My 15.5 month old daughter walks for the first time

We've been waiting for my daughter to walk for a couple of months now.  My son walked at 11.5 months so I kind of expected my daughter to walk around the same time.  I really wanted to capture it on video because we captured my son's first steps on video.  Everytime she looked like she was going to walk, I would whip out my iPhone and start recording.  But each time, I just got a dud.  Yesterday, after CNY dinner at my in-laws, she finally walked for the first time..  Both my husband and I were there to witness it and he even caught it on his phone which was exactly what I wanted.

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Keith gets a driver's license

My 3.5 year old son had so much fun at Legoland. So much to do there.  It's definitely a park designed for younger children. We also went to SeaLife and saw fish, sharks, stingrays, octopus, and a really funny puppet show. We are going back again for the waterpark. It looked like a lot Of fun. Hope the weather is nice.

Mare-night

The other night, my daughter suddenly started crying in her sleep.  My son said, "She must be having a mare-night."  He means nightmare.  :)

Potty training failures and successes

At 3 years and 7 months old, my son is finally making some progress in the potty training department.  He's been pretty good about peeing in the potty as long as we remind him to go.  Even his overnight diapers have been dry.  He had an accident today after swimming because he didn't want to pee at the pool change room and I forgot to take him to pee when we got home.  So he had an accident in the kitchen.  argh.

Yesterday he had a poo accident because he didn't wait long enough for the poo to come out but today, we told him that he would get a popsicle treat if he waited for the poo to come out and he did it!  I'm so proud of him.

I can finally stop buying diapers for him.  What will I do with all the money that I'll save?

Tooth meets Scooter

Yesterday, my son had an accident in the playground.  The preschool said he was riding around the playground on a scooter and fell because he was going too fast.  His mouth hit the scooter on the way down so his gum was bleeding and one of his front tooth chipped.  

I called a good friend of ours who is a dentist and she saw him right away.  She filled the chip and took an x-ray of both front teeth.  It turns out that it is the other front tooth that is more concerning because there was some trauma to the tissue surrounding that tooth.  (Must be some kind of spiritual lesson here).  He needs to be on a soft/liquid diet for 10 days to allow the tissue around that tooth to heal.

Click here to see some pictures.

I think he was in shock more than anything because he didn't cry much but he was very tired after the whole incident.  He fell asleep in the car going home so we just put him to bed and he didn't eat dinner.  

This is the first real accident that my son has had.  We are thankful that it was not anything more serious and that the tooth was able to be fixed right away.  He was such a brave boy.  It totally helped that the dentist is our good friend so he was not scared while she was working on his tooth.  We are so blessed to have good friends!

Long Story Short

My son is a very slow eater.  He can sometimes spend over an hour eating breakfast.  So I decided to start doing devos with my son during our breakfast time together.  We have been going through this devo book called Long Story Short for the past 2 months.  I really like it because it goes through different aspects of each Bible story over the course of 5 days, connecting each story to Jesus and something from the Psalms/Proverbs/Prophets.  So far, we've gone through Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah and the Ark, Tower of Babel, and Abram/Abraham.  Through these stories, he has learned the names of Jesus from Isaiah 9:6 "Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace."  He learned that we will worship God with one voice in Heaven.  He learned that to 'delight' in God's Word means we to 'read it, enjoy it, and can't wait to read it again.'  It's amazing how much he can retain.  Now I don't mind that he eats slowly during breakfast because that just gives us more time to delight in God's Word together.

Winterfest at Markham Museum

Today is Family Day and we enjoyed it as a family.  We went for dimsum with a bunch of good friends in the morning and then headed to Markham Museum for their Winter Carnival.  It was freeeeeezing cold and we didn't bring snow pants for my son but we had a great time.  My son was so wiped out he fell asleep in the car on our way home around 3:30pm and didn't even wake up for dinner.  It's now 11pm so I hope he will just sleep through the night.

Making maple sugar candy

Building a snow fort

A reindeer

On a wagon ride

Big brother, little sister

It's amazing how different kids can be.  My son didn't sleep through the night until 7 months but my daughter has been sleeping through the night (10-14 hours) since 3 months.  My son was a good laugher by 4 months but my daughter rarely smiles.  Thankfully, both are good kids so far.  My son really loves his sister and wants to help whenever he can.  The other night, I put her in her crib for the night but she started crying.  I was going to let her cry-it-out but, after a few minutes, he went into her room and sang her a song to soothe her.  She stopped crying almost immediately and fell asleep.  He's such a sweet brother.

 

Finally caught a smiling one after taking 70 pictures - thank goodness for digital cameras!

We eat from the chair!

I was teaching my 3yo son about Adam and Eve and how they sinned because they ate the apple from the tree.  Then I told him that everybody sins except for Jesus.  Then he said, "No, we didn't eat from the tree.  We eat from the chair!"

Swimming lessons

I started taking my 3yo son to swimming lessons again.  Today was his 4th class and he started to swim by himself while holding the pool noodle.  He can climb out of the pool by himself and he even started to jump into the pool without holding onto my hand.  His progress is amazing.  At the beginning of each class, the instructor, Paul, gets them to do an airplane (front float), star fish (back float), and rocket (front glide).  Today, while my son was doing 'star fish', he says to me with a frown, "Mommy, my ears are not working.  They are turning on and off."  Kids say the funniest things.

Sleep Training Tips

I had to remove this post because I got a nasty comment.  I will no longer be recommending this person's sleep training workshop again.  

Potty success!

We've been potty training our 3 year old on and off for about 6 months now.  Part of the reason why it's taken so long is because I've been procrastinating.  I don't want to deal with accidents and I also dread having to take him to the bathroom when we are out.  But now that we have a newborn, I'm pretty tired of having to change his diapers.

Last Saturday, we tried to put him in underwear and within 2 hours, he wet/dirtied 4 underwears.  We didn't even get any pee/poo in the potty.  I was absolutely disgusted with having to clean him up after the poo accident.  Today, I decided to try again with Pretzel snacks (to make him thirsty and to act as a treat), apple cider (to quench his thirst, to fill his bladder, and to act as a treat), and the iTouch (to keep him entertained on the potty).  It worked!  He peed and pood in the potty while playing on the iTouch.  After he went, he got a pretzel and apple cider treat.  In the same way, he proceeded to pee in the potty after lunch, after his nap, and after dinner.  Yay!

learning to read

My almost-three year old son is starting to show off his reading abilities. the other day, he looked at the little label on my Crocs and proudly proclaimed, "C-R-O-C-S...spells SANDALS!"

Big boy bed

Tonight was the first night we let our son sleep by himself in his new double bed. We've been sleeping with him in the bed for the past several days to get him used to the bed and to make sure he doesn't fall off in the middle of the night. When I left him tonight, I told him that he is going to have to sleep all by himself and he started to cry. I gave him a hug and a kiss, reassured him that mommy loves him, and left the room. I was so sad to leave him. he looked so small in a double bed. I'm going to miss putting him in a crib. Children are forced to grow up too fast.

Well, turns out he cried for only 5 seconds after I left his room so maybe he's not that sad to be transitioning from his crib afterall.

Conversations

I was changing my son's diaper at toys r us today. After changing his diaper, I washed my hands and he said he wanted to wash his hands too so I put soap on his hands and proceeded to dry my hands so I could lift him up to wash the soap off his hands. Then he freaked out and said, "I don't want to wash my hands!". I told him that he has to wash the soap off his hands and he said, "I don't want to dry."

then I understood that he was scared of the hand drying machine, probably because it made a loud noise, so I told him that we would dry his hands with a paper towel. Then he let me wash and dry his hands; he was happy as a clam. What a difference communication makes. I'm so proud that my son is now able to carry meaningful conversations.

Now, on to potty training...

Transition from crib to big boy bed

We bought a new bed for our son over the weekend. After looking at many different stores, we decided on an Ikea Brimnes double bed. Despite the fact that the computer room where the new bed is going into is really small, my husband really wanted a double bed because he wants to sleep with our son sometimes and he didn't want our son to grow up in a single bed. he is convinced that our son will live at home until he is 35 and it's kind of embarrasssing to still be sleeping in a single bed when you are 35. I digress.

So we spent Sunday afternoon putting the bed together. It took about 2 hours but it was relatively painless. The last step was the slats. We bought an upgraded slat base (Sultan Laxeby) because I think it's important to have a good foundation for the mattress. It's like getting good bras. I digress again.

We quickly discovered that the assembly instructions
were missing as well as one of the components and we had a dinner to go to so we stopped for the day. So today, we went back to ikea to get the part and the instructions. We got home and started to put together the slats. It took us 1.5 hours to put half of it together and then we discovered that half the screws were missing. Very frustrating. We'll need to go back to ikea again tomorrow to get all the screws. Argh...

The moral of the story: pay for the assembly service (15% of purchase price, min $50) or don't buy an ikea bed with laxeby slats.

Please and thank you

I'm so proud of my son. We were at a restaurant for lunch yesterday and, unprompted, my son said "thank you" whenever the waiter gave him something or took something away. He even said "can I have a plate please?" when the waiter came around with the bread plates. I was very impressed.

dinner at Ikea

My son and I went to Ikea for dinner today. For $1.99, he had 5 meatballs, french fries, and a carton of 2% milk. Also for $1.99, I had a plate of penne with marinara sauce and a glass of water. You can't even buy the groceries for $4! We had a great time.

flattered

My 2.5 yr old son actually commented on my dress today. As we were walking into Loblaws, he stopped, touched my dress, and said something along the lines of "Mommy is wearing a dress". I don't wear dresses very often and this is probably the first time that he has noticed me wearing a dress. I hope it'll be a long time before he notices other girls wearing dresses!

Page 28

Last night, my son wanted me to read him something from his nursery rhyme book. Specifically, he wanted me to read/sing "Hush Little Baby". So I turned to the table of contents and found it listed as being on page 28. Tonight, he asked for the same book and said "Hush little baby 21" and then quickly corrected himself, "No no, 28!" I must have said page 28 last night when I looked for it in the table of contents but I was surprised that he picked it up and actually remembered the page number. It's amazing.