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Here are some pics from yesterday. Auntie Rita took us for lunch at a grown-up (read: no highchairs) restaurant called Fuego in Yellowknife. Edzèa was not a joy to have lunch with. She wanted to be held the entire time and did not want her own lunch. Once we got to Javaroma later that day. She happily sat in the high chair there with a straw to play with for 45minutes!!! ARGGGHHH!!!

So, although it was nice to see Rita, it wasn’t very relaxing.

We didn’t make it to storytime because of our lunch date with Rita but we went to the Flea Market on Friday afternoon and I found really great cord/Osh Kosh overalls for her for 12mos and up. They were 1$ each so I picked up as many as I could. She has outgrown most of her pants now so I am going into the Alsip and Lindstrom stores at home. The apple outfit she has on is a hand-me-down from the Alsips. It’s very cute.

I’ve decided to look for a couple of babysitters to see if we can go out every once in a while without having to ask friends for favours all the time. My friend Diane Lafferty has a daughter who would like to babysit, she has 4 younger siblings of her own and Rita says she is very experienced. Then there is an older girl who’s Mom works with Tim, we will try her too. Also, I’m considering a couple of girls that I teach at Kalemi Dene as they live in Yellowknife and their full-time teacher recommends them too. So, stay posted.

I can’t wait until Tracey and Markham come home!!! I miss our Baby exchange!

I had to take Edzèa with me to my hair appt on Thursday. Miraculously, it went well.

Ok, gotta run. Birthday party number 2 today and number 3 tomorrow…it never ends!!!

Well, we arrived home last Friday to FRIGID conditions. -41 C and lower. I had forgotten how cold January can be. We went out to the first 1st Birthday party of the year on Saturday. It was a hockey theme. As you can see, Edzèa loved the blow up hockey sticks they had around the room. She was also very popular with the 7-10 yr old age group. She was the youngest baby there and so was treated like royalty …as she expects…

I made an attempt for her to be the Anti-Hockey party girl but she couldn’t resist the sticks!!! She was the only one in a party dress. Everyone else had baby jerseys etc. I’m sure those cost a fair bit!

We made it out on Sunday to the pool where we spent an hour in the water with her and she could happily have lasted longer. We played ball with her in the pool. This is the latest fun thing. We don’t have a ball at home so that is next on the toy list for her! Someone at our Storytime today told me that she had hit a milestone early by passing the ball to me. We’ve been doing this since we were at the Grandparent Froehlers as they had a ball of some sort in her room there and I would play pass on the floor with her after she woke up in the morning. Her Daddy is not surprised that she is a ball girl at all!!!

So we’ve been housebound until today when we decided to venture out in to the deep freeze and go to Storytime for our FREE book! and socializing with other babies/Moms. It was CHILLY! -40 plus. Tomorrow is supposed to warm up to -20 and Friday -9. Here’s crossing our fingers! It is so cold that my fingers get numb in my sealskin mitts from the house to the car. Our car doesn’t warm up well either so that is why we have stayed housebound. Tim’s happy as I’ve been cooking like crazy and Edzèa has been subjected to new foods too. She is having yoghurt, cottage cheese and regular cheese now. It’s becoming much easier to feed her now that she is getting more in line with our diet. She is a good eater and seems to like dairy so that’s good as I’m slowly weaning her off of nursing.

We have TWO more birthday parties this weekend. One on each day of the weekend. This is going to be nuts as all of the Mom’s that I’ve met this year have children that are older than Edzèa so we have many many parties coming up.

I am going to start trading babysitting with another new Mom that I’ve met on Mondays. We are going to meet at the pool and trade looking after the babies while we each have a swim. I went swimming yesterday while Tim came home for lunch but it’s hard for him to co-ordinate.

She is napping well right now and sleeping well at night FINALLY! I couldn’t believe I had an hour and a half free this morning while she slept. It is soooo nice. I hope she keeps it up.

Here are a few more pics FYI. She received a blow up hockey stick in her goodie bag from the party this weekend. Believe it or not she also received a RUBBER ducky with a hockey stick and in a hockey jersey and helmet. Hmmmmm…this will be a re-gift for some unsuspecting hockey fans who have a baby I think!

She is almost crawling now too! She can creep forward to get something and she rolls herself all over the room now. It’s only a matter of time. We’ll keep you posted.Oh, there is one picture of her being pushed in her stroller by Haydon. I was in front of her and I couldn’t figure out why the stroller was moving forward but soon discovered the little man behind.

Here are a couple of pics with Edzèa and her cousins from Calgary.

Edzèa and Sadie are good buddies. Sadie is extremely patient with her although I never leave them unsupervised. Sadie is starving for attention because Edzèa pulls really hard! She comes out with clumps of fur and Sadie does nothing. One day, they will play better together but Sadie constantly puts herself on Edzèa’s play mat so she can’t hate it. She must be desperate.

Today, we are going to Movies for Mom’s/Dad’s. I have a bad cold. Edzèa is pretty much over hers but I don’t want to miss out.

This week has been pretty uneventful. Mostly, we’ve been sick and stayed at home. We did go to Kindermusic yesterday morning. She is the MOST excited baby there. It is her happy place. She LOVES music and singing.

She falls asleep in my arms for her afternoon nap now while I sing to her with my horrible voice. It’s amazing she can fall asleep.

Ok, off to feed her lunch and then to the movies. Enjoy the pics.

Well, we started off the morning with our blueberry cereal which is going over well. It’s extremely messy but she seems to like blueberries. We are trying to add some variety instead of her usual BANANA fixation.

We were up on and off most of the night as Edzèa caught a cold and wasn’t very comfortable. Then Daddy had a big work problem and didn’t sleep at all. He worked all day today too and is still working. So, we went to see Santa Claus by ourselves. The Festival of Trees is a Yellowknife fundraiser and has a visit from Santa for the kids along with crafts and goodies. Edzèa wasn’t overly impressed with Santa so she pulled hard on his beard and gave Mommy a very dirty look for leaving her with this strange man!

We were also given a sheet of decorative Christmas paper with Santa’s address on it to write to Santa. We plan to do this tomorrow! Today was busy without Daddy to spend “quality-time” with us!

Here are some pics of her in her Snowgirl outfit that I picked up at the flea market last year.

And finally, a pic of Mommy and Edzèa at Javaroma with the other Mommies after our visit to Santa.

Oh, I forgot to mention, we are going to have to lower Edzèa’s crib. When she sits in her crib, she has discovered that she can manoeuvre herself to the side and…AAAAAHHH!!! She shocked me on this one. I was sitting doing something in the chair in her room when I felt “someone” staring at me….

On a side note, I was supposed to paint a Holiday Christmas mural for SSI Micro today but I was counting on Daddy to “parent” his daughter which didn’t happen. So, next Sunday, I’m painting a winter landscape for SSI for their winter promotion. I’m looking forward to it as I haven’t had a chance to paint…since before she was born!!!

Just a quick note while the two babies I’m looking after (including Edzèa) are sleeping!!! I wanted to post some quick pics of our cutie and her Cheerio fixation right now. She loves trying to put them in her mouth. She gets one or two in at a time. I will try to update the blog in the next week if I can. It’s been busy since we got home. And we are leaving again in two weeks! We are all heading off tonight to a Christmas party at the gym that we go to. Our friend Troy is babysitting the two girls while Tracey, Markham, Tim and I go out. I’ve had Mackenzie all day so I will have about 15minutes to shower and get ready tonight but THAT is the life of a MOM!!!

It’s official. The snow is here and it’s staying! We woke up to a beautiful white winter wonderland this morning. I always say this about the first snow of the year. My tune changes by March! but today it is a lovely soft drifting snow and the temperature is only -2 so I don’t mind.

I caught the flu that Tim had and so have been out of commission for 2 days. Yesterday, Tim stayed home from work in the morning to look after Edzèa and let me sleep/rest and in the afternoon Tracey took Edzèa to let me sleep for the afternoon too. This seems to have helped as I am left just a bit weak today with a sore throat. Luckily Edzèa hasn’t caught it or she had it last week and passed it along to Mom and Dad which is more likely.

So, we attended the Halloween party on Monday afternoon at our post-natal class. Edzèa isn’t overly fond of her Halloween costume. My camera batteries were dead when we got there so I don’t have any pictures. I will take some on Halloween. There is only so much torture that I can put my child through! I met a woman who asked me if her name was Dogrib when I told her Edzèa’s name??!! That was a first! Only in the North. It turns out that if she had had a girl she was going to name a daughter Sedzeè (pr.Zedzay) which means “my heart”. This is what my Dogrib friends call Edzèa as a pet name. Strange but true. It will probably be the first/last/only time that happens!

Here’s a daily dose of Edzèa pics for the day:

That’s all for now. Oh, her latest tricks are: 1. She gives wet slobbery kisses 2. She likes biting…not fun for me I’m telling you!

Also just for fun: Signs That You’re Becoming a Yellowknifer (borrowed from an online forum) to help you get into the spirit of what it means to live in the Arctic!!!

1. You are on year three of your three-month plan
2. You know everyone in the City.
3. Insanity sets in.
4. Insanity is actually a pretty good show.
5. Loss of ability to count and suntan.

6. Parkas become sexy
7.  Use the phrase “That’s a nice trailer”
8. You get excited that beer only costs $6.50
9. When people talk about an early breakup, you know they’re not referring to the fact your partner slept with your best friend 2 weeks into your relationship.
10. You use the words ‘ice’ and ‘road’ in conjunction to describe a means of getting out of town, and not to describe an accident.
11. Once the temperature hits -10 you’ve got your winter jacket open, gloves, scarf and toque are nowhere to be found.
12.You have more than one pair of longjohns.

Edzèa and I went to swimming lessons on our own this morning so no new pics. Daddy has been sick with a fever/chills since last night so unfortunately he wasn’t able to share anything with us today. Edzèa absolutely loved being at the pool today. She is now kicking her legs and splashing in the water. She really seems to love the water. She konks out on the short ride home from the pool and doesn’t even wake up when I put her down for her nap in her crib. The pool is highly stimulating!

Later in the afternoon, we attended the haunted house. Markham, Tracey, Mackenzie as well as another SSI Micro baby/family attended, Amanda and Haydon. We were called to the station to Hagwart’s (they changed the name for copyright I believe). We waited to go to Hagwart’s on Platform 9 3/4 and then we were put into the different houses. They figured Edzèa was a Griffyndorf? We then went down a slide to enter the Haunted House and wound our way through a maze of various *scary* things. Edzèa was given a wand and was very happy to be a little wizard. I eventually had to confiscate it as she was swinging it all over the place like a true little wizard but it became a safety hazard for anyone who got within 10inches of her wand.

They had kids dressed up as various characters from Harry Potter along the way and they had various spooky spaces to crawl through. There was a huge spider made of water tubes, a variety of creepy things that you got to touch. Edzèa really liked the werewolf but she didn’t like the tunnel of spiderwebs and spiders !  we had to exit VITE VITE! Otherwise, we enjoyed our afternoon and she pretty much smiled at every scary character along the way. We figure it will be different next year!

Poor Daddy is still sick so Edzèa and I have spent the day trying to let Daddy get some sleep.

That’s all for now.

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This morning Edzèa and I headed out to our weekly Friday song/story time at the Centre for Northern Families. Here are some photos of Edzèa sharing her kitchen toys with her friends Mackenzie and Mathieu. These *toys* are a big hit with the babies. The colander is the big one that they all fight for. It cost me $.25 at the Sally Ann. They love to chew on the wooden spoons as well. They were playing *after* song time had finished. We have lunch at the Centre after the songs are done and today in the lunch room there were about five Dene women who were eating and had cooked the meal for us. They were passing Edzèa around like a hot potato because they thought she was adorable. She was smiling for all of them and they kept pinching her cheeks. As soon as they learned that her name was Dogrib, she became *extra* special. She loved the attention of course!

Edzea also ate more solid food than she ever has for lunch today. She loved the mix of carrots and peas. I tasted it and it tasted like solid peas! She liked it more than the apple puree that I gave her for the first time today.  I had thought that apples were going to be a big hit. Everyone told me to let her dictate when to stop feeding her. I finally just stopped as I was worried as she went through 3/4 of a jar. She’s only ever eaten a few tablespoons of solid food before but she liked her peas and carrots!

Before we left the house this morning, Sadie showed a lot of interest in playing with Edzèa. She has figured out that baby=toys and some attention. She doesn’t mind having her hair pulled and she certainly finds Edzèa’s toys interesting. Here are some pictures of the two of them.

This afternoon, Tracey babysat Edzèa for a few hours and I went to the Flea Market and then went home and did some cleaning up and some odds n’ends. I picked up some great stuff at the flea market today. Great dresses for Edzèa for the future and a cute little Santa sleeper with a hat. I found a big set of foam jigsaw mats for $4 for when she starts crawling/trying to stand/falling etc. plus I got some more plastic kitchen utensils aka toys. Tim thinks we need a budget for my flea market’ing now as I come home with new (old) stuff every week. I am just planning for the future! He says I should only be allowed to buy clothes for 6 months in advance for her…whatever. I get some great stuff!

Tomorrow afternoon, we are all going ( friends with babies) to the Hagwarts Haunted House that one of the local highschool’s does for Halloween. They are making it more baby-friendly for the afternoon session. Not sure if we are dressing the babies up in their costumes or not. We also have our fourth swimming lesson tomorrow morning. I’ll post pics if we get some more!

G’night.

P.S. I was asked to work on an interesting day project when I get back from holidays. The Prince of Wales Museum in Yellowknife is hosting a Youth Forum with Aboriginal youth on climate change and effects on the land. As a part of this forum, they are hiring artists to work with the youth to have them do some artwork in response to this investigation. They will be painting on the blades of wooden paddles. Some of my students from CJBS will be participating as well as all of the students that I have been teaching at Kalemi Dene. I’m looking forward to seeing my students again as well as my friend/old vice principal, Tammy Steinwand who is now the Culture Co-ordinator for CJBS. Tracey is going to take Edzèa for the 6 hour period for me and I will do an exchange day with her. They offered to have me bring the baby but I decided that it would be more conducive to be sans baby!

Today we made it through Yoga without a call-out for Mommy. Yesterday, I looked after Mackenzie with Edzèa and the two of them interacted for the first time. Well, Edzèa was interested in Mackenzie more than herself for a change! So, I think that this change has transferred to the one hour daycare time at the gym. She was a perfect child today for them! Also, her second bottom tooth is out and on it’s way up now so maybe the painful teething part is done for now anyways.

She is napping perfectly today too. She’s been napping pretty well all month. One nap in the morning and one in the afternoon. The expensive aquarium mobile that we got her seems to help do the trick. It also keeps her occupied when she wakes up now too. She turns it on and off by herself.

We’ve turned a corner this week. Edzèa sits up and plays well with her toys by herself right now. It is a nice change to be able to do some things while she keeps herself entertained for a change! I never thought the day would come. I still need to be in the room and within eye-range but as long as she can see me and play she is happy. It’s great! Here are some pics of her playing with her latest favourite toy.

I finished making her Halloween costume last night. I will post pics after Halloween for your interest.

Tomorrow I have my afternoon baby-free. I have to think through what I’m going to do!!! I want to paint a little chair that I bought at the flea market last week for Edzèa but the time is really supposed to be spent with me doing something for myself!

Last Friday, Tim and I went out alone for dinner and dancing for a few hours. Tracey came over and looked after Edzèa while she slept and this week I am returning the favour. This is a new *couples* night out system we are trying out!

Yesterday, we had our first *real* snow but it didn’t stick and it’s +5 and raining again today. I’m not complaining. This has been a great fall! without any of our usual COLD weather.

Tim and I are looking forward to heading to BC in November. I leave next weekend and spend a week with my family before Tim arrives and we head to Qualicum Beach for a week. I thought the weather would be a great relief after a Northern winter but honestly this is just like a BC fall right now. Bye for now.

Just added some pics of Edzèa in a cute dress so thought I’d share them. We’re off to learn Infant CPR today.