Sunshine Village Race Weekend

Lara just completed another race weekend, again near Banff, but at Sunshine Village ski area, which sounds tranquil and small, but was in fact a huge skiing area, reached by a 15 minute gondola trip from a parking lot, which itself was 7km from the main road, so it was quite remote.
The weather was great, not too cold, and some fresh snow falling, so the problem was more with too much snow (can make skiing harder) rather than the too-little snow that we're used to at Nakiska, where icy patches are common.
On Saturday Lara had two runs on a "Kiddie Kombo" course, which is a shorter course, mixing slalom (small poles stuck in the snow, fairly closely spaced) with grand slalom (more traditional "gates", spread further apart), then on Sunday she had two runs down a longer Grand Slalom course, which even some coaches were saying was very long for kids, with 25 gates to negotiate.
Lara did really well, not missing any gates, on any of her four runs, and whilst her times meant she was some way off getting any awards, that's not the point at the moment, these races are about teaching her to get down in one piece, without missing gates, and to enjoy all the fuss that goes with racing. The faster times will come in the future.
Dan didn't do any skiing this weekend, he was happy to play in the fluffy snow or watch his tablet, and I am happy to stick with skiing with him at Nakiska where I'm familiar with the pistes, and we'll not go somewhere by mistake that might be a bit too hard for him. Or me.
Without knowing it, I did venture out of Alberta and into British Columbia at one point - one of the chairlifts I took on Saturday to the top of the mountain crossed the border, so for a few hundred metres and 10 minutes or so, I finally made it to wild BC, until I skied all the way back into comfy, homely Alberta.
One more treat at this resort is a heated chairlift! The seats are heated, and once you've sat down on it, you pull an orange, perspex cover down over the chair and ride up to the top station in relative warmth and comfort.
To make life a bit easier this weekend, we stayed at a hotel in Banff, so the kids were very excited to go and try out the hotel pool. It wasn't the biggest or best hotel pool we've stayed at, but Lara was happy, and her best ski-buddy Lillian was also staying there with her family, so that worked out well.


Here are a couple of short videos, the first one is the Kiddie Kombo, with very vocal support from her teammates, and the second is the end of one of her Grand Slalom runs:

World Ski Cross Championship

This Saturday morning was the next round of the World Championship of Ski Cross, held at Nakiska. Olga got Lara into position to grab some autographs from the competitors, including Brady Leman, the leading Canadian man, who signed her helmet.
This is one of my favourite photos of Lara, she looks so happy :-)

Nursery home time

OK, sometimes, just sometimes, I'll admit that the kids can be quite cute, like today on the way out of nursery..

And Dan is wearing the same clothes on the way out as he wore on the way in, for the second day running - good boy!

Skating progression

This week has seen a slight yet important step forward for Lara and her skating; her coach has given the OK for Lara to skate without wearing a helmet. It shows the coach has confidence in Lara's ability, but also makes Lara feel a bit more like one of the older girls. The question arose after Lara saw the costume she'll be wearing for this year's skating gala - a mermaid - and she wondered how the helmet would fit into the ensemble. So, now she's helmet-free.. Dan starts his skating lessons next month, in a parent and tot group with Olga. He'll definitely be in a helmet. And face guard. And bubble wrap if we could arrange it!

Hernia today, gone tomorrow (well, February)

Back to earth with a bump today. After her 7th birthday yesterday, today we booked Lara in for a hernia repair in February. The Alberta Children's Hospital is the brightest, most cheerful looking hospital I've seen though! The inside matches the outside, too.

I'm not sure how it would have worked under the NHS, but once Lara had been assessed today by a surgeon, they agreed it required surgery to resolve, and they commit to scheduling the operation within 3 months. We have a certain amount of say in the matter, and we've picked a date just before Lara breaks up for half term, so she can recuperate at home. She's to avoid exercise for 2 weeks after, and she'll only miss one ski lesson, although she will miss more skating sessions. It's only a day procedure, no overnight stay needed, and Lara gets to choose the smell they'll use to disguise the anaesthetic gas. She's agonising between candy cane and bubblegum at the moment...

Suuuperrrmann!

It happens to all kids at some time, and now Lara has taken to running around with her coat dangling from her head, pretending to be Superman. Not bad since she's never seen the film or comic book - the things they learn at nursery these days....

Writing of nursery, it's Lara's Parent's Evening tonight...

Dr Lara

More on the funny things Lara comes out with. This morning Olga was feeling under the weather with a cold, and when I told Lara this, she went up to Olga and said "Mama, are you sick? You should have some syrup if you're sick." Syrup is what we call nurofen and tixylix, and the concern in Lara's voice was just so touching. She seems to be very caring about others - one of the mums at nursery, who works here in our office with us, said she saw Lara and her friend Sophie running around a corner on the way to the toilets, and Lara knocked Sophie over by accident, but seemed really concerned about her, helping to pick Sophie up and asking "Are you OK? Are you OK?".
This week is Lara's last in the "Dolphins" room, from next week she'll move to the next room up - "Sealions". She's already been spending some time in there over the past few weeks, and doesn't seem phased by it, but the change from her keyworker of the past year or more, Emma, to her new keyworker, Catherine, might be a bit of a trauma. Recently Lara's wanted to take new toys to nursery "to show to Emma", so she's become quite attached.  Perhaps this change in one of the regular people in her life might be good practice for when Baba Luda leaves in a few weeks, which will be another shock to Lara, I'm sure.

Lara and the train

Sunday's party in Portishead went very well. The omens were good - we left the house on time, which is probably a first since Lara was born. The journey there from Reading was fine, Lara spent the first 20 minutes looking out of the window and telling me everytime she saw cows, horses, sheep and diggers - a result of her Bob the Builder fascination, we think.
As soon as she got bored of this, and restless, I broke out the food bag. From the amount of food I'd packed, you'd think I was going to be feeding everyone on the train. There was enough variety there to keep Lara occupied though, and without any great hassle we arrived at Nailsea & Backwell station.
The party passed without Lara performing any great hysterics, and Elizabeth was kind enough to let Lara blow out her candles (after Elizabeth had blown them out several times, I hasten to add), as well as play with all her toys, including her new trampoline, without any fights at all, which was a pleasant surprise!

My nephew William won the prize for pulling the cutest face on a photo though..

Lara slept in Auntie Cath's car on the way from the party to the station, but woke up before the train had left the platform, and stayed awake until Olga put her to bed at 10pm. Lucky for me Grandma gave us a Peppa Pig sticker book to play with, and that passed much of the journey home.

A quick trip to Radcliffe

I've popped up to Radcliffe this weekend with Lara to see Grandma and Grandpa and to give Olga a chance to get some things done at home in preparation for Luda's arrival.
It's also an exercise in seeing if I can get Lara to sleep in a bed other than her cot or a travel cot. Grandma has an inflatable child's bed that Olga took to Russia in January, and also a proper, wooden child's bed. Lara slept in the inflatable one last night, and is currently in the wooden bed tonight (assuming she hasn't got up and walked about, but I think I would have heard about that if she had!). It's actually been easier than I thought it would be, I assumed I'd be popping in to her room regularly to coax her back into bed, but that hasn't been the case. The poor lamb is really struggling with a cold and cough at the moment, but there's nothing that can be done about that other than doses of tixylix and nurofen.
Grandma has been able to entertain Lara, it seems one of them loves to do the washing up...

The little bossy boots

Lara continues to make us laugh with her personality. I was brushing her hair before bed the other night, not something that Dads are naturals at, I suspect.. if Lara's comment of "Oww, Papa, be gentle" was anything to go by. She's not quite worked out apologising yet, as she also has a habit of apologising to me when I brush a knot out of her hair (when I'm being gentle).
Then as I'm offering her her bedtime yoghurt, she wants to take the lid off (and ripping it - "Broken, Papa"), and hold the pot herself whilst scooping a huge spoonful into her mouth. After one messy spoonful, I'm allowed to help, but I receive the strict instruction: "Don't drop it, Papa. Not on the floor".
I had the day off on Wednesday to work on the fences in the back garden, and Olga took Lara to nursery. Now, there was a major tantrum a few weeks ago when I tried to take her coat off for her upon arrival in the Dolphins room, and she wanted to take it off, so we've learnt to let her do it in her own time.  On Wednesday one of the other girls in the room hadn't understood this rule, and came over to give Lara a big hug before Lara was quite ready, and poor Freya was put in her place with a withering look and a sharp "Taking my coat off!". As if this wasn't bad enough, Freya was shouting "Lara! Lara!" while waiting for Lara to slowly take her coat off, to which Lara's response was "Don't shout." accompanied by a look that said this was Freya's last warning. It is fascinating that Lara can match her facial expression with the tone in which she says what she needs to say, and those three things together means she gets her message across with no misunderstanding.
We've had to take one of her potties into nursery as yesterday she wouldn't let any of the other kids use the one she normally uses.
What kind of a madam have we got?
Then again she does have her lovely moments...

Lara Update

The little princess is fine now, and this week she's been sleeping better than ever - I hope that's not famous last words. She's not woken in the evenings at all this week, whereas normally we'd expect to have to go and give her water around 11pm. Then she's slept through the night without waking enough for us to have to check on her, and we've been having lie-ins as she's not been stirring until 7.30 or later. Yesterday she was happy to go back to bed while Olga had her shower, and then just to top off a good morning, she got full use out of the potty, if you get my meaning.
The potty training is a matter of perseverence, and there was a day at nursery earlier this week with six "accidents", but then yesterday there was only one, and today, three.
Conversations are getting longer, and she is definitely putting much thought into what he says. I'll try to remember some of the witty things she comes out with. Whether it's a good thing or not, I don't know, but should she let a little "bottom-burp" escape, and we ask if that was a "Lara trumpet", the reply is always "Nooo! Papa trumpet". False, but funny.

It's going to be a long night

Is insomnia a side effect of chickenpox? It's 3.15am on Monday morning, and Lara is watching a Winnie the Pooh DVD and eating toast in the lounge.
We had quite a long, tough day today. Lara got us both up around 6.45 this morning, which balances out her new personal best of 10.20am on Saturday morning. She probably would have gone past 10.20am, but we could hear she was stirring and we felt guilty that we were still in bed at that time! It was a lovely day, blue skies and relatively warm, and because we couldn't take Lara to a playground where there would be other kids, we just took her and the boys for a long walk close to where we live. It was 3pm before we got home, and so we didn't really achieve much around the house, which put some pressure on us for Sunday.
We'd decided it was time for a change around of furniture, so we emptied one cabinet in the lounge and moved it, and replaced it with our computer desk from the study, and then went and brought our sofa bed down and put that in the lounge too. It all looks great now, and I'm writing this post at the computer desk while Lara is watching her DVD. All this was achieved between reminding Lara to use the potty, changing her clothes when we didn't remind her in time, and coating her liberally in calamine lotion.  She didn't have a nap despite her early start, well, not until she fell asleep in her chair during her tea. That only lasted a minute or two, but is about the best quality sleep either of us will get tonight from the looks of things!
Olga got her into bed at 6pm, which is very early for Lara, but the peace and quiet would last 15 minutes at most before she'd cry for Mama. Olga was on duty until we tried convincing Lara to go to bed with Olga, around 10.30pm, but Lara was having none of that, and then I took over. I didn't have any more success, I could get her off to sleep for 10 or 15 minutes before I'd get the call to come and give her milk, or water, or just a cuddle. We watched the start of the Superbowl together, then I decided we'd compromise and I set myself up to sleep on Lara's floor. Lara alternated between wanting to sleep with me on the floor, and wanting to sleep in her bed, until 2.15am, when she wanted the potty. I didn't mind this at all, and Lara obliged, but since then, she's been alert and awake, not remotely sleepy. We watched the end of the Superbowl (New Orleans won) in her room, then I decided I wanted a cup of tea, and Lara wanted to watch Winnie. She really is very alert, and has just come bounding up to be, telling me she's finished her toast and could she have a wipe for her hands. At this rate I'll reckon we'll keep going till 6am, when we'll go and wake Mama, and Olga can take it from there. I might try to sneak an hour's sleep then! Olga is going to be "working from home" today with Lara, and maybe we're doing her a favour, I'm sure Lara will be having lengthy naps during the day!
Well, 3.30am now, only 2 and a half hours to go. I've got the sofa bed down here now, perhaps I should pull it out and see if Lara fancies a lie down!! It doesn't look like it. I'll research the side effects of anti-histamines and chickenpox instead...

PS - I managed to record her at 4am...


PPS - She conked out on the sofa at 4.45am! I'm giving her half an hour before I carry her up to her bed.

Phasing Out Nappies

 

Just before she went on holiday, we started Lara's potty training, quite casually though. While she was at Baba Luda's though, this intensified to the point where Lara could run around the flat in knickers and a t-shirt, and was very good at asking for the potty when it was time for a tinkle. She has got so good at it that today was the first day we sent her to nursery without a nappy on. There were nappies in her bag, just in case things got out of hand (or all over hands, as the case may be), along with many replacement knickers and tights, but the staff reported she was very good, with only one tinkling accident all day, and a couple of poops, but we're taking it very much one step at a time, and we're not bothered yet about the pooping (plus that's the staff's problem at nursery, after all, they're charging a fortune so we don't feel the slightist bit guilty if thay have to clean up after Lara). However, when it comes to tinkles, she's very good, and tells us when she needs the potty, and so far performs the necessary 95% of the time.  So, from now on it'll be nappies when we're out and about, and through the night, but when she's at home or at nursery, it's knickers and tights with easily-pulled down trousers, or skirts or a dress. And that's just me, boom boom. 

She's sleeping very well again, so far this week it's been after 7am when we've gone in to wake her, or she's just been stirring around then. She is waking in the night, but this seems to be mostly when she's dreaming, and we've just given her a few seconds while we listen to the monitor, and she's gone back to sleep on her own. She's gone back to having an hour's nap at nursery, but this might just be about her body getting back used to UK time, we don't expect that to continue.

She's getting very vocal, and can express herself really quite clearly when she wants to, although there are times when there is just a general wailing or crying, usually associated with pointing at whatever it is she wants that we won't let her have, or we don't understand what she needs. We have started asking her to tell us in words what she wants, and she's learning that this method gets results more quickly than her wailing and pointing. She's also very funny with the dogs, she knows when Jackson's done something wrong (we're still working on his potty training!) and she'll go up to him, wagging her index finger and saying "Naughty Jackson, Naughty!"

There'll be more potty updates in the next few months - I'm sure you'll all be desperate to keep up with her progress!!

More Nativity Pics

Here's an updated Nativity album, with some more pics taken today, and even a video. There's no sound on some of the video, which the more cynical of you might think is a relief!
There was a noticable domino effect today with the kids, when one started crying and was hauled off by a concerned parent, this tended to set another one off, who was then plucked from the floor.. Lara saw us early on - we were surprised and pleased how easy it was for her to pick us out in a crowded, darkened room - but didn't throw any tantrums and seemed to really enjoy the whole thing.

Playing in the park

Last Saturday we went to the park in Wycombe to play, some photos and a video have been uploaded to the "December 2009" album on the left of the blog...

Nativity Play 2009

It's that time of year again! Lara's theme this year is Santa, after being a snowflake last year. She seemed to really enjoy joining in with the singing and clapping, and didn't come rushing over when she saw me or Olga (it brought a lump to my throat when she saw me and climbed to her knees shouting "Paa-paa! Paa-paa!" and waving at me!).
Here are some photos, and one from last year for comparison :-)

Tree, Dva, Adeen.. Count!!

Lara's speech is improving day by day, she can recognise lots of things in her bedtime story books, she recognises the animals, can say what they are and what noise they make, and remembers how the story unfolds. At least this is the case with one of her "Spot the Dog" books, she shocked me one night when lifting up a flap and saying "Boo", when the image under the flap was Spot in the bath with a speech bubble saying "Boo"! For a microsecond I thought she'd read it, but of course she'd just learnt that that's what Spot says on that page of the book.
She's starting to string words together more, so we hear much more of "My coat", "My hat" etc.. rather than "mine!" and "coat". The current excitement is based on counting, and in the car on the way to nursery each morning she practises counting with Olga - in Russian, just to make it more interesting. I practise with her in English when it's my turn to put her to bed, or at any other time when it's just the two of us. Lara is confident with adeen (1), she loves dva (2) and tree (3), she struggles with chet-eer-re-yeh (4) quite understandably, but enjoys p'yet (5). We're working on 6 to 10, which she copes with quite well, except for vo-sem (8) for some reason, which so far this week has come out as "mornin'". For anyone who wants to practise, here is my phonetic version:
6 - shest
7 - sem
8 - vo-sem
9 - dyay-vit
10 - dyay-sit

Other funny behaviour we're seeing - she's using different tones now, she has different ways of saying "Misha!" and "Jack-jack!" when she's telling them to leave the room (Misha Out!) from when she's wanting to give them one of their toys ("Meeeshah"). She has started ordering us about - we've both been on the receiving end of "Mama, out!" and "Papa, out!", accompanied with a pointed finger towards the door. Once I've been told "Papa, sit!" when I got up from the dinner table. We've dispensed with her high chair now, so she sits on a booster chair at our new, smaller dining table. Hopefully this will help her at nursery, where the staff report that she has a habit of getting up from the table at mealtimes and wandering around, which can set of the other children off wanting to do the same. We think this is where she got the "Papa, sit" command from!

One final thing - happy birthday for yesterday to Olga's mum, and enjoy your reitrement when it finally starts!

A Trip to the Vet

Jackson had his 6-month free check-up this morning, Simon The Friendly Vet gave him a clean bill of health. He's raced up to 8.1kg now, from 5.something back at the start of October, we know there's nothing wrong with his appetite, he normally finishes off Mishka's left over food after he's eaten his own!
He had a rabies shot, which (along with being microchipped, which we had done while he was sedated to have his poorly leg fixed in September) is the first stage of getting him his Pet Passport. In three weeks we'll take him back and he'll have a blood test; if everything is OK, then he'll get his Passport and we can take him to Europe :-)
As usual, we took the opportunity to weigh Lara, and she's now 12.8kg, up from 11.75kg on the 9th September.

A walk in the woods

We met up with our friends Ed & Lizzie and their daughter Hannah today for a walk in the local woods. It was nice to be able to let Jackson off the lead and still keep him under control, he came back when called, even when we encountered other dogs. If only Mishka would watch and learn! We still keep him on the lead all the time, otherwise we'd spend most of the time on the walk chasing after him.
Lara and Hannah played nicely back at Ed & Lizzie's house, it was all too much for Hannah, who went for a nap while the grown ups had a spot of lunch. Lara couldn't decide if she wanted to eat Ed's lovely fish pie or play with Hannah's toys, but thanks to you guys for a lovely lunch!
I've put some photos in the "New Uploads" album to the left of the blog, seeing as I'd not updated this for a couple of months!

Whoosh, and a week flies by

Wow, how quick has the last 10 days flown by? Last week was a pretty normal week; we're learning that Lara isn't a breakfast-person, we've stopped giving her anything at all before she gets to nursery, and even then she's eating anywhere between 20% and all her breakfast there. One thing is consistent though - she's hungry by lunchtime, when she always has second helpings. We've tried changing her cereal, and at the moment Shreddies or Cheerios are favoured over Weetabix or porridge.
The other excitement is that we bought her first bike last week. We've not given it to her yet, it's hiding in the garage, as we went up to Radcliffe at the weekend, but if the weather is OK this coming weekend, we'll take her to the park and see how she gets on. As a token, we did let her try on her helmet - she doesn't know why she has it yet though!

And here's the bike... sssshh, don't tell Lara!