Little Acorn

30

Remember when I used to do monthly updates on what Adeline was doing? Sometimes I regret that after she turned two I stopped doing that, but as she is officially two and a half as of today, I thought a long post all about who Adeline is and what she can do right now was in order.

But first... Two and a half? That is SO BIG. Adeline is well on her way to THREE and all that brings and halfway to FIVE. Time is flying. FLYING.

AND - this is my 500th post! Wowza!

Adeline talks and talks and talks. Long sentences. Paragraphs. Monologues. She talks to us, she talks to anyone who phones and she talks to herself and her toys.  There's a million questions that she already knows the answer to everyday and she's often just talking for the sake of talking. Adeline talks from the minute she wakes up until she falls asleep and sometimes for a little while aftewards, I think. No wonder she's so good at it! We can actually have some pretty good conversations now, which is something amazing.

Adeline loves to go to the playground and will climb and slide all day, but she doesn't like the swings AT ALL.

Adeline has memorized many of her books and can "read" them. Her favourite books these days are "Stop that Pickle!", "Cowboy Bunnies" and  "Madeline in London". It's fun to hear her recite them as she does it with exactly the same emphasis, inflection and tone that I read them with.

Adeline is OBSESSED with playing Pengoloo. Many many many times a day she asks if we can have a game of Pengoloo. The answer is usually yes, because we're suckers good parents! "Can we play a little bit of Pengoloo?" is very often the last thing she mutters as she's drifting off to sleep. She just got the "Sneaky Snacky Squirrel" Game and although I don't think it can unseat Pengoloo, she also loves to play it. Adeline doesn't really have a concept of "winning" and "losing" yet and we're trying to keep it that way as long as possible, so we play board games cooperatively when we can or we just help the other person finish if someone is done sooner.

Adeline has been happily sleeping in her big girl bed since January 1st and she falls asleep great and has great naps in it, but unfortunately she's still not sleeping through the night. Once or occasionally twice each night she wakes and needs someone's help. David and I are pretty tired... Adeline loves to cuddle and read books in her big bed and it's super fun for playing in with a friend.

Speaking of friends... Adeline LOVES to play with other children and she has some pretty good play skills and is moving beyond parallel play to really engage others, either children she knows or ones she just meets at the playground. Of course her favourite games to play with other children are toddler classics like "let's all pretend to fall down and then laugh" or "let's hold hands and run up and down the hill".

Let's just not talk about toilet training.

Adeline can get dressed all by herself, including socks and shoes, but she'd rather stay in her pajamas all day long. She loves to be fancy though and when she wears a dress you can tell she feels really special. She's also started playing dress up and has a lot of fun with our box of scarves, hats, glasses, fairy wings and tutus. The other day she told me she wanted a moustache like her Uncle and Santa, so I'm going to have to make her one for the dress up box as I don't think she'll be very successful in growing one!

Adeline's dramatic play has really expanded beyond just cooking or taking care of her babies. Often she is pretending to be the vet these days. Although she still makes a great sandwich and lemonade for her Mama just about every day...

Adeline looooooooves a bubble bath and stays in there at least an hour, although two isn't unheard of.

Adeline is going to music class now and she's SO into it. She tries all the actions, loves the instruments and any song with jumping in it, she sings a lot of the songs and she's the first to volunteer to go in the middle of the circle for any activity. I always feel really proud of her at music class!

Adeline's favourite songs to sing are "Baby Beluga" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".

Adeline is taking swimming lessons. She goes with David and he reports that she's brave, happy and willing to try anything the teacher suggests.

Adeline's hair is reallllllllllly long and pretty scraggly. This was never my intention, but our stylist is fighting cancer and I just don't trust anyone else, so both of us are going without haircuts for now. My intention was for Adeline to have a sweet little bob and not hair half way to her waist, but now I just don't know what to do. I still cut her bangs and every single time I say to myself "This is the LAST time - I'm growing those bangs out!". But we can see how that's gone...

We finally found a food that Adeline doesn't like - mango. She still eats it, but the whole time she says "I don't like this" and occasionally she spits it out. I think it's the texture she doesn't like, as she really likes mango juice. Other than that Adeline will eat ANYTHING. Her favourite foods are chicken, any kind of melon, pears, soup with barley, rice noodles, fried rice, red peppers and tofu. For an occasional treat Adeline loves chocolate of any kind and cheezies.

Adeline has started having some fears for the first time. Mostly I think she's just trying out "being scared" and isn't really fearful, but sometimes I can tell she is. The only thing she is consistently scared of and has been for as long as I can remember is butterflies. Yes, my mostly brave and fearless girl is afraid of BUTTERFLIES.

Adeline has started really fake smiling sometimes when the camera is out. I HATE it. I would rather have a good scowl or even a blank look. I hate the "say cheese" face. This is a fake smile, but not the worst of them...

Adeline can say her numbers to 20 and sometimes beyond, but she really can't actually count much beyond 2. She can say the alphabet and she does recognize all the upper case letters and knows for a few of them whose name they are in or what sounds they make. I didn't set out to teach her this, but I guess it's come up when we're reading enough. I think Adeline has a wicked sharp memory, especially visually, so I think things like learning her letters will come easily to her.

Adeline was a practiced television watcher when she was still a tiny baby in Vietnam and ever since she came home any screen will mesmerize her, no matter what is on. She is allowed a little television most days and her favourite shows are Curious George, Yo Gabba Gabba and Peep and the Big Wide World. She watches them all off the PVR so that we can choose exactly what and how much she watches, she's not exposed to commercials and scary stuff and there is less of the "just one more" begging since one show doesn't run into the next one. The most important thing about television at our house...NO DORA.

Adeline is 34 inches tall and she weighs 26 pounds. That's the same weight she's been for a long time, but she has grown over 2 inches. That puts her around the 10th to 15th percentile and she's still mostly wearing 18 month sizes. She's a little bit of a thing when you see her out on the playground, but she's very healthy and she definitely holds her own in every situation!

Adeline loves to dance! Everywhere we go, if Adeline hears any kind of music she needs to stop for a "dance break".

Adeline is just waiting for one last molar to come in and we are DONE with teething! The two year molars kind of snuck in and I just noticed them when I was brushing her teeth and she opened her mouth just right. Those must have been those miserable weeks days when Adeline was just absolutely full of NO and when Mama couldn't do anything right and EVERYTHING made her melt down.

Adeline MUST do everything all by herself. This is frustrating for all of us, sometimes. I'm glad she's so independent, but it takes forever to get a lot of things done and there are just some things she can't do and it makes her so mad sometimes when she has to give up and accept help.

Adeline tries to be bossy.

Adeline has started to draw representationally and she especially likes drawing her family. I've never shown her a model of "this is how you draw a person", so her interpretation is very creative. For some reason she always wants to draw her Daddy crying... David is NOT a weepy guy, so I find this pretty interesting.

At two and a half Adeline LOVES...painting, reading books, dancing, climbing, jumping, listening to music, playing instruments and singing, chocolate, bouncing, hanging out, nice dragons, asking questions, her menagerie of stuffies (but especially Elephant and Kitty), sunshine and snow, jumping in puddles, her cat Zephyr, her big girl bed, puppies, meeting new little friends, Pengoloo, helping with everything, cuddling or playing cave in the big bed, playdough, running and chasing and re-enacting scenes from "Stop That Pickle!", parties, learning new big words, opera, taking photographs with the remote, wearing dresses, shared bubble baths, cooking and most of all her family!

Two and a half is FUN and sometimes frustrating and always interesting.

 

 

Something I'm Doing Right

I'm hard on myself. No arguments from me on that point. Unnecessarily hard, I'm sure. One of the things that I (and really, all Mothers, right?) wonder about is if I'm doing right by my child. If I'm giving her enough. If I'm giving her the right things. As evidenced by my over-long ramble on my recent Tet post, one of the things I worry about is that I want to support Adeline's Vietnamese identity and I always feel like I should be doing more. There is ONE area of my parenting that I do not question and the proof is here in this picture...

That's an empty 24 ounce bottle of fish sauce for those who can't figure it out. Fish sauce or nuoc mam is THE Vietnamese condiment. It's made by allowing fish (usually anchovies) to sit in barrels out in the warm Vietnamese air and ferment (another word for rot, yes?) and then the liquidy stuff is drained off and that's your fish sauce. The smell...well...as a person who was not raised with fish sauce the smell is hard to get past. It's unquestionably very tasty, but the smell is...pungent and earthy and above all FISHY. I grew up in a town with a big fishing industry and that smell is familiar to me, but not in an "MMmm, let's put that on rice" kind of way. I don't know if I will ever stick my nose in a bottle of fish sauce and say "YUM", but Adeline does, and I'm happy about that. I'd say the average non-Viet Canadian person eats ZERO fish sauce per year, but we go through a couple of big bottles of it. We've tried enough of it that I've got a brand I prefer and I even find it making it's way into non-asian foods like spaghetti, for the umami kick it gives. I suppose you could make Vietnamese food without it, but it's just not the same. I cook a LOT of Vietnamese food and I'm proud of that. There are many parts of Vietnamese culture that I can't give Adeline, but by the time she's an adult she will be able to make many Vietnamese dishes and will have that connection to her heritage and hopefully some good memories of being in the kitchen with me. Right now Adeline loves to cook with me and hopefully she always will.

This year I'd like to expand my repertoire of Viet dishes though, as it seems like I cook the same things a lot - pho (both chicken and beef), bo kho (stewed beef with lemongrass, tomatoes and carrots), stuffed tofu, crunchy fried spring rolls and fresh salad rolls, lots of marinated and grilled meats and seafood in the summer served with rice vermicelli, herbs and a fish sauce based dipping sauce, banh mi sandwiches with homemade pickled carrots and daikon, pan fried noodles, and all sorts of stir fried meat and vegetable dishes with rice, but there are still lots of things I want to try. I have lots of Vietnamese cookbooks and EVERYTHING looks good in them.

Here is my goal... Over the next while I'm going to attempt some of my favourite Vietnamese dishes or pick things from cookbooks to try and then I'm going to blog about them. I'll start with three of my favourites...

Banh Xeo - a crispy Vietnamese crepe with pork, shrimp, mung beans and sprouts

Banh Cuon - soft fresh-made rice rolls with shrimp, pork and mushroom filling (this one is INTIMIDATING)

Bun Cha - David and I LOVED this noodle and grilled pork dish so much in Hanoi that I must learn to make it as soon as the weather lets us get the barbecue going again

I'm also trying to source seeds or plants for some more Vietnamese herbs for my garden this summer. Amazingly I think my rau ram is going to overwinter and be a perennial so I'm excited to have it again this year. I wondered if our (admittedly mild) Canadian winter might off it, but it's looking healthy out there and is just waiting for some sun to put on some new growth. I think I'm even going to have to put it in a pot as I can see that it has some thuggish tendencies. I can also grow basil and mint, but I'm hoping to find some of the more unusual herbs like red perilla (tia to) and Vietnamese balm (kinh gioi) that I remember eating and loving in Vietnam.

As always I apologize for being too lazy to put the work in to include the accent marks in my Vietnamese words. I always say I'm going to go back and edit and add them, but I never do, so I might as well just apologize and move on!

 

Welcome Year of the Water Dragon!

Today is the first day of the year of the Dragon and our family is in it's second week of celebrating Tet. There was another party this weekend, this time with other families in our town who have adopted children from Vietnam. It was a great party with amazing food and it was so sweet to see all the little girls and boys who have grown so much and become such little PEOPLE since last Tet.

The little ones all really played together this time and as always David and I were happy to see that Adeline is not at all shy and was right in there playing even the roughest of games with the biggest of big brothers and holding her own in her own pink-clad and pony-tailed style! 

We didn't get a good picture of Adeline in her ao dai yet this Tet as she was in CONSTANT MOTION, but I'll keep trying. We didn't have one that fit this year, so she borrowed this VERY fancy one from a friend. It's not one I would have chosen, but it's cute on Adeline and she LOVES it.

We've also had family in town in the last little while including Adeline's very special uncle who she usually only gets to see once a year in the summertime. A Tet visit was very special and while he was here it was ALL about Uncle Don.

We'll be continuing to celebrate Tet and are looking forward to a great year of the Dragon, which we hope will be a great one for our family and will bring many wonderful things our way.

Snowy Day!

Adeline has been wishing for snow for MONTHS now and her wish finally came true. There was just a little skiff of it yesterday in the morning when we first went out (and when these pictures were taken) but after that it snowed hard and we had a lovely winter-wonderland layer of white by the afternoon. Adeline won't wear her snow boots and it's tough to convince her to keep her mittens on so she got pretty shivery after awhile, but our little snow elf didn't want to stop playing and eventually I had to lure her inside with the promise of hot chocolate.

The snowman had to have a carrot nose, of course, even though it got eaten in just a few hours of being out there (Adeline thinks a hungry raccoon took it and she might be right). Last year Adeline called it a "tic-tot nose" and I was a little sad to hear her change to "carrot" as I thought it was sweet and she had so few of those funny mispronunciations. The only one I can think of right now is that she wears her "bathering suit" to the pool.

Adeline was hoping for more snow, and today she got her wish. We woke up to a lot of very dry, beautiful fluffy snow and unfortunately bitterly cold gale-force winds. Adeline begged to go out, so I got her all geared up, thinking that within minutes the cold would drive her back inside. I was wrong though - she stayed out a loooong time flopping, diving and rolling in the snow, laying down and swimming in the snow, throwing handfuls of snow in the air and just laughing and laughing. Meanwhile her Mama was FREEZING! I was so cold that after a couple of minutes I couldn't even make my finger push down the button on the camera even though I was wearing gloves. Adeline obviously was having too much fun and couldn't feel the cold as it was tough to convince her to come in for lunch. I was the same when I was little and would stay out until I was practically blue. Snow is a pretty rare occurance in our part of Canada, so it's pretty magical when it happens.

Happy snow day!

Tet Party (and an over-long ramble)

We were "friend of a friend of a friend" invited to a Tet party for the local Vietnamese Sunday afternoon school. I didn't even know we HAD a Vietnamese school until recently, so it was nice to see all the beautiful children and hear them singing and reciting in Vietnamese while all their proud parents beamed and took pictures of them.

There was a lion dance (as I hoped there would be) and as it was a very small room it was LOUD and CLOSE and LONG and you can see how Adeline coped with it... She was very brave though and by the next day she was telling me how much she liked the noisy lion dance and how fancy the "lion pants" were.

There was some VERY delicious food, which was Adeline's favourite part of the party! My girl LOVES Vietnamese food. I don't know if it's because those are the tastes she shared with her Birth Mother while in the womb and then with her caregivers at the orphanage or just because it's plain delicious, but anything Vietnamese will see Adeline cleaning her plate and asking for more.

There was also Li Xi (red envelopes with money) for all the children and a visit from the Kitchen God - which all the children found VERY funny. The whole day was completely in Vietnamese, so we couldn't really get the jokes, but we enjoyed it anyway.

David and I were half of all the caucasians there and we didn't understand a word that was said all afternoon and although we felt welcomed we talked to very few people, so it was a bit awkward all in all, but still a good experience. We're willing to feel a little uncomfortable to hopefully help Adeline feel more comfortable ultimately in the Vietnamese community. This event just brought it home to me again that as much as we try, we will only ever be tourists in Vietnamese culture and as much as we enjoy integrating parts of our daughter's heritage into our family through food and festivals and travel back to Vietnam, that Adeline will never be Vietnamese Canadian in the same way that those children from the party are.

Every family through adoption makes their own choices about culture keeping, from doing absolutely nothing to honour their child's heritage, to only making connections with other adopted children and not reaching out to members of the birth culture, or they might send their children to summer culture camp but not think about it the rest of the year or some families even go so far as to choose to live in their child's country of birth. I would say we do more than most - we celebrate Viet holidays, have art from Vietnam in our home, cook Viet food every week and visit Viet restaurants, we have many books about Vietnam both for children and adults, we listen to music and watch movies from Vietnam, we plan to visit Vietnam as a family every few years and we are tentatively making connections in our local Vietnamese community. We haven't done any of that to try and transmit Vietnamese culture to our daughter, as we know we can't do that, we just want Adeline to see that her parents admire and respect Vietnamese culture and to hopefully instill a feeling of pride in being born in Vietnam in Adeline. A lot of it is fun and interesting for me, but I'm always aware that my understanding of Vietnamese culture will always be superficial and I'm always wondering what is enough and what's best for Adeline. Adeline will have to find her own way and her own identity as "Vietnamese", "Canadian", "Adopted" and whatever else she is to become, and we will help her as much as we can, but it still might be a challenging journey for her. We can walk beside her as much as she will have us, and can maybe provide some maps, but really ultimately it will be up to her. I love Adeline so much that I just want her to have an easy, peaceful life, and I know that being adopted transracially brings with it a lot of "stuff" that other children just don't have to think about. Adeline needed a family to love and raise her, and I know that Adeline has gained by being our daughter, as the life of an orphan even in the best of institutions is not the way to grow a happy and healthy human being, and there is no question that I have gained immeasurably by being Adeline's mother, but I still feel sadness at the losses Adeline has had and at the challenges she may face.

We're still thinking about Vietnamese school as an option for Adeline to get in touch with her Viet-ness, but it's not as easy a decision as it seemed at first. As much as we'd like Adeline to learn some of the language and be a part of the Vietnamese community and hopefully make some friends, we're still thinking about whether it's in her best interest. We have a couple of years to decide. At the party I did have a brief chat with the teacher of the littlest ones and she said that there are always students who only have one Vietnamese parent and who speak little Vietnamese and that her goal is just for them to have fun and learn a few phrases, but I still think it will be harder for Adeline as she will have no one to practice with and an immersion experience as possibly the only child without a direct link to Vietnamese language and culture at home could be stressful. I don't want her to feel like an outsider in a world that is so different from what she knows, but I don't want her to feel like the only real link she has to Vietnam and the only way she identifies being Vietnamese is through her looks and some of her favourite foods. So it's a dilemma and as a rampant overthinker of EVERYTHING it's something I've been turning around in my head a lot and likely will continue to. Adding to the discussion is that Vietnamese school is a couple of hours each Sunday, and as we are absolutely not a family who likes to overschedule ourselves or our child and we believe that one or maybe two activities a week on top of school is plenty, so choosing Vietnamese School for Adeline would impact on her being able to participate in dance or music or swimming or whatever else she is interested in. I guess we'll have to see who Adeline is at five before we decide. She might be very interested in learning more about being Vietnamese and in learning the language or she might not, and all we can do is hope to provide the best opportunities to learn when she's ready.

 

Favourite Photos

Sorry things have been so quiet. Adeline had a ROUGH transition from Christmas holidays and she and I had a hard week while we got back into our usual routine and now I'm really sick. I thought it was sort of a flu thing, but I ended up at the doctor, where my pee sample was declared as dirty as a damp corner in a crack house (okay, so she said it all in nice medical-ese, but I knew what she was saying). So I'm SICK (no gory details required - I already made you read about my pee), but hopefully I'll be better soon. Until then, I'm borrowing this idea from a blogging friend who borrowed it from another blogger. It's just such a good idea to look back and pick my ten favourite photos of Adeline from the year. Maybe they're the most beautiful or maybe they just remind me of what our girl was like at that time or remind me of a fun family memory... Its hard to choose, but here they are!

Adeline in her pink silk ao dai eating Banh Chung off my chopsticks and after each taste using her old sign language to sign "more" since she had too much delicious food in her mouth to talk. Tet is such a wonderful celebration and I'm glad to have an opportunity to share it with my daughter. And I just love her eyes in this photo. Gorgeous!

Here's Adeline waking up in her crib. So pretty in the morning light and she just about always wakes up happy. To be honest we still struggle with sleep issues and spend far too much of our life trying to figure out the magic combination of factors that will help Adeline stay happy and sleeping in her bed all night long and until a decent time in the morning. Someday...someday...

This picture is just so natural and happy. We were just playing together in the playroom on a sunny spring afternoon when I snapped this one.

Many of my best memories from 2011 happened on our seaside holiday in June. It was all just so perfect - long walks on the beach, sandcastles, cooking supper on the fire, playing in the awesome playground and at the water park, ice cream cones... So many firsts for Adeline and such a wonderful holiday. I love the almost-evening picture of Adeline exploring the beach and Adeline had SO!MUCH!FUN! at the water park that I just had to include a picture from there. Adeline has NO fear of the water.

This picture was taken on July 27th and I think it's just such a beautiful picture of a beautiful girl on the day we celebrate that she was born. I think I can see a little of the older Adeline in this picture.

In July and August we get invited to a lot of birthday parties and we really began to see Adeline's outgoing, fearless and friendly personality emerge this year. Here she is with a bunch of big kids she doesn't know having a fabulous time in the bouncy castle.

This is what Adeline looks like when she's laughing really hard, which is a lot of the time, because she's a girl who loves to laugh! She cracks herself up all the time and she makes us laugh every single day.

Every part of Halloween was fun this year, from getting our pumpkins at the patch to Adeline's intense love of trick or treating. She was the cutest little pirate EVER!

For a long time Adeline decided she was done with baths and only wanted showers, but once she rediscovered the bathtub and the fun of bubbles she was asking to have a bath all the time. She has so much fun in the tub and she's such a goofball. I love it!

Okay, ten wasn't NEARLY enough pictures. There are still so many favourites left out!

Welcome 2012!

We had a truly lovely winter holiday. David was home from December 22nd until today and we had lots of family fun after Christmas was over - swimming at the pool, day trips to visit family, the ocean discovery centre, the park and 800 games of Pengoloo, but mostly just lots of relaxing time together enjoying each others company. New Year's Eve was a non-event here at our house.  David and I watched a movie and then were in bed early, but still awake unexpectedly at midnight because of our neighbours noisy party. I think we've really internalized Tet as the beginning of our new year as January 1st just doesn't feel like a fresh start the way the Vietnamese New Year does for our family. Tet is coming up later this month and we've been invited to two parties to welcome in the year of the dragon and I'm planning to cook a big Vietnamese feast for our family so it will be another fun time of celebration for Adeline.

On the 31st I took down our decorations while Adeline and David went out shopping and to the park. Even though I had told Adeline what I was going to do and assured her that there would be another Christmas, when she came through the door and spotted the bare tree and she had a look of horror on her face and she said "What's the matter with my Christmas tree???". It was hard to let Christmas go, but I do think she's happy to be back to her old routine as well. We all miss the lights, though.

Adeline started the new year out in her big girl bed - amazingly (for us) we have no pictures of it! We all worked together on the 1st to put it together and Adeline is THRILLED with it. She's excited to go to bed and she snuggles right in and goes to sleep. She looks SO TINY in her big bed, but she's so cozy and comfy and I love being able to lay down beside her and read books before it's time for lights out. I'll take some pictures of Adeline's big girl bed soon! As much as I love to see Adeline so happy in her bed and I know it was time, I was surprisingly a little teary-eyed as the crib was put away. It just seems like yesterday that our baby girl was having her very first sleep in her crib. Just one more milestone on the path of growing up. Of course I would never want to keep Adeline a baby forever, but oh, how I wish I could time travel back and just spend a few minutes with my baby again.

Even though it doesn't really feel like the new year yet, I've started making lists and plans for our family. I think it's going to be a year of many changes for our family, but hopefully they will all be good changes. It struck me recently that the next time we celebrate Christmas, Adeline will be THREE AND A HALF! That just seems so impossibly grown up.

Happy New Year everyone!

The Last Christmas Pictures...

Just before I took down the tree, we took a few last Christmas photos of our beautiful girl.

 Just for comparison here are a few photos taken in exactly the same place exactly one year ago...

 

Christmas Day

Adeline let us all sleep until a quite civilized 6:40 this morning. Her first words were (as they always are) "Is it a Daddy at home day?" and then I said "Yes, it's a Daddy at home day, but do you know what special day it is?". A huge grin lit up her face and she leaped from her bed and said "I heard the jingle bells! I heard the reindeer on the roof! It's Christmas!". When she was on the stairs she spotted Moonlight and said "Is that a HORSE??? Is that MY horse???" My spring horse was my FAVOURITE toy when I was little so I'm glad that Adeline loves hers already.

This very trippy spinning light from Adeline's stocking was popular with everyone! Adeline also got some sweet Christmas undies in her stocking and she insisted on putting them on over her pajamas and wearing them for a long time while declaring "Undies are SOOOOO comfy". Santa is hopeful that perhaps Adeline will give the toilet another try soon. We're a "pajamas all day if you want to" kind of family on Christmas and Adeline had a "Very Monkey Christmas" (yes, there was a song to go with it).

Then of course it was present time - which lasted from sun up to sun down as Adeline needed to play with each new thing for up to half an hour. And there were LOTS of great presents!

 

There was just one handmade present this year, but it couldn't have been a better one for Adeline. For those of you not familiar with the world of television for the preschool set, there is a show called "Yo Gabba Gabba" that Adeline and many other wee ones just love. And on that show, just appearing in three of the 50-some episodes, is "Baby Gogo". Adeline has loved Baby Gogo for a long time. You can buy toys featuring the regular cast, but not Baby Gogo, so Mama had to make one (and for those of you who ARE Gabba experts, yes, I know he should be orange). When Adeline first opened the box she froze - as if she just couldn't believe it was happening, but in a minute he was her best friend forever and he went everywhere with her on Christmas Day.

Once the presents were open, it was time to play Adeline's new (and first) board game - Pengoloo. The girl was immediately OBSESSED. She didn't want to stop to eat supper and she certainly didn't want to stop to go to bed. I think we're definitely in the triple digits for plays of this game. We made up "two year old rules", but the girl wants to play Pengoloo ALL!THE!TIME! She loves everything about it - the fact that she's playing a real game with the grown ups, the dice to roll, the taking turns, the hidden eggs...

It was a really wonderful Christmas! It was so amazing to see Adeline really GET Christmas this year, but to still be so innocent and full of wonder about it all.

David is home until after the New Year, so I think I'm going to take a blog break until then and just really enjoy some time with my family. Adeline is so happy to have her Daddy at home and so am I!

Christmas Eve

I'm a person who loves traditions, and as long as these people are willing to fill their WHOLE yard with Christmas lights and decorations and invite the whole town in to enjoy the full-on Christmas sensory experience in the weeks leading up to the big day, I think we'll make it a night-before-Christmas tradition. There was something everywhere you looked, Christmas music, lights blinking and twinkling and even a room set up with an amazing miniature village with trains and a tiny working carnival. Just magical and a perfect Christmas Eve experience!

Then it was time to leave cookies and milk for Santa and an apple for the reindeer. Adeline was so excited, but she fell right to sleep, although not before asking me a few times "Do you hear sleigh bells yet, Mama?".

 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! We're ready for the big day (almost) and Adeline is SO excited that all she is doing this afternoon is laughing and running and running and laughing with occasional stops to jump up and down. David is running a bubble bath for her right now and then we'll watch a Christmassy DVD this afternoon and then we're having a delicious special dinner and then we'll drive around and look at Christmas lights. Yesterday we went to visit Santa and Adeline was so happy to see him! Adeline stood by his knee while he showed her his book with all the pictures of his reindeer in it and then he put his arms out to her and she went up onto his lap for a long time while they chatted. She did look to me to make sure it was okay, but there was only a seconds hesitation before she sat up there and then she talked his ear off. We didn't know what to expect, but it couldn't have gone better. Today when Adeline woke up she asked "Is it the Santa day?". Tomorrow, my sweet girl, tomorrow. I can't wait - I think I'm as excited as she is.

I hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

Silver Bells

... and red and purple and blue and pink...

If you live in a place that celebrates Christmas and eats eggs from cardboard cartons, you probably did this simple craft when you were a little one. Adeline took her work very seriously as she always does.

She spent 45 minutes at her task and covered every bit of each bell with paint.

Then the next morning when the paint was finally dry it was time for glue and glitter and Adeline was just as focused on this step, although the temptation to occasionally just go wild and shake glitter all over her hands, the table and the floor was just too much for her. I completely understand!

Once the glue had dried it was time to hang Adeline's creations on the Christmas tree. Of course, I now have new favourite ornaments!

Gingerbread House!

Adeline's Nana has been here for a few days and it has been a whirlwind of shopping and baking and wrapping and decorating and trying to keep Christmas surprises a surprise and getting WAY TOO EXCITED about Christmas for Adeline, so today we decided to have a quieter day at home. We thought that putting together our gingerbread house kit was the perfect mellow activity for today.

Adeline was VERY intent on her task. She's always very serious when working on a project like this.

She kept saying "This is so COOL!" and "A gingerbread house like Hansel and Gretel!" and "It's the best Christmas EVER!".

I asked her if she felt proud about her gingerbread house and she said "YES! I'm so proud about that!" and she made this face...

And then this one... I guess she really does know what "proud" looks and feels like!

Of course Adeline ate more candy than she actually put on the house.

And then she was as buzzy and busy as a hummingbird when we were done and then crashed hard from the sugar and food colouring high a bit later, but it was so much fun and I think our finished little house is beautiful.

And the kit? Brilliant. All the fun parts of building a gingerbread house (sticking on the candy) and none of the stress (actually building the house). A few years ago David and I spent an afternoon making a village of graham cracker houses, and when Adeline is a much bigger girl we'll definitely do that project with her as well, but until then the house-in-a-box is just perfect! You have to buy more and tastier candy though, of course!

"It's getting pretty Christmassy, right Mama?"

Yes, Adeline it's getting VERY Christmassy! We've been marking off the days by putting the ornaments on our advent calendar and decorating the WHOLE house. There is no such thing as subtlety when you're decorating with a two year old. She wants it ALL out and she wants every room decorated!

Adeline's been making lots of decorations too, like this tree for her playroom and these Gingerbread boys she made with her Daddy for the kitchen. Adeline was SO excited to do a craft project with her Daddy!

Last weekend we had a great time getting ready for Christmas. Many times a day Adeline asks "Is it Christmas time?". We always answer that YES, it's Christmas time and we are doing lots of Christmassy things and getting ready for Christmas day. Then Adeline will usually ask "It's getting pretty Christmassy, right Mama?" and then take a huge dramatic sniff. Yes, Adeline thinks she can SMELL Christmas. Pretty cute.

Saturday we went downtown for some Christmas shopping and for a carriage ride. The shopping was lovely as everyone else was fighting it out at the malls and although I thought our wait for the carriage to show up was long and cold, Adeline LOVED running around in the square.

She's wearing her gnome hat for the last time, sadly, as it's just too small to fit on her ever-expanding noggin. She outgrew the red one last year and the bigger greeny-yellow one was already a little small when I put it on her this year. This is still one of my favourite things to knit and looks SO CUTE on Adeline. I think I'll have to make another one for next year.

Adeline loved the carriage ride around downtown, and especially enjoyed the carolling. She knows all the words to "Rudolph" and "Jingle Bells" and she thought singing them with a crowd of people while listening to the clip-clop of the horses was pretty amazing. Every time the horses stopped she asked "Is it time to ride the horses now?". She was disappointed to learn that riding the horses wasn't on the agenda, but she loved being taken for a ride by the horses and she didn't want it to end.

After a delicious lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant it was naptime, but instead of heading home we decided to just let the girl snooze in her carseat while we drove around. Once she woke up we stopped at the library to pick up our books and the "Winnie-the-Pooh" movie (a special treat that we have been waiting for from the library for a loooong time) and then it was time to go get our Christmas tree. We went against tradition this year... Usually we wait for record cold and a wild westcoast storm of wind and rain to go get our tree in the dark, but this year it was an overcast but dry afternoon when we got to the Boy Scout tree lot to pick out a tree. Our tree is small this year, but like all Christmas trees, it's JUST PERFECT.

David got the tree in the stand, but we waited until Sunday to decorate. Adeline decorated the tree in the classic two year old fashion - with up to seven ornaments on each of just a few branches, all at her eye height. She had SUCH a good time though. She was so fun to watch and her eyes were just filled with wonder and magic.

Our tree is a sentimental hodgepodge of ornaments old and new, collected by us or given to us over the years. My favourites are the old glass balls from my Nana's tree, the very seventies plastic ornaments from my childhood tree and the bought-just-because-I-love-it blue reindeer that I found last year.

Adeline's favourites, without question, are two plastic ornaments of unknown but recent  origin that look like pieces of wrapped candy. Once she came across those in the ornament box she had to stop decorating and sit down with her Daddy for a long time and pretend to eat candy. They made it on the tree, but only briefly, and now I'm finding those two all over the house.

Our shopping is pretty well done (I LOVE online shopping), my baking and cooking is started and this year we're getting the house cleaned professionally before Christmas (I'm EXCITED - it's my first time) so we're just about ready for the big day. We do need to fit in a visit to Santa, putting together a gingerbread house and a few other fun Christmassy things though and then there's the wrapping and the rest of the shopping and cooking to do. I'll be sort of sad to see Christmas day come though - I think I like the getting-ready-for-Christmas part the best!

 

Big Girl Bed!

After a late night drive waaaaaaay out to the boonies in a windstorm, armed only with an allen key and some cash, David returned with a new-to-us big girl bed for Adeline. It's the Minnen bed that we were originally going to get before it disappeared from Ikea. After all the awesome vintage beds I looked at, an Ikea bed seems like kind of taking the easy way out, but it's a good looking, sturdy, safe little bed that will hopefully give Adeline sweet dreams for many years. Maybe by the time she's ready for her BIG big girl bed I'll have found something just perfect for her. We also went out and bought a mattress and we're just waiting for me to get the bedding and then we'll put it all together - maybe between Christmas and the New Year when David is at home. I want to make the duvet cover (yellow, as requested) and with everything else going on for Christmas it's going to take a little while. I've got a quilt for Adeline's bed on my list, but definitely won't be getting to that until the spring and even then it's going to be a long time in the making. Even though we've kept all this a secret, Adeline still talks about her big girl bed all the time and asks if she can sleep in it. I may have to stuff her quilt with tuna to get Zephyr to sleep with her as she is really insistent that his being there is an integral part of the big girl bed experience.

And just because I think every post needs a photo, here's a picture of our very big girl wearing her FAVOURITE dress. Ever since she saw it, she asks to wear it just about every day and it sometimes takes a bit of convincing to get her to take it off to sleep. It's the first time she's ever really shown a whole lot of interest in what she wears or has asked for a specific item of clothing. Adeline is a girl who knows what she likes, so I'm sure the days of me picking out her clothes each morning and her happily putting them on are coming to an end.