Things we love: Co-op's toddler shopping carts

I love grocery shopping. I never, ever make a list and thoroughly enjoy browsing through each aisle to see what I need.

But, shopping has become increasingly difficult with two kids. Enough said.

That is, until I found this:

The Co-op in our city has toddler shopping carts!!

Mya will happily follow behind me filling her cart with all the things we need.Of course, I have to check her cart at the check out. Today I had a box of cookies, an extra head of lettuce, two bottles of body spray and some chicken and onion spice. But she's a great helper and I will gladly take her along on any grocery shop to the Co-op from now on.

Thank you Co-op. You've made my shopping experience a lot brighter :)

Melanie

6 weeks

Maybe I was naive. Maybe I just didn't understand. But I didn't know what it meant to lose a baby until it happened to me.

It was a regular Saturday morning. I was playing in the yard with my kids and chatting with my husband. I was 6 weeks pregnant and could not have been happier in that moment. I want a big family. I want my kids close in age. My life was happening exactly how I wanted it to happen. I was happy. I was writing a blog in my head titled "Welcome to the Jungle." It was the phrase a friend used when we gleefully announced our 3rd baby's pending arrival.

And that's when I felt it. In that moment I knew - I was bleeding.

Some women bleed during their pregnancies. It's a sign telling them to slow down and rest their body. But I've never bled during mine and I knew it was not a good sign.

In the emergency room my doctor confirmed that the baby was alright. He helped me feel calm, but also let me know that if I lost the baby, there was nothing he could do to stop it.

I rested for three days. I cancelled plans. I laid on the couch. I read an entire book on Sunday afternoon. I felt sad as I prepared for what might happen, but as time wore on I had hope that our baby was going to be alright.

But things were not alright. The cramping started on Monday evening and I lost the baby that night. I cried in Roger's arms as I talked about what could have been and what we lost. I fell asleep feeling devastated and empty.

We had announced our pregnancy early. I'm not very good at keeping pregnancy a secret and I always believed the statement that if anything were to happen, I'd rather have the support of everyone knowing than to suffer in silence. But my body? It was built for having babies. It was built for both pregnancy and labour. I am one of the lucky ones. A miscarriage wouldn't happen to me.

Until it did.

As it turns out, 1 in 3 pregnancies end with a miscarriage.

It's the little things that hurt the most. Walking over to look at my daily calendar and seeing that I'd already marked each week of my pregnancy until the end of the year. Now every time I look at it I'm reminded of how far along I should have been. And the biggest hurt is looking at my bare fireplace. The sign I'd hung to tell Roger that we were having a baby has been taken down and although it gave me closure, it's empty look now reminds me of what should still be hanging there. 

I'm glad I'd announced the pregnancy early as the support I received was comforting and helpful. The texts, calls, emails, flowers, cards, gifts and visits - they have meant so much. It made me feel not so alone and it definitely helped to hear from others who'd experienced the same thing. Rachelle - you saved me. I hope you know that. I don't know how I would have gotten through it without you.

Having a miscarriage was absolutely terrible. It broke my heart. I honestly don't think that many people understand what it means or know how difficult it is to be pregnant one minute and not the next, unless you've been through it yourself. And now that I have, I feel sad thinking about my friends who've been there while I blissfully looked the other way. I wish I'd known...but I'm glad I didn't.

I feel blessed to have two beautiful, healthy kids and they've made this loss a little easier on me. Roger, you are my rock and although it was a terrible loss, I'm thankful you were by my side.

Melanie

Campground Review: Duck Mountain

This stop - Duck Mountain (north of Kamsack, SK)
Length of stay - 4 nights
Weather - Rainy with a chance of flood
Campers - 4 (Roger, Melanie, Mya & Jasper)

Privacy
Most campsites were well treed and provided a lot of privacy. Actually, it may have provided too much as the campground was very, very dense and that meant there were limited pathways through the trees to get to other areas. Also, our campsite was so private, we were a good 10 minute walk to the showers - and a 20 minute walk to the closest park.  It was a negative to be so secluded.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Amenities
Duck Mountain boasts lake swimming, parks, hiking trails, boat rentals, horse rides, mini golf and an interpretive centre. We were also able to take in a couple campground events including a magic show, face painting and balloon animals. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions we missed out of the Crafty Campers event that I'm sure Mya would have enjoyed. All in all, the amenities were positive, but they didn't stand out above other campgrounds we've been to before. The lake has a very tiny beach, and the road to get to the boat rentals is extremely congested. There was also only one park in the entire campground (and is not located with the showers, which is odd) and is not anywhere near the actual campsites. It's a hike just to get to the park, or you have to drive. The mini golf and horse rides are a five minute drive from the campground, but there is no biking/walking path to get there. We had to drive to avoid biking with the kids on a main highway. The hiking trails that we did get to experience were great, but due to the rain and flooding, most were washed out and we didn't get to continue. The interpretive centre was small, but a welcome treat to get our little kids to get out of the rain and the mini golf was a fun course. The park at the beach was also large and fun, but with the rain we didn't play on it much.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Campsite
We sprung for luxury camping this trip and paid for electricity, water and sewer. What we didn't realize is that we would be one of the furthest campsites in the park and were a long hike to any services. The bonus was that we didn't need any other services, but when the pipe broke near our campsite and it took an hour to fix, we were left without water in our camper and had to drive to the nearest bathroom. The campsite itself was narrow and due to all the rain, was partially flooded and the ground was very soft. The camp fire also was not moveable, so we were stuck having it in a puddle of water during the rainiest day. We stayed in a section of the campground that was newly expanded and this meant that the road was made of dirt and gravel instead of being paved. On a hot, summer day this might have been alright, but as we camped during a flood, we were constantly covered in mud. Walking our dog was a complete pain. Luckily Mya and I had our rubber boots - and I think Roger will finally cave and buy some for our next trip.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Bathroom/Showers
As we sprung for luxury camping, we didn't have to use the bathroom/shower house. However, I discovered that there was only one bathroom/shower house for all 207 campsites in the Birch section of Duck Mountain. I felt lucky to not have to wait in line for a shower. When I did use the bathroom, it felt clean and was similar to the shower houses found in most provincial campgrounds.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars


We chose Duck Mountain because Roger had gone there as a kid (although he went to the Manitoba side of Duck Mountain) and remembered really liking it. But, all-in-all, we felt there wasn't anything special about this park to bring us back in the future. And although the park can't be blamed for the amount of flooding, the rain didn't help this particular park to shine. It was a 4 hour drive for us to make it to Duck Mountain and in the future we would prefer to stick closer to home. We did make the most of our trip and were able to go on some hikes, a boat ride, bike rides and a lot of walks and we really enjoyed being stuck together in all the rain :)

Melanie

Campground Review: Nickle Lake

With many, many camping trips planned this summer with our new-to-us camper, I've decided to keep track of our favourites and not so favourites.

First stop - Nickle Lake (two minutes outside of Weyburn, SK)
Length of stay - One week
Weather - Cloudy and rain with one day of sun
Campers - 9 in two sites (5 adults, 4 kids)

Privacy
The campground was seriously lacking in privacy as there are minimal trees (if any) separating campsites. The oddest moment of the trip for me was when I opened up my blinds and found a man at the next campsite over staring at me through my window from his lawn chair. I quickly shut the blinds and kept them that way for the remainder of the week. Creepy!! It was ideal to have minimal privacy separating our campsite from the other in our group, but a little privacy is needed between neighbouring sites regardless.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Amenities
Nickle Lake boasts lake swimming, kiddie splash pool, boating, fishing, mini golf, parks and ball diamonds. They also have a cafe on the beach for a welcome treat. (Unfortunately for us, the cafe doesn't open until July and as we were camping in late-June it was not an option for us. Boy, were we disappointed!) We also picked a very rainy week to go camping and were not able to spend much time at any of these locations. The kiddie splash pool was also not open for the season yet and the park at that specific spot is in desperate need of a makeover. The fishing and boating dock as well as the sandy beach were beautiful and I wish we'd had more sunny days so we could have enjoyed them more.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Campsites
They were unexpectedly long and provided ample room for campers, tents, boats, vehicles, etc. They were also all grass. Having an all grass campsite seemed odd at first as most are gravel, but it was a pleasant surprise since the week we chose to go camping found us soaked with rain.  Gravel campsites would have left us, and especially our dog, soaked with mud, but Nickle just left us wet. At least we were able to stay clean in all the rain. An added bonus was that Jasper was still crawling and the grass did not leave his knees full of cuts and scrapes. I also appreciated that the fire pit was moveable. We were able to rearrange its location based on the wind and rain of the day.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Bathroom/Showers
We were steps away from the showers (which were free), but we found the fan inside to be extremely loud and one shower didn't work. It wasn't a factor though as it was a very quiet week and we were usually the only ones in there at one time.That being said, they were not cleaned very well.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars


Overall we had a nice trip to Nickle Lake. It was nice to stay close to home and I appreciated being at a regional campground because they are smaller in size and you can bike or walk to every amenity. We will definitely consider camping here again - and we will hope for better weather!

Melanie

Things we love: Gro Clock

I follow another blog where the lady has begun posting a "Things we Love" series and decided to follow suit.

We moved Mya to a toddler bed months ago. She was always an awesome sleeper in her crib, but the change to toddler bed took some getting used to. That is, until we stumbled upon this:

It's called a Gro Clock and it's the best purchase I've made in a very long time.

Mya has no concept of time and would get up out of bed at all hours of the night. Sometimes we'd find her wandering the house, and sometimes she'd come to find us in our bedroom. And when we put her back to bed, she would cry because she believed she was ready to get up. A few early, early mornings found one of us laying on the couch with her watching Mickey Mouse because Mya wouldn't stay in bed.

Ugh!

Enter: Gro Clock. It cost us $50 and the concept was simple: Stay in bed until you see the sun!

When Mya goes down for her nap or at bedtime, we click a button to display a blue star. As time goes by, the 12 little stars surrounding the big star fade away to tell her that it's almost time to get up. When the sun rises, she knows that it's time to get out of bed.

We set the sun rise to display at 3pm (nap time) and 7:08am (morning). The clock itself is silent. So if Mya is not awake yet, the sun shines and Mya sees it when she wakes up.

It took two nights before Mya fully caught on, and now - months later - she loves her clock. If she wakes up in the early morning and sees the star, she knows she can read a book or play with her stuffies, but she has to stay in bed. And if she wakes to the sun rise in her bedroom, I get to hear my new favourite words wake me up: "Mommy! The sun is up!"

If you have a toddler who struggles with staying in bed, trust me, a Gro Clock is the best purchase you'll ever make. 

Enjoy!

Melanie

The tooth fairy

My niece Layla came over to our house today for a visit. I commented on the tooth she recently lost and asked her to tell me about her visit with the tooth fairy. Here's what she told me:

"After your tooth falls out, you take it and put it under your pillow when you go to sleep. Then, the tooth fairy comes into your bedroom with scissors and she takes your tooth and cuts it into teeny, tiny pieces until it's like dust. Then she sprinkles the dust over you while you sleep and it will help all your dreams come true."

My mouth fell open.

What a creative, awesome story about the tooth fairy. I have decided to tell this exact story to my kids when they start losing their teeth.

I wrote my sister immediately and asked her where she came up with the story to tell Layla? But she told me that Layla came up with it herself. She has a great imagination and is a good story teller.

I smiled as I told Layla that it was a very nice story. But then she yelled:

"Yes, Auntie, but if your dreams don't come true, then you will NEVER, EVER GET THAT TOOTH BACK!!"

So there you have it kids. If you don't think your dreams will come true - please hide your teeth from the tooth fairy. Layla went on to tell me that by the time she turns 7 she will have lost all her teeth and won't have them anymore because the tooth fairy keeps turning them into dust.

I don't think she likes the tooth fairy very much...

I love you Layla. And I hope all your dreams come true.

Melanie

Happy Mother's Day

Although I believe that we should show our mom's every day why they are so special to us, it's still nice to be spoiled on Mother's Day. And that's why this year was so perfect.

This year I was able to sleep in (until 8:30am, but still - it was all I wanted). I enjoyed eggs, toast and sausages from chef Roger for brunch (who, it should be noted, makes the worst eggs I've ever tasted - but I loved them anyway).  Mya and I painted her bird house a variety of colours. I took a trip to the store with Jasper to buy a tiller to work up my vegetable garden. I took a trip for ice cream with my best gal, Mya. And I spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine and watching my husband and kids get my garden ready for planting. Mya and I wore our summer dresses and we thoroughly enjoyed the day.

Yesterday was a fantastic day that was only made better today when my Mother's Day gift arrived - a personalized cookie jar for my counter :)

Here's a snapshot of what my Mother's Day looked like

Thank you Mya and Jasper for giving me the greatest gift I could have ever asked for - being your mom.

And to all the mom's out there - especially my own mom and mother-in-law, Happy Mother's Day.

Melanie