Birthdays

I had been trying to do a post on M's birthday, which was about 3 months ago, and somehow it all disappeared. This is likely because I was attempting to post on my phone and I have not mastered the mobile app. So, I'm going to post it now, because it was a really cool party, and I put a boatload of work into it, so I want to brag a little.

M chose a Muppets themed party since they are his absolute obsession. This required a lot of creativity on my part since it's difficult to find regular character items in Whitehorse, let alone Muppets. Thank goodness for Ebay. It has been my Muppet saviour more than once over the last year.

The centrepiece was a Kermit piñata which I found at this awesome site Kermit piñata

 Here's how it started out with our Kermit as a guide.

M helped put all the little tissue bits on. It was a very long process.

The finished project. I swore I would never do this again. I may have lied to myself because now I think I could totally do another one. FYI, this is a ribbon piñata so there was no destroying all our hard work. Kermit is intact and patiently waiting for another party. So, maybe I need to consider a Miss Piggy one because shouldn't he have a friend for the next party?

 Our super awesome spinach and strawberry cupcakes. M wanted pink and green cupcakes and I didn't want to use dyes so I opted for a natural version.

 The cool plates we ordered on Ebay. We also ordered in matching napkins, balloons and stickers.

 Camilla the chicken! She was a super messy craft but pretty darn easy to put together. Check it out here 

 All in all the party was a blast. M was able to add to his Muppet collection with Beaker, Statler and Waldorf. He's certain he needs a shelf for his Muppets so he can keep them all even when he's an adult. He's also determined to find every muppet that exists so he just might need that shelf.

Hopefully next year he'll still love the Muppets because I have all sorts of ideas for his 6th birthday.

Conneticut

Did you hug your child a little longer tonight? A little harder? A few extra kisses at bedtime?

I know I did.

I spent my day trying to avoid the news. I didn't want to know what happened. I didn't want to hear if any of the children didn't make it. I wanted to stay in my nice, safe bubble where my child is ok and that's all that matters.

It's not all that matters though. There are parents out there tonight who will not have the opportunity to hug their little ones again. Their boys and girls went off to school this morning, excited about Christmas Break coming soon, probably a little wound up with all the holiday festivities and likely spending a fair bit of time considering just what the holidays would bring to their little lives. Their families were all in the same frame of mind just like many of us are at this time of year.

This is supposed to be one of the happier times of the year. A time when we stop and focus on our families, spending time together and appreciating the small things in life.

One young man has turned this in to a nightmare for the families who lost a loved one today and my heart is breaking for them.

I know we gave M bigger hugs, told him we love, love, loved him, let him stay snuggled up a little longer, read him a longer bedtime story and generally spent a little extra time with him. It wasn't for him  so much as for us. We were reassuring ourselves that he is ok, that we still have a child to hug goodnight, that a madman has not entered our lives and we thank the universe for it. In all of this though, my heart breaks for those parents who no longer have that luxury.

I truly hope that change comes from this heartbreaking situation.

An original boy

It's been a while since I've put anything on this blog and I think it's time to breathe a little life back in to it. So here's my world 2 years later. (wow, it doesn't feel like 2 years since I posted)

M is becoming more of an original little boy than I ever thought possible. He is expressing himself in so many unique ways and we are beginning to see just what an individual he is likely to become. At almost 5, he loves Muppets, Care Bears, Toy Story, Madagascar, Avengers, Ninja Turtles and princesses. All things princess, especially if it involves Snow White. On his 4th birthday party, he had to have a Cinderella dress so he could be a princess at his party. For Halloween, he had to have a Snow White dress "cause she's my favourite princess". 

When we ask if kids will tease him for dressing up he patiently explains "Boys can be princesses and girls can be superheroes but only if they want to" and then he gives us an exasperated look and flounces away. Seriously, he flounces, hands on his hips, princess dress puffing up behind him.

I'm not terribly worried about this as long as he maintains that attitude. He seems to have a healthy balance of interests and some of them happen to be what society would class as girly. I am classing them as caring, empathetic, kind and fashionable. He has pretty good taste in his princess outfits.

I love that he is so unique and I hope that he is able to maintain his individuality after he starts school. I really hope he will always remember this side of himself and stick up for those kids who are different. He may outgrow this phase, he may not, however I hope he will always be the first one to befriend the child who doesn't fit the mold society has made for them.

Please

This post is a bit outdated. It was the last one I had written up before we moved back to Whitehorse and I sort of let my blog slip. I'll get myself back on track now. I promise. I need to for my own sanity.

We've spent many months working on manners. Reminding M of those magic words and pointing out when the magic is missing from a request. "Cookie" with a stomp gets you nothing. "Cookie please" may get you a cookie. Notice I said may get a cookie. We're working on the whole "can't always get what you want" theory too.

As a direct result of the whole manners education, he has slightly warped what we consider traditional politeness. "Scuse me" works for everything from getting the dog to move to getting mom to shut the fridge door and get out of his way. "Sorry" is usually applied to an animal or a toy when he accidentally bonks them. I have yet to hear him use it on mommy or daddy. We're still working on that one. M has no problem with thank you or you're welcome. He says them regularily. Sometimes reversed but he does say them and the intent is there. Please is the one we seem to have confused for him.

We have over emphasized "please" He assumes "please" will get him whatever he wants. On the flip side, since "please" is the magic word, it can be used when he does not want something. "No please" has become his most often spoken phrase. Don't want to eat that, no please works nicely. Don't want to watch that show, no please applies. Have no urge to leave daycare while mommy waits impatiently. An emphatic No Please! gets your point across. It's interesting to see him asserting his opinions and independance but I am left wondering if we are missing a lesson here. How do you teach a child who is trying so hard to be polite that "no please" is not a universal "get out of whatever we want you to do" card.

I heard "No please mommy" at least 7 times this afternoon while trying to get him to leave daycare. He politely declined all of my bribes, all my suggestions until I finally picked him up and dragged him out to the car. I'm sure there is a better way to handle this. I'm guessing there is some toddler rationalization that I am simply missing here.

Whatever that rationalization may be, I sure hope I discover it soon or I may have to resort to the "my way or the highway" attitude.

Boys being boys

Parenting a little boy can be very interesting. I'm trying to avoid stereotyping him however he really does seem to be a typical boy. Always curious, very little fear when it comes to climbing, jumping, exploring etc, ridiculous amounts of energy and always on the go.

I decided to take him to the beach this past weekend so he could run off some of that energy. It worked a little too well which meant I had the enviable task of convincing him to leave after an hour and a half. I figured by this point he had a pocket full of beach rocks, a couple of sand dollars (no longer living) a couple of shells, he'd picked up 3 starfish and chased too many crabs to count. His shorts were soaked along with the rest of him (and me) and his shoes were full of sand. This, to me, means we've had a succesful day at the beach and it's time to go. This, to M, means we should keep going and see just how much stuff we can find. After some kicking and screaming, a little down to his level discussion and a compromise, we were wandering the path back to the car picking flowers along the way. Next time I take him to the beach it will be with a lot of hours to waste.

Yesterday we went grocery shopping. Normally this entails carrying a basket and not buying much so M can carry one side and put everything in the basket. On this particular day we were having a shopping cart shop which is a little more difficult. It requires a stop at the bakery for the free cookie and a race through the aisles worthy of an Indy car driver hoping to finish before he has finished the cookie. When he has finished the cookie he starts to climb out of the cart. Then he pushes the cart for me which is actually not so bad. Once he's bored with that you can never tell what he's going to try. Yesterday he climbed in to the bottom portion of the cart, sat down and moved everything from the bottom to the top. Once he was satisfied he decided to jump. This is one of his newest favorite things to do. "Jump, jump, jump. Mommy, jump!" I hear that a lot. Obviously this was not the place to jump so after telling him this I started walking around the cart to put him on the floor so he could walk and jump. This is when he decided to jump again and lost his balance. Back he fell, off the cart, back of his head on the floor. A gigantic scream from him and a barely there breath from me. 5 years off my total lifespan in that one moment.

Off to the hospital we went since he was really not acting like his normal self after a bang up (we see a good number of bonks around our house) Half an hour of waiting and we got a lovely doctor who has a 2 year old boy himself. He knew just how to handle a little guy and efficiently checked him over. Final verdict... concussion. We have had our first officially labeled bonk. Likely the first of many although I expect over the years I'll see more sprains and broken things to go with the concussions.

One more first off the list and M has proven once again that he is a boy through and through.

Words

It's amazing how powerful words can be for a little guy. M's vocabulary is expanding on a daily, minute by minute basis. Most days he chatters happily and you can understand half of what he's telling you. The last few days he's been really clear. This has been a slight problem as well as a really great thing. The problem being that I said a bad phrase... and he repeated me. Which caused us all to laugh (completely wrong reaction) so he said it again. You get the picture. Now I'm trying to say "no honey you mean to say sit" hmmm, I wonder what my bad words were.

The upside is the moments where he can get his point across. Yesterday he finally said "love mommy" He's said this to other people but never to me. This morning he was angry and frustrated over a toy and he said "M sad" Maybe he doesn't entirely understand but he knew he was crying which means he's sad. He can use his words to ask for help, to voice his displeasure and to tell us he's happy.

While I'm finding the 2's frustrating, I can also see this wonderful, stubborn, willful little boy developing and it's beautiful to watch. I'm sure I'm in for a whole lot of frustration over the years but a few "love mommy" and "hug" moments will more than make up for it.

Puppies, toddlers and sanity

4:47 am, Mommy radar goes off, eyes open, ears at attention. Yup, there's the tell tale wake up whine coming from the room next to ours. I jump out of bed hoping that if I can just get in there before he crawls out of bed, maybe I can get him back to sleep. No such luck. All I managed to do was instigate the mother of all screaming matches for "MILK". Pick him up, cart him in to the darkened kitchen, open the fridge (with no light since it burned out yesterday) grab the milk, fill the bottle, warm it for a few seconds and hand it to the obviously desperate and starving boy. Cart him back to his bed, and miracle of miracles, we got another hour and a bit of sleep. What does it say about my life that this small victory made my morning.

While this was going on I could hear the pup whining wanting to join in the fun. At some point during my 5 am mini nap with M the pup got off our bed roamed the house and left a present for me in the hall. So, when I finally crawled out of bed around 6:30, I open M's door to 2 dogs excitedly waiting, one toddler pushing past me, 2 cats running for their lives and a smelly present at my feet. Oh, and let's not forget my stupidly high blood sugars which I'm pretty sure is due to a continued lack of sleep.

Is there any chance for sanity today? I'm not so sure. The plan for the day is to clear out the kitchen. This is going to mean putting up shelves and anytime you throw in a project involving tools, hubby and I inevitably differ on our approach. As a rule it means a few cranky, snappy moments with someone walking away for a few minutes after saying "Whatever" with a hand in the air. I suppose it's better than not getting done though.