Meighen

Yay, the long weekend is here. Four days of sleeping in and chilling with the doopy. Being in the advertising industry here in TO, it’s almost the norm to get extended long weekends in the summer, which officially starts tomorrow! Unfortunately the weather doesn’t look too promising but we’ll still make the most of it. I mowed the lawn last night so we could go home tonight and start enjoying the back yard.

Tomorrow Ben’s taking the car in to get the windows tinted. He says it’s for Meighen, it’s true she will benefit from it but I still think it’s more a Daddy thing. Meg and I will make the most of the weather and hopefully get up to something. I think we’re visiting with Pere this weekend and will be seeing Auntie Julie on Sunday for a belated Ben birthday. Monday, if the weather’s nice, we’ll be taking Meg downtown to the circus festival. It’s at Harbourfront and looks a lot like Buskerfest. Meg’s turning into a total monkey so I’m sure she’ll love watching the acrobats and tumblers. As much as I was hoping to do the zoo this weekend we’ll hold off for another weekend. It’s only 5 minutes away and we’ve got all summer.

It seems the terrible-twos are upon us. The past few weeks Meighen’s been having minor meltdowns on a regular basis. She doesn’t take ‘no’ very well. She’s been so awesome and well behaved the last two years so she hasn’t been denied much. These days it’s a daily event. Sometimes she’ll be easily distracted by something else but other times she just won’t let it go. She’ll throw herself to the ground and cry. Not the most pleasant scene in the world so I just leave her to it. I tell her what’s going on and why and let her know where I’ll be when she gets over it. It can last 5 minutes or so and she eventually gets over it. She’s still a great, sweet kid but is turning out to be a bit strong willed (just like her Mum).

Meighen’s getting really good with her manners. She almost always says thank you or will do so with a short prompt. Please is another story. We almost always have to remind her but she’ll say it. She’s learning that the quicker she says please, the sooner she’ll get what she wants.

On the milestone front, Meighen can go down the stairs upright like a big girl while hanging onto the wall with one hand. She thinks she’s so grown up. We don’t let her do it without supervision, don’t want her to tumble. We have total confidence on her going up/down the stairs on her knees and bum but not quite there with the standing up thing.

I’ve been trying to get Meg to accept ponytails. It’s either that or keep her hair cropped. It’s aweful the way it hangs in her face but she keeps pulling out the elastic. Ah poopy nu, you’re girly in so many ways, please get used to a ponytail, you’ll be amazed at all the things you can see.

Well we didn’t make it to Dave & Busters as we hoped. Meg came down with a fever from daycare so Ben and I each took a half day off to stay home with her. Ben was able to meet up with his buddy but the ladies had to stay home.

Saturday we did a bunch of running around/shopping. Meg’s a pro at grocery shopping now. She’ll put things in the cart, request things as we go down the aisles and this time when we were cashing out, she passed me the bag and said “Mummy, need bag.”

Since Meg was feeling better and the fever had passed we met up for dinner with Ben’s friends. We’ve wanted to go to Chili’s for quite some time so thought this was a good opportunity. We arrived around 7 and saw a line. Since we were half an hour early we grabbed a pager and waited. An hour and a half later (yes, 90 minutes) we finally got a table. It was ridiculous. Thankfully Meighen was having a ball running around outside on the grass and visiting other little kids who were waiting too. I was sure after being so good waiting for a table she would have fussed big time during dinner (another hour) but she didn’t. She asked to get down a couple times and just a simple nice little “No Meighen” did the trick. She had fun colouring, playing with straws and nibbling off our plates. A two-year old sitting through a late supper for two and a half hours – unbelievable. Best doopy ever.

Sunday Ben and I started coming down with a cold. We were supposed to do dinner with friends but we didn’t want to bring the germs around their twins. Instead I took Meg over to Auntie Julie’s for a visit. She’d been asking about Julie all week. We all went out back and played with the bubbles Auntie bought. She also picked up sidewalk chalk and Meg had a blast drawing all over the balcony. What a great Auntie.

Meg’s been on a movie kick lately. When we went up north in March we brought a few dvds for her to watch in the car. Since then she hasn’t shown much interest. The other weekend I put Toy Story on for her cause it was rainy and I had some work to do. She loved it and watched it twice that weekend. Since then she’s picked both Toy Story and Cats & Dogs out of the dvd rack and brought them to us to put on for her. Very cute.

After almost two years, everyday I’m amazed and in awe of our little doopy.

and it feels good! As Meighen grows up I pack away the things she no longer needs. I recently did a big clean up in the kitchen. The bottle sterilizer, bottles, kiddie forks and other assorted items are gone! The highchair was put away around Christmas so there’s a lot more room in the dining room. Meg sits in a booster seat at the table now that she’s a big-little girl. This weekend I decided to tackle her toy shelves. We had too many toys downstairs and she doesn’t use them all. I packed up all the “baby” toys – rattles, little stuffed things, plastic linking rings, stroller and car seat knick-knacks. With her birthday coming I’m sure it won’t be long till she’s swimming in toys again.

Meg surprised me the other day in a big way. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and she waited in the car with Ben. When I opened her door to get my purse she said, “Mummy, bananas”. She knew I was getting groceries and was putting in her request. Crazy! Apparently the whole time I was in the store she was asking Ben “When Mummy come?” over and over. Also, as I mentioned in the last post (or two) Meg points on the apple sign we see every morning on the way downtown. This past week she’s been saying, “Mummy, cat!” but I never saw what she was talking about. Well yesterday we found it. There’s a cat hospital with two pictures of kitties on either side of the lettering. That’s what she’s been seeing, what a kid. It’s like a messed up version of eye-spy. Meighen tells us what she sees and we have to locate the image, hah.

It’s been a quiet week, I’ve been swamped with work. Ben was away this weekend and Meg and I did lunch with Pere and Tom. Tom hasn’t seen her in a while and man has Meg changed. We went to Kelsey’s and Meg decided she needed her own table. She sat nicely at the table beside us and ate her lunch. Very cute.

Not much going on in the near future. Next weekend Ben’s friend from Sudbury is down and they want to go to Dave & Busters on Friday. We haven’t been in a while and it makes for a nice night out. I don’t think Meg has been so she’ll love it.

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.

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.

What a crazy, gross week. Last weekend Meg had a sniffle and a bit of a cough so we didn’t think much of it. Then Ben and I started feeling it early in the week. On Tuesday, our daycare called saying her boys were up sick overnight and that it was up to us if we wanted to bring Meg in. Ben stayed home with her. Tuesday night Meg started throwing up… everything… so I stayed home with her on Wednesday. Thursday was business as usual till home time, when I starting throwing up. God, what a nasty ride home. I spent the next day and a half in bed trying to recoop. Ben seemed ok, till Friday night when it hit him. So, to make a long, gross story short, we all got the stomach flu and chest colds. So much for a Valentines/Family Day long weekend. Poor Meg, she tried hard to be good but she wanted to play, go out and do her usual weekend stuff. There was no way we were up for anything. We’re all feeling a bit better now so hopefully next weekend will be better.

Meg’s still sprouting new words daily and can almost repeat anything we say. She can say hockey – although she drops the ‘h’ and sounds very French, “ockee” hehe. She’s getting good at stringing words together too. Pretty much anything goes with Mummy – mummy up, mummy juice, mummy shoes, mummy bum. It’s pretty awesome. She’s also getting really good at getting dressed/undressed. She’ll take off any sweater that’s not a pull over. She can undo snaps and zippers and remove coats/sweaters. She can put her boots on (snow boots or rain boots) and can almost take her pants off. While we were sick this weekend she put her own boots on, brought us her mitts and hat, pulled her coat off the rack, got it on with our help but then tried to do the zipper up. What a kid. Very cute but bad timing given how sick we were.

Meighen’s finally figured out how to talk on the phone. For the longest time she’d only listen to Grammy/Mere and smile but now she gets the concept of a conversation. We’ll put the phone to her ear and she’ll babble something, stop and listen for a while, then babble back in response. She waves her hand around like she’s explaining something – we’ll have to get that on tape. Sometimes a real word comes out but it’s usually just babble.

Taking pitty on a poor bored housebound doopy, last night I pulled out her sponge painting kit. I’ve had it forever (before Meg was around). I had to add a bit of water to the paint but Meg had a blast. We’d let her put the paint on the paper then I’d fold it in half to make designs. I’ll have to scan them tonight before sending to Grammy/Mere this week.

Our March break is finally confirmed. Our daycare is taking the week of the 22nd off so we’ll be heading north to do the great “grandparent” tour. We’ll probably go up on the Saturday and head back the Friday. Three nights with Mere and three nights with Grammy. Since we’re getting an amazing tax refund this year (that’s what you get for shelling out 12K in daycare a year) we’re planning a weekend stateside to do some shopping. That may fall over Easter weekend, we’re not too sure just yet. Ben and I went through the process of getting our Enhanced Drivers License a few weeks back in anticipation of upcoming vacations. We’re also hoping to do a week in Florida with next year’s refund for our 10th anniversary.

That’s about it for now, with all the sickies not much has been going on.

This weekend’s new words are: poopy, bum, change bum (sorta), Sprocket (sorta), and Julie.

We had a good visit with Grammy & Grampy this weekend. Meg was full of hugs and kisses for all. Now that she says “mummy” all the time she’s started calling Grammy “mummy” too. It’s cute. It only took a couple days but Meg now can say “Julie” as in Auntie Julie. We’ll work on the Auntie part. Shouldn’t be too hard.

When we picked Meg up from daycare last night, on the way out to the car she said “Mummy!”. She said it a few times on the way home and a bunch more last night. I’ve been mama and mum till now, now I’m Mummy! It’s cute. She says it so matter-of-factly.

Meg’s been obsessed with her shoes for many many months now. She always gets hers from the closet (always a matching pair) and brings them to us to put them on. Then she’ll bring me my shoes and Ben his shoes. Well, last night she put on her own boots! She’s been trying for a long time to figure out how to put her shoes on and the other day at our friends she successfully got one boot on. Ok, they’re not her winter boots, those are too hard but they’re her rain boots. It was super cute. She lined them up, leaned with one hand against the wall and tried to smoosh her foot into the boot. Well, it worked and she wore her boots for the evening. Crazy kid.

I’ve finished categorizing all the blog posts and also added my posts from my pregnancy. It’s all on this site now = )

Meg’s been getting words slowly one by one over the last few months. It seems the last week we’ve had a breakthrough! We’re getting a couple new words a day – it’s awesome. It’s usually repeating after us but she says them almost perfectly.

Existing words – up, no, done, ma-ma, mum, da-da, shoes, boots, juice, duck, one, two, three, eye, nose, and I think a few more.

This week we’ve added – doggy, dirty, bubba, bubby, dum dum, hot, cookie, boat, car, book, out, baby, ouchie, bye, and dad.

This morning around 7:30 *ug* Meighen climbed out of her bed after an uninterupted sleep and ran into our room going “ma-ma”. That was my cue to get up. Very cute.