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Dawn-Lynn is now 12!

She has began puberty…

As she’s two years away from high school, becoming a young woman, and trying to find her identity and what she feels her role is.

She has started to have interests in art, outdoors (camping, biking, night walks, sunsets.). Her love and interest of books and reading has only grown, Dawn now has her own little book collection enough to make a small library. She enjoys reading about crime, mysteries, life challenges and changes. She enjoys old good based on the west, or about small towns. She has interests in history too.

She’s constantly questioning her friend groups and surrounding wondering if these are the people she wants to be around. She’s nervous what her high school years will be like.

She’s very independent when it comes to homework, chores (cleaning her room, taking out the garbage, cleaning the bathroom, and doing dishes 3-4 days a week), she takes the dog for a walk everyday after school and again around 6-7:30pm when she doesn’t have any extra activities or sports.

As puberty has started she’s been having slight body dysmorphia. As puberty changes your body and it’s different for everyone, she sometimes compares herself to older people or her friends who may have started puberty before or after her. I do my best to remind her she is beautiful, her body is going from a child’s body to a young women’s body and within time everything will even out and she’ll settle into her body’s changes.

I’ve kept the book open towards her body’s changes, sex and any other questions she may have about education, becoming more mature, relationships, remembering right from wrong, consent and Comfort levels for her and others, etc.

We’ve had slight conversations on sex, protection, and her hygiene and others (including menstruation).

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Dawn-Lynn is 5 almost 6 years old!

Her skills development is going really well! Dawn enjoys riding a tricycle. She has the balance to hop on one foot, and stand on one foot! She enjoys trying to see if she can do more jumping jacks than me! she’s been practicing tying bows.

During arts and crafts she enjoys cutting and gluing shapes to her papers such as squares, triangles, and circles.

She enjoy helping herself to pantry for snacks and before meals. Her favourite snacks are chocolate chip cookies, goldfish, lollipops, watermelon, sliced cherries, and candy. (Thank you Halloween)

She’s become interested in constantly asking why, what, and where. She’ll ask where her cousins are, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. She can call each family member by name.

She enjoys conversations about the outdoors, trees, colours, TV shows like Pokémon, bluey, Dora the explorer, car shows, peppa pig, and paw patrol. she also enjoys talking about her imagination, and the games her and her friends play like house, school, and other pretend games.

She constantly asks, where this is, what that is, why, she asks why it rains, where does rain come from, why is the sun yellow and hot, she also tries to join every conversation! She constantly asks me when Halloween is, where is Halloween. Where new parks are, when is she going to school all day.

Everything is either the best most exciting thing ever, the end of the world.

Shes been making lots of friends in kindergarten, and at daycare. She enjoys learning to read and print her name at school. She enjoys books, and sounding out words, and telling you what’s happening in a book from the pictures.

She’s mindful of others feeling included, and she does her best to share, make everything fair to others.

Dawn-Lynn is showing signs of slight dyslexia

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The terrible 2’s have began😐constantly telling everyone no.

As Dawn-Lynn is learning to pronounce words and learning to speak simple sentences, some of her common words and phrases are “no”, “mine”, “you”, “me”, “bee”, “out”. She tries to find the words to ask or tell me she wants to go outside but isn’t quite there yet and usually just points to go outside.

Some sentences she can say are “me, you out” “no mine” and “that mine”. (That is pronounced as “tat” as the “th” sound is still tricky for her.)

She really enjoys her outside toys such as a push lawnmower, broom, balls, little tikes car and slide. Inside she enjoys chalk, paint, crayons, and markers. A few toys she commonly Plays with are her blanket, stuffed animals, and block puzzles and building blocks. She enjoys building forts so it and read books in, or even just to nap in.

Dawn-Lynn has been getting into a routine of waking up in the morning having breakfast, getting dressed (she tries to fully dress herself but can’t always manage to put both legs into separate sides of her pants, she’ll try to wear both legs in the right or left leg or her pants. Socks she can mange) after she eats in the morning she prefers to play by herself for a little either with her building blocks, or looking through books, sometimes she colours. By 11am we go outside and play in the backyard, Dawn always takes her socks off as she likes the feeling of the grass on her feet. By noon we’re back inside and eat lunch, 1pm we go for a walk around the neighbourhood, we only walk about a block or two. After our walk Dawn goes for a nap, while I do some laundry, and other household chores.

Potty training has began. I’ve decided to start potty training with an award system. Everytime she makes it to the potty she gets a snack, or a something small (she does not get a Barbie, or a tablet or something stupid for making it to the potty one time but if she completes potty training in 3-5 weeks she can get a Barbie, or a big new stuffed animal.)

She’s been doing well, she enjoys feeling more independent. We even discussed that’s it’s okay to stop playing for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom her toys will still be there.

Today Dawn-Lynn got mad over her lunch (cut chicken nuggets, broccoli and cheese cubes) my mistake was not cutting up the broccoli into small fine pieces so then she threw her sippy cup and the lid broke off and watered down juice went all over my kitchen floor.🤦‍♀️😡🥲 After about 5 minutes of regulating the child, myself, and situation, Dawn helped me wipe up the mess. We put some ranch on the side of her plate and she gave the boiled broccoli a try only after dipping it into the ranch. My child now enjoys broccoli 😎🥳

Update on club foot - Luckily due to physical therapy Dawn-Lynn is able to walk and crawl. The bone is straightening out due to the Ponseti method I’m so happy that my little bundle of joy is doing such a good job in physical therapy 🥳

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Dawn-Lynn is finally six months old!🥳🥰

She got her first tooth!!

Dawn finally can sit without support, her reflexes with reaching grabbing, and holding things are great! She enjoys being able to grab her bottle, she tries holding her bottle to feed herself but she can't hold the bottle in her mouth properly, she mostly gets air.

She grabbing at her toys, putting them in her mouth.

she loves pulling at the carpet, as she likes the soft texture.

she's pulled the dog and cat's fur a few times, but that's life with a baby around. I suppose.

She really likes to look in the mirror and make faces, and touch her reflection! She also enjoys jumping and bouncing in her jumper.

She makes a silly little face and other faces when hearing new or familiar sounds. She enjoys smacking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

Each day she becomes more engaged with her toys, becomes more playful, and laughs and smiles a bit more. she truly makes my heart melt.

side note:

Her club foot is straightening out due to the cast, now she is on to the Ponseti shoe method. Sooner than later she'll be able to begin therapy once she's starting to walk :)

my one and only complaint about motherhood is teething, oh my goodness let me tell you it's the worse, I slept more the first few weeks of her being born than this. I feel bad for my poor baby as she's in pain, but goodness she's been screaming and crying, and CHEWING!

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Welcome to the world Dawn-Lynn!

Dawn-Lynn is a healthy 8 pounds, 13 oz, 20 inches long and blue eyes and brown hair. 😃💖

Dawn-Lynn will also be working on straightening out her foot, and ankle as she was born with club foot. 😋