Sandals, Flowers and Lily's Big Toe


Yesterday Lily and I walked up to Shopper's Drug Mart to buy her raisins. They have a great line of dried fruits that Lily just loves - she gets something sweet but gets her fruit at the same time. Plus, they are a portable snack that I always have with us. We stopped in at the Second Cup for a lunchtime snack. Lily had raisins and some of my cheese croissant and a steamed milk with raspberry. I was a bit confused when they tried to put sugar-free raspberry syrup in her milk. I didn't ask for sugar-free. I'm glad I caught them, because while a bit of sugar isn't that harmful, I'm convinced that the artificial sugar (Splenda or aspartame) is. Aspartame gives me wicked migraines, and it tastes weird. Ditto the Splenda on taste. After I convinced the barista that I really didn't want the sugar free stuff, we settled in for our treat. Lily is so funny with her words. She decided that she was done, and started saying "Out. Please. Out. Toat. Boots. Go" Toat is her word for coat. C's are hard for kids to say. I convinced her that mumma needed to finish her coffee (she'll learn soon enough that mumma ALWAYS needs to finish her coffee!) and then we were off.


We stopped in at Birth Source, my favorite local store. They carry all sorts of things for moms to be and new moms, and for older kids. The owner Tracy, is awesome, and has the store set up so kids can run around and play with toys while the moms shop. Lily had her in stitches! Lily ran around picking things up, saying "Ooh" and "What's this?" I had stopped in to see if the new summer shoes were in, and they were. It was fun chasing Lily down to get her to try them on, but we did find a cute pair in white. Last summer she wore a size 2 sandal, and now she's in a size 5! I can't believe how much she has grown. The sandals also have a removable squeaker in them. I'm not sure how long we will keep the squeakers in, but Lily thought they were fun.


I also picked up a new Snack Trap cup, as the toddler proof lid on the old one is no longer toddler proof. I love that these allow me to hand Lily a cup of snacks (including her raisins) and she can feed herself. Even better is that I can clip the cup to her stroller when we are out, and I don't have to worry about her getting cranky because she wants to eat something. We don't really use them at home because she tends to use the cup to store bits of paper, puzzle pieces and the occasional finger puppet.


The highlight of Lily's day was discovering the Ugly Dolls. Bryan saw these ages ago, and had meant to buy one for her - I splurged and bought one. Yes, they are ugly, but they are cute too. She was thrilled to have her very own. It's called Big Toe.

It's only about 8" high. And it looks nothing like a toe. Lily has already decided that Toe loves Cheerios, kisses and naps.

When we came back from the store, I ran into an old work friend. She now drives for Canada Post, and was just getting out of her truck when we walked around the corner. Angela just bought her first house, a bungalow town house in the west end. After a quick chat to catch up, Lily and I went to tend to the garden.

She tried my patience yesterday. I knew she would pull up plants. Really I did. I'm not sure why I was surprised when she did. She's too little to know that pulling up the pansies I plant every year in honor of my grandpa is not a good thing to do. When she's older she'll understand. After several 'discussions' about the plants, she helped me water the plants, and then she went down for a nap. The nap was not by choice. She pulled up her third pansy plant for the day, threw a fit when she was told NO, and then cried while asking for her Daddy. Ouch. Mommy was mean, so only Daddy would do. After a big cuddle, and a banana snack, all was well and Mumma was back at the top of Lily's list.

I spent a bit of quiet time repairing toddler damage to the flower pots, and called it a day before heading off to work.

And that's a whole other story, one that would take too long to tell. All I can say is toddler temper tantrums are easier to deal with (and are infinitely more excusable) than adult temper tantrums.