Wordless Wednesday: a photo shoot

We did a photo shoot for Apples'n'Oranges with the boys. Check out a couple of others on the Apples'n'Oranges blog and at Some Kind of Wondermom.

I wanna be a top momma so I need your help!

I'm on TopMomma.com!! It's very exciting but if I want to stay there people need to click on the photo that's representing my blog (it's the photo of Kiernan and the duck in the laundry basket - see below)
Help me stay there - I want more people to come and see my blog :)

ALSO, I won another prize! A bitty braille shirt from the opinionated parent! It pays to enter an enormous amount of contests! ;)

Don't forget to enter the Apples'n'Oranges contest :)

Formula poo

It's stinky and runny and messy and slimey.
It gets out of the diapers and makes me gag it smells so much stronger breastmilk poo.
EW!

Know what else is gross? Peas - but not everyone thinks so and you could win a onesie. Go check it out :)

Blogging perk

I knew I'd like blogging when I discovered it. Once I realized how big the community was, I KNEW I was going to get addicted. But, I didn't know about this incredible perk of blogging. Businesses want our business, so they give away prizes!! How sweet is that??

You know my Dog Days of Summer giveaway - the company (Envirosax) was so impressed with the traffic that they got (unsolicited by them, I came up with that idea all on my own) that they have offered to provide the prize for free. Isn't that fabulous?? Check them out, I'm still a huge fan and am getting some of my own! :)

And 5 minutes for mom and Best Buy are giving away the ultimate prize this month!

a 37″ Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

so go enter. no don't. I want it. ;)

But check out Apples'n'Oranges again next week because there will be more prizes there soon too! :)

Happy birthday Gloria

Kiernan decided to call Gloria to say hi and play her a birthday song.

18 lbs 4 oz

He's growing! He's getting bigger! Yay to olive oil in his food! ;)
AND he's nursing more, which makes me happy.
And he's accepting formula sometimes, if we put sugar in it. (it's not like he can't stand the extra calories)
So, I'm a happy mama.

For all of you who asked me what I was going to eat first, I never replied because I've been kind of sad this week that he was stopping, not so much for an emotional reason, but because I worry so much about him not getting what he needs to grow. So for now I'll keep nursing when he will, we'll keep trying the formula, and maybe we'll be done with the nursing around his first birthday. We'll see. Not to mention, it's almost like I'm afraid of dairy and soy now. And I have NO idea where I'd start!!! ;)

Wordless Wednesday: GET US OUTTA HERE!

Local shoppe to soon close its doors

Ye Olde Milke Shoppe may soon be closing its doors due to lack of demand for its product.

"A sudden decrease in demand has left us unable to maintain our old production," says Mother Lara. "If we don't soon see interest regaining, we will have no choice but to end production alltogether."

It would seem that the shoppe's main patron has decided that he prefers fast food, something Lara is not happy about.

"If he were choosing something equally nourishing, that would be one thing, but kids today and their "I want it now and I want it fast" are losing out on the important things like quality and nutrition!"

Production has been slipping steadily over the last week at Ye Olde Milke Shoppe and predictions have it that they may have to close their doors forever as early as this coming weekend. Until then, the shoppe's owner is holding her breath, waiting to see if a suitable replacement for their service can be found.

"If he is healthy, I am happy, and we'll be happy to reopen our doors in a couple of years when a new demand arrives."

I won!

I won another prize!!

I won this fabulous summer bag giveaway from the Pinks and Blues Girls!

They have lots of great contests, including a dog days of giveaways contest where you could win a tote like the one all my prizes are coming in! (I'm not bragging, I'm just giddy with excitement!)

Go visit them, their site, and their blog are both really cool.

Maybe tomorrow I'll blog about Kiernan and not just prizes prizes prizes! :)

Dog days of Summer - a bloggy giveway

I've been feeling very 'green' lately and am really into using the reusable non-plastic bags for grocery shopping. I saw these bags on mymomshop.com and fell in love! :) So, I'm going to give away a single one of your choice as my prize! I'm not sure if I'm going to have them all delivered to me (I need to order from Australia if they go anywhere outside of the US) or if I'll have it delivered directly to the winner (if you're in the states) so it could take awhile to arrive, but it'll happen! So check out the site, and if you win you can pick your favourite (of the non-organic ones).

Just comment here to enter, and let me know where you're from. If you want, you can tell me which bag is you're favourite, but you don't have to choose until you've been picked as the winner. You don't have to be a blogger to enter, just make sure to email me so I know how to reach you at lara(at)apples-n-oranges(dot)com.

I'll pick one person at random on Friday morning sometime. Are you excited?? :)

***Congratulations to Lori from Queen of Dirty Laundry - she is the winner of the pouch from envirosax! ***


And check out the giveaway at Apples'n'Oranges too!

Cuz I said so.

Kiernan got a new hand-me-down toy the other day. It's a toy with buttons with each of the letters of the alphabet, when you press on them it says the letter. K's favourite button is "y".

We're so in trouble in a year or two! ;)

Dream a little dream of you

*start depressing post*

I haven't posted much this week - it's been kind of crazy busy. But despite being really busy with Apples'n'Oranges, visiting with my new mom friend, and cleaning for the cleaning people ;) I also have been wanting to blog about a topic I'm having a hard time blogging about.

Kiernan doesn't sleep well. We get him dead asleep before we put him down. He wakes up a lot. He is hard to get dead enough asleep to put down. He often ends up sleeping on our bed - both when we're there and when we aren't.

I'm not happy with how hard it is to get him down and how frustrating it can get for both Eric and I. And I feel judged by others for 'letting him get away with it'.

Now, I'm not sure I AM being judged, but I really FEEL judged. A lot of the questions I get I'm fairly sure are meant to be helpful "have you tried just leaving him in the crib awake to see what happens?" "have you tried letter him cry for awhile?" "have you tried letting him cry longer?" "have you tried blah blah blah blah blah". And it's not like I necessarily want people to stop offering suggestions because maybe they'll make one that makes sense to me, but so far... nothing feels right.

I've read a couple of books on the topic and so far don't really feel comfortable with any of the options. And I feel like things are getting a lot better for us. Kiernan is sleeping longer (4-5 hour stretches most nights, may not sound like much to you... but to us... it's pretty good. Sometimes he even goes 7!) and sometimes is quite easy to get down. But we're always battling something: a new food that didn't go over well, mommy making a mistake and eating something that hurts his tummy, teething (god, will it ever take a break??), a cold, etc.

We've tried to just leave him crying in the crib, but never for more than 15-20 minutes. He gets louder and louder and angrier and angrier and never takes a break. The babies I know who successfully learned from being left in the crib never reacted that way and I personally don't believe its the right route for us.

I would be happy to rock him to sleep every night until he was a bit older if only it were that easy, but if often isn't.

(See why I said I was having a hard time writing this post? It's so disconnected. I don't compose, rewrite, edit my posts you I hope you guys can muddle through my thought process here.)

So I'm in this land of frustration that is making me a really crusty wife and mother. And I don't know what to do anymore. Oh, and to boot, we had to move K's crib down (because he was about to fall out of it now that he can pull himself up) and that by itself has made me terribly sad. He's so far down in the crib, and I guess it's just a really big sign that he's getting older.

How does attachment parenting dictate you deal with babies who don't sleep? Maybe that's what I'll go research that, because I somehow thing that in the end, that is more my parenting philosophy than a lot of the others...

*end depressing post*

Kisses for Kiernan, kisses for mommy!

Kiernan spontaneously started giving kisses yesterday - talk about making my heart gush! He just leaned over and goobered all over my face! And has been doing it repeatedly every since. I love it! Love it! I've been getting lots of hugs too.

Wordless Wednesday - I think he's making fun of you!

And don't forget about our Apples'n'Oranges contest - you could win a super cute and super soft sleeper!

Kiernan learns to walk on walls!

Ok, not really, but he's walking. I only feel mildly guilty that we had to bribe him with cheerios to do it ;)

I signed up for Pay Per Post

I was really skeptical about Pay per post - I didn't want to be writing ads and reviews on my blog all the time - seems quite fake. But then I got curious, so I signed up, because, well, I do that kind of thing :)
So I signed up and then I see that really you get to write about things you like and things you want to post about - not specific products, but topics. Like mortgages (not going to do that) and bank accounts (has anyone ever heard me go on about PC banking?) and strollers (I love my peg!)
So, I'm signing up, and maybe I'll do a post now and then, and I'll get paid for it apparently. And that's not a bad thing. I was going to talk to you guys about stuff anyways, why not let them help me come up with topics from time to time? :)
What do you think? Have any of you ever signed up for PayPerPost? What was your experience? Why haven't you if you haven't? Would you sign up?
ads on blogs

Contest alert

I'm all about the contests, and the free stuff - as you all know :) Here are a few more:

Adventures in Babywearing is having a contest where you can win a gift certificate from Kangaroodle. Kangaroodle also wants you to know about Mama Speaks! which I've told you all about already cuz I won stuff from them last wee, and I love free stuff, but also love to share the wealth ;)

We're still having our Apples'n'Oranges contest - we extended the deadline. Add us to your blog and you can win a prize. Tell other people about the contest too if you want ;)

You can win a hot momma tshirt from Goodyblog.

Go tell them I sent you to this one and we both get entered!


And stay tuned because I'm so up for participating in this next week. I think we'll get Apples'n'Oranges involved too! :)

We're moving!

Well I've been moving for a long time! But now K really is too! As of this weekend he can official squirm his way (often involves a commando type crawl that I'm surprised doesn't give him rug burn on his face because he often doesn't lift it from the floor), furniture walk all around rooms, and out of them if you don't watch out (this skill was practiced long and hard at the cottage last week), AND! wait for it...
Yesterday, during a bbq we had at our house for my birthday, Kiernan WALKED! He took about 5-6 steps from me to the exersaucer - TWICE!
He's taken a bunch of other tentative steps since then too. According to other parents in the room (who hooted and hollered and scared the heck out of K after he took those first steps which had him break down into a fit of tears) it won't be long now until he's walking on his own.
I'll keep you posted ;) Babyproofing is going to get more and more challenging I think!

And don't forget about our Apples'n'Oranges contest - you could win a super cute and super soft sleeper!

Blogroll

I've been seeing lots of emails about bloggers updating their blogrolls and it seems I've been living in lala-land with regards to mine. I thought I'd made tons of updates that were never made!
So, I just spent some time updating it. If you aren't there and would like to be (hehe - as if I have that many readers ;) let me know and I'd love to add you!

And don't forget about our Apples'n'Oranges contest - you could win a super cute and super soft sleeper!

I still can't believe he's already 10 months old

And don't forget about our Apples'n'Oranges contest -

I'm a winner!!

Ok, I was on a role last night and won TWO, count TWO prizes last night!!!

I wont a gift certificate from Mabel's Labels via Mums the Wurd.
and!
I won a Potty like a Rockstar onesie from My Rockstar Baby via Mama Speaks.

Yay! Things WILL be arriving in my mailbox :) And then MORE things once I spend the gift certificate from mabel's labels! Check out Mama Speaks and Mums the Wurd for your chances to win.

And don't forget about our Apples'n'Oranges contest - you could win a super cute and super soft sleeper!

Wordless Wednesdays: Clowns aren't so scary

Don't forget about our Apples'n'Oranges contest - help us promote our blog!

Apples'n'Oranges contest

We're giving away a prize at Apples'n'Oranges! We made a button (ooh!)


and we're hoping that people will link to us, display our button, or just tell someone about us. We're getting to a really exciting stage of the business planning, and the more people who stop by, read what we have to say, tell us what they think, the more we know we're on the right track.
So stop on by, tell people about us, and maybe you can win a very cute sleeper. It's SO soft I can't get over it by the way.

Seriously?!

I just read a review of a blog written by one of my favourite bloggers, Meg from Simply Nutmeg, where she talked about short posts being good posts, so here's a short one :)

If you go to a movie with your kids, and your kids are jumping up and down and talking really loudly, do you think the right thing to do is to let them keep doing that? Even when people start moving away from your kids because they're being so disruptive? Really?

I try not to say I'll never do things, or be all "i can do better" but seriously, if Kiernan was disturbing an entire theatre full of viewers of a movie, he wouldn't get to see the rest of the movie.

Can formula make you high?

So after our visit with the dietitian we decided to try giving K alimentum again.

I'm going to preface this with a little explanation though. A few weeks ago I decided to try to mix alimentum with rice milk and give it to Kiernan to see if he would take it. He took about 3 oz. That day I also decided to try him on Cheerios. I'm not entirely sure if I'd banged my head that morning, but for some reason I started him on 3 things he'd never had in one day. Any new parent knows that's not how it's done, but whatever. I think I thought "he's had rice and that's fine, this is just rice milk. How can he react to this special formula? And cheerios is pretty much all stuff he's had also, so no problem"
WRONGO!
That night we had a baby who was gassy and who was also acting very bizarre. At the time we called it hyper, but I don't really think that's the right term. We thought maybe the rice milk was sugary so that had done it, but really weren't sure because lameass mom started three new things in one day.

Ok, so back to this weekend. My parents babysat while Eric and I went to dinner and a movie (post to come soon about kids at movies!) and he was lovely for them (yay!) but would only take about an oz of formula/rice milk mix (ie .5 oz of formula) We moved him into the carseat and as we got him all settled he woke up. And he was AWAKE! He stayed awake the entire drive home (very unusual for him when he's already been asleep) and then proceed to NOT go to sleep nursing (and it was a big feed since he hadn't eaten at bed time). We put him in the mei tai and went for a walk around the neighbourhood - nothing. He was calm, happy, chatty, and not sleepy. He was giggling a lot. He let us restrain him without crying. He was giggling randomly. It was bizarre. We did not get him down again for over 3 hours. I think he was high!

Is that possible? Could a tiny bit of formula have made him high? Is it too weird a coincidence that something similar happened last time (I think he was gassy from the cheerios last time and weird from the formula). We can't find anything online about babies having hyper or high reactions to formula. SOO bizarre.

Anyways, we're not giving him that formula again. We'll try nutrimagen once and if he has the same reaction again, well, we're just going to be feeding him more. AIE!

That's a rockin' new name you have there Lara!

*I'm making this a sticky post for a few days so people don't feel all lost and disoriented ;) *
So here you have it, the official launch of my blog's new name: Gliding through motherhood. It seemed particularly appropriate considering at least a quarter of my life must be spent sitting in my glider rocking or holding Kiernan (awake or asleep).
Great ideas have come to me in the glider (starting a business, Apples'n'Oranges as a name, a photo treasure hunt!) and I've also had some crazy dreams, conversations with Eric, and some of the best mommy-stupids possible. The chair has become central to my "mommydom", and needed to be honoured!
Hope you like the new name and the new look. The content won't be changing :)

Dietitian update

So I went and had an appointment with the dietitian at CHEO yesterday. It was fine, but as usual, whenever I have K weighed, I come out feeling a bit sadder. He weighs 17 lbs 6 oz now, and, according to this person's guess on the percentile chart, is now down to 5th percentile for height and weight. So we're continuing to lose ground. And again, it makes me sad.
I got a lot of people trying to make me feel better after my last post about K's weight getting me down, trying to remind me that it's not a bad thing for him to be small. So let me just say again, I have zero problems with him being small, none. What worries me, what gets me down, is that he is losing ground on the percentile charts, and that's not good.
Now, the dietitian seemed more concerned than any of the doctors have, and I'm going to try to remember that the doctors should have a bit more credibility to me than her (not that she wasn't helpful).
Anyhow, here is what we came out with: he needs to have at least 800 calories a day. We don't know how much he's getting from my breast milk which makes that hard. In order to get his calories up without increasing the amount of food he eats, since I'm not sure we could convince him to eat that much more, we're going to be adding olive oil and margarine to his food (we're going to focus on olive oil before we resort to margarine).
The pediatrician told me that I could give K rice milk for sending him to daycare as long as I made sure he had a well balanced diet and we gave him extra vitamins, but the dietitian didn't think that was a good idea. So we're going to be trying to figure out how to convince him to drink the stuff, again. Fun :P
The good news is that everyone who sees him thinks he looks nice and round and healthy. He has nice chunky thighs and a belly, he's proportionate, and people seem surprised when they weigh him and find out he's continuing to lose ground.

Friday brain dump

- Kiernan loves the park. He eats sand, he loves the swing (as opposed to the first times he was scared of them) so that's a lot of fun. I also enjoy seeing other kids at the park. I don't make it out there as often as I thought I would, but we're going more. Last night Eric took K while I made dinner and I think they both really enjoyed that. It was a good way to keep K entertained in the evening when he's at his crusty-est :)
- Kiernan is really getting close to walking I think, but he likes to stay safe. He has taken a few unassisted steps, but generally will STREEETCHHH as far as possible to grab on to the next surface to walk with. And he really prefers people to help him to inanimate objects, which is unfortunate. Either way, I would guess he'll be walking in the next month or so.
- Daycare is set up for K starting after labour day. I still can't believe I only have 7 weeks left. Although negotiations may be in the works for me to go back a bit earlier but part time, and have the part time continue into Sept. I would really prefer that so we'll see what happens.
- I took K to get portraits done at the Superstore this week. I enjoy going there, we always get great photos in a 10 minute shoot, and I get my pictures the next day. They're having a promotion this month where you get $10/off your package so if you're in Ottawa (or maybe all of Ontario) you might want to check it out.
Aren't the photos cute?

- I'm starting to diet again. I've gained back about 5 of the 20lbs I lost after Xmas and I'm not happy about it. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to go back to weight watchers, again, or what I'm going to do. But to start, I'm proud of myself for skipping Wendy's yesterday, for having a healthy dinner of ham and pineapple kebabs and salad last night, and for having a salad for lunch today. One step at a time :)
- I've decided to get back on the RSS bandwagon and sign up for bloglines.
Check out who I read in my sidebar (if I've figured out how to do it right)
- Kiernan and I are going to see a dietitian at CHEO this afternoon to make sure I'm feeding him right, given his dietary restrictions and the fact that he will be getting less breastmilk on a regular basis soon. Hopefully she'll have some good tips and I wont get the "umm, why are you here?" look again.

- I'm addicted to getting stuff in the mail and have been sad because lately I haven't received anything. Therefore, here is my list of contests I'm entering and will hopefully win. Unless you want to send me free stuff.
- Adventures in babywearing is giving away a Podonbutai(very cool sounding carrier) from All Natural Mommies.
Sign up for Ideal Bite's daily tips by July 31st and you'll be entered to win an organic cotton Lily purse by HER design.
Mama Speaks is a great new review site, and similarly to the Opinionated Parent and Cool Mom Picks has a lot of contests to win stuff. Check it out.
The Pinks And Blues have a great contest to win a Vera Bradley bag and a prize from Sheena's The Body Shop site .
Mums The Word has got a rockin prize to win from XY Factory
*end dump*

Photo treasure hunt - one of those rides at the mall

He liked the spaceship...



.... until he figured out he could try to climb out! :)




I got some other good ones in a different ride, but I think I'm going to have to save those for a wordless wednesday. hehe.

Photo treasure hunt: July

So I know I'm late, but I kept meaning to get that photo of Kiernan in a mall ride before putting up this post, but I didn't get there. bah. Oh well. I'm still going to get it though! :)

So here are the photos to get this month. Jenn and Jacob are our winners for this month (woohoo!) so email me your address and I'll mail them to you. We wouldn't be adverse to you taking a photo of Jacob wearing one of the bibs so we can post is on our Apples'n'Oranges blog either ;) I think they'll still fit a toddler!

No prizes this month, this month we just do it for fun! :)

• July 2: Photo with a blue sky as backdrop (pref. with white fluffy clouds)
• July 9: in a crowd
• July 16: discovering something
• July 23: self portrait of mom and baby taken with the camera on the ground
• July 30: in a wheelbarrow
• Alternate: in a photobooth

Here's mine (once I take a class on how to use my camera i'll know how to force the flash on so I could have gotten his face a little brighter)!

Wordless Wednesday

A whole lotta nuthin'

This weekend was so relaxing at the cottage that the only photo I got of Kiernan all weekend was him playing in his new car


Instead, I lay on the couch and read my trashy Nora Roberts books (the Stanislaski family has been good entertainment for me lately :), made bibs, and took naps. It was cold so we didn't go outside much, which was ok. Drannie and Grampa took Kiernan on a long walk to see horses so Eric and I could nap some more. Kiernan also took big long naps at the cottage which was sweet!

Kiernan did work on a lot of skillz while we were at the cottage though and this morning we caught some on video for your viewing enjoyment.

He's walking/running like crazy!


He stands for up to 20 seconds on his own quite easily and even took a couple of steps on his own! Won't be long now, I think he's definitely going to skip crawling.

Other new skills include clapping and sneezing. teehee


Kids are fun :)