June and some of July with Elsie

As I'm trying to think about what happened to June, I believe I spent much of the month worrying about Martin's Father's Day canoe trip weekend. The 3 day trip would be the first time I was going to wrangle two children by myself all day without relent, again and again. While I know that for many moms it's no big deal and they could probably do it in their sleep, it terrified me. All in all, the three days went by just fine. Bedtime was a bit of a struggle and I did a lot of bed switching during the nights. Luckily, Elsie's not the kind of kid who wants to be out of the house everyday and she was happy to just loaf about and play in our yard. The days have been hot here this summer, so even though we did spend a lot of time outside, it was during the bookend times of the day. Still, I was anxiously awaiting Martin's return with Grampa Rick, so I wouldn't be the only adult around. 

Towards the end of the month, we were all walking to the Blue Park and I spotted a tiny ball of squirrel on the ground by the sidewalk. We thought it was dead, but when Martin nudged it, there was breathing and motion. So we picked up the baby squirrel, took it to the vet where they told us to call the Rideau Wildlife Sanctuary. So we changed our plans and walked back home to see what the next step would be. The Sanctuary wanted us to try to reunite the squirrel with the mother by taking it back to the tree and releasing it; unfortunately, it was so unwell that it ran to Elsie's legs instead of the tree when it was released. Then we tried placing it in a box that was attached to the tree up the trunk a bit. At Sunset, we checked the box and the squirrel was still there. So her name was Rosie, we tried to feed her some formula, kept her in a pet carrier in the basement overnight, then took her to the Wildlife Sanctuary the next morning. She may be released in our neighborhood. That would be fun. 

My brother, his wife, and two girls came to visit us on their way out East. We took them to the Burritt's Rapids beach on a hot hot hot day, then they took us for ice cream at the Downtown Ice Cream Shoppe. It was weird to see their family walking on the streets of Merrickville, since they are from Oklahoma and I never imagined they would ever see our place. Elsie had such a great time with Kiersten and Kenley and the fun just kept going for her as we got in our car and headed to NB behind them. One of the best parts of the trip was playing in the hotel pool in Quebec with the girls. Elsie had never been in a pool before and she slowly warmed up to the experience. She got so comfortable with the water that she wanted me to just hold her under the arms and let her legs float up for kicking. We played Marco Polo at Kiersten's request even though she cheated  and went underwater to avoid us. Fortunately, for us, she was easiest to catch underwater! Then we did water dancing to Let It Go, the anthem of young children everywhere. 

• "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is the garden store was closed. The good news is we got tomatoes!" Elsie said this when we got back our grocery store trip. I had told her that my plan was to stop at the garden store and get some tomato plants to put in the garden (since nothing else did well this dry summer). The garden store, however was closed for the season, so when we were at the grocery store, she suggested we get tomatoes, not necessarily understanding the difference between getting the plants and buying the fruit.
• "It's time for plan B." I think this has come from a Hello Kitty cartoon.
• Elsie has been telling never ending bedtime stories to Martin, which he definitely does not fall asleep during.
• One night on vacation, Elsie was really resisting the bedtime routine, so we paused and went over to the window for a chat. I asked her if she could find the hidden trail in the woods and she did. While she was observing the yard, she pointed to the arbor and said "So is that where you had your wedding?" Me: "Yes, it is. It's where Papa and I said we would love each other forever. And we didn't even know that we were going to have a little girl named Elsie. And she will grow up and she can be anything... she can be a pilot... (I was thinking of things that might interest her) she can be a... " She interrupted me to say "But I want to be a Mama." 
• After that chat we had a bit of a struggle to get her night diaper on. I got frustrated and tried to hold her legs straight, she got kicky and tried to steal her diapeer. As we were laying in bed finally, I apologized to her for getting frustrated with her and said that we would both need to work on being patient with each other. She offered approximately three apologies: "Mama, I'm sorry I tried to steal my diaper. Mama I'm sorry I messed up everything." Mama, I'm sorry I cheated."
• Susan was driving the bunch of to WalMart and Elsie said "Aunt Susan, my grampie drives all swervy." I think she was thinking about times when she felt sick in the car.
• I figured out that Elsie says "that's why..." instead of that's because.
• "Mama, you're mad today!" or "Camber you're mad!" This is said if she is feeling frustrated with us for putting away a toy or getting in her way. 
• She says "warm off" when she means to say "cool off". This confusion of warm and cold is hard to remember and make sense of when she says that something which, to us, is clearly cold is "too warm".
• After much tossing in bed, Elsie told me "Papa teached me a lesson. He said to stop all that mumbling around. So, I stayed still." Martin said that he had told her that if she kept tossing and turning, it would make her feel hot and make it harder to fall asleep. She learned her lesson.

     Kiersten and Elsie before Elsie got bitten by an ant. 

     Having a sit and think at the camp.

     Running at the waterfall park by the hotel in Levis.

PS. On July 19th at the park, Elsie was able to get to all of the slides (except kind of not the curly slide) by herself. I was so happy when she showed me and said "Wow, Elsie you can do this all by yourself? I didn't know! You must be so proud of yourself." She said "Yes, I am.", slid down the slide and landed flat on her bum.

PPS. Martin and I were trying to collate all of the shows that Elsie has obsessively watched so far: Curious George, Team Umi Zoomi, Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Big Comfy Couch, Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom, Zoboomafoo. I think that's it so far. She likes to pretend to an Animal Helper. Today she was watching ants go up and down a tree and was talking like Jackie on Zoboomafoo, saying "Now, you must give ants their space."