Posted on February 9, 2010 by Erica and Lorraine
Being a Vancouver native, of course I have the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games on my mind at all times….gosh, who doesn’t…..it’s so exciting. But, what I found most intriguing was how my 5 year old daughter was reacting to all of the Olympic hype.
I honestly thought that my daughter would pass through the Olympics with little interest. However, quite the contrary, she is very interested and very excited. It all started when her kindergarten class started to learn all about the Olympics during class and what the Olympics mean to athletes all over the world (which to my daughter the “world” consists of Canada, Mexico and Disneyland).
Her elementary school has brought in guest speakers of past Olympians telling stories about their journey to become an Olympic athlete and how they had to work extremely hard to accomplish their goals.
If that was me telling my daughter about how to accomplish her goals I would have lost her at “let’s have a talk”. However, she was so enthused at what these Olympic athletes had to say and she was genuinely interested in their past experiences.
Then I recently took her to the Olympic torch lighting ceremony in Whistler, BC. There were thousands of people there and the excitement that was streaming through the city was electric. My daughter was up way past her bedtime in order to see the torch enter the city and didn’t even complain once. She loved every minute of it. My favorite part was right after the Olympic torch was lit the crowd started to sing the Canadian National Anthem. I have never heard my daughter belt out the lyrics……in fact; I didn’t even know she knew the lyrics…..so loudly!
Right after the ceremony we preceded directly to the Olympic store to buy my daughter her favorite Olympic Mascot Stuffy…..Muk Muk. My favorite is Quatchi so we had to buy one of those as well…..well, ok, we bought the whole set of four for an astounding $65 but it’s a once in a lifetime experience…right?
When we returned home from Whistler my daughter told her Nana all about the experience in Whistler and showed off her new mascot. She has really loved every minute of the Olympic experience so far….and the games haven’t even officially opened yet.
The moral of this story for me is that our children are never too young to experience wonderful things and to never underestimate the power of the Olympic experience.
Go for Gold Canada!!!!!
Filed under: Baby, Mommy Map, Motherhood, Parenting | Tagged: Baby, Motherhood, new mom, new mom dilema, Parenting | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 2, 2010 by Erica and Lorraine
I love it that my two-year-old son talks such nonsense. We have lengthy conversations each morning where he rambles on and I try to keep up. A conversation may start something like “Dac buk errr mama get it” and I’ll frown and try “You want mama to get your cat book?” and he’ll repeat his request and I’ll take another stab…It’s highly entertaining and as long as I don’t really need to know what he’s going on about we’re fine. He’s sitting there now ‘reading’ himself a Thomas book “ooh go or dok err”. 
I started trying to list and count his vocabulary to see how far behind he was, but quite frankly after noting 20 words I got confused and lost track. Should I count a word such as ‘Dac’ which I know is a very badly pronounced ‘Cat’?
But I’m not concerned about my son, he’ll get there in the end – my kids are just late talkers. But as a rookie mom first time around with my daughter I was worried about her slow speech. At 20 months she used the word ‘Na’ for no less than six things, ‘Blanket’ being one of them. She had a strange habit of taking the middle of a word, reversing it and using it – so ‘nu’ was her word for bunny. We thought she’d never talk. And without the aid of a crystal ball to see us here five years later constantly telling her to stop chuntering on because she does not stop talking, I panicked and requested speech therapy. We were very lucky that the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority offered excellent speech and language services. After the initial tests we were relieved to hear that her comprehension was in the 95th percentile. However, her speech for her age was only in the 5th percentile and she was signed up for weekly therapy sessions. These she thoroughly enjoyed as they were essentially a one-on-one play date with someone other than mommy with lots of new and exciting games, crafts and books into the bargain.
As the weeks went on she made good progress and we were soon down to a few sounds that were harder to master. The therapist’s suggestion to help with the ‘F’ sound was to pretend to have bunny teeth and say “Fffff”, “Fffff”. We even made bunny ears to help with the game. Once she was able to pronounce the sound, the next step was to encourage her to use ‘F’ for words where she had got into the habit of substituting an easier sound, e.g. instead of saying ‘nish’ she should try ‘fish’; try ‘finger’ instead of ‘binger’. So whenever she said a word incorrectly, I would correct her and remind her to use the newly learned ‘F’. Then one day she was trying to say ‘dark’ but pronouncing it ‘duck’. “No that’s not right honey, it’s not duck….” I began. Assuming I was once again harping on about the use of ‘F’, she then put great effort into making her bunny teeth and replacing the initial D with an F before loudly and proudly proclaiming “*UCK”.
After the initial shock, copious snickering and rapid backpedaling I had to admit I was relieved (and a little surprised) that her first curse word didn’t come from mimicking an outburst from me or her father, or from overhearing bad language on an irresponsibly aired TV program. But really, speech therapy?
Filed under: Baby | Tagged: Baby, Cursing, Family, learning to talk, Motherhood, Parenting, speech therapy, Swearing, toddler | 3 Comments »
Posted on January 26, 2010 by Erica and Lorraine
I believe you make your own luck and that a positive attitude and a thirst for new things in life can deliver you great opportunities and success. I am not one to “wish upon a star” or put a lot of faith in buying lottery tickets. Recently however, I have come to the conclusion that there may just be something to this lady luck thing. Up until very recently, it appears that in the bath department I have been extremely lucky indeed. Let me start by saying that having two young children (ages 5 and 2) having a sibling bath together, is a magical time that makes me think the world is a wonderful place. My children laugh, play and giggle with unabashed abandon and have no concept of embarrassment as the romp around in their birthday suits. Bath time has been a joyful and relaxing event for the kids in our house since the day they were born. They have bathed together since the littlest one was able to sit on his own (supervised of course). Somehow through the last few years it appears I have won the lottery every bath time. Because during the last bath just a few short days ago, a bath so similar to all others, something unexpected happened. Can you guess? I suspect you can. Oh yes, as I stood in the bathroom within eye and earshot I heard my daughter utter a disturbing and mind penetrating phrase. Her exclamation echoed through my ears and into my previously lucky and carefree bath brain. Those words my little 5-year-old uttered that struck fear into my normally serene bath time with the kids….were these short words……Mommy….he pooed! My brother pooed in the tub!
Ah how everything changed in an instant. No longer were my thoughts of bubbles and bath toys, of comfy towels and PJ’s. My thoughts were of germs and bleach and how to disinfect toys and my children. I prepared myself for the worst as a peered over the edge of the tub into the abyss beyond. I squinted my eyes in an attempt to not see the scene before my eyes. Alas, I had to open them fully to the mess that lay before me. I will spare you the awful details but sure enough, the former bubbly and clean bath water now had visitors of a more toilet nature, sourced from a fairly robust #2 from my toddler.
It was at this point that my parenting instincts kicked in and I surprised even myself at the efficiency I displayed. Children were asked to stand, rinsing was done and contact with the disturbing contents of the bath was minimized. Both kids were lifted out in an instant and rinsed quickly in the shower nearby. Hair was toweled and bodies dried. With the children out of immediate danger from the dreaded “kaka”, I turned my task to containment.
Hot water sprayed and thankfully the mess made it down the drain. The bath toys and bathmat on the other hand had more in store for them to disinfect and diffuse the situation. Order needed to be restored. Towels used to extract the kids and wipe feet as well as both the bath matt and tub matt were quickly whisked away to the washing machine like a presidential motorcade. Bleach was liberally used on the tub and the residue washed away. For the unfortunate toys, nothing less than a boiling cauldron of oil would do…in this case the oil was water and the cauldron was a saucepan. Nonetheless all the toys got a disinfecting courtesy of a rolling boil worthy of the finest Italian pasta, on our kitchen stove top.
After the chaos ended, I reflected on how to go back. Had a line been crossed and my luck run out? Was bath time no more? Of course not! It was just clearly time to start some serious potty training of my 2-year-old. The time had come to teach him about the potty and how to control his bathrooms. A great new chapter had opened up for me and I had known this day would come…just not so abruptly. There would be potty training, there would be bubbles and there would be many more baths for the kids together. And as for luck…well I still think I make my own,, but maybe, just maybe you will see me at the corner store sneaking the purchase of a lottery ticket into my purse. After all, might as well keep all options open.
Enjoy your baths and enjoy your potty training when the time comes.
Filed under: Baby | 1 Comment »
Being a Vancouver native, of course I have the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games on my mind at all times….gosh, who doesn’t…..it’s so exciting. But, what I found most intriguing was how my 5 year old daughter was reacting to all of the Olympic hype.
Right after the ceremony we preceded directly to the Olympic store to buy my daughter her favorite Olympic Mascot Stuffy…..Muk Muk. My favorite is Quatchi so we had to buy one of those as well…..well, ok, we bought the whole set of four for an astounding $65 but it’s a once in a lifetime experience…right?
