Eleni's New Bed

Hello!

Hopefully by now you're all slowly waking up from your holiday food hangovers. But if you're anything like me, just when you're starting to feel human again after filling your face with everything in sight, you see something else that looks delicious and you attack it like you've been stranded in the Sahara desert for weeks. Then you end up right back at the beginning...lying on the couch, sweating, feeling like an over-stuffed pig and asking yourself, "why, Why, WHY!!??!!" 

This is followed by a very serious pep talk..."Next time you're going to remember how horrible this feels and you WILL use some self control"...which of course will inevitably fail and you will end up lying on the couch again, suffering and hating yourself for having absolutely no concept of self control.

God I love the holidays!!!

Seriously though, Christmas was really good this year. It was the first Christmas I've had in Molyvos where I didn't feel so homesick that I was just waiting for all of it to be over. I still felt a little homesick of course but it was much easier to deal with this year, thanks to Eleni. Being only 4 months old, obviously none of it made any sense to her at all and it was all just like any other day but I still had so much fun telling her that Santa was coming and singing Christmas songs to her. Watching her open presents was really cute too. Her hand coordination has gotten really good over the last month so when we showed her how to tear the wrapping paper off of presents....I'm pretty sure if she could talk she would say that that was the funnest thing she's ever done in her entire life! What was in the paper, she couldn't have cared less about, but ripping up the paper was just so awesome and then trying to put the paper in her mouth...and even succeeding sometimes when Mommy and Baba weren't paying attention...yeah I would say she's already counting down the days til next Christmas.

And we get to do it all over again tomorrow and January 1st because it's now officially Greek Christmas YAY!! 

Christmas and New Years as we know it is reversed in Greece...sort of. Christmas here is celebrated more like New Years and New Years is like our Christmas. Are you confused yet? So on  December 24th and 25th they still get together with family and friends and have a big feast but you don't give out presents. Some people do but Antonis tells me that that's only something that's started happening in recent generations because of...well...us. Westernization basically. Anyway, the traditional December 24th and 25th involves eating a lot of food and going out and drinking way to much with your friends. December 31st is when Saint Vasilis (Greek Santa Claus) visits and leaves presents for everyone, and January 1st is like our Christmas morning. You wake up, open presents and start eating. And you eat and eat and eat until...well we've already talked about that.

So tomorrow is New Years Eve and it's also kind of like Christmas Eve over here. For Antonis and I, we'll be celebrating like it's New Years Eve...hopefully. That's the plan anyway, I'll let you know what happens because we don't have any solid plans yet. All I know is Eleni will be having her first sleep over with Yiayia and Papous. And yes, Mommy is freaking out a little. It won't be a full over-night though, we'll be picking her up when we come home from whatever it is we end up doing but anyway...getting back to my point. Tomorrow we'll do the usual New Years Eve stuff and on January 1st we'll go to his parent's house for a big holiday lunch and we're going to eat way too much while Eleni rips up more wrapping paper and ignores the presents inside of it. It should be fun! 

It's getting a bit late here so I'll move on to talking about what I had originally planned. I always do that! I have a basic idea of something I want to tell you about and then suddenly I find myself writing a freaking novel about everything else other than the thing I wanted to talk about originally!! I don't know how that happens but anyway.....

So, the thing I wanted to tell you about...or actually I just want to show it to you...is Eleni's new bed!!

Finally she's moving out of her bassinet and into her "big girl bed." Technically it's not a big girl bed since it's a crib but she gets so excited when we call it her "big girl bed" so that's what it is now. Anyway, I want to give a massive thank you to my parents and my Aunt Joan for sending us the money to buy it. We are sooooo thankful and so is Eleni because she absolutely LOVES her new bed. We also had enough left over to buy a new "big girl car seat" which I don't have a picture of but I promise I'll get one. So, thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU!!! We love you, you're the best!!

So here's the crib we picked out...

 As you can see, it's in our bedroom. I still feel like she's too small to be in her own room....oh wait, we don't even have a bedroom for her!! How could I forget?! Or actually we have a room for her...if you remember, it was the room I was desperately trying to fix up for her while I was pregnant...but it was never finished and is still an ugly storage room. Right! That's why we're all sleeping like sardines in a tin can!

Ok, I'm joking...but only a little bit.

I do actually think she's still too young to be in her own bedroom

But I'm also SUPER ANNOYED that the room that I had planned to have ready for her at least 1 month before she was due, is still a huge mess and nowhere near looking like a baby's bedroom. 

In fact, we're still waiting for the carpenter to build the change table we ordered in August! 

But anyway, I'm not going to talk about that anymore because I'm just going to get pissed off...and I ran out of wine so...moving on

Oh, before I move on...please excuse my messy bedroom! 

I had to hang the laundry up inside because it was too windy outside again...and I still can't face my neighbour since the last windstorm when my nickers ended up in her orange tree so this is my solution

The very cute mobile my parents brought over for Eleni. Finally we can use it! And Eleni already loves it!

Cuuuute! And it also has a drawer on the bottom which is nice. We need all the extra storage we can get!

And this is what Eleni looks like as of about 30 seconds ago. I know, I know, why isn't she sleeping in the new crib? She loves the crib...she loves waking up in it, sitting in it, playing in it while I brush my teeth or get dressed or whatever...but she doesn't love being put down in it until she's so totally asleep the she doesn't notice she's being put into bed. It's not the crib's fault, she's always been like this. So she falls asleep in the relax chair and then when she's totally asleep, I carry her into bed. 

I know. I'm spoiling her. I need to fix this sooner rather than later. 

Meh, it'll be a new year's resolution I guess.

Here's a picture of our tree lit up. 

The other pictures where during the day and a Christmas tree just isn't in all it's glory until it's dark and the Christmas lights are on

And this is a really sweet ornament my Mom sent over. It's a baby's first Christmas ornament. 

It says "Love at first sight!"

So true!

Ok I better stop rambling on now and get some sleep so I can actually bring in the new year tomorrow night with my eyes open.

Happy New Year everybody!! 

I wish you all the absolute best of the best in 2013!

Talk to you next year!

Merry Christmas

Don't Mess with Mommy

Hey guys,

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Things have been busy busy busy around here and I've been so exhausted at the end of the day that most of the time I don't even have the energy to pick up my wine glass...Yeah. It's that serious.

I can't remember what happened last week which means it was probably nothing important to catch you up on, so I'll just skip ahead to this week.

Unfortunately Papous wasn't feeling very well again. So Monday my parents in law took him to the doctor to get checked out and the doctor said to immediately go to the hospital. It's his heart again so to hear that he went straight from the doctor's office to the hospital was a bit scary. He's totally fine and back home again now but he stayed at the hospital from Monday until today so the doctor's could monitor him and make sure there wasn't anything serious going on. I've asked a few times what the problem was and I've just been told he had water on his heart....I've never heard of such a thing but then again I've never known a 90-something year old man with a pacemaker so I just took it as that and didn't ask anymore questions. My mother in law was of course the most worried out of everyone so she stayed with him in the hospital. She slept on a chair beside his bed for nearly an entire week! I really don't know how she did it but she called today to check on Eleni and she said she was fine. I asked her if she was tired and she said "No no no, I'm fiiiiine"....how is that even possible? I'd be comatose for at least 2 days. She's either super human or she's lying. My guess is she's lying but not in the bad way, just in the way that she doesn't want anybody to make a big deal out of the massive sacrifice she just made to be there for her Dad. So we won't tell her this but I think we should all give her a little nod of respect for being amazing.

Since Olympia was in Mytilini with Papous that meant Antonis and Lefteris were opening the restaurant every morning at 9am. That doesn't sound like such a big deal but when they're just closing up at about 2am, 9am arrives way too soon. And since Antonis has been leaving for work early in the morning, that means I've been doing double duty in the Mommy department. 

Needless to say, we all have massive dark circles under our eyes and any one of us could snap any second. I did snap actually, but I'll tell you about that in a minute.

Anyway, we're all fine and healthy so that's the most important thing.

Speaking of health, Antonis and I took Eleni to the doctor on Monday as well. She'd been really fussy and just not her usual happy self so I thought something had to be wrong. On top of that, she kept rubbing her right ear so I was kind of worried she had an ear infection. Either that or we're beginning the teething phase. Lovely!

Our usual doctor wasn't on duty on Monday so unfortunately we had to see The Nursing Nazi. I can't stand this woman. She's rude, she's not good with Eleni and all she ever wants to do is talk about is breast feeding. Unfortunately (to use that word for the 500th time) I haven't been breast feeding Eleni for about 2 weeks now. Just after 3 months she started refusing to nurse and unfortunately (501 times) my breast pump decided to stop working at exactly that time so I couldn't even pump bottles of breast milk for her. So we made the switch to formula, which I absolutely hated doing and I cried for 3 days. I know it's not the end of the world, I know plenty of very healthy babies who were formula fed and I absolutely don't judge anyone that chooses formula over breast milk, but I really thought I'd be able to feed her to at least 6 months, maybe even a year. So I had a very hard time dealing with this. Eleni on the other hand is perfectly happy SO, life goes on. Anyway, when The Nursing Nazi found out about this she just couldn't let it go. "Oh what a shame this baby isn't being breast fed. You have to do what's better for the baby and the bottle is never better. You have to try! You have to try!"........

Seriously? As if I didn't feel bad enough already and then I have this evil bitch making me feel worse. So I did what any level headed person would do in my situation. I stuck my finger in her face and ripped her apart! "Of course I tried! I tried everything I possibly could try and it didn't work! I didn't want this! I didn't ask for this! But this is how it is and I'm dealing with it the best way I can! I'M DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN! And how dare you even for a SECOND think you can put me or any other woman down about giving formula to their baby! HOW DARE YOU! A good doctor would be supportive and understanding in this situation! Now do your job properly and look in my daughter's ear so we can get the F*@% out of here!"......

I think Antonis was a little worried we were going to get thrown out thanks to my sudden hostility but he stepped back and let me do it anyway. He's a good husband like that. And besides, she totally deserved it and I don't even feel a little bit guilty about it. But unfortunately (502) I think I might have rattled her a little too much because after she checked Eleni out she told us what we needed to do to take care of her nose.....idiot.

We left. There just wasn't any point after that. We had an appointment for Wednesday with our regular doctor anyway so we just packed Eleni up and went home. When we saw Eleni's doctor on Wednesday I told her that I've had to switch over to formula....she said, "That's ok. Don't worry about it, you've done very well."

I love her.

She said Eleni's ear is totally fine, there's no infection so it's possible that she's starting to teethe a little early or she's just been feeling fussy and the rubbing the ear is just her funny little habit. We'll have to wait in see but it was good to know that she's perfectly healthy.

Other than all the health stuff going on we put our Christmas tree up finally!!! And just as I'm typing that I'm realizing I haven't even taken a picture of it yet. I'll do that tomorrow so you can see it. Eleni loves it! She's amazed by anything sparkly. Her future husband better have a good job to support her obsession with sparkly things. 

I also somehow found time to bake some Christmas cookies. The house smells like Christmas so I'm finally in the holiday spirit. Now if only we could get some snow......

Well, I'm done for the day. I can't even be bothered to edit this post so hopefully you all manage to wade through the typos and run-on sentences and various other grammatical errors. 

Here's some pictures from  this week

 Eleni with her Papous in the restaurant. I nearly snapped this day as well. This stupid woman thought it was a good idea to dip Eleni's soother in honey and give it to her. I kept it together though and instead gave that woman a good healthy dose of passive aggressive snobbery. 

She won't be doing that again.

This is from last night when Antonis got home from work. 

Miss Eleni decided it was playtime instead of bedtime.

We shouldn't have done it but we allowed it just this once...she's just too darn cute to say no to! 

When Antonis sat her like this on his leg I started killing myself laughing because she looked like she was driving a motorbike. 

Ohhhhhh how easy it is to amuse the sleep deprived.

Eleni got to sit in her 'big girl chair' for the first time today! She thought it was pretty cool. 

Here's a little video of it...she's so serious when she's trying new things 

The Frog

I think it's finally time to tell you about the frog....

When I was 23 I started having this reoccurring dream about a little girl and her little stuffed frog. It was always the same dream: a little girl about 3 or 4 years old, skipping around the room, happily humming to herself, holding onto a stuffed frog.

She never said anything to me and I never said anything to her. I'd just watch her skip and listen to her hum the same song again and again.

She had brown hair that was just a little bit curly on the ends and the curls would bounce with every skip. She had brown eyes and olive skin. So cute. So happy. So perfect...but then every parent thinks their child is perfect right?

I really don't know why I always had the feeling that she was mine since we never interacted with each other at all, but there was a definite feeling that this was my little girl.

Of course at 23 years old....I panicked. After the first 2 or 3 dreams I started thinking "Oh my god, am I about to get pregnant??!" I was pretty settled at the time: I had a good job, owned my own house and car, had the same boyfriend for years. Even though I was in a good position to have a baby, I totally wasn't ready.

So yes, I panicked. No, I more than panicked. I totally lost my shit. And I couldn't even tell anyone about it because they'd just think I was crazy. Why would anyone believe that I was dreaming about my future child? What was I going to do, just casually bring it up during Friday night drinks? "So how was your week?" "Oh ya know, the usual. Work was good, I finally painted the shelves in the pantry, I couldn't BELIEVE who got kicked off of Survivor this week. Oh, and I saw my future 4 year old child".....um, no. That wouldn't have gone over well. They probably would have blamed it on the Friday night drinks and staged an intervention right then and there.

So instead, I did what any normal minded person would do. I started analyzing it. After channeling my inner Freud my conclusion was, "She can't be mine. She has dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin." I have brown hair but it's not particularly dark, my eyes are green and my skin is pretty pale. My then boyfriend: blond hair, blue eyes. "It's just a stupid dream Tara. Calm down."

So I calmed down.

But the dreams didn't.

At least once every couple of months I could count on a visit from the little girl with the stuffed frog.

Eventually the blond haired, blue eyed boyfriend and I broke up, and the next boyfriend: red hair, blue eyes. Nope. Still doesn't fit. But why was still having this dream?

When I was 27 I applied for a semester abroad through my university and was accepted. I was on my way to Greece! What was I studying? Byzantine somethingorother?....whatever, it was basically a holiday with a bit of mandatory reading and a lot of sleeping off hangovers on the beach. THE best summer of my life but anyway, that's another story for another time. During my 2 months in Greece living like a Bohemian (my Aunt's words, not mine...I'm still not sure what it means but it's probably not very complimentary) I met Antonis. Ohhh Antoni. It was a whirlwind summer romance and  I fell madly in love with this crazy Greek man. But we all know how summer romances end. They end. As much as I didn't want that to happen I couldn't see how it could possibly work. But I didn't care, I ignored that thought and carried on with my crazy Greek man. In August I came back to Canada but Antonis and I had decided that we'd stay together and I'd come back that December for a visit.

I didn't see the little girl with the frog all summer. Actually, for the first time in 4 years I'd forgotten about her.

Back in Vancouver one October morning I woke up suddenly from a dream, completely covered in sweat and nearly hyperventilating. In the dream Antonis and I were sitting on his couch in his living room, watching a soccer game. The game was very vivid in the dream, which didn't make sense at the time because I couldn't care less about soccer. Anyway, one of the teams wore green shirts with a four-leaf clover on it. All of a sudden....I heard the humming....then I heard the little skipping feet....then suddenly there she was, skipping and humming around the couch with her little stuffed frog. She stopped in front of Antonis, crawled up into his lap, grabbed his face between her little hands and said "I love you Daddy." And he said, "I love you too kouklitsa" and he gave her a kiss on her forehead.

When I'd finally recovered a bit I started analyzing. It can't be....could it? She has dark hair like him. She has dark eyes like him. She has dark skin like him. And actually, she really looks like him.

I was totally stunned. I didn't know what to think, I was freaking out, I was confused, but also kind of happy because finally I might know what these dreams were all about. Maybe. But I still told myself, it's just a stupid dream Tara. Calm down.

I talked to Antonis all the time but I didn't tell him anything about the dreams. How could I? He'd think I was insane. But I couldn't hold it in anymore, I had to talk it over with someone. So I told a few of my friends who had been to Greece with me and knew Antonis. Thankfully, they didn't try to put me in a mental hospital or stage an intervention. Actually they all reacted really positively. And after telling them, I finally started to think that maybe the dreams were true.

In December I came back to Greece, realized I was still totally madly in love with the crazy Greek man, and he was with me, so we had The Marriage Talk. The Marriage Talk went on for a few days and one of these days I decided to tell him about the dreams. I was totally freaked out about how he was going to react but for some reason I needed to know how he'd react.

So I told him.

He was quiet for a VERY long time.

Then he said, "Who was playing?"

Excuse me, what now? Was he not even listening to what I just said?! So I said, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHO WAS PLAYING??!!"

"The football teams. Who was playing?"

"I don't know, I don't watch football, I don't know anything about it!" and I was so totally pissed off that he'd ask me that since it clearly had nothing to do with what I was telling him. Then I remembered the green shirts and the four-leaf clover emblem, so I told him that.

His mouth dropped. "That's Panathanaikos! How did you know about Panathanaikos?!"

"Panathawhat? What the hell is that?"

He explained that Panathanikos is one of the most popular soccer teams in Greece, which I now know very well but didn't have even a clue about at that time.

After that he said something like "well I guess we're having a baby!" and I said something like "NOT RIGHT NOW, ARE YOU INSANE?!?!" I still find it funny that after months of not wanting to say anything to him because I was afraid he'd think I was insane, and the conversation ended with me calling HIM insane....

After that day I still had dreams about the little girl with the stuffed frog...our little girl with the stuffed frog...but now I would see her at all different ages, in different settings, and she would talk to me. She'd talk to everyone actually, she never stopped talking! Sometimes we were sitting at the restaurant eating dinner, her as a baby in a high chair getting mushy food all over her face and in her hair. Sometimes she was twirling around the room in a pink tutu telling me all about what happened in ballet class that day. But wherever and whatever was happening, she still always had the little stuffed frog with her. The morning after every dream I would wake up and tell Antonis what she was doing the night before and he would listen and smile and then crack some joke or another about it to make us both feel a little less insane.

So now our beautiful little girl is here! She can't hum or skip yet, but her hair is definitely brown, her eyes are green right now but they're getting darker all the time and might be brown eventually, her skin isn't that dark but it will be darker than mine. And she looks like him.

Oh. And she has the little stuffed frog.

Mr. Frog is her favourite. He was a present from my mom....who didn't know anything about him or this story until right now.

Just Hanging Out...

Ok, just as I was typing 'Just Hangin' Out' and about to say how nothing much is going on around here these days...Antonis nearly burns the house down.

We're fine. The house is fine. Everything is totally fine. Except for maybe Antonis ego.

I've been telling him for weeks not to use gas to light the wood stove (it's not gas, it's a alcohol based cleaning fluid that's flammable but same idea)...anyway.

I told you so.

SO...I better go outside and see if my door mat is on fire

http://youtu.be/_VUY_gvSdKY

Baby Jeggings

For those of you who don't know, Jeggings are a cross between leggings and jeans. I've been a firm believer that there should be a law against wearing them for no other reason than I think they're ugly and stupid. If you want to wear jeans, wear jeans. If you want to wear leggings, wear leggings. But when you put them both together, you might as well give up on the day...unless you were going for the 'cafeteria lady from 1984' look. Remember stirrup pants? I don't know why but I associate jeggings with stirrup pants. I suspect I'm repressing some sort of traumatic memory of a stirrup jegging but I'm not sure.  

I'll apologize now because I know I've offended most of you. But don't feel too bad because right now I'm wearing a hoody that could fit a walrus and my pajama bottoms refuse to cover my butt crack. So clearly I'm no fashionista. 

But today I realized that maybe I shouldn't be so harsh on jeggings. In fact...dear jeggings...you have become one of the single most adorable pieces of leg-wear I have ever seen.

Allow me to introduce

THE BABY JEGGING

"Look at me in my first pair of jeans..."

"Oh but wait a minute...."

"bet you can't do THIS in your jeans!"

"And I bet you don't look this good in your leggings" 

'Nuf said!

The Show Must Go On

Hello! Finally!

I decided the $2.50/month was worth it to keep up the blog. There were probably other ways to get around this but I have too little time in the day to figure any of that out, so I'll do this for a month and see how it goes.

So what's new?

It's been a busy couple of weeks!

I'll try to get through this quick because Eleni's probably going to wake up soon and if the last week or so is any indication as to what's about happen next......she'll be screaming her head off.

Colic. Do you know what colic is? Apparently no one really does. In a nutshell: your baby screams bloody murder for forever (not literally forever...depends on the baby but for us it tends to be 3-4 hours...which is FOREVER!). You think there's something seriously wrong with her but there isn't, until finally she'll stop and why she stopped is just as much of a mystery as why she started in the first place. 

It's a delight.

Oh, and mommy usually starts crying somewhere around the 2 1/2 hour mark which really doesn't seem to help the situation. But hey, you gotta try everything.

Other than the colic, she also got her first vaccine on Monday. For that...she laughed. My child may be slightly confused about how to express emotion. Good thing mommy has a psychology degree...too bad we can't start working on that now and figure out this whole colic situation. Meh, c'est la vie!

Around the house we're setting ourselves up for a winter of paying less bills (hopefully). We just had a wood stove put in. 

The Pros for the wood stove: cheaper heat for the winter, it's cozy and snuggly and lovely, there's a separate compartment that we can cook in so that means pizzas that will blow your mind, and it smells like Grandma and Papa's house.

The Cons for the wood stove: it doesn't work properly. 

I'm not sure what happened but somewhere in the installation process something went wrong so now when we light a fire, smoke pours out of every little nook and cranny it can find.....even though there shouldn't be any nooks or cranny's but somehow there is and for some reason the guy who installed it was really annoyed when I said that. Whatever dude. Fix my damn stove. I want pizza.

So hopefully that gets sorted out soon because it's actually starting to get a little chilly at night. 

Yes, it does get chilly in Greece.

At least it does where we live.

We're also getting a new solar panel for our hot water tank.This wasn't actually a decision we made. Last week Antonis and Eleni were watching tv, I was washing the dishes when all of a sudden we heard a massive  CRACK! and then all this water was gushing out of somewhere....(I thought my water broke again OH NO SHE DIDN'T! I did. I went there. And for that I apologize.) Anyway, it turns out our old solar panel, that never worked properly but our landlord refused to replace, just spontaneously exploded. Or something like that. We didn't actually see what happened but I think Antonis must have been thinking about our old crappy solar panel during his daily prayer session....and he was answered. I don't pray...I'm not particularly religious...but this guy's either on to something or he's just a lucky bastard because somehow stuff like that always seems to happen around here. Anyway, a new solar panel is on the way and we will be having luxuriously long, hot showers at a fraction of the cost. And feeling good about our environmental footprint as well!

And finally, we're growing a vegetable garden! A friend of ours has some land that wasn't being used so after a few beers and a lot of stupid ideas as to what to do with it, we all agreed that we should try out our green thumbs and make a garden. If everything goes according to plan it should support 3 households and the restaurant. 

As soon as the garden starts to look green and gorgeous I'll take some pictures...right now it's just a dirt patch. Also, when the wood stove is fixed I'll show you what it looks like too. Do you care about the solar panel? Should I take a photo of that too? They're not that interesting but if I find some spare time I'll do it....I'll have to fight off a gang of wild street cats to get to it so if I do put up a pic of the solar panel, you'll know it's because I like you a whole lot. 

Eleni's waking up so I have to run but here are some pictures of Eleni's bath time. She LOVES bath time!

The strategically placed warm cloth acts both as a boobie warmer and a boobie hider so Eleni doesn't disown me when she accidentally stumbles across this blog at 15 years old. 

Actually I'm lying. It's just to keep her warm.

Baby boobies are cute, so deal with it 15 year old Eleni.

We're having a very serious conversation here. 

It went like this:

 Mommy: "Did you just wee in the water?"

Eleni: Smiled and laughed

"Whatcha doin' Auntie Nicci?

Takin' pictures of me?...."

"Well take this! Pfffffffft!"

"Fine. You can take a picture of my usual, irresistibly adorable-ness" 

"I'm bored of this." 

This is what Eleni looks like while she's kicking her feet and getting everything and everyone soaked.

So serious.

She clearly does it on purpose.

And now, snuggly, cuddly, kissy, after bath time

Kalinikta!

UGH! HELP!

We have a HUGE problem!

Apparently I've used up all my free storage space and Blogger won't let me upload anymore pictures without paying a monthly fee.

Major sad face!

Does anyone know how to get around this? It's not that expensive but still....

And I have all these super cute bath time pictures to show you too!!!

UGGGHHHH! I can't catch a technological break like EVER can I?

If you have any info or even just ideas please leave a comment or message me on facebook or email me, or you can call me if you have my number, you could try to skype but I never leave it on anymore....does anyone write letters anymore? Don't write a letter, this will either be sorted out by the time it gets here or I'll have finally chucked my laptop over the balcony like I've been threatening for the last 6 months.

Please help! I'm devastated!

xoxo

Play Time

We're playing up a storm over here!

More specifically we've been spending a lot more time playing, but we've also had 2 days of pretty heavy storms...thanks to the storms I don't have any pictures for this blog post because as I was uploading them the power went out and now they're lost. I always erase the pictures from the memory card after uploading because I tend to take just a couple of pictures then put them on the computer for the blog, so there's no sense in keeping them on the memory card just to upload them 1000 times....but it would have been nice if I'd thought "hey, there's a storm out there today and a good chance the power's going to go out. Maybe I shouldn't click the 'erase after uploading' box today, just in case"....of course I didn't. And of course, with my luck with technology, they're gone.

Not a big deal though, it was just 3 pictures and a small video so I'll try to take them again soon. As for today though, you're stuck reading my ramblings without pictures. Those of you who come to the blog to strictly look at pictures and ignore my cheesy jokes and over the top bragging about my perfect child, you might as well continue on with your day now because I've got nothin' for ya.

Those of you who are still with me....

LET THE BRAGGING BEGIN!

Eleni's hand-eye coordination has really advanced this week and it's been so much fun watching her discover it. Actually, the hand-eye coordination isn't quite as good as the foot-eye coordination at the moment but I'm not sure that's even a term. I guess this falls under the category of motor skills? I'm not exactly sure, ask me tomorrow if I've managed to get some sleep. Yesterday was a bit of a rough day and night so forgive me if I'm writing complete gibberish today.

Anyway, she's really been enjoying kicking the crap out of a few of her toys lately. She has one in particular that if I translate it exactly from Greek to English it's called a floor gymnasium....but gymnasium gives the impression that it's an enormous contraption that's far too dangerous for a 2 month old. Really it's a mat with a bar that has some toys hanging off of it. It's jungle themed! (Are you excited? In case you couldn't tell, I am! Who doesn't love a good jungle theme?!)

So she lays on her back on the mat and there are 3 toys hanging from the bar that she can play with: an elephant with a mirror on its belly, which has been a big hit for about 3 weeks now, a lion and a penguin with rolling ball for a belly that when it's rolled it plays music....don't ask me how a penguin fits into a jungle theme but apparently in Greece it's totally normal for penguins to be running around with lions and elephants and monkeys. Anyway, Eleni's figured out that if she kicks the penguin she can make it play music. Mommy and Baba are so proud!! And slightly deaf now, but that's ok....

As for hand-eye coordination, she's started shaking her rattles this week! For weeks she's been holding on to them...with a death grip actually...but making them rattle would just happen randomly when she'd wave her arms around. It surprised her a few times when she heard them make a sound but now she's figured out that SHE made it make that sound. So she shakes the heck out of them with a giant smile on her face. Again, Mommy and Baba couldn't be more proud!! But if only I could stop the ringing in my ears....

We can tell that her eye sight has improved tremendously too because she stares at anything that's really colourful now. Especially anything with the colour red, which Baba is over the moon about because his favourite soccer team's colour is red...so of course this means she's an Olympiacos fan just like her Dad.

Right.

She's also discovered the tv. This is hilarious actually. She'll sit on your knee and stare intently at the tv for as long as we let her. She's totally amazed by it! And of course Baba again sees this as evidence that she's an Olympiacos fan because she's now officially managed to watch more games than Mommy ever has. She even got excited over a goal which of course totally wasn't a coincidence at all.....

We're still playing all the usual games like peek-a-boo, horsie, 'beeping' her nose etc, but now she's so much more vocal when she gets excited which is really cool. She coo's and oooh's and sometimes she even shrieks. She still hasn't figured out that she can laugh yet but she's so close that it should be anytime now. Beeping her nose is a particular favourite. It gets the cutest response so of course that means her nose gets 'beeped' probably 500 times a day. Even when other people touch her nose I say "beep beep". I can be across the room but I'll still yell out a "beep beep" without shame. Poor little thing will come running to me one day and say "Mommy, Mommy I think my nose is broken! I touched it and it didn't beep!".....but she'll probably be about 15 by then so I'm sure she'll get over it.

So that's what's new with us!

Bye!

Great Great Grandma's Sweater

Happy Halloween everyone!

I hope you're all having a great time stuffing your faces with candy and getting creative with pumpkins! And ladies, please try to get creative with your costumes too. One of my all time biggest pet peeves is when girls use Halloween as an excuse to walk out their front door wearing lingerie. Adding a pair of cat ears or devil horns doesn't mean you're wearing a costume. It means that you're dressed like a trollop and you have bad taste in accessories. 

Just saying...

Ok that was kind of harsh and I apologize. But I really do appreciate it when a little thought and creativity goes into a costume. It's been a while since I've been able to celebrate Halloween, but the last time I did I dressed up as The Paper Bag Princess. I love this story! It's a kids book by Robert Munsch about a Princess who plans to marry the perfect Prince Ronald. But a dragon drops in, destroys her kingdom, kidnaps the Prince and burns all her clothes forcing her to wear a paper bag. Long story short the princess sets out to rescue the prince from the evil dragon (you go girl!) but the douchebag prince is pissed that she's wearing a paper bag and looks like crap. So she dumps him and walks off into the sunset to live her life as a happy, independent woman. Here's a picture of my Paper Bag Princess costume:

That was a fun night. But I couldn't believe it when I ran into about 8 other Paper Bag Princesses that night....all of which had somehow managed to cut and tape together 'sexy' paper bag dresses, and had perfect hair and make-up. Did they even read the book?!?! Clearly not. I did feel a little sorry for them later on that night when it started pouring down rain. I'm sure their paper bags disintegrated and they all had to walk home in their underwear. I brilliantly thought ahead and completely waterproofed my paper bag with packing tape. 

But then again maybe they did think ahead since 85% women were dressed up in their underwear anyway....they probably had cat ears or devil horns in their purses just in case...

Anyhoo, tonight was a big night for me. 

I went to yoga!

That means I had to be away from Eleni for the first time ever. It was hard, but I did it. 

The class started at 7pm so I asked Yia yia to come over at 6:30 so I could show her where to find everything and what time to give Eleni her bottle etc. She of course arrived at 6:20, which if you know Greek people this is hilarious. Greeks are always late. ALWAYS! But when it involves their grandkids, they show up 10 minutes early and catch you in your kitchen, in your underwear, eating nutella straight out of the container. 

Or something like that.

So anyway, Eleni had her first babysitter and Mommy had her first time away. It went alright. The class was great, it was nice to see everyone and it felt great to stretch everything out. I did notice that by the end of the class though I couldn't concentrate anymore because I kept wondering if everything was ok back at the house. When I got back to the house Popou was here too and Eleni was wide awake and crying her eyes out. They of course assured me, with the biggest smiles on their faces, that everything was fine. And it was fine, it was just that they didn't know her bedtime routine and Eleni is not a fan of straying from the routine. I did try to explain the routine to Olympia before I left but she just kept saying "don't worry about it Tara, don't worry about it"...I wasn't worried. I was just trying to tell her what to do so Eleni wouldn't be wide awake and crying her eyes out when I came home. Maybe next time things will go a little more smoothly. But overall I was proud of myself for not having a panic attack and leaving yoga early because I'd imagined every possible thing that could go wrong while I was out. 

Here are some pictures from 2 days ago of Eleni wearing a sweater that her great great grandma Mabel made. Grandma Mabel passed away quite a few years ago now but my great aunt Lowie was cleaning out a closet this summer and found this baby sweater that grandma must have made forever ago. How crazy is that?! So she sent it along with my mom and dad when they came to visit. I'm so happy that Eleni gets to wear a Grandma Mabel Original just like everyone else in the McClure clan has. 

You'll notice that she's crying in every one of these pictures. I swear I didn't do anything to her, she just really hates it when people try to take pictures of her...but even her pissed-off face is cute as a button!

Actually she's not crying in this one...this must have been the first picture I guess

I love this little hat on her...she however, is not a big fan of hats. Hats and cameras. And breaking her routine. And beards. What can I say, the girl knows what she likes and won't put up with anything else. I have no idea where she gets that from....

Aren't we done yet Mom?? I'm so mad that I'm going to kick my feet so hard that my socks fall off! That's another thing she doesn't like...socks...

Then I thought if I could get her into a different chair maybe she'd forget she was upset about getting her picture taken...no dice!

This is the "sleep with one eye open Mommy" face

Speaking of sleep, I could really use some of that.

Good night!!