Tag: Mara

2 Stories

First, during Mara’s bedtime last night…

Mara has been announcing lately what she would like to be one day. A couple of days ago she decided on teacher. Last night, she said she would like to be a teacher most days of the week and a doctor on Fridays. I said she could be a doctor who teaches other doctors, but no, she wants to teach kids. This morning the list of occupations had grown: teacher, doctor, horse rider, adventurer (like in Wild Kratts), and one other thing. I can’t remember the fifth job and will have to check with her again. The list will have changed again by then, of course…

And then, this morning…

Tessa is a super helpful kid. She likes to clean her own tray after a meal and is sort of at the stage a lot of kids go through where brooms are really fun, etc. She also LOVES going outside, especially if it means helping Mara on or off of the bus. This morning I was talking with Mara about how she had to get ready as soon as she was done brushing her teeth, and with that, Tessa appeared at the bathroom door with Mara’s boots in her hands. She delivered them to Mara, left the room, returned promptly with her own boots, and then repeated the process with my boots. I said, “Tessa, Mara needs to put on her snow pants first, then she can put on her boots.” So, Tessa left the room and came back with Mara’s snow pants! We put them on as soon as Mara finished brushing her teeth. When we left the room, Tessa helped us get Mara’s feet into her boots and then brought over Mara’s scarf, followed by her mittens (which were found under a bench warming on the heating vent – I only put Mara’s mittens here, and I didn’t realize Tessa knew this!). I think Tessa also handed us Mara’s coat, but I can’t be sure. In the midst of all this, Mara exclaimed: “Did Tessa pull my pants over my boots?!?” This is usually the last but very important step in getting Mara ready. But I had to tell Mara, no, I did that for her. She loved having Tessa’s help with all of this. It really was something to see!

Artwork at Dinnertime

Once Mara finished eating tonight she wandered off to do some artwork. She then presented me with this drawing:

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A mommy with messy hair!

Snow Princess

Here’s Mara, just before heading out trick-or-treating…

Snow Princess?!? Not duck? Not butterfly?

So her costume wasn’t exactly what we had anticipated, but she loved it and people seemed to get a kick out of it. We visited a lot of Mara’s friends on and around our street, and she managed to say trick or treat a few times (as well as ‘Thank you’ and ‘Happy Halloween’ every time!).  What topped it all off was that we also had more kids come by our place than usual, so the fun continued once we got back home 🙂

Duck and Bus!

Guest post by James

Mara was the very lucky recipient of two original paintings recently, and she helped us hang them in her room. The first picture is a wider shot to show what her room looks like now (with the new wall and door!).

In the second picture, Mara gives her version of an excited reaction…

(We actually asked her to say thank you, which she does know how to say in two languages – but of course not on command!)

There’s a bit of a story behind these two paintings, both of which are by Mara’s Auntie Kim. Kim’s new site is at KimRempel.com and in exchange for my work in setting it up and hosting it, Kim offered to do some artwork for Mara.

Kim keeps a daily painting blog as well, and the story of the bus painting is told in three posts:

Kim’s blog is definitely worth following. And make sure you check out her site!

Halloween #2

Mara enjoyed her second Halloween! It was our first time trick-or-treating with her.

We also went into James’ work this morning, to show off Mara’s costume and to catch a glimpse of the kids from the daycare doing their tour of the building (they all have parents that work in that office). Mara was so excited when we ran into the crowd of kids! They were a bit older than she is, but she would have happily gone off with them for the rest of the tour.


I carved our pumpkin this time — Mara helped, mostly by napping long enough for me to get the bulk of the work done!