My daughter, the prize fighter

My daughter split my lip today. Blood pouring (ok, dribbling), slightly intense pain. . and an actual split lip. I hope I don't look like the victim of a wife beating.

It was innocent enough; just yesterday she almost did the same thing to my husband.

He was laying down on our bed, trying to take a nap. She took a folded blanket from the nightstand shelf and threw it on top of his arm and part of his face. Aw, so cute. Then she grabbed my book and threw it next to his face. Aw, she notices that we read before falling asleep :)

Today: I am laying down for a minute, feeling tired and wanting to relax. She grabs the book and pelts it toward my face. The corner collides with my mouth. She looks worried, I remind her to be "gentle" (a keyword we use a lot) and kiss her on the forehead. That's when I notice the blood, realize the pain is more than a twinge, and for some reason end up having to comfort her :)

She may be a bit rough, but she's also quite empathetic for an 18 month old.

Update: a few hours later she kicked the other side of my mouth. It split and bled on the inside. Who knew parenting would be so painful.

Working out my face

Yes, you read that right.

When I was a kid I trained myself to be able to raise one eyebrow. When I finally trained myself to do that I was satisfied and didn't bother with the other eyebrow. BIG MISTAKE. That eye is higher than the other and the eyelid doesn't sag at all whereas the other one does, just a bit. The other eye does not look as good.

(these are things I notice, hell I notice when one pixel is misplaced on a screen.)

I figure my eyes are like that cause of how I can raise that one eyebrow. I know faces tend to be asymmetrical but not that much. I once dated a successful portrait artist who made fun of it (in retrospect he was such an ass). . .like me he is incredibly detailed and notices every little thing. So I know it's not just me.

So when my daughter spends 20 mins or so playing with water in the bathroom, as she likes to do several times a day (drives me nuts, sometimes!), I do face exercises! Ha! It's so funny, but hey, I want to look good for myself!

This kid can spend close to 1/2 hr brushing her teeth.

So far I can't get my lazy eyebrow to move on its own, so I raise both of them over and over again and sometimes work on getting the one to go up by itself. I also do "o" exercises with my mouth as I read that prevents wrinkles around that area. You know, regular stretching and all.

It's hilarious but makes sense to me. We work out our bodies and minds, why not our faces?

:D

Update on VOC-free paint

I hope people find my reviews helpful. This is a quick update to my earlier post on VOC-free paints, specifically comparing Sherwin William's Harmony brand to Benjamin Moore's Natura.

To make this brief, I bought a gallon of BM's Natura last week and used it to paint most of my daughter's bedroom this weekend. I only needed to do ONE coat, with light touch-ups in a few areas, versus using, in the end, FOUR coats of SW's Harmony! I used the exact same type of rollers, and technique, and also the spaces were both previously painted with the same paint so the surface was identical.

Benjamin Moore's Natura	Sherwin William's Harmony
$60 a gallon	$47 with membership, which is free
1 coat with light touch-ups	3-4 coats
Comes in a wide variety of colours	Only available in the lighter shades, the upper half of some swatches
Hardly has any smell at all, I would say none but hesitate to be that absolute.	Smells a lot like regular toxic paint.

So I'll be painting the rest of our apartment with Natura paint. I have to say, the colour we used so far, True Blue, is the nicest paint I've ever seen. It is so vivid and absorbs and reflects light so nicely -- it is truly the nicest room in the house. I can't wait to use more of their colours. Here comes my purple bedroom!!

See Kai Run vs. Robeez

Remember this post about how V got scuff marks on her new shoes within 5 mins of hitting the ground in them? I took a photo to compare those shoes with the Robeez shoes that she got in the same week:

(click photo for greater detail)

Robeez are on the left	SKR on the right
- Worn many times over various terrain and on the playground	- Worn once for 5 mins over grass and concrete steps
- Over a dozen pairs of Robeez shoes have proven to be similarly durable and long lasting	- This is the only pair of SKR shoes my daughter has ever worn.

When I ordered the SKR shoes pictured above, which were meant for colder and rainy days, I also ordered a pair of winter boots. We'll see how those hold up. Well, I hope, as soon Robeez shoes won't fit my daughter anymore (they don't make children's shoes) and SKR seems to be the next best alternative. I love the designs of SKR's shoes and their flexible soles.

The Happiest Toddler on the Block

I finished reading this book yesterday and found it to be a great help. I like the approach the author, Dr. Harvey Karp, proposes and his techniques are for the most part wonderful. They've been working quite well. V doesn't have serious behaviourial issues, but like any toddler she does challenge us at times and has the occasional tantrum.

There are only a few techniques, of many, which I'd rather not engage in which are: "kind ignoring", time-outs and pointing out the good behaviour of other people (which I translate to be comparison.)

Techniques I do love are acting as an ambassador for your child; treating them with respect and compassion (which you'd think would be automatic but some parents are dictatorial which oftentimes doesn't work); speaking at their level ("toddler-ese"); "feeding the meter" (showering them with attention and love and fun); the "fast food rule" (showing that you understand them by translating and repeating back to them how they're feeling.)

Two exercises in it that I hadn't thought of and are really great are: "patience stretching" and "magic breathing". Who would have thought that teaching a toddler pranayama is a good idea! It works on a few different levels, the best to me being it teaches them how to relieve frustration and be calmer overall. Karp explains each of these in detail, along with several other techniques and insights.

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I really hope I'm not shortchanging this book by noting the names of techniques. Really, the book holds a lot of info on the reasoning behind these things and how to artfully employ them so this post is hardly a primer on it at all.
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A superficial criticism would be how they use the term, "superimportant" a lot. Aren't those two separate words? I don't know, I thought they were as I've never seen them together as one word before.

Other than that, the book is very easy to read for busy parents, split into convenient sections with an appendix, detailed index, and complete summary for quick consultation, at the back.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with a young child. As in, it is seriously a must-have.