seven months

if i was going to sum ada up in one word, i suppose it would be strong. since she was just a few days old it has been the one trait that everyone makes mention of, that and her big eyes. she wasn't even two weeks old when she started rolling from her back to her tummy (& immediately refused to sleep on her back), and tummy to back followed shortly after. by the time she was 4 months old she could sit on her own, although there was a bit of a lean, and by 5 months she could get herself from lying down to sitting up with ease. these days she is a master of crawling, so fast that sometimes i lose track of where she is in the chaos of our house and will find her down the hall in the bedroom. always looking for new adventures, she has now branched out to standing, and spends almost all day standing at various perches around the house, cohen's train table, the ottoman, our shoe bench. she loves being at cohen's level, able to get at all of his things. which is ok with him, since they are quickly becoming best friends.

she is strong in other ways as well. at the halloween party a child who looked to be a 18 months grabbed the toy she was playing with, but instead of crying she lunged herself onto the child, tugging on his rhinoceros horn. he cried, then dropped the toy so that he could run to his mom. ada smiled and picked the toy back up. having an older brother makes you more prepared for this kind of thing i think.

she is also strong willed. so far she is the most interested in galena's cat dish, the cord maze under my desk, and galena's tail. no matter where we put her down in the house she will immediately take off to one of these three things. she is determined, and much like her brother, becomes frustrated when her plans are thwarted. lucky for me her scheming is fairly predictable so far, i know it won't always be the case.

this was taken last week. you'll never guess where she learned how to do it...

well on our way to hillbilly village

today we went to trains 2008! it is the third such show we have been to this year, what with a husband who aspires to be one of those "train people" and a boy who runs around all day yelling "choo choo, all aboard!", it was little wonder that we found ourselves deep in the heart of burnaby, basking in the glow of the gymnasium lights. this show was supposed to be better than the others, it was "the" show of the year. i was underwhelmed, if that's a word.

still, there were trains! and they "choo chooed!" so for the boy it was a pretty good time, and really who are we kidding, it was because of him that we went anyway.

one thing that always strikes me as odd at these things though is how abrasive the train men are. sure they are old, having taken up trains as a way to pass the time in their retirement, and so they are more prone to grouchiness, but still, it is a train show with a kidz zone (as a society we really have to stop doing that), there are going to be kids. there were sideways glares and downward smiles at every corner. turns out they weren't super cool with the whole stroller thing. i guess i don't blame them, they are done with kids, they have moved on to trains, and this isn't a game, it is serious business. they don't need little people running around making things fun, someone might have a heart attack.

as you can imagine there was a lot of shop talk, and if you think computer people are the ultimate geeks, you have obviously never been to a train show. however, for all their grouchiness (and i should be fair here and say that not everyone was crotchety, in fact some people were over the top friendly and interactive with cohen), i have to hand it to them, they put a lot of work into these layouts and have found something to keep them smiling (when there is no stroller around, presumably), so good for them. still, i secretly hope that marko doesn't become one of them, although i think he is already well on his way.

in like a lion and out like an elephant?

we have had the car about a month and a half now, not very long in the grand scheme, and yet sometimes i forget what it was even like before we had it. i can't believe how quickly the progression from refusal to drive, to terrified but out there, to excited at the prospect, to resentful at the chore was. most days it seems like work now, not that i am complaining, i am not, the car has hands down made my life more enjoyable. our mornings are often filled with drop-in gym time at one of four community centres in our area, or science world, and tomorrow morning i think i am even going to go over to the west side family place (as recommended to me by a play gym mom). i have met quite a cross section of women at these places, and have even been accepted into a few groups of regulars. it makes me laugh, seeing myself this way. coffee in hand, kids in tow and a cheery "hello! how was the weekend?" or "how is he making out with the potty training?" so many tips and pieces of advice and knowledge, not just of parenting techniques, but preschools and gymnastics, breakfasts with santas and babysitters. they know the best ones and aren't afraid to share it. my life has opened up to this enormous world of motherhood just by having a car.

i should say that i am not totally open to seeing myself that way yet. you would think that having two kids, and being a stay at home mom would make me firmly grounded in mommy-ness, and yet there is this part of me that resists the identification. i suspect it is more to do with the denial of the other parts, the movie watching, book reading, live music going woman, who has an opinion about lots of things that have nothing to do with children, things that just never seem to come up at play group. still, it is nice to have others around that are going through the same thing. it is also nice to have somewhere to go where i can set the toddler loose and tire him out so that he passes out upon our return home.

one of our favourite community centres has become sunset. it is a beautiful new building with tons of natural light in the gymnasium and unlike some centres, their drop in equipment is always very clean and my kids never get sick. it is here that i think we might sign cohen up for preschool, and it was here that we spent the morning on halloween.

i think it might be the best community centre function we have been to. it was $3 for cohen to get in, and it included a ton of fun things. there was a pirate bouncy castle, and since the party was for preschoolers there was little worry of cohen being pummeled (and only a small worry about him pummeling someone). it had a hug slide you needed to climb bouncy steps up to. it was a dream come true. he would go in the little door and bounce bounce bounce and then up to the slide and weeeeeee. over and over and over. then there was face painting (which we skipped) and a bunch of play equipment (which ada loves), an area where you could decorate a sugar cookie with 5 different coloured icings and a plethora of sprinkles, they even supplied juice boxes to wash the cookie down. there was a crafts table with sparkles and cut outs and markers galore. they even had a table for the adults with free coffee, fruit plates and baked goods, all from desirable bakeries in town. then, to top it off, on our way out they gave cohen a goody bag with some candy, a sticker, and a child's toothbrush.

it was funny to see all the bouncy castle kids in their plush outfits, sweat dripping down their foreheads as they frantically scratched their hot arms and legs. by the end most people had taken the costumes off and there were kids running around in pajamas, or tights, or whatever they had on under there. it was easily the best two hours october had to offer.

i considered staying in at night, having been to the other community centre party last friday as well, but in the end i thought it might be a good opportunity to meet some neighbours and see how they celebrate it here on the south east side. we only went down one block but it was enough for cohen to master the "trick or treat" as well as the "thank you!" which really was music to my ears (thanks for encouraging him grandma). i was worried that he would realize it was candy in his bucket and would pitch a huge fit for it, but he seemed oblivious to what was actually in the bucket, he was far too focused on the other kids costumes and remembering his lines.

the night ended with us eating some pumpkin pie i made from a few sugar pumpkins i roasted, drinking beer and eating candy with a couple of our friends and my mom, while giving out candy and wearing masks for cohen. if you like pie, i highly recommend that recipe, it was the best pumpkin pie i have ever had. honest.

so our first halloween in the house was a success and the masks have finally been put away for another year. now we move on to the raking of the leaves. gulp.