Edward Scissorhands comes to visit...

On Saturday afternoon we were taking the girls for a swim at the Indoor Pool. When Lily woke from her nap, she was so excited to get her "babe-ing suit" on! She loves to swim as much as Kyra does. Two mermaids in our family- for sure.

After I got her suit on, I sat her on my lap so I could put her hair in a ponytail. Once done, she got down and as she turned around to look at me I noticed that her hair looked really funny on one side. As I combed my fingers through her hair trying to figure out what was wrong, I realized this one section of hair was so short. I thought to myself, "It almost looks like it has been cut."

Just then I remember something odd that happened when I had her in the tub on Thursday night (that's two days earlier). That night, as I wet her hair to wash it, she ran her fingers through her hair and a big clump of hair came out in her hand. I gasped when I saw the hair in her hand and thought, "Was she yanking on her hair?" I didn't notice her tugging at her hair. I was in a rush that night, continued on with the bath and never thought any more about it...

Until Saturday. Now it all made sense. She must have cut her hair. But when? I was there when she was in the tub and there certainly weren't any scissors around. (In my defense for not having noticed for two days, I feel the need to point out that you can't see the cut section until her hair is in a ponytail.)

I asked her if she cut her hair and she said "Nnnooo". Hmm...I was skeptical that I was getting an honest answer. As I was bringing her downstairs, I saw Kyra and asked her if she saw Lily cutting her hair. She said, "No". Then I said, "Did you cut her hair?" And she said "No!" (with a little smirk on her face). Ah-ha! now we're getting somewhere. I try again, "Are you sure you didn't cut her hair?" She looks at me sheepishly, "Yeah...(giggle, giggle) we were playing hairdresser." Mystery solved.

Daron and I burst out laughing, but I was trying to keep a straight face(unsuccessfully) to tell her that we don't play hairdresser with scissors- just pretend. Because neither one of us could stop laughing, I'm not sure how well me made our point... time will tell.

Here's a photo of Kyra's handy work...





Lily seemed to be a happy client, but I'm not sure how much business Kyra will get from this display of her talent ;-)

FYI and Comments

Just to let eveyone know that I changed the settings for leaving comments. I had a number of people mention that they had tried to leave comments and couldn't. Now you can!

Toothbrushes and Toilets

For a long while now Lily has had a fascination with toothbrushes, toothpaste and brushing her teeth. She will squeal with excitement, jump up and down and ask to brush her teeth numerous times throughout the day. Although she will sometimes want to do this at very inopportune times, for the most part, this type of behaviour would delight any parent. No battles over brushing teeth in our house!

At the beginning of this past summer, we started to toilet train Lily. She took to this quite quickly with the promise of bubble gum for going to the potty. The visual aid of the bright and colorful and -oh so coveted- Bubble Gum Machine was invaluable in the process! As soon as she would hear the start of the tinkle, her face would instantly light up, a smile spread from ear to ear, and she would squeal with delight as she'd sing out "Bubble Gum!!" She was tickled pink and so proud of herself. Again, such behaviour would thrill any parent (especially me!!).

So over the summer, Lily became very independant and would go to the bathroom all on her own. Again, how exciting- this toilet training thing really can be a snap- who knew?

Along with this Independence in toileting, came a fascination with the bathroom and toilet paper (or "toilet napkins" as she likes to call it). By the end of summer, we would often find her in the bathroom quietly playing, putting LONG strips of toilet paper in the toilet and pulling her arm up in the air as high as she could so the wet paper would come back out, still attached to the little dry bit that was clutched in her hand. At the sight of this game, we didn't hear the squeals of delight from Lily, but rather screeches in disgust from Mommy as I quickly lunged into the bathroom in an attempt to intercept the soggy mess dangling in mid-air. I emphatically explained that we never play in toilet water- DIRTY! DIRTY! DIRTY! Her response was always "OK Mom" with a tone that implied- "killjoy"!

Yesterday, as usual,Lily went on her own to the bathroom. After five minutes, maybe even more, I thought to myself "Hey is she still in there?" As I rounded to corner to check, I saw the bathroom door closed but not shut. As I stepped closer and began pushing the door open I see Lily, at my feet, sitting on the floor in front of the toilet with Kyra's (wet) toothbrush in one hand and the tube of toothpaste (0pen) in the other hand!! Now I lunge (at lightening speed- but it feels like I'm moving in slow motion) and as I'm swiping the toothbrush from her hand, I can see that the toilet seat is wet with water as is the floor around the toilet. I instantly know that I didn't get there soon enough and the brush was definitely in the bowl, but to this moment I have no idea if the brush actually made it to her mouth before I got there. For my own peace of mind - I'm choosing to believe it didn't!

Thanksgiving Weekend at the Cottage

Well we spent our last weekend for this season at the cottage. We had great weather, but the days now are getting crisp. At this time of the year, we enjoy a cozy evening with the wood stove on, but once the beach days are over, it's challenging to keep the girls entertained for a whole weekend.

We had a fun Saturday night with the Kiely's and their new pup. The kids enjoyed making s'mores in the chiminea. They were definitely on a sugar high!! They had a ball putting on skits for us to watch. Alexondra was unstoppable!! She was wound up like a spinning top and could have performed all night -I'm sure!

Here is just a glimpse of her that night- The Energizer Bunny!

We had a great Thanksgiving in Bouctouche with Daron's family on Sunday. Great food, great company, and great weather. What more could you ask for? Cheryl is the only one that took any pictures, so I'll have to get them from her and upload a couple. Last year I brought my grandmother's famous Apple Dumplings. This year, I wasn't quite so energetic and only brought an Apple Crisp. Next year with four kids... I told Cheryl I'd be bringing her a basket of apples ;) (That is if we're still invited anywhere once we have 4 kids!!!)

On Monday before we headed home, we brought the kids to a great playground in Riverview. They had a ball - the jungle gym is HUGE!! They could burn off some energy before the drive home. They both fell asleep once we hit the road.

We had a great final weekend at the cottage and definitely have a lot to be so thankful for.

Our File is Complete!!

Our file is complete and I dropped it off to our Provincial Social Worker yesterday. YEAH!!!

Although I had everything very organized and up to date, the entire day yesterday was spent running around doing the remaining photocopying of all our documents that would get sent in the file, banking, getting the courier envelope, doing a final check to make sure everything on our document list was actually in the file, and finally making it to Family and Communtiy Services by 4:35. They close at 4:30!!! I wasn't going to be stopped! Although the secretary was not at her desk, I squeezed my fat envelope through the little hole in her window and pushed it across her counter as far as I could reach. (I was leaving my file if they wanted me to or not!!!)

Then on my drive home, the thought crossed my mind- "that would be a complete nightmare if the envelope got lost and I had to redo the entire paperchase!" Yikes!! I emailed Kim this morning "just to confirm" that she actually received our file. Whew- she did!

So we are officially en route to Ethiopia. We were excited before, but now it really feels real. It's just that same excited feeling when our file was complete almost 3 years ago and out of our hands, bound for China. Now it's bound for Ethiopia, and I just feel giddy with excitement.
My estimate is that we may be lucky enough to have our file reach Ethiopia by the end of October. I've been checking out other family timelines and it seems that once the file is handed over to the Province, they forward it to our agency, our Agency forwards it on to the Foreign Embassy in Ottawa, then it gets sent to Ethiopia. All in all, I'm guessing 3-4 weeks for that whole chain of events. We'll see how accurate my prediction is!!!