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 :-)