Food Fight

Every day I wage war. The second I crack an eyelid, the battle begins.

The battlefield? Anything that is not gated off in the house, but usually and most often, the kitchen.

The players? These two adorable rascals:

The objective? FOOD.

We have a three way battle going at mealtimes every.single.day. I have a real food hound on my hands. Well, make that two food hounds. Cailin is a fantastic eater. She sits in her highchair and eats her meals nicely. Usually. Therein lies the problem. I could lose my mind the way Bailey jumps around the highchair begging for tidbits. Cailin thinks feeding her is hilarious and throws her stuff constantly. Which makes Bailey go into a feeding frenzy and double her efforts to get more. It can get loud. Cailin can get carried away feeding the dog and not eat herself. Then I have to fight her to eat the food and to stop throwing it to Bailey while trying to make Bailey behave her damn self. Usually while I'm trying to quickly eat a bite or two myself. Standing up.

I've tried putting Bailey on the other side of the baby gate at mealtimes. Occasionally it works. Usually the fussing, pacing and yelping that comes out of that dog from beyond the gate is so annoying, it's not even worth the effort. Sometimes when the food frenzy gets so bad, I pick her up and toss her over the gate mid-meal so Cailin can concentrate on eating her own food.

Usually I make Bailey sit on the rug in the living room while we eat. This involves a lot of patience, reminding her to get back to the rug constantly and catching her while she sneaks back into the kitchen. Sometimes it gets out of hand with me yelling at Bailey to go sit down. Cailin doesn't help much, she tries to entice Bailey back by throwing food off the highchair.

I swear the words I say most in the day are, "Don't feed the doggie!"

Mobile snack times are bad too. Cailin asks for num-nums and I'll give her a cracker. Then she runs around the house eating it while Bailey follows along behind begging. It's okay when Bailey follows because Cailin thinks it's hilarious and laughs herself silly; Bailey also cleans up the crumbs left behind. It's not okay when Bailey gets overzealous and steals food right out of Cailin's hands. It's also not okay when Cailin asks for num-nums specifically to feed the dog.

Luckily she doesn't seem to get that upset when Bailey steals her food. And for all her noise and irritation, Bailey is gentle when she takes the food from her hand. Just very, very fast.

When Cailin has something good and she doesn't want to share, she knows how to handle Bailey.

"Back off, get your own cookie!"

I think the worst though, is the fact that Bailey decides when Cailin should wake from her nap. She knows that it's lunchtime immediately following naptime, and gets excited for the chance to stuff her expanding puggle belly with ever more num-nums. When she figures it's time, she paces around outside Cailin's door, toenails clicking frantically away on the floor whilst making a horrible keening whine, trying to purposely wake her up. We've taken to locking Bailey on the other side of the baby gate while Cailin naps. This also means that we must be on the other side of the gate as well, or the whining and fussing and barking would never stop. We spend naptime downstairs everyday. Which is fine because it gives me a chance to catch up on the laundry and Facebook.

Still.

Every day, the battle rages on. I'm getting tired of the food fighting.

Playing Outside

For my next photography assignment, I had to do action shots. I took Cailin outside and let her run around while I clicked away. She loved it out there! I haven't taken her out in the backyard much, it's something I never think about. It was chilly, so we didn't get to stay out there for very long.
She did manage to keep her hat on most of the time.
Cailin can climb the slide ladder and slide down all by herself now. She is able to do so many things now, I feel so privileged to be able to be with her everyday and see what she can do.
This is definitely the best job I ever had.

Crazy Child and The Blanket

One of Cailin's favorite activities as of late is to run across the entire house dragging her blanket (The Blanket). She watches it drag behind her and whips it around towards Bailey when the mood strikes. This is all sorts of fun and crazy for the two of them and Cailin laughs like a lunatic the whole time she's got The Blanket out. Which is pretty much all the time. She's a happy kid.

The Blanket is a nice soft blankie that was easy to wrap her in while she was tiny and got used a lot. When she became aware of comfort blanket-ness, it became The Blanket. She was pretty young to know about a comfort blanket, but she's stuck to the same blanket ever since. Aside from one small injury sustained from catching in the stroller wheel (ahem, GG) The Blanket is without a mark. But oof, it smells like a teenaged boy.

A few days ago, The Blanket was in dire need of a bath. I will let little food stains go for a while but I draw the line at spit up. Once there is barf on The Blanket, it goes directly to the washer, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Unless of course it is at bedtime. Then the barf can stay because holy cats, there is no sleeping without The Blanket.

Anyway, I spied my chance when I found The Blanket discarded in the kitchen. I snuck up on it, grabbed it as inconspicuously as possible and made a beeline for the laundry room. I'm sure the 10 million germs on it screamed a collective "NO!" when I tossed it in the washer. Because Cailin sure did.

Naptime found me pulling The Slightly Damp Blanket out of the dryer and presenting it to an extremely happy baby in her crib.

So. Who wants to attempt the chocolate removal from The Blanket now? Ahem, Papa.

Happy Birthday Nana!

It's Mom's birthday today. We gave her an album of all sorts of pictures (mostly of Cailin) and a big framed pic of her favorite picture of Cailin from the pumpkin patch.

Uncle Duster and Grace are here too, and tonight we're all going to have a nice turkey dinner. That Mom cooked. On her own birthday. Sorry about that! (insert comment about bad daughter here).

I made a chocolate fudge cake with real buttercream icing for dessert. I didn't happen to get any pictures of it before it was devoured though. Grace loves the icing and scooped a bunch off the cake when no one was looking. Reminds me of a similar incident from this summer:

Nana: Gracie, where are you?

Grace: Eating cake Nama! *standing on the bottom rung of a stool wearing only a diaper whilst eating cake off the kitchen counter*

Hope you had a wonderful birthday Nana, we love you so much.

Words

The talking, it continues.

Cailin is starting to say more and more words that make sense to us. She talks about Papa a lot of the time, and calls for him even when he's not around. Of course, a lot of what she says is just babble to us too, but she laughs at her own jokes all the time so at least she gets them.

Today she walked over to me and lifted her arms.

Cailin: UP!

Me: *picks her up* Good girl, you said "up"!

Cailin: *points at pantry* Num-num!

Me: *shocked (she's never asked for anything with words before)* Good girl, you want a cookie?

Cailin: *shakes her head 'no' (which can mean either 'yes' or 'no')* *points emphatically at pantry*

Me: *gives her arrowroot*

Cailin: *pats my back and wanders off with blanket and dog in tow*

Bailey's Home!

This morning we packed up and drove to meet GG and Papa Ray at the halfway point to pick up Bailey from them. They were looking after her while we were in Nova Scotia.

Bailey got to sit in the car while we all had a nice lunch. Cailin played with crayons and kept throwing things on the floor for the waitress to pick up. She was a good sport, even though we all know that game gets old fast!

Once we got home, Bailey was shocked to learn that Cailin was walking. Her confusion was written all over her wrinkly sweet face. Oh, but those two missed each other! They were all over each other for the rest of the day. Bailey quickly learned that Cailin is fast now. She still hangs around Cailin's door when she's sleeping though.

Cereal Anyone?

So the other morning I was making banana bread when I heard a spill from behind me. I turned around and this is what I saw:Cailin had poured out the entire box of maple nut flakes cereal from the cupboard all over the kitchen. Nice baby! Once I started to clean it up she started to shovel the cereal in her mouth as fast as she could. Much like Bailey would do if she was here (she's still at Papa Ray and GG's house).
I drew the line at dumping the bag of sugar on the floor. I stopped that right away!
"Come on mom! What's a little sugar on the floor??"

We're still finding cereal in the kitchen. Also? My broom vac smells like maple when I use it now.

And Home Again

We said our goodbyes to cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Saying goodbye is never easy and this time was no different. Off to the airport and flew home.

Cailin did really well on the plane again. She travels extremely well. Towards the end of our incredibly long day she started to get fussy, but by then it was a short 45 minute flight home. She had a couple naps and a snack and before we all got too frazzled, we were home.

Nana and Papa were there to pick us up and Cailin was ecstatic to see them. Once we were in the truck Papa gave her a chocolate soy Booster Juice. Which she promptly guzzled as much as she was possible. I'm sure she gave herself a nice little ice cream headache, but she didn't show it. However, she did get all revved up on that Booster Juice. Once home, she tore around playing with her toys and showing off. She wasn't walking when she left Alberta, but she was sure walking when she came back!

When Papa went to leave, she demanded he pick her up and started waving bye to the rest of us. It was clear that she was NOT leaving Papa for one second. So she got to go for a ride with him. Ryan brought her home later. She is such a sweet baby. Such a Papa's girl!

Victory!

Cailin got another top tooth!

Farmer Dill's Pumpkin Patch

While in Windsor, Pammy took us to the pumpkin patch for some pictures. I loved it there, it was so pretty to see the harvest and amazing to look at the giant Atlantic Pumpkins. This one is over 500lbs! Cailin enjoyed herself too, and even walked around the yard a little on her own.I love this pic of her. She's borderline cranky and seems fairly sure we will be taking that enormous squash home...
There were rows of pumpkins set up in the barn. Cailin said the hay was prickly on her legs and she wasn't impressed. But oh, the cuteness!
It was pretty hot that day, so we didn't get to stay for long before we needed to get Cailin home out of the heat. Of course while we were there, there was a heat wave! It was in the mid 30s nearly everyday.

Once we had these gorgeous pictures, I made an album for Nan for her hospital room and got her two framed pics of Cailin. Hope they cheer her up!