Fitting title since we are spending our anniversary in the States! We are Bean Town bound…not sure yet if we’ll venture into the city per se or just stay in the Massachusetts suburbs. It occurred to us we are doing 4 states (Upstate NY, VT, NH & MA) in 5 days…fitting since this is wedding anniversary #4 and 9 years total – totally not planned – how appropriate!
4th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Traditional Anniversary Gift: Flowers
Modern Anniversary Gift: Linen/Silk
Today, Sophie crawled up on the couch & sat beside me so I could give her a snack. I found myself staring at her for a minute. When did you become a person??
Not to say babies are not people, of course. Even at their most helpless of stages they deserve our respect. But wow, Sophie, now 17 months, has become this person…with a personality: able to share her wants, desires & needs carefully & clearly rather than just laying there, crying waiting for mommy or daddy to figure it out…not that we always get what she wants, but for the most part, days here are so smooth & wonderful!
The other day, I had a basket of laundry to fold in the bathroom. As I cleaned the sink, I watched as Sophie went over to the laundry, pulled out the microfiber cloths & proceeded to put them in the proper cabinet in our bathroom. I was dumbstruck. How did she even know that they went there?? Obviously, she is at that age where she observes everything (by the way: Sophie has her own microfiber cloth. She keeps it with her things, & if she happens to spills something, like her juice, she will wipe it up enthusiastically. How awesome is that!). When I put on my lip balm, and purse my lips together, she does the same. I scratched my head the other day, and there she was scratching hers. The other night at dinner, I wiped my hands back & forth to remove crumbs, and she stopped eating to do the same thing. Talk about cute (and highly scary. To have a mini-me)!
I must say, I am blessed with a very easy going child. She likes to play quietly while I sit at the kitchen table making jewelry. Every so often, she will come up to “feed” me some of her “soup” from a wooden spoon that she has carefully mixed in her bowl. Again, something we never taught her to play, she just picked it up from times I have fed her. Rick laughs and remarks, that Sophie will feed me when my hands are full. Too funny!
“What a great little helper you have!” everyone says. And I beam with pride.
Rick & I laugh hysterically at her choice of music. This morning there was polka music on, and she sucked it up: dancing away in a circle, with a can of mushrooms tucked under her arm (don’t ask. We don’t quite understand it either). Today while having a hormonal moment & feeling a bit sad, she went to the cupboard & brought me the big box of pita bites. I guess she thought comfort food was just what I needed…
The best moments though – is when she climbs up beside me when I am on the computer to give me a big giant kiss. Or snuggles beside me for a nap. Those are truly precious moments to be cherished…
Never, ever, underestimate your children. Regardless of their age.
We love you, dear Sophie. You will be a wonderful big sister!
Ate Roxanne…
I found this picture on my computer…it is of my Christening. Do you recognize your Tita Lina? She is to the left…
How could you not know the Gador features, huh? :)
Next time I am in Nova Scotia I will get the photos we scanned for the funeral home for you & other family to see…I will add some pics to Friendster as well.
For the rest of you…Roxanne is my cousin from the Philippines! She emailed me recently…I am excited to know her & that there are many of us. I have a whole new family to get to know. Rick & I are dreaming of owning property there. What you can get for the cost of our home here…wow…
I don’t think I could ever say we have had a perfect day. But Rick & I cannot believe how perfect Sophie’s birthday went yesterday. We thought we were in an alternate reality!
We started the day an hour later than usual; for some reason all three of us did not sleep well the night before, so there was a lot of tossing & turning. Sophie awoke at close to 7am instead of 6. I had decided on Friday to play the day by ear because planning an outing would mean Sophie would be missing her scheduled naps, and I figured her birthday would not be fun for her if we lugged a cranky baby to the zoo.
But despite the late start, the first part of the morning went rather smoothly. She was in a very good mood, so I dressed her in her finest dress (a silk dress from Vietnam I bought at the ByWard Market in Ottawa when I was newly pregnant with her last year) and sat her at the table to open her presents. That proved to be rather entertaining for her (even if we had to coax her past the tissue paper & wrapping to actually get to the good stuff, which she promptly examined, then started throwing on a pile on the floor, then went back to playing with the wrappings. HA! Babies…), so we decided to have breakfast & go to the zoo, fingers crossed.
As I was getting her dressed to go to the zoo, I talked to Sophie about her special day. “Do you know today is your birthday?” Stares at me intently. “You’re one year old today. Last year at this time, we were in the hospital. Do you remember that? When you were born?” Looks at me thoughtfully. “Do you remember being born? And coming home for the first time?” Whp knows what she was thinking, but I’d like to think there was some recollection, or some understanding of the importance of the day. Rick even remarked how calm and content she seemed all day. It was her special day, and she seemed to know it.
Our children’s birthdays are so special for mamas too (and papas, but I can only comment from the mama perspective). I think the first is particularly special, since it makes one year of being this child’s mother. Birth is something so special that only us women can experience. I got through the day without locking myself in the bathroom and crying…lol. Just a few swelled-with-tears eyes filled with pride when she opened her presents. Hard to believe this time last year, Sept. 21st, we brought home this little 6 lb., helpless infant. Now only a year later, I swear you can’t stop her! :)
The drive up to the zoo took place during her first nap time, and she slept for only 30mins. of it, which concerned me (it’s about an hour and a half to Granby). She did start to fuss a bit just as we were arriving, she had enough sitting restrained in her car seat. I put her in the sling as I didn’t think she could see much in the stroller. Still, we brought it with us just in case.
Rick & I were pleasantly surprised how much she enjoyed the animals! The exhibits are large (thank goodness, I always wonder with zoos if we are doing the animals justice or harm, particularly the ones not from this climate) so I had to point out the animals at times but once she saw them she was absolutely intrigued & delighted by them. I got a bit of video of some of the animals & you can hear Sophie laughing with excited glee in the background.
We stopped about half-way through so Sophie could have something to eat. We kicked ourselves for not bringing a picnic lunch; the zoo had many nice picnic areas and the food there, although sounded tasty, was…too greasy than we could stomach in one sitting.
So we got 90% through all the exhibits when Sophie got really squirmy in the wrap. So I put her in her stroller with her hat to block out the sun and she slowly started to go to sleep. We were so impressed that she made it that far, seeing how she missed her naps, and even more impressed that she started to sleep without a fuss! On the way out we decided to stop at the gift shop, but there was no way to fit the stroller through the gated opening. A worker explained to us, “pas de pousette dans la magasin” which we thought was a stupid rule for a gift shop at a zoo. I hope to God they let wheelchairs in (although I am not sure how) otherwise that would be called discrimination. Anyway, if Sophie wasn’t going to sleep I would have just folded up the stroller but since she was…I guess we don’t get to spend our money there, which was probably a good thing anyway: who needs over priced beanie babies? ;)
Much to my elation she remained asleep as I put her in her car seat and slept most of the way home so at least she had a full afternoon nap.
Even though we thought the day couldn’t be topped, the real fun seemed to take place after supper. We presented Sophie with her birthday “cake”: a perfect scoop of blackberry sorbet with one beeswax candle. I am so pleased I found this sorbet at the organic grocery store. It contains all of 4 ingredients: blackberries, water, apple juice & carob. Carob is the only ingredient Sophie hadn’t had, so this satisfied the no sugar no gluten thing plus we didn’t have to be concerned about introducing several new things to her system at once.
But to SEE her with it…I will post pictures soon…they are so worth seeing. She had her hands in it before I had the chance to strip her down…and once we did…let the blackberry carnage begin! We let her get her hands all through it at first, then I handed her a spoon. The thickness of the sorbet made it the perfect food to practice using a spoon on. I was quite amazed at how well she did with the spoon: we never showed her before. First she tried it with her right hand, then switched to her left. She had much better control with the left hand. We have been wondering if she’ll be left or right handed…hmmmm…
Anyway, when she was done, everything was pink. I had to stick her in the bath after that. I was a little worried about her sleep considering she didn’t nap as scheduled, she had sugar before bed (albeit natural sugars but sugar nonetheless) and a bath (we usually give her baths in the day now as it ramps her up too much at night). She did really well though, was a little restless at around 3am but after a bit of tossing & turning and soothing words from me, she went right back to sleep. And slept until close to 7am again. :D
So today she was slightly hyper which I guess can be expected after long car rides yesterday. We are relived to see she seems to adjust well now to sleep as we are hoping to make a trip to Syracuse before the snow flies. *WAH*!
Happy Autumn Equinox everyone. Now that is a season to be thoroughly enjoyed. :)
Tuesday (the 27th) was our wedding anniversary. We spent a few days away, one of our overnights was in Lake George, Upstate New York. It is an interesting place. On one hand you have the beauty of the majestic Adirondacks meeting the calm still waters of the lake…on the other hand, you have all things tacky since there is a 6 Flags and other family vacation/tourist trap attractions. It is the land of the $2 T-shirt, mini-golf, and haunted houses…the Motel Montreal, and many more…we stayed at the Wyndham…LOL!! They do have a lot of outlet shopping, including a Coleman outlet store! Everything you need for a camping trip or tail gate party. I’ve never seen so much fake synthetic green in my whole life…
Now, for some real green…and blue…and clear skies with fluffy clouds…it was a beautiful, hot day…(now, what happened when we got to Vermont??? IT was CHILLY there…)
Now, for the cheese…gigantic Santa Claus & world’s tallest Uncle Sam says it all, doesn’t it?
Other highlights of our Up-State New York visit include hunting down a toilet seat…a Baby Bjorn toilet trainer that is, for myself and another ECing mom. It was supposed to be carried at Target but we went to 3 and there wasn’t even a space for them on the wall…nor did Toys R Us have them…I do love a challenge…we had luck in Vermont at Kid Surplus…should have known they would have it. :) They carry the potette, so….
Then there was the grocery shopping spree at the Healthy Living Market. I really wish we could get a store that size here with those kind of alternative choices to the mainstream grocery store junk food!!
It was just nice to get away. I do like living close to the border. To beat the traffic into the US due to the Memorial Day weekend, we went to one of the small border crossings in Huntingdon. The border guard was extremely thorough; searching our trunk, asking a gazillion questions, etc. But he was very nice and we were the only car so it was definitely worth going that way. The drive was very relaxing and pretty, esp. down through that part of Québec…it’s an area we never think to go to.
Anyway, enough blather for now…next get away is Rick’s birthday NEXT WEEK…just something close because we are going to Québec City around June 15th to meet up with Mom…
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