This week I have designated to be a stay at home week. Except tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise I will be home, catching up on housework, and re-doing what I did last week. You know, to keep it up and that sort of thing. I don't really have any major sewing projects that I feel like getting done or working on this week, but I just got 100+ photo's developed at Costco that I might think about scrapping. Key word: think. I might not do it...I will think about it :). This week at some point other than before bed, I hope to read my book. I am in the middle of such a good book right now and am at a climax, it's hard to put down. "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton is fascinating to say the least. The language used and the fairy tales entwined grab my attention and it's so easy to get lost in it, to feel like you're living the story standing from a vantage point. You can see and hear what is happening, but you are only watching rather than getting involved.

Next week I planned a day trip with my sister - a person who I rarely see, it seems with our conflicting schedules - and I am looking forward to it. We plan to go to Hemlock and take in a day of snowboarding. Or, if I grow feathers, loose 4 of my toes to exhibit 3 sharp pointed toes on each foot, and perhaps switch from speaking fluent English to full time chicken-ese, I might just wind up skiing since I have done that before. Waaaaaay back when....Like, 3 years ago! I skied for the first time when I was 4 months pregnant with Camia, and haven't been back since. We plan to go on Thursday because then women ski for free and rentals are half price.

In my last post I said I would talk more of Camia's constant developing habits. She is still definitely changing. Her sentences are complete, and very clear and concise. She loves to read and has picked up a habit of saying things like 'this is mine' and then adding 'go get your own' to that. She has become a bit bossy and demanding, and we are hoping that with constant attention and discouragement it will eventually cease. Or at least not get worse. She has once again slipped into the picky, lazy eater category, this seems to come and go with her. Right now we have a hard time getting her to eat more than 3 or 4 bites of things that used to be her favourite foods. We have begun to disallow snacking as we thought this might contribute to her appetite, or lack there-of. Though a few people have suggested that we make her sit on her chair until she is done or feed her her cold meal when she asks for a snack, Ryan and I feel this is cruel punishment and does nobody any good since if we make her sit on her chair we listen to her whine until she eats the last mouthful and if we try to make her eat her cold leftovers, she absolutely refuses to eat anything at all. Perhaps this is a sign that she has us wrapped around her little finger and that she gets her own way far too often, but constantly fighting with her to get her to eat is very tiring and gets to the point where we get frustrated with her and possibly with each other. As long as she gets her 4 bites in or eats her protein and a couple bites of veggies, we are happy.

She is a worse toddler than she was an infant in that when she was an infant she let us get a full night's sleep. Now that is a rare occurrence and treasured when it happens. She wakes up anywhere in between 2 and 4 or 5 times a night, sometimes every hour on the hour. And all she wants is a hug. Or her stuffy, who is laying right beside her. Or to go visit the washroom. We have been kind of working on having her dry overnight. She started a trend on her own by staying dry 4 nights in a row and has since fallen into a slump. I am not stressing over it, I kinda don't really care. We have a deal that if she stays dry at night she can watch a movie in the morning. If she is wet well, then, she doesn't. Sometimes she is upset at this, but she understands the concept, which I find really different than when we started training her during the day around 9 months or so ago. She is completely dry during the day now for a couple months, it's been a long time since she's had a day-time accident. Ryan and I miss the consistent, constant 12 hour nights she did when she was itty bitty. Most times I don't hear her when she wakes during the night, so Ryan ends up getting her, but sometimes, like last night, I hear her and I get up 4 times to go tend to her. Finally last night at the last time, I walked into her room, said that was enough, that I didn't want to hear anymore and for her to go to sleep. I didn't hear from her again until Ryan left for work, when he brought he to me.

She has a bit of attitude lately and when we say no to her for what ever reason, she gets downright upset and will whine 'but I NEED it!!!' Or cries for what she wants at that moment for a long moment. She has had many time-outs because of this and sits in her room for a little while to sort her thoughts.

Even though she is a polite child, she can still be demanding so we are currently working on instead of saying 'i want ____', she should say 'can I please have ___'

When she coughs I would ask her is she was 'ok there' so now she says 'I ok there' herself. She also folds her arms and says 'I angry'. I ask 'Why, what happened' she says 'I just angry, I need to cry.' Finally after her saying this after I discipline her or not let her have her way, I told her that me getting angry is much worse than her getting angry so she should just stop. She didn't know quite what to do with that. One time she started fake crying, I asked her what was wrong, she said 'I happy'. I asked why she was crying and she said 'I happy. I just need to cry.'

Despite the challenges we have with a 2.5 year old, we also have fun moments too. We do crafts, we play play-dough and we go for walks to the park. We have full conversations, we pretend to eat cookie dough and drink coffee off a plate and build towers only to knock them down and then have a good laugh. We take her new wooden dolls 'swimming' and to parties and we take the train down the tracks all the way through London and back. We build tunnels, read stories and eat popcorn. We bake real cookies, eat real cookie dough, colour pictures and talk on 'phones' to our friends. We have tickle fights and chase each other - or I chase her - down the halls. We share hugs and kisses and sometimes even snuggle time. Having a 2.5 year old is fun, and sometimes looking past the difficult time to see the good and fun times is not always easy which is why I am convinced is the reason God made children so beautiful. So they can look up at us, melt our hearts and make us forget all the bad things they've ever done for a split enough second to have us change our minds about how mad we are at that very moment. Camia's thing is that she looks at me when I've disciplined or gotten upset and says 'I want a hug'.

He vocabulary is getting quite extensive in that she says things like 'watch, Mom, watch' or when she tries on new clothes she says 'what do you think, Mom?' I say, 'I don't know, what do you think?' She says 'Hmm, it's cute!'. Or she comes up behind me, wraps her arms around me and says 'I love you so much'. She makes me laugh when she says 'see you babe' as either I or Ryan walk out the door and tells Ryan to 'have a good day' when he leaves for work. When I have drank her 'coffee' off a plate, she asks if I 'want some more'. If it doesn't fix itself, we might need to work on pronunciation because she says things like 'chicken' for 'kitchen', 'bracker ' for 'cracker' and 'waf waf' for 'waffle' - which, by the way, she can down almost 3 4x4 waffles for breakfast. Her 'L's' are currently 'W'. Her name is Cawia, not Camia, so sometimes her 'M's' - not always, in fact I can't even think of another example - are 'L's' too.

Since Christmas she has been playing so well on her own, and I feel like I have moments where I can breath, read my book or do the dishes in peace, since she is either demanding my attention, asking me to play with her or talking my ears off.

We went for a walk after church on Sunday and stopped at the park for a moment. While Ryan and Camia ran off and played with the toys, I sat on the saucer swing and watched. I felt so relaxed and it was so quiet that I could have had either my journal or my book. She loves the park so much. She always gets so upset when we leave to go home.

Camia is a bit of a social butterfly and wants to be involved in everything. She sees kids and will go play in a heart beat. But her bossiness gets in the way sometimes and the fact that she is little also sets her back some too since the bigger kids want her to go away and not play with their toys for fear that she might break something. She has also gotten the notion that now she doesn't have to share her toys either, and that everything is hers. We are working on sharing again and not saying 'mine'. I know she is 2.5, but I believe that using that as an excuse and letting it go does not help her. I feel that we may as well nip it in the bud now before it's too late and it has gone on for too long.

Since I have taken all morning to type away during dishes, laundry, tidying and paying attention to Camia, I should sign off and give my daughter who says 'Mommy, I hungry' and 'I want milk quease (please)' lunch and a cup.