Diaper-free Ian

Although fairly quick and easy (especially since it wasn't us that had to deal with it), Ian's potty training for during the day time went quite smoothly. After a couple months of that, he even was able to go without diapers during his naps. However, we were convinced that it would take much longer to go without at night since it was always very full and he is a very sound sleeper. I even bought two boxes of diapers when they were on sale since I figured it wouldn't be until the summer before he got out of them. Lo and behold, one night we forgot to put a 'night-time' diaper on and he was fine and hasn't looked back since (well, maybe a couple glance over his shoulders where he didn't quite make it to the toilet), but it has been a month of only one kid in diapers in the house. Looks like there may be an end in sight to stinky trash due to diapers.

Kiera's loose tooth

Just before her 6th birthday, Kiera is getting her first loose tooth. She was very excited when she first noticed it, although would sometimes not be able to tell which one it was. A few weeks later, it is still there, but definitely can tell it is a loose tooth. She is looking forward to getting money from the tooth fairy, which she is very keen on putting in her piggy bank (and maybe buying candy).

Ballerinas

The kids went to Ballet Steps, a special March Break event at the library. Everyone was completely into it, including (or especially?!?) Ian.

The Girl who wanted to dance

Kiera has been reading quite well for a few months now, which is a good thing since we don't always have to read the Rainbow Fairy series of books to her.

Today she read "The Girl Who Wanted to Dance" by Amy Ehrlich, which she chose from the library the other day. It is about a little girl named Clara who loves to dance. She lives with her father and grandmother. But when the grandmother dies, Clara is left alone with her silent father. A traveling dance troupe comes to her village and captivates her with their music and dancing. Clara follows the performers to their wooded camp where she meets with a beautiful dancer who, she later finds out is her mother. In the end, her mother continues travelling with the dance troupe but promises to return when she is older and Clara stays with her father, who asks her to dance for him while he plays the piano. After we finished reading it, Kiera started bawling (the first time she has ever shown that kind of emotion in a book or a movie). She asked me if we could go to the library to borrow the 'next book' where Clara's mother comes back so that Clara can join her in the dance troupe. I had to make up a story about it so that she would stop crying.

Not sure if I would recommend the book since I think it has an odd message to it, but it is good if you want to make your kid cry and hopefully appreciate you more (ha ha).

Victoria - sitting pretty

Victoria has been rolling since just before six months and has now added sitting on her own to her repertoire. She is a pretty happy camper and can play for quite a while, especially since she got her bangs cut, and so can see well enough to reach out to pick up her toys. However, we don't think this stage will last long as she seems to be interested in pulling herself up and sticking her butt out and looks ready to go on the move. Time to baby-proof the house.

Kiera the skater

Bernie had to give up on signing Kiera up for Timbit hockey this year because she said that "she already knew how to skate" (she doesn't) and "didn't want to play hockey unless she could play on the Hannah Montana team" (no idea where that came from). But I signed her up for pre-CanSkate anyways and so Kiera has been learning to skate on hockey skates. The first class, she was very excited - until she fell down and realized she didn't know how to get up on her own. Before the second class, she told me that she still liked skating, but was not going to move - she didn't unless the instructor was holding her hand. Thankfully, by the fourth class, she figured out how to get up on her own and was very proud of herself. It also gave her the confidence to do a lot of other things like jump (she clears at least an inch off the ice). She is still in the least proficient group of skaters, but we are proud to say that she is close to being the best of the worst. She does have fun though and she had a great time skating on the canal in Ottawa this year.

School bus

Kiera takes the bus to school. The pick up is just up the street. She has a couple of other buddies on the bus and so is happy enough to get on the bus; although she does say that she would much rather have me drive her to school so that she can play in the playground before the bell rings. But since it saves me the time and the hassle of having to pack everyone into the car to drive two minutes to the school plus another 10 minutes to find a parking spot, I have told her that the bus is her only option. Especially now that it is winter time and it is enough work to get them all in snowsuits and boots and out the door. The only bad thing is that while Ian is excited to see the school bus, he would also like to get a ride and is usually in tears when I tell him that he has to wait until he is a bit older.

Sleep training, take 5000

After 6 months (not including the 4 years of the other kids), I am officially sick of never having 8 hours of straight, uninterrupted sleep, so I decided that Victoria was going to have to cry it out. The Ferber method never seemed to work with Kiera and Ian was a decent sleeper, so we never had to use it on him, but Victoria has been waking up every 3-4 hours during the night where I ended up having to feed her, which was not making me a happy camper.

Night 1 - started crying at 1:30AM, I did the check at 5 minutes, 10 minutes and another 10 minutes, then she slept until 7AM. Looked promising

Night 2 - started crying at 3AM, went in once and then didn't need to go again until 6:30. I was hopeful.

Night 3 - slept through from 9PM to 7AM. Bring out the champagne!

Night 4 - cried at 1AM and then again at 4AM, went in twice for each, but what the heck is going on?!?

Night 5 - started crying at 10:30 PM - this sucks!

Soother all gone

Even though he only used his soother for sleep time at home, we felt it was time for Ian to give up on his soother. Plus, it was getting very worn out and I was feeling too cheap to buy another one. So we convinced him that he should give it to the garbage man. He seemed fine with it, until he saw the garbage truck drive away and he began to realize that his soother was not coming back.

I was able to distract him easily enough with a promise of a cookie, but he became a wreck later in the day when Kiera kept asking him if he was sad that his soother was gone. Nothing like a little sisterly concern.

It has been a week now and he has only asked about his soother a couple of times and is satisfied with the answer that the garbage truck has it. Although I am beginning to wonder if that soother had magic powers since Ian has been whiny and does not eat as much. On the plus side, we can now understand him when he talks and he does not have that rash around his mouth.

The Princess, Stinky One and Chicken Little

Kiera was in heaven, since she was able to dress up as 3 different princess/fairies - Tinkerbelle for he school parade, Belle for a friend's party, and princess in pink for trick or treating. Thanks to all the generous aunties and amah for providing such an assortment of wardrobe.

Ian, on the other hand was not into wearing any costume and it was only by pinning him down did we manage to get him into the skunk outfit. However once he realized there were treats to be had, he did not mind at all.

Victoria did not know any better, so she was fine being put into the chicken outfit.

Getting ready for Christmas

We went out Christmas tree chopping for the first time ever. Took all the kids and they had a blast. It was a Christmas tree farm out by Rockton and we thought we had done well by not immediately chopping down the first tree we saw, until we went on the tractor wagon ride and realized that there was a whole other section of trees to choose from - doh! Nevertheless, we picked a good one, if a bit wider than we expected once we set it up at home.

ballet

Today was Kiera's first ballet recital. It was more of a demonstration of all the things they learned during the year, but it was at the Theatre Aquarius and so they were on the big stage for about 15-20 minutes.

Kiera spent most of the time looking for us in the audience and looking a little like a deer caught in headlights, but she did great and said she was only a little nervous. She did enjoy it and the applause. She has been showing off the videos to all who want to watch. See below for a short excerpt.

Kiera's birthday

For Kiera's birthday this year, the one thing she asked for (and received, thanks to her Goo Goo Lianna) was a Belle dress. (We saw Beauty and the Beast musical over the Christmas holidays and has been fascinated by a fancy ball dress ever since. In fact, I think she was most upset during the show when Belle changed out of the ball dress and back into her regular clothes; and only perked up when Belle wore the dress again in the end.)

She wears her new Belle dress whenever she can (even to school) and dances around the house even more than usual. It has also gotten Ian into the dancing mood. Although his dancing usually consists of running around the house with his hands in the air until he hits a wall.

Ian, Scarface

Ian has been going through a bit of a clumsy phase this spring and seems to always land on his face to break his fall. The good thing is that other than a few tears when he first falls, it doesn't seem to bother him. Unfortunately, it always seems to be on the same side of the face. These are pictures from two different falls. Just when the first one healed, he hopped off some stepping stones at school and scraped the same spot. We are thinking of getting him to wear a helmet all the time.

Princess butterfly

Kiera has been very much into princesses for the entire winter, in which she HAS to wear a dress every day or else she is not "pretty like a princess". It has been a pretty cold winter, but she does not seem to mind. We have no idea where she gets this stuff from. The only saving grace is that she is not expecting a prince to save her. Here is her story about a butterfly prince and princess. It may be a little hard to understand since she was eating at the time, but this is the synopsis:


Once upon a time, the prince butterfly wanted to marry the princess butterfly. But the princess butterfly just flew away and the prince came back home. [Why didn't she want to marry him?] Because she had busy stuff to do. She told him "I'm too busy. Go back to your house and I'll do my stuff." The End

Ian's first week at daycare

Day 1 - Orientation - I went with him for the morning so he could get introduced to his teachers and classroom. I had gone through all this with Kiera, so nothing new for me. He had a few jealous moments when he saw other kids in his class sitting on my lap as I helped them get dressed to go outside for playtime and some teary moments when we were outside because he kept shaking off his gloves and then would get upset that his hands were getting cold and wet from the snow. But all in all, Ian had a great time with all the new toys and books in the room. We left after lunch and he immediately fell asleep on the way home.

Day 2 - First full day by himself - As soon as I took his jacket off, he was reaching for the doorknob and walked right into his classrooom. Completely ignored me while I tried to say bye. Teacher said he had to be rocked to sleep at nap time (we're making him go cold turkey from his pacifier during the day) and occassionally a few tears, but a good day for the most part.

Day 3 - As soon as I took his jacket off, he began to realize I was not going into the room with him and so began crying, working up to a wail as I handed him off to the teacher. Have I ever mentioned that he is a bit of a PITA (pain in the a**) when he doesn't get his way? Teachers said he eventually settled down, still needed to be rocked to sleep and a few tears throughout the day, but was adjusting.

Day 4 - He began crying as soon as we entered the building and was arching his back in the teacher's arms and pointing to the door, as I made my break. Good news - he went to sleep without a hitch at nap time (I broke down and left a pacifier at his school). Teachers say he is beginning to interact more and eating more at lunch as well.

Day 5 - End of the week - Still cries when I hand him off to the teacher, but they say he stops within a minute after I am out of sight. He is also playing more and giving them smiles. Of course, now he'll have to get used to all of this again after the weekend.

Jingle Bells

So I thought we would get on the 'blogging' bandwagon and start our own.

I have been meaning to send this out for awhile, but could not figure out a way to do it due to the large file size. My apologies for the length of the video, but this was actually the shortest version of her singing Jingle Bells. Yes, we know that Kiera is missing a few lines, but she is convinced that she has the proper order of the words and will correct you if you try singing it any other way. While Ian is not yet singing (or talking for that matter), he does very much want to get into the spotlight as well and is usually Kiera's best audience.