Category Archives: The Girl

Twelve Months Old – Happy First Birthday, Owlet!

A year ago, after two or three weeks of extremely frustrating prodromal labour, I woke up at 4:00 in the morning with the usual contractions and got up to walk around as always, then realized that finally, this was the real thing. Four hours later, we had a beautiful little daughter.

We had trouble those first five weeks, what with the undiagnosed tongue-tie and the major feeding issues related to it. And the emotional issues, too, thanks to the CLSC nurses pressuring me about her slow weight gain. On the other hand, we acquired a wonderful pediatrician who said we were doing just fine, who was (and is) thrilled to bits with how we handled things, so I think we came out ahead regardless. And everything was solved, as anyone looking at the terribly plump Owlet in months four through eleven can affirm.

Owlet can walk, do that stumbling toddler run with her arms out in front of her for balance (usually accompanied by a huge grin and a stuttering giggle), wave hi and bye (and has started doing it to things passing on the street and people she sees while she’s out), open the pantry and pull out a sleeve of crackers (and try to eat them through the cellophane, argh), splash some very impressive splashes in the bathtub, climb up two stairs (only if unsupervised, and she can’t get back down yet), slide off the chesterfield by herself (but not climb onto it), and handle sippy cups like a pro. She has darling little baby curls in that nondescript light brown/dark blonde colour, and grey eyes that are sometimes more blue and sometimes more green, like her dad’s eyes. She loves food so much that she stuffs whole handfuls into her mouth at a time at meals. She can use a spoon or fork once or twice at a sitting, but usually ends up accidentally dumping off what it’s carrying as she flips it over on its way to her mouth, and then drops the utensil in favour of her more dexterous fingers. We’re still working on slowing her down so that she doesn’t stuff a billion pieces of something in her mouth at once, then choke when she takes a drink or tries to swallow it all. Sometimes we get so cross that we take her plate away and put a single bit of food down for her at a time, but that frustrates her as well and ensures that no one can eat in peace. She has eight teeth, and we are fairly certain her molars are starting to move. She learned how to blow kisses on her birthday, but she doesn’t kiss her hand; she kisses her pointing finger and then points it at whoever she’s blowing kisses to.

She talks all the time. She’s at that delightful stage where she babbles in a lovely liquidy flow, and it actually sounds like a foreign language, complete with inflections and with facial expressions. She is especially fond of words that begin with the letter B, such as bye, ball, book, and baa. Cat, meow, woof, more, that (da), Mama, and Dada are in regular rotation. Today hat and Gryff joined the lexicon. She doesn’t usually repeat words we give her, but every once in a while she’ll do it out of the blue and it just sounds so odd. She’s better with books than she used to be, but she does turn pages very quickly, so reading the full story isn’t always possible.

She likes to roughhouse with Sparky and her dad and Gryffindor. If they’re piled on top of one another, she throws herself on top of them all, chortling. If anyone is lying down on the floor, she will try to tickle them (and because she is one, and her dexterity is not yet refined, this often means she pummels them with enthusiasm). Gryffindor has the patience of a saint with her, as she buries her fists in his fur and hauls up handfuls of him, chews on the tip of his tail, or drops her whole head into his belly and rubs her face in his fluff. He just lies there and purrs. She watched Sparky play with Gryff a couple of weeks ago, dragging a string around for him and dangling the Little Gryff toy for him to bat at. (Little Gryff is a small crocheted amigurumi Ceri made for Sparky that Gryff appropriated to carry around and sleep with.) The next morning Owlet found the Little Gryff in her box of toys, where it had been tossed during cleanup the night before. She pulled it out and toddled into the kitchen where the cat was sitting under the table. She crouched down and pushed the toy at him. We watched, fascinated, as she worked out how to dangle the toy from the yarn tied to it, then as Gryff finally clued in to what she was doing, and rolled on his back to bat at it. They played together for about ten minutes.

She wears size 4 diapers (we’re using disposables at night because she sleeps through and a cloth diaper just can’t handle eleven hours, no matter how we stuff it; the damp feeling wakes her up), size 4 shoes (although her toes are peeking over the end of her sandals, so it may well be size 5), and size 18-24 months clothes. She loves to eat crackers, cheese, bananas, watermelon, cherry tomatoes, peaches, and anything else I hand her. She loves to drink milk with her lunch and supper just like Sparky, and water during the day. Nursing is down to when she wakes up in the morning, and before her morning and afternoon naps, although occasionally she asks for a quick nosh in the afternoon before supper, or when she is very upset about something. HRH gives her a bottle at night, and that’s their time together. She used to fall asleep in his arms, but now when she’s finished the bottle she squirms, so her puts her down awake in her crib and says good night, and she beetles about and plays with her stuffed rabbits and reads her cloth books until she falls asleep.

The summer camp routine really helped structure her day. Now the day runs roughly like this: She wakes around 6:00, nurses, then has some Cheerios for breakfast while she plays, then has fruit as a second breakfast at the table around 8:30 or 9:00. She goes down for a nap around 9:45, and sleeps about an hour and a half. Lunch is at 12:00, and the afternoon nap happens around 2:30, again for about an hour and a half. Supper is around 6:00, and bedtime routine starts at 7:00. She’s usually asleep by 7:45, and sleeps all the way through the night now, as a rule.

She is great fun to be with, although she seems to be a bit of an accident magnet these days. In the past seven days there have been four incidents of broken glass, three of which have involved her directly somehow (a jar being knocked out of the fridge while she’s standing there looking into it, a floor lamp falling over while she tries to slip past it and the glass shade shattering, and so forth). She loves to pull toys out of boxes, gloves and scarves out of baskets, and dishcloths off rails. She is terribly social and loves to be out and about, especially in grocery stores and shops of any kind because she can people-watch.

We may be her world, but Sparky is her hero. She adores being with him, and will kind of stalk him with a low ongoing giggle and open, eager smile, her hands out to touch him. She wants to do anything he’s doing, and if he plays with her she’s in absolute heaven. We put both of them in the bath together the other night to play, instead of just dipping her in and swishing her around to get her clean, and they splashed one another and played with the stacking cups and giggled for ages. He kept giving her hugs and saying, “You know, having a bath with you is really fun.” He does get a little frustrated when he tries to build a full tower with her blocks for her and she knocks it down three blocks into the endeavour, but we remind him that he used to do the same thing, and that she is having fun no matter what.

The other day I carried Owlet in the ring sling at the library, as it was just a quick visit to drop off books and check the new releases shelf, so getting her into the stroller wasn’t worth it. I grabbed a book and was standing in line to check it out when she waved her hand at it and said, “Boh.” “Yes, book,” I said. “Boh,” she said, a little louder. “Yes, it’s a book,” I said again. Then she slapped the book good and hard, with a crack that echoed through the tiny, silent library, and squawked, “BOO!” with a huge grin.

You can’t shush a baby who has just gleefully identified a book in the library. I’m sure there’s a moral law against it.

(For comparison: Here is Sparky’s twelve-month post.)

Good Things So Far Today

It’s only halfway through the day and already good things have happened that are worthy of recording.

  • I made quiche (affectionately known as Kitchen Sink Quiche, because apart from the two eggs and the milk, I toss whatever is in the fridge into it; today it was grated zucchini from the school’s garden, aged cheddar, diced ham, red pepper, and broccoli, all in a homemade crust) It was absolutely delicious.
  • We brought the delicious quiche over to Kristie’s house and fed it to her.
  • We got to watch Owlet and Rowan play together, which was thoroughly enjoyable, partly because they played so very well with one another and partly because it was my daughter playing with Rob’s son. That’s special indeed.
  • Our garden has been producing lovely peas and cherry tomatoes, upon which we have all been snacking, and the Beefsteak and whatever the other kind of full-size tomatoes we planted is are nearly ripe. And my basil, chives, and parsley (which all got chopped and tossed into the quiche) are bushy and healthy.

And yesterday:

  • HRH installed the shelving we had stored away in the front hall closet and the attic office cupboard, and we sorted through and organized shoes (which all have their own shelves now instead of being in a pile on the floor, thank the gods) and all my yarn and fibre (ditto, hurrah!). I found the missing bag of organic Merino I got for dyeing, and a couple of other bags of fibre I’d forgotten I had, including a braid of lovely Ozark silk sliver in pale greens, pinks, and cream. It looks like watercolours.
  • I sorted through the other set of baby clothes for 2-4 year olds and found the missing denim ball cap Sparky wore when he was a baby, as well as more soft shoes and lots of socks.
  • We finished watching Sora no Woto with Marc M, and it may just be my favourite anime series we’ve watched together so far. It was beautifully told and illustrated, and had lovely music.

In Which She Celebrates The Good Stuff

There, all that’s out of the way, now. Good things have been happening, too! In my last really, really rough patch I would try to blog daily about the things I’d accomplished or the good things that had happened. I can’t blog anywhere near daily, but I can attempt to get back into the rhythm of writing down the good stuff when possible, to remind myself that even when things are horrendously bad there is still positive to be accentuated.

Sparky’s two-week session of day camp came to an end on Friday. We had a parents’ tour that afternoon, where we went from activity to activity and the kids showed off what they’d learned. He very obviously adored science, because he sat right next to the teacher and raised his hand to answer every question. His focus and control in his karate class blew us away, and when the bell rang to move us to the next activity we rushed up to the teacher and asked her if she taught. She no longer does, although she gave us the name of the school in Boucherville she learned at, so we’ll look into that. (Seriously; this kid not only learned all the moves she taught them, but the first kata, and did it all in two languages he doesn’t speak.)

Drums was next. Now, there was a problem with drums. The first Friday, the teacher met us when the kids came out and said that there seemed to be a disconnect, and that Sparky was doing a lot of trying to talk his way out of working on what he’s been given in class. “He’s a perfectionist,” I said, “and if he thinks he can’t do something well right off the bat he tries to talk his way out of doing it at all.” “Exactly,” the teacher said, giving me that complicit aha-so-you-know look. He suspected Sparky might be happier elsewhere. He advised thinking about it over the weekend and bringing an answer on Monday. It was done with a lot of respect and obvious care for Sparky’s enjoyment of the experience. Over the weekend we talked about how it was okay to not be great at everything as soon as you started, and how he could always ask the teacher for help, and if the teacher was willing to send home the notation we could help him with the first two basic rhythms that the teacher was asking for by the end of the two-week period, and he was okay with that. So he stayed in drums. Well, on parents’ day, the four other kids did their turns and were all amazingly good, and right away we knew what had happened: Sparky was comparing himself to kids who were almost twice his age and who very obviously had previous experience with drums. And when his turn to show us what he’d done came, he sat at the drum kit and kind of folded in on himself, and just couldn’t even play. So his teacher suggested that after the choral concert at the end of the afternoon, we’d meet back in the drum room and he could play for just us, with no other kids or families around. He agreed to this readily, and we moved across the hall to his art class, where of course he’d had lots of fun.

The choral concert was great — I love hearing a group of kids sing, they’re always so enthusiastic and all over the place — and then we went down to the drum room again, where Sparky picked up his sticks and played his rhythms for us without a problem, including fills that he’d only learned that day or the day before. All of us were very proud of him. The teacher said that he suspected that it had been the noise and intimidation factor of the other kids’ skills that worked against him, and the fact that it was the biggest class of kids and so Sparky just got buried in the noise, being the youngest and the least accustomed to the experience. We all told Sparky how happy we were that he’d stuck it out and achieved his basic goal. And to top it all off, he had the excitement of breaking one of his drumsticks, splitting the tip. We told him that Marc Le Guen and Daphne, our friends who drum, would be very, very proud of him.

All the teachers, monitors, and coordinators said how much they’d enjoyed having him, and asked if he was coming back for the last two-week session, but he wasn’t, because we’d only registered for one session since we didn’t know if it was going to be a good fit or not. We’re definitely going to send him back next year, though, hopefully for four weeks.

Owlet enjoyed the camp experience, too! She loved being social with everyone when we dropped Sparky off and picked him up every day. She especially loved the little girls, who would drift nearby and peek at her. She’d toddle up to them and reach over to touch their hair or their cheeks, or reach up for an adult’s hand. It was fun to sit on the grass with her and watch her interact with people, with delighted grins and the occasional hug. I think she’ll miss it.

Work has gone well, too. I finished the YA novel edit and sent it in (after working till midnight the morning before it was due, gah). The coordinator sent it to the author almost right away the next morning, and the author sent a note that very afternoon that was passed on to me, saying that she’d glanced at the edits and they were great, to thank me very much for my work, and that she was glad I’d enjoyed the book. That’s huge. It’s hard to receive edits as an author, so to get a thank you made my day. I try to deliver my edits in as supportive a way as possible, because as an author myself I know how crushing any edits of any kind can be. I also indicated that I was more than happy to do more YA fiction edits for the new imprint, which my coordinator was very glad to hear. So that’s two freelance cheques that should arrive in August. It feels so good to be working again.

I am participating in the Ravellenic Games this year (a mass knitting event that runs parallel to, and in celebration of, the Olympics), because my online July 2001 mamas knitting group is a fantastic bunch of people who wildly support my flailing attempts at knittery, and they were such good sports about me geeking out about spinning during the Tour de Fleece. I am knitting my very first cotton washcloth, and not only am I purling, I am now over halfway done, and I only cast on on Friday night!

I skeined up the Rambouillet I finished plying, too, and dear gods, it is possibly the most beautiful yarn I have ever spun,and I have spun some very nice stuff. The colours are a bit odd in photos, but in person they’re really lovely and subdued, and it’s just so soft and silky to touch.

I think I will cuddle and pat it for a while, and then I may earmark it for socks. Rambouillet is now currently tied with BFL/silk as my top wool to spin any time, anywhere. Oh, I am so very far behind on photographing and sharing shots of my handpsun over the last year. I know there are photos of the heathered red mystery wool I spun longdraw missing, and a bunch of the coloured fibre I did last spring and summer like the Louet Karaoke top in “Parrotfish,” some Projekt B batts and braids, and that sort of thing…

I think that’s about it for now. We’re currently in countdown mode for Owlet’s first birthday. She’s been walking for a while, but I keep calling her a baby. I’m giving myself the rest of the week to use that term, and then we really must officially switch to “toddler” or “little girl.”

More Brief Bits Of Daily Life

It is official: Owlet is walking. We have decided to formally confirm it as of Saturday. She’s been doing about three steps solo from here to there for a few weeks, of course, but Saturday she was following her brother around as he played with the cat and a remote-controlled R2D2, trying so hard to keep up with one hand along the wall or a table… until she finally got fed up, and just started walking determinedly after them. And now there’s no stopping her.

Saturday night was also the first time we left the kids alone with a non-family member babysitting them. Everything was peaceful and there were no hiccoughs. That’s a huge milestone for us, and opens up so many possibilities. Yay!

Among the wonderful things I received for my birthday, I got my very first pair of handknit socks from Ceri, about which I am positively giddy. It’s a lovely leaf pattern knit in a yellow and green Koigu yarn, the exact colours of willow leaves turning to yellow in fall. I adore them and I really ought to photograph them. I now need to start stalking the thrift shops for the perfect pair of shoes to wear with them.

Sparky is loving camp. There was an unfortunate beginning on the first day where the bell rang suddenly to signal the start of the day, and as he was already feeling trepidatious because he didn’t know what to expect and knew no one, he ended up in tears running after his first teacher and the rest of his little class as they all moved off casually, but the rest of his day was brilliant and he adores it. (I put a lucky penny loaded with love and kisses into his shoe to help him through the first couple of days, and I am told that it helped.) I wish we could afford to send him for all six weeks.

We’re working on slowing Owlet down when she eats. Most of the time she remembers to sign for more once she’s stuffed something in her mouth, so that’s an improvement. The other day we were in the car and I was passing bits of toasted bagel back to her. We had a run of green lights so there was a lull in the passing. She started making the “more” sign, but I didn’t see her, of course, because she faces backward and I was driving. She got very annoyed at me and started squawking to make me look up and see her making the exaggerated motion through the rear-view mirror. Hey, Mum, I’m doing everything right, and you’re not feeding me! What kind of reinforcement is this?

The Tour de Fleece spinning continues, and ends this coming Sunday. I plied and skeined my Teeswater samples, and I quite like them. In the top photo, the woollen-spun two-ply is on the left, and the semi-worsted two-ply on the right; in the lower photo, with the customary penny for comparison, the semi-worsted is on the top and the woollen on the bottom:

Stats for posterity:
Woollen: 16 wpi single, 10 wpi two-ply, 11g, about 28 yards
Semi-worsted: 36 wpi single, 20 wpi two-ply, 13g, about 75 yards

I don’t think I’m going to make it to the corespinning, because it would take a lot of time to find the right core yarn and decide on the fibre with which to wrap it, but today I started spinning my sample of the Cormo/silk blend Bonnie did that has been sitting in my stash for a couple of years now, and oh dear my. Zomg, people. Cormo. Cormo/silk. It’s like… like… spinning clouds. Or butter. Or buttery clouds. (But not cloudy butter.) It’s so soft. I was fully expecting to do just a couple of grams today, but it wanted to be spun really, really finely and really quickly, so I blazed through it at high speed and now I have just a couple of grams left to go. And then I think I’ll chain-ply it, because it doesn’t want to be a two-ply, and I’m not winding it off onto three separate bobbins for a three-ply.

And here is a spinning story for you.

I was setting up to spin the last of the drafted Teeswater. Owlet came up to me and gently touched the nests of fibre on my lap. “Baa,” she said. (She has previously made the connection that the fluffy white stuff I spin is sheep. Or maybe just that it’s white and fluffy like the baas in her books.) “Yes, baa,” I agreed. She watched me spin for a while, getting all over the wheel as she always does, yanking on the Scotch tension cord, getting her hands thwacked by the flyer and the hooks as they spun, grabbing the footmen, and trying to stick her finger into the metal orifice as the single disappeared into it. Finally, to distract her, I said, “Where’s Owlet’s Baa? Where’s your sheep?” (A friend’s daughter gave her a little stuffed lamb dressed up in an Easter bunny suit, which she calls Baa, like all other sheep.) Without hesitating, she turned around and looked at where it was in a small basket of toys, then trundled off to get it. I got to concentrate on the Teeswater for a minute before she was back. “Baa,” she said, and pushed the toy at the orifice.

She pushed the sheep at the orifice. Where I was feeding the wool. The white, fluffy baa is spun, and goes to be fed onto the bobbin.

True story. The level of comprehension and complexity of connection involved astound me.

Random Updates From Daily Life

(This was written, then I forgot to hit publish. Your RSS feeds aren’t confused; I backdated it to when it should have appeared.)

Owlet is walking, albeit stealthily. This morning I watched from the kitchen as she stood up in the middle of the living room, bounced in place for a bit, looked over at her toys by the wall, and walked over to them before plopping herself down. Ha ha; we see you, baby. It’s not a secret.

Sparky starts camp on Monday. His info packet arrived a few days ago, and his personal schedule came by e-mail. Guess who needs his own set of drumsticks? (We have one. It’s just amusing.) He’s doing science, karate, choir, drums, and art/cartooning. We also got the info packet for the International School, so we have supply lists and fee deadlines and so forth. He’s going to start halfway through the last week of August, and the first two days are mornings only, with the Friday being the first whole day, followed by the three-day Labour Day weekend. The ped days at this school are scattered through the weeks instead of being clumped into a long weekend, which is nice in a way.

HRH has painted the front awning! (Or whatever the thing over the front door is called. We call it the awning, even though it’s solid.) It was a horrible faded purple, once brown, we suspect. I chose a lovely dark green, and it looks wonderful. He’s going to continue the green up around the trim that’s the same faded purple-brown later this year when it isn’t so stupidly humid and hot. Next year we’ll tackle scraping and repainting the white ironwork and it will be the finishing touches on the front exterior.

(That’s actually not a very good colour match for the real thing. It looks more blue than dark green here. But anyway.)

I’m participating in the Tour de Fleece for the first time this year. (I’ve also signed up for the Ravelymics Ravellennic Games for the first time. Hanging out with my online July 2011 babies group of knitting mamas is doing weird things to me.) My personal goals were to spin for about fifteen minutes a day, to sample the Teeswater I got in a swap last year, to sample the Cormo/silk that Bonnie blended, and to attempt a new technique like corespinning. So far I am good on the first two, so now I get to choose one of the last two and give it a go. I’ve got one week left.

I received another freelance project, this one editing a YA science-fiction/paranormal title. My publisher recently launched a couple of fiction imprints, one for YA, and so this is my first pro fiction copyedit. It’s very exciting. I’m ahead of schedule because it’s good and an easy read. This is a nice switch from trudging through the fiction manuscripts from the self-publisher I used to work for, where I had to read them in order to evaluate them. I was instructed to edit this with a very light hand, which also helps. It’s also a nice switch from the last book I edited, a non-fiction book on manicure art, where I handed it back more red than black after rearranging and rephrasing and clarifying steps. Step-by-step instruction is hard to write for most authors, pro or not, so a lot gets reworked in the editing stage to clarify what the reader doesn’t know simply because they’re not the author.

Owlet: Eleven Months Old!

Someone has turned into a walking, talking, eating machine!

Yes, we have walking, although Owlet prefers to still hold onto things to get around. She has taken casual solo steps here and there, up to two or three at a time. One day, walking with stiffer legs so that she doesn’t collapse like a wet noodle just kind of clicked. She does a great job of ambling along beside someone, holding on to a finger. She’s also mastered the art of crouching down to get something and standing back up again without pulling herself up, and of getting to her feet from a sitting position unassisted. The coordination required is just amazing, and it’s incredible to watch the constant readjusting of balance and position so that she doesn’t fall over. It’s particularly impressive when she does it on our bed, which is a non-solid surface and requires even more constant balance adjustment. She walks everywhere there’s something to hold on to, only getting down to crawl if the gap is too big to cross by stretching her arm out to grab the next solid object. She’ll stand casually next to a table or shelf if she wants to use both hands. She can get down off the chesterfield on her own, too, by getting onto her tummy and wriggling her legs back over the edge of the seat, then sliding down on her own. If she’s walking holding on to someone’s hand (or being carried) she’ll point to direct us to where she wants to go next.

The talking is finally happening more. I will admit, I knew Sparky was an early talker (and a late walker) so I wasn’t counting on words too early, but even so, I was watching Owlet with a bit of anxiety because she didn’t seem interested in mimicking sounds. Well, that slammed into gear this month. She can now repeat sounds if she’s in the right headspace. “What does the sheep say?” I asked her again one day. (Actually, in Owlet’s world, everything that isn’t a cat or a dog says “baa.”) “Aa,” she said. “Baa,” I corrected her. She looked at me and thought for a moment, then said, “Buh–aa” so carefully. Pointing made its debut this past month, along with the word “Da?”, so we’re giving her news words all the time at her own request. New words include up, more, book (boh), bugs (buh), tiger (tiya), that (da), up, meow, uh-oh, oopsie, cheese (shee). She was chewing on Sparky’s hat the other day, then held it out to us and said, “Eeyahn!” before smiling and hugging it. She uses certain words consistently, like Mama, Dada, ba (bottle), meh (milk), and ca (cat). Her comprehension is developing independently of her spoken language, too. She knows what “Drink your milk!” means: it means ‘stop looking around and get back to nursing,’ and she does so when I say it. She knows what “Do you want some milk?” means, too; it means we’re going to sit down and nurse. “Do you want a cracker?” makes her grin and huff with delight and make a beeline for the pantry (which she can now open and pull out the cracker box, yikes).

As for food… good grief. The problem is slowing her down, she is so enthusiastic about it. We’ve made some progress using utensils. The fork works better than the spoon, but is still problematic because there’s a big ball on the end of the handle, which is much more attractive to put in one’s mouth than the food on the other end. Using drier food seems to help, too; goopy stuff like oatmeal doesn’t work as well when she practices. We found a secondhand wooden high chair in the local classifieds (IKEA stopped making these somewhere around Christmas, right after we decided we’d wait to buy it, grr) so we can pull her right up to the table now just like the rest of us, which delights her to no end.

We discovered that she is a monster for garden strawberries. Sparky and I picked the first ones on a sunny day in early June, and I bit some off and gave it to her. Then she promptly tried to climb me to get the rest. Halfway through June we sat next to the garden and ate our way through handfuls of them. She loves them so much. Actually, I don’t yet know of a food she doesn’t like. She adores eating, and I’m enjoying it while it lasts. All too soon I know the beige diet — chicken, pasta, bread, potatoes — will hit. New foods this month include lasagna, hot dogs, hamburgers, homemade granola bars, kiwi, oranges, and a taste of vanilla ice cream! That went over so well she kept banging the table every time I dipped my spoon into my bowl so I’d give her more.

The big food-related news is the introduction of cow’s milk. A couple of nights ago after our baby velociraptor had stuffed herself with her heaping bowl of pasta, mixed veg, and cheese, she polished off her sippy cup of water and then started pointing at everyone else’s drinks and making the “gimmee” grabby hand sign for more. Ron said, “Do you want some milk like Liam?” So I shrugged, got a different sippy cup out of the cupboard (the one made like the bottles we’ve been using), put two ounces of milk in it and handed it to her to see what would happen. And she guzzled it back with delight. So, er, no adjustment issues there. I’ll give her a couple of ounces per day and see how she does, but not replace anything with it yet.

Books are finally interesting… still to chew, but now to sit and turn pages, too. One of her favourite pastimes is pulling her board books off the various shelves we’ve put them on for her to sort through, and sitting amid the pile to page through them. It’s a relief to finally be able to sit and read to her. The books do have to be board books, and there can only be a few words on each page because she is very enthusiastic about flipping pages (forward or backward, it matters not), but it’s a huge stride forward from before when she wouldn’t sit for books at all.

About halfway through June we took the twin bed I’d been sleeping in out of her room, and moved all her furniture back to where we’d originally planned to put it. She’d been waking up only once a night after about eight hours of sleep for a brief nursing session, so we felt safe in moving me back downstairs where I can respond to the monitor, and she doesn’t panic if it makes me an extra minute or two to get to her. It’s nice to be back in my own bed, although I miss being with her, too. Starting the last week of June she slept all through the night, but her daytime naps promptly went screwy. When she wakes up on her own, she’ll read her cloth books that are in the corner of her bed, and it’s fun hear her talking to herself as she explores flaps and crinkly pages. She can entertain herself for twenty minutes like that.

These days her schedule sort of looks like this: She wakes around 6:00, naps from 8:30/9:00 for an hour to an hour and a half, lunches at noon, naps again from 12:30/1:00 for another hour to hour and a half, supper is at 6:00, then bed is around 6:30. If she misses a nap or they’re cut short by teething or whathaveyou, she often has a catch-up catnap around 4:00 to 5:00, and then bedtime is a bit later, between 7:00 and 7:30. And she’s starting to sleep round the clock till 6:00ish the next morning. Lately there has been a middle of the night wakeup again, but she either self-soothes back to sleep or just needs her back patted and her soother found, or a cuddle.

We’re at an awkward stage during the day. We can’t let her play alone, because she’s mobile and at the into-everything stage. (My wheel has a child lock thorough the spokes now, and has been relegated to the front entryway which we don’t use; she’s still determined to get into it, though.) I can’t just sit with her; she demands full attention, which drains me. So we kind of go back and forth between the two, although I am trying to teach her to entertain herself while I bake or tidy or do laundry. Her favourite toys are paper catalogues. (Eating paper is one of her pastimes, much to our frustration.) She still loves to jump and bounce. Coasters are among her preferred things to gnaw on. Knocking down block towers is a great new game, as is rolling balls back and forth. I bought her a cloth doll to see if something with a human face would grab her attention as a lovey more than a stuffed animal, and we had great success; she loves it with a fierce passion. We show it to her and she absolutely lights up, reaches her hands out for it and bounces or giggles, then crushes it to her chest with more wiggles of delight once it’s in her hands. Then she usually stuffs it in her mouth, because she’s teething, but when she’s quiet she often holds it in her lap and looks at the doll’s face, stroking it and playing with the yarn hair. She called it “Fff,” so I named it Evie, and now she can say that, too (although it does come out as “Eeefee.”). I need to buy a second identical one and switch them back and forth, because after only two or three weeks this one has a certain sour aroma and needs a wash.

Her first big party kind of outing was this past Canada Day and my concert. She adored the parade, kicked her legs and clapped for the bagpipes as they went by (much to her father’s delight), and kicked her legs and tried to sing along at the concert, too, so HRH had to take her outside. But she is so social that the entire night was fun for her.

Tooth #8 finally arrived, the second lateral incisor on the lower right. She keeps stuffing her fingers along the left back of her jaw; we think her first-year molars may be starting to grumble deep in the depths of her gums.

She is wearing size 4 in disposable diapers (we had to start using one at night because she feels the wet in the cloth ones too easily and it wakes her up completely in the middle of the night when she gets to the surface of a sleep cycle; the disposable lets her go back to sleep), her shoe size is something like size 4 or 5 (I have no real idea, as she hasn’t worn real shoes yet, just the soft leather ones), and in general she is still wearing 18-24 mos clothes. Her face, trunk, and arms are slimming out with all this new activity, while her legs still solid and adorably chunky-fat.

Yesterday I saw Owlet toddle by under her own steam holding a small sippy cup of cow’s milk (now a treat), pause, tilt it back to drink, and then keep going on her way. Our baby is perilously close to toddlerhood, and only one month away from a year old.

Canada Day Concert Reminder!

What? Canada Day approacheth? Why then, the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra Canada Day concert must be nigh!

On Sunday July 1 the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will be giving a free (yes, free!) concert as part of the overall Canada Day celebrations in conjunction with Pointe-Claire Village. We do this every year, and it’s always terrific fun. Our conductor is the justly famed Stewart Grant, who is phenomenal.

This year’s programme has a Northern theme and features music from Scandinavian, Russian, and Canadian composers:

    Glinka: Russlan & Ludmilla overture
    Borodin: Symphony no. 3
    Grant: Chaconne
    Grieg: Peer Gynt
    Sibelius: Finlandia

The concert begins at 20h00. As always, this Canada Day concert is being presented at St-Joachim church in Pointe-Claire Village, located right on the waterfront at 2 Ste-Anne Street, a block and a half south of Lakeshore Road. The 211 bus from Lionel-Groulx metro drops you right at the corner of Sainte-Anne and Lakeshore. Here’s a map to give you a general idea. I usually encourage those facing public transport to get together and coax a vehicle-enabled friend along by offering to buy them an ice cream or something. It works nicely, and it’s fun to go with a group. And hey, you can’t beat the price. Be aware that if you’re driving, parking will be at a premium because of the whole Canada Day festivities thing going on. Give yourself extra time to find a parking place and walk to the church, which will be packed with people.

As it’s a holiday, the village will be full of various celebrations, booths, food stalls, and the like. You might want to come early and enjoy what’s going on.

Free classical music! Soul-enriching culture! And as an enticing bonus, the fireworks are scheduled for ten PM, right after we finish, and the church steps are a glorious spot from which to watch them. Write it on your calendar, tell all your friends and family members! The more the merrier!

(If you need more enticement, there will be a certain little girl in attendance. It will be her first concert. That means we won’t be staying for the fireworks this year, though; we’re going to need to leave ASAP, as it will be way, way past her bedtime and we have a forty-five minute drive home.)