My foolish chocolate bunny

Still fascinated with rocking horses. This one is one of her favourites at a friends place.

We have reached two! Here are the stats on Ceilidh as she has reached this great milestone. Ce is now 24.6 lbs and her height is 33.5 inches. Her favourite foods include anything with maple syrup such as pancakes, waffles, French toast, and oatmeal. She dislikes being helped with her food, always wants milk, but still loves water, and still doesn't like juice (yes!).
Her favourite stuffed friends are Babba her Serta sheep, Moose and baby Moose, and Wolf. A motley crew but they are a loyal bunch, always willing to share her crib and being dragged to places. They also never complain when she insists on throwing them from the second floor landing to the first floor so she doesn't have to drag them down the stairs. Such thoughtfulness.

Chocolate is definitely in her vocabulary. This year we had our own Easter egg hunt which she understood and had a lot of fun searching for the eggs.  I was surprised that she could even peel the eggs herself and quickly proceed to eat most of the chocolate. Her only issue with Easter was the Easter bunny. While she likes real bunnies, she has one at daycare, she is petrified of people dressed up as the Easter bunny. So much so that the site of them approaching drives her to tears. Hence no pictures with the Easter bunny were taken.

For her Easter/birthday we kept it low key we took her again to the experimental farm. This year it was much warmer and she loved touching all small animals. There was a lamb, kid, and bunnies to pet. She is not so hot on the horses and cows...to big I think. I made sure to take a picture of her up against the horse measurement, last year she was 7 hands tall, this year she is almost 8 hands. She still wears the same bee hat. 

Last year at the experimental farm on her 1st birthday

2nd birthday at the experimental farm

Her Nanna gave her a rocking chair she picked out at Ikea and some cool trains and princess slippers. We got her a Dump truck which she could assemble and take apart with a battery powered drill and a cement truck that is a shape sorter. Both items she loves, and while she can hold the drill her hands aren't big enough to hold the drill and press the button. This minor detail doesn't stop her from getting us to help her build and take apart that truck. We also gave her some side walk chalk which she can't get enough off. The simple things are the most loved.

Trying out some new trains as part of her birthday gift.

Along with trains and trucks, we appealed to her girly side with these dress up shoes.

Birthday treat included a trip to Baskin Robbins. I believe the flavour is cotton candy.

Here are some of the other pictures documenting her likes of the last few months. There was her love affair with dishes. She would ask to do dishes ever night after supper. And of course after we purchased a waterproof arts and crafts smock to wear she decided that dishes were no longer in vogue.

For three weeks all she wanted to do was dishes. Sadly she has moved on from that love.

Below she is proudly showing off her Beaver tattoo which she is quick to pull up her sleeve and show you if you ask. This one didn't require water and was easy to apply. Apparently to remove it you use baby oil but we have just been letting fade with each bath night.

Proudly showing her new Beaver tattoo.

And lastly our parting shot. This blog has been therapeutic and fun. Therapeutic in the beginnig when we were going through so much uncertainty and fun once all the drama was over. I would love to continue it but I think realistically it won't happen, you would only get an update biannually. I will let other Omphalocele mom's share their more recent and relevant stories. Ours had a happy ending and both her pediatrician and surgeon feel that she is growing and progressing well. No further surgeries for now are in her future.
So thanks for reading, thanks for your support through out the years and my thoughts are with all those who go through similar diagnosis. This Wee Little Smith and her parents are blessed to have great friends and family.

From Matt, myself and Ceilidh one last Thank you and a fond bye bye.

Now that the snow has melted she has rediscovered her love for her Sand Box..Mr. Crabby.

22 Months

Snowball for mom

Ceilidh is now only 2 months away from her birthday. Two in two! And she has been busy keeping us on our toes and commanding our attention. Since Christmas her favourite phrase has been what's that? Sounds more like wazdat but we parents can decipher her Ceilidh speak. Everything now has to have a name, so of course her vocabulary has also increased leaps and bounds. Except that I am not sure a stranger would understand all that she says. She is also trying to figure out the thank yous and your welcome. Instead of saying thank you she jumps to the your welcome. So inevitably we then reply with thank you.
Conversations go as follow.
C: water please
me: here you go
C: your welcome
me: thank you.
I don't think we are helping her confusion. But kind of hard not to smile and say thank you when she hits you with a your welcome.

Ceilidh is still fascinated by everything we do. She is always trying to mimic us in every sort of way.
She sees me sweeping the floor and she needs to get her broom out to help. We read a book to her she has to read one to her cat.

C made sure her cat had a book to read at bedtime

She sees us shoveling the drive way and there she is with her mini red shovel.
The other day she even wanted to help salt the drive way.

Salting the driveway

And cooking well she was tickled pink to be allowed to mix the pancake batter. That kept her entertained all throughout the pancake making. If only we could do that all the time, however that just would not be possible. Stove top and kids not always a good combination.

Making pancakes

Having fun with her red shovel.

The other big thing she is comprehending is using the potty. Yes I just called it that, and yes I am going there, remember this is for her baby book so one day she will ask and I won't remember so I will point to this blog/book.While we aren't going to start any real training anytime soon (she is still wearing diapers) we wanted to incorporate it into her daily routine so that she could understand its function and just get used to the concept. We started off by placing her on the potty when she woke up in the mornings. It took about a week for her to get comfortable sitting on it, she sits on a kid's seat that fits on a regular toilet. We take it for granted that you have to balance your self on the seat when your feet don't touch the ground. Once she figured out the balance the routine was we would read a couple of stories while sitting on the potty and hopefully she would pee. She now pees more frequently then not so we surmise that she understands the concept but sometimes she just doesn't have to go. After all, she still wears diapers so its not like we are telling her don't pee in your diaper we are just showing her an alternative place to go. Now the routine is also being practiced at bedtime. She doesn't really need the stories anymore as she now either goes right at the beginning or not at all but the stories give us a timeline.

Welcome 2013

I can't believe the holidays have come and gone. Where has the time flown. Clearly looking back maybe my New Years resolution should have been to update this blog more often but alas more time spent with Ceilidh then updating the blog sounds more reasonable. I think last year I posted 12 times compared to the first year of her life. And this blog will wind down as I will be printing it and making it into her baby book when she turns two. April 1st is not that far away and this year it falls on Easter Monday so that will probably tie in to her birthday activities. What kid does not like chocolate.
Ceilidh certainly loves it after having one chocolate each day during the holidays as we bought her an advent calendar that counts down the days to Christmas with a chocolate for each day. Technically we have had one for her last year and even the year before that when she was in my belly but this is the first time she actually gets to eat her own chocolate and not watch her parents eat it for her. Although I guess she ate some that first year since she was in my belly consuming what I ate. She looked forward to that piece of chocolate every day and would sometimes have a hard time understanding why she would only get one piece once a day, especially as the calendars where staring at her in the face all the time. Lesson learned don't hang your advent calendar in clear view.  I thought I would have a hard time on day 26 when there were no more chocolates but with most kids out of sight out of mind. Plus she did get a few chocolate treats throughout the whole holidays. She loves mini rolos. Just the right size for a kid. She also enjoyed ginger bread cookies, she got a chance to decorate a ginger bread house which is a Smith Christmas time tradition for the kids. Matt has pictures of when he was a kid decorating ginger bread houses with cousins and friends. And now we have the next generation partaking in the same tradition. Amazingly at that point she didn't realize the candy was edible, I think all that will all change next year.

Decorating her first ginger bread house.

Moving on to Christmas. I realized as I was looking back at the blog that last year I didn't even post any pictures of Christmas. Probably because I was so exciting about our pending trip to Florida last year. So today, better late then never, I will rectify the matter. It is also interesting to see how much she has changed from last year to this year.

Christmas day 2011 opening her stocking

Christmas day 2011 handing mom her bag of coal

While last year she had no concept of presents this year she understood them more. At least after opening a few. So much so that she got really excited post Christmas when she saw a gift bag, sadly the gift had already been opened a while back. One of her favourite gifts was a maid set from her Aunt & Uncle C. It included a broom, two mops and other cleaning paraphernalia. She loves pretending to clean. Just the other night we used some of the stuff to pretend to give bath's to her toys. A mop works really handy when cleaning Noah's ark.

Opening her gift with Aunt C

Aunt C showing her some of the new props

 Other gifts she liked was a tent filled with balls. And one silly thing I caught her playing with that wasn't her gift (we bought one for ourselves and one for her Aunt) was this plastic contraption that helps you fold shirts uniformly. I guess she saw us demonstrating it to her Aunt C and she devised her own version of folding things. She spent a solid 30 minutes coming up with things that she thought she could fold.

Opening the tent with balls of Christmas morning

Having fun folding.

Lastly I will leave my sharing with our rediscovered passion for sledding. We had been dumped with a lot of snow right before Christmas and then again a week after. I think it accumulated to about 70 cm from those two storms. Despite having to remove the stuff from our drive way it makes for lots of fun if you don't have to drive in it. We have been taking advantage of it by pulling Ceilidh around in the sled and also taking her tobogganing in it. Loads of fun for us too because we can go down the hill with her. This is the same sled we used last year to walk around the local trails.

Sledding with her BFF Miss B.

On her sled in our front yard

Halloween Lady bug

What a difference a year makes.

Most notably I had to bribe Ceilidh to wear her Lady Bug halloween costume. Last year she was supper happy to just sit and grab the pumpkins near by, this year it took a cookie to keep her in her outfit long enough to take some pictures. But of course she made a cute bug. Hear are a few pictures. Notice the cookie in all of them.

Cookie Please, big words for 18 months

Trying on shoes at Winners, this is the same coat that her BFF has.

I looked at when the last posting was and it has definitely been awhile. Ceilidh has been up to all sorts of things in that time. Her latest was this morning when she asked for not only a cookie she finally said please. Progress. She is really picking up words left right and centre. She is more then willing to try to repeat what you say, but the true progress comes when she can remember and relate the words to objects. Please is a hard one because it is not something concrete. It's not like you can point to a "please" we are still working on Thank-you/merci/gracias. I think the merci will be easier TH and G's tend to be hard for toddlers.

Apple picking with Babba

So here is the low down on what we have been up to. The biggest change is we moved houses. We used to live outside of Ottawa and now we live in Ottawa, the burbs of course. This meant that Miss C had to leave her beloved child minder and start afresh. But we found someone just as wonderful and Miss C found her self a BFF. Miss B (said BFF) is close to Ceilidh's age, they are a few months apart and they are similar height and build and similar personalities. They will often babble to each other and then break out laughing. They have also been mistaken for sisters even twins because of their blue eyes and fair hair. And I just found out that they have a similar coat after I almost mistakenly took Miss B's coat home thinking it was Ceilidh's luckily in the end I noticed the mittens which Ceilidh doesn't have attached to her coat. In addition to Miss B Ceilidh also discovered my Serta sleep sheep and has adopted it as her other best friend. It is called Babba of course. She generally leaves it at home but on long car trips or trips to the doctor Babba is allowed to come along for the ride.

Picking Tomatoes

Eating tomatoes

Ceilidh is now just over 18 months. She still loves anything meat based but we still have to fight with her for veggies. I miss the garden from the old house. She would love picking and eating tomatoes straight from the vine. And she still loves cucumbers, especially if it is with Taziki. Her favourite activities include going to the park, where she loves the slide and making sand pies. She still loves to play in the puddles so the rain that comes with the fall doesn't dampen her spirits as long as she gets to go outside and jump in some puddles. She also enjoys playing with playdough and will say the word and point to where we usually keep it. She always seems to remember where things are kept. To my relief she is finally understanding the concept of cleaning up after we play. She still remains shy around adults she doesn't know but very sociable with kids.
She is keen to always try to do things herself, like put on her shoes, get on her tricycle, feed her self and often gets upset when you try to help her with these things. She will often push our hands away from the tricycle when we are trying to navigate her, she can't peddle but she loves to sit in it and be pushed as long as you don't place your hands on the handle bar.

We start them young with Timmies

At her park playing with the sand

Halloween is coming so of course this means more cute pictures. Looking back at last year's pumpkin pictures they will be hard to beat. 

Making Pies with Mom and Dad

Enjoying the Summer

Beach fun with water

Friends at the beach

It has been a hot summer thus far but Ceilidh is taking it all in stride. Her favourite activities revolve around getting wet and playing in the sand, usually combined together. She loves the beach for that and I love it too as it keeps her entertained. While at the beach she usually runs to the edge of the water picks up some water in her bucket runs back to the beach part, sits down and then proceeds to dump the water on herself. Over and over again she repeats this task. And when at home she loves taking water from her pool dumping it into her sandbox and then playing in the wet sand. 




She finally is using her pool after her love affair with the recycling box. She still  loves the recycling box and as soon as I fill it up with water she is quick to sit in it but at least now she will do that with the pool as well. More room in the pool but tell that to a one year old.

She is currently fascinated with her tummy.

She is practicing washing her belly.

 Too bad it hasn't rained enough this summer as her other favourite activity is to jump in puddles. She has these yellow rubber boots that she always tries to put on but we haven't let her wear outside as they were too big but finally she got the chance yesterday. Not only has she finally grown a bit more to fit into these boots more comfortably it also rained yesterday afternoon. Well it was more like torrential down pour but the result was some beautiful puddles to play in. I put my rubber boots on as well to join in the fun.

We can't get over how much more she comprehends each passing week. And while she doesn't say too many words just babbles none stop she knows what we mean. Her new word is ball, which she is always on the hunt for.  If you ask her where her ball is she goes searching for it. And she is always trying to play catch with the cat. Trouble (the cat) is not as impressed with Ceilidh and her new word ball. But she does always put up with Ceilidh and her petting. Ceilidh is getting much better as petting her she practices with her pound puppy stuff animal.
Here is how she kept busy the last two months.

Eating ice cream

Sharing Ice cream.

Father's day Ceilidh and her dad

Showing of her running skills and rubber boots

Puddle fun.

Reunited

The three weeks of not having Matt around are now over. And thankfully it came at a good time as Ceilidh was feeling under the weather on Sunday. It started with not eating her breakfast and it was one of her favourites French toast and continued with two morning naps (one in my arms, the other one cuddled with Matt) and then she even went down for an afternoon nap. You can always tell when babies are not feeling well when all they want to do is cuddle and sleep. By the last nap she was much better and hopefully it was just a short lived off day.

Needless to say it has been great having my partner in crime back. Things are always much easier with two pairs of hands. And while Ceilidh was wondering who this man was picking her up from her crib on Saturday morning by later that morning they were best buds again.

Chores continued around the house. Of course gardening.

Ceilidh helping take out the trash

She is trying to help dress her self by putting on her boots, in sunny weather of course.

Window washing. Using her new chair as leverage.

I thought she would have fun with water and toys

These pictures are of our last week together. By this point I was too tired to take many pictures. But it was not all just work she did manage to get some play time in. I especially liked  her water fun. I was too tired to clean out and blow up her pool from last year so I filled up the recycling  bin with water and toys so she could have a water table.  At one point she just got in and sat down in the water, in her clothes with her diaper on. 

She thought she would have better fun getting right in there.

Of course Daddy bought her a present when he returned. And she spent the next two days getting in and out of her car.
Reunited at last!

Ceilidh's new wheels.

Reunited!