Growing Up

Can’t believe the changes in Amelia each week, it seems she has hit some sort of critical point and now she is learning at an alarming rate (or maybe it was just that we didn’t stimulate her enough and now with daycare she is just gobbling it all up).  She is turning into such a little person.  Yesterday we picked her up from day care and she was saying “Bye” (pronounced in Meals land Biiiiiiiii) and Okay, both of which are very funny. Heather tells us when they go for walks Amelia says hi and bye to everyone they pass, throw in her usual declarations about ducks and she is turning into abit of a chatter box J.  She understands so much of what I tell her now, last night she was playing with a paper napkin and I told her to blow her nose and she did (well not blow but wipe, we are still working the blowing out part).  She has also turned the corner on the utensil use, we have been giving her a fork or spoon for awhile now but she usually just uses it for making noise, now she actually uses it for the intended purpose, yipeee!!  I think the novelty of the newfound spoon/fork use has also lead to her eating more cause she likes the challenge of trying to scoop or stab the food.  She is still big on reading but recently her picture/word books are her fav, especially this French/English picture dictionary that Denise got her for Christmas, she loves looking at all the pictures and will drag it over to you and point at something then you have to tell her what it is. I know there are other things that have amazed me about Amelia lately but of course when I go to write they all drop from my head, oh well.

 

We have had a good weekend and week, this past weekend wasn’t too busy Jeff was out helping Damon with some handyman stuff at his place on Saturday so Meals and I hung out at home and went for abit of a shop at Sherway with my mom. Saturday night we went out with the family to this Italian place in the Junction, Amelia was in her element in the highchair between Pake and Mini being fed all sorts of treats and having everyone paying attention to her.  On Sunday I went for a run while Jeff and Meals did groceries and then we just did a bunch of stuff around the house. Over the summer Jeff and I took abit of a hiatus on doing stuff around the house but now with fall here and winter approaching the To Do List is out again and longer than ever, ugh!! Sunday night we had a very tasty dinner at Julie’s.

 

This week has been pretty good, Amelia’s nose has been flowing again and she has developed a bit of a chesty cough but she still seems to have quite a bit of energy so I am not too worried.  She has been having a very good time at daycare and every morning now we get squeals of excitement on the drive over to Heather’s then we get there and she gets down and trots over to Heather and sits on her lap while she waves and says bye to us. Even better news, our friends Rob and Leigh who live behind us just entered their son Ronan with Heather too so Amelia has another familiar face there. On Tuesday morning I put the first pony tail in her hair, it looked pretty cute but didn’t last veyr long, I did manage a few pics but I haven’t had a chance to download them yet.

 

This weekend is fast approaching and is already shaping up to be a busy one.  We are going to trying canning tomatoes with Rob on Saturday morning. Oh I have been remise in mentioning Jeff’s addiction to pickling this year, we are developing quite a full little root cellar/storage room.  I am now starting to get nervous when Jeff is rooting around in the fridge for fear he is going to pull something out ie. eggs and say “I bet I could pickle these”.  Anyways I digress, Saturday afternoon we are going out to visit John and Jen and the girls who we haven’t seen in what feels like forever.  Sunday is the Run for the Cure which for the first time ever Jeff has agreed to do, even volunteered actually.

 I am posting this late cause I was hoping to get the high res pics of Amelia at daycare from Heather but I haven’t got them yet.  I will post them when I do get them, they are hilarious!!!!

17 Months Old

Amelia was 17 months old yesterday, almost a year and a half.   woop woop!!!

Anyways sorry for my general slackerness lately, I have been crazy busy at home and at work and haven’t had time to write anything. Today is no exception, so I will have to make this brief. 

Amelia is doing well, she seems to be loving daycare and after a few rocky morings last week, this week she has started waving good bye to me in the morning with a smile on her face.  Heather is going to send me some pics of Amelia at daycare but I haven’t got them yet I’ll post them when I do.

Amelia is talking alot more now and she says alot more words including, uhoh, me some, duck, book, milk, dad, hi, yum, and a bunch of others but those are the regulars. She is pretty high speed these days, run around in circles and occationally to places. Now with this increase in speed she has quite a few more buises, she is currently sporting this classic dark puple bruise on the side of her upper lip from falling off her little chair, bah!!!  I am dreading the day when we have ot try to explain to child services that no we don’t beat our child she is just a giant clutz/daredevil/goof (not really the best combo). 

She is still a big fan of make-believe eating and cooking but now sorting things seems to be the game of the month. Her sleeping has been abit disrupted recently and she has been waking in the middle of the night on occation crying, Jeff and I really aren’t conditioned for this and we both found the one night when she was up for about 2hrs VERY PAINFUL!!!  I’m not sure what the cause of these sleep issues are but hopefully they will work themselves out.  Her eating continues to be pretty good, we have taken her out with us ofr sushi a few times now and she has developed a love for gyoza dumplings and yam tempura.  We ahve given her a few rolls but she usually just picks at the rice then tears them open and determines if she is interested in the inards (deep fried = yes, not deepfried = no, bah!!).  My daughter has also developed a deep and abiding love for ketchup and if you have some on your plate then what ever she has requires dipping in it., thus continues the tradition of ketchup obsession in my family (it is rumoured my mom requested it on ice cream as a child). My biggest battle with Amelia lately is getting dressed in the morning, there is usually abit of a tanturm when I try to put her pants on, I’m not sure if she has already developed my opinionate streak (I stopped leting my mom choose my clothes at the age of 3) or if she just associates it with us taking her to daycare.

This past weekend we took Amelia to the zoo on Saturday, she seemed to be quite interested for teh most part but afte rthe first 1hr she got abit bored and the read her FARM book while walking around the zoo, hmmm does anyone else see a problem with this???  It was crazy everyone seemed to have babies at the zoo both people and animals, there were some rather cute baby baboons that put on abit of a show.  Jeff and I managed to do the full zoo for the first time, yes we did the hike to the very under rated Canadian exhidit. Can anyone tell me when they put the lamest and most spaced out exhidit the farthest away down this gigantic hill, seems like poor planning to me unless they wanted a part that was rarely travelled to.

The rest of the weekend was quiet but nice, we got lots done around the house and we spent some time outside on what seems to be the last nice weekend of the summer.

More Daycare News!!

After much stress and tears in the spring of this year I lucked out and got the Manny for the summer but I was dreading starting my search anew with fall fast approaching.  One day I was searching around on the net and came upon an ad for a new home daycare being opened close to us (very close to my parents). I called about it and went to meet Heather.  Heather is young, full of energy, and is fabulous with Amelia. I can’t believe how well things have worked out, Heather opened her daycare last Tuesday and Amelia was the sole charge.  Heather has 3 other kids joining but she is fazing them in and lucky for Amelia she is the first faze with a week of one on one time. When I went to pick Amelia up the first day I was presented with a very cute pic of Amelia eating her chicken noodle soup with an original Meals piece of art. I can’t believe how much better I am feeling about the daycare thing than I did in the spring (don’t get me wrong it is still rather upsetting dropping Miss Meals off at 7am for the day somewhere else with someone we have just met, but all in all I feel much more confident and comfortable this situation than I ever did with any of the other option I looked into in the spring).

This past Wed (Amelia’s first full day, complete with early wake up) went well, in fact Amelia wasn’t so please with me taking her home, the little monkey was having a very good time playing with the doll stroller and the tea set wearing her little apron. I found this somewhat upsetting but Jeff has reminded me that it just shows what wonderful social skills we have instilled in our daughter so that now she isn’t so dependant on us (I half believe him but I think he may have just been trying to prevent my impending break down Heather wrote a lovely little summary of Amelia’s day full with all the things she enjoyed doing. I loved reading.

Thursday morning was a piece of cake; Amelia woke up by herself and was full of beans. There were excited squeals when we pulled her out of the car at Heather’s and other than making Jeff pick her up before we left she was off with Heather to go give Heather’s dog his breakfast snack. I think she is over her mommy clingy phase After a battle Thursday night about going to bed and Amelia not going to sleep till about 10pm, Friday morning was abit rough and there was some clinging when I left.

At daycare Heather has a little kitchen to play with in one area, I guess Heather said she can’t get her out of there, she is constantly pretending to make stuff, adding pinches of stuff then getting Heather to re-taste something. She is fully into the make-believe now. So funny. I think pretend cooking has even taken over as the number one activity (it has beat out the long standing champ of books).

Thursday when I picked Amelia up she was all decked out in a very crazy sparkly women dinner jacket thing, a scarf, and a beret/chef hat, she was grinning away stirring up her bowl of “food”.  I guess they had been playing in Heather’s tickle trunk. I wish I had pics to share but alas. I am sad that I have missed out on all this fun/funny stuff Amelia has been doing but it sounds like she is having a blast.

In other Melie news Amelia has also added “book” and “duck” or “duckies” to her vocabulary and the most shocking of all she will actually say them on command.  The other night I forgot to bring her water down to the basement and she saw one of our water glasses, she started pointing and going “meeesome, meeesome” I asked her if she want some and she nodded, yipeeee, Jeff got her water cup and she said “mine”. I was rather excited by this. Mine has now become a rather regular part of her vocabulary.  She is also a very good parrot these days, which is a bit dangerous for us.  

This weekend was nice we spend Friday and Saturday night at the Taste of the Kingsway, although abit chilly we had a nice time.  Amelia was abit short on sleep both nights so we didn’t stay too late but we enjoyed the food and some beers.  Saturday during the day Jeff, John and Daryl went golfing, I went to the dentist and shopping and Amelia played with Grandmaman (and napped). Sunday was the gym, cooking, cleaning and playing with Amelia.

Now Monday and another week.  Amelia is getting a cold which isn’t too fun and had her up a couple times last night, poor thing.  This morning when I dropped her off there were some tears but after a little snuggle with Heather (where she fell asleep on her for an hour) she is up and her cheerful self (by all reports).

EVERYDAY POST WRITER MISSING, PRESUMED DRUNK & SEMI-CONSCIOUS

–Police baffled, disinterested.  Soduku puzzle blamed in half-baked conspiracy theory.– 

Well, its a day for guest posts, so in addition to Julie’s update, I’ll do my best to give the full run-down on the week’s events. 

As the esteemed Manny left to go back to school in Quebec this week, it was left up to the equally esteemed Grandmaman to hold the fort for a few days with Wheels.  My Mom filled in on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, making the trek from Mississauga in the wee hours to take 10h of abuse from Amelia. 

Tuesday night marked the end of our soccer season, a fun game which has the whole On Fire United team excited for 2007 despite our freefall from a first-place tie in week 2 to a bottom-table finish by last week.  Jeers to winning though, we had solid jerseys and that’s what matters.   

Thursday both Alicia and I stayed home, did some shopping, Alicia went to the dentist for various scrapings and proddings, and Amelia and I jumped into my parents’ relatively frigid (read: sub-90F) pool.  Solid. 

Friday, Alicia stayed home again (read: lazy) but I was back to scenic Markham (read: dedicated company man).  Alicia and I rolled the dice that night and took Amelia with us for a sushi dinner, there was much rejoicing when it was determined that Meals is a fan of gyoza dumplings and all things tempura’d, so a good time was had and the world was a better place. 

The weekend was good – Julie has already described it pretty well – lots of shopping, cooking, feasting with friends and family and enjoying our time in the City.  This summer we’ve spent a lot of time just relaxing in Toronto, its a nice place all things considered, and we’ve been keen to take as much advantage of the access to things like the river nearby, the lake relatively close by, as well as all the shopping, breakfast options, brunch options, lunch options, lupper options, dinner options and such.  In other news, City restaurateurs have noted a 250% increase in lupper revenues since Alicia and I moved to Gooch 2.5 years ago. 

Yesterday marked the first “day” of Amelia at daycare, with Heather – who lives ~5min from us and is most wonderful and super.  Extreme kudos to her.  By all accounts Meals was quite good and a joy to be in the room with.  I think this is a rather Fox News style of report, grain-o-salty, but its better than hearing that your child “ate all the ‘rainbow of ethnicities’ wooden puzzle pieces” or something.   

Last night, after daycare for Meals, (in bonus ‘weekend’ review), we had a nice bbq with our temporarily defunct soccer team at our place, including the lovely homemade sausages which are both delicious and visually appealing.  Meat, nacho and brownie sweats all around. 

Anyhow, Meals is now full-time with Heather at the home day care, we’ll see how the 7-5 version of Amelia went over – I suspect good but no way it will be perfect and sunshine all day.  Ask me again when the weather is foul and everyone is disgruntled from the get-go.  Regardless, we’re all kinda melancholy; this is a real big deal for Alicia and I as things are somewhat ‘out of our hands’ insofar as raising our daughter during the week.  Anyhow, more to report on that front next week, assuming Alicia is back in fine form. 

First day of Daycare

“Sausages are Good”

 Another guest writer spot, this week Julie is adding her english major charm to my site cause well I just don’t feel writey-ish.

In the spirit of letting any person ole’ bindle carrying hobo describe amelia’s life, i have been given permission to attempt an entry.  it was another long weekend in toronto and the last real one of the summer.  unfortunately due to some foreign named wind-rain-cat-dog-mass the weather was less than long weekend Opa(!) to summer-ish. still we all managed to have some fun. 
While i personally didn’t see amelia or her entourage until monday, i’m sure they had a whooping good time. i helped two friends move and the subsequent festivities left me feeling slightly under the weather, however when monday rolled along i decided to get out of bed and give living a go a la bike ride with la familia and not one but two infamous sausage making sessions. yes that’s right. you heard/read me just fine. allow me to preface.  jeff gets it into his head sometimes that he wants to make certain things that the normal person would just buy – deep fried goods like donuts, ice cream and yes, sausage.  well his wife was kind enough to get him a sausage maker and wouldn’t you know when i showed up an hour early for the bike ride Jeff was just getting ready to fill up those yummy sheep intestine casings. sausage making, as many people know, is a three person job – one to squish the sausage goodness into the apparatus, one to hold the casing and make sure it fills to the appropriate…girth…and then one to laugh and take pictures. As you can probably imagine it all got quite messy and ‘oh’ the hilarity that ensued with the phallus and the condom and the girth of the sausage.  either way two coils were made and tested to be superb.  though slightly disturbing.

In the middle of these sessions, mom, dad, wendy and deep met us and we went for a bike ride down to the water front to watch the air show.  which, surprisingly enough consisted mostly of us staring at…air. but yes of course there were a few planes and a nice picnic and some hotdogs from the nice vendor man.  and those planes – well jeff and my dad just couldn’t decide if it was an F18 or an F22 and what mach they were going and whether they could bomb us and wow did you see that after burn?  sweet.  *blink* Alicia and I took it upon ourselves to make as much fun of this “I watch too many shows on the history channel” display as possible, much to the chagrin of the men-folk.

Meanwhile Wheels managed to get goose poo all over herself and others and then gave us the “I’m tired” alarm – turning into a whiny squiggly though very cute worm – so Jeff, Leash and myself biked back sans rents to Gooch.

Monday night was dinner at Estes which was very yummy.  I made the best darned Brussels sprouts the likes of which had never been seen and my dad made the most deelish pork chops I have personally ever tasted – go brine! We basically ate too much, laughed a lot and went to bed happy and full of fun.  The fact that my mum got wicked food poisoning in the middle of the night we will put down to the hot dog vendor at the water front and not a) the brownies i made or b) the Brussels sprout dish I reluctantly prepared.
Okay – that’s it for me.  Adieu!