planes, trains and...

...just planes and trains. It was THAT kind of trip. I wanted to take one last trip before my maternity leave ends, so we packed up our family and headed to Albany, NY to visit my sister and her family.

We left Vancouver on a Sunday and headed down to Seattle. Our flight went from Seattle to Albany on the Tuesday. So, we had a couple of days to hang out with Jon and Caroline in Seattle. Or so we thought. The 2-day stay in Seattle ended up being a 3-day stay. We missed our plane on the Tuesday. It wasn't a cataclysmic series of catastrophic events. We missed our plane by 4 minutes because...I suppose it was because we just didn't manage our time well!

Neither Brian or I have ever missed a plane before so it was a big deal for us. I just couldn't believe that we had missed the plane! Brian had to keep telling me to let it go (I kept going through iterations of "if we only did this" or "if we only did that").

In the end, it wasn't a big deal. We just caught the same flight the next day. But it meant we had one less day to spend with my sister and her family. And the extra day we had in Seattle we spent at the airport re-arranging our flight and then at Target getting diapers, wipes, underwear, toiletries, etc. You see, "we" missed our flight but our luggage didn't.

We finally got to Albany already tired from going through the steps of air travel 2 days in a row with 2 small children. But we were happy to be visiting. Before we missed our flight, we had planned to take an overnight trip to New York City, but now that our trip was one day shorter, it just felt like that much more work to pack everyone up for a short, overnight trip to the city.

My sister finally convinced us to go by saying that she would keep Josh with her, so Brian and I only had to take Avery - a far less daunting task. So we did it. Brian had never been to NYC before, so we thought it would be a good introduction. And I haven't visited my girlfriend there in 12.5 years, so we were due for a visit. Plus, I really wanted to meet her new hubby!

Despite what I'm about to say, we had a FANTASTIC time. It was the REAL vacation in our vacation. Shabana and Brent were the perfect hosts and they graciously gave up their sleeping quarters for a night so that we could have a comfortable place to sleep with Avery (I'll do more on our visit in the next post).

Our first day there was great! We arrived from Albany to Penn Station in NYC in the morning and spent the day with Shabana. It all went well. The second day was a little more..."eventful". It was pouring down rain. Now, I come from Vancouver and we know our rain here in the Pacific Northwest. When you are prepared for it, it's all just environmental. But when you've only come prepared for cold and snow and have no rain gear to speak of, it's a different story.

And this wasn't the typical Vancouver drizzle that we get in the Pacific Northwest. This rain was torrential. And coming in sideways! We walked 5 blocks from Grand Central Station to the UN and we were drenched from the thighs down, carrying umbrellas! We thought we'd have time to dry off on a tour of the UN, but they wouldn't let us on the tour with Avery. Ugh. So we decided that we had seen quite a bit the day before and instead of traipsing around the city soaking wet, we would catch an earlier train home.

We had no problem switching our ticket to an earlier train and with plenty of time to catch the train, we headed to DSW to replace my soaked runners. Yeah, yeah, I hear all of your sighs already. We missed the train because of shopping. Unbelieveable.

It was not so bad - we just ended up back on our original train, which left a mere 2.5 hours later. We hung around close to Penn Station, not wanting to risk missing the last train of the evening. Well, for all that waiting, we got a delayed train! Our train was delayed 2 hours because all that rain (See?! I wasn't exaggerating when I said it was torrential!) had caused flooding in our rail corridor. Unbelieveable. We arrived back in Albany just before midnight. At least we made it.

There were no automobile glitches on the trip, thank goodness. But just when I thought our misadventures were over, we were headed on our flight back to Seattle and I started to feel queasy. My niece stayed home sick with a stomach flu the day before and it seemed that I would be the unlucky one to catch it.

As we took off on our flight from Detroit to Seattle, my stomach started to feel unsettled. Unfortunately, I was carrying a sleeping Avery in the ergo carrier and couldn't move her and risk waking her up. So, I toughed it out for about an hour and a half, until I couldn't take it anymore. Brian gave me a motion sickness bag and I went to the back of the plane and hurled. I managed to get it all in the bag despite carrying Avery in front of me. And Avery stayed sleeping! I was folding up the barf bag and that's when the second wave hit. I threw up all over the floor at the back of plane. It was gross. And still, Avery stayed sleeping! It was disgusting and the worst flight ever - even worse than being nauseous and pregnant on a 9 hour flight to Paris.

So those were our misadventures. Not quite planes, trains and automobiles. More like planes, trains and puking...

scooching

I had this great video of Avery's infectious giggling that I was going to post in my 4, 5, 6, 7, 8... post, but the file was too big. So, instead, here is a video of her scooching.

She started to move around on her belly around mid-December. She is now up on all fours but hasn't quite figured out the arm-leg movement for crawling. She is doing the wounded soldier crawl, though!

scooching
Originally uploaded by evelet

an a-ha day

Josh had what I can only call an "a-ha" day on December 30th. Two things that he seemed to just "get" on that day were the "pee/poo" feeling and how to point and click with a mouse. I know, I know - completely unrelated. But I think something was going on in his brain that day and he just got it!

We never actually pushed the potty training issue with Josh. Honestly, he never seemed ready! Just after his birthday, the ladies at daycare started hinting to me that I should start potty training him. So, in a half-hearted effort, at the beginning of December, we started putting him on the potty and telling him once the diapers were finished, he had to do potty training.

He managed to do a couple of pees on the potty, but nothing significant. And he would say that he had to pee and he would sit on the potty for the longest time with no results. We even tried underwear on a couple of occasions and I think that scared him into holding his pee. One time, he didn't go pee for FIVE HOURS because we had him in underwear and he didn't want to go on the potty!

So, we let go of the issue over Christmas, but just after Christmas, on Sunday, December 27th, we were out of diapers and we told him that he had to wear underwear and pee on the potty. We stayed close to home and took him to the bathroom often. When we went out a couple of times, we put a pull-up on him. It seemed like a great start. He was peeing AND pooing on the potty!

Then, on December 30th, he started telling us when he had to go and each time he got on the potty, he would go almost immediately. Success! He understood that "feeling"!

It's been almost 2 weeks since we did the "cold turkey" training and he's had 3 pee accidents and 1 poo accident. Not too bad, so far! Also, he was refusing to go on any potty but the one at home, so when we were out, if he told us he had to go, we would go to the bathroom, put a pull-up on, he would pee and we would change him back to underwear. He has since started back at daycare and they tell me he is going to the bathroom there very well, so I'm hoping this will help to get him to pee on other toilets.

It's only been a short time, but I'm hoping we don't have setbacks. He seems to have caught on pretty quickly (he's 3 - so I guess it's about time!) and at least he understands the "feeling" now!

As for his hand-eye co-ordination with the mouse, he was never really interested in using the computer, so we didn't try to get him to use it. He likes to watch videos and look at pictures, but that was about it.

On that same day, December 30th, he was actually serving a time-out on a chair. It was facing the computer, so he was staring at the wallpaper photo of our family posing in front of our Christmas tree (circa 2008).

When he was done his time-out, he asked me a bunch of questions about the photo and pulled himself up to the computer. He grabbed the mouse and I just casually asked him to use the mouse to point to one of the ornaments on the Christmas tree. He did it! I was shocked! He did a bunch more and then I put on a kid's CD (Jump Start for Toddlers) that my sister gave me just for this purpose. He LOVED it! He asks to play his "video game" all the time now.

I never understood how you can teach that hand-eye co-ordination to a child and I still don't! He seemed to just "get it". It was truly a big day for Josh that day...

Tap-tap-tapping

One last post for 2009. Josh did his second round of skating lessons this Fall. This was his first time on "real" skates as he did his first lessons on BOB skates at the beginning of the year.

He did an awesome job! In the beginning, he couldn't even stand on his hockey skates. By the end of the session, he was tap-tap-tapping all by himself! Though he really seemed to catch on, I think he had a tough time. When I asked him if he wanted to do skating again, he said that he wanted to do it later. So, I think we'll take a break from skating until next Fall...

Tap-tap-tapping
Originally uploaded by evelet

just squeaked this one in

I said I would do a Christmas post before the new year and I'm just squeaking this one in! What can I say?! The whole year, much less the holiday season, flew past us! I've had so many things I've wanted to post and no time (or no energy) to post them. So, I wanted to make sure I got my Christmas post up before I'm forced to declare blog bankruptcy!

We had a really nice Christmas this year - it was quiet and we stayed close to home. After Josh's birthday, we start to build momentum for the holiday season and I think Josh now understands when Christmas is coming. He loves the Christmas lights outside and he was pretty excited this year to help decorate the tree. He knows the whole advent calendar routine like the back of his hand - courtesy of a wonderful Playmobil calendar he got for his birthday this year.

Avery has no idea, of course. She's only 8 months old! But I think she enjoyed the festivities nonetheless. I'm still working on traditions for our family, though.

This year, Josh wanted to build a gingerbread house, so we bought a kit and put it together. Brian, our resident framer, put up the house. Josh said he wanted a house that looked like the picture on the box, so I started to decorate the house accordingly. Well, it turned out that it wasn't much fun for Josh to watch Mommy decorate the house, so at that point, I slathered on the icing and let Josh decorate the rest of the house. He loved it. He loved it everyday that he ate bits of it and once his favourite bits were gone, he lost interest. It was fun while it lasted though!

We did a whole "if you want that toy you have to ask Santa" routine, so Josh was pretty excited to see Santa. We visited Santa at the mall and Josh had no problem waiting the 20 or so minutes in line. He wasn't scared of Santa at all and went into a lengthy explanation of the airport toy he wanted that he had just seen at Toys'r'Us. The experienced Santa staff said to sit Avery on Santa's lap without letting her look at him. It worked well and we have a pretty good shot of the kids with Santa (not shown here).

The kids saw Santa again at my company's kid's Christmas party. This time, Avery saw Santa and she did not like what she saw (see below)! It was the standard reaction you would expect when you sit a baby on a strange man's lap.

We visited Bright Nights in Stanley Park twice over the holidays (and managed to forget our camera twice!). The first time, the train was sold out, so we decided to make the trip back there a second time with tickets bought online. It's a pretty spectacular display, even if you don't make it on the train. Josh loved the train ride, though, and wanted to go again after it was over. Maybe next year...

We had a wonderful time spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the Van Dop side of the family this year. We were sad that Dad had to spend the holidays out of commission, but we visited him and tried to make the day as festive as possible.

We hope you and your family had a joyous and peaceful holiday and we wish you a fabulous 2010 - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Our first attempt at building a gingerbread house

Who is this man and why am I sitting on his lap??!!

This is Josh's "I'm going to beat Santa with my bell" face

Christmas Eve with the Van Dop cousins

The 3-year-olds doing an awesome job of opening their presents!

Finally! It's Christmas morning!

Opening our stockings together

Please explain to me how that is a good present, Daddy...

Josh said he really wanted a baby for Christmas, so we obliged. He named it "Baby Avery".

Avery LOVED opening presents - or should I say, Avery LOVED gift wrap!

Even Nikita got in the action

Josh really enjoyed the opening of presents part this year...

...and he didn't mind the gifts inside that much either!

vancouver 2010

We got our Olympic tix delivered today. I'm surprised VANOC waited so long to send them out, but I guess they are trying their hardest to prevent scalping.

The tix are pretty cool, and pretty big - bigger than an iPod Touch, anyway! We have tix for preliminary men's hockey, curling and for the ski cross up at Cypress Mountain. Nothing too exciting, but at least we can say we took part in the Olympic experience.

Actually, I think the most exciting part is that we got tickets to see the figure skating training sessions! Yeah, I know, it's just training. But I'm a sucker for figure skating. When World's was in town in 2002, I took a day off work and went to a day's worth of events. In addition to that, I went to training sessions too. I tell you, I'm a sucker!

BTW, my girlfriend who lives north of Whistler just listed her house for Olympic accommodation here. If you know anyone that is looking for accommodation for Whistler Olympic events, please send them the link.

4, 5, 6, 7, 8...

This post was originally called milestones. I started it in October when Avery turned 6-months old. I've been meaning to post this since then! Six months became 7months and then 7 became 8. So, here I am FINALLY posting this! Because there are so many pictures, I'm just throwing them all in at the end - they start from back in July when she was 3 1/2 months old until her bath in the sink at the beginning of December.

Anyway, Avery is 8 months old and SUCH a cutie. I haven't had my camera that takes movies since August, so I don't have any movies of Avery for the past 4 months. It is really unfortunate because she has been SO animated these last few months. I just got my camera back a couple of weeks ago and I shot the movie that I posted after the pictures. SO cute.

So, what are the milestones?! There have been so many! Avery has 2 teeth now, on the bottom. They came at about 6 months old and they are still her only 2 teeth. She started sitting up on her own at about 7 months. She can't crawl yet, but that is fine by us! In fact, it's harder now that she is sitting because she doesn't always want to be in the exersaucer or the jolly jumper. I think it's safer for her to be in either of those two because it's a layer of "protection" from Josh. When she's sitting on the floor by herself and Josh is running around, leaving bite-sized toys everywhere, I feel like Avery is so vulnerable to the "elements"!

Avery's first word was, you guessed it(!), "Mama"! However, she only says it when she is distressed in that very crying, whiny tone..."Ma ma ma ma ma...". She started that at about 7 months, too. I've been trying to teach her "mama", "dada" and "baba". Just a couple of weeks ago, she started to say "baba". Now, in addition to her squeals, she goes around saying "mama" and "baba" all the time.

I thought that because Avery was such a talker, she would be quite calm in the movement department. NOT! I guess we're just one of those rare, "lucky" parents who just have active children. Avery cannot sit still. She will not just sit on my lap. She likes to be standing on laps or, if we're standing and carrying her, she is constantly turning her body and leaning all over the place. She's just fidgety girl. Have you met her brother?!

Speaking of brother, Josh and Avery are great together. I'm having lots of fun watching the 2 of them these days. Josh always includes Avery in everything and he always wants to comfort her when she cries. She LOVES to watch him play and I think she gets some comfort out of him just being around. It's great to watch him try to make her laugh and hear her giggle because of him.

Josh also has his moments around Avery, too. He bit her couple of times. The first time, I think it was because he was going to put his finger in her mouth and I told him not to because she already had teeth and it would hurt. So, I think he decided to pre-empt her strike with one of his own!

Josh can also be quite rough with Avery, so she'll have to be a tough girl just to survive him! We are constantly having to remind him to be gentle with her but he soon forgets our warnings.

He also takes toys away from her all the time. I think he does that because he can! I'll be interested to see how things evolve once Avery is able to crawl and walk and stick up for herself. I'm sure she'll be taking his toys much more often and she'll able to voice her discontent with him. Ahhh, the joys of sibling rivalry...