Happy Belated 25-Month Birthday, Mika!

Mika is really ,really good at being two years old. Really good. She can tantrum, whine, scream, and cry with the best of them. She can also behave well and be patient for longer than I would ever really expect. Mika is getting better with her jealousy and possessiveness. She actually told Declan that she loved him the other night without being prompted. Er, now that I think about it, we've never prompted her to say that. Mika is also letting Daddy have more Declan time without protesting too loudly.

We've made little to no progress on the toilet training front. Mika sits on her potty each night before her bath or shower, but rarely actually uses it. She's started to ask to go to the washroom, but only when we're in public. Shamefully, I have yet to indulge her. Of the three times that it has happened, two of them were in shopping mall food courts. Gah! I'm not going to deal with that until I have to. It would be different if Mika were truly in toilet training mode.

Mika's language skills are still developing at a mad rate and we hope it keeps going this way. She's got colours, counting, and almost the alphabet down pat. It's her conversational language that's really exploding right now though. She likes to imitate me and repeat new words right off the bat, which can be almost too much fun. Like when I was wearing my bill and boris show tshirt:

Mika: Mama, lookit, whozat?
Me: That's Boris Yeltsin and that's Bill Clinton.
Mika: Yeah, Bill Clinton and Bors Yelt-zin.
(Enter Daddy)
Mika: DADDY?? DADDY!?!?! Daddy, lookit Bors Yelt-zin n'Bill Clinton.
Daddy: What are you teaching her?

Speaking of which, Mika's star wars character recognition is coming along well too thanks to the handy dandy star wars calendar. She's up to Mace Windu, I think. Plays with her Yoda head everyday in the tub. It's fun to fill and drink from as well and pour over your own head, so it would appear.

We've been too busy for me to post regularly: breakfasts and brunches with Baba, Saoirse and family, Auntie Jenn, and even just ourselves! Declan and I went to hang out with Saoirse, Brighid and Kristeen a couple of weeks back (we love them). Declan and I headed out to Whyte with them this week. Guess how many gross couches we nursed on in the Value Village? :P Declan and I also venture around the city on our own - enjoying the easy life of having but a single infant to tote around. Mika will not be attending daycare regularly as of April. I'm frustrated by the pricing at the daycare. We pay an arm and a leg for fulltime care. As we don't want to lose Mika's spot or entirely take her away from her many friends at the centre, we decided she would go twice a week. The daycare has two payment options: hourly or monthly. Turns out that the cost of having her there two days a week on the hourly rate will be pretty much the same as fulltime. ugh. So now what? We're not sure. There's a daycare in the local elementary school down the block that I am going to checkout. I just hate the thought of taking Mika from her pals. She loves those kids and teachers. I know that she can make new friends, etc. etc., but it's still a hard decision to make. Yes, I am a big suck. Maybe Saoirse can come over every second day or so...;-)

When we lived on the westend and had no idea that we would ever move from there, we were happy to discover that one of the local elementary schools offered a German bilingual program starting with preschool. And a highly-recommended daycare that supports them across the street from the school. The daycare folks transport the preshoolers back and forth between the centre and the school. My friend's two kids attend the elementary and preschool and they love it. Seeing as Mika's Nana was born in Germany, it made sense that we should send Mika there - get a cultural connection with the second language. So, in our heads, that is what was going to happen. Mika would turn 3 and we'd ship her off to Deutch school. Now we live further away and its not going to be as easy. THEN I discovered that our local elementary, which is a stones throw away, has a mandarin Chinese bilingual program. No previous experience with the language required. The problem is that they do not have a preschool program there. At all. In english or chinese. There is one the next neighborhood over. With both of us working, we're not sure how she will get from *whatever* daycare she is in to a preschool and back a couple of days a week. I'd break down and consider getting a drivers license, but the insurance would be too expensive. It would be less so if I got some old 4-cycl minivan to haul kids around with. But still...ugh. Driving. Plus lessons or classes or whatever to get the ins discount. yuck. And the cost of getting and maintaining and insuring and fueling another vehicle. I'm not I could handle the freedom of a vehicle. I might just drive away and never return. :P
It all needs further checking out anyway. But I really like the idea of the chinese bilingual program. Ideally, I'd like both kids to be in a Montessori school, but the tuition is too hefty for us.

We'll figure something out..

In other news, Mika is scared of leaves. If the wind blows them around too much, she panics and freezes in her tracks. Someone must carry her at that point or she loses it completely. When triking up and down the front sidewalk, she does nothing but point out the million or so leaves while repeating the word 'leaf' in a shaky voice. Considering the nasty snow mould this year, it's probably a good thing that she stays away from the leaves anyway. It also motivates Daddy to rake - another good thing.

Mika has a current mania for disks. Loves to open and remove dvd/cd's. She walks around twirling an old MacAddict cd on her finger. It's issue 13 from 90/97 - bright orange background featuring the words Conspire, Resist, and Revolt with a fist between each word.

Now that she's past her second birthday and gets screen time, we watch the Big Bird Get Up and Dance video at least 4 times per week. Mika asks for it all. the. time. The running time is only half an hour, but its a long half hour. Lately, she only wants to see two of the scenes - the "puppy dance" and "I'm a little airplane". She also loves to yell out "dance party" a lot. Curse the London Drugs discount bins.
She's also into the Ready, Set, Learn! site - specifically the songs from Todd's World.

Last night while fighting sleep, Mika was whining that she needed to stay up and watch the news.



I started this on the 23rd. It's almost April now - Time to quit typing and just post already.