Leah, Emma and Claire (and Jen and John)

Disclaimer: When you stay at home with your children you are allowed to write the following without being judged a horrible mother!!!

 THE GIRLS ARE GONE AGAIN!! Ah the peace and quiet, the relaxing, the quiet evenings without a slumber party blaring through the monitor! Um, yes, I miss them terribly…

John’s parents took the girls up to the Edgar cottage yesterday morning. Yesterday Claire and I went to Costco and to a couple of garden centres. We are doing our front garden when my mom comes next week…very exciting. When John got home for work we went to the Keg for dinner. Claire was good.

We were supposed to head up to the cottage today but John is trying to convince me to enjoy a nice relaxing day at home and then head up tomorrow morning. I think he might have convinced me.

Claire is doing really well. Her top tooth has finally cut after a week of so so night time sleeping. With the girls gone she is napping for 2 hours in the morning AND in the afternoon. Last week she was cat napping in the morning but then taking 3 hour naps in the afternoon when it was quiet. She is still not at all interested in solids but maybe now that the tooth is through things will improve. She gets pretty excited about her one bedtime bottle and can hold it herself. She now puts her hands up when you say up and can clap on command. On saturday she started saying “ba wa ba wa”. It’s pretty cute…here’s a video…

Leah and Emma are doing well. They are very excited for preschool to start in September (the 10th to be exact - see disclaimer above). They are really enjoying all the summer activities and I think without preschool they would be pretty stir crazy come September. They love seeing all their family and have no issues leaving us.

I don’t think I ever mentioned that Drew got engaged back in July. The girls love their Auntie Jen and I have just accepted that from here on in there will be old Jen and new Jen jokes. We were all in Guelph on Sunday meeting her parents and the girls had lots of fun meeting all the new people - especially the two dogs. Yes, after an hour of “AACCCK don’t let that doggy near me” it turned into “Come on Bosco, let’s go play! Meeka…where are you???”. Maybe we can stop pretending that the Dempsters don’t have a dog…

I took this picture last week. It’s my new favourite. I am thinking about getting a new camera. The LCD screen has gone and I miss it. I also want one that takes videos longer than 30 seconds. Oh Canada keeps on getting cut off!

I learned a very valuable lesson on my trip to Ottawa. If you are lost and you don’t want anyone to know you shouldn’t mention it to Leah and Emma. If you are asked why you keep stopping, why you are talking to that lady, why you are mad at the cell phone, what is this garmin you wish you had or why did you go into the store to buy that big piece of paper and why are you upset because you can’t find Arnprior - you should simply reply “because”. Turns out I wasn’t even lost (I should have waited for the google directions to load rather than just going by the map) but the girls told everyone I was lost and didn’t know where Granny and Grandpa lived…they graciously added “but we weren’t scared”.

My mom also learned that she shouldn’t back the van into a concrete wall (that I will vouch was in a stupid place and impossible to see) and expect it to not only be repeated but for it to become their favourite part of their trip to the experimental farm. Who needs cows or tally ho wagon rides when you can tell stories about how your seatbelt saved you from the <5km hour impact of van hitting wall!

Our trip to Ottawa was good. My Aunt Kathleen (from Ireland) was staying with my parents. She has 4 (soon to be 5) grandkids so she was used to the noise and activity levels. Terry and Abi are about the same age so she was also used to the constant questioning. The girls warmed up to her but not before Leah not so discreetly asked my mom when her friend was going home. Funny enough now when we call Ottawa she humours my mom then asks to talk to Auntie Kathleen.

Over the past three years I have been asked hundreds of times if twins run in my family. As most of you know, my mom’s mom had twins - my uncle Thomas and Aunt Kathleen.  I often wish I could have asked my Granny all about having twins. Anyways while my Aunt Kathleen was here we took a picture of the twins with the twins. The girls were not in the mood to sit for a picture (they rarely are).

I really appreciated Ottawa on this trip. I have heard so many people say it is a fantastic city for kids and now I know why. We did all sorts of things while we were there. The city is easy to get around and after living in Toronto, everything seems close.

One day we took the girls for their first bus ride into the city. We walked around downtown and then followed the “parade” down the street and on to Parliament Hill where we watched the Changing of the Guards. The girls danced to the music and then sang Oh Canada. It was pretty cute. On the way home, Leah and Emma thought they’d died and gone to heaven when Grandpa misheard my order and bought them two donuts each instead of two timbits. I managed to convince them they only needed to eat one.

While we were there we also visited the Children’s Museum at the Museum of Civilisation in Hull (which I highly recommend) and the Museum of Nature. Most of the Museum of Nature is under construction but the Dinosaur exhibit was open and they really liked it. When they got home they told my mom is was fun but that the dinosaurs weren’t real.

Other highlights were the Experimental Farm and the park a few blocks over from us that had a wading pool (that of course was too cold for them).

Having lots of help let me get out and see some of my friends that are living in Ottawa. My friend Katy had her baby girl Rasika 3 weeks after I had Claire. We took the two of them into the market and sat and drank coffee while the girls sat happily in their buckets.

All in all in was a great trip. I even looked up the price of a big Mattamy house in Kanata with a double car garage and started harassing John about quality of life. Something to think about.

Claire had a very busy 6th month and spent half of it away from home. I’m sure it would be a big deal to some babies who are on a schedule and sleep in a crib…so I guess I am lucky that doesn’t apply to us!

In a way being away was good for Claire. I knew she was getting into a routine but with two weeks of other people entertaining her sisters, we got a chance to work some stuff out a bit better.

Hair:
Her hair is coming in now. We still get the “ohhh her hair is red” comments but it’s more of a reddy brown. Still pretty straight.

Eyes:
They are still getting lighter. I don’t think they have settled yet. She has no problems with her vision - she doesn’t miss a thing.

Teeth:
Still just the bottom two. She likes to chew on everything and I have to watch her while she’s feeding. She gets really annoyed with our new ’if you’re not sucking you’re done’ rule.

Eating:
Claire is not a good solids eater. In the six weeks since we started solids there has been one meal that she got really excited about. It was sweet potatoes but the love only lasted one day. We have tried a bunch of things with her but she purses her lips and refuses to eat. I’m not concerned especially since there have been a ton of things going on this past month. It is really frustrating trying to get her to eat and I don’t push it beyond what I think is a reasonable attempt on our part.

Breastfeeding is still going well. It amazes me how efficient it is. We have started giving her one bottle of formula at bedtime and it is much more tedious getting it into her. She rarely takes more than 5 ozs so  the knocking her out into a deep sleep with a bottle theory isn’t working out all that well for us.

I have to really think about how many times she eats a day. It’s so quick and easy you lose track. She is feeding between 6-7 times a day still - I expect this number would go down if she’d open her mouth and eat solids.

Size:
At her 6 month appt on the 16th she was exactly 16lbs and 36 inches. She is in the middle of the curve for both.

Sleep:
Our vacation time gave me a chance to figure out Claire’s sleep. If everything is going well she naps for about 45 mins in the morning, has a long nap after lunch (1-2 hours) and then has a catnap around dinnertime. She is tired for the night at around 8pm and she is getting better at settling for the night. We still get messed up with the bedtime catnap which has her wide eyed until after 10 but those nights are becoming less frequent.

She doesn’t do well with falling asleep on her own but I have figured out how to get her to sleep in just a few minutes. She fell asleep for most of our family members over our vacation so I take comfort in knowing it’s not just me that can get her to sleep!

Over our vacation we also learned that Claire has a really bad case of fear of missing out. At the cottage it was next to impossible to get her to nap for more than 30 mins. Thankfully things were a bit more peaceful in Ottawa and she settled back into being a decent sleeper.

Co-sleeping is still working for us and it was pretty convenient while on vacation. She is still eating twice a night.

Things she’s doing this month:
-She can sit up on her own. if she lies back on the breastfeeding pillow she can muscle her way back up.
-When motivated she can roll from her belly to her back now but she still isn’t a fan
-She can lung forward and to both sides. She is getting more graceful at getting out of the sitting position.
-She can move in circles while on her tummy by going hand over hand.
-She claps
-She blows raspberries
-She growls (it’s a funny noise she makes when she’s excited about something)
-She is very good with her hands and can now pick up small objects
-She puts her arms up when you say up
-She is less attached to her soother this month
-She gets upset if she can’t reach something or you take something away. Thankfully it passes quickly.
-She gets upset if she’s in a room by herself (I never had to deal with this one with the girls!)
-She is extremely easy to travel with. The car keeps her in a deep sleep.

Personality:
Claire is still a very happy baby. She had a busy month meeting all sorts of new people and she did really well. She’s only played strange once so far and I think it’s because she got scared more than she found the person scary. She loves attention and will still smile and play with anyone who is willing.

This month her stubborn side came out. The best example is how she purses her lips and refuses to eat solids.

Claire is really spoiled. She is such a good natured and happy baby that people don’t agree but she really is. When Leah and Emma were born I had a lot of rules. Now I know those rules saved my sanity but they aren’t rules we have followed with Claire. I honestly don’t think another baby is going to happen and I am just enjoying her.

We’re up in Ottawa right now at my parents. We’ve been here a week but that will be the next post!

We had a really nice time at the cottage. We’ve been up to Loon Lake the past three summers and it’s amazing how much Leah and Emma have grown up. Two summers ago they were crawl racing up and down the hall. Last summer Emma was obsessed with the boat and Leah loved the campfire.

This year they both enjoyed all sorts of things about the cottage. They slept in a room with two bunk beds (each of them on bottom bunk with strict instructions that we were going home if they climbed!). They loved sleeping in the bunk beds and did really well.

This year they both enjoyed the boat and we let them ‘drive’. The water is deep off the dock so Nana and Papa took them to a sandbar where they had lots of fun building castles and wading around in the water. They did go in the water off the dock a couple of times but it took a ton of coaxing as the deep water was pretty chilly.

The weather was really warm this year and it only rained once - for less than a minute! Luckily I picked up a sun tent for Claire and we got a lot of use out of it. The evenings were warm and the highlight was Uncle Van playing his guitar around the campfire.

I also had my birthday up at the cottage and the girls were really excited about it. They baked a cake with Aunt Bonnie the day John and I weren’t there. It was supposed to be a surprise…they told me before I was completely out of the car. It was a chocolate masterpiece - decorated with gummy bears, licorice and smarties!

Claire was pretty good for the week and having other people around allowed me to figure out her schedule a bit better. It seems she has fallen into one - I just hadn’t really put it all together. It was a bit challenging to get her to stay asleep with all the people but she did pretty well on less sleep than she gets at home. She really doesn’t like missing out on the action.

John and I managed to work in some relaxing. Our daily life is such a grind that you just get used to it. It’s not until you are on vacation that you realize that it’s next to impossible to be on true vacation with three kids in tow. If I wasn’t still Claire’s main source of nutrition I think I would cave to John’s “let’s go to vegas again” pressure.

My pictures are up on Flickr. John’s mom got a lot of good ones and I’ll add them when I get them.