A Conversation Overheard This Morning

Sweetpea: "We could get snow cones, I love snow cones!"

Mr. Man: "You have never had a snow cone before."

Sweetpea: "But I love them!"

Mr. Man: "You love mass marketing."

Sweetpea: "No, that's too spicy."

Facebook Made Me Do It

So everyone on Facebook is interviewing their kids, how could I resist? Resistance - totally futile. Totally.

Teagan is four.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
I love you.

2. What makes mom happy?
Doing a good job.

3. What makes mom sad?
When I hit you.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Tickling.

5. What was your mom like as a child?.
I dont know, I wasn't born yet!

6. How old is your mom?
I don't know - that's a lot!

7. How tall is your mom?
So tall!

This is a lot of questions about you. What about questions about me?

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Work.

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
Do classes with Carolyn.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Can you answer this question for me, I don't really understand.

11. What is your mom really good at?
Spelling Nick Jr!

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Getting Blues Clues to work on Pauls computer.

13. What does your mom do for her job?
Make sure people buy things.

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
Salad.

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
When you listen to me.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Maybe a squirrel or a raccoon.

17. What do you and your mom do together?
We snuggle. Play games. Lots!

18. How are you and your mom the same?
We're not very the same.

19. How are you and your mom different?
We have different coloured hair.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Because she loves me SO MUCH.

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
To work.

You know, we are talking an awful lot of things about you, we should talk about what I like. We should talk about questions about me!

My favorite movie is all of the girl movies.
My favorite book is Olivia and the Missing Toy
My favorite food is lots of stuff but NOT SALAD.
My favorite song is My Pegasus.
My favorite colour is PINK!
My favorite letter is T

Apparently I am just not all that interesting to the small creature that I graciously brought into this world. That's gratitude for you.

What Did Parents Do Before Google?

This week I have spent a whole lot time with a very sick and very bored four year old, and have reached new insights into the way her brain works. I fear for us all.

Questions she has asked this week:

• What are mermaid scales made of?


• Are they different than fish scales?


• We know that mermaids live in the ocean, but can they live in ponds, lakes and rivers?


• What colour are our brains?


• Why do we have two feet? Is it so our shoes match?


• I know Canada is on the planet earth. What planet is Germany on?


• Are you sure it is on the same planet? I think we should check.


• How old are you?


• You are very old, Mommy, you should stop having birthdays. Right now. You've had enough, don't you think?


• Who lives in the center of the earth?


• Are you sure no one lives in the center of the earth? I think we should check.


• How did they pick the name for the colour blue? Why don't we call it green, or yellow?


• Can you wash the throw up out of my shoes, please?

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others...

... or, why one shouldn't examine Richard Scarry too closely.

I have just finished reading Busy, Busy Town for the eight millionth time, and I am very disturbed. Why, for instance, do farmer and Mrs. Haystack, both goats, keep chickens? Why does Mr. Pig have a cow? And why, oh why, at the grocery store, is the nice butcher pig grinding up meat while sausages hang jauntily behind him? Why?!!

It's a little too Animal Farm meets Soylent Green for my tastes.

Oh well, the four year old loves it.

The Tradition Continues...

You will be pleased to note on this fine Thanksgiving weekend that although the world may become more modern and complex, lacking the grace and stateliness of our fore bearers that some traditions - institutions, if you will - remain eternal.

My four year old daughter brought home that icon of elementary school artwork, the pinnacle of holiday decor...

... the turkey hand.

Yeah Yeah Yeah

So, as some people have gleefully and not so gleefully pointed out, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Normally this day passes me by without notice as I don't so much have a thing for pirates (with one or two notable exceptions). This year though, I thought it should be recorded for posterity that if you ask my daughter; "What does a pirate say?" she answers with a resounding:

AARRRRR!

Two year olds are so much better than television.

The Secret Life of Babies

According to the new daycare worker, my child has been speaking Polish.

Yeah, I have no idea either.

One Day She Will Learn How To Use This Sentence to Her Advantage...

My little baby girl just said "I love you."

Toddler: 1 Apartment: 0

One small person stuck inside all day means that my apartment is getting it's ass kicked. I feel like I have been following behind her all day trying to keep up but she is, sadly, much faster than me. I really hope the weather changes tomorrow, or I might just have to move rather than try and tackle cleaning up.

Happy Birthday, Teagan!

So my little girl is two years old today, and it boggles my mind. That tiny little thing I held in my arms is now a huge toddler, who runs and leaps and tries to kill herself on a near daily basis with all the running and leaping. She can string together two and three word sentences - such important things as "water is wet" and my personal favorite, "Monkey Jane" (thanks InfiniteWaitState). She has recently developed a sense of humour, and makes strange little jokes she finds endlessly amusing.

Since she is mine, she is of course the most adorable child ever invented. She is incredibly joyful, exuberant, headstrong and completely fearless. She has taught me so much in her short time here, not least of which is the endless capacity we humans have to love.

Happy Birthday, Baby!

And Who Said Television Wasn't Educational?

Teagan has learned two new words today: clue and bubble. Now, if you add her other words, blue and puppy, any parent will know exactly who is introducing my baby to the wonderful world of language. (Well, other than InfiniteWaitState, of course, who is diligently trying to teach her the words ninja, coup, and totalitarian regime.)

I have learned the secret, finally, of what exactly it was that replaced the little yellow pill as Mommy's little helper - and it's DVDs full of a inexplicably blue little dog. Sometimes singing vegetables work, too. But that song about the pirates who don't do anything tends to get stuck in your head.

Who needs valium when some guy named Joe is getting paid what I hope is very good money to sing about going to the toilet.

Words! Words! Words!

Teagan's vocabulary is growing so much these days, these are her new words in the last few weeks:

duck
elbow
cookie (of course)
forehead
blue
shoe
boot
banana (also known as nanananana...)
bottle
cup

and my personal favorite:

poop!

I Can Die Happy Now...

Teagan has learned a new word.

Mommy.

I was beginning to despair of her ever calling me Mommy, as she much preferred to call me Daddy, even though I knew damn well she knew how to say Mommy even if she chose not to. Every night I would come home and she would run down the hall screaming; "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." Last week at the park she insisted on calling me Daddy both loudly and repeatedly, which garnered some rather odd looks as people marvelled at how successful the operation must have been. A few more weeks and I would have been fielding gently probing questions on how best to address the transgendered.

A couple of days ago, though, she pointed at my chest and declared me Mommy. Then she pointed proudly at herself and proclaimed; "Baby!"

It was one of those moments that breaks your heart and mends it again all at the same time.

So now, officially, I am Mommy.

Yay me!

A Mother's Love is It's Own Reward...

AKA, Things I tell myself when I have the urge to stuff my child in the oven.

A few weeks ago, I crawled into bed and Teagan rolled over in her sleep, grabbed my hand with her little baby hand, and as my heart melted into a little puddle of goo, she sighed; "Daddy."

A couple of days later, a sleeping little angel baby rolled over as I tried to wake her up and sighed sweetly and whispered; "Cookie."

Last night, she rolled over, cuddled her head against mine, and whispered; "Ma...

...Daddy."

Three Months!

Dear Teagan,

You are three months old now! Three whole months! This past month has brought exciting things, like sleeping through the night! Of course, it isn't all the time, or even most of the time, but when you do there is much rejoicing. Well, actually there is much sleeping, but there is rejoicing when I wake up and realize it is morning and not two am. And the napping! The long naps you occasionally grace us with! I run around like a crazy woman, doing dishes and folding laundry (with a good dose of knitting and reading and surfing the internet - no one can live on housework alone) while you blissfully sleep. Oh the sleeping, how we love the sleeping.



You've done more than just sleep, of course. You learned how to suck your thumb, and how to roll from front to back, and from your back to your side. You can also wiggle yourself in a complete circle, rotating on the axis that is your bum.

The absolute best thing is your laugh. You started to laugh this month, and it is the sweetest sound on this earth. The first time you laughed, we were having a lovely conversation where I asked you probing questions on the state of world, and you answered with much babbling and drooling. Then you let out a great big laugh. You looked so shocked that such a sound emerged from your body, and you went perfectly still. Then you started to cry.

Being little is hard sometimes, isn't it?

I can tell you now that being a Mommy involves a lot of worrying. I worry that you aren't eating enough, or you are eating too much, or if you are growing too fast or too slow. I worry that you might poke your own eye out with your amazing flailing fists. I worry that you might be getting bored, and immediately pull out all your toys and wave them in your face while you stare at the crazy lady. Right now I am a little worried that your hair is going to fall out. The back of your head is getting that fuzzy look of a well loved stuff toy. Although, if your hair did fall out then your Daddy and I could stop arguing about how red it is on any given day.



I don't think I have told you this yet, but I dreamed about you before you were born. While I was pregnant I had a dream that I gave birth to this amazing squawking round headed baby with massive amounts of red hair. In my dream, we named you Maeve. When you were born, you looked exactly like the baby in my dream. We had a last minute change of heart though, and named you Teagan - since the baby in my dream screamed A LOT.

Mommy thanks the heavens every day for your lack of screaming.



Love, Mom

My Little Sleepyhead...

So, for her first two months of life, Teagan didn't nap. She just didn't. Oh sure, sometimes you could coax a nap out of her if you stuck her in her swing at just the right moment, but really it was a gamble. She liked napping in the sling or the stroller as long as there was NO STOPPING EVER. Pausing to chat with someone or to check out a cool pair of shoes was simply not tolerated. Sometimes she would have a little twenty minute catnap, and then be refreshed for another day of squawking and squeaking and smiling. I, on the other hand, wasn't quite so refreshed. I kept walking into rooms and not being able to remember why I was there. I would find myself holding the phone and pondering who it was I was going to call. If I paused in the middle of a sentence, I forgot what I was going to say. I fell asleep sitting up.

This past week has been bliss. She naps! Several times a day! For hours at a time! I've gotten laundry done and dishes washed. I can complete a whole entire sentence without Cliff Notes. I started knitting again. It's a miracle!

Although... as my baby peacefully sleeps yet again, I can't help but notice it's kind of quiet in here.

She is too cute! Too cute, I tell you!

Here is where I admit I have a shameful habit of attacking my baby with the camera about every five seconds or so. It's a sickness. I even tempt the wrath of the cranky I-just-woke-up-because-yet-another-flash-went-off-in-my-face baby. I am an evil mommy. Really though, can I be blamed? Is it my fault she is just too damned cute?!

Two Weeks Have Gone By Already?!

And even more pictures...



At barely one day old:





Four days old:



Her first bath...



One week...

She's Here!

We did it! Teagan Marie Lydia (quite the name for such a little thing) made her entrance into the world at 1:34 am, Tuesday, July 6th. She was a little earlier than expected (I never did get all that laundry done) but completely and impossibly perfect. We are in love, and I struggle daily to not gobble up her cuteness whole.

We attacked her with the camera mere moments after she was born: