Proud mama bear...

For those of you who HAVEN'T seen the video on Facebook, Edith learned to ride her bike with no training wheels last weekend.

That girl is so fearless! I told her she might not get it on her first try, and that was just fine. Then we took her out, she got on her bike, Martin supported her just a little bit, and away she went. First time out of the gate.

She'll be turning five on Tuesday, and she's getting a new bike for her birthday. She is so very grown up. Where have the past five years gone?

Dylan's teachers were on strike yesterday, so he and Martin had a little father/son bonding day. They bought Edith's birthday present, had lunch together, and went to the cinema. I had a PB&J sandwich, watched The Goodwife on Netflix, and had my "ladies' cancer screening" at the doctor's office. Who do you reckon had the better day? You're right. It was me!

Dylan loves his dad so much. They both do, really, but Dylan idolizes Martin. He was so content with all the attention that he'd received all day long that he was as good as gold when it came time for bed. I love that!

Oh, and I got Edith those new school shoes. She loves them.

The value of a girl...

I am a podcast addict. Seriously, there is hardly any music on my iTunes profile. It's all about the spoken word. Talk radio, too. I just love listening to people talk. Maybe it's because I spend so much time alone? But that's another blog post.

I was listening to a podcast about gender selection during pregnancy, and the podcasters were talking about the fact that female children are undervalued. I remember listening to one 'cast about all the "missing" women in China, mostly due to their one child policy and the fact that nobody wanted to have a girl, and all the problems that caused. And I thought about how much I wanted another boy when I was pregnant with Edith.

Here's the thing though--it wasn't that I didn't want to have a daughter. Had Dylan been female, I would have been thrilled to have a girl. But I grew up with all sisters (love you, Jace, but you didn't come along until I was 17) and I loved the dynamic there. It was us girls, all together. If I'd had a girl first, I would have wanted another girl. But since I had a boy first, I really wanted another son. I wanted to be the only girl in the house. I wanted my kids to bond strongly with each other. I wanted it to be me and my boys. Then Edith came along!

From the moment she was born, I started changing my mind about wanting another boy. This gentle pink haze descended on the house. The ironing bag filled up with ruffles and flounces. And all of a sudden, I had Barbie dolls on my horizon. BONUS!

Edith has been my little sunshine ever since then. She is my living doll, to dress up and fix her hair. She is also my hairdresser and makeup artist. We are shopping buddies and we love to be "ladies who lunch" together. I was actually a little bit sad when she started full days at school. I absolutely LOVE having a daughter, and I don't understand why anybody would choose to abort a foetus simply because it didn't have a penis. Daughters are the BEST!

My Angel...

Getting some love from mom and dad!


Learning how to apply blush--or not...


On class picture day at Castledyke School.


Daisy chain at the Humber Bridge Country Park.

The "Dr Seuss phase..."

Edith has just discovered rhyming. She likes to make up nonsensical words, and she sings them to herself in little original songs. Or she shouts them gleefully at the top of her lungs, so proud to have made a rhyme. This is blissfully adorable. Until, that is, she comes up with a rhyming word for "front." And she does it in public. At her father's restaurant. In front of his boss.

AWKWARD!

Necessary

Remember last December when Dylan cut all of Edith's hair off? Remember how sad and angry I was?

Well, that girl had developed a bad habit of twirling her hair. She twirls it into knots, then pulls out big clumps of hair. She has given herself quite a few bald spots, and her scalp was showing through like crazy. We've tried everything to get her to stop, without success. So this evening I took her to CV Day Spa and requested a pixie cut.

It's VERY cute!

Sunflower Fairy Edith

New dress-up clothes for our little madamoiselle :)

Edith's fashion show...

Edith...

She turned three yesterday. My baby is three years old. Where has the time gone?

We had a fantastic birthday party for her. Just family (oh yeah, the Mundays totally count as family), but it was pirates and princesses, and I decorated and everything. We had a finger food buffet which was really a junk food feast, and I made brown sugar cupcakes. She blew out the candles (twice, because Dylan missed it the first time) and was completely spoiled by our family with presents.

That girl was in heaven, because she mostly got frilly new dresses. Never in my life have I seen such a girlie-girl. I think I was probably that girlie when I was younger, though.

I'd like to think that I bought her the favorite present of the day--a new tutu.

So here are some tidbits about three-year-old Edith:

She is a little pixie, with her short, spiky ginger hair, long, thin body, and tiny little elfin features.

She has the most beautiful eyes. Sometimes they are green, sometimes they are gray, and sometimes they even look brown. I swear they change with her moods, which can be pretty mercurial.

She has a temper to match her fiery hair. And a stubborn streak a mile wide.

But she is also a great helper, and great at sharing. She is sweet and charming, and really loves people. Because she loves them, they love her, too. Seriously, she is a charmer.

She loves dresses and make-up and Barbies. She loves high heels and handbags. She loves all things pink, but she will tolerate "lello." She's mad about My Little Ponies and Hello Kitty.

Edith is smart. She can count up to twenty, sort of. She can sing loads of songs, including the alphabet song. She loves books, and will sit and pretend to read for absolutely ages.

Her favorite TV show is "I Can Cook" on CBeebies, but she will watch "Bones" with me in the afternoons because it means a really good cuddle and, usually, a nice snack.

This girl is amazing. She is my little shadow, a little sponge, a challenge, a helper, and such good company. She's been a ray of sunshine in our lives almost without fail since she was born, and I am blessed and privileged to be her mother. We are all blessed and privileged to have her in our family.

Edith the pixie

So today Dylan decided he wanted to be the new Nicki Clarke, and Edith got to be his first model. However, I don't think he should settle for this career path just yet, as he really only got a few clumps in very random places, down to about a 1/4 inch. He also decided to do this whilst we were in bed, so you can imagine our faces when we discovered Dylans efforts. Overjoyed is not the word!

So, a trip to CV day spa followed, and some wonderful work by the young lady who works there. Now here is the result:

Martin is responsible for the words above. Here's my take:

Every time I look at Edith I simultaneously want to cry about her hair and beat Dylan for doing it to her. She looks like she's been scalped, and it will take six months (minimum) before she starts to look like a little girl again. I'm furious!

A new look...

I took Edith to Frenchy's today to get her first "proper" haircut.

I also took her to Frenchy's to get her very first ever haircut--just her bangs.

Man, that girl loves being in a beauty salon!

You should have seen her--my wriggly little two-and-a-half year old, perched on that seat for 20 minutes while she not only got her hair bobbed and her bangs trimmed, but also had it round-brushed dry.

She looks so sweet. I'm hoping that when Martin reads this post he will post one of the pictures he took of her (hint hint). She doesn't look like a baby any more. She looks like a big girl now. It makes my heart swell with pride to see her becoming so independent and grown up, at the exact same time that my heart breaks to say goodbye to my little baby.

In other news, Dylan is doing better about Patches. He can talk about him without bursting into tears now, which is a relief. Weirdly, I seem to be the one who is having the hardest time coping. I keep expecting to see him waiting at the window for me to let him in the house. I keep thinking that I'll give him the milk the kids didn't drink at breakfast. I keep looking at his favorite chair, expecting to see him curled up there. Then I remember that he's died, and I get all sad again. I can't stop thinking about his poor broken little body, buried out behind the house in the cold instead of curled up and purring at the foot of my bed, keeping my feet warm while we wait for Martin to come home.

I've had pets before, and lost pets before. We only had Patches for a few months. But he was such a lovely cat, and I honestly miss him more than any other cat I've ever had. I keep thinking about all the things I could have done to keep the accident from happening. I keep hoping that it wasn't him--that another cat who looked a lot like him died that night. I don't know why it's so hard this time.

Waste not, want not...

I'm feeling very into reducing, re-using, and recycling today.

I repaired a pair of work-out trousers this afternoon.  They had holes in them, so I sewed the holes up and put a patch on where the fabric was wearing thin.

I also made my own facial cleanser, with honey, glycerine, and castile soap.

But my favorite project was the one I did for Edith.  Sure, I could have made a kitchen scrubber when my Body Shop loofah bit the dust, but it was a lot of very pink fabric, and it was screaming "TUTU" to me.  So I stripped some pretty pink elastic from an old nursing bra of mine, got out the sewing machine, wound a bobbin, threaded the machine, sewed a single seam, threaded the elastic, and now Edith is prancing around the house like a ballerina.




Also done today was a closet clear-out. I've bagged up a small grocery bag full to take to the charity shop and done some pre-emptive layering.

The project for tonight is to deep clean the kitchen and bathroom, then make some laundry powder.

Wow, for some reason I am feeling a bit organic supermom-ish. I'd better get some more stuff done before it wears off and I am back to being a slacker!

Accessorize, darling!

Edith likes to accessorize - with all of them! Not quite sure she quite had the whole coordination thing going on, but it was a credible effort, and she did have fun!

Not for the faint-hearted...

We are potty training Edith, and it is a dirty job!

It's also a huge leap of faith, and a big deal for anyone who has a weak stomach or values their carpet.

Think about it--you are taking the diaper off a very young child and trusting that they'll have the bladder control necessary to NOT wet or soil your carpet.  You're counting on someone who just BARELY learned to speak to tell you when they need to pee.  And you are preparing to scrub your floors with heavy-duty disinfectant!

Edith had her first pooping accident yesterday.  Thankfully, Martin was at home to help me deal with it.  He cleaned up the solid waste and our daughter.  I got to spray down the rug.  Martin scrubbed the carpet.  NASTY!

And, sadly, three things crossed my mind when I saw the not-so-little present Edith had left for us.  The first thing was, Oh.  $h*% (literally).  The second was, how did she ever get THAT out of her tiny bottom.  The third was, maybe I should stop giving her so much fruit for the next month.

Life gets very weird when you have children. 

Sometimes I really miss having cats.

Medical news...

As suspected, Edith officially does NOT have von Willebrand's disease.

Just thought I'd let everybody know.

Oh, and by the way, she loves to shop!

Edith--supermodel in training...

It's so much easier now...

Edith just woke up crying.

Don't leave me now, because I'm not going to whine about it.  Seriously!

I was just going to say how nice it is that she's talking now.

When I went up to see what was wrong with her, I picked her up and gave her a cuddle.  Then I asked her if she was ready to go back to sleep.

She pointed to my bedroom and said "wreent."

I know it sounds like total gibberish to everyone else, but luckily for me I am (almost) completely fluent in Edithese.

She wanted a drink.  She was pointing to my bedroom because I keep a Nalgene bottle full of water on my bedside table.

One of the most exciting developmental milestones (so far) in my childrens' lives has been the ability to speak.  Oh, language is a real gift.

Newborns are easy.  If they are crying, chances are they either want to be fed or need the mess from their last feed cleaned off their backsides.  Now obviously you have the occasional "other" problems, like over-stimulated, over-tired, teething, etc.  But let's be honest here--I breast-fed my babies until they were quite ridiculously old and if there was something else wrong with them, a little "momma milk" sorted it out anyway.

But somewhere in between the baby stage and the toddler stage is that awkward, annoying and difficult stage when there is no reasoning with them and no comforting them.

Wow, I hate that stage.

They know what they want, but they are unable to tell you what it is.  You want to help them and give them what they want, but you just CAN'T UNDERSTAND! 

Dylan was always a great communicator.  He was slow to start talking, but once he started--well, I haven't been able to get him to shut up since.  He had a few words that were difficult to understand, like "ottaker" instead of "helecopter" and "issinge" instead of orange, but he always spoke so clearly.  Perfect strangers never had any trouble understanding him, even from just two years old.

Edith has been a bit more difficult.  She was a slow starter as well, in a lot of different areas.  And now, well, she's turning into a little chatterbox as well.  But she speaks her own little toddler language that only Martin, Dylan and I understand.

She is completely unable to make a "k" sound, so when she means "pink," what she actually says is "peen-t."
Instead of saying "thank you," she goes "ahh-ahh."

I really love that she has her own little language, but I love it even more that I understand it.

It really is so much easier whan that child learns how to talk.

It's even better when they begin to learn to reason. 

Logic is so very underrated.

Monday...

We started our day with a trip to Hull...

...where Edith and Dylan shared a blueberry muffin and enjoyed orange juice, Innocent smoothie, and a sip of Chai Tea Latte.  From a mug bigger than Edith's head.

I took Edith in to have her third of 3 blood tests for von Willebrand's disease.  She had a good time playing in the waiting room.  Going to the women and childrens' hospital rocks--they have the best toys in the waiting room!

We also had a lovely meal at Cathy's house, and the kids fell asleep in the car on the way home (again).

I'm sensing a theme here.

Edith turns two...

Two whole years...

Edith celebrated her second birthday today.

I can hardly believe that my baby is two.  She's not even a baby any more--she's a proper little girl.  Of course, she'll still seem like a baby until she learns to speak.

I wanted to write a glowing post for her birthday about how lovely and wonderful she is.  Unfortunately, she has been a bit under the weather and very hard work, so it's hard to gush right now.  I've pretty much held her constantly for the past week, and it's getting a little bit old.

That said, she actually is a wonderful little girl.  She is a real old-fashioned beauty, and such a sweet-natured thing.  She is a joy to have around most of the time.  She sort of lives in her own little world, wandering around and looking at things, singing and babbling to herself.  She is incredibly affectionate.  She is very good at sharing (for a two-year-old). 

Edith adds so much to our family.  We all absolutely adore her, and can't really remember what life was like before she came along.  Much less fun, I'm sure.

We did have a very nice day, even though she is a bit fussy lately.  Christine, Cathy, and Martin's Gilbert grandparents came over, and Amy joined us as well.  We had sandwiches, coleslaw, Doritos, drinks, and cupcakes for dessert.  She loved all of her gifts.  I did have to take her to see the doctor because my sister-in-law judged me and made me feel like a bad parent for not taking her.  Turns out that I was right and it's NOT a chest infection.

Our bridal wreath in the back garden bloomed yesterday. 

These are the things that make me happy.

It was a much nicer day than the one that she was born.  Though that one involved IV morphine.

Growing up...

So yesterday Edith did something amazing.  For the first time she put two words together to form a simple sentence.  Want to hear what it was?

"Nanna's eyes."

Ok, so it was actually a fragment.  But still...

She calls glasses "eyes," so it only makes sense if you speak her little language, but it was still really exciting.  This is such a major language development milestone, and she is hitting it at about the same age that Dylan did.  So even though she doesn't know as many words and speak as well as he did at this age, she is developing at about the same pace. 

Did that make any sense?  I don't know--I'm so tired!

Regardless, I'm thrilled that she's developing normally and is getting so much better at talking.  And her singing, well, she's miles ahead of Dylan in that department.

Funny story, actually.  Last Sunday when we were singing the opening hymn in church, Edith climbed up onto the pew between me and Martin, pinched his hymnal, and started singing her heart out.  Heads were turning. 

She loves to sing, and she loves to do "grown-up" things.  She's not going to be my little baby for much longer.