FOUR!

Dear Maddie,

Dude. You are four. FOUR! I don't even know how we got here.

As prosaic as it sounds, I still (and probably always will) think of you as my little baby girl. Except I have to squint extra hard to see it now. Especially when you stand, with your bony little arm perched on your hip, and whine your requests at me, "Moooooommm!" So apparently you're four, going on 14. Seriously - can I stay "Mommy" at least for one more year? Please?

So much change in just one year...

A year ago you used binkies. (Like all the time - it was quite annoying really. Good thing the Binky Fairy took care of that one.) Now it's like you never used them. I can't even imagine you with one now. (Thank god, right?)

A year ago you still had that toddler twang - lisping your "th's" and leaving words out of sentences. Now you pronunciate and articulate like a proper little lady. In fact, you may just mind your p's & q's better than your Daddy (don't tell him I said that).

A year ago you wanted to watch princess movies all the time, over and over and overandoverandover again. Now you ask for far less tv - more interested in doing, playing, creating.

A year ago you would argue and demand and tantrum. Now you reason, cajole, manipulate (in a good way) (usually).

A year ago you wouldn't try new foods (we're getting there).

A year ago you couldn't use the bathroom without help. Couldn't get dressed or undressed without help. Couldn't open the fridge. Find yourself a snack. Open the front door. Clean up your room. You are so self-sufficient now, I find myself asking if I can help you, please can I do that for you, all the time. "No Mom, I can do it. All by myself I will do it."

A year ago you couldn't swim. Couldn't ride a trike. Couldn't write your name, or any letters at all in fact. You draw pictures (of people! and other recognizable things!). You write your name, Katie's name, Mommy and Daddy. You're learning your last name. You have your address memorized.

You are getting fearless. More confident every day. Cutting those apron strings and becoming your own little person faster than I ever could imagine.

Four will be a doozy I think. So much learning for both of us - new skills and independence for you. Learning to let go, stand back, let you try on your own, for me.

So while I take a look forward, I also take a look back.

A year filled with dancing. Singing (you love to sing along to the radio now). A year of learning and practicing and playing and giggling and "Just teasing, Mom". A year spent watching you soak up everything around you like a sponge. And admiring how it still didn't change your sweetness, your generosity of spirit, or your humour.

You still wake up in the morning with a smile on your face and an eagerness or have funfunfun.

You are my libra. Here to teach me how to balance.

You bring us light and laughter and so so so much love.

Every year your birthday seems to hover around Thanksgiving. As if we needed to be reminded to be thankful.


Maddie's 4th birthday from Sara Vallier on Vimeo.


Love,
Mommy

Remember me?

Hey there. So I have so many excuses for not writing that this could turn into a post all about why I didn't write. Let's just say extensive home renos + my baby turning one + being laid off at the end of my mat leave = big mess of emotions + zero blog posts for oh? A Month And A Half...

And now...

The smoke is finally clearing. Life is returning to normal.

Renos will be done this week (and that's where fate intervenes with an evil "bwa-ha-ha-ha" at my naiveté in believing my contractor).

I am still without job and earnestly playing the lotto weekly whilst avoiding the crappy job of updating my resume.

My baby turned one and we celebrated with family. I wrote a sappy post about it many moons ago. And I also made a video... which I finally sat down and uploaded.

So without further ado... here it is - my tribute to my Katiebear in her first year...


Happy 1st Birthday Katie from Sara Vallier on Vimeo.


And if you can't view the video here for some reason - visit our Vimeo page here.

More updates to come - now that life is getting normal again... or at least less horrifically crazy.

xxoo.S

Dear Maddie,

Your actual birthday was yesterday - but the Princess Party we put on was such a smashing success I crashed into bed shortly after you finally went to sleep - and so, your birthday wish is one day late.

Three years old. "I am fweeeee years old today!" you tell me. Already you are growing up more - no more binkies during the day. We talked about this leading up to your birthday for almost 2 weeks and you seem to be totally on board. Such a big girl now. (As for nighttime habit - we'll worry about that in another 6 months)

A headstrong little girl, you have a romantic, soft side that makes me teary. You love fairy tales, you love princesses, you love happily ever after... Daddy is your Prince (he'd like to keep it that way for a while, please), and I get to be Queen (of course I do...). "May I have this dance?" you ask us constantly - and we twirl and whirl in our tiny living room.

Your openness to try new foods and to eating in general really disappeared this year, but you seemed to replace it with an openness to making friends, trying new things - always.on.the.go. I can't believe you haven't had more owwwies considering your coordination abilities are clearly inherited from me. While you still love adventuring outside, you also have a crazy addiction to tv that we keep trying to dissuade - it's the princess movies that you love. Dora has been replaced. Elmo has been replaced. Mickey has been replaced. Disney princesses always, all the time - "Please mommy, you put Belle on?" you beg me daily.

I love how much you love your sister - all my worries about whether you'd be jealous vanished out the window quite quickly. You are already a considerate, protective, loving big sister. If Katie cries you don't stop telling me that "Quick Mommy! Katie's crying!" until I go to her. Apparently when you play "pretend" at daycare with your new friend, Avery, the baby in the game is always named Katie. And she loves you already so much, boo - never taking her eyes off you if you're around - I can't wait to see what kind of trouble you two get up to as soon as she gets mobile...

You are YOU my bugaloo. And this 3rd year has been filled with discovery and wonder and frustration and imagination and patience and love - for all of us. You make us better people Maddie - and for that, on this Thanksgiving weekend - I thank you. Thank you for coming into our lives. Thank you for giving us a massive reason to be thankful every day. Thank you for being YOU.

Love,

Mommy (and Daddy too)
xxoo

Dear Miss Maddie,

Wow - 2 today. I've written and rewritten and rewritten today's post. You just learned and changed and metamorphised so much that I just couldn't get it.

So instead I gave myself the task of trying to capture a summary of it in a video instead.  It's over 7 minutes long (so apologies to anyone who is busy today... come back and watch later maybe?) - but I dare anyone to try and summarize someone's life in under 5 minutes.  It's bloody impossible.

I hope you look at this video someday and it really conveys just how much fun this year was.  Because holy crap - you are so much fun to be around and we just love the little person you have become.  Stay happy, stay curious and keep your humour, bugaloo.  It makes you such a special person.



Happy birthday my sweet little monkey - we love you more than anything.

Love,
Mommy

Maddie dances

A ladies weekend

This past weekend I had my very good, very old (old in friendship, not in age!) friend, Stefanie, up for a visit.

With Seth away for the weekend doing his infernal football fantasy draft weekend thingamabob, I decided what any self-respecting wifey would do. I organized a little weekend of my own. Including good girlfriends, good food (CAKE!) and good wine.

And it's always nice to have extra hands on deck to help out with the little monster. She's busybusybusy these days. I'm sure most 15 mos-olds are like this, but it literally feels like she spins circles around me and it's all I can do to keep up.

It was also L's birthday (which accounts for the CAKE! mention above) ... I hope she had a good time. I guess anything is okay when you've gotten kicked out of your house on your birthday weekend (her hubby was the host of the football weekend).

So that's that. We gossipped. And chatted. And laughed. And ate and ate and ate. You know, the things girls over the age of 30 do very very well...

This weekend is my bday - going out for dinner w/ the hubs while the little monster gets babysat by her Auntie L. I'm already picking out my dinner (and the accompanying drinks) in my head. Work has been nightmare-crazy for both Seth and I think week, so there will be a fair number of drinkies imbibed I expect.

I'll update you on our shinanigans on Sunday. In the meantime - watch Maddie eat cucumber and sign "please"...



xxoo.S

The partaaaayyy

So we had Miss Maddie's birthday party on Sunday - and it was a success to say the least.  My main concern was how Maddie was going to weather all the attention and people, and I'm glad we kept it small, as I think she was close to the breaking point a few times.

Everyone was very generous and there were lots of presents to open.  And Maddie was actually pretty interested in the opening presents part (with the help of her cousins, of course!).

After we finished opening presents and Maddie got a chance to play a bit (and the grownups got to eat a bit), we moved on to cake!  We stripped Maddie out of her party dress, down to her diaper, for the cake eating event - there was no way I was letting that pretty dress get ruined by the red icing!

I was pretty happy with the cake, and it was so worth all the work it was to see Maddie's face when I showed it to her.  She loves her Elmo!

We let her get a taste of icing before giving her a piece of cake with most of the icing scraped off (yes, mean Mommy) - she liked the cake, but not as much as the icing!

She had a great time at the party - and when everyone left - slept for almost 2 hours that afternoon!  

Thanks again to everyone for making the drive up for the party - it was definitely appreciated!

xxoo.S

PS - I can't believe I forgot to tell you how she looked like she was going to cry while we all gathered 'round and sang Happy Birthday.  She just kept staring at me the whole time, like "what the heck is happening mom?  please make it stop!" ... I guess it's hard to understand what really is going on at that age - luckily she got her mind off the attention by digging into the cake as soon as the singing was done ... here's a video of the action...

WOW! Her first steps!

So we were sitting in our bedroom, hanging out with Maddie just before getting her in the bath, and Seth was trying to teach her how to get down from the step in our room (as she often just crawls over it and falls flat on her face).

Instead, she decides to grace us with her first steps!  So I quickly run to get the camcorder and manage to capture her 2nd set of steps on film...

Don't mind the nekkid-ness - she has a bad bum rash and we've been leaving her dipe off as much as possible to try and air it out.

What a big girl, huh?  I honestly didn't think she was going to actually take her first steps before her first birthday, as she had shown very little interest in even standing on her own (even though she was cruising around with her walker like crazy).  

I guess she decided to prove me wrong.

I don't expect that will be the last time that happens...

xxoo.S

As requested...

Maddie started this hilarious habit a few months ago of making the funniest "frustration" face while in her highchair.  I had friends over for dinner one night and they got to see it and where killing themselves laughing.  And then told me that I absolutely had to make sure I got a vid of that and posted it.  So here it is (although she doesn't do it half as well as she does when she makes the face spontaneously)...



xxoo.S

First swim

As promised, here is the vid of Maddie's first try in her baby pool (it's not that pretty, but I do promise you that she enjoyed herself immensely about 5 mins later when Liz tried her in it again)...



xxoo.S

And she's crawling!

As promised - here's the video of our little Miss Thing taking her first lunges forward in Ireland!





xxoo.S

Weekend update

This past weekend was a mellow one for the Vallier family. We rented a couple of movies on Friday night, got some take out pizza and just relaxed. Maddie was in bed by 8-ish, so we popped in the first movie: There Will Be Blood - I was so looking forward to this as I love love love Daniel Day Lewis, but I was bored to tears. Literally ended up going to bed early and leaving Seth to watch the end on his own as the movie was THAT boring. Either I'm getting dumber by the minute, or these "masterpieces" are too smart for their own good. And what's up with all the 'dark' movies this year? No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, The Assassination of Jesse James, Atonement, Gone Baby Gone - everything is so somber. Some good, entertaining movies in that list, but just so depressing.

Anyways - Saturday morning I got Maddie up at 7-ish so she'd be ready to go back down for a nap before I left for the gym. Thankfully the plan worked - and Maddie was fast asleep by the time Liz came to pick me up at 9:15 and we headed off to the Body Pump class that thankfully I wasn't too stiff for.

Daddy and Maddie were playing when I got home, so we all quickly got dressed and headed out to Chapters to buy Miss Madds some new books. We were getting a little bored with the ones we had been reading her, and it was an excuse for me to go spend some money at Chapters - yay! We grabbed lunch at Shamrock Burger (GREAT homemade burgers - yum!) and got home just as Maddie was waking up from her afternoon car-ride nap. So while I did some laundry we put in the 2nd movie we had rented - Atonement. Not a movie to try and watch while a baby is playing (and babbling, and squealing, and shouting) in front of you on the carpet. Wasn't the easiest movie to follow when only 50% of my attention was focussed on it - but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Especially the latter half - when Maddie was fast asleep for her late afternoon nap upstairs!

Seth watched some of the hockey game that night and I went to bed early (the excitement just never ends here - wow, we sound so old now) ... then Sunday hit and kicked our asses. Poor Maddie was just miserable - she barely slept all Saturday night and Sunday morning saw her grumpy, tired and in lots of pain. She did get a good morning nap in (probably due to the 4am Motrin dose I gave her) - but the afternoon was a shambles. Trying to get things on the 'to do' list while trying to keep a teething baby happy is difficult at best. Add to the mix, her inability to sleep in the afternoon, and now we have a teething, grumpy baby. Woo hoo! By 7pm we were all exhausted and so we quickly did Maddie's dinner, bath, boob, bed routine and she was out like a light by 8pm. As in - didn't wake up AT ALL until 4am. So I guess that's what we have to do to get some sleep at night - just keep her awake ALL DAY. Poor monkey - I feel bad for her and like I posted before, can't wait until she finally pops these teeth - we'll all be much happier.

On the brighter side of life - Maddie continues to grow up right before our eyes. She babbles constantly now - really has lots to say, it's pretty funny. And as much as her teeth are bothering her - she's still full of smiles and giggles for a game of peek-a-boo, when the "Mommy Monster" snuffles her, or during bath time (she really plays her heart out in the bath now!).

She started a new sound this weekend - it's not really a squeal, just her figuring out higher pitches that her voice can make I think - take a look - it's pretty cute...

xxoo.S

Maddie giggles

This weekend wasn't too busy for us. We relaxed on Friday night - not doing much of anything. On Saturday Maddie and I headed into the city with Auntie Liz while Seth worked in the morning - we shopped a bit in the mall (I bought leggings - I'm such a mom!) and then headed over to Lisa Deir's new apartment for lunch and a visit. It was 6pm by the time we got home and found Seth sprawled out on the couch napping - he had gotten home from work around 2pm and spent the afternoon hooking up our new home theatre system, eating some nachos and watching some football before crashing out.

To break in the new system, I went and rented us a couple of movies to watch that night - the Simpsons Movie and Superbad. The Simpsons movie - it was okay - not great in my opinion. Superbad? Super-hilarious. Seriously - rent it. Soooooo funny.

Today I just got all the Christmas decorations taken down finally and did a small grocery shop. Just enough to get us through the next couple of days as we're headed to Kingston on Thursday morning for a 4 day weekend. While I was putting away the decorations Seth was holding Maddie - and for some reason (we still can't really figure out why) she started giggling her head off - so I ran to get the video camera to get this little milestone on tape. After an hour of trying to figure out how to transfer the files from our camcorder to the computer, I've finally got it uploaded. She's laughed and done small giggles before - but nothing like this, so we wanted to share with everyone - it's too cute for words...



S&S