Galpin.ca

My neighbor and I are ambitiously taking up container gardening this spring in hopes of having fresh, no spray vegetables throughout the summer. She carefully measured the depth the seed required as I would pick out 2-3 seeds to put in each space.

We are going to try cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots and onions this year. Those are lettuce seeds in the middle which look like very some grains of rice. In case you were wondering, if you let lettuce grow long enough, they will grow flowers and that is where the seeds come from.

We have made a little greenhouse environment for our seeds with a plastic dome over all of the planter. I will be sure to keep you updated on how our seeds do.

Leah is on the move all over the house and loves to pull up on whatever she can find. When her friends come over, whether they are crawling or walking, she will follow their lead. It’s been fascinating to me how Leah has interacted with other people, especially those of her peer group, as the months go by. Even when she was very young, she was already aware of so much but now she is exploring so much more. A few weeks ago I first noticed her moving her body side to side when she heard some music. How do they know what to do? Children are so amazing.

Though she is doing great at getting around, Leah does not totally grasp obstacles and height differences. She will crawl off the bed without any hesitation if you let her (which we do not) and try crawl over anything less than half a foot off the ground. Leah is slowly learning she can push things out of her way. In her excitement to see other people, she has been known to give the head butt.

I am sure she will learn valuable spatial skills all in time though I try explain these principles and give warning (Leah, no head butting; Leah, no crawling off the bed, you will get hurt; etc. ). I’m not sure why I get so caught up with these things when I know her mind can’t comprehend them yet. She will learn all in time.

We have also been practicing her fine motor skills. While dining out on Monday night with my family, my sister in law requested a high chair and declined the crayons and child menu as the highchair was for a baby. Once we arrived, I guess Leah looked older because crayons and the children’s menu were delivered to her. Leah did surprisingly well with the colouring though she was annoyed if you tried to take any of her three crayons away from her.

Here is her first masterpiece.

Colouring with three crayons at a time.

Trying to take my crayon. We are still working on sharing. I feel it might take awhile til we master the concept.

I am not anywhere near a master photographer. Or even a good photographer for that matter. But I do love pictures of my baby girl, even if the weather is bad, the lighting is less than okay and our background has my almond stove, navy blue computer desk (with my gray computer base), green kitchen wall dividing the two and industrial looking floor as my background.

Leah has been trying the charge the camera lately, which is okay if I am fast enough with my camera (which usually I am not).

I love all of her different expressions. Though I may not be a master photographer, I have a beautiful girl who is a master at smiling. How precious!

And for good measure, here are a few taken by someone who actually knows what they are doing. However, my little girl did not want to leave her lap for the sake of a few pictures.

Love the different angle and the close up. Pictures like these inspire me to be more creative and think outside the box. Maybe one day I will actually take a class but until then, I will keep admiring your shots Kate. Thanks.

On Saturday, we celebrated my cousin getting married. Leah was great for her babysitters who gave her lots of attention, which she demanded in exchange for her personal contentment and had a great nap in her stroller after a lovely walk. I appreciated being able to know I would be able to enjoy the whole ceremony without walking out and knowing she was in good hands (and if worse got to worse she would settle right down when taken for a walk in the beautiful sunshine).

After the ceremony, we came home to pick Leah up and went down to the beach for a quick walk before going to the reception in Fort Langley. My sister took a few family pictures for us as we do not have any recent, nice pictures of the three of us.

Leah was great at the reception. Dinner was served later than we usually ate but Leah was pretty good about it and happily munched on her cheerios while we ate a few of them too. She had lots of people willing to hold her which was great. Morgan and I even squeezed in a few dances before calling it a night as Leah was sleeping in my sister’s arms. We were able to take the centerpiece at our table home.

Congratulations Kim and Tony!

Morgan and I have been trying to consistently go running. I sometimes find it difficult due to lack of motivation whereas Morgan finds it hard to do around his work schedule, mealtimes and family time. Last night he came home and didn’t take off his running gear until he had accomplished a run. I quickly put the leftovers in the fridge without properly putting them in lunch containers and out we went. Leah went into her jogging stroller and I joined along.

Morgan had never seen Leah on the swings at the park so we made that our destination. While he run up and down and the blocks, Leah and I walked along with an occasional jog thrown in for good measure. We had a lot of fun at the park, trying out all the equipment that we hadn’t touched in years including the swings, teeter totter and slide.

It brought back so many memories of having so much fun on a playground when I was a kid. Back when any kid who happened to be on the playground was your friend regardless of how long you have known them. I’m so thankful we have awesome parks within walking distance so Leah can spend many hours playing outside and having a blast with her friends as well.

At almost every childcare center I have worked at, there has been what is generally called a water table. It is quite simply a large plastic tub raised off of the floor. With a little bit of creativity, you can keep the water table a constant hub of activity all the time by changing what you put inside. A few things I have seen are pasta and bean mixtures, multicoloured, uncooked rice, sand, sawdust, straws and scissors, paper scraps and scissors, marbles and packing styrofoam. The only limit is your budget along with your tolerance for mess.

This table does wonders for creativity and also can distract and calm children down in an amazing way. I wanted to provide the some wonder and fun for Leah in our home without having this rather large structure in our small apartment. When we were at my parent’s house, I started to think how I could make this a reality as Leah discovered the joys of splashing in the little bit of water in the dishwasher door when I was attempting to load the dinner dishes. So after breakfast this morning, I poured some water onto her tray on her highchair and let her go at it. She loved the exploration of what touching the water feels like and she was learning the effect of hitting the water as it sprayed onto her face. In addition to the joy I got from watching her play, I was able to get some good work done in the kitchen.

When Leah is a little older and has learned not to ingest everything into her mouth, it will be fun to explore with more than just water in a makeshift Rubbermaid bin but until then, we will let the water fly.

Leah has been so full of expressions lately varying from seemingly intense pain to mischievousness to abounding joy. She also has been changing her views on some common and not so common occurrences and showing us these interesting faces. You gotta love her style as she shows off her groupie sign while chilling in her sleeper.

Speaking of sleepers, Leah has definitely had her share of pajama days as of late. With crazy snow storms making an unwelcome reappearance to being a little bit under the weather, sleepers just seem so much warmer and more comfortable. I have also been donning the lounge wear look as I am ambitiously spring cleaning my house. Which is a good thing as apparently I do not clean my house enough, even though these days you could technically call me a homemaker. When this contraption makes an appearance….

… I get this face…

…which generally turns into tears. In my defense, I do wash the floor at least once a week and do not always bother sweeping before hand as it is such a small area. Maybe I should make sweeping a daily habit, along with vacuuming. Leah wasn’t always scared of the vacuum cleaner until very recently. I love the irony of it all. My child can be five feet away from a noisy train down by the beach and not blink an eye but the broom brings crying and tears. We do not beat her with the broom or any other household cleaning device but maybe she sees the writing on the wall that one day she will have to operate a broom and vacuum cleaner as part of her chores. Don’t worry my little one, that time is still a long ways away.

May – I came into the world with my mother foolishly believing I did not need a soother to help me calm down and sleep. I proceeded by crying after laying quietly in my hospital bed five minutes after any night time feeding. I timed it precisely to when my mom finally would get comfortable on her hospital bed. The only way to calm me back down was to feed me satisfying my insatiable need to suck.

June – I now have learned to suck on my own fingers to help me fall asleep. I also have learned that mom’s pinkie finger is also really great to suck on. I generally suck on mom’s pinkie for a little bit before putting my own fingers in my mouth. My mom is so proud of me for learning to fall asleep on my own.

July – I have now decided mom’s pinkie finger is way better than my own hand so I am slowly extending the time I suck on her finger instead of mine, gradually weaning me off using my own hand at all.

August – Mom and Dad seem a tad more stressed than usual. They stopped at London Drugs at 10 o’clock one night on the way home from Grandma and Grandpa’s and finally bought me a soother. All my crying finally worked. Before Mom even had her shoes off, Daddy already had the water on the stove to boil the soothers before I used them. It was a little different but after mom’s persistence for a few days I realized she was serious about not letting me use her finger anymore.

September – I love my soothers and usually only get the luxury of having them at bedtime. Even so, they still are scattered around the house between my crib and the diaper bag.

January – I can now crawl and whenever Mommy wants to show off my skills, she knows I will crawl for a soother every time. I even have more soothers now that mom has upgraded me to a bigger size but I don’t really care which size or color it is, as long as I can have my soother.

March – I love having a soother in each hand and one in my mouth so I can trade off soothers. My mom loves them almost as much as me and says she will sneak one into the hospital when she has my brother or sister.

Though we have definitely had our share of snow this winter, I have felt blessed to overall have a good winter. The dreary ongoing day after day of rain has seemed to pass us by. This isn’t to say I am not looking forward to spring with great anticipation this year for spring brings picnics, playtime at the park and my little girl’s first birthday. With spring, we should be able to find some more entertainment outside than resorting to staring at our self and licking windows.

With spring, we can visit the duck pond and watch the baby ducks grow,

we can watch the flowers and trees bloom,

go for long walks with Grandma and Grandad,

and thoroughly enjoy long rides on the swing.