sibling stuff

Here is a typical morning exchange between Noah and Molly.

Noah: Don't look at me! DON'T LOOK AT ME!

(Noah is getting dressed in the living room, but doesn't want anyone to see him naked. He also won't go to his room.)

Molly: But, you're beautiful!

Noah: DON'T LOOK AT ME WHILE I'M NAKED! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! MOLLY'S NAKED, GROSS! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

(Then, somehow they are both dressed.)

The end.

There is some sort of comment to be made here about social norms and the human body, but I haven't slept in 7 years, so I can't quite make it out.

hangman

So, I was taking some books off our bookshelf to make room for other books to make room for a piano, and I suddenly remembered Noah playing a game of Hangman with his Nana a year ago or so. She had just taught him the game and was using words from Star Wars or words that he would know how to spell. So, when it was Noah's turn to choose the word, Nana thought she would have an easy time since he couldn't spell that many words on his own. 10 minutes later though, she was still stumped. Finally she had to ask him what his word was. Noah pointed to the spine of a book on the bookcase. It was "Hamlet".

divide and conquer

I don't know what it's like at your house, but around here there are things that need to get done and there are children who need to be cared for and entertained, and these two goals are in direct competition. In English? the fewer kids you have around, the more easily you can get things done (unless of course you put your feet up and wallow in the quiet, but that's a post for another day).

So, I was particularly gleeful that I got to drive Noah to his first diving lesson today. Getting him to the pool and where he needed to be would be a snap without the girls along. It was. But as I watched Noah jump off the diving board again and again and again, listening to the coach and improving his jumps, there was no one to turn to and say, "look at him go!" or "isn't he great?". I keenly missed my husband just then.

And, did I have a camera? No, of course not. I spent my morning gathering silly items like towels and clean underwear.

conversations

Noah: Molly, do you want to help defend the Jedi temple?

Molly (putting down her little pony and grabbing a light saber): oh yeah. sure.

molly, lately

When I asked Molly to take her finger out of her nose, she promptly - and with oodles of scorn - informed me, "it's not a NOSE Mom, it's a TRUNK".

The only appropriate response? "Molly, please remove your finger from your trunk."

3 years ago tomorrow

I started this blog. I am pretty much doing the exact same thing now as I was doing then. I am on maternity leave with a 3 year old at home. On April 25, 2006, I posted this.

Now, check out this picture:


same back yard, same tricycle. The only difference is I didn't nurse the baby outside today - brrrrr too cold. Here is Hanaa in her stroller:



So, there it is. I'm not sure what this means; I'm just stating the facts.

I suppose another difference is I'm not thinking about having another baby.

Happy Birthday to my blog. Here's hoping she is less defiant than other 3 year olds.

anything i can help you with?

So, Molly and I went to Chapters today to spend an Easter gift-card from Grandma. We had a lovely time looking at toys and books and some baby stuff. A very friendly Chapters employee came to greet us and ask us if we needed help finding anything. I was in the middle of my usual, polite no-thank-you-we're-just-looking, when Molly piped in to say (very loudly), "WE DON'T NEED ANY HELP". Apparently asking a 3-year-old if she needs help is the height of rudeness!

Molly picked out a lovely game with penguins:

it's a little embarrassing, but . . .

we have gotten into the bad habit of having the TV on (YTV, Treehouse, CBC kids, PBS kids) in the morning while we eat breakfast and get ready for school or work. Not that this was ever a good idea, but it made more sense when I was working. It kept the kids busy while Marc and I rushed around and got ready for the day.

This week, we have had some very awful mornings with Noah refusing to go to school and having to practically drag him to the van. On Monday morning I left him outside his classroom lying on the floor. He was just unbelievably resistant and hostile. It happened again on Wednesday. So, I started thinking about ways to make the mornings a little better, and the TV watching just jumped out at me.

Now that I am home, we don't leave the house until 8:30 at the earliest, so if the kids are up at 7, that's an hour and a half of TV before they have even left the house. So, I decided to stop it. I explained to Noah that if we didn't watch TV, we would all have enough time to get ready without being rushed. I also promised him that I would eat breakfast with him and not go on the computer. To my complete shock, Noah agreed to this without any major objections. There were no tears or tantrums.

Today was the first day. and it went really well. We did Noah's home reading which we forgot to do last night. We talked while we had breakfast together. Wow, it felt great!

I think a lot of the time as a parent, I gave a hard time taking something away from the kids even if giving it to them was a bad idea to begin with. I think the reason this worked so well (if you can tell after one day) is that I gave up something as well, and we gave each other the attention we had previously wasted on the TV or the computer.

I'm still a little weirded out by the lack of objections. It's like taking away a chocolate brownie and offering a piece of fruit - and the kid eats the fruit. Weird.

right now

Molly is wearing bikini bottoms and a peasant blouse, sucking her thumb and singing "Farmer in the Dell" as she walks in circles on an over-sized book.

3 months

Hanaa is 3 months old today! She is a very busy girl. She hums along when I sing to her and is trying hard to roll over. I am trying to give her more opportunities to lie on the floor. It's a little dangerous with siblings running about and wrestling. And what is it with kids that they insist on standing right beside the baby's head? I digress. I think Hanaa has also started teething - my least favourite milestone. She won't be starting solids for at least 3 months - what is the hurry?

updates

the toys

I spent an entire day last week (between nursing and diaper changes) organizing the toys on the main floor. The bins needed washing and organizing. Toys were just piling up on top of the bookcase instead of being put away. I am trying to make room for a piano in my dining room. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting closer. The kids are playing with the toys a lot more now that things are organized. I am quite proud of myself!

next project: Molly's room!

I want to move her dresser into the closet so she has more room to play. And don't even get me started on the stuffed animals and dolls!

rainboots

If I were a poet, I would write a poem about the bottom of Noah's rain boots. His boots are navy blue, but the bottoms are a beautiful sunshiny yellow, and (I realize this is corny) they seem to represent the part of him that is still a little boy.

Noah is 6 and a half, and I've already started thinking of him as a seven year old. It's a little heartbreaking actually. He doesn't want me to hug or kiss him goodbye at school in case his friends see. It's all about Star Wars and Bakugan and battling and constant (I mean constant) random noises, mostly blaster and gunfire. Sigh.

But yesterday I picked him up from school by myself as Marc was home to look after the girls. It was a melty afternoon, but there was still lots of ice. As we were walking to the van, Noah was sliding on the ice and splashing in the puddles a few feet ahead of me. He was dressed all in dark colours, green jacket, black toque, navy ski pants, navy boots. The only exception was the bottom of his boots, this beautiful yellow that matched his little boy joy at splashing and sliding and falling.

4-4-4 meme

I’ve been tagged by my friend Amber at Monster Cookies
The rules are…
Go into your photo archive, pick the 4th folder in the archive, select the 4th picture in the folder, and write about it. Then tag 4 other people to do the same.

Here is my picture.



This picture was taken last summer on a visit to Marc's parents. Cousins Kayla and Cole were visiting too and Noah was thrilled to have someone to have lightsaber duels with. We drove out after work, so we thought pyjamas would be the best thing for the kids to wear. Noah was in a "no PJ tops" phase at the time, but I managed to convince him to wear a tank top at least (more comfy in a seat belt). For the record, we did manage to get his hair cut before he went back to school in the fall. He also started wearing pj tops again once the weather got cold.

Not knowing too many people with blogs, I'm not tagging anyone, but if you read this and feel like responding on Facebook - please do!

future road trips

So, I'm kind of looking forward to our first road trip since becoming "mini-van people". There is now room in the back for me to sit with the kids and help keep them happy during the trip. It also means I get to watch movies since the van has a DVD player. When I told Noah I would be able to sit in the back and watch movies with him, this was his response.

"you really could because Dad is better at driving the van than you . . . well parking it anyway."

Doesn't do a lot for my confidence!

molly-ism

Me: Molly, please take your thumb out of your mouth.

Molly: I know, it's a bad rabbit.

you know it's

the 21st century when you bribe your almost-3-year-old with computer time so that she will eat her veggies.

question of the week

Molly: Noah, are you monkey pants?

hanaa has arrived

Hanaa Lynn Baldwin was born December 29, 2008 at 3:13am.

I had originally decided not to post this, but changed my mind.

Here is the story:

I have never been one to have a detailed birth plan just because flexibility is so key in every birth. If I had written one though, it would be a whole lot like Hanaa's birth. I am still in shock at how everything just came together.

I started having some mild contractions around 10:30 pm. I decided they were in fact contractions around 11:15 and called Toni (my midwife) although I still wasn't sure they would amount to anything. Because of Molly's precipitous birth, I was under strict orders to call sooner rather than later. Toni agreed to come over and arrived around 11:35.

While we were waiting for her to arrive, Marc and I set up the birthing pool.

She listened to the baby's heartbeat, and checked me. I was 3-4 centimeters. Toni suggested I get up and walk around, and she would hang around for a few hours and see if anything developed. I made cinnamon buns and folded some laundry, then Toni and I started a game of scrabble, and sent Marc to bed for a nap.

While I was walking around, contractions were coming about every 3-4 minutes, lasting less than a minute and were not very intense, but not something I would be able to sleep through. When I sat down for scrabble, the contractions came less often. Around 1:30 am something changed. Now, quite possibly it was because Toni had just used the Q on the triple word score, but I found I couldn't concentrate on the game anymore. Toni had another listen to the baby and checked me again. I was at 6 centimeters with a bulging bag of waters. She agreed that tonight was the night, and called the second midwife (Kelly) to come. We woke up Marc and started filling the pool.

Waiting for the pool to be ready seemed to take hours, but I probably climbed in around 1:45. Kelly arrived around 2. I had Marc put on the music I had chosen. The water felt so good. I laboured for an hour while Marc sat beside the pool. Toni and Kelly retreated to the couch and visited quietly. Toni checked the baby's heartbeat every 15 or 20 minutes.

As the song "Down to the River" came on, the contractions became definitely more intense and I felt like each one opened me up just a little bit more. I started to whimper. Around 3:05, we heard the pitter patter of Noah's feet, so Marc went and put him back to bed. As he was coming back down the stairs around 3:10, I felt the baby come down and my water broke followed by an urge to push. I said something like "oh" and during this first push felt the urge to push even more so I just kept going. Toni told me to put my hands down and catch the baby. At the end of that one monumental push, her head was out, and another small push and she came swimming out. Hanaa Lynn Baldwin was born at 3:13 am.

Everyone in the room was astonished.

The only scary part of the birth was the discovery of a true knot in her cord, although it was a loose one.

Even though she was born so quickly, I didn't tear at all, which was awesome!

Hanaa weighed in at 7 pounds and 6 ounces and was 20.5 inches long (Molly's exact stats).

So, there it is. It all went according to plan. Home birth, water birth, in the middle of the night while the kids slept through (more or less).

I am still in a bit of shock. I am so grateful for this beautiful experience and think my midwives are of course the best ever!

can i hold the baby?

Molly was a month old before Noah asked to hold her. Hanaa was 4 hours old before Molly wanted to hold her (and she slept through the first three).