Scary or scared?

It has been warm and sunny. Although it is clouding up and is supposed to rain tomorrow, we are loving the spring weather. It isn’t quite safe to plant things outside yet, because it could still freeze, but green things are still popping up in some of our pots.

This is the picture of Maren that was up on the wall at daycare for months:

We started calling this Maren’s scary face. But then she started saying she was scared and making that face. If you ask her to make a scared face this is the face you will see. She does get scared occasionally but not that often, so she actually is not so clear about what a scared face is. It is pretty hilarious.

Housiversary, spring

We have officially been living in our house for one year. We are finally doing things like putting up new curtains. Although it definitely feels like home here, I can also tell that it will be years before we have really made this house our own. Looking back at pictures and videos from a year ago we are noticing how small Maren was then and how big she is now. It doesn’t feel like she should be that different, but of course she is.

It is also suddenly spring here. We had snow and cold weather up until a few days ago when suddenly it got warm and the snow started to melt. Today there is almost no snow anywhere, except places that never get any sun. Yesterday we went out for ice cream and ate it outside, comfortable in short sleeves. Spring is short here, but everyone is super happy when it arrives. There are good feelings everywhere :)

Oftenly

Toddlers are both amazing and trying. Tonight at bedtime many limits were tested, and a very long tantrum ensued. We try to be consistent and we try to use natural consequences, but sometimes our strategies seem to fail. It sometimes helps to think of things kind of like the stock market. There are going to be dips, but in the long run the trajectory is up.

It also helps that Maren is hilarious much of the time when she is not testing limits and having tantrums. For example, there are moments when she makes up words that are absolute gems. Like every toddler she over-regularizes lots of words; mice is usually mouses, feet are sometimes foots, and went is almost always goed. But the other day in casual conversation she used the word “oftenly,” and I find myself having a hard time not using that word.

Also like many toddlers, she asserts negative opinions a lot. Maren will out of the blue say “no (whatever)!!” Recently she has been very down on the letter Y, and a couple of days ago we had a conversation that went like this:

Maren: I don’t like Y. 

Me: yogurt starts with Y

Maren: (thoughtful pause)... I don’t want yogurt to start with Y. I want it to start with L. L - L - Logurt. 

Some pictures from yesterday:

It’s breakfast time somewhere

Last night Maren woke up at 2:45 AM and insisted that it was time to get up. Jeff went in to her room and I could hear her crying and yelling that she was awake and wanted to go have breakfast. Jeff showed her that it was still dark outside and that it was night time, but she took quite a while to be convinced that it was still time to sleep. 

She is been having some difficult toddler behavior. Like when I went to pick her up from daycare the other day and she looked me in the eye and said “I am going to run away from you,“ and then proceeded to do so. There was still snow on the ground and she had taken off her socks and had no shoes or jacket, and was headed for the outside door. I am not as quick as she is, so I saw her running, socks in hand, out the door of her daycare room and for the outside door, and then I lost her – I couldn’t figure out where she had gone. It turned out she was hiding in a corner eating a wicker basket. There are times when I wish I could get inside her mind and understand what the heck she was thinking.

Today we planted some flowers seeds in pots. It went surprisingly well. Maren was good at putting the seas into the pots of dirt, and then sprinkling more dirt over the top. I had put some seeds and pots into each of our Easter baskets, and today was the day to plant them. Hopefully we will be able to eventually transplant them outside, although we are having record-breaking cold weather right now so I think it will be a while.

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!