Bandaids

Meaghan was insisting that she needed a bandaid the other night.

When I came back into the room with the bandaid she was looking at both her hands. I asked her where the cut was. She didn't say anything but continued to look at her hands. Finally, my patience wore out and I asked if a small red spot (almost invisible) was the sore spot.

Meaghan, "Yeah, that's where it probably is."

So, who thinks she was just procrastinating going to bed?

Tobogganing with the Cousins!

Meaghan had a wonderful afternoon on the hill playing with all her cousins. She was brave enough to go over the bumps. So was Leah and Emma. No adult, however, did.

My brave girl

Meaghan has a small mouth. Anyone who has been around her for any length of time may find that a bit shocking given the volume of noise that can come out of her.

So, to give her adult teeth room to come in, the dentist pulled out 2 baby teeth. She was very brave and even helped out another little girl who was a bit nervous. I don't know details because I wasn't there - Sandy was - but it sounds like Meaghan was able to reassure her about the procedure. That's my girl!

The tooth fairy had to come up with 2 presents for the 2 teeth. As the tooth fairy forgot about doing so, she had to think up quickly and phoned me to tell me that she was running late and would drop off the present after breakfast. My daughter pretended to buy the story. I was writing our traditional original poem to go along with the gift when Meaghan came into the room. The little rat was able to read some of my writing and figured out what I was doing. We have to start being careful about leaving written stuff lying around.

The pic of of Meaghan the evening of the teeth removal. She is talking to Poppa and Gramma and telling them the gory details. It isn't a flattering pic but...hey...it's post surgery.

Tough Question

We were with some friends and the mother was a bit frustrated with her child who wasn't listening. So the mom started with the old parent stand by of counting.....1....2... Before she got to 3, the child did what she was told.

Meaghan turned to me and whispered, "What happens when parents get to 3?"

I'm happy that we have never had to count past 2 with Meaghan! We don't really have a plan as to what happens after 3!

I'm not funny.

The other day, after I tried to tell a joke, Meaghan sid that Daddy is funnier than Mommy, and that she tells loves me even if I’m not funny. And maybe Daddy could help me get funnier. (Sandy laughed and said that he had been trying for 20 years to teach me how to tell a joke but it wasn’t working)….So then Meaghan whispered a “why did the chicken cross the road” joke into my ear and then waited expectedly for me to retell it. She & Sandy then just looked with great pity on me when I retold it. In consolation she gave me a giant hug. Sandy said that was a great pity hug, and of course, Meaghan wanted to know what that was. I told her that was when you felt sorry for someone. She looked at me, thought about it, nodded her head and gave me another hug.

She brought me upstairs and went over to her stuffed animals and found one that would laugh at my jokes. She whispered another joke into my ear and held the animal up to hear me tell it. The “animal” laughed very hard and then Meaghan hugged me and told me that I give the best hugs and she still loves me.

She then got very gentle, patient, philosophical and very wise. (if you haven’t experienced Meaghan doing this then it is hard to picture. She sometimes does this, usually late at night. All the wisdom of the world is in her eyes.). She then went on a 5 minute talk…punctuated with gentle hands on my face and hugs…

If you are bald, you are still part of this world.
If you are blind, you are still part of this world.
If you are old, you are still part of this world.
If you are young, you are still part of this world.

Halloween

For Meaghan's Sparks (pre-Brownies) party she dressed up as a singer which meant that she went dressed in her everyday clothes. When ALL the other little girls arrived in their princess, or fairy costumes, I thought that Meaghan might be upset that she was dressed so differently from the rest. But not my girl! She marches to her own drummer.

And then she decided at the last minute to go trick or treating as a ghost. This meant that one of my sheets was sacrificed. It turned out poorly and she couldn't see out from under the sheet very well and she tripped over it. She didn't complain once. She had made her decision and while it turned out badly, she didn't whine. She is growing up!

Here are a few Halloween pics. The pumpkin on the left with Boo! is Meaghan's design. Meaghan lost her two bottom teeth in time to look scary for Halloween.

Sad day

Sad news for us….Family & Children Services has decided to close our file. Given our advanced ages (young at heart doesn’t count) and my health history (benign MS is still MS), we are not considered suitable foster &/or adoptive parent candidates.

When I told Meaghan she said, “My dream didn’t come true!” Poor kid. She has wanted a sister since she was a year old. She knows how to break our hearts.

Later she asked, “Don’t they know that older people are smarter?” That made me laugh! It was a bit ironic coming from a kid that KNOWS she is smarter than her parents.

Well, I’M so smart that I KNOW that I’m NOT smarter than MY parents!

Grade One is a big adjustment for Meaghan and she is definitely NOT pleased that the play time is drastically reduced. Her kindergarten teacher tried to prepare her for that but experiencing it is the only way she could understand. She is quite exhausted at the end of the day. Brain activity can really tire one out!

Face Painting

For some reason Meaghan loves getting her face painted. She lined up for about a half hour to get it done and then 10 minutes later she was rubbing it off.

Summer 2009

Our summer with Meaghan was a blur of activity. I created a mypublisher book to capture memories for Meaghan. It can be viewed by going to: www.mypublisher.com/bookshelf

Log in to see it using email: sharon.wallace@sympatico.ca & password: dragonslayer.

I love you madly...

Sandy always says, "Love you madly" when Meaghan & I drive away to school. The other day I happened to look in the rear view mirror and saw Meaghan's face after he said that. She looked very sad.

Me: "Oh honey, why are you looking so sad?"
Meaghan: "Mommy? Why is Daddy mad at us?"

Poor thing! We had a big long discussion after that about how strange the English language is, different expressions, and how a word can mean more than one thing. The look on her face nearly broke my heart.

Later that day she said something about how her heart was a pocket that could grow.

Meaghan: "Have you heard that one Mommy?"
Me: "No, I haven't."
Meaghan: "Well, it is a NEW expression."

I forget what Meaghan did but I was feeling a bit emotional about her growing up. I didn't think she heard my conversation with Sandy, but she later came up to me and kissed me very gently. She then put a hand up to my cheek and said, "Mommy, could a baby do this?"

Ghost Stories

Meaghan has a real soft spot for other kids who do not have as much as she does. One of the things that she asked for, for Christmas was some money to "give to poor kids."

But she is not 100% selfless. She did something good the other day and then asked what treat I was going to give her. I told her nothing but I thanked her for doing it. Meahgan didn't like that and said, "But Mommy, I sometimes give you things when you've done nothing impressive."

Before Christmas we were sitting around a pretend fire (candles only) in our livingroom. I asked if either Meaghan or Sandy knew any Ghost stories. Meaghan didn't answer but asked, "Does anyone have any nice stories about Mary & Joseph?" I guess I, as the adult, should have come up with that idea first!

Sandy & I were talking about something as children that we had trouble learning (can't remember now what it was - probably a memory game). Meaghan looked very sadly at us and said, "I didn't have any problems like you two."

Collagen Treatment for Mom's Lips

Meaghan inadvertently gave me a huge bloody lip. My first! I look like I had collagen injections one side. Not a good look.

So, I now know that I will never voluntarily get a collagen lip treatment. Yup, good to know these things.

Meaghan was very upset that she hurt Mommy. She sobbed that she wished she had never been born, that she always hurts Mommy, and, well you get the picture. The poor kid. It took us about an hour to calm her down. It was hard to do when I couldn't talk past my puffy lip. We eventually found out that one of the reasons she was so upset was that she thought they wouldn't let me on the plane to Germany with my puffy lip.

Kindergarten has already made a huge difference in her wanting to learn to read. She is 'writing' all the time and loves to copy words.

She is acting very grown up these days. She sat me down on the couch and wanted to talk. "Mommy you talk first. So, what do you think you will do tomorrow?"

She is really starting to get conscious of her decision making. "Mommy I was going to throw that paper on the ground. But I remembered that it would be littering. So, I thought that wouldn't be good. So I decided to not litter. That's a good decision, right Mom?"

Another hug please...

Over the years Meaghan has come up with some very creative excuses/reasons to extend bedtime cuddle time with me. Tonight, her appeal for another hug was, unlike other times, not particularly crafted to appeal to my mother-heart but rather was very honest...

"Mom, can I have another hug? I wasn't paying attention before."

Email Love

Lia emailed Meaghan (with Karla's help I'm assuming. German Kindergarten is good but not that good!).

"I want to tell Meaghan that I love her. I love you. Meaghan misses me. And I miss her too. But it's okay. I love you Meaghan. "

This was Meaghan's reply:

“I love you Lia. And I won’t let you go. I will love you forever. I won’t not love you but I will still love you as big, bigger than space, but not bigger than God. God is taking care of you. I love you Lia. That’s all.”

And speaking of cute kids....Congratulations Jen & Mark on your new little one. And thanks for making Sandy & I 'great'. I gave Mike & Katie a loonie to call me aunt. I guess I will have to give Emma a twoonie to call me great-aunt.

First Day of Kindergarten

The picture is of Meaghan lining up with a couple of her classmates. The teacher is explaining the concept of a line. Hopefully more complex subjects are taught on Monday!

The walk to Meaghan's school is about 3 minutes if you walk slowly. So, today we left for her first day of school about 10 minutes to the bell, which gave us LOTS of time to spare. We didn't, however, count on Meaghan walking s-l-o-w-l-y, stopping to look at cracks in the sidewalk, stopping to look at traffic, etc. The only thing that she didn't do was walk backwards, though it felt like it. (Chris, do you remember 33 years ago? Talk about deja vu!)

Meaghan started out to school with her backpack but quickly gave it over to me to carry as her snack was HEAVY. She packed her snack herself. An apple snack bar, carrots, dip, popcorn, & applesauce. (and she ate ALL of it).

We arrived about 59 seconds before the bell rang. Whew! It wouldn't be a good start to her school career if she was late on her first day. I kept thinking that it was a good thing that my request for a morning slot for her was denied. She didn't wake up this morning until 9am.

Me: How was school?
Meg: Good.
Big pause as I waited for more details. When it became obvious that none were forthcoming...
Me: Did you learn anything? Make some new friends?
Meg: No. We played. I helped a girl make a heart.

That, my dear Meaghan's Village, is all the detail we were given. So endeth Meaghan's first day of school.

First Day at Owl

Meaghan & I spent a few days up in North Bay with Gramma & Poppa. We had a wonderful time with them....hiking around Deucheney Falls, looking for "treasures" at the waterfront, having picnics on the deck, making art with Gramma, taking several train rides, riding the carousel, and jumping on the trampoline.

The traffic coming home was a parking lot around Barrie for a half hour so that really slowed us up. While I was reading a map, I had Meaghan tell me if I could go or should stop. After a few minutes of shouting GO! Stop! (pretty randomly, so it was a good thing I was looking at the road too and not relying on a 5year old), I told her that it was called Stop and Go Traffic. She thought that was pretty funny!

Meaghan had her first day at her new daycare. Walking into the centre Meaghan said in a very grown up voice and with an air of detachment and clinical observation, “I’m a bit nervous.” She was fine though and made a connection with another little girl after 2 minutes (or less). Her new friend wears glasses too so that helped.

When I left my little girl I did not cry. I didn't. Really. I thought about it. But I didn't. If Meaghan can be strong and brave then so can I.

Meaghan is quite observant and often points out inconsistencies in stories between the words and the picture. That kid pays attention! On the way to Owl she asked me why daycares always have animal names....her old daycare was Butterfly Learning Centre and now her new one is Owl. Hmmm...good question why indeed?

Our fall is going to be very busy & fun....yoga, dance, music, Sparks, and Brain Gym for Meaghan. Lots of work and probably some trips for Sandy. A Glass Fusing class and a Canadian Firearms Safety Course for me. And, of course, our trip to Germany and Scotland.