Raising Paige

For the past 4-5 days now Paige has be suffering with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD). I'm not sure why they call it a disease. Likely because it's a virus, but whatever. Bumps and spots around her mouth, hands and feet as well as some sores in her mouth - on her tongue that we can see at least. For a few nights she was waking up every hour crying and sometimes screaming. We would do our best to console her and get her back to sleep, and by 'we' I mostly mean my wife. It's not that I don't want to help it's just that when Paige is really not feeling well she wants Grandma. Although she does like to snuggle with Poppa sometimes too, which is nice. I have to say that through all of this she has been a real trooper. During the day, especially when she has some Tylenol in her, she's still busy and loves to play. She drags me around by one finger and makes me join her in playing with fridge magnets while I sit on the floor, or hand her puzzle pieces so...

Was there ever a sequel to Sleepless in Seattle? I’m guessing everyone was just too tired to write one. I know the feeling. So I already did a post on being tired thanks to Paige waking up in the night but I noticed I didn’t go into a lot of detail on how that affects us. Us being me and my wife. Let’s be honest. Husbands and wives don’t always get along. Throw in a toddler when you’re both over 40 and include a restless night’s sleep and things can get worse. By worse I mean saying and doing things you don’t really intend to simply because you’re tired or in a zombie-like trance and don’t really realize it. As a husband I have found that these are the times when you need to apologize, even if an apology isn’t necessarily needed. After all, we’re both in the same boat. Paige doesn’t wake up every night on purpose just to interrupt our sleep so it’s not really her fault we’re tired. We don’t get upset with her for waking up but we certainly get upset with each other over...

Last night I got to give Paige a tub, which is something my wife and I share of course, and as usual it was an adventure. She loves to play with toys, put her head in the water and of course splash. Oh the splashing. I always have a towel for her and a towel for me. She also likes to occasionally dip her finger in the water and taste it and sometimes she will actually try to pour water in her mouth. Now, you can't just tell a 21 month-old not to drink the water because it's actually bum soup. They wouldn't understand. So instead I made a scrunched up face, stuck out my tongue and said 'Blah!'. Well THAT was apparently the funniest thing she had seen all day because not only did she start to laugh but she also started to try and drink more water. She didn't drink much but we spent about 5 minutes playing that game. She pretends to drink bath water. I make the face and say 'Blah!'. She laughs then pretends to drink bath water again. Eventua...

Raising Paige definitely opens your eyes to the joy and innocence in mundane things. For instance, Paige loves going to the park. Her favorite thing to do there? The swing. We have been having a pretty good cold-spell here in Alberta the past few weeks but thankfully yesterday it was warm enough (-15C) to take her out of the house. I stayed home from work to look after her as the wife was on a trip to Saskatoon and our babysitter was sick. Anyway, I got her to the park after 15 minutes of trying to get her to put on her snow pants, boots and jacket and the first thing she did was walk straight to the swing. I put her in and started pushing her and her joy was almost instantaneous. I'm trying to figure out how to embed the audio file so you can hear her on the swing. Until then, you can download the short audio file here .

I really hope I live long enough so that at least one of my kids (or grandchildren) have to change a diaper on me. Or maybe I don't. Paige has started to let us know, at random times, that she has to use the potty. Usually the wife takes her to her potty all excited and tries to build up Paige's confidence and so far there has only been one successful result. But at least she's trying. Just a few days ago when I was alone with Paige she ended up going 'Number 2' and needed to be changed. Unfortunately the wife had put a pull-up on Paige since she had been letting us know however I wasn't aware until I went to change her. I used a lot of wet wipes on a lot of skin, both Paige's and mine. I look forward to the day when that doesn't happen. And after today I will no longer speak of it. If anyone else reading this has any experience with potty training their children and would care to comment on successes, failures or what worked for you please f...

Ok, technically Paige is still the same but she has been changing so much these past few weeks that she seems like a different person. Just the other day she was in our bedroom playing a Zoo game on my wife’s iPad. My wife came in after doing her hair and sat on the bed with us. She stretched her neck from side to side and complained about it being sore. Out of nowhere Paige says ‘Are you ok?’ Yeah, she’s never said that before. We both looked at each other and laughed out loud. She is putting together words more often and speaking more words as well. She has always been a chatter so I’m sure she’ll be talking our ears off by the time she’s two. Raising Paige is about to get crazier. I hope I’m ready for that. J With the Christmas and New Year season finally over it will be nice to settle back into a routine, both for us and for Paige. I hope everyone reading this had a wonderful holiday. Best wishes from us to you in 2018!