Lots to catch up on…where shall I start? Well I went ‘back to work’ in
mid-December, and switched off with Ivan who is now at home on parental
leave. The change was welcomed by
us both since Ivan is really glad to have more quality time with the girls, and
I am a much happier person when my life involves routine, structure, and
adult-contact. For the most part,
the girls are adjusting really well too.
Rya has quickly made the pendulum swing back from being mommy’s bff to
being a daddy’s girl. And
Chubbies--I mean Tubbies--I mean Kassiah doesn’t seem too concerned that I’m
gone during the day. She has
however, declared a bit of a hunger strike since she completely refuses any
type of liquid in a bottle. But
luckily she started solids soon after I returned to work, so she just holds out
without a fuss until I return and then quenches her thirst throughout the
evening and night. Luckily, I
haven’t experienced any embarrassing ‘leaks’ as yet at work. But I swear, as soon as baby even crosses
my mind, my boobs start to tingle and I have to tell them to stop! (TMI, but at least my co-workers who
read this will understand if they see me having a conversation with my chest).
Incase you guessed it, this also means that Kassiah’s not quite
sleep trained. We’ve put a bit of
an inconsistent effort into crib training her, and she had gotten down to about
1 waking per night. But since I
don’t mind the extra cuddle time with her, and since I find it easier than
getting out of bed in a daze – I’ve granted her another 2 month extension on
her co-sleeping privileges before re-assessing : )
Kassiah is now 7 months old. She had a slow start to crawling last month and is still
working on her technique, but she’s definitely mobile. She recently started ‘bababa-ing’,
sometimes even on command if one of us say it. Her hair is getting pretty long, so Ivan usually gives her a
fountain pony tail in the front or 2 little pig tails on either side, so that
she can see what’s in front of her.
Kassiah’s started to try and pull herself up lately, but doesn’t know
quite what to do once she’s there so she usually just looks fearful and then
collapses. Like many others, I’ve
learned that it’s a bit of a curse to have a smart first child since it makes
you look at the second one like ‘what’s wrong with this kid?’. By now, Mariah was crawling at full
speed and even doing the stairs.
But then again, she didn’t have much weight to carry around whereas
Kassiah…umm…does.
Mariah is stringing words together into small cute phrases and
sentences. When she wants me to
pass Kassiah to Ivan, she says ‘Carry-you baby, daddy’. When she’s trying to stop one of us
from heading out the door, she screams ‘Wait! Mommy/Daddy…don’t do it!’ (which is why I usually sneak out
before she wakes up in the morning).
One day, when I asked her to eat dinner, she told me ‘You wish’ with a
sneaky look in her face. I don’t
think she had any idea what it meant, but she knew it was bad and that’s all
that mattered. We later realized
she got it from a scene in her latest favourite movie, Iceage (or should I say ‘movies’
since she watches parts 1-4 regularly).
Rya is still a feisty little creature who occasionally talks i.e. yells
back at us. If she’s done
something rude and we tell her so, she often growls back ‘no wude’ and if I
then say excuse me, she growls ‘no coo-me!’. I was starting to tell Ivan it was getting out of hand when
she yelled ‘let go’ in response to him trying to playfight with her. But, as usual, he reminded me that it’s
such a rare & important skill for young girls to stand up for themselves
and set boundaries. So we’ll
continue to keep her in line when we can, but not worry too much when her
personality matches her wild hair.
When I tell other women that my husband is at home with the
kids, they usually look at me with confusion and horror as they process what would happen if their husband stayed at home. But I just smile and
tell them ‘my husband’s a kindergarten teacher’ (the way someone would say in a
movie – ‘don’t worry, he's a cop’) and then a look of understanding washes over
them. Ivan has transformed our
basement into a mini-classroom with sensory bins, a playhouse, a toy kitchen…and
even gets Mariah to do painting and crafts that make me uneasy just thinking
about the mess. He truly loves
being a teacher and a dad, and it’s so amazing to see him enjoy doing both. The babies may not get out of their
pajamas some days…but they’re fed, they’re happy, and they’ve spent the day
engaging in a world of fun that only their daddy could create.
