Nudibranch

 Last night as I was putting Maren to bed, she suddenly looked up at me and said "noodle (pause) butt." I was not sure what she was trying to say, so I repeated back "noodle butt?," and she said "No. Noodle butt."  She kept repeating this, and I kept not understanding.

Then this morning, she was looking at a book that we got from the library (we have checked out this book probably two other times),  and it was finally clear that what she was trying to say was nudibranch,  which is similar to a sea slug, and pictured in the book.

 Maren's language is kind of crazy. She is starting to string words together, and is repeating almost everything we say, even if she doesn't understand it yet.  Tonight at dinner she said "mommy eat it" then "daddy eat it," then "baby eat it,"  when  deciding who should eat each pea. Here are a few videos from today – they are kind of long, so watch at your own risk, but I think they are amazing because they showcase  Maren's  awesome language development. The first one has the nudibranch.

Ducks in a row

Just yesterday, Maren discovered  that she can pull her toy duck train around the house. She loves it.

She came down with a cold and has unfortunately not been feeling too well today. This is the first cold in  over two months though, so we are not complaining.

 Things have been busy, and I always want to post more (especially when things have been busy and there is lots to post about), but alas, I don't have adequate time.  Hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks things will settle down and I can catch up!

Glasses

Maren wants to wear glasses, just like daddy (and sometimes mommy). The potato head version is fine with her:

Sledding

It has been extremely cold here for the last week or so, getting down to as cold as -40°C.  So today when it got up to -7°C ( 19°F) it felt almost like spring time. We took advantage of the nice weather and went out sledding.  We went to the park about three blocks from our house and took the sled down a hill that was recently created to block flooding from the creek.  It's a super small hill, but we didn't want to do anything too intense on our first time out of the backyard on the sled with Maren. Next time we might go to an area that is  popular for sledding with little kids, but that is a little bit farther – maybe a five minute drive – and a little more busy.

 One of the best things about having a little kid is getting to do things like go sledding. It's not  that it wouldn't be fun to do without kids, but there are lots of things that you just don't think to do as often unless you have small children.  As Maren gets a little bit older, there are lots of things that we are going to be able to do, and places we are going to be able to take her, that I think I will enjoy just as much as she will. Maybe just because I will be watching how much she enjoys it, but sometimes it's just because it is inherently fun. Like sledding.

Toddlers are great

 Here are a few videos from this week:

Sharing some garbage,  which she absolutely loves to do. She is constantly picking stuff up off the floor and labelling it as garbage.

 Enjoying two of her favourite things, garbage and trucks. 

 This book is a highly simplified version of Moby Dick (one word per page, and felted wool sculptures to illustrate each word) that we have checked out from the library. For a while Maren has been labelling Captain Ahab as "auntie Allison" (Jeff's sister), but this time  my mom and my sister  Sihu got their turns to play captain.