Summer is here!

We dropped our 5 year old son off at school this morning for his very last day of Junior Kindergarten.  I can’t  believe he’s finished an entire year and how much he has changed over these past months.  He’s grown into this incredibly inquisitive little boy who is drawing, problem solving, writing his letters and amazing me everyday with a new fact he’s learned (some that I didn’t even know!).  He runs in perfect form without the adorable gawkiness that lingered until just a few months ago.  He’s made wondeful friends and made it through the year with only a few bumps along the way.

As I held his hand going into school I told him how proud I was of him and what  big boy he’d become.  He had drawn his teacher a lovely picture to thank her for her hard work during the year and he told me how excited he was to give it to her, that he was going to miss her.  (I can only hope all of his teachers will be as incredible and supportive as Mrs. Montgomery has been!). 

We hung his bag up in the classroom.  We had our goodbye hug and he made his school day promise to enjoy the day before he ran off to play with his friends.  I walked down the asphalt laneway towards the car watching him weave in and around games of hopscotch and double-dutch laughing with his friend as he went.  I smiled, full of motherly pride, but also in shock that my sweet baby was almost  finished his first year of school.  Then as he was practically out of sight, turning towards the climbers, I realized he hadn’t finished our morning routine.  Every single morning that I drop him off,  before getting totally immersed in his day he turns and signs  ’I Love You’, every so often gracing me with our rarely used “I really love you”.   I little pang of sadness hit  but it was shortlived, I was much too happy to see the little guy having fun. 

I was almost to the van when I looked towards the playground one last time.  There, standing amongst a throng of other children, was my little man, baseball cap slightly askew as he scratched a pesky mosquito bite with one hand:  the other hand held out to say I love you.  My morning was complete.

 

Someone should have warned me…

Eager to get Jack interested in chapter books, I have  been reading him Charolotte’s Web  Although I’ve  never read the book myself I thought I knew generally what the story was about:  a sweet little pig named Wilbur,  his adventures with his barnyard friends and a little girl named Fern.   I was elated when Jack fell in love with the story after only a chapter or two and began  asking for it before bed.  

Tonight we had the good fortune of turning on the television just in time to see that Charlotte’s Web was just starting.  My daughter, sick, was  in my lap and my son  was at the end of the couch grinning from ear to ear revelling in his good fortune.  Julia Roberts’ voice rang out from the speakers, the voice of Charlotte, while the animals provided witty banter that kept all of us smiling. 

Lily at one point hoisted herself up when she saw the horse and said ‘me no ride horse.  No ride cow either’.  I was so impressed with her words that I wrote them down for our next speech appointment and fell in love with Wilbur and his friends for motivating my wee girl to talk.  I signed ’sheep’ for Lily as she excitedly pointed them out, her favorite animal-of-the-moment from her current bedtime storybook.  We signed friend, spider, pig, dirty and a few others.  As Lily laid there, lethargic, her little hands were still able to tell me what she was looking at.  I loved the movie - chuckling out loud when the crows screeched ‘abort! abort!’ as the scarecrow turned to face them.  

Jackson fell off to sleep about halfway through the movie and Lily meandered in and out of a fever induced slumber.  I  continued to watch enjoying the movie and not wanting to disturb either of them until they were in a deep enough sleep to be moved without waking them. 

Then everything changed.  I stared at the screen in disbelief.  Dying?  Charlotte was dying?  How could someone not have filled me in on this tiny little detail?  My daughter, apparently wakened by the change in my breathing as I tried to stifle my tears, turned to me and  before falling back asleep said ‘mommy’ and signed ‘cry’.   

As I watched little Wilbur put the  spider pod in his mouth to take back to the barn I swore there and then that I would never kill another spider.  A complete  lie but I know I’ll feel horrible now every time I do it.

 

We did it! We finally did it!

You’re sitting in the back of the car feeling like it’s been the longest 15 minutes of your entire life.  But then you arrive and you jump out of the car with such excitment that you’ve reached your final destination that you forget that you have an incredible case of numb-bum.  The thought that your parents have been lying to you with this whole ‘15 minutes’ business leaves your head entirely. 

That’s exactly how we feel right now ~ like 7 year old kids who have finally finished the never-ending drive to the much anticipated summer vacation spot.  We did it!  We made it!  We finally launched our new and improved website! There’s still a bit of a walk ahead as we unpack the car and make our way to the campsite but the end is near! 

Check out our new look at www.mocobabies.com.   We would love to hear what you think and welcome your suggestions on what you would like to see filling up the mocofun section!  We have some ideas of our own and will be continually adding new things, including some great downloadables.  

Our new site boasts a lot more product information, beautiful photography (care of Last Eight Frames Photography – thank you!) and a great search tool to help you find one of our fantastic retailers!  If there isn’t a store close by you can always ’Shop Moco’ and head to our very own online mocostore.   

We have lots of fun things planned!  We are  working on contests and giveaways which will include some of our favourite things so join our Facebook group to be the first to know and maybe even win! http://www.facebook.com/pages/mocobabies/18818570381

 

Thumbs up!

Lily has been dropping a lot of signs lately  but one that she is still working really hard on is ‘I love you’.   She will throw her hand up in the air and with an expression of pure confusion look at her hand as if in total disbelief that her fingers aren’t in the position she’s urging them to go.  With the utmost concentration she tries to will  her fingers into formation but quickly resorts to using her other hand to push her pinky up while  keeping those pesky middle fingers down.   Tonight, after just a brief moment of concentration, she gave up.   She looked from her hand to me and made the next best sign.  With a big smile she flashed me the best thumbs up I’ve ever seen.

 

My Faves: The Momoir Project

I’ve been so terribly slow to update my posts lately even though I have lots of signing stories to tell.   I had the best post planned for Mother’s Day yet here I am weeks later and I haven’t written a thing.  I blame this whole mess on my new favourite thing – my new obsession, really.  The Momoir Project.   If  I hadn’ t  signed up for the class I would have been writing posts about Lily’s speech appointment,  her words, her songs, Jack’s signs and Lily’s recent lack thereof.    Instead, my head is full of mom-stories and working on the best way to get Lily’s beginnings down on paper.

“The Momoir Project  offers a series of writing classes for moms interested in taking the time to channel their personal experience with motherhood into words…”  That’s what it says on the website but it’s so much more.   For about 6 weeks now I have been ‘meeting’ a group of incredible women every other week to discuss our stories.  I have been guided by their feedback and encouragement.  Although we have never actually met (I’m doing the online course), I almost feel like I know these women because of their writing; their words are brave, honest and magical.  I am in awe of their writing and the stories they have to tell.  Each week we are given ‘writing starts’, a topic or phrase to spark our creativity and each class I am amazed at how completely different our stories are yet there is always something that I can easily relate to as a mom. 

The instructor, Cori Howard, is a fabulous writer and the editor of ‘Between Interruptions:  Thirty Women Tell The Truth About Motherhood’ (an incredible book that I’m reading again now for the class and it’s just as good as the first time around!).  During our Wednesday phone calls, Cori takes us through the components of  memoir writing while we work towards building an essay.  She has the unique ability to  offer guidance and critisism without judgement or superiority.  It  has empowered me to be honest in my writing and I no longer get the shakes when my ’start’ is coming up for discussion.  Cori, along with this most incredible group of women, have unknowingly provided me the support and confidence to put pen to paper in way that I’ve always wanted to but haven’t.  I’ve never before been secure enough in my own voice.

This group is also giving me the opportunity to put Lily’s story on paper for her which I’ve been meaning to do for over 2 years now.   It’s amazing.  And scary.

The Momoir Project’s website is www.themomoirproject.com and the blog is fantastic (and I don’t say that just because one of my starts is featured!) 

So, there you have it.  I’ve been neglecting this blog and I blame it 100% on The Momoir Project and Cori’s genius in helping to give moms an outlet (and forcing them to find time) to write their stories.  I’ve been wondering lately what I’m going to do when the class is over so you’ll have to excuse me if  my mom stories start sneaking in here.

 

Welcoming a new ‘mocoBaby’!

I love everything about newborns:  their expressions, their little ears, sweet noses and adorable baby sneezes.  Their perfect little feet and wrinkly little hands.   Ah, and the smell.  There is nothing quite like the smell of a baby. 

My lifelong friend had her first child in the wee hours of the morning yesterday, a boy,  and I was fortunate enough to be able to steal my very first (of many) cuddles.  He’s absolutely perfect and has two perfectly  adoring parents.   The birth of this beautiful boy has made me think of my childhood and growing up with my friend;  one of the most incredible people I’ve ever known.   We were inseparable for much of our childhood but drifted apart as we worked towards defining our own identities through the teenage years.    But events always brought us back together and she has been there with me through every milestone moment in my life.  She often quips that she hasn’t been a good friend, completely devaluing the support she has given me over the years.  We may not know each others lives in intimate detail as we did years ago but perhaps that’s he beauty of it;  to know that someone truly knows you and will be there  without an argument over who was last to call or how long it’s been since you’ve chatted. 

Also one of my biggest mocoSupporters, she has been there with words of encouragement and sales expertise every step of the way.   In her mind, not being a good friend included dropping everything and taking time off work  to head to Vegas to help out at a show.  Furthermore, her complete lack of thoughtfulness forced her to have chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of wine sent to our hotel room before her arrival to congratulate us on our success so far.  Horrible friend, I know.  Hopefully because of her unyielding support of moco, she won’t mind my documenting some of her signing stories since I’m all out of my own newbies  to write about!

 

Being Green(er)

Jack came home from school the other day singing a ‘Reduce Reuse Recycle’ song so I took it as an opportunity to chat with him about the environment (and legitimize the reasons why I go batty when he wastes water!).

I think most of us are trying to find ways to lessen our impact on the environment.  With mocobabies we try to reduce our footprint by using very little in the way of packaging – our tins are our packaging; the tins are functional in that they can be reused many times over (great crayon tins, one customer even used them to hold q-tips!) and we reuse and recycle everything we can. 

Jackson just celebrated his fifth birthday and we were very conscious of the environment when trying to figure out what we could do for his loot-bag.   We didn’t want to send home a bag full of  things that would be tossed in the garbage after a few minutes of play or toys that would go untouched.   It was a ‘Calling all Superheroes’ party with just a few friends so we decided to make the kids official.  Upon arrival each child had their picture taken in their best superhero pose.  They then told us their superhero name, their powers, favourite colour and superhero hobbies.  My incredibly talented and creative husband had made a logo for our little “League of Extraordinary Kids (LEK)”.  While I had Jack and his friends drawing their superhero pictures on their LEK paper, my husband was putting their pictures into his layout to create a baseball style superhero card.  Each card had the child’s picture, their real and superhero name and their ’stats’.  Thankfully we rarely throw anything out and Chris was able to dig through his childhood baseball card collection to find a few plastic holders.   Each child went home with their superhero credentials  (their art, the questionnaire and the stats card) in a ‘top secret’ LEK envelope along with a Spiderman pen and a cupcake they had decorated (the cupcake box  was also recyclable).   The kids had a great time taking part in it and (almost) everything that went home was repurposed, recyclable or edible!

We would love to hear some of your earth-friendly ideas!  If you’ve put together a great loot-bag, reused our tins for another purpose or have an idea of what you can do this Earth Day and beyond to help reduce your footprint, we’d love to hear it!  I’d love to make this an ongoing theme and keep sharing ideas to help make the planet healthy and safe for our children and theirs.  

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”  ~Native American Proverb

 

Happy Earth Day!

 

 

 

Cows in the house

There has been a flutter of activity in our house lately.  Literally.  We’ve got birds.  They make their way in and (usually when my husband isn’t home) we hear the familiar (yet always startling) flutter of wings frantically trying to fly their way through a window. 

Lily used to love birds.  Now when she hears a bird chirping she looks up with  pleading eyes and says ‘no bird house’.   Often before she lulls off to sleep she’ll open her eyes one last time and say ‘no’ while signing ‘bird’ as one last reassurance that she can drift into dreamland worry-free. 

When her bird  anxiety hits Lily leans in and emphatically says  ’no bird house’.  To try and lighten the mood I have started following up with ‘but are there elephants in the basement?’  ‘I think I hear a cow watching TV!’  Lily  smiles and in her exaggerated manner say ‘nooooo’ while keeping a keen eye on me to determine whether I’m just incredibly silly or she should be fleeing. 

Her playfulness is   such a great indicator of how far she has come  since we began her speech therapy.  It has also made me realize, as her often-muddled words come a mile a minute, how important context has become.  The other day she said something with a look  of both mischief and fear.  I picked her up and the guessing game began.   I finally asked if there was a sign that she had that would help mommy understand.  She replied ‘yes’ with a smile and her trademark twinkle.  No sign followed.  I continued guessing and finally on my third sign request she signed ‘cow’.  I laughed and said ‘No, Lily there’s no cow in the house!’ and with a giggle she followed up with ‘no bird house’. 

Lily almost always signs bird as she says it.  Although I will be proud, I will also be incredibly sad when the day comes that she says it without signing it as well.  Like the disappearance of little toddler feet, it will be a small sign that my baby girl is growing up.

 

Happy Egg Hunting!

 

Manners, please.

I ran into incredibly  lovely people this morning – and I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible.  There are many things that irritate me but perhaps none more than rudeness, particularly when the individual is modelling the behaviour in front of their children. 

People nowadays are  in such a rush, overwhelmed and busy that common courtesy often seems to be a thing of the past.  A woman this morning treated us, probably unknowingly, like we were completely invisible.   In my oh-so-Canadian way I found myself moving Jack out of her path as she nearly knocked him over and uttering  ‘Oh, sorry!’.   I   kicked myself for my auto-apology because  she didn’t acknowledge what she’d done  nor that we even existed.  Moments later I held the door open for her and she brushed by us without even glancing in our direction let alone saying thank you.  A little while later, when picking up some milk before heading to work, I was walking out of an isle as another  mom,  with baby in cart, was turning to get in.  I again said ’sorry’ and moved aside letting her go by.  I stood there with the most ridiculous smile plastered on my face as I waited for her to acknowledge me with something other than a scowl as she very deliberately looked me up and down with utter disdain. 

I am far  from perfect  and my  children often times forget their manners.  I try to use situations like this morning to teach Jack and Lily how important it is to remember your please and thank you’s; that we are no more or less important than anyone else and that the smallest actions, or lack thereof, can have an impact on another person.   This morning after run-in number 1 I asked Jack what he would have done differently and he, much to my pleasure, replied “I would have said thank you!  She was very very rude mom’.  It’s sad the enormous pride I felt in that moment – it’s the little things that make me happy. 

So it is here that I have posted the signs for please and thank you!   Jack and Lily loved singing ‘please’ and through sign my kids have been using their manners since about 12 months old.  ’Please’ was their favourite, most likely because they quickly saw that we all thought it was adorable and would usually give them whatever  they were asking for.   A byproduct of signing with baby that I have loved is that it provides a mechanism for sending  silent messages across a room to your children (as well as your significant other!).  There have been many times when I have looked at Jackson or Lily and subtly made the ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ sign as a reminder that they need to use their manners.  There have been times as well when I have seen them doing something special  or something that I’ve asked and  have signed ‘thank you’ from a distance.  They usually light up knowing their good behaviour has been acknowledged. 

This morning was one of those mornings that had me completely preoccupied wondering what kind of world my kids are growing up in.  Fortunately, as I  flipped on the television for background noise I heard “Boom De Ya Da”.  I stopped, watched and remembered, as The Discovery Channel commercial exclaims, that  ”The World Is Just Awesome”.    I remembered to never judge because you never know what is happening in another person’s life.  And I remembered to be thankful for my self control that I didn’t push the door closed on her foot or use my rather extensive foul vocabulary  in front of my children.

Click on the following links and you can download the signs for Please and Thank You!  You can print them out and put them up, much like our Little Helper stickers, as a reminder of the signs!

http://www.moco.ca/download-please.html

http://www.moco.ca/download-thank-you.html