So where did the time go?

Hello readers!
Wow, it has been a long, long time since I was last on here.  Have you missed my interesting adventures into motherhood?  I get asked on occasion if I am still writing - no I am not I tell those who ask - mostly because with a now 3 year old at home (!!) volunteering at my older child's school and having a into everything 3 year old (yes I know I mentioned that already but I felt it needed to be said again) I don't really have time sadly :(.  I do miss it.  I found writing kept me a bit sane and I hope to get back into it one day.

Quick Update:
My oldest is still awesome and will be turning 7!!! soon.  She is super smart and caring but I can't believe how old she will be some days and others I forget that she is the age she is and not older.
My youngest is 3 and will be starting school come the fall.  She is totally independent and needs daily (some times hourly) reminders that she is 3 and not as old as her Mommy and Daddy and needs to hold our hands when we walk in parking lots.

Hope you are well.  We will talk soon.

A Birthday letter to Leah

Happy Birthday Leah!
I can't believe you are two years old already, that was one fast year - maybe not for you but for both Daddy and I, it was.  Sometimes it even feels like we just brought you home from the hospital but then there are other days when I can't remember you not being a part of my life.
You have learned a lot this past year - you are now sleeping in a big girl bed, which you love.  You are learning and saying new words every day, sometimes every hour!  Ok maybe not that fast but it seems like it.  You can actually communicate with Daddy and I, most of the time and we can understand you!  Remember when you tried telling us what you wanted but you didn't know the words and we didn't know what you wanted and oh then everyone was in tears.  We don't have too many of those days anymore do we?  Yea!
We've started potty training.  Well, we've taken teeny, tiny steps towards potty training but that will be this year's goal.
There have been some challenges this year too haven't there?  Like when I tell you to stop climbing on the chairs when you try to reach whatever food is on the counter, or when you try to email your friends on my computer.  Yes, those aren't fun time and sorry to say there may be more of those too this new year but good job on your climbing and figuring out you need a chair to do that.
And I'm sorry about having to give you eye drops, you know there were because you caught pink eye from Grace and they were to help you not harm you as you tried to make it sound like I was doing to you.  Hopefully we won't have to go through that again.
You are an amazing big girl and so smart too.  Do you know that you teach me things all the time?  you teach me to take in the day, to look at things - to really look at them for what they may be and then to look at them in a different way.  I am trying to learn the lesson, your older sister is still trying to teach me, but I appreciate that you are both trying.  One day I will really get it.  You teach me to laugh at silly things like when you pretend your empty cup is a hat or your bowl.  I love that you like showing off what you know like every time I hold you, you point out my ears, nose, mouth and glasses.  You know you don't always have to touch my glasses right?
I love that you love books - just like Grace and I do.  Sometimes too much is a bad thing.  You know what I'm talking about.  That night I found you surrounded by pages of what use to be a library book but is now ours because someone, and I'm not pointing fingers (you) was looking at with sticky fingers and the pages got stuck together so we couldn't return it.  Remember that night when I found you?  You were sleeping on your floor and there were pages and little pieces of pages around you.  I'm not even going to assume what had happened but I suspect that you just love that book too much.
I love that you are curious and while it may get you into trouble, like the time you push the emergency button in the elevator at the doctor's office, please don't ever stop being curious.  Life gets boring when you stop wondering about it.
I hope that you had a good year.  I am very proud of you, even if it doesn't seem like it am.  I know you are learning about the world around you and trying to figure things out and yes that still means you only write on paper not the walls.
Could I ask one thing of you though please?  Can you please keep the tantrums this year on the more low key side?  I promise we will have a lot more fun if that happens.
Happy Birthday Leah!
Love Mommy.

Big Girl Bed

Not sure why, but I thought last week was a good time to move Leah, who is almost 2, from her crib to a toddler bed, alright more like keeping her in her bed but removing one side of it.  I guess I figured since my youngest enjoyed hanging out on her big sister's bed and pretending to nap that she was ready for the next step - being able to get in and our of her own bed.
We waited until Saturday to remove the side and tried to make a big deal about it too but Leah didn't seem as excited as her sister was.  She was happy to be able to get into and out of her bed but that was pretty much it. - 'whoopee, I can get in and out of bed - big deal mommy'.
Then came nap time.  Well what was suppose to be nap time.  Did the usual thing, had lunch, cleaned up Leah and then told her "time for your nap in your big girl bed".  I think Leah might had forgotten what had happened in her room because she was totally cool until we got to her room.  I put her down in her bed, turned on her music and said 'I will see you after nap'.  I closed her door and started to walk down the hall and then it started - Leah opened her door again and then closed it.  Then opened it again.  Then closed it.  This little game continued for a few minutes until I guess my youngest realized she didn't have to be in bed really.  After a half and hour and the door game was long over and all was quiet, I went to check on her.  I opened the door expecting to see her sleeping somewhere in her room - hopefully in her bed - but instead found her sitting in her chair reading.  Ok, not a problem just as long as there is some sort of quiet time in our house.
I was feeling hopeful, this might actually happen and be easy.  
Then bedtime came. 
Bedtime, or what is also known as my favourite time of the day.  My girls are snuggled in their beds, all is quiet, a time to reflect on the day.  Then I had the brilliant idea to eliminate one side of Leah's bed, allowing her to leave her room when she is upset instead of just staying in her bed.  And that's exactly what happened.  Since she didn't have her nap, she was very tired and couldn't fall asleep right away.  So, she came out of her room.  Over and over and again.  For about 30 minutes or so, I pretty much just stood in front of her door and kept saying, 'back to bed please'. I was very happy about it as most parents who are tired can be.
Then she fell asleep and I really was happy about it.  Then Leah fell out of bed or almost fell out of bed and was scared and got upset again.  So I put her extra large stuffed dog and elephant and pillows on the floor beside the bed.  Then Leah fell asleep again (yippee!).  Then she started coughing - a lot.  I'll sum up my whole Saturday night/Sunday morning - not much sleep for either of us.  Grace on the other hand had a wonderful sleep and was full of energy the next day.
As the week went on, I wondered if I would be spending the first half an hour of naptime and bedtime sitting outside Leah's door.  I was pretty close to picking up some cushions or a chair so that I would be at least some what comfty while sitting on the floor continually telling my daughter  - 'sorry, can't come out.'  I was also thinking why I wanted to rush this step and how screwed up would it be if we put the side of the crib back on.
But then something happened.  Something special and magical.  I can't really explain it but either Leah got bored with her door opening game or actually understood this is how it's going to be and started staying in her bed.  She's not falling asleep right away which I don't really care about, but she's staying in her bed.  In her room.  Sure she's bringing all her toys to bed with her, or playing with her alphabet keyboard but, and I'll say it again - SHE'S STAYING IN HER ROOM!!!
I think she is enjoying this next phase, feeling like a big girl like her sister.
Next step - the dreaded potty training.....

Lice Hunt

Fall in my house means a few things - eating more pasta, wearing sweaters and warm socks, washing our hands more, pumping up on Vitamin C and kicking up the lice search.  This is the second time I have been on the lice search, mainly because this is the second year my oldest daughter has been in school but I am more frighten  than last year.  There currently is an outbreak at my daughter's school and I don't think anything scares me more than the possibility of my daughter coming home with lice.  Well except maybe having to pay more taxes, or eating all the Halloween candy before Halloween, or maybe even having food in my teeth in public and no one telling me.
So, yes it's been a few weeks since this whole lice thing started and every day when Grace comes home from school, I quickly search through her head.  I do another scan later on and I am starting to feel like a monkey a bit with all this nit searching (actually if anyone does have a monkey for rent, could I borrow it?).  I honestly I really don't know what I am searching for.  Ok, I know what I am suppose to be looking for, but since I haven't seen them in the flesh before I'm blind to what I should be hunting.  I've only seen lice in pictures where they are magnified by 500 percent.
I have never had lice (knock on wood) but I remember scaring my mom when I was a kid.  I think I was in grade 1 or 2 and it was time for the annual lice check. Our class was called down to the office where some lady searched through our hair. I was pulled out because I believe she saw something in my white hair and so I had to be checked again.  A bug was found, but - but not a lice bug.  Now, I did have baths and I was suppose to wash my hair but come on, I was young and had too much too do than washing my hair all the time.  I had sand to play in, books to look at, crafts to do - not spend my time washing my hair.  Plus, it took forever for my hair to dry.  So that is my only near lice experience and hopefully my last one.
So until this whole thing is over my daughter will have dirty hair in braids unless I can send her to school with a shower cap on - or is that too over the top?

Has anyone seen my baby?

I was folding some laundry today and as I was folding some pj pants that Grace use to wear but now Leah wears and it hit me - my baby isn't a that much of a baby anymore.  I've gotten use to it, a bit, with Grace but it's new with Leah.  My youngest will be two in December but she doesn't look her age, she is much taller and since she's the baby she thinks she can do things that Grace does - and most of the time she can, with a little help from mommy.
Where did my baby go?  I'm going to try to not get too sappy, but some days it seems like she's still a newborn.  I mostly get these feelings when it's nap time or bed time.  But I do miss cuddling with her - now while she does still like to sit on my lap, Leah mostly like to sits on her own on the couch.
I think it's hitting me harder seeing her wearing Grace's hand me downs because when my five year old wore them the first time around, I knew that one day another child would also wear them.  But now, Leah might be the last one to wear them and it's kind of sad - even though they're just clothes.  I didn't feel like this when either of my girls out grew the newborn clothes but for some reason, the bigger the clothes are the harder it gets to pack them away once they outgrow them.  I guess since their personality has emerged more the older they get, it's almost like a packing up a piece of them and a part of that time in their life as well.
Are you crying yet?

Terrible Two's

For the past month or so I kept trying to post something new but then something else seemed more important and really for those of you who don't know, writing is like exercise...if you stop for any length of time it's hard to get started again.   But here I am, getting starting again.
The past month has been all about getting back - getting back to school, getting back into the routine of things, getting the house ready for winter, all that stuff.  Isn't it strange how more difficult and how much more time it takes to get back into a routine than it is to break one?
Since Grace is in school full time, I am now able to spend more time and attention on Leah who has started her terrible two's very early.  Everything is her's, she only wants to do what she wants to do and when she doesn't want to listen she really does plug her ears with her fingers.  I don't know what I am going to do with her, it's hard to not laugh sometimes because she is so determined and really thinks she can do whatever her older sister does.  My little tiny terror.  At least she hasn't started the whole scribbling on the walls, or ripping all the books, or flushing anything down the toilet stage yet.
So I have been trying to remember how to deal with a toddler again, which in another way is hard because Grace didn't go through the terrible two's, she went through the terrible three's.  More difficult in someways because you figure as a parent maybe you have by-passed having to go through the dreaded two stage, but then your kid turns three and all of a sudden it's melt down after melt down.  so I guess what I am trying to say is while I don't always enjoy trying to explain to a toddler why it's not a good idea to run around the house with a steak knife or why standing in the bathtub isn't a good idea or why we shouldn't drink the bathwater (all true stories by the way), I think I'd rather go through this terrible stage now than later on because hopefully once it's done it's done....until the teen years.

You can give a Toddler a cup but you can't always make them drink from it.

It's been a while since I've been on here, summer was just kind of well a glimpse wasn't it? Hot one week and then not so hot the other weeks.   I was busy like everyone else - trying to keep both girls entertained, but mostly Grace who seemed to ask for a play date pretty much everyday (I guess I'm not as fun as I thought I was).  But now that she's back in school I can get back to my writing. 
Today's post is about how I have stepped into a negotiator position with Leah.  Leah who is not even two years old yet, but has her toddler attitude down to perfection.  The whole whiny, ears only work when she wants something, being unreasonable and stubborn as a mule is how she acts most of the time.  She's like the Nursery Rhyme my mother used to say to me, 'There was a little girl." 

There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good, she was very, very good but when she was bad she was horrid.  

Ok, now Leah isn't horrid but she isn't shy to tell you she's upset and she'll stand her ground, or at least try to to get her way.  When she doesn't want to go some place and you try to move her, she'll just raise her arms and try to slide out of your grasp or the classic just slump to the ground.  She enjoys screaming, much to our neighbours delight and telling you straight up, "no, not fair!" (which I believe she has heard from Grace.)  Most of the time it's not a big deal and I know one day she will make an excellent protester!  I can ignore her attempts at getting her way but it drives me up the wall when it comes to her finishing her drinks (either milk or water). 
Leah has been drinking from a cup for a while but she enjoys just taking the smallest sip - enough to just wet her mouth it seems.  We don't give her a lot to drink either because while like I said she has been drinking for a while, accidents still happen.  So maybe her cup has a quarter of what her sister gets and yet - IT STILL TAKES AN HOUR FOR HER TO DRINK IT! I'm not kidding.  This morning I was in a stand off waiting for her to finish her milk - it took an hour before my daughter finally gave in (yes I know where she gets her stubbornness from and the sooner she learns that I'm the master the better it will be for all of us.)  I feel like I am negotiating with the Taliban.  Not that I have ever negotiated with the Taliban but I did see the first 10 minutes of 'Zero Dark Thirty' and it looked a lot like what I go through to get Leah to drink all the milk or water from her cup.  There are tears and alternating being shouting and being really super duper nice.  There is pleading and some bribing and a lot of "no way".  Sometimes we just have to wait it out but other times we can trick her into thinking she has won by giving her a straw or a different cup.  In the end Mommy always wins, because in the end Leah usually finishes whatever is in her cup.