We’ve come to the decision that we need an extra double stroller… something a bit lighter and not as long as our Graco DuoGlider. We’ve seen several of the newer sit & stand strollers around our neighbourhood and decided that it’s probably just what we need.

Baby Trend Sit 'N Stand LX Stand-On Tandem Stroller

We tried it out at Toys R Us and really liked it. The girls loved it too! Natasha (at almost 3 years) loves walking to most places now, so the back seat is perfect to rest when she gets a bit tired; she could also ride standing up. She really loved that option! I also liked that it had both a parent & toddler tray and a large basket underneath.

We’ll still be using our DuoGlider for longer trips, but I think that at almost 1.5 and 3 years, they’re ready for something new.

My blog has a cool new look! It’s not entirely ‘new’ as the layout is very similar to the old one, but the header, footer, and background have all changed. There are other small changes as well. I really like it. I’ve created the header myself using a few digi-scrap elements from kits by Jofia Designs and Kasia Designs. And then Matthew put it all together for me (he rocks! Really helps to have a web developer hubby).

On Monday I took the girls to an indoor playground to kill some time. We have a lot of them across the city but many are either hard to access or their schedule didn’t work for us. And now with Veronika only taking one nap, our mornings are free to do fun things like that.

The place was mainly a huge room filled with a huge variety of toys – anything from ride-on toys, ball pits, baskets with balls, dolls, play kitchen, motorized cars & motorcycles, trains, and 2-3 slides and climbing areas. The girls had a blast!

Our poor Natasha is going through a really rough phase and we think it may be related to toddler “growing pains”. In a nutshell, 15-20% of children between the ages 3-5 and 8-12 experience growing pains which are dull aches in their knees, thighs, and calves as a result of growing bones; the pain usually occurs in the evening and during the night. We don’t know for a fact that this is what she’s experiencing, but this is what we’re guessing it to be.

We planned on taking her to the zoo today. She was really excited and kept listing all the animals she was going to see. But that never happened because she had a pretty rough night – she kept waking up every 30-50 minutes crying like you wouldn’t imagine. When we asked her what’s wrong, she’d say- “arm hurts”, or “knee hurts”, or “leg hurts.” It seemed like the pain only lasted  a few seconds, just enough to wake her up, but then disappeared yet to return again some half hour later. Needless to say, we cancelled the zoo trip so that she could stay home and take a nap to make up for lost sleep.

We’re going to monitor her over the next few nights and see how she does… if the pain persists, we will take her to the Ped. Hopefully this won’t be a daily thing.

I think Miss. Veronika has hit the “no stage” pretty early, but she’s definitely there now. It goes like this:

- “Let’s change your diaper.”
- “No.” Followed by head shaking.
-”It’s time to get dressed.”
- “No.”
- “Nika, come here.”
- “No.”

Ahh. And she totally knows what she’s talking about. Because when I tell her it’s time eat… or go outside… she’s right there beside me, all ready to go. She has also started saying “yes'” but it’s a lot less frequently. The other common thing she says is “no more”. As soon as she’s done eating, she says- “no more!” and takes off her bib. Today at the park, after 5-7 minutes of swinging, again she said- “no more!” and put her little hands up to be taken out. It’s hard to believe that my little baby is communicating already and actually using words.

Natasha has actually learned to interpret her sister’s language and can make out most words she says. She knows that “tuto” is a turtle, and can distinguish between “caaar” (car), and “caaaa” (cup). She knows that “nonnie” is both birdie and doggie. And she also knows that “ticka” means Nika and “tata” means Tasha! Fun times :)

I collect Pampers points from their Gifts to Grow program. I’ve been collecting for a long time now and received some great free gifts – toys, books, and Shutterfly credit codes. Well, most recently I had enough points to get 6 new books and a set of those included these 3 books:

Duck & Goose, How Are You Feeling?
Duck & Goose, 1, 2, 3
What's Up, Duck?

All I can say is that both girls are in love. It was a nice change from reading Dora every night and Natasha learned some great new words from there, such as ‘frustrated’ and ‘selfish’. She has memorized all 3 books and “reads” them herself each night after Matthew reads these to both girls. She also acts out some terms, such as “slow”, “fast”, “loud”, “quiet”, etc. Even Veronika sits quietly through each book. I really recommend these! They’re good for both babies and toddlers; I might get her some more from the series.