what shall we read next?

Reading has always been one of my favourite things to do, but lately it seems my pleasure reading has been replaced with journal articles for school and toddler storybooks. Both of these actually make me quite happy, but somedays I really miss having a good book on the go. Perhaps when my course finishes next week, my maternity leave begins (also next week), I might rediscover this ever-precious personal reading time, but I guess we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm thrilled that Lady M has discovered the vast world of literature. Up until a couple months ago she enjoyed stories, but now she is just devouring them and can't seem to get enough. We sit and read a pile of books at a time, and I love seeing her get into the story and process both the pictures and the text.

One of the latest stories in our rotation has been "Pajama Time" by Sandra Boynton. Now, I'm sure every parent out there has at least one - if not ten - Boynton books on their shelves because her stories are wonderful. They read like little songs, and I think I have as much fun reading them as Lady M does listening to them. They're sweet, fun and the illustrations are great. What more could you ask for?

The other stories I'm pleased to say are in the current selection list are a couple of the Little Miss & Mr books - you remember them, of course. Who could forget the classic adventures of Little Miss Sunshine, or Mr Noisy? I LOVED these books when I was younger, and when I was in England several years ago I restarted my collection. I was at a bookstore in London and they had them on sale, and I can distinctly remember thinking, "someday I'll have kids I can read these to", so I purchased several from the series. Now here I am, 8 years later, with a sweet little tyke who is hanging on their every word.

Currently we are reading Mr. Funny and Little Miss Naughty. Mr Funny has encouraged us to learn several new funny faces, which I'm told she is now using to help cheer up the younger children at daycare - that's my girl! And we're learning important lessons with Little Miss Naughty about how to treat people with kindness and respect, all the while giggling our way through the pictures and words.

My favourite part of all her story time though, is that she is now "reading" the story back to herself, or to Cal & I. She's remembering so many parts of the story, and will retell it based on the pictures she sees as she flips back through the pages. Its so exciting to see her relating to books in this way, and to see her storytelling and recall abilities emerge.

So although my own reading adventures may be a bit slowed right now, I'm more than happy to dive back into some of my favourite children's books, along with lots of new ones with my little Lady M. Plus, whenever we are reading stories, the baby on its way tends to kick like crazy, so I think I'm going to have another little reader on my hands in a very short time, and I can't wait to share more and more stories with both my munchkins over the years to come.

who should name the baby?

Is it a good idea to let a two year old name a baby? Well, that's debatable. If you ask my parents, its a terrific idea. In fact, my brother (2 years and 10 months my senior) chose my name. My parents were smart though, because they gave him three options from which he could select: Kristin, Lauren & Julia. His decisive two-year-old self determined that his new little sister would be Kristin, and I must say I have always liked my name and have given my big brother credit for his excellent choice! (Way to go G-Brother!)

Truth be told, I know my name came from my Mum's favourite evening soap - Dallas. For those of you who can remember the famous "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of the series, the answer is Kristin. Kristin shot J.R. And yes, I know the series well - I watched it in reruns with my mum when I was old enough to!

So now, almost 30 years later, I find myself at the same stage - with a two year old, who has come up with a brilliant name for her sibling-to-be. The only difference is, I haven't given her three choices. She has simply made the decision for us. Whenever you ask her what the baby is going to be (as in boy or girl), although she originally chose a gender each time, she now goes straight to the name: Ella.

She has decided that when the baby arrives in April, it will be named Ella...Cinderella.

Although giving naming power to a toddler worked for my parents, I'm not sure we can - in good conscience - name our child Cinderella. But, there are still a couple months to go, and Lady M is a persuasive little girl, so who knows what will happen!

alphabet lessons

I like that learning can happen in all sorts of places.  When out and about with Lady M, we turn most adventures into fun lessons; of course this is especially easy when there is so much for her to soak up at every turn, and her curiousity is piqued by the simplest things. In fact, its so much fun to re-explore the world from her sight line and vantage point. Sometimes she draws my attention to things I haven't looked at in years; case in point, I had to re-learn all of my work trucks - from a digger to a cement mixer - last year when she became fascinated with each vehicle we passed while on the road. Considering we drive right past a construction site every morning, I had to learn them all (again), and fast! I think she still knows them better than me!

But sometimes I love how the simplest things at home can turn into lessons as well. Take the other night for instance: Lady M was eating alphabet vegetable soup for the umpteenth time; she loves it. However, this was the first time that it turned into a lesson in the alphabet. She started by pulling out the letter 'o' and identifying it to me, and then did the same with the next soupy letter out of the bowl, 'y'. The next one she couldn't identify, so I flipped it around so she was looking at it properly and our letter lesson was on! We identified every letter that came out of the bowl and matched a word to it. It was so simple, and easy. Of course, she identified each of the vegetables too, and although most were pulled out by hand by the end, and the perimeter of her mouth was turning a lovely shade of orange, we had turned a simple part of supper into an important lesson. 

Later that night we were watching one of my favourite shows, Wheel of Fortune. Wheel has been family viewing in my house for as long as I can remember; my Mum, Dad, brother and I always watched it as a family when I was growing up, and I'm thankful that my hubby and daughter like to watch it with me now. Of course I've watched it for years, but until my little lady got a bit older, didn't see some of the lessons that could be found in it. Once again, the alphabet! Its simple, a contestant calls a letter, identifying its sound; and good ol' Vanna faithfully walks across the stage revealing that letter sometimes in multiple places. Perfect! Lady M hears the letter sound, and then sees several appear right before her eyes. Seems simple, since we like to watch it as a family anyway, but I like to know she's getting something out of it as well.

I find little lessons like this everywhere with Lady M, and love turning life into a great educational tool for her. But, if she starts answering all the Jeopardy questions, I'll know she's really made it.

i should mention...

I should mention that I have once again shared some of my so-called 'wisdom' over at Be Positive Mom. I have written my A-Z list of tips for working moms as part of Steph's Working Mom Interview series. You can see it here!

And if you're interested, you should just check out Steph's blog, because its great!!

Enjoy!

where have the months gone?

Its been a while since my creative juices have been flowing. Its been so long since I've written, I suppose, that somehow I'm now six months pregnant with my 2nd munchkin, and sporting a lovely pregnant belly! I seem to have lost a great deal of time in there having suffered from morning sickness for about four months, and by the time I made it through my work day, came home and played with Lady M and got her to bed, writing with a little bit of creative flair was the furthest thing from my mind!

Thankfully, in the midst of all of this, while I could barely stand walking into my kitchen, let alone think of making dinner, my darling hubby kept the house in check. Not that he doesn't help with the cooking in a regular week, but he really had to step up his game for a bit there!

By the beginning of December the sickness had subsided (phewf!) so my mum, Lady M and I took a little jaunt to Florida to visit our family and do some pre-Christmas shopping. (For the record, I have never shopped so early for Christmas in my life! I'm totally a Christmas Eve kind of girl, and I like it that way.) So, between our trip, and then the insanity that is Christmastime, its suddenly January!

In that time, Lady M seems to have grown several inches (judging from the fact that her pants are all now sitting at her ankles when we put them on in the morning), she has begun to display the classic two-year old tantrum tendencies, and we have officially entered the 'why' stage of life. Ahh, yes. Its been a busy couple of months!!

So, now that I feel like myself again (and am in the so-called 'honeymoon trimester'), I'll do my best to share some stories of what is happening in our world again. Certainly my two-year-old monkey provides lots of entertainment these days, and keeps Cal and I laughing all the time. Hopefully some stories will make you laugh too!

fantastic snacks

One of my favourite websites to peek at from time to time is Canadian Family. They link to great stories and ideas, and I usually find myself drawn into something on the site. So when I looked at it this morning, I fell in love with a new site: Little Nummies.Well, its new to me...looks like its been around for quite a while judging by the huge variety of ideas on the site.

I'm a big fan of putting together fun little snack plates for Lady M - food is just more exciting when its arranged in a fun way. I have mastered the cheese and berry sunshine plate, but am always looking to try something different. And who am I kidding, its a little creative outlet for me, so it makes me happy!

In any case, when I popped onto Canadian Family today, this is the picture I saw:

 

Is that adorable, or what? So then, upon further exploration, I discovered there is this whole fabulous site of creative and clever ideas that, even if you never put one together, are still just fun to look at.

Here are a couple more that are just too cute for words:

 

I feel totally inspired to make some cute snacks for Lady M. And what better way to get her to eat a great variety of foods at snack time, all while having fun! 

my vegetarian toddler?

Today I picked my munchkin up from daycare because she had spiked a low fever. Thankfully after a good nap and some snuggles she seemed to be somewhat back to normal. I guess after all the excitement of her second birthday yesterday she was just a little more worn out than usual.

She woke up from her nap, had a snack, and decided that she wanted to go visit her daddy at the office which is only a few minutes from our house. After a quick visit there, we all headed off to the grocery store to pick up a few things for the week.

After the fruits and veggies section, we were off to the meat counter. Lady M always enjoys checking out the meat and cheese counters and looking at the world of exciting food contained behind the glass. Today, I lifted her up so she could see up over the counter at the guy who was slicing another woman's meat order with lovely precision. When it was my turn, he asked what we'd like - "shaved, black forest ham", I replied, and the rest of the conversation went a little something like this:

Lady M asked: "Ham, Mummy?".
I said: "Yes, would you like some ham?" (She LOOOOOVES ham).
Lady M: No, I don't like ham.
Me: Oh, since when don't you like ham?
Lady M: I don't eat meat.

Alright, so she turned 2 yesterday, and today she is opinionated enough to float the idea of vegetarianism in front of me? Well, I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow when I give her some meat.

Something tells me the convictions won't stick just yet - but the decisive, determined little girl? She's here to stay. And as my husband and parents like to remind me: she's just like me!! I guess I should know how to handle the determined little attitude then, right? I guess we'll see!