Talking about spring time with a friend recently I confessed that I feel like I’m a better mom when the weather is good. “Aren’t we all better people when the sun shines?” she replied.
Good thing the sun has been shining plenty around here.
We have been fully enjoying our backyard, which is in beautiful bloom! Pearl and I planted tulip bulbs in the fall and it was so fun to watch them grow with her. Somehow the girls seem to play together so much better outside than inside. They make up little games, find little props to use, Rose following her big sister every step of the way.
We also pulled out our wading pool for the first time this year and they had a blast in it.
We made our (seemingly annual) trip to BC Children’s Hospital this spring, this time for Rose. We’ve been several times for various check-ups for Pearl and the last appointment was a year ago to check her heart. This time was Rose’s first visit. Turns out the sisters have matching heart murmurs.
“Do you still have the brochure we gave you last year?” asked the cardiologist.
“Yes,” I said.
“Read that again,” he told me. It’s the one that says your child’s heart is normal and you do not have to see a doctor for this again. So here is Rose, after her appointment, when she and I shared a brownie to celebrate.
Children’s Hospital is such a gift. Every time we’re there it brings up so many memories and emotions but overwhelmingly I’m so thankful. And they’ve worked so hard to make it a pleasant space to be in. I especially love the volunteers who push around carts full of stickers and toys and play dough to hand out to the kids.
We took advantage of our time in the city to visit Science World with the girls for the first time and they had so.much.fun. I can’t wait to take them again. It was hard to get pictures because they barely stood still.
These were a couple of their happiest moments. Pearl loves dinosaurs – she has a stuffed Littlefoot from The Land Before Time – and we’ve read a ton of dinosaur books from the library, so she was pretty excited to see some bones in real life.
If you’ve seen Rose in the past year, you’ve probably met her best friend. His name is Justin and he’s a stuffed beaver. So getting to see this giant sized version of her best bud made her day. That’s her excitedly pointing him out to me.
Rose is now almost 20 months and has enough hair for a ponytail!
Well, kind of. She insists on doing everything that anyone else is doing so if she sees me brushing Pearl’s hair or putting my own hair in a ponytail then she makes it known that she needs one too. Which she usually pulls out two minutes later.
Rose is talking more all the time. Like her big sister, she is taking her time but she has no problem letting her opinions be known and she understands so much of what we say. She is a determined little problem solver and has a finely tuned sense of justice. (She also recently learned the words “me” and “mine” and uses them a LOT.) She gets angry quickly and gets over it quickly. Rose is super cuddly and a definite mama’s girl. She does a lot of pretend play now – feeding her stuffed toys, sharing her soother with her doll, wearing a toy stethoscope.
Most of my days start like this:
…Rose and I cuddled up in bed. Me drinking coffee (Peter brings it to me, bless him), trying to do some reading or journalling but mostly us giggling and playing together. Currently Rose wakes up about an hour earlier than Pearl so this is our time in the day when it’s just the two of us.
Pearl is four which is sometimes so big and grown up and sometimes so little and I feel like every day I’m learning how to navigate life as her mom. She is a sweet-hearted kid and full of imagination. I fully appreciate that she is, overall, a really easy kid. She likes a lot of downtime, playing with her cars and looking at books, and spending time with the people she loves. Turns out, she’s a lot like me. (Except for the car part, I guess.)
We found this bike on Craigslist and although she’s not quite ready for it (she needs to grow about an inch) we’re hopeful that it might happen this summer and she is so excited for her “big girl bike”.
Pearl has also done really well in a few different classes this year. She doesn’t do any formal preschool or daycare so we try to have her in at least one activity at a time; something where she goes by herself and gets used to being a part of a group without Peter or I. Pearl is a pretty introverted kid and I want to both support who she naturally is while still encouraging her to try new things and make new friends. I’ve signed her up for a couple of new things this summer and am looking forward to seeing how she does.
She continues to be interested in taking pictures (and has started wanting to try with my “big camera” so here are a few of my favourite Pearl shots from the past month:
Karissa Reads Books 
Ha! What is that funny face Rose is making at her dad in that last picture? That made me giggle. My brother has four children. The two big girls are 10.5 months apart, so they didn’t really have much affect on each other when it came to copying, like Rose is doing now. However, now that those big girls are 10 and 9, their little 3-year-old sister wants to do everything they do. She seems REALLY grown up as a result, more so than I remember them behaving when they were that age. Kids are really interesting to watch and compare (not compare in a negative way, but just as people in general and how they grow).
Rose does this funny scrunched-up nose smile that is all her! It definitely makes a difference, having an older sibling, I think. There are a couple things that Rose has done earlier and more confidently than Pearl did. It’s always wild to me how two kids from the same parents, raised in the same household, can still be so different.
Hey! Pearl’s doing well with the photography! I hope she gets as much fun from her first bike as I did – mine was an imaginary horse and we used to go out together and solve mysteries with our little friend from down the road and her horse/bike! š I’m glad Rose’s heart murmur isn’t something that requires constant doctoring… do they think it’s something the girls will naturally grow out of in time?
That is so cute! You’ve always been drawn to mysteries, eh? Yes, there’s a chance they’ll both grow out of the heart murmurs though I gather there’s no way the doctors can say for sure. The actual medical term for it is “innocent heart murmur” which is nice and reassuring!
Great pictures!
The older child always seems so much bigger/older when there’s a younger one around, doesn’t she? Your baby’s really growing!
I have to ask… how did the beaver get the name Justin?
It’s so true! I thought Pearl was so big after Rose was born but now I look back and pictures and realize how little she still was. And Rose is really out of the baby stage but still seems little to me! My husband named Justin – Justin Beaver, inspired by Justin Bieber. Not that we’re really fans, he just thought it was funny!
Haha! That makes sense. I was wondering about Trudeau, because of the beaver being a Canadian symbol…
We thought of that too but I didn’t want to make our toddler’s best friend into a political symbol and Trudeau seems more divisive than Bieber!