We are melting.

It got up to 3 degrees yesterday afternoon. Even Wednesday, when we got home from Edmonton, it was still -25, and now it is POSITIVE DEGREES FOR PARTS OF THE DAY. We went ice skating.

The enormous fancy hotel downtown floods the field next to them, and some local corporations fund it. The skate is free, the skate rentals are free, it's free to sit by either the outdoor or indoor fire pit. I imagine that on colder days, someone sets up a hot-chocolate stand and does bumping business.

Even on a blistering Sunday afternoon in March, when the rink was PACKED, there were enough skates of all sizes that we found skates for everyone.

Not for me. I'm allowed to beg off things, because pregnant. I'm feeling like a ship in full sail these days, and I still have more than two months to go. So Joel took Eleanor out for her first ever spin around the ice. 'I'm skating wiv dad! Look at my ice skaters!'

By which she meant 'ice skates.' She was enormously proud of herself (and, ok, a little bit teary with frustration at a few points. 'It's too slippery for Ahl-nor!' Meaning 'Eleanor.' Meaning her). But mostly she was grimly and grinningly determined.

Free skating is a huge boon when you know you're only going to be out there for twenty minutes. The weather was too nice to be believed, so we went for a walk by the river. Eleanor petted so many dogs she almost couldn't see straight. To a great dane she says, You are a horse!

We went to the park this morning, it was only -5 and not even noon. Eleanor hasn't seen that park since last October. She was SHOUTY with delight.

I never got super excited about spring in BC; the rain just fell at slightly warmer temperatures and maybe some flowers sprouted. But I am DELIRIOUS right now. The weather-hardened side of me is braced for at least one more freeze, if not the perilous -40 of last month, at least the discouraging -25 of most of this winter. But the White Witch's dwarf lurks somewhere nearby, whispering 'This is no thaw. This is spring.'

Now I'm sitting on the couch while Eleanor naps the long nap of the recently-outdoors, and listening to the snow runoff rush down my drain pipe, and exulting. Our street is full of puddles and I have big plans for this afternoon.

They involve bee boots.

Edmonton is terrible.

Where were we. Oh yes, Eleanor had just barfed all down herself and there we were, trying to wipe barf off of a sad toddler and a car seat and a diaper bag full of bathing suits, in -20 weather, by the side of the road.

We took her back to our hotel and I gave her a bath and then Joel hosed down the car seat in the shower and we propped it up over the heater so it would dry, and I fed Eleanor some cheerios and put her down and then Joel snuck out for Vietnamese food, which we ate sitting half in the closet.

The next morning we went to The Sugar Bowl for brunch, and since Eleanor had been grazing off our plates for a few days AND hadn't pooped in same, I got her a bowl of oatmeal, marking the first time we have paid for food for her in a restaurant. I made her order it herself, and, though she doesn't look it here, she was thrilled to have her own restaurant meal.

Then we went to the Muttart conservatory, which was...I mean, it was plants. And EXPENSIVE. So....berrrgh.

Eleanor finally pooped while we were at the conservatory, for which I thank the oatmeal, but I had taken the wipes out of the diaper bag at the hotel room to help wipe barf off of things. Seriously everything, stop going wrong.

We spent the afternoon at the mall, doing mall-stuff. We were all pretty bagged by this point, and Joel needed mittens, so we poked around looking for mittens and hiding in clothing racks

until Eleanor and I got bored and wandered off to that old staple, The Disney Store.

Needless to say, Joel did not find mittens. Earlier in the trip, he would have found mittens, but we were no longer in the Things Going Well stage.

Back at our hotel room, I bagged up the now-dry-but-still-barfyish bathing suits, Eleanor's outfit, and Snuggles, and tied the bag up tight to keep the smell in. THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER because then Joel dropped a glass and it broke everywhere and we had to call housekeeping to come clean our room.

We went back to our previous night's intended destination, the Louisiana Purchase, only to find that they were having a private party for Fat Tuesday and were closed to the public. Foiled again. So we returned to our place of brunch and I had chicken and waffles in lieu of pancakes.

Literally the only good thing to happen to us that day. Maple butter, you guys.

We got back to our room and remarked on how good it smelled now that the garbage can full of barfy wet wipes was empty and the bag full of barfy clothes was all tied up and OH SHIT because the bag was gone. Gone. My sinking heart. We called the front desk and they said to call housekeeping in the morning and I shed a few tears and we went to bed because sometimes you need to put an end to a day.

The next morning, Joel took Eleanor out and I phoned housekeeping, SURE that my bag of clothes had been thrown out by accident, only to find that yes, it probably had, and the garbage trucks had come that morning. Eleanor's plaid pants that go with everything, her long-sleeved blue shirt that does likewise, Snuggles the Second (thank goodness for Snuggles: Original Sauce. Always have a back-up), Eleanor's bathing suit with the fishies, Joel's best board shorts, and my extremely expensive tangerine bathing suit with the white polka dots that I justified spending all of my birthday money on when I was pregnant with Eleanor because I was probably going to be pregnant again, and would wear it and wear it and wear it and it was adorable. REMEMBER HOW ADORABLE IT WAS?

And I bought it from a boutique in Victoria in 2011, so I am never going to be able to replace it. There are so many more horrible things that could have happened, and I keep reminding myself that it was just THINGS we lost, but every so often I have a pang of sadness for that bathing suit.

The hotel manager is going to reimburse me for the cost of a new suit, as well as comp our trip to cover the other items. If Eleanor hadn't barfed, if I hadn't tied the bag so tightly and left it in the corner, if Joel hadn't broken the glass, if the garbage trucks hadn't come that morning.

We gave the Louisiana Purchase one last try on our way out of town, and I had the Satisfaction Platter and it was all the jambalaya and in-house sausage and cajun shrimp and creole sauce that I wanted it to be, thank goodness, because I don't think I could have handled another disappointment.

Eleanor was hilarious on the drive home, as always.

Edmonton is amazing.

SO! Edmonton. We drove out there Saturday morning, and let me get this out of the way: Eleanor has become an absolute DELIGHT in the car. She plays with her toys, she tells herself stories and sings AT A VOLUME, she naps when you tell her it's time, and it's basically great.

But so we get to Edmonton at 2:00 and spend the first afternoon just crashing a McDonalds Playplace until they let us check in to our hotel, poking around the mall, those types of things, and then we go to a tiny, half-assed-looking burger joint called 'The Burger Joint' (Joel and I aren't young enough to immediately be like, HA HA THEIR INITIALS ARE 'BJ' but we also aren't old enough not to laugh when the sign points it out for us)

and have some amazing burgers.

Eleanor didn't notice when the fries arrived because she was Busy Reading (oh daughter of mine).

The next morning we went to the Royal Alberta Museum, and were GOING to swing by Tim Hortons or something but pulled into the Glenora Bistro instead, kind of on a whim, and had the best breakfast sandwich and eggs benny ever made. Eleanor had hers with a side un Unappreciated Kisses.

The museum was basically the greatest. Eleanor couldn't get enough of the animal...what would you call them, dioramas? Anyway. Remember that time she found a raisin in her cereal? This was like that, except for several hours. DERE'S A BEAVER! LOOKAT HIM!

And then there was a Patterns Display where you could go mess around with various pattern-making apparatuses

or wear a cape and do some xylophoning (for audible patterns, I think?)

and an exhibit on Chinese Food in Edmonton, which...ok...but it had this pool of fish beamed onto the floor that actually rippled and splashed when you stomped on it. Or swam in it.

And a room full of jewels and minerals and geodes, none of which Joel and I are into but which, when gathered and displayed in such NUMBERS, are lovely to look upon, and then a bug room full of live and dead specimens (which Joel took Eleanor around, because heaps of cockroaches, I can't even)

and then the DINOSAUR ROOM.

When I told Eleanor we were going to a museum, she said, To see some DINOSAUR BONES. Like the Little Critter! (Who does indeed go to a museum and see dinosaur bones, in Just Me and My Mom.) So here she is, delighted by the dinosaurs themselves, and by being just like Little Critter. Thniff my hand, dinosaur!

THEN we went to the Duchess Bakery for a reuben and then one of these:

It's called 'L'amore' and yes, we did amore it.

Eleanor had a nap and this is the first trip we've been on where we could just put her in her crib in the corner of the room and say, You go to sleep now, Mum and Dad are...also going to sleep. And then we lay in our bed and binge-watched House of Cards while she slept, IN FULL VIEW OF US AND WITHOUT COMPLAINING ABOUT IT.

We woke up and went to the sea lion show at the West Ed Mall, which we'd seen bits of the day before, peering down from a higher level of the mall with the other freeloaders. This time we actually paid so that we could sit in the actual arena and watch the sea lions dance.

Paying also gained us admission to the Sea Life Caverns, where there were turtles and penguins and ALSO I PETTED A STING RAY.

They just...they love it. You put your hand in the water and kind of wiggle your fingers and they come right to you, and if you give them a good rub they wriggle around under your hand like, Ahhhh yes.

And that was morning and evening, the first day. The second day, we wanted to get an early nap time in so we were just looking for a way to kill a few hours in the morning, and NOTHING opens until, like, 10:00, and we were still on Saskatoon Time so we were all waking up around 6:00 Edmonton Time, and I found this Treehouse Indoor Play Place and Cafe that seemed promising, and which BLEW OUR MINDS.

Ball pit. Bouncy castle. Toddler area. Climbing structure that Eleanor could actually climb, complete with enormous slide that I took her down and accidentally launched her off of. Floor piano.

Plus a bunch of other stuff that Eleanor wasn't into, like plasma cars and climbing walls but whatever Bayyyyysically it was the best, and exceeded any and all expectations. We were trying for an early nap because we wanted to hit Toddler Time at the water park in the afternoon, when adults get in for cheap. Water park, again, exceeds expectations.

I have like ten photos, because who wants to carry their phone around the water park, but they all more or less look like that. Eleanor just did this for two hours (by which I mean the laughing, not the wave-jumping, because she also went down a few slides with her dad, and clambered all over the toddler park, and ran AMOK in a field of fountains).

We went straight from the water park out for dinner, and we were nearly at the Louisiana Purchase when Eleanor, who had had a long day of running around and ingested a TON of splash-park-water and then sat through a 25-minute car ride, barfed all over the everything. And that was the beginning of the end.

Cheerios are for barfers.

I just wanted you to know that I partied.

We went to EDMONTON. On VACATION. I know. And at first it was a little like

Hi, I'm in Delaware.

But then we sat down and googled Things To Do In Edmonton and how did people have vacations before the internet, I ask you.

Anyway, it was actually a ridiculously good vacation, and we all had a delightful time despite SEVERAL SMALL DISASTERS.

None of which were ball-pit-related and all of which I will tell you about tomorrow, because we drove five hours today and are so, so tired. 

Talking more like a people, all the time.

[I wrote the first part of this post in, like, October, and found it in my drafts folder. I'm posting it now because HER WORDS ARE SO AMUSING]

One time, we were on a plane and Eleanor was eating a snack pack and there was a picture of a heart and she pointed at it and said 'heart!' and then pointed at her OWN heart, and I didn't know she knew that word and I almost died of the shock.

These days are like that basically all the time. Because she's like, What's DAT and you're like, That is a sailboat, or an orangutan, or a biscuit, and then she sort of knows that word (if it's a word like 'biscuit,' then she REALLY knows it, even if she calls it a 'fiskit.' You only have to tell her the name of delicious foodstuffs once). But you know she knows it, because you told her. Or you assume that someone else did.

But also, she is just sort of hanging around and listening all the time, and then later she's reading to herself and she's all, Ooop! I miss a page! Or she's beetling around the house, asking herself Where are you going? or What are you doing? or What did you find?

Or she's building a dinosaur out of blocks (it's the only thing she can build besides a tower, and it's a 'dinosaur' in the loosest sense) and he snaps in half and she's like, Oh, bad news!

Ok and NOW [this is the part I'm writing in February, not October] she just goes around, not just repeating things she's heart, but talking like a human all the time, (albeit one with terrible grammar and a weird, hilarious brain). I just never want to forget all the wacky things that come out of her mouth. Like in November when we were at my parents' house, and she's playing by herself on the couch and then looks over at us, hands to either side of her face with fingers spread, thumbs to her chin, and goes, I got a diamond face!

Or the day we got back, and she's rooting around in her soup with her spoon and then, Behold! A chickpea! And Joel and I are just like, What.

And THEN this last time we were home, we were walking the trails with my dad and Eleanor comes to give me a leg hug and then just puts her tongue on my jeans. And I'm like, Hey, cut it out! And she holds up her index finger and goes, Just ONNNNE taste. And I'm like, What? No. No tastes. And then twenty minutes later she comes at me again, tongue out and finger up, all, Just ONNNNNNE more taste. And I was so glad my dad was there because you need someone else to look at like Ha ha ha what even, child.

Never change, Eleanor.