The kids’ first wedding attendance

Week 158 motherhood with 3-year-old and 9-month-old: 

• September 27, 2023:  It does seem like ever since the toddler turned 3 years old last week that she somehow seems “older” and more grown up.
• This week, we had a pleasure of attending a dear friend’s wedding in Woodbridge and brought both kids along.  We knew the moment that the baby started nursing and didn’t take a bottle that we would have to bring the baby with us to the wedding.  And we wanted the toddler to have another experience of attending a wedding, so we of course had to bring her too.  Thus, all four of us at a wedding for the first time!  It was a Harry Potter themed wedding (so fun) and we lucked out to find both the girls wedding attire at home that seemed to fit the colour scheme of the theme.  Dark red and beige with frills and red and white.  Meanwhile, I was in a maroon red colour dress and DH had a pink tie.
• The toddler didn’t refuse wearing a dress this time!
• Both kids slept on the way to the venue; it was a long car ride — about one hour since it was during rush hour traffic too.  I’m glad they both tuckered out to conserve energy for the long evening.
• Both kids were really good during the ceremony part.  It was held outdoors and the toddler sat in my lap while the baby sat in the car seat stroller and then also in DH’s lap.  I tried to nurse the baby to take advantage of the time that no one would be looking at us (since we chose to sit in the back row), but the baby didn’t really want to nurse.  They both were quiet and didn’t cry (or talk loudly) during the ceremony.  It was nice.
• When the ceremony finished, the toddler said she was hungry and it worked out perfectly that it was cocktail hour.  There weren’t a lot of hors d’oeuvres the toddler could eat, but she did try the arancini, lobster bisque, and taco shell (without the raw tuna).
• It was neat to see all four of our names on the table seating and on the name cards on the table.  We’re a family of four! 🥰
• During the reception, it was a bit chaotic because the baby would not stay still (perfectly normal) and the toddler was choosy about which parent to stick with too.  It was really noisy and loud there that I couldn’t nurse the baby (she wouldn’t have latched anyway because she would have been too distracted by the sounds and sights around her).  I found the empty bar to sit at outside the reception hall to nurse her for a bit.  Later in the night, I nursed her in the handicapped washroom (by placing some tissues on the toilet seat to sit on).
• I kept taking the baby out for a break in the reception hall and DH would take the toddler out for a walk sometimes.  We were rarely in our seats together at one time.
• The toddler enjoyed her kid’s meal (tomato sauce pasta [which was really al dente and tasty!] and chicken fingers and fries).  DH was prepared and brought some steamed eggplant and red peppers for the baby to gnaw on, and the baby did gnaw well on them (we brought the Fisher Price booster chair and table for her).  The toddler enjoyed watching the photo slideshow of the bride and groom too, asking me questions about who the people were.  The friends at our table kept wanting to engage with the baby because she is so social and smiley.  The toddler continued to be wary of strangers wanting to engage with her and even hid her face down on the chair at one point when someone passed by and wanted to talk to her.
• We noticed that the photobooth would start at 8:30 p.m., so we were like hawks circling the area to be the first to take photos.  Unfortunately, we missed being the first one (due to spectating the cake cutting) at the photobooth but we did end up being the second one to take photos there.  I’m so glad because there was a long line-up after this.  (Difficult to take photobooth photos with both kids with props because the countdown was so long and you had to look at the camera and stay still for a few seconds for the photo to be taken.)
• Once we got our photos, the lights actually came down, the dance floor opened up, and loud music started to play.  We collected our items and left the venue.  It wasn’t as late in the night as I anticipated; it was around 9 p.m.  The baby gets tired nightly around 8:30 and we get her to bed around 9 p.m., so it was definitely time to leave.  The toddler started to perk up a bit by the time we left.  It was a nice experience for her.
• This week, I started attending the Infant Massage EarlyON class with the baby.  Finally another EarlyON class just for her (the musical babies one is the other one I started attending with her exclusively recently).  I didn’t know that they were supposed to be attended sequentially and I attended class 3 of 5.  The facilitators were nice about it and explained everything in detail with care.  The baby wasn’t a huge fan of the massage because she didn’t want to stay still on her back on the mat/blanket.  I ended up doing some of the massage movements as she sat upright.  She did seem to enjoy it then.  I’m glad that the class was held in a library so that grandma and the toddler were able to read books and play with the plethora of toys that the library offered while they waited for us.
• This week, the baby’s nighttime sleeping hours were something like:  Sleeping from 9:30 to 2 a.m. or 9:30 to 12:30 a.m.  There were two nights she woke up at 12:30 a.m. on the dot.  Hopefully she sleeps longer stretches soon.
• The baby has been eating very well and has a great appetite.
• The toddler too.  She continues to say she’s hungry constantly.
• We set up the playpen gates again.  The baby has been crawling and moving around and leaving the living room play area and into the kitchen and connecting hallway.  Thus, the playpen gates are now enclosing their play space in the living room — just like how it was when the toddler was a baby too.
• The baby tore off a piece of foam from a small stool and ingested it…  she’s okay, but it was the motivating reason the gates went up right away. 😐   Now she can crawl to her heart’s content and be safe inside the gates!
• This week, we attended another one of 10,000 trees’ volunteer tree-planting event and helped to plant a tree!  The site was at Monarch Park in Markham; very close to us.  We got there nice and early at 9 a.m. and learned to plant a Bur Oak tree in the park.  Just like last time, the toddler “supervised” us and also gave the tree a name.  Last time, she named the tree “twoobie-twoobie-two”.  This time, she named the tree “ITW”.  Lol, I don’t know where she got the name from, but she remembers that that’s the tree’s name.
• In the afternoon, we attended the Aurora Fire Station open house event.  I’m so glad that the EarlyON staff at last week’s fire station visit told us about this event!  I couldn’t believe how vast the open house event was.  It was extremely well-organized and befitted with tons of kid-friendly and family-friendly activity stations.  They had a train ride going around the station grounds, a bouncy castle, popcorn machines, four stations for the kids to complete in order to get a free helmet (one of them might have been one where you use a real hose to squirt water and douse fake fires from a house!), a photo with the firefighter mascot, photos and tours with an ambulance, police car, and fire truck.  On their poster, they advertised they would have free coffee, donuts, and hotdogs but those were nowhere to be found.  Perhaps something happened on the day of and they couldn’t make those freebies happen anymore.
• We didn’t stay long actually.  We took photos with the mascot, the emergency vehicles, got some popcorn, and then left.  There were so many people and the lines to play the games were very long.  I think the toddler (and baby) will enjoy it more next year when they are older.  The toddler did mention that she wanted to play on the bouncy castle, but we knew that once she lined up and got to play, she would have chickened out (due to the number of kids playing and bouncing — it’s not like the friend’s birthday party we attended recently which had a private rented bouncy castle with a limited number of kids in it).  Hopefully we’ll be able to catch the event next year.
• It is so funny because now that the baby can clap her hands and wave, she actually does it on cue.  When someone claps, she’ll start clapping too.  If someone says “clap hands” or “ho yea”/hooray, she claps too!  (You have to give her time to do it though as she needs to register what’s happening before she gets her hands to start clapping.  Those synapses have to connect!)
• In the photos at the fire station, the baby would see her older sister waving to the camera and then the baby would start waving too.  It’s so cute.  The baby looks to her sister for everything.
• The baby has started to have more stranger danger than before.  She doesn’t let others hold her freely anymore.  During a dinner with relatives, she cried when others tried to hold her.  This wasn’t the case a few weeks ago.  It meant that it’s more difficult to dine out because no one else can give us a break to eat.  One of us is always holding one child.
• I received another unsolicited “you’re pregnant” comment.  During dinner, someone asked us, “So how’s the third baby coming along?”  Um…  I said, “We’re not” (pregnant).  I’m glad that DH shut it down by saying “we haven’t thought of it”.  It was also recently that someone said to me, “So I see you’re expecting a baby”.  Um, no, I’m not.  I’m bloated? 😑  And I’m also still postpartum.  Why is it mostly middle-aged women who scan a younger female’s midsection upon seeing them and make an immediate assumption that they’re pregnant if they’re not rail-stick skinny?  It’s so inappropriate.  If we were pregnant, if we choose to tell you, we would.  Why ask?!  And because I’m not pregnant, that comment means you’re basically calling me fat = rude. 😑
• The toddler has started to “play with” the baby a little bit as in she now sometimes lets the baby hold her toys.  But this week, she let the baby “destroy” her toys too and didn’t make a huge fuss out of it.  It’s hit and miss though.  Sometimes she’s okay with it and sometimes she still doesn’t like it.  I mean how would you feel if your creations always got torn apart by someone else?  You wouldn’t like it either, so we understand and try to prevent the baby from destroying all of the sister’s magnetic tile and block toy creations.  The baby is funny though because when she is crawling around and she sees the magnetic tiles creations, she really does enjoy taking a piece out and knocking it all down lol.  It’s fun for her.
• But I also can’t prevent the baby from always destroying the older sister’s toys all the time.  I tell the toddler that the baby likes to destroy things and that that’s how she plays.  I tell her that when her creations are torn apart, it means she can build something new again.
• The toddler continues to play with the magnetic tiles and has been building houses with rooms and peg people in them.  She uses the smaller Melissa & Doug coloured blocks and Jenga wooden blocks to make furniture for them.  It’s quite elaborate.  Is this advanced for a 3-year-old?
• The baby likes standing and holding on to things.  She also has a tendency to smile by holding in her bottom lip.  It’s too cute.
• At the last EarlyON creative chefs class for this month, the kids made a cream cheese and cucumber “sandwich”.  It’s more of a wrap because they were given whole wheat tortilla and not bread.  The toddler very carefully and patiently spread the cream cheese on to the tortilla wrap as best as she could.  The facilitator also gave us some orange marmalade to spread.  The toddler didn’t want any cucumbers at all.  When she was done spreading the cream cheese and orange jam, I folded it up for her to eat in a half moon shape and she ate the entire thing.  She really enjoys the food she makes at these creative chefs classes.  They’re so great.
• I gave the toddler a shape-matching toy and she finished it in less than a minute.  Then I gave it to her again and mixed it all up.  She did it again and quickly.  I didn’t have to explain what she had to do and she intuitively knew the game was to match the shape to the wooden slate.  Smart girl.
• We were at the Musical Babies EarlyON class today (for the third time).  I’m more familiar with the songs now and so is the baby.  She likes holding on to the baby rattle and shaking it as well as banging on the drum.  There were so many babies in the class today.  It was really cute watching them crawl around the rug.  The baby liked watching them too.
• I like the “elevator” song we do with the kids.  “Let’s go riding on an elevator, elevator, elevator.  Let’s go riding on an elevator, come along with me.  First floor, second floor, third second, fourth floor, fifth floor… down-down-down-down-down.”  And you hold the baby from the bottom all the way to the top and then dropping down to the ground.  The baby was laughing and giggling when she reached the bottom.  It’s so cute and fun.
• The baby can say “mama” occasionally and not 100 per cent on cue, but I’ve definitely heard it a few times now.  So thus her first word is “ma ma”! ^_^
• I’m so thankful that I was able to borrow a pair of baby earmuffs for the wedding.  We only have one pair that I bought from Facebook marketplace and haven’t yet been able to buy another one.  Weddings are (usually) notorious for being loud and we needed a second one for both kids.  Posting an ISO post on my local Facebook free stuff group connected me with a kind person who was just 5 minutes’ away from me who lent me the pair of earmuffs!  (If this last-minute ISO didn’t work, DH was planning to go to the lendery library to borrow a pair.  But I’m so glad we found someone who was so much closer!)
• Both kids kept their earmuffs on during the entire wedding reception!  I was so shocked but glad they did.  The wedding DJ and music definitely were loud and too loud for young ears.  After putting it on, the toddler commented, “Things sound less loud now.”  It’s even more good because when we tried to put it on them at the CNE, neither wanted the earmuffs to stay on.