Six

D. turned six years old on December 13! December 13 was a Friday. She took carrot muffins to school to celebrate. For supper she chose fries, chicken nuggets, broccoli, and chocolate cake. We gave her her birthday presents from us: 2 books (one French, one English) and a Playmobil set (set 4015, to be exact).

On Saturday she had a birthday party with 3 friends from school. They had mini-pizzas, cheesies, and broccoli for lunch and decorated cupcakes for dessert. There was one nose-head collision involving many tears and a little blood - but other than that, it went well! The friends were quite enamoured with her bunkbed. They did a lot of climbing up and down often without making use of the actual bunkbed ladder!

D had talked about having a pinata and playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey but when it came time to go to the store for supplies for those activities, she desisted. Her Papa and I had googled something like "DIY kids birthday party" a couple days beforehand. The only idea we followed up on was this:

We had scheduled a birthday lunch with extended family for the following day (Sunday) but a snowstorm forced us to cancel. We've rescheduled for this Sunday which means more party guests: her grandparents and uncle will have arrived for Christmas holidays. Hooray!

We had another snowstorm today. All the district schools were closed so D. experienced her first SNOWDAY. She was pleased to enjoy some hot chocolate at a local café:

She also came to my office for a while in the afternoon. She watched the Lorax and did some drawing at my desk while I finished up some work. I was thinking about her experiencing things that I experienced as a child: waking up excitedly wondering if school would be cancelled, for instance. I also remember my dad bringing my brother and I in to his office, which was also at a post-secondary institution. I've been thinking about this generally since we moved here because we often go to my grandparents' place for Sunday dinner, like my family did when I was D's age. There is something precious about these repetitions.

Verbalness

Even as we're following up on a recommendation that A see a speech therapist, his vocabulary has expanded a lot this fall. Here are a few notes on recent developments:

He has started to talk about himself in the first person. Two examples: (1) At a special town event on Friday after we had had a horse-and-wagon ride through downtown, he said, "I like it horsie!" (2) When he feels like his mittens are askew or his boots are falling off, he says, "My mitten!" or "My boot." But he has an adorable pause between each word, more accurately transcribed as: "My. Mitten!"(Sidenote: look what happens if you google the word "askew"!)

He has always called his sister... oh man, I don't know what letters to put together to replicate this sound! It's something like if you isolate just the "an" syllable in "angela" or "anger." Anyhow, now he has started to call her, appropriately, "Dorty." (I'm thinking about how when SHE was little, she used to call herself "Da-ta.")

He has this awesome word that is a combination of because + pourquoi + parce que. It sounds like "Percuz."

He used to called peanut butter "dap." Now he says something like "peanut butter" but it sounds like "papa pillow."

He's got "Merry Christmas" down pat.

Obviously his sister WHO IS ABOUT TO TURN 6 (!!) is incredibly articulate. But we can still notice her learning new words. Earlier this fall she was really into inserting the word "technically" into her sentences. And one thing that I've noticed about her speech is she overuses the verb "grab." I find this very endearing. I'm not sure where it comes from; it might be related to the use of "prendre" in French. As an example: she'll talk about something "grabbing a lot of time" instead of "taking a lot of time." 

Our Little Student

A couple weeks ago we had our first parent-teacher interview. We didn't go in with any specific questions; we were just curious to hear more about D's behaviour at school. The teacher told us that D is "a lovely little girl" and "a pleasure to have in the class." She's where she should be in terms of learning. She gets along well with both girls and boys. She likes the house corner best. She asks for helps when she needs it (the teacher quoted her as saying, "I think I need some help"). She helps others.

The teacher also mentioned a couple observations that reassured me that D isn't putting too much pressure on herself to be little-miss-perfect. Apparently, she is sometimes too chatty! And sometimes she's a bit pouty when she doesn't get a turn to do something.

D. was waiting out in the hall doing some drawing and reading during the interview. Afterwards we told her that we'd take her for a little treat before we went to get A. We offered to let her pick out a new book at the bookstore, or go her for a milkshake at the diner, or choose a sweet at a café. And what did she choose? To go get Cheesies at the convenience store! Classy.

Halloween 2013

These first two photos are not actually of Halloween but they fit under the general Halloween-y theme of, ummm, posing or disguise or props or something.

A. watching Big Comfy Couch with Bob the Builder and "Pilot" (a Playmobil figure). I believe he has chocolate on his face.

D. pretending to be a detective.

Last night (the night before Halloween) we decorated some giant pumpkin cookies and went to a Halloween Carnival at the elementary school. 

And without further ado, here are their Halloween 2013 costumes!

As is immediately obvious, one of these costumes was a lot more work than the other! We are inordinately proud of this Wonder Woman look as we've never put so much effort into a costume. It is a creative mix of materials from two different thrift stores and a craft supply place. Plus, we managed to winterize (fall-ize?) the standard superhero bathing suit that Wonder Woman usually wears without compromising on style and recognizability. We googled "Wonder Woman kids costume" for inspiration and now D. really wants to put her own photo up on the internet to inspire others. Paying it forward, people, paying it forward. 

A. was a pumpkin for two reasons. First of all, he has really been enjoying pumpkins this fall. Whenever he sees one, he points it out and says, "punkin!" Second, I wasn't sure he would want to wear a more elaborate costume-y costume, so we sent with something simple and comfy. The hood has a little stem on top, which you can't see in the picture. 

We went trick-or-treating with some friends at about 10 houses. I thought we'd be out way longer but D. got cold and wanted to go home to eat some treat. A. would've kept going for sure. After every house he would say, "More punkin! More Halloween! More bonbon!" I was glad that we got home early enough to give out some treat to a few trick-or-treaters at our front door.

Here they are assessing their treat. They ate a bunch before bed. 

 Good times!

Trouble, Yah!

How 'bout an anecdote about each of them before I hit the hay on this late Sunday evening of my birthday (35!)?

• Little A. has always nodded 'yes' or shaken his head 'no' in response to questions. But just over the last few weeks, he has started saying 'yah' instead of nodding. It's not a 'yes'; it's clearly an emphatic, often drawn-out 'yaaahh!' in any kind of situation. For example: "Are you hungry for some cereal?" "Yah!" "What kind of cereal do you want to have?" "Ay-ah-Eeets!" "Mini Wheats?" "Yah!" (Okay, there's just no way that a written description can capture the cuteness of this 'yah'... but you can perhaps imagine a percentage of the cuteness.)

• Apparently in D.'s kindergarten class, kids can get sent back to their desks if they are misbehaving on the carpet. Recently, she admitted (laughingly, sheepishly) that this once happened to her! One of her friends has "fluffy" socks (tube socks, I imagine) and he pulls elastic strings out of the socks to play with, even going so far as to (if I understood correctly) put the elastic string in his teeth. Flossing, I suppose? Anyhow, D was somehow involved in the elastic extraction or she was playing with said elastic and they both got sent to their chairs. She seems jealous of the tube socks because she can't manage to extract elastics from her own socks.

The Bulk of October

Holy moly, time flies! Before I just logged on here, I never would've guessed that my last post was from as long ago as October 1.

Speaking of that Sickies post, about a week after A's throat infection, D had an ear infection! This was actually her first ear infection ever. So we were Antibiotic City for a while there. Thankfully, all four of us are now patients of a doctor + nurse-practitioner team here in town. Access to medical services is much easier than it was in the big city. Case in point: last week it seemed like A had some kind of infection on his penis (likely caused by his antibiotics). I called the practice when it opened at 9am and got an appointment for him for 1:30pm. (We kept saying, "oh, his poor little peeny!" which made D laugh hysterically.)

As I also mentioned in the previous post, we had a lovely visit with my in-laws. One memorable moment: the kids both really got immersed in playing "restaurant" with Grandmaman and Grandpapa using their pretend food. So cute.

Then my parents and my brother visited over Thanksgiving. Our big family meal was at my relative's farm so the kids got to see baby kittens and cows and tractors. AND they both got a pony ride! I was impressed that they both had the nerve to do it.

A final bit of catch-up news: A has started going to daycare 3 days a week. It was tough at first because 1. it was new and 2. he started when he was still recovering from the throat infection. Now - only a couple weeks later - he seems to really like it! They have a huge backyard with play structures and toys; he calls it "big garderie park."

Sickies

So many people seem to have horrid colds these days, including - unfortunately - little A. He's been stuffed up for over a week now. A trip to the doctor on Sunday resulted in antibiotics, so he is now on the mend. (I'm reminded of the Strep Throat Nightmare of July 2013, when D was actually hospitalized (hospitalized!) to receive IV antibiotics, steroids and fluids. I shudder at the memory. Thankfully, A didn't even come close to that extreme situation.)

Here are some happy photos, taken just yesterday. He looks so much more chipper than he did the day before. He went to an orchard with his papa and grandparents, who are visiting us! He really likes pumpkins. He points them out and likes to go over to sit or lean on them.