Quality Time

I had Isa with me all day yesterday, we were hosting a play date and I was not in the mood of rushing to the daycare to pick her up and make sure I was back before our guests arrived. So she stayed home, which presented a couple of challenges:

Challenge 1: take a shower without the Husband home.

Challenge 2: do some grocery shopping.

Challenge 3: get some work done.

Ever since she can move on her own, I have not had to try to take a shower with just the two of us home and her awake. Usually I make sure that I am ready before my Husband leaves or I wait until she is having her nap. But yesterday we both(Isa and I) slept in and I was not going to get up to have a shower before he left. I could not wait until she took her nap at around noon because I had to get some things for the play date and we would not have enough time afterwards.

So what do I do? I did what any desperate mother does...I sat her in front of the television and popped in a DVD. At least if was Sesame Street in Spanish so she was not watching just anything.

I waited to make sure that she was entranced and ran to the bathroom to take the quickest shower ever. I came out and she was sitting on her little chair 'singing' along to one of the songs.

With the success of challenge 1, I decided that we should be able to pull off challenge 2. Since it was such a nice day, I thought of stopping at the small park close to the grocery store for her to get some outdoor play time. We had lots of time to do both and she is used to going outside at daycare, so I wanted to do the same.

Well, we get to the little park and as expected it is busy...big surprise. The funny thing is that even though Isa goes to daycare and she is used to having to share the playground with lots of little buddies, she is still weary of a different playground. She has to evaluate her surroundings, evaluate the kids and then she will proceed and play. Well for some reason, yesterday after she evaluated she decided that she would not go and play. I blame it on this little boy who was running up and down the slide, with his mom yelling 'that's a 1'or 'that's a 2'.

So instead she went hunting for her favourite thing...sticks. By then I was bored and really wanted to get to the grocery store and go home. I was able to convince her to get in her stroller by letting her keep her twigs and we headed to the grocery store.

At the store the fun continued, she needed to hold everything that I picked up. At one point she had an avocado, a lemon, a zucchini, and a block of cheese in her little hands. I had to draw the limit at holding a package of meat. Needless to say this just sent her over the edge and she let me have it.

Thankfully, the store was not busy and I was done, well I had no choice but to be done. I payed and pushed the stroller home as fast as I could.

Even though the grocery store outing ended in tears it was not that bad, by the end she was hungry and tired. We got home had some cheese and she went straight to bed. And thankfully she slept for over 2 hours. yay.

Her long sleep allowed me to take care of challenge 3, I was able to get most of my work done while she slept and some of it while she ate her lunch.

In the end it was a great day, though she was extremely clingy at the play date. She would freak out if she could not see me, so she followed me around all day. This was really weird because she is a very independent child and the people who where over are those whom she has known since she was four months old.

By the end we were both exhausted, she was in bed by 6:30 and mama on the couch with a beer soon after that.

A great day!

Are You Feeling the Heat?

I am happy to report that the interrogation aka parent/teacher meeting went well. Frankly, that is what we were expecting but it was nice to have confirmation. It looks like Isa is doing GREAT and that she is a well behaved, happy child who plays with everyone and everything (exact words from teacher).

Isa at her desk reading...she is such a good reader.

I was sooooo happy that they provided food for the little ones while the parents were talking. This meant that I did not have to worry about feeding Isa when we got home...cause there was nothing prepared and with Lost starting at 7 there was not much time. So, she had a wonderful dinner of Lasagna with orange slices for dessert, believe when I say that I could not have done better. Lately I have had no imagination when it comes to cooking...I blame it on the weather and my laziness. Enough about my poor culinary skills, specially when it comes to feeding the Isa...I think that I have talked about this more than enough times, that you must be rolling your eyes by now. Done.

Moving on....did you guys catch the season finale of Lost? was it not awesome? Well, the Husband and I were very impressed, I like how they were kind enough to answer some questions yet still leave some things a mystery. I also like how we got a glimpse of Jack's life after they are rescued. All in all it was a very good finale, we are very much looking forward to next season. Which is something that I can't say about 24. I have to say that this season totally SUCKED. It started out really good and then as soon as they brought in the conspiracy with his dad and brother it all went downhill. The last episode was just so absolutely awful, the part about how his father wanted his nephew was so so annoying. I guess you can see that I did not care for it.

Enough about my hatred for 24, lets move on. Today is a very busy day for Isa and I, we are going on a play date later this afternoon and then I am off to my book club meeting in the evening, we are reading Sweetness form the Belly by Camila Gibb. What a great book it was. I can't wait...though I have to find time to bake a nice loaf because this will be my contribution to the book club. I'm bringing the sugar and fat. Yummy.

And that folks is all that I have to say on this beautiful day in Toronto. Stay hydrated. Cheers.

Nice To Meet You

The first long weekend of the summer is behind us and I am already looking forward to the next one. I hope that everyone had a nice May-tow-four, hopefully you did not have to spend more than 2 extra hours stuck in traffic. Speaking of traffic, I was really happy not to be going to Ottawa this long weekend, I find that just the thought that the trip is going to take at least 2 hours more makes me want to go to my bed and never get up.

I don't think that we will be able to get away with not going for the July long weekend but maybe I can get the Husband to take an extra day and we can come back later. No point in worrying about it now.

Isa's first car trip to Ottawa

On a different topic, today is parent/teacher interviews at Isa's daycare. I am really looking forward to them because I am very interested in knowing how she is doing in the Toddler Room, what we can do to help her and find out what she should expect in the next few months in terms of behavior and development (potty training).

My mother always went to parent/teacher interviews, even the first year that we came to Canada and she knew no English. Her opinion is that it is always important to meet your child's teacher and to listen to their comments and feedback. As she once told me, they see us for 8 hours of the day, 5 days a week, because of this it is very important to listen to what they have to say and to work together to deal with any problems or concerns.

So today I am off to talk about the little Isa and see how she is doing.

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Clean Up

I feel like playing hooky from work today...I know that I should not but the house needs some serious cleaning and for some reason I actually want to clean. Needless to say these moods don't come often, so when they do they must be taken advantage off. In fact I am going all Martha Steward and taking out the Q-tips.

I just love it when I am all done and I look around my place and things are actually shiny and free of dust. It's just so rewarding...so with that, I leave you. There is quite a great deal of laundry that requires attention and the dust elephants must be tackled.

Pictures Say A Thousand Words

It seams that I have nothing interesting or witty to write about today...so on that note, I leave you with pictures of Isa at her grandmother's place in Quebec.

Lets just say that they both had a BLAST.



Hopefully I will come up with something interesting to blog about tomorrow.

cheers.

Daycare or No Daycare?

Since I quit my job at the end of March to work on my own business from home, I have been contemplating the idea of taking Isa out of daycare. I have to be honest and say that I really don't want to, firstly because I know that she has a great time there and secondly because when she is home I don't get much work done.

I admire profusely the women who do work from home and take care of their children. How do you do it? If you have some tips on this please tell me.

With Isa, every time I so much as look in the direction of the computer she drops whatever she is doing and comes running towards my legs and clings on to them for dear life. I have no idea how to get her to stop doing this. She does not do this with her father just with me.

I don't know what we are going to do, maybe it is something that she will get over and will no longer be an issue in the future.

Another reason why I don't want to take her out of daycare just yet, is that I have no idea where the business is going or how it will be in the next 6 months or so. If I take her out I wont know how long before I can put her back in if I need to. But if I take her out I can save so much money...haaaaaa.

So at the moment she stays, I guess we will revisit the issue when we really have to.

El Día de las Madres

This is to wish all the mamacitas a wonderful mother's day. May your day be filled with well behaved children, diamonds and a room full of flowers.

Remember to milk this day because tomorrow you will have to go back to driving children around, cleaning the house and making sure they have a balanced meal.

So far I have been able to sleep in, coffee was made for me and Isa has been entertained in order for me to write this post in her presence.

Have a wonderful day.

Sickness, Sickness Go Away

I have been nursing a sick baby these last couple of days and so I have had very little time to post. Poor Isa has been home with a fever due to a nasty cold that she has. I don't have to tell you that it is just awful when your little one is sick. She has been very quiet and clingy, she likes to spend most of her time cuddled with me on the couch or in her room. Now don't get me wrong I love to cuddle with her I just feel so bad when she is under the weather and is not acting her normal rambunctious self.

I took her to the doctor to eliminate the possibility that the fever was caused by an ear infection. As I have mentioned before, my doctor's office is on the other side of the world. Well, it looks like God was on my side yesterday because not only was I able to get an appointment at a decent time, traffic was a breeze, and I got to see the doctor the second I stepped into the office. Ten minutes after arriving at the doctors and we were on our way home. Now that is a record people, NEVER has that happened. EVER.

I was informed that Isa did not have an ear infection, that all she has is a cold. So there. All I can do is wait it out and give her Tylenol. I was happy and a little pissed off, only because I had to drive all the way to the other end of the city only to hear that what I had been doing was the way to go. But needless to say, I was relieved because Isa was not experiencing even more discomfort and she wont have take antibiotics.

Today she was better and was able to return to daycare. This means that I can actually do some work on the business and get caught up with my blogs.

Enjoy Mother's Day weekend. I am getting together with my Spanish mom friends with the kiddies for a play date tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am (I usually wake up at 8). But I just love getting together with them, that I'm just going to have to deal with. The Husband will just have to let me have a little nap in the afternoon given that he gets to sleep in.

Cheers.

This and That

We had a very good weekend, we went to a Cinco De Mayo party on Saturday and that same night I had a girl's night out. Isa had a blast at the Cinco de Mayo party, she hung out outside with all the grown ups (we are the only ones with a kid) and did some serious damage to the guacamole dip. In fact her dinner consisted of chips and guacamole (because I am a terrible mother, who forgot to bring her food).

It was such a blast, I had been a long time since we had gotten together with friends. I was also looking forward to my girl's night out, I have not been out with the girls for a long time, we had so much fun catching up, getting all dressed up (I wore heels, and dangling earrings) and hitting the town.

The really sad part was that we were all really tired and ended up cutting the night short. I was home by 11 pm, how sad is that?

No matter, I had a blast and felt great.

Sunday, we had a nice family bar-b-q at my in-laws. It was DELICIOUS. My sister-in-law and I were joking that we had been looking forward to it for the whole week and boy it sure did not disappoint.

All in all a nice weekend.

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My Mamá

With all the commercials about Mother's Day, I have been thinking a lot about my own mom. My mom lives in Nicaragua, she has been there for almost 7 years now and to be very honest I miss her a great deal.

I never had a bad relationship with my mother, we were always close and I thank her for always being there for me and making sure that I knew it. I have to say without a doubt that she did an excellent job of raising all three of us. She is one of those people that when shit hits the fan she does not freak out. Instead she pulls herself together and says 'with some hard work and time we will get this cleaned up'. In fact she was able to pull herself together(and all of us) when we first moved to Canada as refugees not knowing a word of English, having no family and only a distance acquaintance. She was able to pull herself together when her dream of moving back to her homeland and living a more relaxed life completely evaporated into thin air. And more importantly she was able to pull herself together when her marriage of almost 30 years came to an end.

I admire her immensely and I try to be the optimistic person that she is. Someone who always believes that every problem has a solution, you just have to be willing to work hard at it.

I miss my mom. I miss her quite a lot but in just a few short months she will be returning to Canada. There is no doubt that this is the place where she should be, all her children are here and more importantly Isa is here.

Here is to my mom, whom I love so much and miss much more.

Welcome Sunshine

What a beautiful day it is today here in Toronto. The sun is shining, the trees and flowers are starting to appear and you can hear the birds singing.

I just love summer, I come alive in summer. I have to say that the only thing I dislike about living in Canada is the winter. I was never a winter person and recently I have found winter harder and harder to deal with. This winter in particular was terrible as I had to deal with a stroller and the public transit system. Not fun at all.

But that is all behind us and with spring in full swing and summer coming soon I am just so happy. Another reason why I am looking forward to summer is because Isa and I will be able to enjoy the park and the swimming pools more. Last year she was too young to have fun in the park, all that she could do was sit in the sandbox and eat the sand, this year though she will probably still eat the sand she wont do it too much as she will be able to enjoy the slide and the swing and all the other great things about the park.

Ahh summer.

Extra Extra

Hello everyone, I am now not only blogging here but also at the other Baby Thoughts Blog. The blog was started by my husband as a place where we can share with you some of our experiences, news and resources about our big venture BabyThoughts.ca.

For my first post, I wrote a review of the beautiful Melissa & Doug Puzzles. If you are looking to introduce puzzles to your little one their hand-crafted, hand-painted puzzles are a great choice. Stop by and say hi. Cheers.