she managed to bruise her forehead a couple of times) or on the ceramic floor. The advice I was given was to ignore it and not react or give in and as hard as it was to do, I realized yesterday I had not seen her do it for awhile.

Tienna LOVES the water….she laughs the moment she is in it, she kicks her legs and moves her arms. She will now sit on the edge of the pool, I tell her to wait and then I step back, let go of her and count…1….2…..3 with the laughing the whole time and on 3 she wiggles her bum to propel her off the edge of the pool into the water and I catch her under the water. I swear she drinks ½ the pool but she loves it. A future Olympian swimmer perhaps?

I'm glad both Ciera and Tienna love the water, Ciera is always asking to go swimming. She is quite a good little swimmer now, but I have to admit last week at her lesson I could barely watch. She has moved up a level and her new instructor took them to the deep end, they had to jump in, tread water and swim back to the edge of the pool. Much to Ciera's chagrin the other 2 children in her class are bigger (and older) than her. The boy went first and did it, the other girl would not do it, and so Ciera went, I literally held my breath. Yes rationally I know she was surrounded by lifeguards but still, I was on edge. However she jumped in, went under, bobbed up, tread water and then swam to the edge. I was so proud of her!!!

Ciera has a few firsts of her own…..she has been practicing her headstands since we left for Kaz, (while there she did them against anything, walls, doors, me, Irina….) and tonight she finally did one without any support at all, all on her own in the middle of the room. I keep telling her that to get good at anything you need to practice and tonight she after this she said "my practice worked".

After a rocky start at reading ("I can't do this, it's too hard") she is reading more and more and is not frustrated with it anymore. I kept telling her "remember when you didn't know how to swim or skate, it was hard too and now it's easy, you just need to practice" and I also found books she enjoys, and give her lots of praise. Now she is sounding out words and has learnt around 30 of her 100 sight words in the past few weeks. She is getting little readers at school and can "read" them…..yep she is not really reading them….after having them read twice she memorizes them. While I am proud of her memory, she is missing on the reading part…but I figure it helps her self esteem and her confidence to think she is reading so it's got to be good right?

Never a dull moment

You know the saying "it's always something"? Well around here it really is....

Ciera lost a top front tooth a couple of weeks back and the other one has been really loose for what seems like forever. Yesterday we thought it was going to come out as when we brushed her teeth in the morning it was bleeding....I yanked on it but it didn't want to come out. I mentioned it to her teachers just in case it came out during the day and it bled. So this morning we get to school and her teacher says "oh its still there", we had forgotten to "test" it this morning, so I wiggled it and it seemed looser (I know this is not grammatically correct!), I grabbed a tissue (I find it too wet to try with just my fingers) and pulled on it a little and it would not come out, Ciera grabs the tissue from my fingers and yanks on her tooth...and out it comes, she did not even flinch!!! So we had a little biology lesson right then and there with her classmates as I don't think many of them have lost any teeth yet, they were certainly full of questions. This is Ciera's newest smile.... yep that's 3 teeth missing at the moment

I have been trying to get Tienna to drink straight water and she tosses the bottle every time I try it....so this afternoon I went for a run and I take a water bottle with me, before we even left the house she indicated that she wanted some...so I squirted some into her mouth...she drank it, I did this several times and she drank it everytime. Being smarter than a 14 month old I thought...hmm perhaps she just does not like it from the bottle, so I put some water into a sippy cup, it has the doohicky in it that stops it from just flowing out, she still has to suck it out. This is what occurred.....why do I have visions of this being a beer years from now? Oh well she seemed to like it ok from the sippy cup and now we are working on her handing it back to me when she is done rather than just chucking it.

Tienna has been out of sorts the past 2 days, totally not like her at all, yesterday she spent most of the day sleeping. Her "diaper" issue was not resolved with the antibiotics for her Giardia (she did have it but has been retested and she was clear), so I talked to my Dr last week, she suggested I change her to a non-lactose formula just to see. In addition to that I also cut down on her portion size thinking perhaps I was overfeeding her and her system just could not handle it.

Tonight while I was attempting to make dinner she was just getting into everything and Ciera was not helping the situation so I put Tienna in the playpen. I went to take her out and gasped....there was pink stuff all over her mouth, her hands, her shirt, the playpen, etc Ciera said "it's blood!!!" Umm no she ate a piece of pink chalk...bright pink. Last week she dumped a whole cup of chalk into the playpen and I thought it was all out, but apparently not. Got her and the playpen cleaned up and we ate dinner. Could make for some interesting diapers tomorrow though!

Back to the "diaper" issue. The changes seem to have made a difference, whereas she was always regularly "going" during her nap (and requiring a bath and a change of clothes) things have been more normal but not as regular. During dinner she was obviously trying to go, red face and the sounds were pretty telltale, however to no avail and the trying stopped. Well it was bath night here.....water in the tub, about 4 million toys also in the tub, Ciera and Tienna climb in. Not 4 seconds later.....Tienna goes bright red again, I look and I'm too late "Ciera get out of the tub now!" and I grab Tienna out.....as they say at the pool "we had a fouling". Great just what I wanted to do tonight, scrub the tub and disinfect 4 million toys. Both kids get shuttled into my tub where they have showers instead. On the positive side at least it was solid!!!

So there you have it, just a normal day here at our house :-)