Hide & Seek

Hide & Seek always starts at our house by Talia and Declan hiding, then yelling "MOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYY! Come find us!" so I already know exactly where they are. So I wander into the room the voices came from, and some variation of this ensues:

Me: Where can Talia and Declan be?
Declan (from his hiding spot in the closet): *giggle, giggle, giggle* I no know!!
Me: Are they under Tally's blankies?
Declan (from his hiding spot in the closet):  *giggle, giggle, giggle* Nooooooo!
Me: Are they under Declan's crib?
Declan (from his hiding spot in the closet):  *giggle, giggle, giggle* Noooooooo!
Me: Are they in the clothes hamper?
Declan (from his hiding spot in the closet): Noooooo! In da cwoset!!
Talia (enraged): NO, DEC!!!! DON'T TELL!!!!!
Declan (from his hiding spot in the closet):  *giggle, giggle, giggle* No da cwoset.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Getting Schooled

Sometimes I think Nursery School is more trouble than it's worth - like the million fundraisers and meetings I don't attend, for starters.  Or how every Tuesday and Thursday, Talia is so thrilled to see me, but then throws a GIANT tantrum about getting strapped into her carseat because she's so exhausted. Or how she's learned so many great new things, like how to stomp her foot and roar "Diss is ALL YOUR FAULT, DECLAN!!!" at her little brother, or cross her arms and say "my no wanna be your fwiend anymore, Deckie." (Poor Declan. He totally gets the short end of the stick - he cries his heart out when Talia goes into school without him, and then is the brunt of all her naughty sayings and tricks when she gets home.)

And then she tells me things like "I missed you so much and wanted you to come back and see my turkey!" and hands me this:

..... so then I think that Nursery School is making my kid a genius.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

Can-Skate

This morning was Talia's first official skating lesson, or as my friend called it, 'pay a bunch of money for my kid to crawl around and cry' lessons. LOL. The younger class is pretty much 3 & 4 year olds who have never been on skates before, or only a handfull of times last winter. So basically, it was awesome.

Talia was so excited about her lessons all this week. When we tried her skates and helmet on yesterday to make sure they still fit, she exclaimed "I dust love dese skates. Dey are so... so... so SKATEY!" and insisted on wearing them all afternoon. She could barely eat breakfast this morning because she was so anxious to get to the "wrinkle." But when we finally got her all geared up and ready to go out on the ice, she was not as excited. She took her teacher's hand and went off like a little trooper, but the other kids around her started dropping like flies. At one point she was the only one standing, the teacher and assistants had all scattered to help kids get up, and she was freaking out by herself in the middle of the mayhem, screaming her head off. So I broke the cardinal rule of Can-Skate (no parents on the ice! EVER!!) and went out to calm her down and shuffle her toward the closest teacher before I high-tailed it inside the rink where she couldn't see me. After that she was fine, she fell down and tried about 1 million times to stand back up, and had a great time crawling around. She was the only one in figure skates, but when we were taking her skates off at the end of lessons I heard one of the other girls crying because she didn't want black skates, she wanted white ones like Talia. Ha!

After her lesson was over she got a sticker for her helmet and a colouring sheet to take home, and proudly told me she had so much fun!! I guess there's going to be a lot of public skating in my future this winter, as it's definitely going to take some practice to really get her going. But as a former figure skater & figure skating coach, I'm super excited my big girl is in lessons this year!

Gymnastics

Talia started gymnastics class last night.

Gymnastics with 3 and 4 year olds is pretty much the funniest thing ever. It sort of looks like one poor 19 year old drew the short straw and as a result has to herd a group of deaf and blind cats. I was impressed that all the kids were really great about taking turns.  It's so hilarious that they have no idea how to get in a line and keep moving one step up as the person in front goes back to the end - a reminder that although they aren't the little newborns we brought home, there is still a lot for them to learn.

Talia is the shortest in the class but probably has 10lbs on most of the other girls. The other parents probably think we feed her junk all the time, haha. We always call her our "delicate flower" or our "dainty ballerina" because she could not be further from either of these things. My rough and tumble little tomboy loves to jump, and stomp, and run fast but has yet to come into her big-girl co-ordination. She is so cute stomping around with the other kids! She has no idea that she can't do some of the things the other kids can, she just loves to be there in her "babing suit" and her "nastics syippers." It was really neat to see her listen and take direction from her teacher, and giggle with her little friends. My big girl.

I also love that they are all completely oblivious at this stage. I wish they would stay this way right through high school sports. The whole class cheered for the little girl who jumped off the trampoline perfectly the same way they cheered for my little girl, who was on a trampoline for the first time and sort of crawled/slid off, before jumping on the spot and throwing her arms triumphantly in the air. I like that we are in a small town and my kids will get to play any sport they want to - in fact, will be encouraged to do so just so there are enough kids to make a team, haha - and not have to deal with "making the cut" at an early age.

I don't know how much gymnastics they are going to learn, but I'm pretty sure Talia is going to have a great time. Maybe by the end of the session she'll even know how a line works.

Washing Tatoes

I like to get these kids out and about as often as possible. We all (Mommy included) behave better when we're not stuck in these 4 walls all day, everyday.   But I also want them to always know home is safe, and welcoming, and FUN. So when we're home, we make lots of messes, play with lots of toys, do lots of activities, make lots of crafts, watch lots of Dora (gag), etc. The busier we are, the happier we seem to be.
Today, however was a good reminder that we don't have to do much to have fun. Declan, Ruby & I went to Kids Spot with some friends while the big girls were at nursery school this morning, then we came home for lunch and naps. While the littles napped, Talia watched some Dora and then we worked on some letters together.

When Declan and Ruby woke up, I put some diapers in the wash and brought up some potatoes to get started on supper. Talia said "tan we hepp you wash dose tatoes?" It would have been easier, and faster, and a lot drier, to say no. But since Tal was a baby, we've involved her in the kitchen whenever we can. So I heaved a little sigh for the quick supper prep that almost was, and got Talia and Dirty Shirt Declan set up at the sink to wash dose tatoes.

They washed potatoes for about 1/2 an hour, squealing and giggling the entire time. They shared, and took turns, and were completely silly together. They got a little bit wet, they made a bit of a mess, but they had lots of fun and my potatoes have seriously never been so clean! We lost Declan's interest after the washing was done, but when I sliced the potatoes up, Talia dug in and tossed them around with some olive oil and seasonings, and put them on the cookie sheet for me. It was fantastic, since I hate getting my hands all oily, and she felt like such a big helper.  And sure, my little healthy eaters eventually turned their noses up at their hot dogs and fries in favour of fruit and peanut butter, but whatever. We had a good time getting it ready.


 It sort of freaks me out that Talia is already 3 - I remember tons of stuff from when I was 3!  What is she going to remember about our days at home?!? What will she remember about today? Will she remember that she was happy to see me when I picked her up from nursery school? Will she remember that I was frustrated and angry when she had an accident this afternoon? Will she remember how we giggled together, pretending to be frogs? I hope she remembers that she and her brother were welcome in our kitchen whenever they wanted to be there.

First Day

Talia started Nursery School this week. I've been telling her all summer that she was going to go to school with her friends Charli and Olivia, only to find out at the end of summer that there are 2 seperate classes and her friends were both in the other one. Whoops! I was pretty worried that this was going to be a big problem, because m'girl is so, so, so, so shy. So when I was talking to her teacher, I warned her that sometimes Talia spends an entire day at my friend's house (who she has known as long as she can remember) without saying 2 words AND without going potty for about 7 hours, and wondered if perhaps it might be helpful to have Tal in the same class as the other girls? But there were no open spaces in the other class, so I declined their offer to switch another kid out of that class to make room for Talia (I didn't want to start off as "that" mom, you know) and just braced myself for what I hoped would just be an interesting first couple of days.

I don't think Tal had much of a concept of school until last week, when we checked out a lot of "(Main Character)'s First Day of School" books. I told her that we were going to visit Grandma & Grandpa for the weekend, and then we would come home for 1 sleep, and then it would be time to go to school. Well. All weekend long all we heard was "My wanna go home and go to schoo!" When we finally did get home, we rushed to get supper and baths over with so we could get T & D to bed early, but she was so excited she just laid in her bed, singing about "schoo" until almost 10pm. Ordinarily the late night would get us off to a terrible start the next morning, but she woke up still excited to go to schoo! She posed for a few pictures with her Peeker Parker backpack and then toddled off to the van.

Once we got to schoo, I braced myself for a big melt-down - but m'girl totally surprised me! She had a huge grin and marched down those stairs like she owned the place. She went right into her classroom and started chatting away with her teacher. I got her new shoes out of her bag and she asked her teacher to help her put them on! HRMPH!

Anyway, she was too busy to notice I left and I was so happy. That's the way she always used to be once upon a time at Jodie's daycare as well, it was nice to see that happy little Talia-at-drop-off again. I took Declan and Ruby grocery shopping and then even had a few minutes to catch up on email and read my Kindle in the parking lot before it was time to go pick her up. When her teacher opened the classroom door and she saw me, she came running to me with the biggest grin and a huge hug, before running back to her teacher to say "Sankoo! See you next time!"

My big girl. Where did my baby go?

Random Updates

How can I live with this family of jokesters and have no good material for a blog post? Oh well. Here's what's new at the Raine Drop:

Talia
Talia is as crazy as her curls. She is getting to be such a big girl. We are getting ready for her to start Nursery School next week. She loves being outside, climbing, swinging, etc. but still does a bit of the Drunken Sailor while running around like a wild woman - just enough for me to get a glimpse of my baby girl every now and then. Today she spent the entire day with our friends and I missed her like crazy. I'm so lucky that I've had 2 extra mat leaves since she was born, I've gotten to spend so much time watching her grow up to this point.

Declan
Deckie Boy finally started walking last week! He's so cute toddling around all over the place. We call him "Dirty Shirt" because he hangs around everything Talia does. He loves his big sister and his little sister. I sometimes feel Ruby's life is in danger when Declan tries to "play" with her but he really is gentle and loving with her - as gentle and loving as an 18 month old daredevil can be, I suppose. He chatters away and loves to tell me "Noooooooooooooo!" in the sweetest, sassiest little voice you can imagine. He likes to team up with Talia to be a stinker - we are in all kinds of trouble when these kids are teenagers.

Ruby
Ruby is trying her hardest to get moving! She can pull herself short distances in this weird little army crawl, and also gets up on her knees. A baby that wants to move! Amazing. She seems to be more and more sensitive to dairy and soy, instead of growing out of it, which basically sucks. But we still have hope she'll grow out of it, and if not, hopefully she won't have an anaphylactic reaction to either. As more time passes since I last ingested dairy or soy, she is getting to be happier and happier. She is a really easy baby, loves to eat as much as her brother and sister did, and is already a couch potato.

Rainer
Rainer is super busy at work. You know what? July year-ends ruin your summer. Poor guy. But he is working hard for all of us and he is such an amazing Daddy and husband. We just wish we got to spend more time with him in July and August. He's hardly had time to have any fun in the pool he maintains or to play with the kids on the monstrosity of a playstructure that he built for them.

T McQ
I am really tired these days! We are so busy during the weekdays, trying to soak up every last bit of summer. I like to have the kids out and about - going to programs, playing outside, etc. It makes our days go fast and while it's taking its toll on me at this time of year, I keep pushing through because I know the -40 weather is coming!!! I'm still on my restricted diet for Ruby (the plus side to that is the positive impact it has on my waistline) and have started running to be ready for the Niverville 5k at the end of September. It will be my first race in a few years, and I'm pretty excited about it!