Starting new things

Makayla started preschool on Tuesday, September 16. At first I was worried that she would be shy and wouldn't want me to leave her there, but that was not what happened at all. She was a bit hesitant at first seeing all the kids she hadn't met before. I helped her change into her indoor sneakers and encouraged her to go play Play-Doh with some of the other kids. The parents were all hanging around waiting to see if their kid was going to need them. Makayla warmed up quickly and soon she ran up to me and said "You can leave now. I'm going to stay here." I didn't leave right away, just in case. So she came back up to me and said "I told you that you could leave now." I guess that was my cue. So I was the first parent out the door.

The preschool that is operated by the Boys and Girls Club takes place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 to 11am. Makayla comes to work with me at 8am for an hour and then I drive her to preschool for 9. I pick her up and take her to her sitter's then I stop at home for a quick lunch and head back to the office. If my schedule doesn't allow me to take her to preschool, I have a neighbour whose son also goes to the preschool who has agreed that we will help each other out when things come up. Makayla's sitter has also agreed to take her sometimes as long as I give her notice since she has one other girl that she looks after that she needs to get a car seat for.
Makayla has enjoyed preschool so far. She actually brought home some "homework" the other day. It was just a worksheet where they have to trace the letter B, but she was so excited about it. She hasn't been opening up much about what they are doing at preschool. When I ask her, she just changes the subject like she doesn't want to discuss it. She opened up a bit after Tuesday's class, so hopefully she will share more. I miss not knowing what's going on in her day.



Makayla also started tap dancing on Monday, September 22. She wasn't shy there either and she loved the class. The parents were allowed to stay and watch the first night, but starting next week, we have to stay out while the class is in session. There were about 12 kids in her class, two of which were boys. There is another Michaela in her class and my Makayla stayed glued to her side throughout the entire class. So cute. She followed the teacher very well and really seemed interested in what they were learning. The teacher was wonderful with the kids. She never stopped the entire half hour and was constantly doing something with them. Makayla was played out when the class was over. She can't wait for next week.

Fall is here

The weather has gotten cooler in the mornings and evenings, and that is the sure sign that fall has arrived. We enjoyed our summer at the campground although the weather wasn't that spectacular this year. I think that I heard that we had 20% more rain in July/August than average. Makayla learned 2 new things this summer at the campground:

1. To ride her bike (with training wheels) all by herself

2. To swing without anybody pushing her

I am very proud of her for working hard this summer to figure these things out.

Next week she starts preschool for 2 mornings each week. She is excited for this and has been asking me almost daily when she starts school. I talked to the coordinator and she told me that there are 7 or 8 kids registered, so it's a very small group, but they are all kids that Makayla will go to school with.

I also signed Makayla up for tap dancing. She has been mesmerized with anybody dancing at various events we have gone to, and even on TV's "So You Think You Can Dance". After she was registered she told me that she needed tap shoes and a tap dress, so I had to comply. I will post a picture as soon as I take one. These classes start in a couple of weeks.

Our vacation

Clay, Makayla and I were on vacation last week. The weather was rainy and cold all week. We tried not to let that bring our moods down, although I admit that I struggled with that a lot. The week started off with me taking Makayla for her 3-year old pictures.

My mother sewed Makayla's outfit for these pictures.

On our way home from getting the pictures done, I had to stop at the office. I left Makayla strapped in her car seat while I went in for a few minutes. As a side note, my office is in a rural area and it is essentially a small minihome with lots of windows (can walk through the entire office in less than 15 seconds) where I parked right next to the door. I didn't even think about whether she might have to pee since she hadn't said anything, but when I got back in the car, she was crying and saying that she tried to tell me that she had to pee but I wasn't there. And unfortunately, there was a wet car seat. I changed her pants and put a plastic grocery bag down and got her home within 5 minutes since we live that close to my office. I took the car seat out and brought it into the house. Makayla looked at the car seat in the basement and then a few minutes later, when we were all upstairs in the living room, she says "You guys, we have a big problem. My car seat won't fit in the washing machine." She was so serious and we just had to laugh. I showed her how the seat pad came off and how we could wash it.

At the campground, where we stayed during our vacation, Makayla loved to point out all the "spider nets" that were around. As much as I correct her and say that they are spider webs, she still insists on calling them spider nets.

I took Makayla to her first movie at the theatre. We went with Clay's cousin and her two kids to the movie "Wall-E". I didn't particularly enjoy the movie, but Makayla sat still through the whole thing and thoroughly enjoyed the popcorn we shared.

We took the 2-hour trip to Magic Mountain which is a water park with lots of waterslides. Unfortunately the day was really cool to be in the water so we didn't stay long. Instead, we went across the road to a place called the "Boardwalk" where they had a park, go-karts and bumper boats. We had a blast over there.

During the week, we had some nice campfires and roasted a ton of marshmallows. Makayla has built sandcastles, played some mini-golf and enjoyed riding her bike around the campground.


Now we're back to the usual schedule and we're adjusting just fine. Now last night, Makayla fell out of her bed for the first time. Clay and I were just getting into bed around 11pm when we heard a thump. I knew that the dog was laying down so we both figured it had to be Makayla. We went into her room and she was climbing back up into bed, but she wasn't even awake. She snuggled back in under the blankets and we never heard from her until 6:30 this morning when she had no knowledge of falling out of bed.

Our summer is quickly coming to an end and with the weather being so awful, it feels like we only had about 3 weeks of summer. I am signing Makayla up for preschool in the fall. It is for 2 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am also planning to get her into a dance class since she seems to enjoy that.

August 2008 renovation update

The reno checklist:
New roof - Complete
New insulation/siding - Complete
Removal of the wood/electric forced air furnace - Complete
Installation of heat pump - Complete
New air exchanger in our new utility room in the basement - Complete
Taking our wood furnace and installing it in the garage - I'm not sure when the furnace guy is coming to do that, but hopefully soon since our garage now looks like a tornado blew through it.
Painting and putting laminate flooring in family room - To be completed this fall
Painting living room, hallway and master bedroom - To be completed this fall
Putting a second bathroom in the basement - On hold
Finishing our backdoor entryway (build closet/shelves, hide washer/dryer in a closet) - On hold


The reason that we are putting the second bathroom addition and finished entryway on hold for the time being is because we have spent quite a bit of money so far and want to try to sell one of our building lots to help pay the credit line down before we continue. We put a "for sale by owner" sign up on the 2-acre lot we were originally planning to build on since it is all levelled and ready for a house (which we did when we thought we were going to be building there). Not to mention that there is a lot of house construction activity in the area and we thought it would be the best time to put it on the market. Since putting the sign up last week, we have gotten 5 calls on the property. We have a pretty big price on the land since there is no work for somebody to build on the property. We're not desperate to sell it, but the money will help with the rest of the renovations.


The heat pump is now installed and operational. I love it!! There is so much more room in our basement and we won't have to be storing wood down there either. The dog is going to need some time to get used to all the new noises that the system makes. She is a pretty anxious dog to begin with and any changes are really hard for her to adjust to. She will get used to it just like she had to get used to the hardwood floors.

Funny things that Makayla says

Makayla has said some of the funniest things lately.


1. "Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm a winner baby." She sings this to a little tune and throws a dance in too. Sometimes she interchanges "winner" with "loser" which we try to discourage. She sang this little ditty one day at the basketball court at the campground while she was trying to get her ball in the hoop.


2. "Excuse me. Are we going back to the campground?" She says this with a British accent which she learned from a little British girl at the campground. Clay and I didn't think that she would notice the girl's accent since kids her age tend to talk so differently anyway. But she must have picked up on it because she surprised us with this line one weekend. Now we get her to say it all the time.


3. "Don't mess with the John Deere hat." She has had to say this line to many kids at her sitter's. She LOVES her John Deere hat and wears it all day every day. The kids try to get her to take it off and this line is her response. Hilarious!!

Makayla turned 3

I have been meaning to describe my little girl now that she is 3-years old. Her hair is still just as blonde as can be and has the most beautiful ringlets that really show when it is humid out. She is over 39" tall and weighs 32 lbs. The doctor said her weight is a bit low for her age and her height is above-average. Makayla is a very good-natured child. She impresses everybody she meets by how easy-going she is. I can't count how many times people have told me how they can't believe how easily this child goes to bed at night. She very rarely throws a tantrum. She is able to tell me how she is feeling so we are able to work things out by just discussing the situation. She thinks very logically, so much so that it scares me how logical this 3-year old is. We had some issues with Makayla being sassy to me and Clay just over a month ago and we had to give Makayla her first time-out. She hasn't forgotten it and still refers back to that time and how she doesn't want to go into time-out. She is also much more outgoing than she was previously. There has been such a difference between how shy she was around her 2nd birthday to how she is now. She is still cautious, but not nearly as shy as before.

We have been going through some phases over the last couple of months. The first phase included Makayla waking up way too early in the morning. She would get out of bed anytime after 5:00am. This seemed to start when the days were getting longer and the sun was rising earlier. I used to tell her that it was still dark out so she had to go back to bed, but I didn't have that excuse anymore. There were some very early mornings for a few weeks, but she came out of this phase recently, and I can't say that I miss it.

Shortly after this phase ended, another started. The next one includes her being scared of having a bath. She would become irrational and scream when I would turn the water on in the tub. She didn't want too much water in the tub and she didn't want it too hot. I would try to distract her by turning the water on and then taking her into her room to get undressed for her bath. She would try to get out of my grip and run to the bathroom to turn the water off. I wasn't putting more than a couple of inches of water in the tub and I would prove that to her when we got to the bathroom, but she just didn't seem to trust me. I seem to think she might have been scared of losing her toys down the drain, but I have no idea how that relates to the water being too hot or too high. I explained to her that her toys couldn't fit down the drain the same as the toys couldn't get sucked up by the vacuum (which her sitter had to prove to her recently as she was having a similar reaction at her house when she would start the vacuum cleaner). This phase seems to be ending right now. Yay!! I'm sure there will be another phase to take this one's place, and I'm confident that we will conquer it as well.

Makayla found a mole on her arm. She is used to seeing them as I have many moles on my body which she used to call boo-boos until I explained that they don't hurt like a boo-boo does. She was so proud to be able to tell me that she had a "polka dot" like Mommy has.

Makayla is able to spell her name if you ask her, and now she is learning to write it. She can write all of the letters really well but she struggles with the K. She tells me that the K is "tricky".

Makayla has a little lump on the back of her neck. It showed up when the black flies came out in full force and she had some bug bites on her neck. I figured it would go away when the bites healed. But those bites healed and others have come and gone since then, but the lump is still there. It isn't an open sore, it isn't itchy and it doesn't bother her at all when I feel for it. Since it's been there for nearly a month, I thought it best to get it checked out by her doctor, so we have an appointment next week. Hopefully it's nothing to be concerned about.

Makayla's 3rd birthday party

We had Makayla's 3rd birthday party at the campground where we set up our trailer for the summer. Our campsite backs right onto the playground so it's a wonderful place to be with several 2- to 4-year olds.

Here are the kids at the party playing with the sand toys.
Makayla is patiently waiting her turn to climb the rope on the playground.
Did I mention that it was extremely difficult to get the kids to get off the playground to come over for cake and ice cream? It was another Dora party this year.
This is the one bite of cake that Makayla enjoyed before she begged to go back to the playground.
Here are the 3 girls at the party. We were down by the river looking to feed the ducks, but there weren't any ducks around.
Overall, the party went really well. It was really low-key with some hamburgers/hot dogs for lunch, cake and ice cream for dessert and some presents. I was very relaxed, when I am generally not when I am hosting a party. Everyone pitched in to help when Clay and I needed it. Most of the people who were there are telling us that their kids want to come back and play again this weekend.