Parrot Parrot

Every night before bed Jeff sings Maren a song. One of her favourites and most requested songs is “Baby Baby“ by Amy Grant.  Lately she has been asking for variations. She has asked for “mommy mommy,“ “parrot parrot,” “wall wall,” and “parasaurolophus parasaurolophus,” to name a few. Tonight she asked for “chocolate chocolate,“ because she got to eat some chocolate for Easter. It is one of those things that I forget to blog about because it is so normal and commonplace these days. But also pretty funny when you step back and notice it.

We had a fun Easter with Maren. We coloured Easter eggs, had an Easter egg hunt this morning, and did Easter baskets (with chocolate eggs – Maren has been talking about chocolate eggs for weeks). Unfortunately she has been sick with some sort of stomach virus, which seems also to have made her have difficulty focusing her attention on anything for more than five seconds. So that took away from the festivities a little bit, but we still had a lot of fun. I got “Green Eggs and Ham” in my Easter basket, and Maren has asked me to read it three times so far, and has paid attention the whole time. I am pretty sure that has been her longest attention span today. I love that book, and I love being able to share it with my kiddo!

Chocolate pudding

Maren started feeling better the same day as we started giving her medication four times a day for her thrush. But she still wasn’t eating super well sometimes, so on Thursday we decided to give her some chocolate pudding to see if that would help her eat.

She ate a lot of chocolate pudding, and I think felt a little bit sick from eating so much, but it made me happy to see her eating and enjoying it.

We started giving her flavoured yogurt yesterday as well, and that is going well. Before that we had only ever offered plain yogurt, because flavoured yogurt tends to have lots of sugar. But the benefits of eating something fairly healthy and getting all the good bacteria to help fight the thrush definitely outweighs the concerns over sugar. Fortunately she has been a big fan so far.

Yesterday we also went to a greenhouse garden run by volunteers called the Floral Conservatory. A photographer from the local newspaper asked if he could photograph Maren for the paper. He ended up getting a shot of all of us, so we’ll see if we end up being famous. Maren now smiles if you ask her to smile for a photo. At least she does sometimes. Here is one of my pictures from our trip to the floral Conservatory:

There’s still a ton of snow on the ground, but the temperatures have been hovering around freezing, sometimes even slightly above. We are ready for spring, and although isn’t likely to show up for a little while, we are getting hopeful :-)

Triple-whammy

Maren has been sick. First she had a stomach bug and threw up, then she seemed to be getting better when she came down with a cough and cold, and briefly had a fever. After that she was hardly eating, and she eventually let me put my finger in her mouth and I felt some molars coming in. Lots of other kids already have all their teeth by this age but Maren’s two-year molars have been taking their time.

I got some glimpses of the inside of her mouth over the past few days, and started to worry that something was wrong. Her tongue was all white, and I was pretty sure that she had thrush. So this morning Jeff took her to a walk-in clinic where the diagnosis was confirmed, and he got her some nystatin, which is a thick liquid that we have to get onto her tongue four times a day. For a week. Which is easier said than done with a two-year-old. 

After two doses today she ate dinner for the first time in many days. It may just be coincidence that she is starting to feel better, but I am going to believe it is the medication - in order to make it seem worth it to administer it four times a day for the next week :-)

Snow and sledding

Last weekend we got lots and lots of snow. It didn’t stop snowing until Tuesday morning, and it wasn’t until just yesterday (Saturday) that our street was finally plowed.
It has been a little bit hard for me to get around. Last week trying to pick up Maren from daycare was a little bit of an ordeal. My usual route was completely blocked with snow, even though the other sidewalks around campus had been cleared. My scooter got stuck in snow before I realized that it was completely impassable. This is also the fire evacuation route for the daycare, so Jeff complained. Here are some photos that he took of a sidewalk just outside the daycare. It’s kind of hard to see from the photos, because you might be saying “what sidewalk?“ Exactly.

One positive thing about all the snow is the sledding. The weather was great today – just below freezing and sunny. So we took a walk/trike ride to the neighbourhood sledding hill. Riding my trike is super hard work in the snow, but it is good to get outside, and walking is just not an option for me. I am hopeful that a better mobility aid will exist for me in the future, but for now the trike works as long as Jeff is with me to push me when the going gets tough.
We had a great time doing a little sledding.

The length of a scarf

We are in the middle of our biggest winter storm of the year. Jeff has been out to shovel twice today, and the snow keeps coming down. It is predicted that over the next day or two we are going to get 40 to 60 cm of snow.

Fortunately, I spent all day today inside, mostly in my cosy living room (we call it  our fireplace room) with a fire going. I realized I had no photos so I took picture just now, but the fire is out so it doesn’t look quite as cozy.

About a week or two ago I realized that Maren has no scarf, and is old enough now to use one. I decided to use up some scraps of yarn and make her one. 

I know that she is unlikely to need it much more this year, especially by the time I actually finish it. So I have been trying to figure out how long to make it. I didn’t realize this, but a rule of thumb for scarf length is to make the scarf as long as the person is tall. I looked up the height of an average three-year-old, and was surprised to find that they are not all that much taller than two-year-olds. It is strange how kids grow so much so fast when they are so little, and then it all starts to slow down. This means the scarf is about 2/3 done, and I hope that I don’t run out of yarn before I finish!