My daughter is a routine loving of kid.  She thrives and is at her best when she eats at her normal times, gets a good nap at her regular time and goes to bed around her regular time.  This goes for when we are home or when we are away.  As a result I do my best to keep her on some sort of familiar routine when we are on vacation.  I can’t keep things exactly the same as at home but I can certainly do my best to establish a routine that works for her.

With Maya it becomes very obvious, very fast when she hasn’t gotten enough sleep, has had enough fun and just needs to chill out.  When I see the melt downs starting, when I see her emotional side start to make an appearance I know she needs some rest.  Being on vacation can sometimes mean a lot of go, go, go and forgetting to eat and sleep at regular times.  Even I get crabby when I’m hungry or haven’t had enough sleep so it isn’t any surprise that my kiddo does too.

To help keep things in some sort of balance when we are away from home I try to:

• Stick with a decent bedtime for Maya. The thing that throw her off the most is not getting enough sleep so enough though it may mean we have to miss out on a few things I try to stay firm on a bedtime that is reasonable for a 2 year old.
• Make sure she gets a nap every day, or at least most days.  2 year olds need their sleep and Maya just gets really crabby, irrational and over tired if she doesn’t get a nap most days.  Again, it may mean missing out on a fun activity, but what fun would it really be if it only resulted in mega tantrums.  Naps are important and I try my best to keep them in the schedule.
• Eat our meals are pretty regular times.  Maya, like me, gets crabby if she doesn’t eat so I make sure that while we are on vacation breakfast, lunch and dinner all happen are pretty regular times.
• Listen to the cues from Maya.  If she is getting extra crabby, extra emotional, or just plain out of air I make sure that she gets down for a nap or for bed early that day to help her regroup, or I make sure our schedule for that day is a quiet one.

It isn’t always easy to keep some sort of routine going but I try my best because I know that is what is going to make our vacation for the most fun for Maya, and as a result us.  No one wants to be super crabby and tired while on vacation, that’s not fun.

So, what about you?  Do you have go with the flow kids or routine lovers?  How do you handle them when your on a family vacation?

I’m not particularly girlie, and I’m not all tomboy either.  I would definitely consider myself a mix.  I do, occasionally, love to look pretty and get all dressed up, but for the most part you’ll find me in jeans and a t-shirt with my hair pulled back in a ponytail and no make up on.  The idea that I would find myself the mother of a 100% girlie girl never crossed my mind.  However, that is exactly what I am.  Maya is currently in a phase of being 100% girlie.  She is very opinionated when it comes to what she will wear, mostly dresses.  Shoes are a bit of an obsession of hers.  I bought her a little pair of pink ballet flats the other day and she put them on and pronounced that she was going to “wear ‘em everyday, mommy!!”  And she has.

I have to admit it’s kind of fun.  She is all about having pretty bows in her hair, or her new sparkly tiara!  She’s started wanting me to paint her toe nails.  I did it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and would you believe she sat perfectly still the whole time.  Afterwards she had to show everyone her “torable” (adorable) toes

Love my little girlie girl and I’m having so much fun being her mom.

Last year we decided to forego the ever unpopular road trip aspect of the trip and we flew up instead.  Maya was still under 2 at the time so could fly free and we managed to get tickets for a steal.  This year we are back to road tripping it.  It should be interesting, to say the least, to be stuck in a car for 12+ hours with a 2 and a half year old who is potty trained.  I foresee a lot of  pit stops along the way.  All I can say is thank goodness for portable dvd players and my daughter’s love for reading and coloring, they are likely to be our lifesavers tomorrow.

I’m really looking forward to seeing my family, watching Maya play with her uncles and her cousins and just chillin’ for the next couple of weeks.

So, just how did I find myself in this most uncomfortable position at 2:30am this morning?  Well let me tell you…

Tuesday Maya started coming down with a bit of a cold.  She was getting sniffly and was a bit irritable.  Then yesterday she woke up with a raging fever, her body was definitely in full battle mode.  We spent the day quietly at home, resting.  It seemed to do the trick and by the time she got up from her nap her fever seemed to be gone and she was in a much better mood.  I thought we were out of the woods.  That was until the fever kicked back in just before bed.

When I put Maya to bed last night I knew there was a possibility that the night would be a rough one since she was going to sleep with a fever and really stuffy.  Sure enough at 2:00am I woke to the sounds of her crying.  I went to her room and she told me she had to pee.  As I reached down to help her out of bed I could feel the heat radiating from her.  I knew before I touched her that her fever had kicked into high gear.  When I touched her skin the heat was unbelievable.  I took her to the bathroom so she could pee and I could take her temperature.  I gasped when I saw the number flash up on the screen, 104.2, holy cow.  That is by far the highest fever she has ever had, EVER.  I was scared, and worried and just wanted to make her feel better.  After rubbing her down with a cool wet cloth and dosing her with Tylenol again we headed back to her bedroom.

I tucked her in, kissed her and started to leave the room when I heard a tiny little whisper “Mommy sleep with me little bit”.  It broke my heart and I couldn’t say no.  I mean who could resist such a request in the middle of the night, not to mention my fried nerves and worried heart needed the reassurance of laying there next to her.  So, I crawled into her bed, one leg still on the floor and rubbed her arm as she fell asleep.  I listened to her sniffle and whimper and just wished her temperature would go down and she could get some rest.  Slowly the sniffles turned into the soft rhythmic breathing of sleep.

I stayed with her for about half an hour, curled up in that way too small bed in the most uncomfortable position possible because I knew she needed me there, and because I needed to be there.  I needed to feel the temperature of her body begin to cool, I need to hear her soft breathing to reassure myself that everything was okay.

Toddler beds may not be comfortable but sometimes the comfort of our heart is more important than the comfort of our body.

When I got home Friday evening from being gone all week while the floors were being refinished I was ecstatic to discover the floors turned out so pretty but I couldn’t quite enjoy them yet.  The house was still in total disarray and it made me feel all chaotic and stressed looking at the mess.  So, Lorne and I spent Saturday and Sunday putting most of our furniture back and getting the rooms set back up again.  I felt much more relaxed afterwards and really started enjoying the new look.

The rooms all look so beautiful with their gleaming woods floors and the furniture back in place.   The wood floors really make all the rooms look bigger and our furniture looks much better against it than the very ugly rose colored carpet.

Project wood floors is complete and now we move on to the next big project.  I’d love to start painting the rooms but I think Lorne has another project in mind first.

Little by little we are turning this house that we love into OUR house.  It feels awesome.

I promise next week things will be back to normal around here and I’ll have some wonderful posts for all of you.  In the meantime I’ll leave you with a picture of my little princess. How cute is she

As I write this post I am sitting in my family room, which is blocked off by plastic, with Maya, my two cats and a bunch of extra furniture (including our bed) while a crew is busy sanding and staining our hardwood floors.

Last Monday we had a flooring company come out to give us a bid for refinishing our hardwood floors.  At that time all the rooms were still carpeted, except our spare bedroom.  The plan was just to see how much it would cost so we could weigh our options and decided when we wanted to tackle the floor.  Somehow by Tuesday we had decided to go ahead and have the floors done now and made arrangements for the crew to get started today.

For the last week we have been busy every day pulling up carpet, tack strips and about a million little staples.  But once all that was done we weren’t quite finished with the back breaking labor.  We then had to move all our furniture (that we just moved in mind you) into our kitchen, family room and basement.  To say our backs, knees and hands are sore is an understatement.  Lorne and I both pretty much collapsed with exhaustion last night.

With all the hardwood floors exposed we are ready for the refinishing to begin.  The crew showed up this morning, bright and early, and have been hard at work ever since.  Here are a few before pictures.  I’ll post some after pictures when the project is complete.

Living Room

Hallway

Master Bedroom

Spare Bedroom

I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s all done

I’d love to be able to blame this phase on the big switch to the toddler bed and her getting used to the change, but sadly it was happening before we made the switch.  For the last month or so Maya has been fighting her naps like nobody’s business.  She’ll go down okay, I don’t really have to fight her too much to get her ready for nap and into her bedroom.  But, once she is in there the gloves come off and she is ready for a fight.  Some days it takes her up to 2 hours to actually fall asleep, which means she isn’t asleep until 3 or 3:30 and I then have to wake her up at 5 because she’s still sleeping.  The fact that she will easily sleep for 2 hours once she does fall asleep tells me she still needs to nap everyday, but I’m at a loss as to how to get her to fall sleep at a decent time.  Nap time is a very important to her, and to me, I’m so not ready for it to go away yet.

Being a stay at home parent is awesome.  I love it and wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I feel so lucky to be able to part of Maya’s day to day routine.  Being with her and taking care of her everyday is exactly what I want to be doing.  That being said, being a stay at home parent is incredibly challenging and exhausting.  I don’t get the benefit of a lunch break or, on a bad day, being able to leave my work behind me and head home.  I don’t get to take vacations or get a weekend to regroup.  My work is with me all the time, 24/7.  Therefore, I put great importance on nap time.  Those couple of hours every afternoon are a godsend.  It is my time to relax, to work, to write, to regroup, to do whatever I want alone and in the peace and quiet.  On days when Maya doesn’t, for whatever reason, get a nap I can see a huge difference in myself.  I am more edgy, less patient, less together.  I need that time and I’m just not ready to part with it.

Since those lovely hours in the afternoon that my daughter slumbers are so important to me I fight harder for them.  Maybe if those hours weren’t so important to me I would give in, I’d let her stay up (even though I know she still needs the sleep).  But right now I know she physically needs that sleep and I need that quiet time for my emotional well being, so I will stay in this battle for as long as I can.  I will win this one.

Then

Now

Wow, so much changes in just 2 short years and yet some things never change.  The girl loves swimming

Don’t forget to enter the $100 prepaid Visa card giveaway I have going on right now.  There is one more day to enter.  Just head on over and read about my fabulous Momma’s Night Out at Lilith Fair and find out how you can enter for a chance to win a $100 prepaid Visa card.

She delights in those times when Lorne is tackling a project that she can help with.  Just before we moved out of our condo he was doing a few Mr. Fix-it jobs around the condo to get it ready for the new owners.  One day after work he was painting the door frame of the back door.  Immediately, upon seeing that Daddy was doing some work and clearly needed help, Maya offered up her assistance.  Lorne gave her a paint brush and let her have at it.  She did a pretty good job helping him paint the door frame.  And boy was she proud of herself for being such a good daddy’s little helper.

Excuse the no shirt but children and non-washable paint do not make a great match