(Fruit) stickers on the fridge

Week 137 motherhood of 2 year 7 months old and 4.5 month old: 

• April 27:  I got my second backordered transcripts (two) since giving birth to the second baby.  Ahh, gotta find time to finish them.
• May 1:  The baby has started to “talk” tons!  She is loud and babbles so much.  It’s like she wants to join in our conversation too.  When the toddler is awake, it’s rarely quiet in the house.  She always is talking and singing or asking us questions.  I guess the baby hears all this talk and wants in on it too!
• She can turn on her side and can almost flip over.  I feel like she’s actually a little “late” in turning over and in her tummy time skills.  We definitely spent way more time each day with the firstborn with these skills.  No matter though because she’s still turning and will be able to roll eventually.  The baby seems to be able to turn on her side more often especially since I’ve been side lying to nurse her.
• On that note, DH has been taking her away from the bed after I’ve finished nursing her if I was side lying.  It’s safer not to co-sleep with her since I am a very heavy sleeper.
• Two of the EarlyON virtual programs we attended announced last week that it was the last class and that there would be a break from May to August.  It makes total sense since the warmer weather is coming and less kids will be indoors at home, so no sense in wasting resources for the virtual activities.  They are amazing resources though and I wish they didn’t have to break until the autumn, but I understand the reasoning.  I browsed the online calendar and there are still a number of virtual sessions; just not as many as before.
• Now that our relatives from overseas have finished visiting, we are another week closer to attending EarlyON sessions in person again!! 🥳  Just have to get through the rest of this weekend too.  We have been sheltering in place to prevent getting the kids sick for fear of jeopardizing the planned event on Saturday.  Fingers crossed and knock on wood that we make it there unscathed.  (DH caught a cold this past week actually but thankfully no one else at home is sick 🤞.)
• The toddler had her first time experience at Medieval Times with her daddy this past week!  Lucky ducks.  DH said she looked like she hadn’t been out in public for a while the way she was grabbing onto his leg and both hands when they were walking from the parking lot to the venue.  She was wide eyed during the dinner and show and seemed to enjoy the experience.  Two and a half years old is a bit young to be taking them to Medieval Times, but the opportunity presented itself and we were very grateful to take it.
• We brought the baby out for dinner for the first time this past week (twice)!  She stayed asleep in her car seat until she started fussing for the first dinner and we promptly finished eating and went home after.  For the second dinner, she stayed asleep for the entire two hours we were there and wouldn’t have awakened if it weren’t for us taking her out for the grandparents to see and for a group photo.  She was so good.  (She was awake prior to the dinner for at least an hour so it made sense why she continued sleeping for 2hrs+.)  It was really nice to just have to cater to the toddler during the dinner out and the baby was sleeping soundly throughout.  Yay!
• The toddler goes between periods of loving on her sister to periods of jealousy and not wanting me to nurse the baby.  Overall, she is okay with her baby sister.  She just needs to have her cup filled every day with undivided attention and eye contact.  She’s been sleeping through the night too because of this.  No more frustrations.
• The baby is officially in size 2 diapers now!  Grandma did an approximation of weighing her last night and the baby seems to be 15 lbs now! 😮  Gotta watch my wrists now when holding her and moving her around when nursing because she’s getting heavy.
• I had my last chiro appointment on Saturday.  It had been 3 weeks since the last one and I can’t believe I didn’t even get a chance to fit in any stretches… they are not top of mind.  The chiropractor is so good.  He’s always so patient in explaining things to me and remembers most of what I tell him about my mommy world and what I do for a living.  Most healthcare practitioners are not so good with their memory and also have too many patients to remember.  He left me with a stretch to do for strengthening my neck while sitting or standing.  I like how he said he wants me to practise these stretches whenever I feel like something is out of whack so I can improve myself instead of relying on someone else (him) to adjust things.  That’s a really fair comment to make and rare considering the visits aren’t covered by OHIP.  He said I could come back once a month as followups but the decision was now in my hands.  I don’t have any more pelvic pain and I haven’t really had a chance to stroll outside the past couple of weeks to notice any uneven leg discomforts.
• Postpartum hair loss:  I forgot that this doesn’t start until about the fourth month of postpartum.  I thought I was lucky to not have any hair shedding at all this time, but it has begun.  The last few days have seen more strands of hair on my clothes than before..  It’s not clumps of hair loss like some other ladies experience, but it’s suddenly a lot.
• The baby can grab onto the toys on the jungle gym by herself.  It’s like she knows how to play with them!  It’s so interesting to watch her.
• This baby girl loves to watch TV 🤦🏻‍♀️.  It’s not even like we have the TV on that often, but I guess because it’s hung on the wall, high and accessible, she tends to focus on the bright lights coming from the screen.  The firstborn was never like this.  This baby just seems to have a tendency to gravitate towards the TV whenever it’s on..  She will lie on the jungle gym play mat and turn her head towards the wall to watch the screen. 🤦🏻‍♀️
• The new thing this week is that the toddler enjoys watching me wash dishes and requests to watch 🤣.  As I’ve mentioned before, I love washing the dishes because it’s such a nice solo activity where I can unwind and do something mindless.  Yet the toddler now asks to stand next to me on the learning tower to watch me.  So much for my solo self-care activity.  I can’t even do my chores in peace lol.  I do let her and she is well-behaved for the most part.. until she wants to touch and rearrange the cuterly that’s in the drying rack. 🤦🏻‍♀️
• Lately, the toddler has been able to take naps right in the living room by sleeping on her belly.  She falls asleep after rolling on her hands.  It’s great that she can get some zzz’s to reenergize during the day.
• May 3:  The baby sleeps so much.  It’s like she is sleeping enough to cover the hours that her older sister didn’t take when she was an infant 😂.
• The toddler has been enjoying playing with the fruit stickers.  We haven’t given her any other stickers to play with, but somehow she has found them on her own.  Great open-ended activity and fine motor skill as well.  She likes to peel them off of the fruit and stick them onto the fridge.  At first, she stuck one onto the buddha worship table, but I told her to stick them onto the fridge.  The fridge is an easy place to unpeel them and clean off the fridge too.
• DH used the numbers puzzle to attempt to teach her numbers and recognizing the numbers and how they look.  I’m not in any rush to teach her numbers and letters at all.  She’s only 2.5 (four months away from turning three actually), but she will for sure learn them in time.  My biggest lesson for her right now is to stop using her diaper as the toilet and to use the actual toilet or potty.  She continues to refuse using the toilet/potty whenever we bring it up.  She says she wants to use the diaper still.
• Today, the toddler asked us where the blue cup was.  She doesn’t have a blue cup in her arsenal of toys, so DH and I were really clueless about what she was talking about.  She has two purple tea toy cups but no other cups..  When she finally found it later, it turned out to be the blue top that goes on the top of her wooden train set!  Wow, now that is some true open-ended play and imagination.  To her, it’s not just a toy train piece but it is a blue cup for her to use to “make” hummus in for her stuffed toy.  😀👏👏  She also referred to the wooden cylinder part of the wooden train set as a “sausage”.  Why not?  It’s long and round and could be a toy food part for sure!
• The last few days, she pulled out the “lo fu zee” comic books again and asked us to read it to her.  She really likes looking at the comic panels and asking us to read her the “crashed car” one or the “fishing” one.  She has such a great memory.
• She said, “Seven, eight, nine” and asked us what it meant.  She must have heard us talking about it sometime.
• She repeats so many things that she hears us say and always asks us back what it is.
• Her new thing to ask this week is:  what is the English word for “ma ma” (mom), “po po” (grandma), “ba ba” (dad), [her name in Chinese] (told her her English name).  She asks it in Cantonese so I answer the equivalent of it in English for her.
• She asked what “mama lai” (breastmilk), “gnow lai” (cow’s milk), “dou jern” (soy milk) is in English.
• She also asked about: curtain, faucet, water, range hood, washroom fan.
• She still refers to Cheerios as “cho yo”, so we do as well lol.
• When the baby does tummy time, the toddler likes to do it too beside her.  It’s so cute.  She does like her baby sister lol.
• Over the weekend on Sunday morning, we went tree planting for the first time as a family (and as a couple).  I had done it once with the Mon Sheong peeps.  We arrived around 9:10am where the First Nations representative did a speech and blessing on the land.  We checked in, followed the group, got sorted into a group, and were taught how to plant a white pine into the ground.  The toddler was talkative during the demonstration and she was happy to hold the shovel and look around at others.  Unfortunately we didn’t get a pair of kid-sized gardening gloves for her in time (we will next time), so she wasn’t able to get her hands really dirty to help out.
• We asked her to name the tree and she named it “toobie toobie two” 😂🤔.  I wasn’t sure if I was able to remember it, but I did lol.  It was a great experience for her to see what planting a tree means.  It was good to be outdoors amongst other nature lovers and smelling the rich smell of mulch too.  (We left the baby at home with grandma to be able to do this.)  We planted the one tree and left since it would have been too long to be out and the baby would need me to nurse her.  The rain also started to come down upon us planting the tree, so it was the first time to dip too.  So glad we were able to make it to this event hosted by 10,000 Trees.
• The baby is so patient.  She can sit in someone’s arms or lap for a long while without crying or demanding anything (unless she’s really hungry and it’s been 2 hours [she is super punctual with her feeds]).  In the middle of the night when DH has her and is waiting for me to wake up from my deep slumber, the baby just waits along with DH.  Lol.  It’s actually quite fascinating.
• We think the baby will be so chill when she grows up.  Time will tell.  The toddler was never this chill when she was an infant and is still not chill as a toddler either.
• The stains on the toddler’s front teeth are getting worse..  The pediatrician previously said they’re normal and they require a dental cleaning to get rid of once she’s older.
• The toddler likes getting her bangs trimmed and has a preference for which scissors I use — the orange one or the green one.  She asked me to trim her bangs, so I trimmed a bit each time she asks me.
• Every time after I nurse the baby and she is asleep on me/the adjacent pillow, that is my time to scroll on the phone.  I can only do it in the early mornings when the toddler is not awake or downstairs having breakfast or at night when she is being put to bed by her dad.  It’s the most sacred time of the day to have some me time on my phone ❤.
• I find having time to chat with DH such a rare thing these days.  Whenever we want to talk, the toddler is around and talking to us too.  Or the baby is crying above our conversation.  Despite seeing each other six days a week and him working from home, a peaceful conversation is rare.  At nighttime, he passes out quickly.  During dinner, we get interrupted by the kids too.  I’m not complaining, don’t get me wrong, because this is our current season of life.  I’m simply recording it down and pointing it out.
• It is so easy to doomscroll as a way to decompress and chill despite wanting to be productive during the times I get on my phone.  I gotta get through my Instagram post backlog.