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.

Another week

This week was a good week. We had good drop offs and pick ups from daycare.

Here are a couple funnies:

"Oh no!!!!! My carseat is BLACK. It's not pink. That's NOT OK..."

"That's Julia's mama... Oh - that's Julia's daddy! He's a boy... He has a penis!"

She's a really sweet kid.

Regression?

OMG.

Today was hard (sort of forming a pattern). I had an old friend from highschool over with her 6 month old. And all TBM wanted to do was be a baby.

Well - that's not really fair. She did a bunch of big kid stuff like get the baby toys and similar things. But she cried and cried and wanted the baby's soother. She didn't want her own, she wanted the "little" one...

It was really frustrating. She's normally such a big kid.

My BFF has a 5 week old baby (and a 2yo). And when ever we're with them TBM does this stuff too. I lent her a couple of baby carriers and when I was showing her them, TBM insisted on going in each of them. When she sees him get his diaper changed she insists on having a pretend change.

I really hope she get's over it before we have another kid.

More death talk

As I mentioned before we had to put down our cat ~6 weeks ago. He was old and his kidneys were failing.

We talked about it with TBM a bunch and she seemed to get something out of it. She didn't say much to us - and she hasn't really mentioned him at all. Last weekend she told my friend, "I can't move Frederick. He died"...

Anyway, tonight we told DH's parents about it (they spent alot of time with her) and they said that she talks about his all the time with them. (Maybe she knows we know so she doesn't feel like she has to tell us).

Apparently she's said, "Frederick died. He went away.".

I find it very interesting to see how she's dealing with this.

Another rough morning

So 2 is a rough stage. TBM is in fine form these days. One moment she will be really reasonable, and the next it's like she's from another planet.

This morning was a good example. We got up and she had breakfast. Then it was time to get dressed and go to work/daycare. So I found some clothes for her and DH got her dressed. Great! Right?

It was until she decided that she'd rather have different underwear. So while we were packing our stuff to get out the door she removed all her clothes in order to put on pink undies. And she had to do it all herself. I suppose I should be happy that it doesn't look like we'll have a 6yo who still needs us to dress her. But when it takes 4 times as long for her to do it - it kind of sucks.

When we got to daycare she wanted to take her purple gloves into the room with her. But that's not allowed. Things like that need to be left in her locker. It took close to 10 minutes for her to agree and actually follow through on putting her gloves away and being willing to walk away from the locker. it was insane. I know it sounds crazy that I let it go on for that long - but really it's a choice between 2 bad results.

I could have removed the gloves from her hands, which she would have perceived as a complete violation of her personal space. Then she would have screamed and cried and asked questions like "why you do this mama? Why you do this to me?" for the next 30 minutes. Or I can sit on the floor feeling like an idiot methodically repeating "Your gloves need to stay in your locker. Where would you like to put them in your locker? Would you like to put them, or would you like mama to put them?" Ad nauseum.

OK. Some pictures!

These are going to start roughly where I left off last time (with the exception of our Hawaii trip) and come up to now. Then my plan is to start blogging again.

It's been along time.

Well - it's been a VERY long time since I posted here. That's OK. It's for me to have a chance to write out what I'm thinking about. I will try, when I have time, to fill in some of the gaps of how TBM is doing.

As a basic update - she's now 2, talking up a storm, and insisting on doing everything herself. We're having a great time exploring the world with her.

Part of what prompted me to dig up this blog is how she's been dealing with the death of our cat. We had an old cat named Frederick. We put him down about 6 weeks ago. We told her about it, and she seemed to take something away from it.

Then last weekend we had a friend over and TBM told her very seriously, "I can't move Frederick. Frederick died!"... This is in clear reference to her Olivia book where Olivia moves the cat.

It's amazing what percolates through a 2yo's head.