Fete des Enfants

Every year the city of Montreal holds "Fete des Enfants". It's a huge event where children from 18months to about 14 would have a great time. There were literally hundreds of activities. Vanessa took part in a few but mostly had a blast checking out all the people and getting really close hoping someone would share their ice cream.
We took off early in the morning on our bikes. Since it was at Parc Jean-Drapeau, that was the best way to go. We could take more with us than by metro and it was much more convenient than by car.
When we got there we scouted out the area. We found all the older kid activities and thought. Hmm maybe this wasn't for us...but since we biked and brought our pic-nic lunch it was going to be fun no mater what. We met up with friends and head off in the other direction. Yippy! activities geared towards toddlers. There were obstacle courses and a road course in your choice of cars. It was really well thought out. We had lunch in the trees on the grass. That's got to be the best way to lunch in the summer. We hung out and dipped our feet in the huge fountain. We could sense Vanessa was going to crash. On our way to the bikes we got a call that our friends were leaving by metro picking up the car and heading to DQ. We couldn't pass that up so we got to our bikes and hooked everything up and left to DQ. Vanessa didn't make it out of the park before she was fast asleep. With Eric's bike issues ( brake was on the trailer/ his wheel making clicking noises) we got to the DQ first. That certainly made us happy that we biked.
Once we got to DQ, we waited for our friends and ordered ice cream. Vanessa was so tired she slept through the whole thing and woke up a couple of minutes before getting home.
We will definitely be going back next year. So come meet us for lunch!

Vanessa eats in style. No sitting in the grass for her. She got her own table.

Cool obstacle course for toddlers. It will be more fun next year when she can do it on her own.

Mommy's taking a break from running after Vanessa and Vanessa gets a new view. Daddy swears she was happy up there.

Vanessa thought that sitting in the middle of the path was a great place to have a rest and a bite.

Vrooom! Vrooom!

New Season in a nutshell

This fall is going to be really busy but I'm so looking forward to it. Playgroup has started again this week. Vanessa changed so much over the summer. She's walking and able to hold her own. I can relax a little and just watch and play when I want to. So much more relaxing. We've been biking home and getting home much faster than by foot. Hopefully we've got at least another month of cycling.
The first day I was helping clean and I lost sight of her. What a panic. I asked around and nobody had seen her. She'd walked out of the room and up the stairs. She loves stairs but she's still very cautious. For now she'll only go up on her own.
She's still not into the crafts. It's more fun to play with the glue and rip the pieces off. Maybe in the Spring. She loves the other kids but especially the babies. She's still has no concept of sharing but mostly the kids steal from her and not vice-versa.
Vanessa dances, claps and sometimes sings at song time. So much fun! She does the actions to "If you're happy and you know it".
Vanessa and Daddy are back at swim class. This class makes everyone very happy. Vanessa loves the water. Daddy loves time with Vanessa and Mommy loves time to herself! She follows instruction better now so she blew bubbles this time. She usually just drinks it. Yuck. pool water. Tonight I saw her in her bathing cap. Boy is that funny looking.
I've gone back to my Aquafit. I love this class. The teacher is fantastic and it's an exercises that gets all my muscles moving unlike any other sport I've tried. I'm on the hunt for a smaller bathing suit online *shiver* since they're not in stores anymore. I'm really hard to fit so hopefully I can return them.
Curling season is also upon us. This year Eric and I are both curling. We haven't worked out the logistics yet. We won't be playing on the same night since V isn't a latch key kid yet but she's probably going to see me curl a lot.

Vocab

Vanessa has started to use words. She hasn't figured out that words will get her things yet. She still points a lot. Here's a list of words that she has used. She has her cute version which I won't do justice.
hi
bye
hot
hat
ball
juice
up
down
pull
dog (most popular)
shoe
two... three
bum
book
baby
glasses (eye wear)

The other day I was downstairs calling for her Daddy from the living room so Vanessa went to the bottom of the stairs and sang Da... Da.... Da... So very cute. Daddy definitely heard that and came down.
It's exciting to see her grow and learn new things. I got up her stacking cups and she sat down and played with them for about 15 minutes. She took them apart and put them back together twice. I beamed with pride as she played with such concentration and skill.

We found a new park that Vanessa and I love. It's in the middle of a neighbourhood so there are always kids there. We even saw some we knew! And then the daycare lets out. Oh my. They're between ages 3-4 and it seems like dozens of kids. Vanessa loves all the kids but she's small and can get lost in the shuffle. So far she's held her own but the kids have been good and they're well supervised. The first time she'd climb up the stairs in the pirate structure on her two feet since there are low handrails and get to the top and try to get into the tube slide. She couldn't figure out the logistics in all the excitement. You need to step up to get in but she was too tall to stand in it. I helped her out and she slid got to the bottom and ran off. Since I was still at the top trying to get the kids to move out of the stairs, she got a head start. She was cut off at the pass by a daycare worker. Boy was she quick. I know you're all thinking, "why didn't you go down the slide?" Didn't cross my mind. We went back to the same park a couple of days later and the park was quiet so she went to the slide and figured it out. She was ready when the kids came and didn't need my help at all. Soo bitter sweet.