A Meal with Maddy

I think a few months ago I commented on how neat of an eater Maddy is. Times have changed. You'll notice that she now goes naked for dinner. It's just easier that way. She gets covered in food and then she's ready for her bath. I know that many people would still say this is clean compared to their kids eating spaghetti sauce...but we must remember that all I knew was my little girl who neatly ate her cheerios and pears with her two fingers. Yes indeed, times have changed.
As you'll see below, just because her hands are covered in sauce doesn't mean that she doesn't want to play with her hair. Nothing will stop this little lady from playing with her hair.

Pics from Daycare

The neighbourhood watch.....

Playing together....
Focused on her food....
What's up??

Our daycare provider sent along these great pics from today.  I love seeing pics of the 3 of them together having a good time!!

ummm....you have a blueberry in your teeth

Yes, that's Madeline smiling with a blueberry between her teeth.

Hello from Boston

Just checking in from Boston.  I'm in town visiting our Mom Central head office.  We just finished an amazing sushi dinner....great food and wine.  I just checked in with Michael and he's  had a great night with Madeline.  Apparently she ate "more food than she has even had...EVER".  

I can't wait to go home to see her tomorrow!!

Touring the neighbourhood

When the weather finally turned nice Saturday afternoon, we headed out for a little stroll. Michael's friend Steve was staying with us for about 5 days. He's an RCMP officer in Northern Canada (REAL northern.....the type of place where they have to fly in your food and a 6 pack of coke is $20). He joined us for the walk and we showed him the neighbourhood. Maddy wanted to point things out to him, but clearly was too busy sucking her fingers.

Must love dogs

Sunday night we had Michael's family over for a bbq. Mad was super excited to watch the dogs play in the backyard. She banged on the door for about 20 minutes while squealing with delight.
She clearly has her father's love of dogs (which, as we all know, is not the same as my love of dogs).

Weekend Fun

Here are some pictures from Saturday. We had some fun times playing with all of Mads stuffed animals. She's starting to have "favourite" toys and books which is fun to watch. There are certain "Peekaboo" books we can bring out and she gets excited before we even start reading. She also now knows how to open each of the peekaboo flaps to see what's underneath. On the stuffed animal front....she's loving a stuffed monkey that Michael and I bought her when we went to the zoo a few days before she was born. It's nice to know that even before she was born, we picked out something for her that we thought she would like and she actually does like it. She also really likes the dog in the picture below....it makes a barking noise that she enjoys.

Father's Day Giveaways

Okay, so this is a bit of a blog hijack as this has nothing to do with "the babe".  Just wanted to mention that Mom Central has daily giveaways until June 18th in honour of Father's Day.  

Click here to check them out and to enter to win!!  I am personally hoping to win the bathroom reader set :) 

I'd love to see some of Maddy's "fans" win some prizes.  Please be sure to leave a comment on the blog if you win!!

Dinner Time with Madeline

Go ahead and enjoy this video of Madeline having her dinner. She's enjoying some delicious avocado and pear.

sigh.

I miss having Mad at home during the day while I'm working!! As I mentioned before, this month Maddy goes to the other family's house for daycare. This means that we usually leave the house around 8am and pick her up around 5:30. In the morning there's usually just time to get her dressed and fed and then we're dropping her off. In the evening she has dinner, bath, bottle and then she's in bed around 6:30. It just doesn't feel like enough time to be spending with her each day!! When the nanny came to our house, I definitely had more time to spend with her - I guess it gave us an extra 30 minutes in both the morning and the evening. Not a lot of time, but we would at least get to play together.
So tonight I've been working late and I hope to go pick her up from daycare early tomorrow. Maybe we'll go to the park together. That will be nice :)

Driving Miss Maddy

Monkey Weekend

Maddy had a fun filled weekend! Friday night my parents came to watch her while Michael and I went to our new favourite restaurant for dinner. It was our 5 year wedding anniversary. Maddy seemed to have a great time showing Nana and Grandpa all the new tricks she's been learning. She especially seemed to enjoy when Nana played peek-a-boo with her. She even went to bed on time and didn't seem to have any problems falling asleep.
Saturday we went out looking for some patio furniture. Michael and I seem to disagree on the style we should buy, so nothing was purchased. I want living room-style furniture for the deck and he wants dining room-style. Hopefully we'll find common ground before the summer is over. Here are some pictures from Saturday around the house.....

More to come tomorrow

Gettin' into everything

Now that Maddy can crawl (and crawl fast) she's into everything she can find. I'll put her down at one end of the room and seconds later she'll be at my feet (or at the door, or in the kitchen or playing with the wine bottles). She's also getting quite good at standing up on her own. Now I'm just watching to see if she starts to cruise around the furniture. She's so much fun at the moment - we play games with her, she loves peek-a-boo books and pulling my hair. She's chatty and also plays well on her own. She's starting to look more like her Daddy everyday. She seems to go through phases where she looks like me, then she'll have a phase where she looks like her Dad so maybe she'll start to look like me again! Here are some pics of Mad on a mission.

First Day of Daycare

While Maddy has had a nanny for the past month, Friday was her first day of care away from our house.
Since we share a nanny, we take turns having the kids at our house.
So all of last week I was feeling a bit nervous. I have spent the past month getting to know our nanny (hate that word...she's so much more than a "nanny"...I will call her our DCP for "daycare provider") and seeing how wonderful she is with Mads so I wasn't worried about that. But it just felt like such a big change to have to go drop her off somewhere for the entire day and not get to hear her and know that she's okay while I'm working from home.
I'm very good at WORKING, while I'm working from home. The TV never comes on and I don't do house "stuff" except for throwing the odd load of laundry in the wash. And I had also been very good at not running upstairs to say hi to Pooh Bear every 10 minutes.
I actually did the opposite - I tried to not say hi the whole day, as it tended to make things worse for her. She would see me and get excited and want to play.
So I usually came out of my office to grab lunch only when they were at the park or out for a walk.
But I still liked that I could hear what they were up to. I knew when she was napping or when they went for a walk. It was nice and it was comforting.
But now that she's at the other house, I don't get to have that comfort all day long. I'm sure, like all other things, I will adjust to this.
So Friday came and Michael and I both went to drop her off. I decided I would hang out there for a while to help her adjust. I probably ended up being there for close to 2 hours. It was hard to leave :) 
Once I got back to the house it seemed so quiet!
I worked for a few hours and then called Michael around 3:30 to see if we could go get her early.  Not my most productive day at work.  

Michael and I met at the house around 5pm.  He called me to make sure I didn't go inside without him.  We both wanted to be there to see how happy she was to see us.  

When we walked in she was playing with toys on the mat. In all honesty, she was happy to see us, but I was expecting her to be happier.  I think maybe she was a tiny bit bummed that she knew play time was over.  

It was so nice to give her a big hug and kiss!!  Sigh.  

We hit up our favourite Greek restaurant for dinner and asked Mad about her day.  She told us stories and made friends with 2 young girls at another table.  She's growing up so quickly!!

A Friday Video

Yes, she plays with the vent for about a minute in this video. And yes, I thought you'd all like to watch that.

New Toy!

You wouldn't know it from looking at our living room, but I don't often go out and splurge on a toy for Madeline. And yet our living room is full of toys. Not sure how that happened. I guess I've kind of just picked stuff up along the way. I do try to buy a lot of things second hand ....it just makes more sense for kids toys as they're usually in great condition and you just never know if your kid is going to like it or the box it came in better. So this weekend Michael and I took Mad to Toys R' Us to pick out a new toy. Michael had won an award at work and the award came with a AMEX giftcard and he wanted to use it to buy her something (he is the best Daddy ever!). We ended up with the Fisher-Price Stride-to-Ride Learning Walker. It's a walker that she'll then be able to ride on when she's a bit older. It's in the shape of a car and has a stearing wheel, signal indicator, a trunk that opens and closes to hold her toys plus it talks to you and plays silly songs. So far, she loves this thing. Especially the horn that beeps when you press it. Her expression below says it all....

So far, money well spent. Now she just needs to learn to walk with it.

The work guilt

oh the guilt. You've heard it all before. Mom goes back to work. Feels guilty that she's not spending enough time with her kids. Mom worries that her kids won't know who she is. Or worse, they won't be "well adjusted". Whatever that means.
My guilt feels different. I love being back at work. I love that Maddy gets to spend her day with other kids. And I love that I can accomplish so much in one day. But with that comes the guilt that I feel great about this. Shouldn't I want to play with my daughter all day? Shouldn't I want to be the one who spends every minute with her? What kind of mother actually wants to work instead of spending all day with her kids!! Am I crazy?? The truth is, I don't have to work, from a financial perspective. We could pack up our stuff and move to the suburbs where we could afford a bigger house and probably live comfortably on M's salary. But I choose to work instead. It goes without saying that I love my daughter more than anything. She is without a doubt the best thing in my life. I'm just not one of those mothers who can spend all day with a child and not do anything else. I need the mental stimulation. But with this comes the guilt that I am actually enjoying my time at work. I'm pretty sure Michael has never felt guilty about working and not being at home. It's just the way it goes!
The good news is that I think working full time has actually made me a better mother. A more focused mother. When I'm with her in the mornings, at night and on weekends she gets all of my attention and I don't take that time for granted. I miss her like crazy during the day and I'm so excited to see her at 5pm. So far, we're doing okay!! It'll be interesting to see how I feel 5 months from now. Remind me to update you all.