Sen Sen

If anyone knows where to find Sen Sen candy in Edmonton, please let me know!

Thanks!

Congrats Nana!

For placing 3rd in both the Side Garden and Older Home categories in the Edmonton Horticultural Society's Annual Garden Competition.

Happy 17-Month Birthday, Mika!

After another fun-filled week at daycare, Mika came home on Friday with a fever. It had passed by Sunday. Pinprick flat spotty rash appeared last night, but she seems fine otherwise. Friday night, I came home, did my chores (preparing for duct cleaning), and ran out with Kris and Kerry to a "Surprise Party". True to our typical jerk forms, Kerry and I mostly razzed the presenter. I'd love to share some of our more, uh, colourful questions and comments, but this is Mika's blog and I try to keep it 'clean'. Saturday was spent around the house and neighborhood. I hauled Mika over to the playground while the furnace, ducts, and hot water tank were cleaned. She's getting better at safely going down stairs. Mika loves the swings, slides, teeter-totter rocking thing, and pretty much every aspect of the playground aside from the sand. It's too dirty for Her Highness. Mika did finally learn to brush the sand from her hands a la Saoirse.
Sunday was a visit to Uncle Lucas and Auntie Jenn's place. Jenn's parents had a little red wagon that was no longer being put to any use, so Jenn grabbed it for us (Thanks again Jenn!). It's so not a 'today' wagon. It's metal with short sides. No cupholders, no seatbelts, none of the modern conveniences of a bigass chunk of formed plastic - we love it! Mika finally met Macie and Cody. She absolutely loved them. Cody seemed to think Mika was alright too..at least her eyeball was worth trying to eat. As Cody tried to lick out her eye, Mika giggled away. She liked watching the dogs in their swimming pool too. Such antics! Crazy dogs. Jenn tried to teach Mika that Cody and Macie are dogs, not puppies. Little did Jenn know that all dogs are puppies to Mika just like all cats are kitties. Some raccoons and other mammals are also kitties or puppies according to Her Highness. We can't win. Mika happily differentiates between horses and donkeys, goats and lambs, but has yet to grasp the dog/puppy cat/kitty thing. Mika was too worked up to nap on Sunday afternoon. We were going to take her to watch Saoirse's Daddy play soccer, but the other team didn't show up. We grabbed a wee inflatable soccer net and wee inflatable soccer ball for the girls to practise with. Saoirse hasn't seen it yet and Mika isn't quite getting the hang of kicking the ball into the 'net'. She throws herself in instead because she seems to like the way that I yell "Gooooaalll!" whenever anything goes in. It's much easier to fling her entire body in there than kick a ball. Mika has also mastered the soccer dive...I was hoping she'd learn to do the rainbow and not feel the need to dive...I guess she has time.
If anyone out there has an old 80's freestyle sk8 to get rid of, please let me know. This kid needs to learn to ride, but a full size board will be too big. I don't want to get her some lame-o Zellers miniboard. ugh. I'm thinking a Kevin Harris deck would be cool. Or a Mullen. Or good old Per Welinder.

I should get back to work

Shine On

Bye Syd.

Flicker, flicker, flicker, blam. Pow, pow.

Still Wee

Mika's currently sleeping off her immunization shots. She got one in each arm. Mika handled it as well as can be...about a minute of post-shot screaming before the sparkly wind chime was too much for her to resist any longer. She's somewhere around the 20th percentile for weight (9.83kg\21.7lbs) and 30th for height. We're dumb and forgot to ask for the exact measurement. Her head is slightly under the 50th percentile. We were also given pamphlets on the food groups and what toddlers should eat, yadda, yadda. It's kewl that they care, but we're already well informed thankyouverymuch. It doesn't seem to matter much what we try with Mika - she rarely will actually try something and when she does, she often spits it out after a few chews. We've tried the various presentations thing as well. I think I'm just going to have to make everything french-fry shaped and see if that works. French-fry cut broccoli stalks. French-fry cut carrots. Raisins and grapes are apparently not supposed to be on the menu because of the choking hazard. Raisins are one of the only things that Mika will regularly eat. She only seems to like grapes now if she can have them whole..the halves and quarters simply don't cut it. We're also supposed to put Mika on vitamin D supplements again because we don't eat or feed her fish. Daddy eats fish and seafood sometimes, just not often. As far as I know, Mika gets some kind of fish about once a month at daycare. Fish freaks me out and I'd really prefer to not feed it to my kid. All the chemicals and waste and general grossness in the waters - yuck. No thanks. I know of a couple of babies that started on the multi vitamins at Mika's age and younger. It just seems weird to be popping Flintstones into her already. I'm considering testing the peanut butter waters with her early. We were told to wait until Mika's 2 or older, but if she's *not* allergic and will actually eat it, that would be a Good Thing.

Q&D Update

Life's hectic, what else can I say? Updates lately are few and far between.

We had a busy long weekend as planned. Trying to go to Ft. Edmonton for Dominion Day was a bust. By the time we arrived, the lineup was past the parking lot with an estimated 1.5 hour wait time. The 1.5 hours wait would have had to have been made in the almost 30 degree heat with no shade. We met up with Deniz, Cheryl, Ellis, and Avery in the parking lot and decided that we'd head down to the legislature grounds instead. A fun day in the sun was had by all. I got to make some little girl cry by taking Mika's beachball away from her. Mika got her first temporary tattoo - something about celebrating 100 years of democracy in Alberta or something. The kids splashed in the pool and generally caused chaos as kids often do. There were seemingly 5 million other kids doing the same thing on the grounds, so it was all good. We left around suppertime and no one was able to stay awake to return for the fireworks later. Sunday we did our shopping and I had my eyes tested over at WEM. Then it was off to Grandma's for a BBQ. Uncle Lucas and Auntie Jenn were there too! Whee! Grandma's cat, Scruff, actually let Mika get within a foot of his personal space and she was even able to grab at some fur! Mika ate very little as usual and more or less freaked out while everyone else tried to eat.
Monday was off to Costco for more shopping and to pick out new Mama glasses then over to Nana's for another BBQ! Again, Mika ate close to nothing, but we let her have at a jar of custard, so she was happy. I think she probably got maybe a tablespoon of custard into her stomach, the rest was smeared, flung, or otherwise projected anywhere but her mouth. Good Times!! Mika checked out Nana's yard too...Nana is entering it in the local Hort. Society's Garden Competition!! Good Luck, Nana...not that you need it!

And that was the weekend in a nutshell.

Mika has an appointment at the end of the month to see a specialist at the Stollery for her ears and the near-constant infections. Seeing as there is a single anti-biotic that we know of that Mika can take without a severe allergic reaction, we want to try and do whatever we can to help prevent bacterial infections of any kind. We're going tonight to have her 12-month immunization done. Mika's physician recommends it as a first step towards reducing the severity and frequency of her illnesses. Mika has been so consistently sick that there's not been a week where she was not sick and an appointment was available. When Mika was well enough to have the shots, the clinic was booked up. Anyway, we're hoping that she continues to NOT react to the immunizations. Having said that, I'll probably be dragging a sick toddler in to work with me tomorrow. With Mika's constant illness, bereavement and surgery leave, I'm all out of paid leave time at work!