For the past few days we've been trying to get Veronika to nap in her bassinet instead of the swing... The reason she was napping in the swing was because when she still had Reflux, it was best for her to nap in an upright position so her milk wouldn't come back up. And I guess she got used to napping in there even though she's been Reflux-free for almost 3 months now. She'd nap in her bassinet just fine during the night, but not during the day.

So last weekend I got her an older model of the Ocean Wonders Aquarium, an identical to the one Natasha has by her toddler bed. And I must tell you - that toy does some wonders! I couldn't attach it to her bassinet so I just placed it on the dresser next to it, set it to play soft music, and Veronika fell asleep! It was awesome. She refuses to take every nap in there, but out of the 4 naps she takes during the day, 3 are in her bassinet! So that's not bad at all... progress.

We decided to get Natasha a play-kitchen for her 2nd birthday. There are sooo many of them out there, but I wanted to get her something sturdy that will last a few years and that Veronika could also enjoy later on. We chose the LifeStyle PartyTime Kitchen by Step 2 because it got excellent reviews and also because of the design - it's gorgeous! So yesterday, Matthew spent the whole morning putting it together, while Natasha spent the entire time "helping" - she was copying everything her daddy was doing, it was cute. It was worth it - she loves it! But I think that she doesn't quite understand the entire purpose of a kitchen as she was putting her little plastic animals in the oven! (according to Matthew that's "normal" because normally you do put animals in the oven... ya know chicken, pork, etc... silly daddy).

This kitchen requires 11 batteries!! It has 5 electronic features: stove, phone, overhead light, microwave, and clock!

Aside from the kitchen she also got a Corolle doll set - a doll (that you can bathe with!), a stroller, playpen, and a diaper bag with accessories.
She is not too crazy about the doll, but she loves putting her Dora dolls and her panda in both the stroller and playpen.

My baby girl is ALMOST 2 YEARS OLD!! How bittersweet.

The Zoo...

Yesterday we took Natasha on her first trip to the zoo. She had a blast! She was running around, checking everything out... but her 2 favourite parts were the Orangutan family (they had a baby!) and the giant "afaphant" (elephants). After looking at the animals, we took her to the splash zone (kid play area) and she loved it there too, but she got cold pretty quick. I think she'll enjoy everything a lot more next year, though.

Checking out birdie

Looking at the elephants

Fishy!

And the splash area...

She was so tired, she just collapsed on the grass


And a new panda bear to take home!

I am having a lot of laughs with (at?) Natasha during the day. She's beginning to talk and put all kinds of words together and it's both funny and amazing at the same time. And I've been told that kids who're introduced to more than one language will initially be speech delayed, but so far I don't see it. Sure, her language is a mixture of English, Russian, and some Polish, but she definitely SPEAKS and can even associate different languages with different people.

A conversation from yesterday...

(I was giving her some milk from a spoon... she wanted her train that was on the floor).

NATASHA: A choo-choo, a choo-choo?
ME: When you finish your milk, you can have your choo-choo.
NATASHA: That's it, no more milk, choo-choo, okay???

She has also started telling me what time she goes for a nap... I usually put her down around 10-10:30 am, but lately around 9:50-10:00 am she would come up to me and say, "bye-bye? bye-bye?" which is her word for sleep or goodbye, both. I then ask her if she wants to go bye-bye, and she says "yes". The next thing that happens is she starts running from toy to toy, happily saying bye-bye to everything: "bye-bye Dora, bye-bye lampa (lamp), bye-bye vee-vee (TV), bye-bye car", etc. When she's done, she runs to her bedroom, jumps into her toddler bed and is ready for a nap! I then don't hear from her until around 1:00 pm.

I'm totally lovin' this age!!

Matthew was having an awful day yesterday - pretty much everything went wrong for him, including these two things:

1. First thing in the morning he managed to get stuck in our elevator. The bloody thing won't open its doors and Matthew was riding up & down from the basement to the last floor about a megazillion times... 30 minutes and lots of curse words later he managed to push the doors open. Of course this made him late for work and therefore late coming home in the evening.
   

2. Then, after the girls went to bed, we started watching season 3 finale of LOST. It was exciting... what season finale isn't?! Anyway, about half-an-hour into the episode Matthew's computer screen suddenly froze. No big deal, right? He tried all kinds of things to 'unfreeze' it and finally ended up rebooting the machine. And then what happens??? He gets a lovely black screen with all kinds of messages on it. Long story short - his hard drive died off... burned out... kaput! Poor Matthew (poor computer?) Anyhow, we don't know if he'll even be able to recover the data from the dead hard drive, but in the meantime we ordered a new Dell computer. Should be here within two weeks...
   
   That's 2 LONG WEEKS I don't get to stare at HUNKY SAWYER!

We took Veronika for her 4-month doctor's appointment today - she got her vaccines done (poor thing cried so hard!), and was checked by the Ped; she's doing really well. The Ped also told us to continue giving her Enfamil Gentlease because it has really been helping with her gas & Reflux issues, and advised us to start a little bit of rice cereal in 3-4 weeks. My baby will be starting solids soon! Yay... MESS!

As per her weight - she weighed 8 lbs at birth and is now 13 lbs 15 oz and 28.7 inches.

For reference: Natasha weighed 7lbs 11oz at birth, and at 4 months she was only 11.9 lbs and 26.8 inches.
Veronika is 2 inches longer and 2 lbs heavier!

Here's an e-mail Matthew sent me from work this morning:

Subject: Natasha = ahhh!
Time Sent: 10:43 AM

Guess what our little monkey managed to do this time???

She is even mischievous when she is not here!

She took my iPod Nano and turned it on and started playing music. I didn't notice and just put it in my backpack (since I use my iPod Touch on the bus.)

Well I'm about to listen to my Podcasts when I see the thing is ON and Playing its 60th song!!!! Its been on since 7:40! 1/3 of my battery is dead lol.

Oy... this child of ours.

Someone is obsessed with stuffed panda bears. Can you guess who?

(from left to right...)

Panda #1 is a very very old panda and is the one who caused the whole panda madness. According to Matthew, his father brought (sent?) this panda to him from Canada to Poland, and then Matthew brought it back to Canada when he came here. It's a very well travelled panda and is close to 20 years old.

Panda #2 was bought to replace Panda #1. Panda #1 is very old and stinky and been through the washer/dryer about a 100 times too many. Except the plan did not work, and Natasha was still determined to play with Panda #1. Panda #2 then became her "bedtime Panda" and she sleeps with it every day.

Panda #3 was purchased to aide Panda #2. Since Panda #2 was a "bedtime Panda", we did not want it getting dirty when Natasha took it outside. So Panda #3 became the "outside Panda".

Panda #4 was purchased when Panda #3 went MIA. Or so we thought. We searched the entire apartment for it and even asked my parents to search theirs. Panda #3 was nowhere in sight. So an identical twin was purchased. But what do ya know... as soon as #4 was home, #3 came out of hiding. *sigh*

Pandas #5 and #6 are Asian Pandas. Today at the mall, we went into an Asian home decor store and for some reason, they had a huge stand of -- can you take a guess?? -- yes, Pandas. Of course the missy was all over them. They were dressed up Pandas, or Pandas with leaves in their mouth. Natasha couldn't pick and kept touching them all. They were 2 for $25. So I picked 2 new Pandas for her and she was happy as ever.

We now have 6 stuffed Panda bears................................

It's been two weeks now since Natasha transitioned into her toddler bed, and she's been doing awesome! *knock on wood* - no problems whatsoever. Last night Matthew and I were laughing because about 10 minutes after we put her to bed, we heard her musical tree-house playing songs, stuff moving around the room, etc. At first I thought to go in there and kick her into bed, but Matthew told me to let her be, so I did. In another 10 minutes it grew quiet. I waited a bit and then opened the door to check up on her - she was in bed, fast asleep! What a good girl... I really think she loves her new independence and not having to be confined behind bars all the time. Our little girl is growing up!