M – It seems some intended posts got lost in my brain while waiting for pictures. Sorry for the posts I didn’t write and for those you didn’t see.

Some days it is more fun to let our memories and youth hidden inside come out to watch the wonders dance in the eyes of young lives filled with potential and possibility….which brings us to Christmas. D asked ‘Santa’ to send Mango an email just for her. He congratulated her on being good and caring for her baby sister (she heard that she ‘carried’ her baby sister). Told her to practice her singing and that he would bring her a present she had asked for (a puzzle) when she was sleeping. It seemed like anything was possible for a moment there, as she looked at the computer screen with eyes open wide and nodded when asked if she was being good. She sang proudly for everyone on Christmas Eve.

Mommy, we MUST make cookies for Santa

While Nectarine was oblivious to the season around her, she did love playing with the boxes her presents came in.

A new place to practice vertical movement

Hee hee. I wonder if anyone knows it's me here and not a reindeer.

The afternoon of Christmas was nice. Our children and various other cousins were great and it was friendly noisy afternoon. Let’s see. Oldest 90+ years old, youngest -1. Totalled up and you get - 4+3+3+2+4 = 16 people (adding sets of [related] families) – who were able to make it.

More to come, hopefully including Mango’s birthday, her new class of gymnastics, and interesting stuff on Nectarine’s progress.

Smile at children. They love being happy and so should you.

M – Grumble. We are deep within in the Digital Age, whether we want it or not.

We are in the slow and expensive process of improving our house. Owning a house seems to invite problems. Last winter our hot water tank burst at the seam; recently we replaced out boiler (being proactive as it was over 50 years old and its’ lifespan was 30-50 years.

Family-wise, our not quite 3 year-old Mango is embracing the role of being a big sister/cousin. When someone asked her recently her age, she proudly stated she was almost 3 and Not Young Anymore. It is all perspective, I suppose. A pair of twin cousins live in the area and they often have a chance to spend some time either here or there. She bustles about, making sure all three babies always have a toy nearby. What is cute is that her male cousin seems to absolutely dote on her. He crawls after her, sits and stares at her, keeps smiling at her, etc.

Mango continues to be a mother. When she comes into a room where Nectarine is crying, she tells her it is okay because she is here now. When D was feeling ill (having chills and aching everywhere), Mango put her own blanket on her and made sure she was hugging her favourite teddy bear (she also said that she would be the mother for her).

Nectarine (I really should make that pseudonym shorter) is also metamorphosing;  going from a crying smelly lump, to an individual who looks at you while you talk to her, someone who can pull herself upright and sidle from one piece of furniture or large stable object to another (while looking at you to make sure you are watching), although her process of getting back down is simply to topple over like a tree being felled. For some reason, Mango can almost always make her laugh, even  when Mango is spouting seemingly random words (very loudly) inches away from her face.

Christmas seemed to be a success, with family coming over to participate in opening presents and sharing company. To make sure Mango didn’t feel pushed aside (due to the three babies present, all less than a year old), D made her the special helper in getting presents out from under the tree, as well as letting her help the young ones open their gifts. Chaotic, hectic, but fantastic.

Side note: D made an interactive Advent calendar for Mango. Every day in December she opened a small container which gave her a hint to the craft she and D would be doing together that day.

Life keeps changing. I can barely keep up. Already there is a new year and birthday pictures, but that is awaiting another post.

Side note – all pictures here are from last year (2011), even if it is tempting to put in newer images.

- October 1st

Not a bit fan of processed pureed food.

So that makes another 'no' for this pureed stuff, along with every other one so far

- October 11th

Prefers independence and messy food, hands, face, floor, etc.

- November 23rd

Winding down after another busy day

- December 12th

Sitting and scoping Signing Santa

- December 15th

A different Advent calendar

The calendar created by D above had Mango do something special –  (see Santa,etc.) or do a new craft with D – every day. She was so excited before the event and proud of it after. They stuck decals on windows, rode on a miniature train through a forest of lights, along with another 22 more things.

- December 24th

Only about a 90 year gap between youngest and oldest :0

I have always been indecisive, but it harder when there are so many good pictures/memories that I hate to throw so many away. Keeping up would be tiring and leave me little time as I am not a writer (well,I don’t always mind writing, but getting motivated to start instead of unwinding, to upload so many pictures from our camera, to scour them and add them relevantly to posts can be tiresome).

More to come involving our charming Nectarine and ‘helpful Mango…

M – Our camera’s memory cards are not uploading to our computer, so we have no pictures between November 16th and December 23rd (and we only have those because we have pictures from another camera). Thus, the long gap between posts. Forgive me? So, a quick look at the time between Halloween and the middle of November is in order. After that, I suppose the next post should have holiday pictures…unless I wait until the memory card problem is figured out so we can add those few hundred pictures to the countless others we have saved on our computer. With those we could update our humble lives for those who chance upon our blog.

Can you pick out Mango and Nectarine?

Not a camera-shy youngster

A close-up? Can I be goofy this time?

Another one, even less shy and more curious.

Speaking of which, Nectarine always seems to want to find out how things work. For example, when visiting family, she came across a Roomba (automatic vacuum cleaner). Not surprisingly, she wanted to see what the green light on the top of it did. When the machine started, she didn’t shy away, but chased it down instead. Even when it rolled over her arm (not harming her), she kept reaching for the light rather than hollering and crawling away as fast as her knees would take her.

Trying to figure out how the toy works.

Trying - unsuccessfully - to slow Nectarine down from leaving the living room

And Nectarine triumphs again!

Checking to see if D is ticklish

Just another day in suburbia.

M – All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween) was the first time Mango actually went door-to-door (about 25 of them in total). Nectarine waited at home with D, protecting the candy.

Here are some pictures of them and more as we have now officially begun our years of freezing outside every October 31st (as per tradition). Guess who was out there with Mango this year? If you picked me, lucky guess.

A true princess is graceful - even beside a pumpkin

Which pumpkin is cuter?

On your mark, get set, go!

Trial run

Checking out her first Halloween

Her first real house call

The thing was, we taught Mango how to go trick or treating, so every at every house, she said ‘trick or treating’. She didn’t even care if anyone answered the door or not.

Also, as she is not a big candy fan (that’s changing fast already), we still have 2/3 of her spoils left.

One final question. Pumpkin or princess. Which is cuter?

M – The summer is rapidly – and erratically – tumbling into winter. While I am not fond of it, Mango is looking forward to playing outside in the snow with me very gleefully. D is morose about Nectarine and trying to squeeze in time out of the house without visiting the same malls over and over again. Sundays were tougher than other days (most place do not open until noon), but for now we have ger-nak-sticks (gym) in the mornings, which Mango absolutely loves. She even tried to sit in on the class of older children after her session was over (didn’t work).

Somehow, we are thinking that Nectarine may shimmy past the crawling phase entirely. Right now she drags herself across the floor, anchors a leg and slides a bit further. Oh, she also rolls a lot too. One theory (straight from a speech therapist) is that if she doesn’t crawl, her language may not develop as fully as it could. Guess we’ll see soon enough. As it is, she is transitioning to food quite nicely. For the nonce, broccoli seems to be her favourite (steamed) vegetables. As for the puree, she leans towards the ‘vegetable and chicken’ blend. Yum. A meat smoothie.

Anyway. Life moves and we all change. It is still amazing how different our two children are. Pretty much same environment and love, totally unalike. One example to illustrate. Mango ignored cords; Nectarine finds them anywhere in a room (even the hidden ones) and slides/rolls right for them.

While Mango tolerated the exersaucer/jumparoo/rocker, Nectarine much prefers to explore the underbelly of them.

How does this thing work?

Mango wanting to see what Nectarine finds so fascinating

Not bad for a non-crawler...

Ironically, Mango told me recently that when mommy says ‘it’s okay Nectarine’, she is actually telling her to be quiet. Still, Mango calls her ‘sweetie’ and wants to hug her frequently (still working on her not lying on top of Nectarine. till needs to work on her sharing skills though). D is establishing with her that when she takes a toy from Nectarine, she has to replace it with another one. It’s a start.

I am her BIG sister.

Very glad we seemed to have avoided the jealousy stage.

Quick calculation.

Born March 2011 = 8 months old. Almost coherently verbal

Born January 2009 = 2 years, 10 months old. Almost past the ‘terrible twos’

Side note. We still have lots of Fall and pumpkin pictures. Remind me to squeeze them in – hopefully soon.

M – As one life ends, so must nine.

Our cat (by default) died on the Oct 18th, 2011 around 8:30 p.m. As far as we can figure it (as we were not the first owners), she made to 15 years old. stayed healthy until the last week or two. At least it didn’t take long.

Comfy on our freshly washed (and dried) clothes.

A reserved cat, she enjoyed her space – although she never scratched any on purpose – ever.

Goodbye Niso.

M – These comments/thoughts made me smile.

D told me today that when she dropped Mango off at preschool, she stopped, turned to D, and said “I love school”. To think we felt guilty sending her there, because it meant we were cutting back on quality family time.

Nectarine is not a fan of baby cereal (not surprisingly), but she is not in favour of pureed vegetables either. Mango was (first carrots, then squash, etc.). Just found out yesterday that what she does like is toast. At 7 months. Go figure.

Isn’t life full of happy surprises?

M – As many know, height x length x width = the area of a given object. When it comes to the lives of our children,  that area is already pretty big and continues to expand rapidly. I first thought to title this post “Rise up, rise up”, but while it suited Nectarine’s growing confidence in all things vertical, it did not take into account Mango’s expanded world. Thus, some examples:

• Height = Nectarine sitting easily by herself as compared to barely rolling over a month ago.
• Length = Nectarine’s growing amount of time between naps.
• Width = Nectarine’s increasingly speedy movement across any distance while the adult in charge is distracted for a moment.
• Height = Mango’s ability to get into things higher than we thought she could.
• Length = Mango’s reach into new worlds of exploration.
• Width = Mango’s development into a very independent ‘big girl’.Height = Nectarine sitting easily by herself as compared to barely rolling over a month ago.

While Nectarine is expanding her indoor horizons, Mango is expanding hers outside of the home.

Mango loves school now (she fought it for the first few days). Since she began, she was taught about the parts of a tree (including a picture she ‘coloured in’), learned about the capital of Canada (Ottawa), and more. Granted, I’m sure she forgot it all in minutes, but loved to learn it anyway. In her class of 24, she is one of 3 who do not have a nap. No nap means they go to the older children’s classroom (she got to try yoga there the other day). In her gymnastics class, she is also progressing from kicking some beanbag dolls off a bar she is hanging on, to where she now continues swinging her legs further, enough to flip over her body (under the bar she hangs from) – with support of course. Hard to describe without pictures, but I hope you get at least a vague idea of what I mean (they call it the ‘cat scratch’).

Nectarine now has her 2 front teeth (on the bottom) and is pushing for more. She begrudgingly forces some baby cereal down (as well as some pureed vegetables), but still prefers her home-made milk. She can basically sit without falling (95% of the time), drags and rolls herself to whatever it is she has her eyes on, no matter how far across the room it is (and she has pretty darn good eyesight, so it can be quite far away).

Hey! This floppy box has holes in it!

Somehow I doubt she can read the tag yet.

Loving the balance beam. At any height.

Got the rolling; working on the graceful part.

While we do this at home all the time, it seems more ‘professional’ when done in a class.

Rolling and exploring.

Once again, we have to move things to higher and safer places.

See my teeth?

Happy to show off her teeth – also happy to gnaw on your tender fingers.

So happy to see me, she is actually floating on air

She loves to meet me when I get home and tell me about her day (with prompting). What I find cute is that when I pick her up and carry her back home, she hangs on tightly and pats me on the back.

Happily enjoying a rare warm day this Autumn

Quality outing – on our lawn.

Quietly contemplative

We look to the future and remember the past, but always make sure to enjoy right now.

M – Our lives keep moving. Not so fast we don’t enjoy it, but enough so that my posts are sparse. Not that it should be an excuse, but it is much harder taking pictures when there is another child to juggle.

Many interesting things happened. Nectarine digs the whole rolling over to get to whatever it is she wants to nibble on at that moment. She is starting this lovely barley cereal (all hers, nobody seems to want any); seeing as she has 2 teeth in for a while and is working on her 3rd. Those things HURT!. Mango just finished her 2nd day at preschool. I was informed she was dragged there kicking and screaming (after the new thrill of her 1st day had worn off) by D. Her teachers said she was an absolute delight (don’t they know praises do not equal more raises?) – she’ll be starting gymnastics on Sunday – when we went to the open house, she left there crying to go back in. Excited about her 1st day at ‘ger-nact-snicks’

No real fighting yet, still hugging, saying ‘it’s okay Nectarine’, mimicking D’s constant reassurance to Nectarine.

Good at being polite; thanking others, saying goodbye/hello (weaning her from I ‘need something to I ‘want something please.) Continues to be good at sharing with others at school/daycare.

She WAS lying peacefully on her back under the structure.

Started one quiet, sunny, peaceful afternoon. We hadn’t yet realized her speed-rolling (and inchworming) capability. No real valuables down there, but some magazine corners are all wet and gummy now.  Doesn’t go more than a few feet without a rest break though. Sitting up well (she’s actually stong enough to stand on her own [I tested]).

Head held high.

1st bath together. Nectarine outgrew the tabletop toddler one  while ago, so bathing time can be family time.

This is fun!

Not too sure if barley is the taste for her

Ah, youth. Seems so long ago.

Happily, Mango seems to like to help Nectarine through guidance and smothering loving, even when we are not around (wink, wink).

I am SOO glad they do so well together. Right now they have adjacent rooms, which makes for interesting times. Often when ones wakes (crying), the 2nd chimes in a bit later (usually as the 1st one is just drifting off again). More hours of sleep deprivation for us (mostly D). I remember asking Mango one morning if Nectarine cried the night before (ergo making her night tiring too), she just said ‘yes’, as casually as talking about the weather. Sweet.

Scholastics begin.

Who is happy and who is sad?

Showing off her supplies

While told she has a backpack and a lunch box, she forcefully tells us they are HER backpack and HER lunch backpack.

Gulp.

M – Things change to fast to keep up with around here. Now if I worked fewer hours while getting paid more, I’d have no excuse to be so negligent of the blog. We are having conversations with Mango beyond those just requiring her to answer just ‘yes’ or ‘no’. She has an incredible imagination, if I could remember any of her interesting observations or stories she makes up, I would relate them here. Late thought: when mango puts on a hat, she declares herself to be a baseball cap.

Nectarine is also progressing beyond the baby stage with nary a glance goodbye. She sits (briefly), can support her own weight standing, rolls quite easily, watches everything you say to her quite intently – but is always ready to laugh/giggle whenever attention is paid to her.

Random (sort of) pictures taken from August-ish.

Happily visiting quasi-relatives.

The lady with their grandmother is a neighbour who was a source of joy for D when she was growing up.

No fear - of course.

Fortunately I did not have to make any derring-do rescue as I was in a city far away while D and Mango and Nectarine went to visit grandparents in another province.

Off examining another interesting bush.

Did you ever notice that children seem to find questions that can be very hard to answer in a way that is relatively true, simple enough to grasp, and answers the question? Remember, Mango just passed the 2 1/2 year mark.

'talking' to one another.

Thankfully everything is mostly good between our children and I cannot think of much in the way of complaints to add here.

Tell me more. Tell me everything...

Nectarine pausing in her efforts to skooch forward to listen and look intently at D.

Can I go again?

Unlike Mango, who hollered ’til she was purple in the face, Nectarine never stops smiling through her nightly bathing routine.

Having fun vs. passed out from sheer exhaustion.

Just have to give kudos to D. She takes care of both all day long (I don’t know if I could even handle one) … somehow. She is amazing. Work may be stressful, but at least the hour bus ride each way gives me time to breathe.