Toddler playing alongside another child

Week 154 motherhood of 2 year 11 month old and 8 month old:

(Warning:  LONG post ahead.)

• August 24, 2023:  Whenever the baby is near the toddler and she watches her play, she always smiles and giggles.  It’s the cutest thing ever.  It’s too bad that the toddler doesn’t always reciprocate.  Sometimes, the toddler will say she doesn’t want the baby watching her. 😅
• My little baby postpartum hairs are sticking out all around my hairline.  I definitely don’t remember them growing out like this with the first baby.
• August 25:  We finally were able to go to the CNE!  We had rested up for a few days and everybody felt well enough from our mild colds to venture out.  We arrived at the grounds around 11 a.m. — pretty good considering we have two kids to take to the CNE this year.  Everything went as well as it could.  We used our Graco double stroller.  The toddler loves that stroller.
  • We did a food crawl again this year.  The toddler ate whatever we ate — she enjoyed the Krispy Kreme donuts.  The baby nursed easily anywhere.  We spontaneously sat in for the 30-minute long ice skating show.  The toddler sat in rapt attention on DH’s lap.  I held the baby and she nursed.  She fell asleep within minutes of the show starting.  I was glad because it was her naptime (2 p.m.-ish) and she was tired.  She passed out for the whole show and stayed sleeping afterwards in DH’s arms.  She must have been really tired.  The arena was dark enough for her to sleep despite all the flashing and strobing lights and really loud music.
  • We tried to put the new headphones I got on her to protect her ears, but she didn’t like it.  The toddler was okay with it though.  DH kept his other hand on the baby’s ear to protect her ears.
• We visited the hands-on area again where the toddler played with large Legos and light-up sticks.
• We visited the Reptilia mobile zoo where the toddler got to see some lizards, snakes, and turtles in their enclosures.  She also saw a live snake and tortoise and petted the tortoise’s shell.
• The toddler ate a lot of ice cream that day too, haha.  Ice cream galore this year for CNE!  So glad that we were able to attend once again and enjoy our food crawl. ^_^
• We visited our niece and nephew’s place this weekend for the first time in a long while.  There were so many toys and food bits everywhere that although the toddler felt comfortable to enter the play area right away, when approaching the kitchen play set, she hesitated to play because she couldn’t find the toy foods and cups, etc. anywhere.
• We attended a 2-year-old’s birthday party this weekend.  There was a bouncy castle available for all the kids to play in!  I was so surprised that the toddler, upon seeing the inflatable, approached it right away and wanted to enter it.  She wasn’t shy at all.  DH accompanied her and she enjoyed bouncing in the castle as well as sliding down the slide that was attached to it.  Good job, little one.  She has really grown out of her shell a bit. 😊
  • She enjoyed the outdoor toys that the backyard had too, like the sand pit (she liked scooping the sand into a bucket and liked the touch of sand between her fingers), the tall plastic slide (she didn’t need any coaxing for her to slide down herself), the toy land mower (she loved this last time too), kicking the soccer ball back and forth between us, hitting the baseball on the stand, bouncing on the ball with handles, and sitting in the play cars.  Such great toys for her to partake in in the summer sun!  We all got a bit tanner that day from being outside in the afternoon for so long.
    • The baby also rode on the toy cars too.  The baby always looks so cute in her little red plaid hat.  It makes her face look small and chubby. 🥰
  • The toddler kept going back to the lawn mower toy to push it back and forth in the yard.  She really enjoyed playing with it.
  • The toddler enjoyed her first cotton candy too!  The parents of the birthday boy also rented a cotton candy machine (in addition to the bouncy castle [which was $500]) and all the kids got to enjoy cotton candy after the BBQ foods.
  • DH told me a great story about this:  They were lining up for the cotton candy and the mom had made a cotton candy with blue dye.  The older girls lining up for the cotton candy said they wanted the pink dye.  So the mom looked around to see who wanted the blue cotton candy and asked my toddler.  The toddler was so happy to get it and came running down the yard with it.  She didn’t know how to eat it at first and I had to tell her to just eat the candy on the stick (it’ll melt as she eats it).  But what I’m trying to say is that she didn’t have a preference for the colour of the cotton candy.  She was happy to have whatever was available.
    • This is a proud parenting moment (or maybe she just doesn’t care right now), but I love that she hasn’t grown up so far being picky about colours.  I also love the fact that I don’t reinforce societal stereotypes by having girls liking pink and boys liking blue only.  This is the reason why I prefer to buy and dress up my girls in gender neutral colours and refrain from buying pink or “girly” colours if possible.  All kids can dress up and enjoy all different colours.
  • The toddler also enjoyed one of her first ice cream cakes.  The ice cream cake was from Baskin Robbins and was so delicious!
• This was a big milestone week for us.  We got a new vehicle!  A minivan finally to comfortably fit all of us!  Now grandma doesn’t have to be squished in the middle anymore. ^_^  It was about two months of waiting to get this new vehicle.  I hear that some car models on the market these days take years!  (The Toyota Sienna is taking up to 5 years?!)
• We were also able to successfully sell DH’s old vehicle the next day.  Yay!
• The toddler helped to take off the stickers from the tires on the new car.  She was so excited about the new car too.  She also said “bye bye” to DH’s old car upon hearing that it was sold.
• The toddler loves eating crunchy cheesy things.  When we were at a Mexican restaurant for dinner, she inhaled the crunchy corn tortilla chips as well as the cheesy quesochorizo dip.  Yum.
• We attended two Creative Chef EarlyON classes this week.  At the one in Stouffville, the kids made veggie cups and fruit pizzas!  So neat and simple.
  • For the veggie cups, the kids put whatever pre-cut vegetables they wanted into a cup and then splash salad dressing of their choice into it and could eat it.  There was a choice of sliced yellow peppers, sliced red peppers, halved cherry tomatoes, and short stalks of cucumbers.  The toddler only liked the cherry tomatoes and asked for two, so I put two into her plastic cup.  For her dressing, she chose the white ranch sauce.  She then sat at the snack table and consumed it.  The toothpick was difficult for her to eat with as it was hard to stick the toothpick into the cherry tomato, but eventually she got it and finished it.
• The fruit pizza was made with a little pita bread.  The kids could smear yogurt on top (like pizza sauce) and then place pizza toppings on it.  The “toppings” were raspberries, halved green grapes, and cubed kiwis.  The toddler only wanted grapes and kiwi on her pizza.  Then we sat at the snack table where she bit around the pita and then ate the toppings off by hand before consuming the rest of it.  We like to joke and call her a little rat even more (because she’s born in the year of the rat) but because when she eats like this, holding the item with both hands and nibbling, it really looks like she’s a rat.  A cute rat! 🐀
• Anyway, the “fruit” pizza was such a genius and smart idea!  A great alternative to the regular tomato sauce pizzas.
• Before this, the toddler had played with the sensory box (this time, it was filled with wool balls).  She liked trying out the scoop scissors again.
• After eating, the toddler played with the play BBQ grill, putting the toy foods on the skewer, playing with toy cars next to a boy (I was so shocked and impressed because she usually shies away from other children.  I guess the boy was minding his own business and was calm and chill enough that the toddler felt comfortable to approach and play alongside him), painting with a wooden spoon (she created a nice green and blue mixture which we took home and placed on the fridge.  Our fridge has tons of her artwork now), and locks on the busy board (in particular, she liked inserting the key into the keyhole).
• At the end, we did circle time.  The toddler enjoyed the open-the-flap book.  And then the facilitators ended off the last creative chefs session of this season with the food train song and other food-related songs (just like last time).  We heard the “I’m a knife, fork, spoon, spatula” song again and grooved to a freeze dance song.  Such a great session.

• The baby enjoyed the toys with grandma as well and the songs.
• The baby has been doing her head tilt thing this week again, haha.
• Finally, (I can’t believe how many things we did this week!) we attended another Creative Chefs EarlyON program.  This time, it was in Markham!  The first Markham one we attended, actually.  This one was all booked up initially, but I happened to check the calendar one time and saw there were spots available so I successfully pre-registered for it.  This was what made me understand how competitive and eager Markham parents are and gives me a glimpse into the future when we are interacting with other parents and registering for programs; it’ll be like competing for concert tickets or TGTG bags.
• At this Markham Creative Chefs session, it was only 1.5 hours long.  The facilitators let all the kids enter the room and let them play with toys.  But soon after, they asked all the kids to clean up and sit down for circle time.  The facilitators were also strict about letting only the kids who were going to be cooking (2 to 6 years old) be the ones in the cooking class and the siblings who weren’t going to participate to stay in the other room.
  • At circle time, the facilitators were very enthusiastic and did the “cooking train” welcome song and told the kids we were going to be making pizza and fruit skewers today.  (So many pizzas at these EarlyONs.)  But first, they were going to do a blind tasting for the kids, so they asked them all to wash their hands and return to the carpet.  Once we did, we were given a kids’ mask and told to put the mask over the child’s eyes so they could be blindfolded.  The toddler didn’t want to have her eyes covered.  The facilitators said the kids could close their eyes if they didn’t want their eyes covered.  The toddler didn’t want to do this either.  The facilitators then passed around a paper cup with cup-up fruits in it.  There was a cherry tomato, chunk of watermelon, cucumber, cantaloupe, apple, and blueberry.  The task was to let the child smell it and see if they could identify it.  Since the toddler didn’t want to do it, I just let her see the fruits one by one and let her eat it.  She was happy to consume everything, and she did.  Sometimes, she doesn’t like to eat cucumbers, but she did because she didn’t really see the whole part of it first.
  • After this taste test, the facilitators also had something in a bag that they wanted the kids to touch and guess what was inside.  The toddler had her fingers sticky from the fruits so I didn’t want her sticking her hand into the bag.  I wonder if the other kids had touched the fruits and were just sticking their hands into the bag?  If so, that’s pretty dirty.  The facilitators unveiled the item finally and it was a coconut!  One of the kids guessed it correctly.
• Then the facilitators asked the kids to wash their hands again because they were going to cook soon.  I thought this was wasted time — the blind tasting could have been done together with the cooking part so they wouldn’t have to wash their hands twice.
  • I also don’t understand how the other kids and parents washed their hands so quickly.  By the time we washed ours, we were the last ones to sit at the table to make the pizza.  (There were two areas for hand-washing.)  I felt so rushed.  We always teach kids to wash their hands with soap and warm water for 30 seconds.  I could tell some of the other kids and parents didn’t wash their hands for 30 seconds…
• Each child sat at the table with a mise en place of ingredients (mushrooms, cheese, cherry tomatoes, basil, green pepper), utensils, and cutting board all ready to go.  The facilitator sat at her own table in the middle of the room and guided the kids on what to do.  However, most of the kids already knew what to do:  scoop the tomato paste from the small bowl on to their pita, slice up the vegetables, sprinkle cheese, ta-da, pizza’s assembled!
  • For the toddler, she really takes her time, so even scooping the tomato paste onto the pita took some time.  Then she used the large plastic knife to cut up the mushrooms.  I noticed that some kids were already finished by the time my toddler started sprinkling some of the shredded cheese on to her pizza.  One child close to us even started eating his finished pizza raw because he was so fast. 😆  But the goal was to have all the kids’ pizzas made and put on a pan to be baked in the oven.  The toddler hadn’t even had time to slice up her cherry tomatoes yet before we were passed some masking tape to write her name on to identify her pizza.  I asked her to just place her three cherry tomatoes on to the pizza, as is, for baking.
  • While the pizzas were baking, the facilitators handed each child a bowl of fruit in preparation for making the fruit skewers.  This was great planning and thoughtful.  The kids cut up the fruit (a slice of watermelon, cantaloupe, some blueberries, cherry tomatoes, apple) and stuck them through the skewer.  The toddler had done this before at her very first Creative Chefs class back in March, so she had an idea of what to do already.  The kids around her did it so quickly that they were already on to their second or third fruit skewer.
  • Soon, the pizzas were done and baked hot and fresh from the oven.  By this point, I waved grandma over with the baby to sit with us.  I let the baby gnaw on a slice of green pepper, but she didn’t really eat it.  She just held it.  (The baby has been not chewing on as many items this week.  It’s like she now knows which things are edible and which ones are not.  She doesn’t gnaw on the toys as often this week.)
  • The toddler ate a bit of her pizza as well as one of her fruit skewers.  I packed the rest of the fruit cutouts, second skewer, and her leftover pizza home when she was done eating.
  • Then it was time for circle time.  I liked how the facilitator recapped what we did that day by asking the kids what we made and what ingredients were used.  The kids were also asked around the circle what their favourite food was.  I was impressed that the toddler thought of “blueberries”.
  • We did a couple of songs including a revamped version of the “zoom zoom zoom” song which was “Loud, loud, loud, we’re going to the clouds” because it was cloudy outside that day.. lol.  The facilitator also did the itsy bitsy spider song with its iteration of “great big spider”, “teeny tiny spider”, and “ghost spider”.  I hate the latter two fast iterations because the kids can’t understand what’s going on at all and it’s so wasteful of an opportunity to teach them the proper words and to sing them well.  The facilitators think it’s funny and fun for the kids to make it fast, but when they’re this young, some of them don’t even understand what’s going on.  Everything in society is fast-paced nowadays.  For once, I’d like things to be slowed down and not be rushed.
  • When it came time to going home, we experienced an unfortunate and concerning incident.  Grandma and the baby were already ready to go and left to go to the car already.  The toddler and I only had to get our shoes on and get out the door.  The toddler saw a chair near the door, so she sat on it while I went to retrieve her shoes from the shoe rack.  There was a facilitator standing there to see us off (I had also just been chatting with her and asking her about future Journey to Kindergarten classes) (we were the last ones to leave the EarlyON because we washed our hands one more time and had gone to the restroom to get both kids’ diapers changed).
  • As I turned my back to get the toddler’s shoes, the facilitator somehow swooped in to interact with the toddler and started tickling her.  (The toddler hates being tickled.  She barely likes us doing it, never mind a total stranger.)  She cried and, in an attempt to move away and escape the facilitator’s tickles, fell off sideways from the chair.  I couldn’t believe it.  I went to the toddler right away to pick her up.  She was wailing and inconsolable.  I asked her to stand up and tried to put her shoes on as quickly as possible, but it wasn’t easy.  I told the facilitator that she doesn’t like being tickled.  The facilitator said “sorry” right away, but she also somehow started mocking the toddler’s cries like “wuh wuh wuh”.  I don’t know why she thought that was necessary.  It’s actually highly inappropriate.  I was trying so hard to get the toddler’s second shoe on so we could leave, but she was crying still that I lost my balance while squatting and I ended up falling to the ground too.  Ugh.  I told the facilitator that we were just going to say bye and leave (because she kept trying to talk to us).  Even when we were finally outside the door, the facilitator followed us out the door to say bye.  WTF?  I already told her the toddle wasn’t comfortable and we were just going to leave.  The toddler continued to cry during this whole time.  Why couldn’t the facilitator just have backed up and left us alone?  Why did she think it was necessary to follow us out the door?
  • When I finally got us to the car and was buckling her into her car seat, the toddler told me that she didn’t want to come back to this location and wanted to go elsewhere next time.  I agreed with her that what the facilitator did was wrong.  I was fuming because I couldn’t believe that the facilitator would go to physically touch/tickle her without permission and tried to continue to say bye to us despite me telling her to stop.
  • I couldn’t help but fume and talk about it all the way home and especially when we got home, told DH all about it.  I decided to make a complaint to the EarlyON staff about it the next day.
  • There was actually another incident that happened during the cooking class too.  While we were making the pizzas, one of the EarlyON staff (one who wasn’t involved with the cooking) came over to all the kids to make small talk.  When she came over to our table to say hi, the toddler wasn’t comfortable and turned her head away.  I told the staff member that the toddler needs time to warm up to others.  The staff member then asked me, verbatim, “Does she have anxiety towards adults?”  Um, excuse me?  “Anxiety” is not the correct word to use here.  My child isn’t “diagnosed” with anxiety.  She is simply a toddler who isn’t used to strangers coming up to her face to speak to her.  The staff member also asked me whether she was like this towards adults or kids.  I told her she is fine with kids but needs time to warm up with adults.
    • I have a big problem with the way the EarlyON staff member phrased herself by using the word “anxiety” and not seemingly understanding that some kids need time to open up.  How can she not understand that by working in an environment with kids all the time?  Not all kids are comfortable with anyone at any time and it’s okay.
  • Ugh, what’s wrong with these facilitators and staff?  We had such an enjoyable time otherwise making the pizza and fruit skewers.  But the staff really have issues.  Tune in to the next blog post where I’ll chronicle the phone call chat I had with the supervisor.
• The baby started clapping her hands this week!  She must have seen us doing it at EarlyONs.  She is so cute with her scrunched up hands and attempting to clap.
• This week, I started feeding the baby small clumps of food.  Instead of just spoon-feeding and letting her BLW the food, she’s been eating and starting to munch on what we give her.  By our bathroom scale at home, she hasn’t gained much weight and I’m concerned that by her 9-month-appointment soon, the pediatrician might say she isn’t gaining proper weight.  We’ll see.  So far, the baby has had small bits of noodles, rice, pork tongue, and chicken.
• Phew!  What a long encapsulation of events this week!  Thank you for reading all the way through.