Patch

We've been dealing with two patches. One is wonderful and fun and filled with round orange gourds and has a train with dinosaurs! The other forces my little bear to use her bad eye and makes her so sad and snugly. Let's talk about the former. 

We went to the pumpkin patch last weekend. None of us had ever been, but it seems like something normal families do, and we are a normal family, so we went. We loved it. It's so fun to do seasonal stuff with Eleanor because (like any kid) it's exciting to see things through their eyes and also because of all the new words she can try out! As we traipsed through the pumpkin patch, she kept exclaiming "tangled!" as her feet got caught up in the vines. 

As for her eyes, well, we have to continue to patch for the next six months until she can get corrective surgery. The angle has lessened with the patching and her glasses (when I remember to put them on her - bad mummy), but her vision is pretty horrible in her right eye. She would never let you know, though. 

She's gone through a rough, tantrum period recently. It's been challenging for Kris and me, but we are working through it and it seems to be lessening. A very wise woman once said to me "just because you're experiencing 'normal' problems, it doesn't mean they aren't problems" and we have learned A LOT about ourselves overcoming these parenting woes. I'm holding out hope that the terrible twos won't be followed by terrible threes (or a "threenager") and in two months time I will wake up with a perfectly behaved preschooler. A mum can dream, no?

Happy Day!

Or rather, happy half-year birthday!

Eleanor's "siss-er! Baby siss-er!" is six months old today. I think celebrating month birthdays is a bit silly, but this one is a pretty big deal for us. Eleanor was diagnosed at exactly six months of age, and it marked the end of life as we knew it. Life before cancer, and life after. For Penelope, it is just another wonderfully glorious day of being the fattest, happiest, healthiest baby I know. She has two teeth and is chowing down on all kinds of big-girl food. She sleeps and sits and smiles and laughs. She is joy. 

She is health. 

She is hope.

She is love(d).

Sweet, sweet P.

Outdoor Adventures

My last post was all about indoor, "rainy day" activities, so I thought I would share some outdoor, "sunny day" adventures!

Wearing her sisters toque

Waiting for the bus

On said bus

At the park (this thing spins around really fast. So fast she fell over when she got off!)

Random sleepy baby shot - because Eleanor now says "sleepy baby". Also because awwwwww

Naked Botchi (or boules, depending on your country of origin)

Dolly-wearing on the beach

Poor Dolly!

Building Blocks

I hate Lego. I always have. Eleanor has a Lego set that creates a treehouse for Pooh Bear and his 100 Acre Woods friends. We have had it for two years and hadn't played with it too much. All she wanted to do was mouth the pieces and then when she grew out of that, she would smash what I had just created. I was okay with that, but it wasn't super fun for either of us. The same goes for colouring and painting or playing with Playdoh. I figured she just wasn't into fine motor, rainy day activities. 

Well, like everything with Eleanor, a little time and distance equals progress. 

She built this all by herself. It's not particularly "good" or interesting or remarkable but I think it's amazing. I didn't coach her on what goes where, or how to fit pieces together, she just worked it out. And even with my hatred of Lego and my "if it doesn't look like the box, WHATS THE POINT?" mentality, I think this is cool. 

It probably would have been cooler if she hadn't been reciting "shit, shit, shit!" the whole time. I kept saying, "oh sit! Mummy sits here, Eleanor sits there. Sit sit sit." I have no idea what she was trying to say. 

And as for the other stuff, well, that's exploding too. She loves colouring with her crayons and playing with finger paints. I think because she spent the last year+ working on her gross motor (she was exclusively bum scooching this time last year!), she never had time to pay attention to the smaller things.

One of those "smaller things" is her speech and language. She has gone from a First Word(sign) User to a Combiner in a few short weeks. She is starting to use short phrases and they are usually requests (call daddy) and I can never say no. 

And she can say her name. The most beautiful sound in a single word... Eh-nore! My love for flowery girl names is coming back to bite me on the ass. I knew they would be tricky to spell, but I never realized how hard they would be to say! Poor Penelope has been given the unfortunate nickname "PP" and Eleanor makes valiant attempts at her own name, but it still sounds a little like Pooh's melancholy donkey friend. 

What's up Eeyore? Stuck in a water trough? Sucks to be you.

She is catching up by leaps and bounds. Everyday she seems more like her peers. I'm so excited to watch all these new developments unfold and hear so many new words... even the naughty ones!