She’ll also empty her bottom dresser drawer and pull clothes over her head. Here, she is wearing two skirts and two dresses, as well as a sweater and necklaces (on TOP of her normal clothes!).

This is some of her button collection.

And here we are playing with legos.

Happy weekend to everyone!

Well, Anna. Not too much is happening over here. I nearly had a car accident the other day, but I’ll tell you about that next week. This morning, I woke up at 6:45, did my pilates “Sunrise Workout” and wrote three pages. After my shower I came upstairs to hear Christian cough and Marie-Hélène squeal. Cough, squeal, cough, squeal. Cough, “Christian! Stop it!” I say. “She’s crazy!” he tells me with a grin. He prepares her bottle while I dress, and we go in to give her big kisses while brushing back the hair from her eyes. She has morning breath, and at the risk of sounding disgusting, I like it. It smells so cute. I do my hair after Christian leaves for school, and we wave goodbye to him through the window. I prepare toast for her, and show her the Nutella spread we bought for her yesterday. She loves apple jelly, but I figured Nutella has more fat in it, and so would be better for her. She loves it and licks her way through three small rye bread slices while I spoon down my breakfast shake. It’s a cold sunny day and I decide to go to the mall with Peekaboo.

I pick up some Sharpies and soap then we head to the play area in the mall. I’m accosted by Child Safe Canada, where the guy seems to wish I had more kids. I can have Marie-Hélène registered with a card, a photo and code in case she goes missing. All that for 6$ a month, by the way. Same price for one or more children. A good thing, he tells me, since it used to be 6$ per child, but with the 31 thousand children gone missing last year, they reduced their price to include the whole brood. I have a pen in hand to fill in a form, but then pull out my best excuse: “Could I talk to my husband about this first?” He’s glad to oblige, so Marie-Hélène and I head to the play area. She’s all excited.

She runs about, circles around me, uses the slide plenty of times, plowing her way through kids, not really aggressive, just determined. Some little boy a little older than her, pushes her back down the stairs, and his Grandma doesn’t say anything. As he’s about to do it a second time, all the hairs on my back rise up, and I firmly warn him, with a finger raised, NOT to TOUCH the girl. Hear me ROAR. Hehe.

Marie-Hélène notices a pretty red knit sweater in a corner. She likes it, inspects it, and tries to put it on, before a rather concerned Grandma comes over to make sure we don’t take it with us. I tell Marie-Hélène the sweater belongs to the Grandma, so she gives it back. Throughout the half hour we’re there, she is particularly drawn to another mother who has shoulder-length brown hair. She calls her “Na”, and so I explain to the lady that she looks like my sister.

We come back home in time for lunch. We had a blizzard last night. See:

Marie-Hélène hears the camera and starts posing for me. I tell her to smile.

Show me your toys, I ask.

A squirrel from John and a poodle from our neighbor, Lily. We eat. She has pasta shells with ham and ketchup and apple juice. I have an egg on toast with tomatoes and ham. I clean her up for bed and tell her not to poo in her diaper, which she does immediately after I leave. I change her, and decide I’ll have to start bribing her to poo on the potty. She loves chocolate chips, Oreos and Nutella.

That’s been our day so far, my dear. Hope it’s nice and sunny wherever you are! Have a lovely weekend!

In the bookstore I nearly bowl people over. I find the book I need “Seed Catalogue” by Robert Kroetsch, a slim 43 pages of poetry. We pass greeting cards on the way to the register and she notices dogs, so we slow down just a little, before moving on. As I pay, a pair in another line smile down at Marie-Hélène, and as I leave I ask if she smiled. “No!” says one. “I think she’s shy!” says another. Like me, Marie-Hélène’s face can be severely serious.

We re-pass the line of cars outside, which has grown twice as long. I buckle her back into the seat to notice someone waiting for my spot and fold the summer stroller into the trunk. At home, after her pee on the potty, I read “Seed Catalogue” in one sitting, while Marie-Hélène climbs up or slides down the couch. Twenty minutes getting to and from the bookstore, not including the driving, for twenty minutes of reading. I am a devoted student! Tra la la.

After nap time, we take the sleigh to go to Sobeys to buy mushrooms, because Papa has a meeting tonight. Marie-Hélène doesn’t want to wear the snowsuit from her Matante in Quebec, so it becomes a dramatization: “But look! Marie-Hélène, it’s BEAUTIFUL! Look at the RED, and the FLOWERS, and it’s so WARM!” She sputters as I stuff in her legs and then her arms. The sleigh ride makes up for the lost battle. She’s more than happy to be at the same height as the dogs we meet out for their evening walk, owners in tow. At the store, I put the sleigh into the shopping cart and hurry through the store, because I don’t want to undress her, my 30 inch blue snowman. I don’t wait for the old lady to find the perfect carton of mushrooms, and dive under her arm to pick up the first two I see. Sorry lady, I’m crazy. We arrive home to find John and Chantal, and John asks where I’ve been. I tell him. “That’s it? You went to the store just for mushrooms?” Oh! But it was a wonderful trip… Marie-Hélène saw the moon in the sky, heard the train blow its horn in the distance, saw the snow sparkle as we passed, listened to the silence on the trail and met FOUR dogs. The mushrooms were just an excuse!

18 months from Jacinta Palud on Vimeo.

Marie-Hélène is now surrounded by wooden blocks, a wooden train, wooden animals, and of course, wooden puzzles.

We’re aiming to equip her with the skills necessary to assemble a small IKEA desk by the time she’s ready for pre-school.

With Marie-Hélène being all of a year-and-a-half, Christmas this year got exciting again! Amid the food preparation and packages of cookies, Marie-Hélène noticed the tree and the lights outside. She kisses the resident tree owl “goodnight” before bed, as a means to defer her bedtime, and she was anxious to know what the presents were all about… The day we received them by mail, and put them under the tree, she’d keep bringing them to me, and I would tell her that we had to wait for “Noel”. Then suddenly it was Christmas, and we told her to sit down a tear the wrapping paper. When one present was done, she’d bring another. A few in the morning, the afternoon and then the evening… Like a magnet, a child attracts gifts, and now we have such a pretty collection of toys made out of wood.

Then we add this canadian invention…

Then Marie-Hélène zooms about, in and out. If I’m not in a rush to get into the car with her, she’ll try to race to the end of the sidewalk, take my hand and head out to the park. Sometimes, her puppy comes along.

Psst! A new post is up on the Unexpected Manitoba blog… I visit Portage la Prairie. If there are mistakes, feel free to correct them!

All this snow has induced an unusual panic… I feel I’m behind in buying presents, writing cards and finding a tree. The last few years, we didn’t have this much snow until just before Christmas, when we’d begin to worry it wouldn’t be white. And how could it be Christmas without snow?

Last year, Marie-Hélène and I got through the winter with our all-terrain stroller. But with the non-stop accumulation this year, only a sleigh will do. And just for fun, Mom scanned a picture of me around two and a half in a very similar sleigh. I’m beginning to see the resemblance between Marie-Hélène and I, only she’s cuter. (I suppose it was to be expected with a Prince like Christian.)

All that’s missing is Great-Grandma’s old mink coat.

See what I mean?