REPRIEVE!

YYYYYYYAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!
Need I say more? I met with my boss today, and if I adored him before, I certainly love the man even more now. Tom was completely understanding about our daycare troubles and gave me the extra two months we need to place Isabelle in the daycare we really like, and was great about the whole thing. I was a total bag of nerves all week long waiting to see if they would decide to place me somewhere else, or decide they couldn't live without me and would wait for my return. Thank you to whoever is looking out for us, and to Tom, who I am so happy to be able to go back to work for......just in an extra two months! I can't believe I get to be with Isabelle for even longer, and will really be able to enjoy the first year birthday and extra time at home with her. Being able to place her in our daycare of choice means that I may miss her like crazy, but I won't be worried about her the whole day long. Ahh, life is great :)

Catching some needed zzzzz's.......


It has however, not been a great week for sleep with the aforementioned little jewel. She has been napping poorly and really hard to get down at night. On one occasion, I just sat her up in the middle of the bed and placed the breastfeeding pillow around her waist. She played for awhile and then finally the fatigue overwhelmed her and the above is what happened in the end. One of the only times she has actually put herself to sleep. When she does sleep, she does really well for the first few hours and then all goes up in smoke when she becomes totally restless and rolls around, crashing into Gilles and I. Put her in the crib, and it's game over, with perhaps a necessary middle of the night drive to put her back into dream land. Sometimes, she's even sitting up in bed, completely asleep with her eyes closed, and then crashes down from her seated position - it is hilarious to watch, but concerning when the last thing you want is for her to wake up completely and end your own blissful sleepy time!

We have had a great week full of adventure. Swimming lessons were fun, once again....and, for the record, if you thought I was hard on the Old MacDonald pond guy last week, this week when we had the pond scenario again, he chose the "SEA cucumber"?????????? First of all, his first language is English, second of all, does the term SEA cucumber not tip you off that this is probably not found in a pond, and third, we actually had to stop the song dead to decide what the sea cucumber did so we could all make the sound. We decided to blow bubbles in the water.

Isabelle's new best friend!


Isabelle's new best friend is due to Olan and his stuffed black lab named Thunder, after our own black lab from when we were children. She adored his and so we tried to find something similar that would get the same results. Seems we were successful since she reacts to this stuffed toy unlike any other she has. Thanks again to Olan for sharing his toys, even though it always ends up costing us in the end!

We also started our kindermusic class this week. What a great program, and wish we had started even sooner. They use music and dance, and fun things like scarves and paper bags to engage the children. Wonder of all wonders, they even have all the WORDS to the songs on the wall so Mom's like me won't feel like idiots. She totally loved the other kids and the teacher taught us some signing for the babies. She feels that Isabelle is a prime candidate to use them since she is so expressive with her hands. They were all very impressed with her "hurrah", waving hello and goodbye, clapping and pointing. Evidently, most babies either wave, or clap, but don't usually grasp both at the same time. Like I said, prodigy! Kudos to the fam too since they have been telling me for months that I should be signing with her. I am now! We can't wait for next week since we both liked the babies and the Moms. This class is going to be a lot of fun for both of us. The only downfall is that it starts at 9:30 am, but there's a Tim's on the way so all is not lost!

The Walmart Ferris Wheel!


We visited the Walmart ferris wheel again and Isabelle had a blast. Gilles thinks she looks like she's about to cry in this photo, but I swear they were only screams of joy!