Firsts...

yes, she's 2 1/2 y/o and firsts aren't as new and fresh as when she was less than a year old, but last week we had a BIG first. my daughter has been weaned now for ~ 2 solid weeks and so i really felt comfortable leaving her for her FIRST OVERNIGHT away from Mommy & Daddy! she went to her daycare for the daytime, and stayed overnight there (home daycare) and we picked her up the next day! and what was the other first you ask? well, Mommy & Daddy had their first overnight without daughter and went to a U2 concert together! :D the concert was great and it was fun to just be husband and wife, not mommy & daddy.
daycare kept us up to date with texts and picture msgs about the evening/night and we responded in kind with pics of us at Skydome. :) we had a fabulous time out. and my daughter seems to have had a very traditional girly sleepover - full of staying up too late, giggling while lying in bed with her bff and then sleeping in the next day. :D she was extra cuddly the next few days, but i'm totally fine with extra snuggles with my babe for a night out on the town with my hubby! :D

more new words

yesterday my daughter said her first 3 word sentence: "I la loo!" (translation = I love you!) holy beaming mama pride!!!! :D :D :D and today, she proved that she knew how to use them to basically say sorry (for pouring her bowl of peas on the kitchen floor :P ). oh man - am i in for it now! she knows exactly how to melt my heart. :)
so, today her new words were elbow, sorry and up (instead of uppy). :)

***heart swelling***

oh what they don't tell you...

is how brutal it is when illness hits the whole family over the Christmas season. that things pass from one person to the next with zero discretion about who has to take care of whom, or obligations to go see family. nope, coughs and colds are pretty standard fare for parents of little kids, but oh man, when you hit your first. true. stomach. flu. it is horrid.

waking up every 10-15 min to wretching beside you in bed. going thru umpteen towels as you try and sop up puke from your bed/prevent it from seeping thru. nursing a sick toddler only to have it come up again (but, i don't know what i'd do if i wasn't breastfeeding my toddler still :) ). and then getting chills, fatigue, achiness and nausea (sympathy? real? who knows...) a couple days later?

oh yes. and it gets better too. then your child gets a cough, it develops into bronchitis (but you don't know this yet) and because your toddler doesn't know how to spit phlegm out, she swallows it and then pukes it up, right along with Christmas dinner when all your in-laws are visiting.

it has been a heck of a holiday, if i can even call it that. i think i'll go back to work to get better! LOL.

What my baby girl can say...

well, i'm most recently lamenting my baby's favourite sentence: "No Mommy."
but, she does use it with Daddy too, so that makes me feel less the target of her toddler-defiant-ness! LOL.
i thought i'd use this post though, to write out all the things my baby can say. i frequently hang out/have playdates with mothers with 2+ kids, and find myself comparing my daughter to their same-age daughters. but i forget that their daughters are #3 in the birth order, not the first, like mine.

R can say Mama, Dada, Mommy, Daddy, Ami, Papa, no, yep, up-up, uppy-uppy, down, potty (sounds like boppy), apple, yum-yum, milk, water, bottle, Nennie (Jennie her daycare provider), Emma (Jennie's daughter), Ivy (=other kids she knows with a name starting with I), baby, wow, oh wow!, light, tee-tee (teeth, toothbrush), tv, whoa!, all done, more, "a boo" (a book), pillow, lie-lie (lie down), babu, dry-dry....poopy, pee-pee, off, owwie, bubbles...

and i'm probably missing some, but my baby is so smart! i love her so much! even when her toddler-ness drives me nuts LOL. :)

yes, i'm blogging about another giveaway

but who doesn't love free stuff? ;) Organic Girl is giving away See Kai Run shoes! These are awesome, resiliant, cute shoes! Go check out Organic Girl and tell them I sent you. :)

Win a Nursing Shirt!

BumbleWee Nursing Wear is giving away a nursing shirt every day for 30 days! enter here. :) gotta love nursing shirts. makes the whole NIP (nursing in public) thing much easier.

Intentional Parenting...deep (?) thoughts...

I was having a playdate last week where another mom talked about her philosophy for raising her child. She is a very organized, routine loving mom who has used the Babywise techniques with her child and has gotten (younger than my 18 month old) her child down to 1 nurse a day, has been trying her on the potty since 9 months and I'm assuming the child is sleeping through the night.
Anyways, it got me thinking - does everyone have a parenting philosophy? Does anyone ever have one for their first child??? Cuz I feel like I'm just surviving. My poor "starer child"... :P

I guess my point is that I feel lost at my kid's present stage and am thinking (but not knowing how) to be much more intentional in my parenting...