18 month newsletter

Dear Beatrix,

Yesterday you turned 18 months old, and to mark the occasion I decided that I was 18 weeks pregnant. (I really was.)

You seem to be happy with my pregnancy, as long as I still carry you when you want and feed you on a regular basis. You seem to understand that I have a baby in my belly and you'll often lift my shirt and say "bebe" and kiss my belly. It's quite cute. I hope that you feel the same about the baby once s/he's here and you're no longer the littlest. I think you'll do well, you're quite nurturing and are so attracted to babies.

So you've made it 18 months! Despite Daddy putting your diapers on backwards and dressing you in mismatching pajamas.

Your vocabulary has exploded in the past few weeks. So far you're saying 2-3 new words a day, I'm stunned sometimes that you've managed to remember a word that you heard weeks ago. The other day you pointed to a butterfly in a book and said "butterfly" clear as could be. We haven't talked about butterflies in weeks, and yet you remembered the word. You're also trying to count. One day you counted the buttons on Daddy's shirt, touching each one, "un, oo, ee, oar", then yesterday we were counting my fingers, touching each one in turn, I counted the odd ones and you the even ones "tooo, oar....". I think you're a little genius, other people tell me that you're just mimicking us. I disagree.

You still eat like a wee little bird, content to live on air and love. About once every 2 or 3 days you'll eat a good solid meal, leaving me wondering if you're going to explode with the amount of food you've tucked away. Fruit and vegetables still are your favourite fodder, which I hope continues to hold. I haven't found a fruit or veggie that you won't eat, although tomatoes are your least favourite. Meat is still hit and miss for you, and you're still off of cow's milk.

You love to be outside and demand "shoes" several times a day. When outside you love to run and smell the flowers and point out trees and airplanes. We bought you a sand box a couple of weeks ago and we play in it nearly everyday. Mostly you like to throw the sand, showing us that we made the right choice to not buy the $1 a pound sand. Perhaps when you're not throwing it around we'll splurge for that sand.

As for indoor toys, you're all about cars, balls, babies and books. If you would master holding two balls in one hand with a baby and a car while reading a book you would be the happiest toddler in the world. However, my sweet baby love, sometimes you have to let the dream go. How about you read your book to your baby, or even a book about balls, or cars. I think that this would make everyone happier. Your most recent toy love is cars, and we have about a dozen little matchbox cars scattered around the house. You love them, and if you weren't so cute when you said "car" I would have hid them in the garbage disposal by now, they hurt when you step on them! Along with your car love you love your babies and balls, you're always asking Daddy and I to open your sack of ball pit balls, just so you can run through them and scatter them everywhere. We indulge you, it makes you so happy. As a baby bonus you help us clean them up too! Topping off all of your toys are your books. I think that if you were given a choice of what toy you could only have, I'm pretty sure you'd choose your books. You still spend a lot of time in front of your bookshelf reading your books. Now that you're starting to talk too, I get to listen to you narrate the stories that you're reading. It's pretty cute, just as cute as when you say "cars".

It seems like you are taking to being a happy toddler like you took to being an "easy" baby. I think I'm a pretty lucky mama!

Love,
Mama.

I'm too Canadian even for California.

A few posts ago I mentioned that I want to move to Vancouver, and that sentiment hasn't changed. The more time I spend here the more I realize that I am just too Canadian to live here.
I find it's the little things that demonstrate this.
*I say sorry, not sari, and I know I've pointed this out before, but I get called out on it a lot. It's old.
*I feel that parenting styles differ in America and Canada. (to be fair Adam assures me that it's the same everywhere...) What I mean is that there is honest to goodness preschool for infants here. In my very large mother's group I am in the very small minority for not enrolling Trixie, and of some of the people who haven't enrolled their child, it's because they can't afford it. I just feel that Trixie is better off with me, and even though these preschools are parent participation (meaning the parents are there, it's not a day care) I don't feel that Trixie needs to start learning pre math and pre reading now. If she were enrolled this fall she would be in level 4*, where they start pre reading and pre math. At level 7 you have to have previous preschool experience. I feel that this is totally unreasonable for children, and especially children of stay at home moms! I feel that this is a very American experience. (I could be wrong!)
*I'm a socialist. Apparently that's a bad word down here right now. So much fear mongering. It's driving me crazy. I especially love when people equate socialism with communism. My head doesn't explode at all! (I won't even start on how I think that pure communism** is the best option....)
*I am so sick of the heat, and it's showing no signs of ending. Granted this is a Bay Area issue, not found everywhere.
*I'm scared of the school system down here. I was raised in a Canadian school system, so was Adam, it worked well for us. I would like to raise my children in the Canadian system. Right now where we live is in one of the worst districts in the area. The school where Trixie would go to if we were still living in this house, routinely sends kids into jr. high 3 years behind academically. Private school for kindergarden is about 20K a year.
*I like the metric system.
*I miss seeing the Queen on my money. I am a staunch Commonweather. (totally not a word, I know)
*it's pop not soda.
*Tim Horton's is too far away.
*I hate having a co-pay when I go to the doctor. (although we do have amazing insurance.)
*I like the Canadian vaccination schedule better than the one down here. (which I've totally disregarded.)

Oh and I am sure I could come up with a plethora of other reasons, but Adam has a great job with a great salary. I have dreams that Google will open an office in Vancouver, but alas, my last reason for being very Canadian is our much more pacifist nature and much better regulation in our financial industry. No crazy war to suck up all of the money and send the country and much of the world into a tailspin, not to mention the crazy lending practices down here, wrecking the financial industry. Oh recession, you have inadvertently hurt me.***

*this was at one particular preschool, although many are about the same.
**the kind of communism that Marx envisioned, the kind that can't work because most humans are greedy greedy bastards by nature.
***It hasn't hurt us too badly, pretty much just not letting us move home 'cause there won't be an office opening anytime soon in Vancouver. Well that and now Adam has to walk across the quad to get fresh ice cream in another building.

Hormonal Much?

Just a leeetle bit perhaps.
In my Internet wandering today a few blogs have rubbed me the wrong way, and I need to tell the whole world about it, yet still be vague.
I read this one person, who is rather negative and it drives me batty. She's a great writer, but she whines about how horrible her life is, a lot. I should take her off of my favourites, shouldn't I? (I did take her off of my Facebook friend's list though.) Anyhow she's seeing a therapist and was given a diagnosis which she disagrees with, and yet still takes the drugs. It confuses me.
Someone in one of my online groups suggested that Trixie isn't counting, when she clearly is. (touching something and making and saying the corresponding number? Sounds like counting to me!)
In my real life...
I went to a movie tonight and there was no parking. I cursed a lot at all of the well dressed pedestrians and vowed to never return to the soul sucking place with no parking.

In other news, my pregnancy is going well. Although I shouldn't be shocked really, I had a perfect pregnancy with Trixie right until the day they induced me. I heard the heartbeat today, confirming that this baby does indeed have a heart and it beats, making noise. YAY. Trixie wasn't amused by this. She was at this point glowering at me for leaving her in her stroller.

Oh and if you're a girl and you like food, you should see Julie and Julia. It was really good. I wish the ending was a little sappier, 'cause you know, the hormones and all.

(tiny spoiler)

at one point Julia finds out her sister is having a baby and she loses it a little. I sympathized so hard with her that I nearly sprouted a couple of tears of my own. I've been there, trying so hard and everyone else around me seems to get pregnant. It sucks, a lot. There was no poetic licence taken with that scene.