In the bathroom...

Gemma called out from the bathroom yesterday, "Mom? There are these little boxes in here, and they have an O and a B on it. What ARE they?"


Uh.....

Ridiculous games part two

And to add to my last post about silly things we play: one of her other favorite games we play together is Old Maid. Yep, with just the two of us:). When will she catch on that one? Ha ha, buts still fun trying to trick eachother at the end into taking the old maid. At least we were playi g with a full set this time!

Scooter

Gemma was given a two wheeled scooter; major step up from the three wheeled pink fairy one she bought this summer and is now happily 'owned' by Guinness. She can balance pretty good, but the biggest trouble is resisting the temptation to push all the time because if you push and push and push and push then you get going REALLY fast. So she is doing pretty good and push push coast, push push coast. With this crummy weather we've been playing down in the B2 parking garage all week. This is Gemma's favourite game to play:

"You be the mom, and I'll be the daughter, and I'm riding my scooter."


Umm?

Jan Latta

Today I met author/photographer Jan Latta. She has spent years and years traveling and taking pictures for kids books about animals, and they are pretty awesome. Here is a link to one of her videos

The series is called True to Life Books. Check it out :)

Chris!!!

Chris and I were planning on enjoying some Subway on our own, but after a great sale at the NorthFace shop we got home later than we planned, and at the same time as the kids. So I whipped the kids up a sandwich from stuff we had at home, but of course they wanted in on the yum yum goodness that is Subway. I was explaining to Guinness again and again that 'No, mommy's has jalapeños on it, you won't like it," when Chris finally did cut him off a slice. Gemma looked down her nose at him, admonishing eyes, and said in a perfect hushed tone, "CHRIS!!" It was so funny, I laughed for 5 minutes. Such a bossy mother hen!

We did some puzzle with Daddy yesterday, and had so much fun. Laughter is a great medicine (not better than coffee, but I think important to have every day) so I am hoping that 'laughing together as a family every day' is a realistic goal for 2012.

Yes, I can make goals for 2012 now because the Chinese New Year has just begun.

5 going on 15

Growing up.... by her attitude sometimes you would think that the birthday that follows five is fifteen. Isn;t this a good disgusted teenager look?

Age Gap

The kids got along pretty good for a long time. She likes to play computer games, he is happy to sit and watch. She likes to boss around, he likes to be bossed. Gemma did a good job of handling the baby business, and has been a pretty patient big sister till now, but the terrible twos are causing some frustration.

When Gemma was two and three, she loved to play the same games over and over; you be the mother I'll be the daughter, over and over again. Guinness is very into super heros, and we've been playing Spiderman for about three months. And Gemma is tired of it. She doesn't want to play superhero ANYMORE!

Gemma likes setting up her little villages and houses and stuff. Guinness physically can not resist the urge to plough it down. He draws on her art, he makes messes that take away mommy's time, he pushes buttons on the iPad when she's playing, he playfights too hard sometimes... the whole little brother thing is getting too frustrating.

It's been just amazing how much she's changed this fall. Really growing up.

She has one more week of holidays, then a final semester of Chinese school. We are pretty sure she'll join me at my school next year for kindergarten.

Tastes like...

Kids brains' are so weird! Today I made pancakes and bacon, and the kids love bacon. Gemma was dipping hers in her syrup, telling me, "Mom, you HAVE to try this." so it did, and she said, "It's so good, it tastes like chocolate ". Does the word 'chocolate' mean 'tastes good'?


And then, a minute or two later, Guinness was munching his bacon and he said, "this is is so yummy, it tastes like CUPCAKES!".

Like I said, weird!

Singing

Gemma was making us smile so much today when she was singing her heart out in the car to Adele and Hillsong. She was also being funny in her sleep last night, one minute yelling and being mad and the next minute singing the end of Down by the Station.

I'll hold you

My kids have been saying the funniest things lately, man oh man. Like right now, Gemma and Guinness are having a bath and I just overheard Gemma tell him, "You go under the water, and I'll hold you." Ha ha ha, tempting offer, but NOT!!!!!

Squiggly ???

Squiggly is not doing so well.

(Squiggly being the beta fish Gemma got as a present about a year ago and spent his first 6 weeks in a cut off plastic bottle; would have lived there longer without thoughtful friends who gave Gemma a fish bowl for Christmas. Anyway.)

It looks like he has swallowed a marble. His gut is very round and swollen, and sort of turning white-ish. His side fins are all stringy and falling apart. His overall colour is poor; very dark and cloudy. I have no idea what to do!!! I mean, he is obviously suffering. We are terrible pet owners. Haven't cleaned his bowl in like 6 weeks. We feed him sporadically. But do I have it in me to kill a fish?? And my friends say that just flushing him down the pipe is not a good idea: they can live down in the pipes!!! Well, I don't want him to suffer down there, either! So do I let him alone, to die in his own way??? Yuck yuck yuck.


One of the many reasons we are NOT pet people.

School 180

Gemma is at the point where she says several times a week, "I love my school!" Pheww, I am so thankful. AND her teachers wrote in her communication book on Tuesday that "Gemma speak much Chinese today." Wow, another miracle.

Halloween!

We don't really celebrate Halloween, I guess, but the girl wanted to do something so we had a mini Halloween party at our house for us and a neighbour. Making decorations consumed the afternoon (yay!) and then we had our spooky supper. Rented a Scooby Doo movie but I had to turn it off. It was called 'Scooby Doo and the witch of ______', but I assumed it would be in typical Scooby style where the monsters are never real and there is no connection to evil forces, etc. Not the case in this one. With phrases like, "We're not witches, we're super cool Wiccans who love nature and use healing herbs', a witch like girl band called 'The Hex Girls', a spell book that could control the evil forces of darkness.... Yah, just not ready for my kids add the word 'Wiccan' to their vocabulary, or to think that being an Eco-Goth witch is in any way cool. We played 'pin the eyes and mouth on the jackolantern' and attempted limbo (our guest had a broken foot so that was not so easy of a game). To replace the failed Scooby Doo, Chris found Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and rented it. Then we trick and treated at Gemma's friend's house as we took her home. Pretty fun!

As we were riding home from dropping Friend off, I told Gemma we had to stop at our across the hall neighbour to trick or treat, and Gemma said, "I have to trick or treat at two houses!!! I'm so tired, mom. Trick or treating is really hard work!" TWO HOUSES! Our girl needs some exposure to more American culture, eh?

Of course I love Saturdays, the kids and I have been having a blast lately. Play play play!!

Art Sale

I'm going to write about the art sale we had here... but I'm too tired. More later.

Really?

Am I really packing away my daughter's 4T clothing? Are there really 4T items in her closet that don't fit anymore? How did this happen? How can it have been 5 years since we watched her kick my belly from the inside, and put all those newborn clothes in the shelves? (carefully washed in newborn soap, of course).

Ok, have to stop before I cry :( sniff sniff.

Thoughtful...

We were watching regular TV (which we don't often do because we don't know the timing of the programming and don't often catch a show I think is worthy of watching)) and Gemma saw a PSP commercial. (a handgeld video game device). She asked if she could have one, and I said, "Well, you already have an iPhone and can use mommy's iPad. I don't think so." She replied, "Well, if Guinness had an iPhone and an iPad, he would be SUPER happy, and I really want him to be super happy, so you could get me the PSP."

Yah right! Along the lines of a book we just read called, "I wanna Iguana", where the boy and mom write notes back and forth reasoning about wether he should get this pet or not.

I HAVE to start putting pictures up here. Might have to take over the family photographer role.

Finally decided...

Gemma was working hard on a Dora coloring book last night. She looked up and announced, "I FINALLY decided what I want to be when I grow up! An Artist! That's why I have to work so hard on my pictures, and practice a lot!"

Sweetie!

So many funny stories, but I can never remember. Ballet classes have started, that's fun for her. School is going GREAT! She loves it and is doing fine, learning Chinese actually and finally speaking it a bit more

Starting to get excited about the big birthday party :)

Jealous!

So, anyone else get jealous of their kid's homework? Gemma does some really neat tracing and coloring. And last week she was learning about shapes so we went on a shape hunt with the camera in the yard and took pictures of the shapes so we could make a book. I was pysched about the whole project, she was moderately interested. And then I had a great idea for the cover which she totally dismissed! And then she didn't even want to put in the cool sticker labels I made!!

I can totally see us each handing in our own assignments to her teachers. "Sorry I have two dioramas, Mr. K. My mom was so excited she made one, too."

Ha ha! Maybe I need a more grownup creative outlet.

Saturday Sleepover

If you know anything about Gemma you will know that she has always been a terrible sleeper. A lot of it is our fault, but throw in pretty regular confusional arousals and you have a kid (and parents) who haven't slept through the night that much in the last 4 1/2 years. This summer was the final kicker, literally... it just got to be too much of sharing a bed with her because she kicks and turns and yells and gets mad, and spreads out. She'd go to sleep in her bed, move to our bed, so I'd move to her bed, so then she'd come down there... like musical chairs all night long. So the biggest parenting goal of fall 2011 has been sleep training Gemma. Started with a mat on our floor and the new rule: No More Sleeping in Mom and Dad's Bed. Period. Well, that didn't work at all because she would just 5 seconds for me to fall asleep and come to the mat. Perfect for her because she was right close to us where she wanted to be. Plan B, sigh... so I slept on the floor of her room on the mat for 2 weeks. Why? Well, I've done a lot of reading and research on sleep, and one of the big things about sleep is that everyone wakes up periodically throughout the night. Our body does this to keep us safe; maybe you wake up and smell smoke and then you can rouse yourself out of sleep to get out, or hear a sound, or whatever. But most of the time, when things are fine, your body wakes up, does a quick check that everything is fine, and goes back to sleep. As adults we don't even really notice this. This might be when you stretch out, or readjust your pillow. But children need to be trained to put themselves back to sleep. No you can do this training when they are infants by letting them cry a bit or letting them fall asleep on their own without holding, rocking, nursing, etc, not rushing to them when they wake up.... (and our problems with Gemma go back this far people) and Gemma is is such a habit of WakeUp, My Mom is Not Here! GO GET HER! And so I figured that if I can get her in the habit of sleeping all night in her own bed, that would be HUGE. And it was. Every night for 2 weeks, with no cheating or skipping out, or sneaking back to my own bed at 3am, when Gemma woke up and checked for me, there I was. I could assure her with my voice, and convince her to go back to sleep. The no-cheating part is important because she has to trust that going to sleep in her bed is OK; when you go to sleep worried about something of course you are restless and wake up checking for that exact thing. Knowing I would be there allowed her to relax and sleep better. And so after the 2 weeks, I moved. We've been dialoguing about how she was learning to sleep in her own bed a lot, and she just accepted it. And we've had success! She still wakes up sometimes, but we just remind her that she can't sleep in our bed, and she should just go back to sleep, AND SHE DOES!


Sigh. Of. Relief.


So what is Saturday sleepover? Well, it is the new Saturday thing in the McKenzie house, as a reward for sleeping by herself all week, to meet the need she has for special playtime with Mommy, for the hard work she does by being an 8 hour a day student, for playing nicely by herself on Friday nights when it is grown up friend night. Saturday night is sleepover night! Any theme, any activity, treats, tents, decorations, whatever. Almost anything goes. We rent movies, we make cakes, we have a spa, we do a circus. And we sleep together all night long. Which is ok in this situation because it is on my terms. Yesterday was awesome, because Gemma was so prepared. The first thing she did Saturday morning was pack our backpacks for the sleepover. (We don't usually do backpacks because we're just staying home, but she wanted us to each have a back pack of stuff we would need. Mine had a book, stickers, and a cape. Hers had her jammies, and a book, and some toys.) We made decorations in the morning and hung them up so we'd be ready. It is all too cute, and once Guinness goes to bed it is game on for us. So much fun!!!

A phone call...

So I get a phone call at school this week. From my mother in law. Of course I was worried; why would she be calling me at school??? And she tells me that she just got off the phone with Gemma at our house. And that Gemma was all alone. "WHAT???" I yelp! And MIL eleborates; 'Well, her daddy is sleeping and she is afraid to wake him up because then he'll make her go to school.' Oh dear! The babysitter had come early and whisked Guinness away, and so Gemma was just hanging out watching shows as quietly as she could to avoid going to school. What a turkey!!!

We've had a successful few weeks of sleep training. But it will take me too long to write about it now, so I'll save it for later.