One of a Kind Weekend

Busy times these days, with Christmas fast approaching we seem to have stuff on every night (not really but that is sometimes how it feels)…

 

This past Friday our little fam headed over to Mini and Topo’s to welcome Daryl home from his oh so strenuous trip to France and bum some food off the parents.  Saturday, I went out for lunch and to the One of a Kind Show with my friends Liv, Andrea and Tab.  I think after going to the show for the last 5 years I am getting abit bored with the wares, nothing was really jumping out at me, it is always successful at getting me in the x-mas spirit though. It was great to see the girls from Waterloo and the One of a Kind show is turning into a nice annual tradition that ensures we get together at least once a year… 

 

Saturday night we bundled up (well abit but seeing as it is still above 5^oC not much bundling was required) and we took Amelia down to the Cavalcade of Lights (lighting of all the Christmas lights) in Nathan Phillip Square.  My friend Danielle joined us and other that the painful waiting the lights turned on very anticlimacticly, we were all rather disappointed after trucking down there and waiting an hour but then the fireworks started and it made it all worthwhile.  The fireworks show was fantastic!!!! Amelia was sooo cute staring up totally awe struck and wide-eyed. This also marked Amelia’s first trip on the subway, she was rather excited about it all and flirted with everyone on the train within eyeshot, even made the “tick tick tick” noise that train made.  On the way home we did have abit of an incident… Amelia very full diaper exceeded capacity and resulted in pee all over the seat, ooops!!!  I must say although I was mortified, I was very happy Amelia requested that Danielle put her down and let her sit in her own seat, it is one thing to pee on your parents a totally different thing to me on someone else… Amelia seemed totally unconcerned with her wet pants and continued smiling and waving at everyone.

 

Sunday, afternoon I hit the One of a Kind again but this time with Jeff, Amelia and Jeff’s family.  We had a nice time but the crowds were abit nuts and Amelia was less than her usual relaxed self.  To make matters worse Amelia is going through a huge “Hank” addiction at the moment and she wants him all the time, including when we were walking around the show which I think it totally unacceptable (We didn’t intend to bring it to the show but after forgetting Hank Ver. 1.0 at Julie’s on Monday, it got returned at the show and Amelia wouldn’t give it up). I tried taking it way but that was just met with pathetic cries for Hank which after an hour we finally caved to and gave it back to her after  once we left…

 

Sunday night we all went out for Sunday dinner and were extra lucky and were joined by my dad aka. Popyy.  Amelia is a pretty social kid but she is usually quite shy at first even with her grandparents if she hasn’t seem them in abit, well I don’t know what my dad has going for him but Amelia was stuck to him like glue!!  It was pretty cute to see and I was very happy.  As dad only gets to see her every few months I am happy he got some good quality full on Melie time when he could.  

 

This week has been abit busy again with sports and get together with friends. Tonight we are leaving for Montreal for the weekend.  The family all went last year and we had such a good time we are going again, it is turning into a yearly tradition. Mom, Jeff Amelia and I are going tonight and staying over in Kingston at my grandfather’s tonight then on to Montreal tomorrow.  Knows something is up and keeps saying “GoGo” (my grandfather) followed by “Richie?” it is pretty funny. 

 

I can’t believe how quickly Amelia’s vocabulary is expanding, she mimics everything now and she is really able to get her point across. “chair” “sit” “see” “song”(which is a demand for me to sing) “necklace” “purse” “shoe” “cat” etc are all regulars.

 Next week tales of Montreal…

Hangover…

So Amelia is all recovered, by Friday morning her whole rash was gone, she was eating again and she was her mischievous self again. Last week was abit crazy with our trip to the emerg, alternating days off to stay home with her and both being busy at work, by Friday we were both ready for abit of an unwind and boy did we get it.  We invited our friends Leigh and Rob, Heather and Adam (of Amelia’s childcare fame) and Danielle all over for dinner and in the end COPIOUS amounts of wine…  We had a great time with a lot of laughs and silliness but I did pay the next day with one of the first 5 start hangovers I have had since university, ugh… I spent the day in my pjs (Jeff was brave and got dressed) and we watched movies while Amelia played and lined toys up on her comatose mother.  Amelia was fantastic and seemed very happy to be able to play all day and not get dragged around on the usual weekend errands. To finish off my walk down hangover memory lane Jeff got us greasy dinner that totally hit the spot, Magoo’s burger and fries ummmm. Amelia wasn’t so lucky but she did manage to steal some fries. 

 

Sunday was abit nuts seeing as we had to fit all out chores, errands and cooking into one day plus I had plans to go to the movies in the afternoon with Heather and Leigh and we were having Jeff’s family for dinner in the evening. 

 

On Sunday after getting back from groceries Amelia requested lunch then much to my surprise started asking for pasta (this is the first time she has actually asked for something that wasn’t presented to her as an option a or b), well seeing as she asked we wiped her up some pasta Os and sauce that she gobbled up. 

 

Sunday night John, Denise and Julie came for dinner.  We had to laugh when they arrived and found out they too were suffering abit of a hangover after a big dinner party the night before, it was the weekend of parties and hangovers… We had a nice dinner and Amelia sat with us for part of it then wandered around the room trying to swindle people out of their desserts for the end. At one point during dinner Amelia walked up behind Julie and poked Julie in the bum and announced “BUM!!”, she was quite pleased with Julie’s shock and the rest of our laughter and proceed to walk around POINTING out the rest of our rears…

 

This weekend Amelia continues to be a sponge for words, she knows almost all her body parts, may foods and animals and lots of other random things like “opposite”??? “sunset” and “rain”.  She likes counting things out now but unfortunately the only number she knows or likes is “two”, so walking up the stairs every stair is two.  She hasn’t really caught on to colours yet. She knows most peoples names now and finally she has figured out Julie or “JuJu” as the case may be, Denise is still the only one that remains nameless as Amelia flat our refuses to even attempt Grandmaman, I think she thinks “Pake” applies to both John and Denise.

 Off to the One of a Kind this weekend to officially start the Christmas season yipeee.  I am currently in an internal debate with myself about whether or not we should get a tree, one side says it will be nice and Amelia can have her first x-mas tree, x-mas spirit etc. then the other part thinks we are leaving on boxing day for out west, a tree means all out ornaments scattered all over the house ever night when we get home from work thanks to the cats and I am sure there will be number of tree tackles by Amelia, ugh the thought is just draining… Oh well right now I am hope that once the Christmas tree lots start opening I will have an epiphany and I will make up my mind.

Rosie-F***in’-ola

So yeah it has been an eventful last few days.  This past Saturday morning Amelia woke up warm, we didn’t actually own a good ear thermometer and I wasn’t brave enough to do the rectal method, so I settled with she was bit warm gave her abit of advil then she perked up and seemed to be fine. Other than the fever she was fine.  We trotted off to Ronan’s second birthday Musical Jamboreee without a care in the world.

 

The fever stayed away all day and in the evening it came back alittle bit but again nothing else seemed to be wrong.  Sunday morning (and I use the term morning loosely) Amelia woke up crying at 4:45am by 5:15 I was on the way to the drugstore for an ear thermometer and by 6:30 we were on the way to emerg.  I made the mistake of calling tele-health Onatrio, which is a great service but questions are required to be answered with yes or no black or white and when I mentioned that she had this high temp with the combination of abit (and I stressed BIT) of a laboured breathing (she was sleeping and she was breathing loud and what seemed to be short breaths) I was told to not pass go and collect $100 but go straight to emerg. UGH this commences our first of two trips to emerg this week. Lucky for us we hit the perfect time between the bar brawl drunks getting cleaned up and the start of the Sunday “on clinics are opened” patients, we sailed through in an hour and a half.  The doctor was very kind and pronounced it just a run of the mill cold…

 

So we went about our weekend, when Amelia was on Advil everything was great, she was abit more sleepy and clingy than normal and not eating that much but pretty much normal.  Monday the fever was down but continuing so Pake offered to spend his Remembrance Day holiday at our place with Amelia.  By Monday night the fever was pretty much gone so Tuesday we got her up and packed her off to Heather’s only to get a phone call late yesterday afternoon with a calm but somewhat edgy Heather, Amelia had a spotty rash, ugh!!! So Jeff and I rushed from work and got Meals and headed to the clinic. The clinic was super quick, they told us it was something along the lines of Rosieola but the rash pattern didn’t match and it was probably this other rare version of a virus fever/rash thing.  In this case the fever reduces the platelet count in the blood and this rash appears, only draw back is you can to get a blood test done asap to ensure the platelet count isn’t too low and the only place that can do it and turn the results around that quickly is the…. You guessed it Emerg. Back again…

 

This time wasn’t so quick but Amelia was in much better spirits, she smiled and flirted with everyone right up until she got wrapped in a sheet, mommy and daddy betrayed her and she got jabbed with a needle. It was horrible!!! Then to add insult to injury while we waited around for the test results she got this bag put on her to try to collect a pee sample, this bag annoyed her very much and resulted in her walking around like a cowboy. The blood tests came back and everything looked out. We ended up not getting home till after 9pm last night and we were all pretty drained.  

 

Anyways until Amelia’s rash gets better she isn’t supposed to have contact with any other kids so no daycare. I am home with her today then tomorrow Denise is back and has offered to man the rashie Hank loving monkey (Oh have I mentioned to say that Amelia named her blanket Hank?).

They were the size of Grapefruits!!!

So another jammed packed weekend with a surprise visitor.  We had an excellent weekend.  On Thursday night I found out my brother was coming home for the weekend.  His roommate was coming home so he caught a ride. Friday night we went to John and Denise’s for dinner as Jeff’s grandfather aka Super Pake and his Aunt Laura were in town. Jeff, Julie, Amelia and I all went for dinner and Rich even swung a last minute invite and the ever-welcoming Reitsma table. We had a very nice visit with everyone all though Amelia was rather out of sorts due to a bad cough.      Saturday, Jeff headed out to paintball and Rich was kind enough to tag along with Meals and me on our errands at Costco, Sobey and Cheese Boutique.  Rich is so good with her, the really have a tight bond (as soon as Rich walked in the door Friday night, Amelia was climbing his pant leg to get on his lap and have him read something to her).  Amelia is quite lucky to have such a wonderful Aunt and Uncle.  Saturday Rich and Meals played and chatted while I did my groceries then we came home and Meals napped while I started cooking and Rich and I chatted.   Jeff arrived home in the afternoon in time to help me get dinner ready as we were having Dave and Fiona over. Dinner turned out quite well I thought, the pork I made was a winner!!  As I have been lazy and not keeping up with my recipe section of the site I will just add this here, this was yummy and quite easy!! 

http://www.lcbo.com/lcbo-ear/RecipeController?action=recipe&language=1&recipeID=199&recipeType=1

While we were getting dinner sorted Amelia was getting into mischief and was hungry. I few weeks ago I gave her some extra pine nuts we had after we made pesto, she loved them.  That night she seemed to remember them or had seen them earlier that day and she started banging on the cupboard they are in and saying “peen nut, peen nut”, I don’t normally think this type of behaviour is appropriate but I was rather impressed she remembered. The rest of the night she walked around with her bowl of “peen nuts”.  What a goof.

Sunday was fun, we went to the Royal Winter Fair with Heather and Adam (Heather of Amelia’s daycare fame).  After the initial traffic jam to get into to it we had a great time.  We saw the superdog show which I think Meals liked…or at least she loved clapping her hands along with the crowd and made woof noises whenever her eye caught a dog.  We also saw horses and she learned to “naeee”.  We saw lots of cows and a most impressive Bull, grapefruits I tell you!!!! GRAPEFRUITS!!!  Needless to say we had lots of laughs. 

Sunday night we had family dinner at John and Denise’s, yummmy stew and good company.

Now another week and equally busy but already half over.  Today I decided to take a walk down memory lane and read some of my early posts on my site.  I am so glad I did this site and have kept it up, thanks Jen for talking me into it.  

RETURN OF THE GUEST

–this time, its impersonal–Ya, so, sorry for the late post.  We just have hit a wee burst of not caring if the outside world knows what we’re up to.  But that hour or two has passed and so here you go.

This week has been good – starting to really REALLY be fall-ish out there, which is nice (I like fall) but its also sad, as we had a great summer and it will be annoying to not do nice walks in the park, etc as frequently.

Last weekend, what did we do… Friday evening, we just stayed in – cooked, took it relatively easy.  In jest, I made the mistake of changing the channel to the Jessica Alba classic “Honey” and earned a 2h lesson in two-year-old urban slang for my troubles and Amelia had an early bedtime.  Saturday, during the day, mainly, we cooked and cleaned and then had Mark & Jess over for dinner.  We had steak, which is good.  The steak was also aged, so it was better.  A great time – in particular Amelia was well behaved and seems to have gotten over her “I know there is a party going on, I’ll be damned if you put me to bed” issues.  Sweet.  Sunday we went for a nice long walk in High Park – Meals with her cookie, Alicia and I with the jaunty Bread & Roses muffins and Starbucks hot drinks.  Yes, we’re those jerks.  Anyhow, great walk, enjoyed the sun and the cyclonic winds, looked at ducks and discussed what kind of criminal career would be most appealing.  Sunday afternoon we loaded the Wheels into her lamb costume and jetted out to Mississauga for some pumpkin carving and general merriment with Julie and my Parents.  Great dinner courtesy of Julie and my Dad.  Super sweet!

The other main interesting things this past week:
- Our front walkway/step/retaining wall work wrapped up yesterday, Dan & Tony did a super job and we could not be happier with how it looks. We posted some pics of the completed work on flickr.

- A grand total of FOUR trick-or-treaters came to the door on Tuesday night, one of which had no need of a fake mustache, he could grow his own.

New Amelia things this week:
- Add “hat” to the vocabulary reperoire, though Amelia has also figured out that bowls (clean or full) also work, which is probably a mixed blessing

- Amelia likes candy.  *cough*
- Amelia has begun playing fun dolly games like dodo time (wrap dolly up with blanket and toss on the floor) or yummytime (sit dolly on floor and throw blocks of “food” at her), which is cute on a sadistic level, i suppose.

Otherwise, things are same-old, which is to say pretty good.  Coming up this weekend I’m off to be shot repeatedly playing paintball, we have Dave & Fiona over from Guelph on Saturday night, and Royal Winter Fairing is probable on Sunday afternoon.  Woo!