Quotable quotes

"I'm not drawing on the book, Mumma. I'm just stroking it gently with the end of my pen..."

Happy birthday, Granny Heath

Happy birthday, Granny Heath!

Hope you have a lovely birthday. Looking forward to seeing you soon. :)

Version 1: "The robot"

Version 2: "The Moving Target"

Moving URLs

We are going to migrate to a new blog in the next few weeks. We won't be publishing the new URL here, so if you are still with us and would like to follow us to our new home, email us and we'll let you know the new web address.

Magic

There is nothing quite so magic as feeling your unborn child kick your hand for the first time.

On being slammed

Emma slapped me today, completely out of the blue, with no apparent anger or provocation. She accompanied it with a loud and resounding "Slam!"

When I protested and told her not to hit me, she explained patiently, "I wasn't hitting you Mumma. I was pretending you were a door."

Aye, aye, aye...

Celebrating Mummy

Caroline has won a big award for work and we are in Kelowna (about 5 hours from Vancouver) for the award ceremony. We told Emma that we all need to dress up and be "spiffy" for the banquet tonight.

Emma as a result is in the bath and refuses to get out  - apparently, she needs a "long, long bath" because she's "not spiffy yet."  Hopefully, part of her definition of spiffy is actually getting dressed! :)

Not a good adult

(After lights out.)
Mumma: You're supposed to be sleeping, kiddo.
Emma (shrugging, looking absolutely adorable, with a "what can you do?" attitude): I'm just not a very good adult, Mumma. I'm supposed to sleep but I just want to play.

Today's lesson

If you're on a budget, never let a hormonal pregnant woman loose at her children's future school and let her bid on a baby basket in a silent auction...

Quote of the day

 “No, Mumma! Don’t wipe my face with the duck’s duvet.” 

(Stupid me thought it was a washcloth.)

The logic of three-year-olds

Mumma: Ow!
Emma: You stepped on my baby! (doll)
Mumma: Sorry, baby. .
Emma: Mumma, toys don't talk.

Damned if you do...

The problem with having a kid who is old enough to actually do stuff is that she's also old enough to say, "No, I don't want to."

Happy Birthday Mumma!

Emma and I had great fun tonight preparing for Mumma's birthday tomorrow. Thought I'd share this funny video that we made...I wonder if she will be this energetic in her teens!?!

We have literacy!

Emma just wrote her name for the first time. (and by that I mean you could look at it later and clearly see an E, an M, another M and an A  - she's been trying to do it for months, but it wasn't legible.)

I'm pretty excited and awed by the brain development that has to take place for a child to place abstract symbols on a page that have a meaning beyond what she designates to them...

The four raisins

On the days when Emma has cereal for breakfast, she's taken to picking out the raisins and saying - "There's one for Mumma, one for Mummy, one for baby and one for me, big sister."

Why does she do this, you are asking, as you hold your breath, hardly daring to believe the answer.

Because, dear readers (all two or three of you, our loyal and faithful followers)...

we are having another baby!!!!!!!!!!!! 

We will take our first baby steps as the parents of our newest little one around November 7.

Yayyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Overheard conversation

Caroline and Emma in the kitchen using up old bananas by making banana bread.

Caroline: No, kiddo. We're not putting glue in the cake. Put it down, please.
Emma: But why?
Caroline: Um...Well... because glue doesn't go in cake. We don't eat glue. We use it to stick things.
Emma: (sounding disappointed) Oh. Ok.


(a few minutes later)
Emma: I can do it! I can help.
Caroline: Thanks, kiddo...No silly, we're not putting glue in the cake!
Emma: Oh.

Quote of the day

"I like nice dinosaurs. I like a nice T-Rex."

Seeing the world

If she had just said "Mumma, I want to go to the park," I might have been been able to resist. But no, she said, "Mumma. Can we go out? I want to see the world." What's a Mumma to do?

Science

Emma: Why is water slippery?
Mumma: (provides long involved answer about thin films of water, lubrication, friction blah blah blah)
Emma: But why?

(I should have just said "Because it is.")

Baby bear is cleaning up

Sitting on the couch working while my daughter sweeps and tidies up. I should feel guilty, shouldn't I? But I'm more interested in figuring out how to keep this dynamic as she gets older. She is choosing to sweep, believe it or not, but sadly, I suspect it is a phase.

Quote of the day: "Mumma bear! You give the best kisses!"

Kid after my own heart

Emma's book of choice for reading and snuggles in bed this morning - Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. She calls it "the tiger story." (At this rate, she'll be ready to critique the article I once wrote about it: - "Fiction is a Territorial Animal; The Booker Prize, its Keeper" - by the time she's 3 1/2)

Balloon walks

Further reinforcing that she might need a pet, we've been going for balloon walks. That's right - we take Emma and her birthday balloon on a walk around the neighbourhood. It's endlessly entertaining.

3 year olds are smart

Emma has a new toy pony. She's called it Ryder.

Next, she'll call her toy flute Piper...

Quotes

I sometimes wonder how old this kid is:

I went up to see why Emma was awake long after bedtime. "Why are you coming in here?" she asked. I told her I was checking to see why she wasn't asleep. She said, "Can you go back downstairs, Mumma? I'm busy right now."

She was sitting on the floor happily "reading" one of my books on world mythology. I wanted to take a photo of her, so I crept up with the camera. She looked up, said "Cheese" (too quickly for me to take a photo), rolled her eyes and went back to reading.

Hands on hips, sighing, "I'm not a baby you know, Mum!"

And just to confirm her status as an old soul, "I was 46 when I was born. No, 47."

Happy birthday, kiddo.

And she's three!

Girls-night-in

I asked our almost-birthday-girl what she wanted to do tonight, and she replied, "Eat pizza on the couch with my Mumma and the blue blanket watching Caillou."

And so we spent the evening sitting on the couch wrapped in blankets watching Caillou (and missing the rest of our family - which is is Kansas City, Missouri at the moment.)

All kids need a pet?

Emma is busy playing with her new "pet". It's a cotton bobbin. She has pulled off the thread to make a long "leash" and is working it around the house, calling "Come with me. We're going for a walk."

We also learned today that Emma has a liking for 1980s Disco music...and dances to it like a break-dancer. She calls is "silly dancing".

Communication (Anna)

An interesting, and quite profound, developmental shift in the past few weeks. Emma's pictures have gone from "scribbles" to being discernible images that don't require translation. The other day, she drew a school of fish in the ocean and the fish looked like fish, and the waves looked like the sea. I'm not sure if  the developmental shift is her artistic ability or our capacities as art connoisseurs. Possibly, she's just moved through her impressionism stage into a realist phase.

Either way, it's a profound addition to our lines of communication.

The other fun thing at the moment is her absolute delight with letters of the alphabet. "Mummy-Mumma, I saw an E!!! An E for me!!!" "Mumma-Mummy, I saw an M!! I have 'm's in my name. And M starts with Mumma and Mumma, too!!!" She gets so excited. It's wonderful.

Happy birthday, Auntie Anna

A belated birthday song for one of Emma's favourite people: her Auntie Anna. 

Dear Anna

Happy birthday! Sorry we're late in celebrating. 

You know you're special because...Emma stopped talking about poo long enough to sing this to you!

With love,

Anna, Caroline and Emma

Here's the official version:

And a rather silly (but very characteristic) outtake that makes Emma giggle every time she sees it :)

Conversation (Anna)

Emma used to be a wonderful, intelligent conversationalist. We would talk about all sorts of things, and she would ask questions and tell stories and be generally lots of fun to talk to.

These days, her conversation has become a little limited, confined mostly to the words "poo and pee".

Mumma: What do you want for your birthday?
Emma: A poo poo t-shirt! (giggle)

Mumma: What did you do at daycare today?
Emma: I poo-pooped on the peepeepony. (giggle) And I pee-pee-poked Lovina.

Emma: I have a Grandma poo poo!
Mumma: Who's Grandma Poo poo?
Emma: Granny Heath! I call her Grandma Poo Poo.

Mumma: What's your favourite food at the moment?
Emma: Poo-poo!

And she's gone back to calling us "Pee pee" and "Poo poo".

I'm thinking of writing a book called "The Amazing Adventures of Pee-Pee and Poo-Poo".

A Joni Mitchell fan

I was driving the other day with E in the back. I was singing under my breath:

"Oh the seasons, they go round and round
And the..."

I got distracted by something on the road, and stopped singing. And from the back seat came a very sweet little voice:

"painted ponies they go up and down.
We're captured on the carousel of time."

I had no idea she knew that song. I must sing it more than I thought.

Things you don't want to hear from your pre-schooler from another room

"Mumma. I broke it."

"Ooop. My pee is coming out!"

"Mumma, my carrots are stuck in the printer."

"Mumma, why did my baby's head come off?"

"Look! I've got the car keys!"

"I was typing on Mummy's computer and then it broked." or "Mumma, help me. I'm carrying Mummy's computer down the stairs and it's too heavy." (crash)

Quote of the day

"Mumma, I don't need to wash my hair tonight. I put my head in a puddle today, and now my hair is clean!"

Each to her own

Emma" "My favourite dinner is icecream and salad and tomato."

Penguins (Anna)

We took Emma to her first movie over the break - Happy Feet 2. In a scene with a young penguin getting a cuddle from his parents, Emma pipes up, in a voice loud enough to fill the cinema:

"Does that penguin have two Mums?"