FOOD

It's bitter sweet. I've never been so hungry in my life but I can't seem to muster up the energy to cook. For our playgroups Valentine's party I made Carrot Pineapple loaf. It was a huge success! It was a nice bright citrus colour and taste but I was disappointed for a loaf it crumbled too much.

This week I invited myself and Vanessa to a friend's house and offered to bring desert. I was going to make the loaf again but I was running out of time and needed a nap. I changed it up a bit and made muffins with the same recipe. I put them in for 25 minutes instead of 1 hour for the loaf and told Eric to take them out when it beeped. The timing was perfect and they mostly fell out of the silicon tins. It turns out that they were some of the best muffins ever!! I will definitely make them again. I think for Easter I'll make them with the cream cheese icing in the recipe and might even try the marzipan carrots that they demonstrate on top.

Sweetness

The other day Eric was trying to get out the door to take Vanessa to swimming. She came to me and gave me a hug and a kiss goodbye but then returned to do the same to her sister. She's really cluing into what's going on. She's been watching and helping the baby's room get organized.

All I have to do now is wean her from fake nursing. She does it when she's feeling really needy. It's interesting where she thinks she's going to get milk from like my collar bone or my belly.

The other day I was holding a very little baby who started fussing. Vanessa told me that the baby was hungry so she pulled open up my shirt so I could nurse her too. How generous.

Tonight was nice. Eric had to go back to work after dinner to do year end. I was trying to keep Vanessa up so he could put her to bed. We drew some pictures and did some puzzles but around 8:30 she said to me, "Mommy I want you to put me to bed." How could I resist? It's an joyful job when she wants to go to bed. Her current favorite book is a classic, Dr. Seuss's ABC. She's starting to know all the words. I said that soon enough she'll be able to read this to her little sister and she liked that idea.

Vanessa's new expressions

These days Vanessa is all about one liners. Here are some examples.

Are you serious about that? So far she hasn't said it when I'm telling her off

You're kidding me or you're teasing me!

DOH... From Curious George and not Homer Simpsons.

Bother It I think that comes from don't bother with it.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there's more.

Life right now.

We're in the home stretch. This baby is due to arrive in 4 weeks. My body is ready but the house sure isn't. I've very very slowly been putting things in the freezer. It's hard to do when Vanessa and Eric eat seconds. I guess I should be glad that they love my cooking.

Right now Vanessa's watching Dragon Tales while I type. Vanessa's watching way too much tv for my liking but it's all I can handle for now. My back might give out any moment so I'm taking it easy and I have NO energy. I am thankful that the baby is healthy and on her way.

I am very happy with Vanessa's progress at school. We extended her time at school. She is now there from 8:15 to 12:45 two out of the three days. Yesterday was her first lunch at school and she told me she cried that day. She wasn't more specific so I talked to her teacher. She was upset that I didn't pick her up at the same time as usual. I think she thought she missed something. Her teacher, which she adores, talked her down and she was happy to play outside with her friends. They play outside every day unless it's really cold or raining. I love it and I'm glad I dressed her for the weather. She also reported that Vanessa eat well. I packed all her favorites. Egg salad sandwich, grapes, cucumber and some cheese. The sandwich was gone and some of the cucumber. Fantastic since there must have been a lot of distractions.

She came home and napped for 4 hours. Peace and quiet. She slept the same amount of time she was at school. Tomorrow's another school day and then they have a week off for March Break.

When we come back from March Break, I'm taking Vanessa on her first class trip. We're all going to the Cabane a Sucre. Totally up Vanessa's alley.

Vanessa has her 3 year check up with her pediatrician. Hopefully her sister will wait until after that but I can't put everything on hold. Vanessa has shown irritation when eating strawberries and kiwis. I've tried to cut them out but I'd like to have her tested to be more conclusive and get a prescription for benadryl.

Baby's room is painted.

It's been a long time but things are getting done. Eric has been very busy with work and his social schedual. There might have been some procrastination in there too along with helping me out with Vanessa.

Eric got the room sanded, new moulding and taped ready to paint with some help from Tim. I convinced him to redo the moulding since it had coax cable stapled to it and some toothpaste like filling. The baby won't need tv in her room. Kay, Vanessa and I surprised Eric with two coats of paint on the walls. We kept quiet and Kay did the painting. Vanessa and I went to playgroup in the morning for the first coat. I came home to make everyone lunch and realized that there was nothing to serve. We went out to McDonalds to let Vanessa play some more and eat. Vanessa was so exhausted that she actually slept while Kay put on the second coat.

Eric came home after curling to the smell of paint. He was shocked to see the new room and that Kay didn't mention anything at curling. This gave Eric the extra push he needed.

I took some pictures but I'm not sure it does it justice.

Nothing but the paint in this picture is staying in this room. Amazing how the paint makes the floor look nicer. Hadn't planned on that.

This is a picture of the before and after paint colour. The paint was much greener than it looks here. The moulding really changes the room.

This morning Eric took Vanessa skating with Joel at 1000 de la Gauchetiere. This gave me time to purge some of my stuff and clothing. It's funny how we're getting rid of all sorts of belongings so we can get it into the baby's room temporarily and then put it back into the room that has way more storage than we currently have. Having said that I'm sure we'll fill it up. We still have things that need homes around the house that we can put into the walk in closet.

Ohhhh... The walk in closet. For now we're going to move into the baby's room and redesign the master bedroom. It's the last room that hasn't been painted since we bought the house. We'll be making our room smaller but gaining a walk-in closet and more importantly eventually a bigger bathroom. The master will be started next week-end and will hopefully with some help from friends be done in a week. Eric will be really motivated to finish it since he'll be sleeping on a single mattress on the floor in the baby's room. Mind you since he's getting a room to himself it could go either way. I'll be the one sleeping in the living room. Over the past month, I have been sleeping there off and on anyway so it's no big deal.

Once the bedroom is done, we'll take a break and get ready for the baby to arrive. The bathroom can wait since the baby doesn't need it and we don't have to relocate anyone to do it. I would like to do it before the summer comes so we can enjoy our summer, the house and the kids.

Oh. I forgot.

"Oh, I forgot." That's one of Vanessa's tag lines. She uses it if she did forget something but also uses it when she learns something new.

This time I'm the one using it. I took a picture of Vanessa when she came home from Preschool after a Valentine's day party.

She kept that sticker heart on her head until bedtime. We went over to Tim and Christine's house and Tim thought at first glance it was a bandaid.

Let the good times roll

Tuesday we went to playgroup and was able to go and come back when I pleased. It was like when I went by bike with Vanessa. She had slept in until 9am and we still made it there in good time and not out of breath from taking the bus and walking.

I'm not sure what happened with the rest of the day but Wednesday is pretty clear. We got up early and got ready for our first day of school. Vanessa was pretty excited. She cooperated getting dressed and even ate breakfast. I helped that Daddy was home to enjoy this with her. We got to school and she settled in in no time. She stayed for just over an hour and her teacher told me it went really well. We left before her class mates so I expected a fight but she was just dazed. She did later talk about her day. I asked her if she made friends an knew any of their names. She said Marie-France which is her teacher's name. That's a great sign. She also told me about some games they played that they sang some songs. Fantastic! she didn't know the songs because they were in French but she will. She likes saying genoux orteils from the song.

Vanessa had a short nap and then helped out with snack bags. We were getting ready for the big Valentine's Day party at playgroup. We made 20 snack bags with two bite brownies, clementines, mini-gos and a vanilla milk box. It was a fun activity and a friend of ours came over and helped.

Since we had the kids taken care of, I made the adults two carrot loaves from a new recipe and crossed my fingers.

Wednesday morning brought another wake up call and we were off to playgroup. It was a great time. We had games, food and 3 whole crafts. The kids and adults gobbled their snacks and played hard.

We came home exhausted but happy. We watched Cailliou and I suggested lunch but she complained so I had her choose between lunch and nap. She'd had such a big week that she chose nap. It was a good choice. I had to wake her up after 3 1/2 hours so we could pick up Daddy and go out for dinner for Christina's birthday. I'm glad she napped because she was a joy at dinner. I did bring her a puzzle book but we were there almost 2 hours stuffing ourselves with platters of Lebanese food.

Since my back couldn't hold me anymore, I had Eric put Vanessa to bed and I read her some stories. We have a routine that I read to her and then lie down with her to sing some songs. Lately I've been trying to skip the lying down part since it's a long way down there. Vanessa told me tonight that my tummy was better and I could lie down with her. Broke my heart so I did indulge her. She's already sharing me with her sister. I'm so glad that she's got school to call her own.

New Van

Monday was spent hanging out at home for the day. We were resting up for the big event. Since I was coughing when I talked too much, I skipped swimming this week. I dropped off our rental car for the last time. Jo-Anne came to pick me up with Vanessa and Eric and we took off to Laval. In Laval we had dinner and went to the car dealer. Things went pretty smoothly there. One of the employees had Vanessa laughing enthusiastically. We brought our well loved van home. It's awesome. I keep expecting to have to take it back. It's been put to good use with trips to the curling club, Vanessa's school, playgroup and the grocery store.

We've had to put winter tires on it and I hope we'll put a license plate on it Saturday. The winter tires are really nice but hopefully we won't see how well they work in the snow until next year.

School

Big steps for us. Yesterday morning I was telling Vanessa that we were going to take her to look at a pre-school. I talked about all the fun stuff she will be doing. I got " I don't wanna go! " Getting her out of the house for anything is always a fight. We got to the school and Vanessa said, "Bye Mommy!" We hadn't even got out of the car. Once we got in, Vanessa was ready to loose the snow suit and stay for the day.

The school is a nice size where they play in a large multi age group and then take off do fun crafts with her class of 8 that are the same age as her. She's been asked to bring a painting smock. She's going to have a very energetic and experienced teacher who was not afraid to take my unpotty trained toddler. The teacher is bilingual and it seems to be a mix of French and English students but the class is done in French. I'm thrilled Vanessa will pick up some French.

Vanessa didn't want to go home. The teacher told me not to worry about Vanessa crying when I left her there for the first time and suggested that we start with half class. I'm more concerned with taking her away while her classmates are having fun.

There's lots of music in the school. One of the teachers is a music major and plays the guitar for the kids. Awesome! Music transcends any language.

She is jumping in for the last 3rd of the session and will be there until the end of May. She starts on Wednesday for 3 mornings a week. Hopefully she'll be able to stay for lunch at least one day a week. She'll also get first dibs on next years session starting in September.

I'll try and take pictures on Wednesday.

What a day!

Yesterday morning Vanessa hung out with me at home and we got ready for her big afternoon. Vanessa was going skating with Mary-Jane. First I wasn't quite sure what to do about lunch timing wise. Since I hadn't planned that with Mary-Jane, I thought I'd call her and let her know I was bringing lunch. I had cream cheese and cucumber in the fridge so we picked up some fresh bagels on the way. I called Mary-Jane to tell her we were bringing lunch. It was a nice treat that we all enjoyed.

I dropped Vanessa and Mary-Jane off at the lake along with a stroller and went to pick Eric up. I brought some lunch for him and cookies Mary-Jane had made. He took the afternoon off work and we went to go look at Dodge Grand Caravans. We went all the way out to Laval to go look at a 2007 model we had seen online. I had all the things we needed but for some reason I wasn't feeling to excited about it. It was a bad omen when the car won't start and then the brakes were really noisy when it was moved 10 feet. I know that's not major but still wasn't reassuring. The sales guy knew his stuff. He knew that we had another van in mind at another location and didn't want us to leave and be tempted so he asked us if mileage and age were big issues for us. Eric and I looked at each other thinking why not look at what he has to offer. He showed us a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan with slightly higher mileage that was cheaper and had every feature you could possible add. It was love at first sight. It's in pristine condition and has been rust proofed. I'm ready to bet a retired man who loved his van had this before. It has buttons to not only lock but open the sliding doors and the tailgate. Stow and Go seats that were a must for us. DVD system with 2 wireless head sets, CD player with a tape deck. I am going to miss MP3 cd player but I'll get over it. It has electric seat adjustment for the driver. Very useful for a two driver vehicle with one of them being pregnant and can't reach under the seat. It's a "sport" model so it also has mag wheels and 4 disk brakes. Eric took it for a drive and it ran very smoothly. Oh and did I say it was a nice cranberry red?

Eric and I decided on the spot it was for us. It was a lot like when we bought our house. It was on the market and something fell through and we picked it up and made a possibly impulsive decision. I hope this car works out as well as the house did. We put a deposit on it and will pick it up this week-end.

We drove back to the shore and went to the one restaurant that we wouldn't think of bringing Vanessa and had a nice dinner. We picked Vanessa up at Mary-Jane's while they were just finishing theirs. Vanessa had an amazing time. She skated for a whole hour. They had skating "handles" you push along the ice. She was able to skate, fall and get herself up. I'm so glad Mary-Jane took video. Vanessa's a real natural. As you may have guessed, she was too excited to have a nap. When we got there, she was so buzzed she didn't know what to do with herself.

We left about 7 and she talked non stop in the car on the way to Grandma's and then it was silent. I couldn't believe it. She fell asleep. She even slept through picking Grandma up but woke up when we got her out of the car. She was not impressed we woke her up but was pretty happy to go back to bed.

What a fabulous day for everyone! I'm so glad to be getting a car so Vanessa and Mary-Jane can have more fun days together.

P.S. I didn't get any van pictures or skating pictures. I will be posting van pictures once we pick it up.