Now death has been commercialized...

So, TBM hadn't brought up Frederick since the day we explained that death was permanent.

She was talking with her grandparents on Skype and was telling them about her cats. She mentioned, Kess and Earl, and then she said Frederick...

But she stopped herself and said:

"Frederick died. Daddy taked Frederick to the dieing store."

I think that people who think that commercialism in our society has gotten out of control would love to know that a 2yo has internalized that death could be a commodity to be bought and sold.

We went to the zoo - take 1

We took TBM to the zoo at Easter. It was a blast. We went with a friend of ours and her 2 little kids.

We got through the entire zoo and the kids ran and ran. They ran from cage to cage. It was really nice to finally get outside and just let them go.

Here's TBM and her friend. They were dancing ontop of a picnic table (they had been watching the zebra - and that's about the only way for little kids to see it). As they were dancing the friend accidentlally bumped TBM. Her hand ever so gently grazed TBM's chin. You would have though she was shot. She cried and pouted for more than 5 mintues. What I love is the look her friend gave her basically telling her to get over it already :)

Easter Fun

We went to the Easter celebration at Fort Edmonton. TBM had a great time. The photo quality isn't great, I took the pics on my iPhone.


Here she is looking for eggs in the little kid area.

Her haul.


With her face painted :)

Really pleased with having had her face painted.

With her bunny ears we made.

Approaching the wallaby that really just wanted to take a nap

Brushing that wallaby

I'm sure the turkey weighed almost as much as she does.

Brushing a lamb.

So there has been more talk about death

This morning in the car TBM brought up death again.

She went through her normal thing of telling us that Frederick died, and that daddy took Frederick away and he died. Then she added in a new element. She said that Frederick lay on the floor and then daddy took him away and he died. So she's remembering how he was sleeping all the time and pretty weak.

Then she brought the other cats into it. "Kess didn't die. Earl didn't die!". And we assured her they were still young and it was unlikely that they would die any time soon. To which she replied "When they not young, daddy take them away and they die?"

o_o

And before we could respond she asked "Daddy take me away and I die?"...

I really didn't know what to say to that. But I told her that she was very unlikely to die soon, and when she did, daddy wouldn't take her away. I told her we'd probably call an ambulance or something and then steered the conversation towards the fact that animals and people are different. And then, because she is still just 2 she said:

"When I'm an animal daddy will take me to the zoo!!!"...

A fun ending to a heavy conversation. I'm not really sure what to do with the death talk. I know she's working through it, and it's her first exposure to death. But, she's only 2. It's really weird and morbid to hear her talk about daddy taking her away and her dieing.

She's a Canadian baby!

I realized I hadn't posted these. It's basically - how you know she's a Canadian baby!

Her memory is amazing

I am constantly amazed by what The Baby Monster remembers.

I posted about how we had to put Frederick down. Tonight TBM was being hard to put to sleep. I went up and she claimed the cats were bugging her. (more like she's complaining that the get to stay up and she has to go to bed).

I told her the cats would leave her alone and she needed to go to sleep. This is the conversation we had:

TBM: Frederick died
Me: Yes - he did die

TBM: He went with daddy and he died
Me: Yes, he went with daddy and he died

TBM: You went to the lab and came back
Me: o_O

I had a blood test done the day we put him down. I went to that at like 3pm and the vet appointment was for 4:30 or something. It's never been discussed that I went to the lab before Frederick was put down. She remembered that all on her own.

WTF? That's insane. It's been a few months and she pulls that out of thin air.

She's an amazing little kid.

Oh the sleep woes

Sleep hates us.

For the longest time TBM would sleep when we did. She'd go to bed with us at ~11pm and then sleep until 10am. I'd get up before she did and have some quiet time to myself. It was great. She got to spend alot of time with Andrew after he got home from work.

But then she started daycare 7 months ago. You'd think that she would have adjusted. But no...

Every once in awhile she gives us hope. She'll go to sleep easily at 7pm (which is when we've been trying for the last 7 months) for a few days. But it never lasts. Soon we're back to it taking 1 to 2 hours to put her to sleep.

I think she's just like me. It takes her along time to wind down enough to fall asleep. And since her attention span is that of a 2yo, she gets bored waiting and gets out of bed.