Standing with legs wide apart

Week 163 motherhood with 3 year old and 10 month old: 

• November 1, 2023:  Last week, the 2 kiddos had a runny nose and this week, I was the one who had fallen sick with a cold.  (I checked by doing a rapid test and it wasn’t COVID-19.)  I had a runny nose and coughs.  My voice became rough and I ended up losing my voice.  DH also had the sniffles and stayed home from work this week as a precaution — it was so nice to have him home all five days of the week.
• This past week has seen the baby nursing by leaning across my body on the bed and sucking on the other nipple even more frequently than last week.
• We like to joke that she has a “steel” head because of how painful it feels when she head butts you.
• The baby said “ba la” this week!  (She was trying to say “ba ba” [dad].)  It was during the morning that DH went to work and usually she gets taken by DH in the morning when she wakes up around 8:15 a.m. (she’s pretty consistent) and holds the bed rails and waits for him to take her.  That morning, she woke up and held the rails and said “ba la” as if to “call” him.  It was so clear and cute.
• The baby can stand by herself by holding on to the wall or objects near her.  She tended to stand with her legs out really far apart — to the point that I think she was going to fall.  And when she did fall, it looked effortless and wasn’t painful.
• I had my first playdate with a friend whose son is 14 months old finally at an EarlyON Centre!  I had actually postponed this playdate from a week ago because the youngest wasn’t feeling well.  It was really nice to see each other finally (not in a group setting).  With 3 kids between us, it was really hard though to have a thorough conversation as we kept getting interrupted.  We still could share comments with each other but it definitely was difficult to get a flowing conversation.  The toddler was reserved and kept to grandma mostly.
• I also had my third girl date with a friend!  Yay!  (Hello, G.  I know you read my blog posts :P.)  And also another girls’ brunch the next morning too.  It was coincidental that these meetups with friends have been occurring frequently recently.  It’s also the reason I lost my voice because I wasn’t drinking enough fluids and talking too much.
• The toddler gradually is tolerating her baby sister more and more by letting her play with things even though she says she doesn’t want her to.  I can see slow improvements bit by bit.  The toddler giggles and laughs at the baby and when the baby does the same same, the toddler is more tolerant of her than before.
• We still had leftover unopened cartons of half and half cream, so we used the same recipe to make more homemade ice cream at home.  The toddler helped with pouring the sugar and stirring.
• Another Halloween and another time for pumpkin carving (since we had 1 big and 4 little ones this year).  The toddler watched DH carve.  She didn’t play with the pumpkin seeds this week.  The baby was too young to play with the seeds as a sensory activity — we’re afraid she will eat it.
•  The toddler said she wanted to be a pig this year (always “ju jai” that she wants us to call her by) and said that the baby should be a tiger, so that’s what we did for Halloween.  DH made their costumes.  It worked out that I had the orange onesie already from Orange Shirt Day, which the baby wore as part of her tiger outfit.
• On Halloween, we went to the Creative Chefs session which was Halloween themed.  The kids made “ghost toasts” (so creative indeed) by slathering and spreading cottage cheese and wow butter on to a piece of toast and decorating it with eyes.  It was cute.  The toddler spread the cheese and butter nicely but only took a bite of the toast.  She was still full from breakfast.
• Interestingly, the toddler didn’t mind the pig headband on her head this year.  Last year, she didn’t like wearing the Minnie Mouse ears on her head… It’s good when she can at least wear the costume ears on her head because it looks more like a complete outfit lol.  (She had a pig nose too but she said it was itchy and didn’t want to wear it.  She wore a pink top and pink pants.)
• The baby enjoyed pushing around a walker at the EarlyON centre.  I wonder when this baby will officially be walking? 🤔
• The baby can do the “hands open”/ “shrug” pose lol.  It’s cute.
• The baby, on the other hand, didn’t want the tiger ears headband on her head.  She didn’t want to keep it on and kept pulling it off.  We took a few photos and that was it.
• We went around the neighbourhood again this year for trick or treating.  The toddler was surprisingly okay with going to people’s doors and getting candy!  She must have remembered it from last year even though she didn’t say she remembered.  I took her around to the houses while DH stayed in the car with the baby.  Originally, we were going to take the baby out too but plans changed.
• The toddler wasn’t too scared or timid.  She heard me say “trick or treat” and the next day repeated it to grandma at home.
• The toddler did get scared when some of the houses had skeleton decoration.  She used her hands to block her eyes and also didn’t want to take candy from one of the last houses we visited because she was scared.  Fair enough.  We probably only visited 10 houses in total.  We still got quite the candy haul though.  It was fun.
• I dumped out the candy in front of them and sorted them.  We kept the chips and some candies.  The rest, I posted on the Facebook free nothing group and someone came the next day to take the candies away.  So great.  Yay me for being efficient this year, haha.
• The baby liked playing with the Smarties candy box because it made sounds.
• We filled up a basket with some candies this year too and left it on the porch next to our jack-o’-lantern.  I tried the potato trick by putting one potato in the candy stash but no one took it!  So disappointed lol.  Kids were also honest and we had candy left in the basket at the end of the night.  I thought it was going to be empty.
• We ate dinner at a fancy Hong Kong style cafe and the baby was super social.  She waved at basically everyone around her lol.  The servers had a hoot with her and waved back.  Such a social butterfly!  Meanwhile, the older sister is darting and hiding underneath tables and such and doesn’t want to be seen lol.
• The toddler loves wearing the woolly mittens we got her from the dollar store.  Too bad one of the fingers has a cut in it.  Grandma said she will fix it for her.
• I love the little snorting and grunting sounds that the baby makes when she is sleeping.  It’s the cutest thing ever.
• Many of the baby’s onesies have torn holes in the toes part now.  She always likes to point and stick her feet up.
• The toddler wanted to “make rice” with paper this week.  (She made “noodles” last time.)  The safety scissors she has are so difficult to cut with, so I gave her the real deal this week.  Hope she is careful with them.  (Cutting small square pieces of paper.)