Kidding around at the Children's Museum

A couple of weeks ago, Gabrielle and I went with Angie and Logan to the Children's Museum at the Museum of Civilization in Hull. We haven't been there since she mastered walking, so the experience was much better than previous visits. First of all - I didn't have to carry her! So that right there made it exponentially more enjoyable. Also, she is now more fun to play with - as you see above, she is now quite adept at chess (waving my king in my face!)...

...backgammon (she liked keeping her pieces in this "ancient" brass bowl)....

... and even parcheesi....

.... although she kept stealing the dice. I suppose that's one way to ensure victory.

Madeline turns 2

Gabrielle seems to get invited to an inordinate number of birthday parties for a 15 month old. As a result, she needs an inordinate amount of party clothing (can't be seen in the same outfit twice, dontcha know). Happily, her cousin Amelia's gift of this groovy silver top arrived the day before the birthday party. Worn with short jeans and funky pink boots from my mother, she was all set to party it up, Barrhaven-style. 

The must-have accessory for spring - a pointy hat.

The birthday girl and the bilingual birthday cake: Happy Fête Maddie. 

Priceless moment: Maddie leaned in to give Gabrielle a kiss to thank her for the gift...

...but Gabrielle pushes her away. Way to make friends and influence people, G.

Chow, baby

As my mom likes to say, Gabrielle is a Jewish mother's dream. Not only will she eat just about anything, she seems to really enjoy the process of eating, and is really interested in/demanding that she eat "grown-up" food in a "grown-up" way. Above, she fed herself an entire bowl of oatmeal with a spoon. 

Thrilled that daddy gave her a tuna sandwich without cutting it into tiny pieces (but he still cut the crusts off!! - grrr....).

Hanging with the girls at the Brig in the Market, sipping out of what I truly hope was just Erin's water...

No clever caption

Just a beautiful picture of our little girl.

More bad parenting and assorted sauces

I tried to take Gabrielle out for a walk on Sunday. It was a beautiful spring-like day, and I thought how fun it would be to go out and just go for a walk. Two steps out and *blam* she's face down on the asphalt. She didn't cry much, but the scrape under her eye is painful to look at, and people look at us like we beat her. Thank goodness it's Meaghan who is out with her most of the time - I can't bear the judgmental looks from strangers...  ;-)

On an unrelated note, G has figured out how to open the big cupboards in our kitchen and has taken to removing whatever she can get her hands on. She's big on Bovril and vanilla extract right now. And tonight, I found the steak spice in our office desk drawer. Things are getting fun around here...

Warming up to Curly

My dad came for a quick visit last week, and Gabrielle showed definite signs of reduced stranger anxiety. She still took awhile to warm up, but it came. First she pointed at him: "whazzat?"

Next, she got physically closer, but seemed concerned that he might want a bite of her fig newton.

Finally, smiles and she even allowed my dad to rub her head a bit.