mommapalooza

i'll need a hug that reaches around the world

I've never been away from Madeline for more than a few hours. I'm making up for this in a big way on Saturday, when I disembark on a 12 day trip, first to Bangkok to find a new house, and then to northern Cali for cultural orientation training. I know that I will dearly miss my little purveyor-of-compliments, giver-of-hugs, and spreader-of-laughs, but I'm not particularly anxious or worried. And she's not either. She quite happily talks about how her mom and dad are going on a holiday and she's going to hang out with Nana. Last night, we were sitting in her glider, reading bedtime stories, and she chirped about how Nana could read her stories in the glider. My mother-in-law arrived here today, and Madeline quite happily let her manage 90% of both bath-time and bedtime. I know that Madeline usually exceeds my expectations, but I'm still pleasantly surprised ...

I can't remember what time our flight leaves on Saturday. I hope that it's after bedtime.

Unnappable

Today was Day 1 of Operation: Quiet Time. I explained to Madeline no less than three times this morning that after lunch, she was going to have "Quiet Time" and she could nap, read, or play quietly in her bedroom. After Quiet Time, she and I would do something fun together. Madeline seemed excited about it, initially. Honest. She actually told me that she was going to use her Quiet Time for napping, too!

So, after lunch (her favourite perogies, btw), I helped her make a nice nest of pillows and blankets on her bedroom floor, outfitted her with a drink and many books, said goodbye, and set the kitchen timer for 40 minutes. I think that she lasted about five minutes before she was asking me for one thing or another, ten minutes before she needed a cuddle and a story, and twenty minutes before she was outright howling in protest. The mission was aborted at that point. Boo. I don't know what I was doing wrong, either!  The kid fell fast asleep on my bedroom floor at 5:30 this evening. I let her stay there only long enough to check my email.

What to do tomorrow?

On another note, I've been enjoying my weekly emails from Babyvibe - they publish a Calgary edition. The one that I received today featured Natural Pod, which is the first retailer that I've heard of from Canada specializing in naturally-sourced products for children. I could never afford to shop there, but I think that the stacking rainbow puzzle is really cool!

I've been lurking on a local parenting forum, and I'm getting a real Stepford vibe from it. Today someone else new to Calgary posted, asking if anyone with similarly-aged kids wanted to get together for coffee, and the great majority of the replies just told her that they'd love to if she forked over the moolah to upgrade to the next level of membership. Geez. Would it have killed someone to say, "gee, how does Friday sound?" or "let's get together at Such & Such coffee shop"? Ugh.

some old, some new

I'm a bit embarrassed that it's been quite few days since my last post, but at the same time, I don't think that I've had anything interesting to say. Nothing new. Madeline is still napping intermittently and falling asleep in various places. Her declarations of independence are still driving me nuts. Why is it so impossible to hold my hand in a store? Why is leaving the house to go to the Y such a big production? And then, why is it so difficult to leave the Y to go back home? But I digress ...

Today was her second last class at Early Achievers, and she had a great time making play dough with her teacher and friends. I wish that she could have finished the year there; she has tried so many different things at preschool since September that I never would have thought of! I had dressed her in her green "give peas a chance" tee as it was the only short-sleeved shirt that I hadn't packed up, but I think there was a leprechaun smiling on us as today her class had an early celebration of St. Paddy's Day.

I have seven days to finish packing up all of Madeline's belongings before we move, and I wonder if it would be feasible to leave it all for the last day? She freaks out a little whenever I try to stick anything of hers into a box!

I am so buying one of these for Madeline - I wish that I'd poked around the Costco website a month ago, so I would have had time to order them for our flight next weekend!

cost of convenience

I have vowed that come next winter, I will no longer be driving my trusty 1993 Ford Tempo around Calgary. This shouldn't be too hard to achieve - I'll either be working and able to make a car payment, or else I'll be living somewhere where I won't be driving. My basic motivation for wanting a new car is to get something with some safety features.  Most of the time, to me, that means airbags, stability control, and even good tires (gosh, do I ever regret always buying the cheapest tires for my car. I drove all around Calgary for two winters with Madeline in the back!), but something happened to a Calgary toddler yesterday that reminded me to take a good look at the window controls while I'm test-driving station wagons and hatchbacks. There's an article from Consumer Reports that goes into the different styles of power window controls, and explains that ones that require a user to pull upward on a recessed switch to close the window are the least likely to contribute to a tragedy similar to what happened to that little girl yesterday. Frankly, I wonder whatever happened to having to *roll* a window down and then up again. Was that too much trouble for the average motorist?

I am also sad that a parent left her children unattended in a vehicle, but that's another story ...

Elsewhere around the 'net, I laughed after reading Amalah's post today about her efforts to welcome a Gymboree mini parachute into her home.  I was also pleased to find a discussion of 1-2-3 Magic over at The Mom Trap - I've been debating about buying that one for awhile, and now I wish that I had so that I could read along!

crossing one worry off of the list

Well, if you asked Chris or I, the worst thing about Madeline's allergy testing appointment was the one hour that we spent waiting in the waiting room, wondering if Madeline's name would ever be called.

If you asked Madeline, I think that she'd say that the toughest part was the when the scratching part of the allergy scratch test began to irritate her (about halfway through her rows of allergen drops; the first ones she reported as "tickly").

The results were negative for all tree nuts (insert sigh of relief), so I suppose that we could have celebrated by offering Madeline her first cashew, but we opted for sharing a turkey sandwich and that cup of vanilla pudding :)

life in a bubble

So ... around noon today, when everyone else is eating lunch with their toddler, Chris and I will be hanging out at the allergy specialist's office with ours.

I feel really awful about subjecting Madeline to allergy testing, but I realize that it's going to be good to know, in the end, if she's allergic to tree nuts or not. I have this fear that the specialist will go a little crazy and test Madeline for every common allergen under the sun, though, and she'll be covered in rows of hives from the testing, and we'll come home with orders not to let her eat anything containing wheat, soy, dairy, citrus, shellfish, and eggs, nor play anywhere where there happens to be grass or dust. Ugh. Hello, bubble. Yes, I am over-generalizing, but I haven't exactly heard any positive stories about living with a child with allergies, either.

When I told Madeline that she was going to see a doctor today, her response wasn't exactly thrilled. Naturally. I've promised her a pudding cup when we get home.

dr. madeline, I presume

After Christmas, Chris and I felt a little bad that we left all of Madeline's presents behind when flew back to Newfoundland*. To make us feel better, we took her to the toy store and picked her up one of these veterinarian kits.

Madeline loves it. I think she spent two days straight asking us to help her give all of her stuffed animals check-ups. I think that she was developing an addiction problem when she took to flopping on the sofa, letting out a round of fake coughs, then feebly telling us that she was sick and needed a check-up.

Anyway, the vet kit came with a lot of accessories, but not a container to hold all of them (imagine a cranky mama picking up teeny medical devices over and over and over again). Chris and I quite promptly commissioned my sister, Julie, to make Madeline a small medical bag, and she came up with this super tote (that has fab pockets inside, too). I was really glad that she was interested as usually she focuses on making bags and iPod cases for MAJESTYinc. I have the bag all packed up for Madeline to play with after her nap today, and I am pretty sure that she'll be really excited. Anyone willing to bet on how many minutes pass before all of her stuffed animals will have come down with something?

* we didn't do this because we're mean parents, or anti-plastic toy, or or anti-consumerist. We figured that we were moving back home three weeks later, that's all. Seriously.

... a home by any other name ...

I have to admit that I'm tired of all of this traveling with Madeline, though she's a good little air passenger and I've vowed not to let it stress me all out anymore.  The 3.5 hour time difference between here and Alberta is what wears us out, I think. Chris and I seemed to have assumed that she'd adjust her internal clock right away, but instead she was getting up for the day at 4:30 am local time (which is a respectable 8 am in Newfoundland). She was eating at the wrong times of day. Heck, we were eating dinner after her normal bedtime.  That helps me to understand why she preferred throwing green beans and doing laps around the house instead of sitting in her chair and enjoying her meal. And she was, of course, going to bed much later than normal. I remember wishing that she'd be her normal self and being really frustrated with her behaviour, fearing that no one would recognize that she was acting out of exhaustation, instead of merely acting like a miniature caveperson. I imagine that Madeline was similarly frustrated with me. It's a tough situation, no? Anyway, it was good to come home.

It's weird to think that we'll be moving again next month. This place in St. John's will have been "Home" for over a year, and as much as I am looking forward to having a house of my own again, it feels really strange to leave this one. This is the first place that Madeline has named "Home", and she's grown-up in so many ways here.  I'm doubtful that she remembers much about our real house, but I think that she'll have a happy reunion with her red wagon. 

I'm kicking myself for not marking Madeline's height on the kitchen doorframe before we left Calgary. It would have been a treat to measure how much she's grown in the year that we've been away.

multitasker

I haven't had a lot to say here lately, so tonight I'll give you all a glimpse of how Madeline is already practicing effective time management by using bathtime to work on her alphabet identification.

The foam bath stickers that Madeline received for Christmas are very popular around these parts :)  Her Auntie Marian seems to find the neatest gifts.

thumble fumble

So, I accepted an invitation to develop tomorrow's main craft for Madeline's class at Early Achievers.  Her teacher gave me a really helpful tip when she suggested basing the project around one of Madeline's favourite books, and it seemed to me to be a great way to build a theme. Driving home from class two weeks ago, it occured to me that Madeline loves the funky monkey drummers in Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, and hey, it would be rather nifty to make little drums in class. I'm all good with the drum construction part of the plan, but I also have to read Hand Hand Fingers Thumb in class tomorrow. We just have the very small board book version here at home, which I thought was sized a little too small for sharing with five or six toddlers. I checked the Children's Library here in St. John's, and their normal-sized hardcover version is still checked out. I checked the situation at Chapters and Coles, and they don't have the book in stock. I even looked into ordering the book online, but there wouldn't have been enough time to have it delivered. I called Granny Bates, and they haven't carried it for awhile.

Argh! I think I'm left with asking the class to seriously crowd around me during storytime tomorrow.