Incase any of you have been wondering whether I’ll be
changing the blog name (since I’m sure it keeps you up at night ; ) I’ve
decided to keep it. Since Rya is
turning into a nurturing little assistant mother herself, I now interpret it as
mommyhood with Mariah! So here’s the latest scoop on my girls:
Gassy Kassy
As the name implies, Kassiah has a bit of an embarrassing
problem. Despite her sweet little
appearance, she manages to make the stinkiest farts that even sound like they
should come from an adult. I make
sure to quickly tease out loud her when they happen in public so no-one suspects that I
did it. Just like Rya, we barely remember
Kassiah’s real name since we prefer to call her by nicknames. Her main one at the moment is ‘Tu-Tu’
(don’t ask…Ivan usually picks the names and there’s no method to his
madness). Tu-tu has really awoken
to the world around her in the last couple of weeks. She’s started giving huge smiles when you talk to her, that
light up her face and make her many chins squish together. And she’s starting to try and ‘talk’
back with coos and gurgles. My mom
is in town to help for a couple more weeks and she has become Tu-tu’s bff. She loves snuggling up on her Nana’s
shoulder or just lying in bed next to her for some pillow talk.
Rya the Ball of Fya’
Rya’s vocabulary is really exploding these days since she
picks things up without us even realizing (which probably means I should stop
swearing around her soon). My
favourite words of hers are: ‘barsh’ (barf - which she says while trying to
help me wipe baby’s spit-up), ‘yush’ (yes – which she uses to answer all
questions even if they’re not yes/no ones), ‘bass’ (bath – her favourite time
of the day), ‘are yee?’ (where are you – she exclaims whenever she’s looking
for someone/something), ‘ha-woah’ (hello – as she greets the operator on the
phone when she pulls it off the hook), ‘aww-ee’ (sorry – which she enjoys
saying so much that she sometimes purposely smacks the baby just so she can say
it), and my all-time favourite: ‘co-co-kadoo’ (cockadoodledoo!).
I’ve started taking her to a playgroup where she not only
continues to bully her bud, Cam, but also the kids around her – even when
they’re bigger than her. “No-no!”
she shouts as she takes toys away from them, pushes them out of her way, or
just gives them her infamous dirty scowl for no reason. I do my best to chase after her when it
gets out of hand, but I’m really lucky that most moms are understanding and
sometimes even find it funny. When
other moms see Rya pulling Cam by the hand or hugging him against his wishes,
they usually laugh and say something like ‘I guess we know who wears the pants
in that relationship!’. And like
most good wives, Liza and I just smile because we know who wear the pants in our own
marriages ; ) I’m definitely a bit
concerned about how Rya’s little attitude might evolve over time. But from a teacher’s perspective, Ivan
tries to remind me that it’s sometimes easier to teach a bully to play nice
than it is to teach a passive child to stand up for themselves. So when she’s not being too wild, I try
to bite my tongue and be glad that she’s going to be a confident girl who is
very comfortable in her own skin.
And to leave you with a funny story to laugh at: Ivan
recently taught her to pretend it’s a magic trick when puts a blanky over Tu-tu
and then pulls it off screaming Tada!
So now when I try and feed baby discretely under a nursing cover, Rya
runs over and exposes her poor mama, shouting Tada!
