Toronto for Tony & Elisa's wedding!

In late January we travelled back to Toronto for (Ljuba's brother) Tony and Elisa's wedding. This was tremendously exciting for all of us, for many reasons. First, we were super excited for Tony--we love Elisa dearly, and her family is amazing. Second, Taya was to be Tony & Elisa's flower girl, and she was enamoured with this idea. Third, we'd missed the Ontario Christmas trip, so we were thrilled to have the chance to see family and friends.

For example, Tivona had not yet met her Dedek! Ljuba had long said that Tiva looks just like him, and here you can judge for yourself as they enjoy each other's company.



For Taya, the Ontario trip was a wonderful extension of Christmas. Here she is showing off her reading comprehension and conversational skills about "Olivia Claus", one of our favourite books. (Note how Taya's mouth and whole body just can't stop moving. She's been like that since she was in the womb.)



Talking and eating (about Olivia)

Tivona also hadn't met Auntie Elisa and Uncle Tony. If Tiva looks a little weirded out, you should've seen Taya, who rewarded Uncle Tony for the kind invitation to be his and Elisa's flower girl by saying over and over again, "Who's that man?", and bursting into tears when he asked her about the monkey she was holding.



Tiva was, as usual, a happy camper wherever we went.



Tiva knew Auntie Sandra well from Sandra's trip to Vancouver. Here are those two, with Tiva mid-blink.



(I personally think she looks adorable like that--maybe conditioned by months of trying to help her fall asleep, when the closed eyes meant a welcome respite from Tiva's 'bloody-murder' screams. If you want to see the open-eyes version, you'll find it here).

We definitely took a hit on the Chan family front from switching our Christmas/New Year trip for this Jan/Feb trip. Thanks to the Chan Carusone family's hospitality, my parents' generous loan of their car, my father's organizing of a Chinese New Year dinner (without shark fin soup, of course--if you haven't seen Sharkwater, you should!) and a dim sum brunch, and the Huntsville Chan's efforts to come down despite lousy weather, we did get to see everyone (and Hermine!). We actually managed to see many of them more than once, even with the complication of Taya getting sick, and all the rest of us following. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to organize ourselves sufficiently to take good pictures (sorry!). But here are a few pics from the Chan Carusone home. First, Taya adoring Millau.



Tiva with Grandpa.



And a real reconstruction of Taya and Senna sharing a bath (not a cheap-o attempt at Photoshopping a false event!).



Back in Etobicoke, Babica and Dedek went out of their way to try to make us feel at home. It worked--Taya embraced my term 'home away from home', and here's Tiva loving the Jolly Jumper they got for her, just as she loves her Vancouver one.



One of the special treats of this trip was having Ljuba's cousin Erika around, from Slovenia. It was also nice to have some fresh snow. The combination yielded the following three photos, of Tiva loving tobogganing with her Mama,



of Taya and Dada on a snow-venture (with Erika behind the camera),



and of Taya with Erika.



Soon, the rehearsal dinner was upon us. All these occasions were a huge amount of fun but also a feat of parental juggling. To prepare for the 7pm rehearsal and following 9pm dinner, we kept the girls on mountain time. And, because Taya was routinely missing naps (despite being super tired), we walked her in the stroller when we knew that a long evening was to come. This meant two walks of 2+ hours on snowy streets for me--I called them Etobicoke half-marathons.

The rehearsal dinner meant the beginning of practicing, of two kinds. We started practicing the flower-girl walk the day before the rehearsal dinner (in the hopes that a positive experience at the rehearsal dinner would mean few nerves in front of the big crowd). That went well. Then, at the rehearsal dinner, Elisa and Tony gave Taya the violin that Elisa had played on as a little girl. Here's Taya practicing on that beautiful instrument.



Before we knew it, Tony & Elisa's wedding day was upon us. This was the biggest juggling feat of all. Dressing and organizing for a formal event is a big thing for both Ljuba and I, add a baby and a toddler and spread out a photo shoot, ceremony and reception over 10+ hours, and you have a logistical challenge. With much help from Ljuba's parents, siblings, Erika, and then--towards the end of the evening--a whole team of Elisa's friends, cousins, and aunts, we managed to pull it off. Here's Taya and Elisa at event #1 (the pre-wedding photo shoot), around noon, while I walked Tiva for a snowy/slushy/icy nap in formal attire.



Tivona was golden through the ceremony. She woke up a few minutes before it started, but the loudest noises she made were some cooing and an explosive burp and poo. Here she is hanging out with Mam, while in the background a handsome and poised Dedek stands by, and Taya and Erika sit mesmerized by the violinist.



Then to the church for the ceremony. Like a well-oiled machine, you'll see coaches Mama and Dada and athlete Taya preparing and executing the flower-girl walk down the aisle. ;) Seriously, I've never felt more like a coach, giving Taya this pep talk while she did her warm-up bounces (that was spontaneous on her part), in the video below.



Pep talk pre-walk down the aisle

Then the walk. More coaching. See Taya point where she'll walk, and you can imagine her mentally running through her performance as she prepares at the gate/doorway, like a downhill skier. Off she goes. A perfectionist (surprise!), she isn't quite pleased (she does use this word) with the placement of the first petal. See her pick it back up, and see Mama-coach slide quietly to the aisle for some mid-event coaching. Then she's off again, dropping petals and smiling as dozens of cameras click away. Ah--to have that kind of grace under pressure!



Taya dropping her petals--and picking them up

(There are plenty more photos at the Webshots folder where these pictures sit, for those who want to see more--of other family, too. You should be able to navigate there from any of these links, or from this.)

Elisa related that most churches don't allow flower girls under four years of age. As a coaching parent, I understand this completely. In Taya's case, it wasn't just the walk down the aisle. Actually the most difficult part was sitting through the hour-long ceremony, all the while up at the front in the company of the bridesmaids, surrounded by all these interesting things (e.g., bibles, pews) begging to be played with. You saw from the first video how she can't sit still? She squirmed up and down in her seat so many times that Lauren--courageous, generous Lauren (better pic here)--got scuff marks from the velcro in Taya's shoes. All the bridesmaids, in fact the whole wedding party, were incredibly helpful and patient.



The drive from the ceremony to the reception provided both Tiva and Taya a chance to nap. The 30 km/h circling I did on the snowy roads in industrial Mississauga nearly provided Erika, Ljuba and I with some sleep, too!

First, we had more photos. Please don't ask me why Taya is swallowing an imaginary horse. Or why she did that in dozens of other photos that night!



Elisa has always exuded love for Taya and Tiva. The feeling is more than mutual. Every time Taya's feet hit the ground that evening, she was off like a shot. Even if I didn't see her initial escape, I always knew where to find her. "I just wanted to see Auntie Elisa," she would explain when I corralled her, as I tried to explain that Auntie Elisa loved her very much but that she might also have to spend some time with some other people that evening. Here's the beautiful bride with her two adoring nieces. (For two other gorgeous near-identical pics, see this and that.)



Taya loved everything about the wedding. For her, everyone was her guest. And few people disabused her of that notion, the way they went on and on about her being so gorgeous, so wonderful, so cute…. It seemed like everybody who came up to any of us (Ljuba, me, Dedek, Babica) raved about Taya.



There was a lot to love (about the wedding). The circus spectacle of the wedding was something to behold, as Elisa and her sisters brought their work into her wedding (they own an acrobatic dance company, A2D2).



For a taste of the performances, here's Samantha (in pink) and Julie, Elisa's sisters.



For a couple of parents who are frequently seen walking a baby in jogging or even pyjama pants, it was nice for Ljuba and I to have a chance to dress up, even if Ljuba did stress about shoes and dresses for a good month. But the photos, like this one of a regal Babica with Taya, will last forever.



Tivona, clearly teething (as in this photo) was super. She fell asleep on me for a nap just before the performances began, but woke up as soon as the MC piped up in his (appropriately) booming voice. To accommodate Tiva's nap, you can see the baby carrier I'm wearing, which we conscientiously chose to blend in with my shirt. Anyway, Tiva kept her eyes open and never cried (until bedtime much later). She's practically unflappable--it's amazing.



Taya really loves all her family, and it's precious to see her seek them out. At the wedding, she sought out Dedek to play stick-on stickers with her.



We all wanted to give a little something back to Tony and Elisa, who entertained us with a day full of performance and love. So we made up a song (altering Skin-a-ma-rinky Dink) and sang it (all together) for them. Little did we know that this was the very same song that Elisa and her sisters first performed together! [Personally, I was proud to have made it through the song--for those you know me, I'm routinely the butt of family jokes when it comes time to sing or hum! But I've been practicing lots and expanding my repertoire with Taya and Tiva.]



Skin-a-ma-rinky dinky dink ... and the Elvis Presley thingy

Notice how at the very end, when people were already clapping, Taya took the mic and said something? Listen again. As I put Taya in her car seat, at the end of the night, she said to me sadly, "I did the Elvis Presley thingy, but no one laughed." Yes, that's right--she said, "Thank you, thank you very much!" You should here her do it in private; when she performed it afterwards for Tony & Elisa they did indeed laugh--heartily!

Speaking of the end of the evening, we'd planned to leave immediately after the first dance (in part so we could see Elisa's dad, Bob DeAngelis play). The dance and performance were amazing, and well worth it. But the plan to leave immediately after was thwarted. See here what happened: our little flower girl got whisked away and swung all around the dance floor, having the time of her life even though she was so tired than she kept sitting down.



Abducted! ;)

We're all still basking in the glow of a wonderful wedding and a wonderful trip!

Christmas and January 2011 in Vancouver

January 2011, Taya & Tiva blog:

Taya and Tivona have continued to grow closer as Tiva has got more interactive and Taya has got more comfortable with her big sister role.



You can see in these pictures how Tivona's hair is starting to come in darker. As that happened, we discovered that she actually has the same double-whorl at the back, just like Taya (only with far sparser hair, of course), as well as another right in front (like me, Kai). Bizarre. But another data point supporting the Chinese belief that the double-hair-whorl signifies a strong will! ;)



Tiva's best Christmas present was the combination of turning four months old and therefore being allowed to jump in the Jolly Jumper. I love this pursed-lip look that Tiva does. It's funny that she's doing it here, dancing in the Jumper, because Lj has long made fun of my moving lips when I dance!



We missed family and friends tremendously, but our quiet Vancouver Christmas had some perks. One of them was being able to go hiking in the woods on Boxing Day. We had a blast, even though we had some rough spots. Here's me snapping Taya out of a spot of grumpiness by playing out scenes from Jeremy Tankard's great book Grumpy Bird.



Unlike Grumpy Bird, Taya's almost never grumpy in the woods

Speaking of funny voices, Taya has a remarkable ability to distinguish the difference of accents. She reports such things as, "Rosalyn says 'gorillia'; Dada says 'gorilla'," and "Babica says 'busy little mouth'; Dada says 'busy little mouse'." Nanna is the most frequent culprit, though: for example, "Nanna says 'dinnah' [for dinner] and 'deepah' [for deeper]."

She'll make fun of you for any kind of slip, actually. Like one day late in December, she recalled that many weeks ago, "Nanna said 'Do you want almond milk on your bread?' I said, 'No, I want almond butter on my sandwich!'"

As she's got older, Tiva is more and more vocal. Here she is squawking with Mama.



Tiva squawking with Mama

Christmas really was quiet, and it was nice to be able to space out the festivities. Christmas Eve we had a video chat with Kai's family at the Chan Carusone's place, and we opened the wonderful care package from them. Christmas day we had a video chat with Ljuba's family at the Kovacic's place, and the girls got most of their gifts from us (and each other). Boxing Day Taya still hadn't noticed her stocking, so we showed it to her and let her dig into it. We relished her unsuppressed delight at receiving a few small animal figurines, a package of roasted seaweed, a few tiny (dark) chocolate almonds with sunflower seeds and raisins, some sleigh bells, etc. Parents of older children: please don't tell us, "Enjoy it while it lasts!" In this video, Taya remarks on her bounty.



"I have so many things in my stocking!"

Taya's conversations are priceless, but the trouble is that the gems are really hard to anticipate. She'll say something hilarious, and then I'll go get the camera and try to get her to say it again. But the only thing that's funny about it the second time is how hard I try to replicate the lost moment.

So … scattered throughout blog posts now are these little nuggets of conversation, sans image. She amazes us with her ability to tell stories, even from months ago. Like this one, from early summer (?) 2010: "A boy got tangled up in the stroller. His Nanna and Grandpa tried to get him out. He said, 'Help, help, help!'"

It didn't take Tiva long to get into jumping big time. This fierce drooling look says it all.



And here she is, jumping, smiling, and spinning.



Tiva dancing in the Jumper

No matter how docile she is in our arms, or lying down, she perks up immediately when we put her in the Jumper. Her little legs start going a mile a minute as soon as her body is touching the harness, which makes it tricky to get her in, of course.



I just love Tivona's two-step--one foot and then the other--and the gorgeous smile she flashes when we happen to come into view (in this video she hadn't fully learned to control her orientation).



Tiva dances barefoot

Lj and I joked about how little we did for the holiday season. A little belated (better late than never), Taya and I baked some gingerbread cookies.



Physical play is still a wonderful way to connect with Taya. "Girl soup", "girl cookie", "Dada lion" are all variations of me pretending to eat Taya. This is "Dada rocking chair".



We love the way Tivona's little feet move. Ljuba had the idea of this video, focussed only on Tiva's little dancing feet.



Tiva's beautiful dancing feet

Here we are, all posing with our little jumper.



Kai's parental leave began in January. Yay!!! What a privilege it is, to have this time with Tivona--and also Taya and Ljuba. I feel especially lucky when I think of my colleagues in the U.S.A., where most women don't even get the 12 weeks that I am getting as a father. One of the beauties of the leave is that it has allowed me time to do all kinds of things that otherwise slip by. Like measuring Taya, who by the way keeps growing like a weed. She's on track to be 5'10" (178 cm), or so. The little monkeys (of her wall chart) are impressed!



Taya and Dada have fun together. Taya gets a little silly at times. But where she get it, this amazing capacity for silliness?



Where does Taya's silliness come from???

What kind of food makes you get so loopy? Taya and Dada give some insights.



What food makes you go loopy?

Another Taya nugget might shed more light on said loopy-ness: (after requesting each of these in turn) "We could buy some frisee and dill and radicchio!" How many 27-month olds know so many different kinds of salad greens? And how many want to eat them?

After Ljuba told Taya she looked like a bandit, she sported this glower for the camera.



Mama and Tiva have fun, too! It's usually a quieter, less silly kind of fun (but you'll see later that's changing!).



About that Mama, though, Taya (after being told that we used to call her 'spunky monkey') said the following: "Do girl spunky monkeys have mama spunky monkeys? Yes. They do." (Borrowing from Eric Carle.)

In January, Tivona started showing an interest in toys. Before that, we couldn't interest her in them at all--she just wanted to interact with people. Here she is with caterpillar, her Christmas gift from Taya.



Taya, our little performer, can turn it on at any time.



Tiva, too--look at her batting her eyelashes here. They're both going to be heartbreakers!



Here's me with the two girls.



And here's Ljuba, in a rather different pose. Note Taya's imitation of Mama's hunch.



Tivona even knows how to pose. See her sporting a new baby fashion here.



Tiva's new love of the Jolly Jumper did have some side-effects. Here she is, sitting with the family at dinner after a jumping session. She did not sleep well that evening, alas, which subsequently gave rise to the "no jumping in the evening" rule.



Introducing the Jolly Jumper had side effects

Tivona also recently got the use of her ExerSaucer. Somehow, the baby who seems content to lie still 90+% of the time when on her back or front, awaiting a passing smile, is a fountain of energy propped or suspended upright. So while we're far less mobile (due to the lack of floor space), Tiva is now moving!



Tiva enjoys her ExerSaucer

Ah, for simple pleasures, though. Here I warm my heart by winning Tivona's smiles, just by blowing softly on her face.



Tiva likes being blown on

As I said earlier, Taya and Tiva have been growing closer together. It's so nice to see!





And here are a couple more pics of our fuzzy little cuddle bug, with Mama and alone.





You might have noticed in some of the earlier videos that I had a little soul patch for a few weeks. That was thanks to Taya, who was infatuated by them after Chee and Ed's soul patches/beards. Taya was very excited when I said I could probably grow one too, so I did. The first day I shaved my stubble and left a noticeable patch, Taya sang, "Today is soul patch day; today is soul patch day-eee!" And here she is with her own (collard-green) soul patch.

Tiva giggles and Taya jiggles in anticipation of Christmas

Nov 4 - Dec 24 2010

Tivona really started coming into her own in these seven weeks. For a while, it really seemed like she was boxing, and we all found it highly entertaining, as you can see from these two videos.



Tiva boxes Dada



Tivona boxes on the change table while Taya laughs

Taya was in training herself--here she is lifting weights and counting (and cheating!). As I've mentioned, I squeeze in tidbits of workouts, and Taya really enjoys it and imitates.



Taya lifts weights and counts (but tries to cheat)

Tiva is and was a very smiley baby--we count ourselves very lucky!



Taya had an absolute obsession with midwifery, labour and delivery. Nanna and Grandpa brought the University Report magazine from the Globe and Mail, and Taya proceeded to love it to bits--largely because it had a picture of a midwife looking at a young mother's belly while her toddler daughter looked on. Taya wanted to look at that picture every morning for breakfast and for hours after. She'd open the magazine to that page and put it on the couch, and she was prone to tantrums if anyone moved or put something on top of the magazine. And she's fascinated with birth stories. When Taya turned two, I told her the story of her birth. She ate it up and asked for it again and again for weeks. At first it was just her birth, but after a while she started showing an interest in others' births, too. In this video, Taya pretends that she's going to give birth to one of her toys (Doggie, I think), with the help of Mama or Nanna as the midwife.



Taya pretends that she's in labour and enlists midwife help

Taya gets to play in the park a lot. Here she does a round of the playground at Tyee School. It's one of two nearby playgrounds that's going to get torn down (and thanks to the BC government's bizarre ideas about education funding, not replaced--BC no longer pays for public school playgrounds).



Taya runs around the playground at Tyee

And here Taya does some swinging on her belly, as we banter.



Taya swings on her belly

Tivona didn't get as much play-time in her earliest days as did Taya, but here she is mesmerized by one of her play mats.



Tivona is mesmerized by her play mat

Taya loves to collect things in bags and containers and to carry them around. Here she carries around four bags full of stuff, then does a jig-a-lig-lig.



Taya the bag lady

Ljuba is very concerned that our babies should be kept warm. So when we had a cold snap, they were bundled. This picture of Tivona was just the beginning--there was probably a snowsuit and a lined cover on top of that! In fairness, it's true that--the polar opposite of Taya--Tiva's feet are almost always cold. We had to order special wool socks for her!



Taya loves to sing and to play roles and imitate. We got her into imitating different people and animals singing about the wishy-washy woman, and she really took to it. Here Ljuba coaxes her to sing. Watch Taya drag it out and out with all kinds of ploys and stalling tactics (grad students looking for stalling tips for comps and defences, take note!), before delivering with aplomb.



Taya plays with Mama, then finally caves and sings

The cold snap also brought some snow, which was a delight for Taya. Such a change from last year, when the crunching of snow beneath her feet freaked her out.



Such an innocent smile!



Taya has had a fascination with all things medical, not just midwifery. It may have started with the many trips to the midwives, especially as they had a Fisher Price doctor's kit that Taya would use to imitate the midwives checking out her mama. Babica got Taya the same kit for her birthday, and it was game over. From then on, Taya started calling herself "Dr. Taya", and for a while she refused to answer to anything else. She got distraught when we finally tried to get her to acknowledge that she wasn't yet a real doctor. To mollify her somewhat we had to also tell her that she could pretend to be a doctor, sometimes. From then on, whenever we pointed out that she could sometimes be just plain Taya, she'd rebut, "I can pretend to be a doctor!" Anyway, here's our little doctor, checking out Doggie, one of her babies, in video and a still.



Dr. Taya takes care of Doggie and explains what's wrong



Tons of tummy time for Tiva.



Tivona went through a phase where she wouldn't stop playing with her tongue. Sometimes she'll stick it out like this for several minutes, forcefully. It made breastfeeding difficult, Ljuba reported.



Taya's attachment to things is exactly as mine was, as a child. Auntie Elisa and Uncle Tony got Taya this gorgeous housecoat, and Taya fell in love with it. Once we put it on her, she refused to take it off, even after she was sweating profusely and her cheeks were burning red. Temper tantrum numbers 212-219 for the month of November…. ;) (Yes, Mum, you warned me that I had it coming!)



Is it just our hearts that are warmed by their smiles?



And their conversation? Here's a 10 second clip.



Tiva talks

Watching me watching you.



I'm so glad that Ljuba finally pulled out the camera for this nighttime conversation. For weeks she'd been telling me of the delightfully cute chatting that Tiva does during the nighttime feeds, and I'd been imploring her to get it on video. I left the camera on the nightstand, and here we have it--for posterity's sake.



Tiva's midnight conversation

Back to Taya and her performing of the wishy-washy woman. Her cheeks are humongous in this (the camera's on wide-angle), but that just adds to the spectacle.



Taya sings the wishy-washy woman, alligator and mouse

"Raa!" (Tivona mid-roar.)



I put Tivona down to sit once, needing two hands to do something else, and then looked back at her propping herself up like so. She sat just like that for several minutes.



It's been hard to make Tivona laugh, but we've been trying. Gigs are easy (one-syllable giggles), and full giggles aren't too hard, but more than that is tricky. We get lots of loud sighs (an indication that she's tired) and sometimes lots of grunts (but not nearly as many as when she was younger). For laughs, Ljuba found that this technique was good.



Jiggles and giggles from Tiva

Speaking of Tiva's noises, this video captured some pretty impressive squawks, which are Tiva's trademark noises. Just now, after sleeping from 5pm to 9:30pm (a first!) and getting us worried that she might be ill, she woke up. She flailed her arms around and grinned silently for a minute as I picked up and cuddled her awaiting Ljuba donning her nursing pillow. She then let out the loudest squawk we've heard. She's such a creature of contradictions--the extreme quiet serenity so quickly followed by the squawks, and in unfortunate evenings, by bloodcurdling strangulation screams that defy the best of our earplugs. To think that a few days into her life, Ljuba and I worried that she might not have enough fire and personality!



Tivona's battle cry

Tivona is not a good public feeder. For Tiva, the slightest sound of my or Taya's voice is generally enough to make her come off and look for us. Of course this makes it tough for Ljuba to take care of the two of them alone, and it means that we don't get all that much time for the four of us to interact. Ljuba tried feeding Tiva in this sling (here Tiva shows off her big eyes), but soon gave that up (the noises were still a problem).



Taya is still very much a social animal. I told her several days before Ed's (a PhD student with me) comprehensive exams that we were going to go have dinner with them and help him celebrate, and I pointed out the restaurant. She was so excited! Driving to the pool with Ljuba a couple days later, Ljuba asked Taya what she was doing, and Taya replied, "Just looking for Bandidas the restaurant." The dinner itself was great (except for a meltdown due to the sheer overabundance of nervous energy): she said "congratulations" to Ed and was in squirmy smiley heaven for the almost two hours we were there. By the end she was initiating hugs and high fives all around, on an absolute high. Here she is on one of the preceding quieter dinners, but with equally shiny eyes.



Taya isn't always fascinated by Tivona (sometimes she's simply immersed in her own things, about which she's constantly creating elaborate stories), but she is increasingly interacting with her.



"Hi smiley!"

Here's Tiva, distracted by my presence enough to give a good face shot.



Taya still loves to sing. She gets lots of practice--many nights she spends an hour or more lying in her crib talking and singing to herself and her toys. Here she practices "Baby Beluga", by Raffi.



Taya practices singing/reading "Baby Beluga"

It's really nice how easy it is to get a smile from Tivona now. We know it won't last for all that long!



Zoom to Mama, zoom to Dada

Tivona reminds me of a penguin when she flaps around dressed in this snowsuit.



Our little penguin

This was the first year that we missed the holidays in Toronto. While we did have a nice quiet time at home, we were very sad not to be with family. The reason is that we're going to Toronto for Ljuba's brother Tony's wedding to Elisa, in less than a month, and we couldn't imagine two trips in a month. Talking playfully about that time, I asked Taya, "Should we leave you here in Vancouver to take care of Tiva while Mommy and I go to Toronto?" Taya's response: "That doesn't make sense!" How right she is. So we'll all make the trip Jan 25.

Happy New Year, all!