so grown up

Last Thursday night Elliot, Ada, and I went out for dinner. We went right after we picked up Ada and she was in a pretty good/hyper mood so we picked a booth with a wrap around bench so Ada could walk around but still be contained.

We ordered some garlic bread sticks (Ada's favorite) and when they arrived we realized that they came with some marinara sauce for dipping. Now, we know Ada loves dipping french fries in ketchup, but I thought that had to do with the ketchup more than the dipping. Turns out she is as big a fan of dipping as she is of ketchup. We broke off a piece of bread stick for her and she started contentedly munching away. Until she saw both Elliot and I dip our bread sticks into the sauce. She stood up on her bench seat, leaned way forward and dipped her bit of bread into the sauce. Well, dunked is a more fitting description. She had marinara sauce up to her wrist, but she didn't let this stop her. She then brought her bread back to her lips, only it didn't get much further than her chin because it was soaked and weighed down by sauce. Of course this lead to a chin full of sauce and fingers full of sauce, which she promptly wiped clean on her new turtleneck. Eventually she managed to navigate the bread to her mouth but at that point she realized that she had dipped her bread in sauce instead of ketchup and she lost interest in the bread.


After our meal had arrived, I carefully cut up pieces of food for Ada, and Ada was feeling awful grown up so she decided to pick up the knife and try to "cut" her food as well. After that she insisted on taking my fork so that she could eat, because who would eat with their fingers. Um.. I guess that would be me now. She also insisted on shaking Parmesan cheese on her food just like Mom and Dad. Thankfully, even through all of this big girl action she managed to eat quite a bit of food. Once she finished eating she wanted down from the table and then back up into my lap.

Now, Elliot and I had both ordered a glass of wine with dinner and I was finishing up my glass of wine when Ada insisted on sitting in my lap. That was when she took this big girl act one step to far. She was happily sitting in my lap, playing with my plate and then she saw it. My glass of wine and she lost all focus on any other objects and honed in on the fancy glass with the rich red liquid. She grabbed a hold of it and tried to bring it to her lips. That's when I put my foot down. My baby can eat grown up food, she can use a butter knife to cut her food, and she can even use a big fork to feed herself; but under aged drinking, she is going to have to wait until she is at least 5 before she starts doing that.

not a picky eater

Sunday night we stopped at Souplantation on our way home from floor hockey to get some takeout salads. Whenever we eat at Souplantation we get Ada a little plate full of some of her favorite items from the salad bar. This mostly consists of chick peas, kidney beans, pasta spirals, and black olives (yuck!). So when we did our takeout we used a few of our little containers to do the same so Ada would have her own set of food when we sat down to dinner. We were running a little late so we decided to let Ada pick at her set of beans and olives while Elliot gathered up some bread and soup to complete our dinner. I thought she'd munch on one or two kidney beans and then be bored and want to move on, not so much. She plowed through her entire container - equivalent to a good handful of food. So on the way out we refilled her container, which she insisted on holding and eating from on the way home. Once again she plowed through this entire container before we got home. This left me scrambling a bit because I didn't expect her to finish one of the containers, let alone two. So when we got home I picked through Elliot's and my salads to pick out food that Ada will eat. She ate most of this, with the notable exception of carrot slivers. She picked these off of every other piece of food we gave her. She also got a little minestrone soup and clam chowder (which she loved), and some wheat bread with butter. Not only was she eating a lot, she was eating fast. I got tired just trying to keep up with the speed of her food intake. In the end in this one sitting she ate more black olives than I have eaten in my entire life, proving that at age 1 she is already less of a picky eater than her mama.

daddy's girl

We had a great weekend hanging out with Ada. Saturday was a pretty typical day for us, but Sunday started out with a lot of unusual activity and it appears that Ada got a little worked up. We started off the day getting our Christmas tree. In the past, Elliot and I have waited until the week before Christmas to get our tree, but we thought Ada might enjoy having the tree around so we got it a little early this year. Ada was a little shy at the tree lot and didn't really grasp what was going on, but was happy to be out of the house. Next, we did some shopping at Target to get some construction paper and paper ornaments. We decided that we would decorate our tree with paper ornaments just in case Ada figured out how to pull the tree over - we didn't want to have to deal with a squished Ada AND broken glass from the ornaments. Ada loves shopping, especially if there is a cart involved. Not because she likes sitting in the cart. She will put up with sitting in the cart for a little while, but she usually ends up out of the cart, "pushing" it as we slowly move through the aisles. We had such a good time at Target that we figured we would push our luck at Marshalls for a few items we have been looking for, and finally ended up at Einstein Brothers for some breakfast fare. With all of those activities we thought Ada was sure to crash for her morning nap shortly after we got home. And sure enough, she showed all of her sleeping signs, but for some reason - she just refused to fall asleep. We tried a couple of times to get her down in her crib - even letting her wail about for what felt like an hour (probably not more than 5 minutes). Finally we resolved ourselves to a no nap morning and brought her out to watch some football with us. It wasn't more than one minute before she had curled up in Elliot's arms and fallen asleep. Elliot was also feeling a bit tired so he just laid down on the couch and they took a nice long nap together. Once they woke up they had some lunch and as they finished up, Elliot gave Ada a piece of garlic bread (her current favorite food) and propped her up on a pillow next to him on the couch. She was content but had a look on her face that showed that something was just not right. She looked around a little bit, looked up at Elliot, looked at his arm that was over her shoulder and resting on the arm rest and then something clicked. She grabbed his arm and pulled it in close around her waist, and snuggled in a little bit more. At that moment in Ada land everything was right with the world. She was well rested, her belly was full, and her Daddy - he was wrapped around her little finger. It was adorable.

sleepy head

Last night when I picked up Ada from daycare I noticed that she hadn't taken her afternoon nap. Not unusual, but it usually means a cranky ride home and an earlier bed time. So imagine my surprise when I handed back a binky early in the ride and then didn't hear another peep. Given that it is dark when I pick her up now - I couldn't see what she was up to until I got home. Turns out she was asleep. We put her in her crib and figured we had enough time to finish up some work until she woke up and wanted dinner. One hour passed - nothing, two hours - nothing, finally we started to get ready for bed and she started to stir. We quickly gave her a bottle (forget the sippy cup), changed her diaper, put her in her jammers and laid her back in her crib and she was still happily sleeping when I left the house at 6:30 this morning. I'm sure she is growing and needed the sleep, but in the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder if she figured we would be trying to push the sippy cup again last night and she was just really creative in her attempt to rebel against our attempts.

power struggle

Last night when we picked up Ada from daycare the center director asked us to step into her office because she wanted to talk to us. Nothing bad, Ada is going to be transitioned to the toddler room at the center and she wanted to discuss that process with us. The biggest difference for Ada is going to be the removal of the bottle. Once she moves to the toddler room she will no longer be allowed to drink her milk from a bottle. You wouldn't think this is a big deal since she is very proficient with her sippy cup, but you would be wrong. We have until January to make the transition but Ada is apparently so attached to her bottle that the director thought we should start now.

So being the studious parents that we are, we went home and presented Ada her evening milk in a sippy cup. Seconds before that she had been drinking water from a sippy cup but that is apparently very different. We warmed the milk, poured it in the sippy cup and tried to hand it to Ada. She pushed it away and said, "Nah".

Side note here - I love that Ada says Nah instead of No. It just seems so much more relaxed and cool. Like she just doesn't feel like doing what she is being asked to do rather than full out defiance. I know... I'm only fooling myself. But it is the little things. Ok back to the story....

So I offered her the sippy cup a few more times, Elliot tried to lay her across his lap like he normally does with the bottle and got the sippy cup as far as her lips but then she pushed it away again and said, "Nah". We figured it might be a bit much to do all in one night so we explained to her that we would let her have her milk in a bottle but that we were going to continue to first offer her the sippy cup and after this week we would not be putting the milk in the bottle for her. Quite the logical argument but I'm not so sure she is going to let us off that easily.

So this morning when it was time for her morning milk, Elliot offered her the sippy cup and when I got out of the shower, he was still trying to get her to take it. She is normally so sleepy, calm, and hungry in the morning you can get her to do just about anything. Anything, that is, except drink milk from a sippy cup. She ended up with her bottle again. We'll see how long this takes. If we have learned anything in the last 15 months it is that Ada is a strong willed little being. In fact I think that was driven home most poignantly when we were struggling to get her attached to the same nasty little habit we are currently trying to break - the bottle. How ironic.

the grey cup

Yesterday was The Grey Cup, the Superbowl of the Canadian Football League. And as luck would have it, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were not only in the game they won the whole thing! Through one of our local Canadian friends we found out that a local bar was actually going to be showing the game so of course we HAD to go.

Last year for Christmas Elliot got some Roughriders gear for the family, including a cute little sweatsuit for Ada. So we put on our gear and headed downtown for the game.

The game wasn't all that exciting, but our time at the bar was interesting. Unfortunately, the owner of the bar didn't know he was going to have the game on in time to advertise to the local Canadian contingent, so there was only two other groups of Canadians there. However, it was fortunate for us because it allowed Ada to have run of the joint without us worrying to much about her. We did take in a little pub fare including Ada's favorite of all time - ketchup - with a side of french fries. Technically we ordered and paid for the french fries and they threw in the ketchup for free but Ada merely uses the fries as a means for getting ketchup into her mouth and all over her face. She has really developed quite the technique for moving ketchup from the plate to her mouth. She spends a lot of time orienting the fry in between her fingers so that she is just holding the very tip of the fry, allowing her to get the maximum surface area of the fry available for ketchup dipping. She then slides the fry into and out of the ketchup resulting in a full double dip of ketchup per dip. You would think this would be good enough but she then takes it a step further. She then licks and sucks the ketchup off the fry and goes back in for another dip. She will only actually eat the fry after it has been fully saturated with ketchup.

Had the Chargers been in, and won the Superbowl I would have great memories of great catches and hard hitting tackles, because, you know, I would have watched the game. You would think the same would apply to the Roughriders winning the Grey Cup - but honestly - I will always remember this victory by fry manipulation and the art ketchup saturation.

giving thanks

Yesterday was American Thanksgiving, as opposed to Canadian Thanksgiving, which Ada also celebrates. We hosted what we called, Lazy Thanksgiving. The only rules we laid out were that we would eat when the turkey was ready, football would be on the TV, and we would most likely be in our comfy weekend clothes. My parents, Julie, and Taylor joined us for our lazy day and we all had fun hanging out, but Ada and Taylor showed us that they are learning how to be quite the tag team.

They are just starting to get to an age where they are playing together. And play they did. It looked like a toy store had thrown up in our living room by the time the day was over. In fact, they were so busy playing that they didn't have time to take their afternoon naps. Not that Julie and I didn't try. We would try to put one down and they would cry past their normal amount so we would take them out and then we would try the other one. Each time one of the girls was sprung loose from the crib she would walk back into the living room with her head held high and a slight glimmer of mischievous satisfaction across her face. This was the routine for a couple of tries then they picked it up a notch. I didn't see them talking this through ahead of time but I'm guessing that they had some sort of code worked out, because what happened next had to have been plotted out. Taylor once again had a little meltdown, the sort that just announce to everyone around that it is time for a nap. As a mom I love these meltdowns because they are so transparent you don't have to spend any time wondering what might be the source of the tantrum. But, as had happened the other three or four times we had tried to put one of the girls down for a nap, once her head hit mattress the screams got even louder and varied.

This is where the plotting comes in. Taylor and Ada must have figured that among the adults, there must be at least one that would succumb to their total cuteness. So they set up an elaborate sequence of crying rhythms and when the other one heard this they knew it was time to set their plan into action.

As the adults sat around waiting for Taylor to get through her full litany of cries, Ada snuck back to the bedroom and started lightly pounding on the door. And the girls were right, someone saw Ada pounding on the door and they let her in, she wandered in looked around and had a smug little look on her face that said, Yup, suckers. I did my job, they won't be able to resist Taylor now that they are in the room. And she was right. As Taylor walked back into the living room this time she held her head even higher, and the smile on her face was extra big. I'm sure that if we had video footage of the girls following this incident we would have seen them high fiving and giggling as they realized that they have us wrapped around their little fingers. And as silly as it sounds, THAT is what I'm thankful for this year.