The Princess is the Pea

News flash! Amelia now sleeps in a big girl bed. This may not be the most up-to-date news seeing as we made the switch a week and a half ago and I am just behind on my posts. So yeah two weeks ago we decided that maybe it was time to move Amelia, all her other friends had moved into real beds but seeing as Amelia had never tried to get out of her crib we never bothered moving her. I pumped up the big girl bed for a couple days then last Sat for naptime we made the switch with no issues, she hasn’t looked back. I think I need to explain something cause there seems to be quite abit of confusion about what most people picture when I say big girl bed and what it actual is… we didn’t actually go out and get Amelia a new kid bed, we moved her into the spare bedroom which has an antique iron/brass spool bed, this bed is abit on the high side at about 3ft off the ground, so yeah between the massive bed and the fact that I have about 10 pillows on it she really does look like a little pea in her bed. Amelia is quite proud of her new room and last night when my friend Andrea came over for dinner Amelia informed he when she came in the door that she had a new big girl bed and then ask Andrea if she wanted to see.

 

I was abit worried about moving Amelia into a big bed cause I always liked the fact that she was contained but I have now seen that this new bed has big advantages too…

 

Advantage the First: Although she technically can get out because the bed is so high she doesn’t (well except once when she dropped a book then I got called over the monitor to help her back up).

 

Advantage the Second: Now she gets story time in bed and Jeff and I can sit or lie in bed with her, also she can keep books on the side table and read and her pleasure without demands on us for a new book. 

 

Advantage the Third: Weekend mornings we can get in her bed and continue to snooze instead of bring her into our room at which point she thinks its party time, ugh! (not cool at 6:30 on Sat morning)

 

Okay so that is the big Amelia news. Other than that it has been life as normal although with more whining and tantrums from Amelia, which yeah very annoying. Amelia is big on testing her limits these days, the big parenting issues these days are yelling (mostly just for no reason or because excited but sometimes at us, not cool), not saying please (bah!! Although she is very efficient with no thank you, particularly in this instance “Amelia here is some salad” “No thag-cue mommy”) and finally baby talk, very frustrating. 

 

The other night, I had had a very bad day at work and we decided to go out for sushi after work. Amelia was up to lots of mischief decided to start signing “Twinkle Twinkle” at the top of her lungs, FRUSTERATION!!!!

 

I know I am touching on a lot of the issues we are having with Amelia just cause they are at the for front of my mind at the moment but she is also full of hilarity. She loves goof around and then we start laughing, she looks at us and says “Mommy, you laughing at me?”.  She has started to work a lot of fairly impressive words into her vocabulary such as, impressive, interesting, Oh and not really impressive vocabulary but more strange is she has picked up a couple of Jeff’s latest (he is reading the Hornblower series) such as Capital! (said with an arm swing) and “Yo-Ho Maties”.

The Hooligan

Where did summer go?  Although we are still getting some of this nice summer weather the nights and morning are definitely brisk. As much as I love summer am excited for the fall. WOOP WOOP!

 

For us the end of summer and beginning of fall is marked by the Taste of the Kingsway. We go every year and this year we recruited Heather, Adam, Dani and Rory along with us. This year we also were abit more organised and we organised our first ever real babysitter, mom’s friend’s son. It was a pretty cushy job in my mind as it only started at 7:30 and I put Amelia to be and Rene just had to watch TV, listen for her and give us a call if there were problems, which their weren’t. After sorting out Meals I dropped by our friends Mark and Jess’s kitchen warming party then returned to my Beer fuelled husband and friends at the Taste. It was good times.

 

The next morning was abit slower than it should have been but it was helped along by Julie and the Mac and Cheese challenge… http://torontoist.com/2007/09/the_great_toron_3.php

 

In the afternoon Amelia and Jeff bonded while Danielle and I headed downtown for abit of shopping/browsing. By all accounts there was much play-doh, colouring and fun to be had. Saturday night was blissfully lazy, Amelia played we lazed around, then watched Babel then bed. 

 

Sunday was cooking and cleaning and visiting with friends. My friends from uni, Liv and Andrea, stopped by for a quick visit then in the evening we headed out for dinner with John and Jen, we were both without kids, Ahhhh!!!  It was good times and lots of laughs, as we all share a similar sense of humour when it comes to kids, parenting and life in general. While we were out, Amelia stayed at home with my mom and Deep.  Amelia loves hang out with her grandparents and Sunday night was no exception, Amelia didn’t even come to the door to say goodbye to us just waved and yelled bye from the kitchen.

 

This week Amelia has been going through some growing pains at daycare, Hez inquired if Amelia had gone through some sort of torture training course over the weekend.  Poor Edward and little Hanna Banana are taking the brunt of Amelia’s foul mood. The last couple days she has been improving though so maybe she is over whatever she had going on in that head of hers.

 

Wednesday night, Amelia had her first of three weeks of Daddy and Me soccer (I forgot about registration for swimming and Amelia missed out so I felt guilty and hence the soccer). I thought it was going to be a joke, kids just running wild or picking grass but they actually did stuff, to my surprise Amelia actually joined in!!  It was pretty cute and I think Amelia was pretty pleased with herself.

Ode to the Small World Daycare

So it was one year ago today that the Manny handed over the Amelia reigns to Hezza and the Small World Daycare.  I can’t believe it has only been a year because Heather and Adam have become such a big part of our life and Amelia’s.  We feel so lucky to have found Heather because she really does go above and beyond for all the kids in her program and for their families. We could not have asked for a better person to be looking after Amelia.  She does all these great trips and activities with her that I would probably never have the guts to take on. Amelia has learned and grown so much in the last year and has made some great friends. I look back now at all the agony I went through when we chose to put Amelia in daycare, if only I had known then what a great experience it would be for Amelia.  This morning another little girl started at Heather’s and she is just over a year, it made me smile and think back. If you can’t tell I am feeling abit sentimental this morning about the whole thing, if I am feeling this way now I am going to be a puddle on the first day of school, eeep!

 

Now on to other news… Ah Labour day weekend, the last long weekend of the summer, weep weep.  Labour days still seem abit bittersweet for me, even if I am no longer in school and don’t have the dread of going back today. None the less, we had a great long weekend. Friday night, Amelia and Mini hung out while Heather, Adam, Jeff and I went out for dinner. Saturday, Jeff and John went golfing while Julie, Denise, Amelia and I went for a walk in Streetsville. Saturday afternoon/evening Julie, Jeff, Amelia and I relaxed at our place, made pizza and then were joined by Dani and Rory and we all (Amelia excluded) had some drinks. Sunday afternoon we had an end of soccer season picnic on High Park and then attempted to go see A Mid Summers night Dream in the Park but alas it being closing night it was PACKED and there was only “EXTREME EXTREME” bad seating left. Monday we hung out the family went for a couple walks and then all went out for the pub for dinner where Amelia devoured milk and yam fries.  There really aren’t too many crazy stories from the weekend but really it was a rather prefect weekend with a good mix of friends, family, chores accomplished and relaxation.

 

I think Amelia enjoyed her weekend too.  On Sunday morning we pulled Amelia out of bed and attempted to have her nap with us, she had other plans and instead we ended up telling her stories which (as per her request) centre around a pink and a purple pony named Amelia and Macy (one too many My Little Pony books J). After she got bored with our stories she moved on to pulling everything out of her tickle trunk and giving us a show complete with tutu, curly blond wig and her fairy-okee wings and microphone, she was a sight.  On Saturday, we took Amelia swimming at John and Denise’s, she is getting more comfortable in the water, Jeff enjoyed throwing her in the air and catching her, sometimes he catches her before she goes under and sometimes not… she isn’t a big fan of going under but she doesn’t get upset with us when she does go under now.

 

This past week Amelia has also learned the act of teasing, mostly cause we tease her a lot. She used to get very upset with us and we would have to tell her we were joking and do a big sooth sooth, now though she looks at us and goes “Fibbing mommy, you fibbing”.

 

Okay one more Amelia story, this one is via Heather. Last Thursday, Hez and her new helper, Alicia, took the kids to High Park for the morning. Amelia did her traditional “Hi” to all the animals in the zoo, this time adding “Mister” too all the greeting.  After the zoo they did abit of a walk then they had to head up this big hill (agree I think it is a pretty massive hill for me too).  So Heather had them all walking up the hill and Amelia started up and shortly there after started huffing and puffing and going “WHY HEDDIE WHY!!!!” then turned around to her friend Macy and requested a hug… Apparently it took about 10 hugs to finally get Amelia up the hill. I think she is abit of a drama queen.