The Cold Doesn’t Bother Me Anyway…

No I am not referring to the Winnipeg weather.  They are lyrics from Let it Go, from Disney’s Frozen and they are seared in my brain.  Frozen has currently taken over our house.

Our son has developed quite the obsession.  It is not uncommon for him to ask several times a day to watch Frozen. When he isn’t watching, he is playing with his Frozen toys, or asking Alexa to play Let it go.

Conor has now taken his Elsa obsession to a new level, including wig.

Parents of young children will feel my pain, and have likely experienced it not only with songs, movies, but especially books.

We tend to go through periods of time for different books, whether it be our months of reading the Hungry Caterpillar, then on to The Paper Bag Princess etc. etc.  Repetition is the name of the game, and you will start to feel like you are in being subjected to some kind of torture that should be outlawed under the Geneva Convention.

I was curious to see if there was a reason for this. Should he be bored of hearing the same things over and over? According to my research and an article in Today’s Parent it is perfectly normal behaviour, and in fact contributes to a child’s development. Both verbally and emotionally. Children enjoy the repetition because essentially it provides them security in knowing what comes next. They also learn through repetition, so there is that added benefit too.  Now I just have to remind myself of that when I have to Listen to “Let it Go” on repeat to and from daycare, or pretend it is the first time that I’ve ever watched Frozen or Moana.

Conor’s Dad took him to see Frozen 2 in the movie theatre. He really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t enough to get him off the original Frozen sound track. Arrgh. This too shall pass

So my advice to parents trying to get their child to try something new..  just Let it Go.

Any other parents stuck in the Frozen repeat?

Advertisement

After a brief blogging hiatus, and another baby….

Newest addition- Lily- now 5 months old

Can I call a few years a hiatus? It took me some time to figure out what to do with my blog, which had originally chronicled our journey to become parents. Then we become parents… then in July of this year become parents to a second child, this time our daughter Lily.

To say that the last couple years have been a whirl wind would be an understatement! Following the birth of our son Conor, we savored every glorious moment watching him grow, figuring out this parenting thing and just living life. We (perhaps naively) thought, “we are pretty good at this parenting things, lets do it again!”. After waiting the obligatory year (here in Canada) required to wait before you can start the adoption process again, we jumped back in.

Excited to start our journey again, we buckled up for what would likely be a long wait (lightening can’t strike twice right?). With the help of our Adoption Counselor at Adoption Options, we finishing up our homestudy update and necessary steps to have our file once again ready and approved. For us we thought, “Now we just relax”. “We have a child, we can wait.” “If it doesn’t happen, everything is great.” Then we got the call a few days later that a couple had selected us. WHAT!? Ok, here we go. Without going into too many details (I’ll blog more about this topic later), we met the couple, everything was wonderful, we named our little girl and knew the birthmom was due anytime. Things were moving so quickly, but we kept ourselves grounded and just took it a moment at a time. Baby girl was born 7 days after our meeting and mutual decision to move forward. There is a 48 hour period that the birth parents are in hospital, and having been through it before, we were prepared for the anxiety inducing wait. Then, right before they were to leave the hospital and eventually come to our home, we got the call that they had decided to parent.

It was a punch in the stomach. In your mind you know this could happen, but in your heart you feel devastated. Luckily we had each other and also a beautiful little boy. We told each other that it wasn’t meant to be and that the right baby would present at the right time. I know how it sounds… but you grasp on to whatever gets you through it.

Then 9 months later.. we got the call again. Another birth mother had selected us! Here we go again. Emotions in check, but hearts open we went through the process of meeting the birth mother. Everything went smoothly. Was this really happening? We once again went through the naming process, establishing a birth plan etc. In this case, we would be at the hospital immediately after baby was born, and I stay in a private room with our new baby for two days before we went home.

On July 14th, we welcomed Lily Lauren Grace to the world and she couldn’t be more perfect for our family. There really was something to this right baby, right time mantra we told ourselves.

After two days in hospital, we were ready to go home.

We left the hospital with Lily in tow, and started our 21 day wait. Those that have been through the adoption process, you will understand that these 21 days feel like walking a tight rope. You are balancing being all in and loving your baby with every ounce of your being, and also holding your breath you don’t get the call that the birth parents have changed their mind. Obviously we made it through and everything is as it should be! Our little family of three is now a hectic family of four.

My blog rebranding will take you on our journey, the stumbles, the laughs and everything in between.

I’m glad to be back and looking forward to sharing!