Meighen

Yesterday Meg had her two-year check up. Everything’s just fine. Considering Meg’s two and has only been to the doctor once that wasn’t for a check up and that was for a treatable rash.

So, our little munchkin is now 24 lbs (25%), 35 1/2″ tall (90%) and still has a big noggin coming in at 19 3/4″ (95%). Although the doctors not too concerned about Meg being a skinny minny, it is something to keep an eye on. It’s nuts, she’s decided carbs aren’t her thing and has been turning down muffins and breads, although she gets really excited for chips (and eats only five). She loves her fruits and proteins (eggs, lunch meat, chicken). She’s not too into sweets but enjoys the occasional cookie (when asks for it) and loved her birthday cake. A healthy toddler by choice, who would have thought?

I think it’s really my lack of understanding when it comes to child development but Meighen continually blows my mind.

She has a pretty good vocabulary already and she has a good number of mini-sentences put together. Every now and then she spits out something I didn’t know she could say. We have a few birdhouses and feeders around the yard. Meg loves to see the birdies come and go. The other day she ran up to the deck to see the bird pecking at the ground and it flew off. She turned to me and said “Mummy… birdy come back?” She had to repeat it a couple times but I figured it out. Wow! Around the same time she brought a couple of her toy cars outside and said “Mummy… truck go down slide.” She wanted me to shoot the cars down the slide to her. I’m loving it, makes it much easier knowing she can communicate her wants and needs. If you don’t understand, pick her up and she’ll show you what it is.

We’ve had an amazing turn in sleeping patterns. She slept great from birth to about 18 months (December). Since then she’d get me up a couple times a night and I played the “guess what bed I’m in” game when I wake up. Not sure what changed, maybe it’s the change of seasons and the additional fresh air she’s getting but she’s been sleeping amazing the last few weeks. She rarely gets up and half the time it’s just her calling “Mummy” out in her sleep and she doesn’t need me. Ben’s away this weekend and Meg didn’t nap yesterday. She went to bed super easy at 9 pm and came into my room around 5 am. I lifted her into bed and she slept till 9 am. Awesome! Yesterday she didn’t get up till 8:30 am. Ah, the good ol’ sleepy doopie has returned.

It was just under a week but man it was a long trip. I think there was too much driving, next time we’ll do less. Meighen was awesome. I can’t believe she travelled so well.

We left Saturday morning and made the trek to Smooth Rock Falls (10 hours). We stopped a few times to let the ladies pee (Sprocket, Mum, Meg) and stretch our legs. We borrowed a portable dvd player from Ben’s brother and we couldn’t have done it without it. Meg loved watching movies in the backseat. Between Sprocket and movies, it was smooth sailing. We did lunch in North Bay and we left Sprocket in the car while we went into McDonald’s. When we came back she had climbed into the front seat to eat the left over muffin that we forgot about. Man, the front seats were covered in hair and crumbs. Mistake #1 – don’t underestimate a scent hound. After that we stopped in New Liskegard and let Meg play for a half hour. We ran around the giant cow and posed for some pics on  the antique farm machinery at the museum. We piled back into the car, stopped for curds at Thornloe and booted to Smooth Rock Falls.

Sunday we hung out with Mere and Pere. It was pretty cold while we were there but I bundled Meg up and took her to the local park. She had fun running around and going down the slide. Depending on the set up she can climb up to the slide and go down all by herself, it’s pretty awesome. Meg wasted no time making herself comfy at Mere’s, she turned into a colouring addict. Mere bought her some awesome mini-markers and Meg wouldn’t give it up. She’d pass us a marker, say “open peees”, we’d open it and pass it to her, she’d say “dank you”, scribble a bit, put the lid on, and put it away. She’s so sweet when she says “peees”, how can you say no?

Monday we went to Kapuskasing to visit with Ben’s aunt, uncle and cousin. We were there a few hours and Meg loved the left over toys they had from their granddaughters and we ended up bringing them home. I took her for  a walk to break up the visit and she had fun checking out the neighbourhood. After a fantastic dinner, Mere and Meg nibbled on chocolate Easter eggs. I don’t think Meighen’s ever been that hopped up on sugar. My lord – she was hilarious! Eventually she crashed (around 10 I think) and slept like a log all night. She slept really well at Mere’s. A solid 11 hours each night.

Tuesday we packed up and made the drive to Elliott Lake (7 hours). That was a boring drive, sort of. Meg was snacking on grapes and ending up throwing up all over herself a few times. That was gross. Being on the 144 there were no shoulders to pull off on so we couldn’t stop right away but I did what I could to clean her up from the front seat. Thankfully we weren’t too far from Sudbury and we were able to get her changed and settle her tummy. Nothing a few chicken fries from KFC wouldn’t fix. Another 2 hour drive and we were in Elliott Lake. Not much happened that night, just visited and had supper.

For some reason while in E.L Meg thought it was a good idea to get up between 4 and 6 am.  Holy cow, that was crazy. We got up early both mornings. Wednesday was my birthday so we went into town and Grammy bought me a new pair of sneakers and took us all out for lunch. We also went to the park by the lake and Meg had blast. After that, I helped with some yard work and we had my favourite dinner – turkey with stuffing, mashed potato and gravy. Yum! After dinner Grammy, Meg, Nelson, and I took a walk. We played in the park and Meg got to walk Nelson all the way home. She was so proud marching along holding onto his leash.

We decided to head home a day early so we packed up and moved onto Sudbury Thursday morning. We stopped in to visit one of Ben’s high-school friends. We had a nice visit and lunch with his wife before heading home. We made a couple stops on the way, hit the 407 and got home before 6. It was a good trip but it was nice to be home.

Friday I took Meighen to the Pickering Rec Centre to swim. Man she’s a fish! She can now touch the bottom of the toddler pool so she’ll walk all over. Once in a while she slips and goes under but it’s only a dunk cause I’m right there to rescue her. She takes it like a champ – no fussing or crying. We were there about 2 hours before I was done and even then I had to pick her up and carry her out. She did not want to go!

This weekend Toys’R’Us has a super sale on and I hoped to get Meg a play kitchen for her birthday. They were sold out by time I got there but we still ended up with a toddler picnic table for the back yard. Thanks Grammie! After a nap, we went to Red Lobster with Auntie Julie for my birthday. I’m a sucker for shrimp. Although Meg’s still good in restaurants she’d rather get up and wander around. We each took turns walking around with her. After dinner we went back to Julie’s for coffee. Thankfully Meg is comfy there because she’s spending all Monday with her. Our daycare is still on vacation but back on Tuesday.

Not much going on today. We’ll likely play in the yard and maybe go to the park.

It was a good weekend. The weather was nice and there was lots of variety in our activities.

Saturday started good cause Meg got up around 8:30 which was when we needed to get up and start the day. We had lunch with Pere, gave him a Meighen painting then went downtown to drop Ben at his friends for the day. Meg and I just chilled out, took a nap, played, had dinner then went to get Dad.

Sunday was my day out. I met up with Auntie Julie for lunch then we went to Alice in Wonderland. It was pretty good. We went to the regular version, not the 3D or Imax. Didn’t want to get woozy.

Throughout the weekend we’ve been setting up the new flatscreen Ben bought on Friday. He disappeared after work and spent three hours in Best Buy humming and ha-ing over a 50″ LG plasma. Since it was a floor model they kept dropping the price and adding things to the deal till Ben said yes. Can’t complain, we got it at almost half off! It came home late Friday night. While Ben was out Saturday I cleaned out the current tv unit and started looking online for a new one. I found one pretty darn quick so when I picked Ben up that night we went right to the Brick to check them out. We ended up buying it and pick it up tomorrow. Yesterday when I got home from the movie I reorganized the spare room to make space for the old tv unit and we moved it upstairs. It has lots of cubbies in it so it’s perfect for her toys, seeing that it’s in her playroom.

Movies, restaurants, shopping and more. What a good weekend.

We had a good week, other than Sunday night. Meg thought it’d be a great idea to wake up at 3:30 in the morning and stay up! My god, that’s the first time that’s happened. She’s got up at like 5 or something but never during the hour of 3. I stayed up with her till 4:30 when Ben took over till 5:30. We both stayed in bed while Meg ran around upstairs till 6 when I finally got up and started our morning routine. Monday mornings are bad enough without getting up 3 hours early.

I’ve really been enjoying bedtime with Meighen. Around 8 we go upstairs with a bubby of milk and climb into her bed. She’s quite the multi-tasker. She positions her bub so she has her hands free. She’ll hold her soother and the corner of her snuggy blanket in one hand and often a toy in the other. She juggles all of them till she’s done her bub when she’ll pass it to me, pop the soother in and pass out. She’s quite attached to the corner of her blanket, but only at bed time. She finds it, holds it in hand while she works her finger into the other end. Once it’s secure on her finger she rubs her eyes with it before falling asleep. It’s cute.

This should be a good weekend! The weather will be gorgeous (hopefully get rid of the remaining snow and start drying up) and we’ve got a few things planned. Tomorrow we’re doing lunch with Pere. We haven’t seen them since Christmas so it’ll be good for them to see how much Meighen has changed. They got to watch her start walking but haven’t heard many words. She’s full of them now.
Both me and Ben are getting a bit of Meg-free time this weekend. I’m going to Alice in Wonderland with my sister and Ben’s got a gaming date with his buddy. I’m quite excited about getting out, specially when it involves buttery movie popcorn. = )

Meg’s doing great word wise. Still spitting out news ones on a daily basis. She’s been starting to string them together too, which is awesome. Last weekends she came into our bedroom in the morning and said “mummy, get up.” That was a shocker, but cute nonetheless. She’s starting to boss the dogs around more, which is ok because they don’t listen very well in their old age. Something that I’m quite surprised by is that she can put together her alphabet puzzle all by herself. It’s a wooden puzzle with each letter being a piece. If you hand her a piece she knows where it goes. Sometimes she’ll say the letter or the picture associated with it. I don’t know toddlers or what kids should be doing at what age but something tells me this is a very good thing – she’s not even 2.

We’ve had a good week. The weather’s been crappy but it’s still been good.

I can’t even keep track of all the new words Meg can say. She repeats most of what we say. Right now we’re working on “I love you” and not getting very far although Ben’s making good progress with “Kessel” and “Phaneuf”. The other night she repeated the entire alphabet back to me. Super sweet.

Meg’s been sleeping great this week. A couple nights she slept right through. If she does get up it’s usually close to the alarm to we let her into our bed for another hour of sleep before getting up.

She’s still a super helper. Last weekend she helped me do laundry. She put everything in the dryer from the washing machine. She then put in a dryer sheet and hit the button. Meighen can also help me set the table and make toast. When she gets her hands dirty or wet she’ll run to the stove and wipe them on the dish towel. What a good girl.

Got a few things going on this weekend. We have to go see our banker about investing Meg’s photo shoot money into something she can access later. Ben also wants to get in on some RRSP’s before submitting our taxes this weekend. After the bank, we’ll be hitting the Home Show. Ben got tickets through a friend at work so we’ll go check it out. We’ve been a few times before, it’s nothing super fantastic but its an outing. Since we got a bunch of snow over the last few days hopefully we can take Meg tobogganing … either that or swimming.

Now that the website transfer is done I’ve been able to upload a bunch of clips to the video page here. Many of them are too big so I’ll have to use my mac to compress them before posting. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

My friend at work took her daughter to the Bunch Dance Series party last weekend at the Guvernment nightclub. The group rented out the club and made it a dance party for kids. All ages were there but it was better suited for 5 and under. It looks and sounds like a lot of fun. There’s dancing, lights, glowsticks, arts and crafts, a snow room and much more. If I knew about it I would have loved to go with Meighen. But now that I do know, I’ll keep my eye open for upcoming events.

Meg’s been sleeping awesome this past week. While it’s been nice having her fall asleep in our bed with us I’ve decided it’s time to have her fall asleep in her room. She’s been going down earlier, around 8:30, and it’s been great cause it gives us a bit of time to do our thing before bed. She’s been sleeping through the night and staying in her bed. I think kids have magical sleeping powers. While Meg drinks her milk before bed I start getting sleepy. Then she rolls over and snuggles into me to fall asleep. By this point I’m nearly asleep with her. I have to pry myself out of bed to finish whatever it is that needs doing.

Otherwise, not much is going on right now. It was Auntie’s birthday on Wednesday so we’re taking her out for dim-sum tomorrow. Yum-yum! I’ve been saying for months we don’t do it enough anymore and now I’ll have had it three times in a month. Yay!

Christmas has winded down. We spent some more time with Auntie and went for dim sum on Saturday. We haven’t been in forever so this was the first time Meg was able to eat with us. She tried everything we put in front of her and ate most of it. She liked the lotus rice, har gow and LOVED the taro balls. Auntie finally has someone to eat taro with. Good stuff!

While Mere and Pere were down, m’oncle and Pere returned the crib and change table to Brampton for us. That was super awesome of them. It freed up a ton of space upstairs and finally all the rooms are settled. Meg has more space in her room since we moved the glider to the playroom. She loves her big girl bed and has slept through the night since returning to daycare on Monday. She’s sleeping so well, if only I could get a blanket to stay on her.

Meighen’s picking up new words really fast. She can now say dinner, boots and something that sounds like dog. Instead of cat she calls them nu-nus since Ben and m’oncle always call kitties minou (French).

Teeth wise, her fangs (eye teeth) are finally coming in. She was uncomfortable for a week about a month ago and they’re just breaking now. Two have come through and the other two should be coming along any time. That will fill in the gaps so it will look like she’s got them all, just missing a couple more molars.

Meighen has this new game that’s kinda cute. At night we all climb into our bed to watch a bit of tv while she falls asleep. We often give her “groupies” where Ben and I each kiss one of her cheeks at the same time – kinda a kiss sandwich. She loves it. Well now she’s started pulling our heads in together to we kiss each other. It’s funny. She tucks her fingers under our jaw or behind an ear (or in my case my hair) and pulls us in. We give each other fishy kisses and she giggles. We pull away and she does it again. This goes on for some time before we’ve had enough and distract her with something else. It’s sweet, she wants to see her parents give each other love like we give her. Awe.

I guess the only other big thing going on right now is that we picked up our new car on Tuesday. It’s a 2010 Kia Forte in a beautiful shade of blue. Ben’s been humming and hawing over a new car for some time and the time was right over the holidays. We filled out the paperwork on New Year’s Eve and picked it up on Jan 5. It’s a bit bigger than our previous Ford Focus and comes with lots of great features (heated seats, heated mirrors, wiper blade de-icing). It’s super safe and practically the whole car is an airbag. We feel way better knowing we’re all safer with a reliable car. Who knows, maybe this car will last forever and Meg will be driving it in 15 years.

Man it’s been a crazy few weeks. Work has been really busy so I haven’t had a chance to update in a while.

Daycare’s going really well. Meighen now gives Robyn hugs when we pick her up and we hear she’s giggling and chasing the other little ones around. She’s one happy kid, always laughing and smiling.

Progress wise there’s been lots going on. We’re walking full time now and practically running! She’s also getting good at going down stairs, backwards thankfully. When we hold her hand she’ll go down one at time frontwards and standing up. I have all the confidence in her going up but still a bit nervous when she wants to go down. Once she masters it I’ll feel way better.

We had a ton of rain and poor Meg couldn’t go out back for a couple weeks. Now that she’s upright she loves to explore new areas of the yard and can even go down the little slide on her own. She’s doing so well.

Meighen’s got a bunch of new teeth coming in – mostly molars but a few non-molars. She had a fussy week, which she usually does when the teeth are working their way down, but now we’re back on track. She’s been sleeping awesome through the night with little to no interruption.

Meg can totally feed herself with a fork now. It still gets all over her face from time to time but she’s eating with utensils at every meal. She’s totally off formula now – it took a little while to transition her over to milk. Her bowels weren’t agreeing when we tried back in July but this time we’ve had no problems. It’s cute – she now knows that the milk comes out of the microwave. She waits by it till it beeps and tries to press the button to get it out. When she wants a bottle she goes to the microwave and starts fussing – what a smart girl!

We had Meg’s 15 month check up the other week. Not much has changed. She’s 21.5 lbs and 31.5 inches. We got a couple more needles – chicken pox and a second measles or meningitis – I’d have to double check to be sure, there are so many inoculations. I think we’re going to go with the basic flu shot (two needles) this winter but not the H1N1. Even my doctor agrees it’s too new and not all the risks have been identified. Since Meg’s around school kids every day I think the the flu shot is essential. If we were still in a maternity bubble I wouldn’t worry so much but she’s out and about all the time interacting with all sorts of kids. Better safe than sorry. She handles needles pretty well. Now that she knows what they are she cries a bit but gets over it fast.

Activity wise… hm. On Saturday October 3, I took Meg down to Nuit Blanche, a free art show all over downtown Toronto. She seemed to have a good time, didn’t fuss much and passed out around 10 pm. It was a late night but it only happens once a year so I’m ok with it. I’m hoping this becomes an annual Mummy-daughter night. We did it last year when she was new and again this year.

This past Saturday I scored four free passes to Where the Wild Things Are. Pere was happy to take care of Meg for a few hours and she did well. Didn’t cry or fuss when we left her there – just had a confused look on her face but got over it. They adore her and she’s really sweet there.

This weekend was also Thanksgiving. We did my folks on Saturday for a traditional turkey dinner. Meg ate everything! Potato, turnip, turkey, gravy and stuffing – the stuffing was her favourite. She also enjoyed my pumpkin pie and Grampy’s apple crisp. I put her in the dress my Mom gave me at our baby shower. My grandma gave it to me as a little girl and now it fits Meg. It’s a bit dated but still cute and in great condition. Almost time for me to pack it away and keep it safe for another 20 years in case Meighen has a little girl one day.

Other than shopping, visiting friends/family, eating out a lot and hanging around home, not much has been going on these last couple weekends. Meg’s such a good girl when we’re in restaurants. She loves to colour quietly while we wait for our food. If only we could get her to stop intentionally dropping it on the floor. She doesn’t understand that doggies don’t come with every table, heheh. Today we tore out the closet and carpet from the master bedroom in anticipation of all the furniture coming next weekend. We just have a bit of patch work that needs to be done and a new paint job. I’m in no hurry for that though.

We’re slowly getting ready for Halloween. Meighen’s going to be a butterfly, thanks to her cousins. It’s super cute. We’re only going to take her to a few houses we know in the area. Our neighbour Sandra painted Meg an awesome pumpkin again this year. It’s Pocoyo! She did the whole gang on there – fantastic! We’re also hoping that next time Pere’s friend is over in London he can pick up some Pocoyo dolls for her. They’re almost impossible to get here in North America but apparently easy to find in the UK. If they don’t give them to her for Christmas then we will. She’s going to love them! Auntie Julie just got back from Ireland and brought Meg a cute little hat.

That’s about it for now!

Wow, what a long weekend but a good one!

Friday we took Meg to the CNE (The Ex) for the first time. I think she really enjoyed herself. My mom used to take us every year and I continued through my teens and twenties. I’m thrilled I get to share the tradition with Meighen now. We started in the children’s village and first up was the petting zoo. Meg had fun watching all the goats, piglets and other small animals. She’d stand there getting licked and petting whatever would stand still. After a quick lap around the village we moved to the Food Building for lunch… poutine and perogies, yum! We strolled the midway on our way to Ontario Place. She enjoyed the sights, sounds and all the people. We took a break at O.P for a bit and watched the air show rehearsals. Holy loud! Meg didn’t seem bothered by the jets screaming by us from all directions – she was happy chasing the seagulls. The main reason we crossed over to O.P was to check out The Big Comfy Couch performance. Meighen loves Loonette and I think she caught on that what she was watching was the show. She was getting fussy before the show started but when she heard the music and saw the actress she shut up and gave her undivided attention. She even started clapping and waving, very cute. After the show we crossed back into the CNE, did another building, midway, snack and headed back to the car. It was a long day but full of family fun and tradition.

Saturday we all went up to my folks, even my sister! Meg always has a good time crawling around and playing with Nelson. She loves eating cherry tomatoes and blackberries from Grampy’s garden. Sunday we hung out with Pere and Tom. Even though Meighen doesn’t see them often she doesn’t act strange and lets them both carry her around and walk with her. Tom’s awesome – always amazed by Meg’s progress – how observant, smiley and sweet she is.

Monday was Mummy and Meighen day. We were going to go to the Toronto beach but we changed direction and went to Oshawa to hang out with my girlfriend. Meg seems to enjoy going and remembers my friend from previous visits. Even though she doesn’t have kids she always has a few toys for Meg to play with.

Not much going on this week. Just puttering around the house – lots to do. Next weekend Auntie Julie’s having a condo-warming party. Ben’s helping her get things ready on Saturday then we’re attending on Sunday. Should be a calm weekend. = )