A quick catch-up

My goodness, it's been a long time since I last posted. Things got pretty hectic around here - for a whole week, all three of us were sick with some sort of cold/flu thing, which really really sucked. Clark had it the worst, but that meant that I had to take care of everyone while feeling pretty crap-tastic myself. Then our friend Jane visited (more on that later), and then just last Sunday, Clark took off to the west coast (Portland Oregon then onto Vancouver) for a week and a half. So now my mother is here, helping me look after Juniper while Clark is away, which is pretty amazing. Especially since I fear the basement these days (this is where our friends the mice like to hang out), so mom has been doing all the laundry. She's also been cooking most of the meals, and taking Juniper when I have things to do. Basically, it's like a holiday for me as well... except for the fact that my holiday has mostly been spent as a nearly comatose zombie. Oh, Juniper - why do you keep me up so much at night??? It's not even that she wakes up; just that she cries out - ALL the time. Is it teething? Her stomach? Is she too hot? Too cold? All I know is that there have been nights that I've been awake for more of the night than I've been asleep. The other day, I could barely talk without bursting into tears, I was so utterly exhausted, and I couldn't even nap during the day, no matter how hard I tried. This too shall pass. In the meantime, thank god my mom is here.

Anyway, there is so much to catch up on... but I'm only really going to be able to manage the highlights at this point. Quick and dirty highlights. Otherwise it will be way too epic.

Highlight #1: Juniper takes her diaper off.

So last week, I put Juniper down for a nap with only a shirt and a diaper on. I didn't think twice about it. At some point, it sounded like she was awake - not because she was making any vocalizations, but because I heard rustling. I decided to leave her for a bit, then after about 10 minutes, I thought I'd go see what was going on. Not only was Juniper awake, she had thrown all the covers off of her (not an easy feat), turned herself 180 degrees, and -get this - had undone one side of her diaper and had it completely off that leg. She was, I swear to you, incredibly pleased with herself and her covert little operation. I wished I had had the presence of mind to snap a photo, but my first reaction was to check out the damage and put a new diaper on. After that, however, I took a shot to recreate her pose as best I could (but sadly, with the diaper fully in place):

Highlight #2 (not in order of importance, mind you): Jane visits!
One of our dear friends, Jane, had not yet met Juniper, and so decided it was high time for a visit. She came last week, and had lots of adventures, one of which included visiting our friend Christine and her 4 year old daughter Eowyn (who gave Juniper a rockin' hand-me-down poncho: check it out below). Here are a couple of shots from Juniper's visit with her honourary auntie.




Highlight #3: Some more food fun
I thought I'd leave you with a video that includes Juniper's new favourite thing to eat: rice. I gave her rice for the first time yesterday, and she just gobbled it up. The video also includes some after-dinner rituals that Juniper often partakes in. They are a good sign that she is done the eating and is moving on with things. These include: 1. giving an after-dinner speech. 2. raising the food to her forehead, and often smushing it in her hair (although this will also happen mid-meal). 3. Rubbing the food on the table, specifically on her right-hand side. This can often also happen mid meal, although at the end, it is usually also followed by 4. Dropping the food on the floor. She literally cleans off her place mat by systematically taking the leftover food and dropping it deliberately ont he floor to the right of her little chair. Hilarious.

That's all for now, although Juniper is very very very close to crawling, and can now completely independently pull herself up if she has something that is the right height. This means some serious child-proofing that is going to need to happen very soon around here, but it also means some new great posts to come. Also, Juniper has a new look, that seems to be coinciding with a relatively new saucy attitude that she's developing. The look involves Juniper closing her eyes, and crinkling her nose in disgust. I will do my best to capture it in all it's glory. Stay tuned!

Little socialite (and other updates)

Along with being all grown up and smart and strong and gorgeous, Juniper is also quite the little socialite these days. Mostly, this involves hanging out with her buddies at yoga and whatever other activities where we all get together.


Yoga is, in fact, now becoming one of the rarer group activities, as the kids are at an age where it isn't as easy to cart them around when and wherever we want. I suppose I can only speak for Juniper, but naps are very big these days - I think it's safe to say that no one is willing to wake their child from a nap or sacrifice a nap in order to go to a class... after all, they will just inevitably just be grumpy the whole time if they're tired.

Also, Juniper is now not nearly as happy to just be plopped somewhere to play by herself - she feels that people should be paying attention to her. So with these factors all combined, it is often quite a bit easier to get together in a hang-out social scene. A group of us has been getting together pretty regularly, and besides being fun for the adults, it's also a riot to watch the kids interact. It is only within the last few weeks or so that they have actually started acknowledging each other. Sometimes it's just some exploratory touching (mostly faces), like Patrick and Juniper here:

Other times, things get a little more intimate, like the big series of kisses that Calla figured Juniper needed:

And a lot of times, it involves the sharing and stealing of toys:


Here's a little video montage of some interaction - enjoy!

Of course, Juniper is happy to go to any party, even if her little friends aren't there. Last weekend, for instance, the three of us went to David and Nina's to visit and check out their awesome new house. This was the first time Juniper had ever really got t spend any quality time with them, and they were very fast friends!

On the eating front, Juniper has now tried a large variety of food, but it seems as though her particular favourites are sweet potatoes, apples and avocados. Here she is, just eating lunch with the gang at a Greek Restaurant, when Clark's mom came for a visit this past weekend. She chowed down on cucumber fingers while everyone else ordered souvlakis :)

While it is clear that Juniper manages to get some food down (as evidenced in her more interesting diaper changes), meals are still mostly about experimenting, learning and playing at this point. I've put together a little video montage of all the non-eating activities that also happen... that is, drinking (she hasn't taken to a sippy cup, but LOVES it when you give her some water in a glass), eating everything BUT the food, and banging/mushing the food around. That's all for now!