A visitor

We had a visitor last week. Khrystine, the girl I babysat for a year in between high school and college, just moved to Weyburn so being only an hour away she decided to come up for the afternoon.

Lily's really fond of her. Khrystine stayed with us last fall for a few days, and then for two weeks last December (during some of the time we were in Mexico). We saw her again in mid-April in Medicine Hat. She was finishing up her first year of college (then moving the following week to Mexico for a few months to work) and we were there for our 11-year college reunion (all 38 weeks pregnant of me).

We played Pretty Pretty Princess. Nana won.

Anyway, it's nice when she visits because Khrystine will play games and watch Hannah Montana until the cows come home. Lily even cuddled up to her on the couch...which says a lot.

Oh. Em. Gee.

You have got to be kidding me. No, really. You've heard of planned obsolescence, right? Well, no one could have planned this...

Woke up just after 5 a.m., less than three hours after Chris came to bed, to an awful, yet familiar, smell. I immediately shook Chris awake and said, "I smell something. What's that smell?" He jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. His use of expletives told me something was wrong, that I just wasn't smelling something foul from outside since I left the window open a crack. I got up to a house full of smoke. Again. That same smell as when our stove started on fire. But we couldn't really see anything. Opened the dishwasher and all looked well. Well, not really well but not abnormal.

Apparently the electrical panel inside of the dishwasher started on fire. Huh. Sounds familiar. Kinda looks familiar, too, but the damage this time was far worse. Thank god we had the stainless steel front. It seemed to absorb some of the fire. Imagine it we'd had the plastic front kind.

Last time this happened, we figured yes, this was a hazard, it shouldn't have happened. Contacted Frigidaire by phone and by email form on their website numerous times. Did they ever get back to us and say hey, that's not cool, what can we do to help you? But instead they ignored us. Over and over again. Fine. Bunch of corporate jerks know that if they don't acknowledge us or the problem, there isn't one. At least not to them.

So yeah, at a time when we have the least money, we are again shelling out for a brand new appliance. Gotta love that. Remember when appliances used to last? For more than seven years anyway...

Lately...

Last Wednesday we'd been having serious attitude problems with Lily. Thursday morning there was extreme diarrhea and vomiting, thus the then-obvious source of her inability to comply with the rules.

She stayed home from school on Thursday, missing the costume ball at the school that evening. She woke up in the middle of the night and said, "Are we going to the ball?" To which I replied, "Sorry, honey. It's over." She got very upset and cried, "You went without me?" Poor kid, she'd been looking forward to going for a couple weeks. Pretty upset the next day, too, when I kept her home again, missing the Halloween fun at school.

She feels better today, well enough to complain about almost everything and yell at Nana. That means she's back to normal.

She threw up all Friday night, so she was couch-ridden until Grandma and Grandpa arrived midday on Saturday. She mustered up a surprising amount of energy so she could play until they left midday on Sunday. Then back to the couch – minus five minutes for me to snap some Halloween pictures before the sun went down. She didn't quite have enough gusto to go trick-or-treating so Dad carried her to the houses around us for almost a whopping fifteen minutes. Plenty of candy, though she didn't consume any before going to bed at 6:30 p.m. Thankfully.

Lily threw up three more times that night and then in the morning, so no school again on Monday. Fortunately, she ate food on Monday. Well, more than none so she did start feeling better. Missed picture retakes, though. Had missed the original school pictures while we were in Disneyland...

* * *

In other happenings, Finn has gotten a new cry. It's louder and bigger than the baby teradactyl cry he had before. He was just laying there, not sleeping on Saturday night when he started belting this one out. He also has gotten very physical, jumping up and down while in our arms, thrashing his head back and forth for fun, smashing whatever's in his hand... He's rougher than Lily was. He also made strange with Grandpa and was sweet on Grandma while that was completely opposite with Lily.

He also has been drooling. Constantly. Non-stop. There's no better way to get a bucket of slobber out than blowing bubbles with his tongue out. Or blowing raspberries on whoever is nearest. His arm included.

And food. Seasonal food. I can't stop thinking and reading about food. Made pumpkin pie French toast, pumpkin chocolate chip squares, sweet potato bourbon bundt cake and butternut squash muffins with Lily yesterday afternoon. All yummy and orange. Previous to that was an apple obsession...

Finn tests out the Jack Daniels for the sweet potato bourbon bundt cake. He approves.

Finn has been eating apples (below left), pureed from our tree, green and yellow beans (combined, below right) from the farmer's market and mangoes tonight from this wonderful Thai curry dish we made for supper. How cute is it all frozen into Sesame Street characters and flowers? Too bad we have to melt them to feed them to him...

Happy Halloween!

A couple days late...but still adorable. Here are Lily the Daisy and Finn as Monsieur Skeleton.

Three of a kind

You know, it's not very often you have friends since birth – or very close to birth. I was approximately 14 weeks pregnant with you when Jamie, Creeson's mom, told me she was newly pregnant. Shortly thereafter, Jamie told me that Carla, Brynn's mom, was pregnant, too.

Jamie and I worked together and were quite a sight when we went for coffee, two gals with very pregnant bellies. Or so we felt. Carla and Jamie were good friends and Chris and I had known Carla and JP just slightly less long than we'd known Jamie and Mike...less than a year after we'd moved to Regina and about six months before Jamie and I began working together in the Communications department at SGI.

You were two and a half months old when we got the call – Creeson had been born, though he didn't have a name yet. We scurried to the hospital to find out that Brynn had also been born – twenty minutes or so after Creeson – and Carla's room was right across the hall!

Though we've had lots of playdates with just Creeson and lots of playdates with just Brynn, it's so nice to have the three of you together, to watch you grow up together. Wow. 

Dec. 2005 – Creeson, Brynn and Lily...screaming because Mama put her down.

April 2006 – Creeson, Brynn and Lily at our house.

Dec. 2006 – Lily, Brynn and Creeson celebrate xmas at Brynn's.

March 2007 – Creeson, Brynn and Lily at Brynn's house.

Dec. 2008 – Brynn, Lily and Creeson around xmas at Michele's.

Aug. 2009 – Creeson, Lily and Brynn taste the icing at Lily's fourth birthday party.

Oct. 2009 – Brynn, Creeson and Lily celebrate Creeson's fourth birthday at It's a Blast!

Oct. 24, 2010 – Creeson, Lily and Brynn at Creeson's 5th birthday at the Science Centre.

First snow!

With much excitement, Lily greeted the morning snow like this:

Along with this comes a weather warning...5 to 10 cm of snow today, with blowing snow. Welcome to winter.

The official half year mark

Yup. It's true. You've been in our lives for six months now and only recently, I feel I really know you inside and out. Your days would be happiest being toted around in mama's wrap with mama constantly moving, say whipping up stuff in the kitchen or walking Lily to and from school.

You hit a few milestones this month. One, you eat food. You lunge at food. You get angry when you can't pounce onto our plates. You've eaten some yams, rice cereal, oatmeal and carrots. Purple carrots. You've tried avocado and sucked on pears and apples – and LEMONS. Your sister's idea... You've decided food is good.

Two, you sit. And from the first day you did sit, you've done so well. It's like you mastered it in your head before you did in practice.

Also, you beat things with your toys. You pick something up and you swing it, back and forth. Then you pound it on whatever is nearest. This may be a boy thing... Another of your favourite games is pulling the blanket or sheet over your head and gasping and kicking like a mad man to get out. But you're not really trying to get out...


the "I Can't Breathe!" game from Hood/Anderson on Vimeo.


Your sister is the funniest person who ever lived. She cracks you up like no one else. I don't know what either of you would do without each other. Lily thinks it's funny when you maul us, when you chew on the table, when you try to crawl. You think it's wildly funny when she clobbers you with a pillow in the face (a one-sided pillow fight), when she beats up your Alvin the Chipmunk toy, when you play with the beach ball back and forth, when she reads "So Big" to you, when she jumps out from behind the end table yelling "boo!"

I love your baby face, how when you fall asleep your face and mouth are so relaxed that they hang limply to whichever side your on.

I love softly kissing you to sleep when you're crying. There are worse ways to fall asleep.

I love how you look so blonde in the sunlight. And we didn't even know you'd be so fair when we named you Finn.

I love that most of the time when you drool (when you're upright), you suck it back in your mouth.

Oh, and you're still a juicy chunk of a boy. Also, those toes. Some of the best toys ever invented.

Too bad you're starting out this new month with YOUR THIRD COLD. Ouch. Oh, the snot. The whining. The not sleeping, again, still. Apparently babies are supposed to still have some of their mama's immunity. Too bad I'm not immune to sickness either because I've been sick for over a week and your dad and you have only been sick a day. Oh well.

Happy half birthday, Zeus my goose.

 

Babies!

Juicy little Keira came over yesterday for a visit and with a big bag of clothes for Finn. Couldn't resist but to get a bunch of shots of these cuties. I could just eat them up.

While we're at it, let's compare Heather and Nigel at the approximately the same age as Keira and Finn:

And the winner is...

Lily! Thanks to all the peeps who bought magazines from her school fundraiser, which raised a whopping $131.82 for her school, Lily won this "wonderful" fiber-optics lamp. Well, she had to choose between this and a Webkinz and since we're not hip to what Webkinz even are, the lamp it was.

Her dad was so proud that she was the only kid in her class to win anything, but then he realized that she didn't even really do anything...except maybe to understand that the more you participate, the better you'll feel about your school.

Disneyland 2010! – Part 3, Sept. 27

I missed a couple things from parts 1 and 2, mostly about the fireworks. The renowned Disneyland fireworks were scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Chris and I watched them from the balcony on the Friday night, then again on Sunday but this time we thought Lily might like to see them, too. Of course, it was two hours past the time she went to bed so when Chris went to get her, she didn't even wake up until he got her outside. After less than two minutes groggily watching, she said, "I want to go to bed now."

She can't say we didn't let wake her.

Anyway, the park didn't open until 10 a.m. the next three days and with the temperature still so unbearably hot, that didn't give us much of a jump on the days. But we had our plans. Monday would take us first to New Orleans Square. First there was the Nightmare Before Christmas decked-out Haunted Mansion (which was scary for Finn when we were in total darkness and a little too fast-paced to coordinate ourselves), and then Pirates of the Caribbean (which was fantastic, just enough excitement with the ride and lots to look at). Best of all, we didn't have to wait in line at either.

Then over to Critter Country where Lily and Chris hit Splash Mountain while Nana, Finn and I took a drink break. Then over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Things kind of went downhill from here... Because Big Thunder Mountain railroad was SO exciting, Lily was running full-tilt towards me to tell me just how awesome it was when maybe three feet from me she tripped and skidded, only coming to a complete stop when she smashed her forehead right into the bench Finn and I were sitting on. And she hit it HARD. This hard:

And this is only the beginning of the swelling...

Everyone was so concerned, too. Not that we weren't, but from the lady that took our lunch reservation at Cafe Orleans to the woman who sold us the water misting fan to the waitress who brought us a bag of ice and told us where we could find the nurse if necessary – or if Lily felt dizzy or sick, just tell any of the staff and they would promptly call 911. Everyone was amazingly and genuinely nice. That, along with the unmatched cleanliness and attention to detail of everything, was what made this place so great.

What a good look for pictures, huh? Well, turns out that there would only be a few pictures that day as Nana had been carrying my camera in her purse and her water bottle spilled inside, rendering my camera useless... We did have a great lunch, though – gumbo and Monte Cristo sandwiches. And right before lunch, we saw Tiana from Princess and the Frog doing a snazzy dance number with some jazzy counterparts.

And apparently my mind only really works well when I have pictures to refresh my memory... I believe we rode the Disneyland Railroad all the way around the park before running up to see Jack and Sally, seconds before they departed. The heat was just about to kill me, so this is when I had my first tantrum. We were waiting for the next Enchanted Tiki Room show and I'd had it. Wanted a magic transporter to get us back to the hotel promptly...but wasn't so clear-headed that I could calmly ask for that. We were soon let in and the wonderful air conditioning did its magic...but nothing will ever help me deal with heat. This is what I really looked like the whole trip, except for some mornings when it was still below 85˚F.

Ahh, cruel reality. I felt like I was being roasted. Despite the hat and sunglasses that never left my head, I tend to display my overheatedness like this. No one else looked like this, crazy heat people.

So yeah, back to the hotel for some chill time. We cooled off, got Finn to sleep and tried to convince Lily to sleep so she could stay up later and actually enjoy Disneyland in the evening...but this girl just doesn't rest. What do you know, she passes out on the way back to the park around 5 p.m. So we grab supper at the Stage Door Café and wander aimlessly wondering what we should do with a sleeping 5-year-old.

Fortunately she woke up shortly thereafter, so we found a spot on Main Street to watch the parade. We sure picked a good spot because once the parade started, who of all people was right in front of us??? Ahhh, the best guy in the world – Peter Pan. Oh, and Wendy.

I only saw the beginning of the parade because, despite it being a little cooler with the sun having gone down and such, I was still way too hot and ducked into the shops until it was over. 

With a livelier kid now, we decided to hit Mickey's Toon Town. It was the farthest away and with it being fairly late now, it was practically dead. Maybe forty people in the whole land. We wandered through Minnie's house and by Daisy's Diner. Into Goofy's place and on to Donald Duck's boat. Lily and her dad went on the mini roller coaster twice and then we found ourselves in Mickey's house. (Hard to tell because it was under construction.) It was huge. We just kept going and going, then we got to this theatre room with a movie screen and a massive queueing area. A woman told us it would just be a minute before she could let us in. To what, we weren't sure. But when we walk in, there was Mickey Mouse himself and he wanted to meet us and get his picture taken with us.

How nice, so that's how we ended our second Disney day.

Breaking news. Literally.

You know, at work we do a fair amount of advertising about driver distraction. Even passed legislation in January about using electronic devices while driving...

And then, right in front of our house around 9:40 a.m., some woman was driving – through our SCHOOL ZONE – and hit our garbage bin before proceeding to smash right into the parked red car. Nice. Just some high school girl who parks in front of our house every day. She'll be surprised when she shows up at lunch time.

Fortunately there was no one crossing the street there as some children do on their way to school...

Not very nappy these days

Things change so quickly when you're a baby.

The three or so days following our return from California were full of great sleep. I'd lay Finn down in bed around 9 a.m. and he'd sleep for two to three hours. Then a couple hours later, he'd have his afternoon nap, another two or so hours.

But now, now he cries (or at least gets very upset) as soon as I put him down on his little receiving blanket on the bed. Nothing has changed, but he's begun to protest. Loudly. Not with incredibly sad tears like he does when making strange, but a cry nonetheless.

And so, for the past week and a bit, he either has one long (two hours maximum) nap, which could be in the afternoon or the morning, while the other nap is maybe twenty minutes long – half an hour if we're lucky. Then some days he'll go to bed like normal around 7 or 7:30 p.m., sleep for half an hour then get up for 45 minutes before finally going to sleep for the night.

Then the nights lately have him laying there cooing every hour or two for ten to 15 minutes at a time.

The great thing about babies, though, is that nothing ever lasts long. That's also the sad part...along with all the tiredness. Mine!

He eats. She drinks. Everyone's happy.

On Sunday, in the middle of our Thanksgiving dinner preparation extravaganza, I decided that it was time to let Finn try some food of his own.

For the most part, he really enjoyed himself. And he eagerly ate over a tablespoon of the organic brown rice cereal that we offered.

He was ready.

He's been diving at our plates and thrusting his entire body towards the apples we ate for breakfast every morning at the hotel in Anaheim.

Lily thought it was a blast, too. But she really enjoys watching her little brother do new things and make new faces.

After watching him eat, she worked up a thirst. Looking pretty fancy for a girl who's just barely big enough to drink Pepsi from a wine glass...

 

But then again, Finn's a pretty little guy to get the seat at the head of the table.