Wordless Wednesday - don't forget to strap the monkey in

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Treasure hunt - one more time

So I am changing the treasure hunt up a bit, because I realize that one week to get to a specific location isn't always feasible. So here is how it's going to work.
At the beginning of each month I am going to pick a subject for each week and announce it right away. That way you have all month to try and get the fourth one and you can work ahead a bit. I will also include a fifth subject that will be the "alternate" for the month. If you absolutely can't get one of the other options, you can use the alternate. The alternate will come up again as one of the weekly subjects later on.
I will still post the specific subject on the Sunday night (or Monday morning) with the subject for that week and you should add a comment to that post once you have your photo, pointing people to go and look at it.
Anyone who has completed all four subjects (or 3 and the alternate) should then email me at the end of the month at treasurehunt@apples-n-oranges.com with the links to all four photos and then you will be entered into a draw to win 2 bibs (I'm in PR, I know prizes get people to do things :) I will post the photos of the first two bibs as soon as possible.

May:
week of May 7 - Market
week of May 14 - Picture of the whole family
week of May 21 - Baby/child in the mirror
week of May 28 - In the tulips
Alternate: messy


So what do people think? Do you think this will work better for more people?

Field trip to the Market

Yesterday was a gorgeous day so three of us and our little guys headed to the market to get out ByWard Market photos!!!
We started out having lunch where Kiernan added food to his snotty face:

Then I realized that I dressed him too warm, so I had to take off his sweatshirt and he was in an undershirt. I put him in Vicky's baby hawk so that Joel could recline in the stroller and while I was taking pictures of Lionel:

I hear Vicky say "Kiernan! No!"
Guess who has shoved a handful of flowers that he helped himself to off a planter I was standing next to into his mouth. So Vicky dug the flowers out of his mouth while he was up on my back which caused him to get really angry and cry.

So by the time we got Kiernan out of the baby hawk and onto the ground for his photo in the market, he probably couldn't have looked much rougher! Oh, and I quickly pulled his hat off so you could see his face, so his "do" is fabulous too!


This one is probably the best:



Then we got a few photos of Vicky and Joel:

and got Kiernan back into the baby hawk, this time on my hip, where he promptly fell asleep:

Maybe we'll try again later this week.. we'll see :)

Goodbye

Goodbye to the days when:
- you could leave diapers on the change table
- you could dress or change your baby without flipping him back onto this back 15 times
- you could expect to find your baby where you left him
- your baby lay there and drank his milk without kicking you in the arm - on purpose, even if you move it, he finds it, and kicks, hard!
- you had to constantly entertain your baby because he couldn't entertain himself
- you were afraid to leave your baby with anyone because you didn't want them to experience the frequent FREAKOUTS!
- you constantly felt helpless

My baby is growing up, and it's really fun :)

A movie for your viewing enjoyment

Photo treasure hunt - week of May 6

People are playing my game! YAY!

There are still some bugs to be worked out since so far only 2/5 of the photos added to the flickr group can be seen by people who aren't logged in to flickr and a member of the group. But we will figure it out!! And I posted a flickr banner on the sidebar of the blog that shows some of them! Woohoo.

So this week is supposed to be fabulous! Well Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday are anyways! So this week the photo to get is the ByWard Market.

Invite your friends to join!! The more pictures the better I figure! And if people want to make it a group outing the Market one day this week, I'm sure we could figure that out as well.

If anyone visiting wants to play and doesn't live in Ottawa, there must be a market where you live? We'd love to see a picture of your kid(s) at it!

I'll post my picture here when I have it. Everyone should post a comment once their picture is uploaded with a url to their picture so we can put a baby face to a name.

Monkey boy

Kiernan is turning into quite the little monkey. Although he isn't crawling or scooting yet, he is definitely interested in not staying in the same place all the time!!
In the mornings we often put k into bed with us, he's probably 2 feet down from the headboard so. Well apparently our headboard is fascinating (he has good taste, it's what sold me on the set as well!) and he reaches, and twists and "snakes" his way until he reach up and touch it!
He also won't sit still when being changed, dressed, on your lap, etc. He twists, turns, and usually ends up on his belly whining because he's got himself stuck in a position he isn't exactly thrilled about. I don't think it'll be long now until he figures out how to propel himself quite handily. I'm just hoping it doesn't happen until after we're home from BC.
This was him yesterday at the grocery store (look, it's like I'm sneaking in extra entries to the treasure hunt ;)

All about the prizes

So I am obsessed with mom blogs and mom web sites lately. I go to a ton of them everyday and justify it as research for my new business venture ;)
And guess what I've found out?? There are tons of PRIZES to be won around the blog. And I want to win them! Not only do I want to win them, I've started to win them!
I'm going to share the wealth of knowledge on places to go to win prizes, cuz I'm nice like that :)

- I visit Cool Mom Picks every day and enter contests almost daily. And I won! They're mailing me a Ciao onesie and a book from Il Cocco di Mamma. They list new products daily and often there is a draw for one of the things they're promoting. Each contest only lasts for the day of the entry though - excellent ploy to keep us coming back daily Cool Mom Picks!
- If you don't want to check as often, I've found there is a bit more leeway for entering contests at The Opinionated Parent.
- My newest find is 5 minutes for Mom. They're having a big Mother's Day giveaway.
Their first prize is an iPod Nano.
- Don't forget our survey. If you haven't filled it out yet, you have until May 6. One random person who left their e-mail address will win a $25 gift certificate to Chapters. It's no iPod Nano, but it's still pretty fun :)

Photo treasure hunt *deluxe*

I'm a photo nut! In order to inspire myself to get out and get a lot great photos, and not just photo after photo of Kiernan on the floor or in the exersaucer, I decided to made a list of photos to take. Then I thought it'd be fun to get other people to play along!

At the beginning of each month I am going to pick a subject for each week and announce it right away. That way you have all month to try and get the fourth one and you can work ahead a bit. I will also include a fifth subject that will be the "alternate" for the month. If you absolutely can't get one of the other options, you can use the alternate. The alternate will come up again as one of the weekly subjects later on.

I will still post the specific subject on the Sunday night (or Monday morning) with the subject for that week and you should add a comment to that post once you have your photo, pointing people to go and look at it. I've created a group on Flickr you can add your photos to as well.

Every submission to a category gets you one entry into a draw to win 2 bibs. I would prefer if you posted your photos weekly, but you have until the end of the month to upload your photos to flickr to be entered into the draw.

July photo list:

• 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

June photo list:
Week of June 4 - in the water
Week of June 11 - black and white photo
Week of June 18 - on the bus
Week of June 25 - in one of those rides for kids at the mall
Alternate - in something (a box, a frying pan, the crib, whatever)

May photo list:
week of May 7 - Market
week of May 14 - Picture of the whole family
week of May 21 - Baby/child in the mirror
week of May 28 - In the tulips
Alternate: messy

Here is the master list if you want to work ahead:

• picture of whole family
• Parliament buildings
• ByWard Market
• In front of graffiti
• at the park
• at the grocery store
• at the library
• at a petting zoo/with animals
• your baby looking at himself in the mirror
• black and white photo
• first tooth
• on the grass
• in the water
• on a bus
• in the country
• in the tunnel thing from mackenzie king estate
• in a canoe
• in something (a box, a frying pan, the crib, whatever)
  
• on a train
• amongst the tulips
• in a photobooth
• in one of those rides for kids at the mall
• in a crowd
• discovering something
• Photo with a blue sky as backdrop (pref. with white fluffy clouds)
• self portrait of mom and baby taken with the camera on the ground
• self portrait of whole family with outstretched arm
• messy
• in a wheelbarrow
• in the car
• baby watching tv
• dressed in adult clothing
  

I realize some of these are specific to our region, so, if anyone from outside the Ottawa/Gatineau region decides to play along, I'll modify them somehow so they won't be so restrictive. Now, please play along so I don't seem like the kid with no friends ;)

I'll also start the treasure hunt off with one you probably don't have, but should be easy to get :) You have until next Sunday until I go to the next theme.
The grocery store! Here's Kiernan trying to sneak the Doritos :)


*additional info*
Ok, flickr is a bit complicated and I myself and still trying to figure out how to use it.
You need to get an account, apparently by getting a yahoo account. Then you have to join the group http://www.flickr.com/groups/322417@N25/

Then you need to upload photos into your account and once it's uploaded look at the photo. Right above the photo there are a bunch of icons. one says "send to group". Click on that and add it to the treasure hunt group.

The rest of the stuff that still isn't working, I'll try to figure it out soon, I promise :)

déday

Kiernan has been chatting up a storm lately. Not only is he full of ba ba ba ba and da da da das, he seems to have created an é noise which I find quite amusing. déday or dédédédédé or daidai daidai are coming out all over the place. We're trying to associate it to Eric when he says dada or any of the daddy sound noises. It's super cute!

We're noticing tons of changes in him lately which is always fun. He can sit and play on the floor with toys for a good 15-40 minutes now sometimes! He no longer hates being on his stomach quite as much as he used to, we often find him on his tummy in the crib when we go in to get him, arching his back to look out over the top to see us. And he's been lasting 3-4 hours between naps quite well. We may be able to downgrade a nap (or two if he would just sleep a little bit longer during the naps he's having). He tried chicken for the first time, mixed with sweet potatoes, and gobbled it up. So that's good.

And he just gets cuter and cuter and cuter every day! :)

Mommy, that's gross

I've been trying to make my own baby food as much as possible. It's cheaper, it's fresh, and I assumed, tastier.
Not so says my dear Kiernan when I made him peas. He LOVED peas from a jar. I made them and, admittedly, I think I did it wrong and they weren't pureed enough, so he made all kinds of gagging noises and spit it all out. Fine. So I ran it all through a sieve. He ate it, but only with his daddy tricking him into opening his mouth - he certainly wasn't enjoying it. Oh well, at least I make good applesauce ;)

I want to start him on meat soon. I feel like I'm doing this whole food thing without a plan and wonder if I should have a better one. Right now, if it says 6 months + on the jar, I figure I'm good to go. So I think Kiernan is going to try mixed vegetables and turkey today or tomorrow. Sounds delish n'est-ce-pas? Then I'll have to figure out how to make pureed meat myself. THAT sounds gross. But I really want to make sure Kiernan doesn't start expecting EVERYTHING he eats to be sweet. I bet he get's his father's family's skinny genes anyways so it probably doesn't matter that much. I figure we're saving my fat genes for a girl. ;)

PRIZES PRIZES PRIZES

OK, so there's only one prize, but its a $25 gift certificate to Chapters. We're going to do a draw of the people who answered our business idea survey and one lucky winner will get the prize! WOohoo!

Here's the link again. If you've already filled it out and entered your email address, you're automatically entered. If you filled it out without your email address... email me and I'll believe you ;) Send it to all your friends.

Go go go!!

Organ donation week

This week is Organ donation week in Canada. I didn't know this, but I read a great post on another site about it so I'm going to pass it on.

I'm a big believer in organ donation and sign my cards and have always tried to make it clear to the people who would make these types of decisions that I would want to donate organs. I think the slogan mentioned in the comments is great: "Don't take your organs to heaven; heaven knows we need them here!"

So ya, I won't be too preachy or anything, but, you should sign your organ donor card and let people know that's what you choose.

Do you like my hat?

Strange new feelings

This morning I woke up feeling kind of odd and unusual. Fairly quickly I realized that I didn't feel like I had just been hit by a truck or that I was trying to swim through molasses. I was tired, but didn't feel like I was trying to wake up when I'd been given a sedative.

Know why? Because SOMEONE went back to sleep last night at 11:30 and didn't wake up again until 6:30!!! He slept through the night! He slept through the night! And you know what the sweetest part about it is? I was asleep for all 7!! Oh ya!

Eric and I spent a few minutes quizzing each other. Did you get up? Did I wake up and I don't remember? Is this really possible?!? But it is, I can tell cuz I can FEEL it :)

I'm not going to get my hopes up for a daily repeat, hell, I'd be happy if this happened weekly. This is the longest I've slept in a row in over 7 months! So nice :)

Getting your opinion on a new business idea

My friend and I have recently come up with an idea for a new business. I think it's a good idea, but since it's the kind of idea that could wind you up in the poor house if we're wrong, we're trying to make sure we do it the right way. So we're spending hours surfing the internet, finding information for entrepreneurs, on the hows, and dos and don'ts. Part of our homework has involved creating an online survey. If you have a few minutes, and I haven't already hit you up to fill this out, please do! Feel free to send it to moms, grandparents, whoever. We really need to get a lot of opinions to figure out if we're going to move ahead with this.

Also, if you know of any fun, funky, different, and/or unique Canadian clothing lines, can you let me know about them? We're trying to dig up some unknown merchandise options! :)

Thanks!

URL: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=832793716625

Sweet sleep

Kiernan has been sleeping a bit better lately *knock on wood*. Last night I got 4.5 hours straight. It was nice :)

He still has a cough from the cold he had a month ago though, so yesterday we went to see the doctor to make sure nothing was wrong. She thinks that since there is a history of asthma in the family that it is possible he will have a tendency to get these lingering coughs after a cold. She prescribed him an inhalor to use for a few weeks to see if it helps *sigh* So we went and bought it, along with this fancy gizmo for getting a baby to use an inhalor and we'll try using it. Hopefully he won't have asthma where he'll have to use it daily forever or anything.

While we were there, she gave us our usual birth control lecture, but what I found interesting was that she even wondered if we'd been scared off of having any other children because of all the problems Kiernan has had. Never once did I think we wouldn't have another. It's been hard, but, not in a way that wasn't all worthwhile for the fabulousness that is Kiernan - even if it doesn't feel that way every minute of every day ;) But I have to admit, there is something that makes me feel a bit better when I hear that Kiernan is a harder than average baby to deal with (in terms of his crying, not sleeping, tummy issues) and that most people don't go through this. I'm not sure if it's just that we may not end up having to go through this next time, or just makes me feel like an acknowledgment of what we've gone through and that we weren't just wusses to feel like it was difficult.

As for next babies, before he/she is even born I will be going back on this restricted diet and we're going to work backwards. Hopefully if they have any of the same problems, it'll never get as bad as it did for K because their tummy/system won't get worn down before we figure it out. And maybe they'll be used to sleeping instead of awake all the time and accept it as an acceptable practice for the future. ha ha.

It's a fabulous day outside - we're going to go hit some garage sales! woohoo!

change change change

I often forget how quickly things change and how I can never expect that something that is one way is going to stay that way.

For example, Kiernan wouldn't take a bottle for the longest time. Had I just decided that he didn't take a bottle then and never would, then he wouldn't take a bottle now - which he does. So why did I think that just because he would only accept one kind of bottle when he started taking bottles that that would always be the case?? I think he'd probably drink from any bottle now, as long as it has breast milk in it. And the bottles we have been giving him are very slow flow. So Sir Chats a lot feels the need to tell you stories while drinking his milk. Apparently on a slow flow bottle that can take 45 minutes for 3 oz. Good grief!

So last night K-man was SUPER hungry and for the first time ever, I felt like I didn't have enough milk to give him (I'd pumped about an hour earlier but that doesn't usually make that much of a difference). Anyhow, we ended up giving him what I'd pumped in an avent bottle. He drank it all in 3 minutes flat. Hm. Maybe I shouldn't have been turning down free avent bottles and giving away ones I got for free after all. oops

Cleaning up!

Let me start this post by asking you to guess how many hours k-man slept in a row last night. 5! yay! woohoo! Now, ask me how many of those I slept for. That's right, none :P I have a horrible habit of not going to bed early enough, then not being able to fall asleep when I do try to sleep, and being horribly horribly out of it and overtired in the morning. I need to stop that. I'm a night person by nature, so it's hard. Why can't Kiernan just follow MY schedule?? ;)

But back to the original topic of this post. I'm not a tidy person. I have never been a tidy person. On top of not being tidy, I am a packrat. I keep everything. Everything is precious and nothing needs to leave my possession. I have married someone like me. This has made our 3 bedroom semi-detached feel VERY small for a family of 3, and K isn't even walking yet!!!

Now that I'm home on maternity leave I thought I would be better about keeping things tidy. I'm not. I'm worse. I'm tired, I'm busy taking care of Kiernan and when I have down time I just want to blog or read other blogs, or go on facebook. In other words, I want to escape and not clean because I was just working changing diapers and trying to get a baby to nap and running up and down the stairs. And I'm cooking a lot more, so that's work. And maybe I'm just a bit lazy and don't get bothered enough about the clutter (unless people are coming over)

So, we're doing something. We're hiring a cleaning lady. Once we find one :P First we got disqualified by the one person we were able to find that actually cleans house for someone we know - our upright vacuum cleaner did it, she wasn't afraid of our house or anything like that. Then this weekend we went online and asked for a bunch of quotes from people and companies. Amazingly, only one company got back to us. What's up with that?! Anyhow, they are coming this morning to give us a quote, hopefully it will be within the budget we've allotted and they can start soon.

Despite getting a cleaning lady, I am also starting to schedule myself regular tasks. On monday I am going to endeavour to empty all the laundry baskets of clean clothing by putting the stuff away (crazy!), on Tuesday I am going to do a load of laundry (Eric has been primarily in charge of laundry for awhile now and I was so bad that I only learned how to use the washing machine we got when K was born 2 weeks ago!) and on Thursdays I am going to empty the diaper champ because a full week of poopy diapers in it makes K's room smell bad. I know it doesn't sound like much, but by scheduling these things into my calendar I'm hoping to get off my lazy ass and do them, on top of the other daily things I listed.

We really need to get on it too, because K isn't going to staying in one spot for much longer. He is already rolling around and can easily move 5-8 feet from where we put him. And I got a bit of a wake up call yesterday when my friend's 11 month old daughter proved to me that moving everything off the floor and onto coffee tables is not sufficient, she can reach those! bah! ;)

While we're at the whole cleaning up thing, we're moving forward on having our bathroom redone. Next Tuesday our rep from Distinctive Bathrooms is coming over to measure because we are getting their tub special and will have a fancy new tub with fancy new fixtures and fancy new wall tiling, hopefully by the end of May. Yay to no longer having to shower in a tub that looks filthy no matter now much you scrub (so why bother scrubbing ;) Hopefully we'll get the rest of the bathroom done (we're doing that part ourselves) by the end of the spring or summer.

Babies babies babies

We had a full house, and a full couch at mommy and baby lunch today :) Check out Kiernan's "what the hell are all you people doing on my couch" face.

Ow ow my back!

Creative title eh? :)

Ok, seriously, I've hurt my back. I don't know how, but it's really painful. I'm seeing the chiropractor twice a week for it, I went for a massage (only to be told the problem isn't really one that massage can help) and getting Kiernan in and out of the crib, or up off the floor is agony. Things started improve for awhile but this morning I can barely move again. I don't know if I shouldn't have carried Kiernan on my back at the mall yesterday (I'm suspecting that's possible, but I felt fine while it was happening and for hours afterwards) or it could be that I fell asleep for a couple of hours in the chair last night. Either way, I'm sitting here with ice on my back and worrying about being able to take care of Kiernan when Eric isn't here because I can barely move. I'm very not happy! :(

7 months old!

Kiernan is seven months old today! How crazy is that?? It's crazy!!

Now that I'm an old hat at being a mom (seven months came with oodles of experience, I swear) I have been inspired by a post at Am I Really Someone Mommmy? and am going to post my own list of must haves, didn't need, and other gems like that.

- One of the things I've learned is just how different babies are from each other. I was lucky enough to have a lot of friends having babies at the same time, and the experiences are so drastically different for everyone, it astounds me. That being said, I think that a) some of this stuff could be good for everyone and b) if you have a fussy, never sleeps, cries a lot, has acid reflux baby, this stuff should come in handy!
- I love my stroller. It's a Pliko by Peg Perego, so I realize it's a bit on the pricey side, but I love it. It's sturdy, it's trendy, and my favourite part is that it folds up nice and small. I don't need to be a body builder to lift it into my car! And two of them fit into my sedan's trunk which has been really handy for going places with my friends and their babies.
- This brings my to my second point. We did not opt for the matching bucket seat. We got the Graco safeseat. It can hold a baby up to 30lbs. For awhile I thought we'd made a mistake because it was so heavy, I thought surely we should have gotten a smaller one that wasn't so heavy. But they're all crazy heavy. And the fact that K is still in his at 7 months and I think he can stay for at least another 1-2 months is great, since his little buddies all seemed to need to move up to their big car seats by 6 months or so. That takes a way a whole lot of convenience factors, such as being able to move them when they're asleep in the car, or being able to take them into other people's cars. Which is another point. The Graco car seats (and others have this too, but not all) have these hook things on them that allow you to take the car seat into any other car WITHOUT THE BASE. So you just need an H clip (it comes with one and extras are about $3 and come in handy) and you can toss them into any car in seconds. K has gone with Grammie, with friends and we've had other babies in our car. It would have been a major pain and left us much more housebound if we hadn't had it. And we didn't even do it on purpose, we just got lucky. I think more moms-to-be need to know to look for this option.
- We have a diaper champ. I love that it's a one-handed thing. Diaper genies confuse me. Now, I realize I could probably learn to use a diaper genie if I had one, but the champ is great. Now that K is on solids it smells if we don't change it every few days, but really, we should do that anyways I think :)
- We never used the wipes warmer.
- We couldn't get Kiernan to have naps lying down until he was 3 months old, likely due to the reflux. As a result, he was carried a lot. We have had a lot of carriers and love most of them. When he was really little I had him in the stretchy wrap by Maman Kangaroo all the time. He would tuck right into it and sleep for hours. Once he got older and no longer wanted to be facing in, I sometimes faced him outward in it, but it stopped being used quite as often. Then we got the baby bjorn with lumbar support. I really liked it at first but I think I just don't feel comfortable carrying K facing outwards. Eric however uses this one all the time and seems to really like it. Most recently I wanted something that I could use to carry K on my hip. I went to Milk Face and tried on a bunch of carriers with K as a generally willing participant, and ended up not going with a sling (which is what I expected to get) but with a Kozy Carrier. I still can't get him up on my back on my own, but he loves being up there. He's even fallen asleep in it, something he hasn't done in a carrier in months. I can get him on my hip easily and have done that a few times. But he seems to think looking at the ceiling is the most fun when I have him on my hip so I spend half the time trying to make sure he's upright because its hard to walk with him leaning all the way back :)
- I couldn't have lived without our baby swing in the early months. That was one of the places he would sleep. We had the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders and it was particularly good because it had so many options. It can go fast or slow (we always had it on top speed for Kiernan, something other parents thought was crazy compared to the swings they used for their children) and it could also go side to side or front to back. We could often extend the stay in the swing by pivoting when he started to get bored. The things are crazy battery eaters though, they really should make ones you can plug in.
- We have 2 exersaucers. One in the kitchen and one in the living room. The trick here is to buy them at garage sales. Kiernan actually has 4 exersaucers!! One at each set of grandparents' and two here. My mother got them all at garage sales and paid no more than $7 for any of them, and that was for the super fancy one. She really would prefer not to pay more than $5 for one. :) We also have a freestanding jolly jumper which has been a big hit. They are $70 new in the store and we got that one at a garage sale for $10 last summer. So, point is, garage sales!!!
- Baby TV. I don't know if they have it in many places, but where we live we have it on Demand for free for the time being and it worked before the Baby Einsteins did. By about 2 months old Kiernan could be happy watching it for 15 minutes. This was a life/sanity saver. I don't know how you could find it if you don't just have it with Rogers on Demand... but if you can, try it!
- I think they might have discontinued this mobile at IKEA, so run to yours and see if they still have one!
- Kiernan needed to be swaddled until he was 6 months old. He didn't like it, but we couldn't get him to sleep otherwise. By 3 months it was impossible to keep him swaddled so we ordered the Miracle Blanket. It was a life saver for us and our Houdini of swaddles.

I think I could go on forever so perhaps I'll stop for now and clean my house for a bit :) Maybe I'll make another list when Kiernan is 8 months old (I still can't believe he's 7 months old!!)

Taking a day off

On Wednesday, I took the day off. And it was fabulous.

I remember when I was about 6 months pregnant I went to a friend's birthday dinner and another friend of mine, who had a 9 month old at the time, was telling me about the joys, and tribulations, of motherhood. She must have told me 5 times over the course of dinner that I needed to make sure to take time for myself sometimes, to go to the spa, to find someone to watch the baby and just get away. I remember thinking "you don't know me, I'm going to love being with my baby, I'm not going to need to "get away" from him!"

Well, as hard as I tried not to be the person who was all high and mighty and was going to be better at things than other people, and tried not to say "I will never.." I really didn't think I was going to need days off. But I do. I really really do.

It's interesting because things have gotten particularly difficult in the last month or so. I've decided to blame the fact that my period came back when Kiernan turned 6 months old and so my hormones are all out of whack and that's what's been going on. But I think it's probably actually a combination of that, the fact that I'm discouraged by the dietary restrictions and the errors (and consequences of them) that keep happening, and the fact that I've been home for 8 months now. I feel like some days I just don't want to do it anymore. And I feel guity. Very very guilty. Why do I want to get away from my child? I'm a horrible mother!!!

But then I decided I needed the day off anyways. That it would be better for us all if I did that on occasion and tried to recharge my battery. So, on Wednesday, my husband dropped K off with my fabulous mother-in-law and he got to spend the day with Grammie. And I, Lara, not Mommy, lounged around in my PJs all morning and got some stuff done, then I took a shower and went for a massage! Then, I went down the ByWard Market for lunch with the girls (yummy thai, and only had one close call with soy) and then we walked around and shopped. It was great!

My friend was right, and I was wrong. I sort of hate that, but it does me good to be wrong sometimes I suppose ;)

Soothers for all!

Dats a fun baby!

Someone I was recently talking told me that six months old was one of her very favourite ages for children. She said "they're so interactive, and they can't walk or crawl yet!"

I have to agree, that it's great! Kiernan has been so much fun lately. First of all, he LOVES EVERYBODY! He see you and he just gets this ear to ear grin and makes his "I love you" sound. It is oddly like a high pitched, not so growly or scary, frankenstein sound :) It's VERY cute, and it's so fabulous that he's so happy so much of the time!

He's able to do so many more things. He knows where you've moved things to, he can get his soother back in his mouth by himself, and he can self entertain for so much longer than he used to be able to. And he can make his wah wah wah sound all by himself! (I still need to get a video of that)

He's such a joy, and he LOVES LOVES LOVES, the remote control, the phone, and the computer. He is FAR more interested in any of those than in his toys.

We're taking a bit of a roadtrip this weekend. It's going to be his first time sleeping all night away from home, and hopefully it will go well. I barely took any photos this week (bad mom) so I will be trying to make up for that this weekend :)

Happy Easter long weekend!!

scrapblogging

Something fun and new :)

My inspiration chair

You know when I write really fabulous blog posts? In the glider in Kiernan's room while I'm nursing him or rocking him. They are fabulous! I figure out exact wording, themes, topics. And then, I can't remember a single one when I'm in front of the computer. Well, really, that's always the way, right?
Currently, I am sitting in the living room in disbelief. Kiernan went down for a nap about 75 minutes ago. Since then, he has woken up three times. Each time I've just listened to him make some noise and then suddenly all is quiet again. He keeps putting himself back to sleep!!! Are we amazed? Impressed? Overjoyed?? Oh ya! :) The last two nights have been relatively good with sleeping too. It's so nice to get a break from the rough nights!

Yesterday I was away at an event for most of the day, and it was great. Part of what was great was just to be away from doing baby stuff all day! I think I feel a lot of guilt for enjoying being away from my baby so much, but I think I just need to accept that I'm not really meant for being a stay at home mother so by the time I have to go back to work in August, I'll really be ready. By having time away, I have a lot more energy to enjoy the time we do have together. Still feels a bit crappy though.

Which brings me to another thought. I think there are quite a few people who feel the way that I do when it comes to wanting time away; who want to work and not be home with children full time. This must have always been the case, no? So how did women deal back in the days when all women were expected to stay home? Maybe it was easier because there were more moms home to spend time with? Maybe it was easier because drinking cocktails during the day was more common? ha ha.

Ok, he's woken up a fourth time... will he go back to sleep again?? I'm thinking probably not. But I'm still pretty thrilled with what I got. Better go get him now :)

Broken sleep function

I think one of the most common questions I get from people who find out I'm a new mom is "does he sleep well?" and, not because they've said anything to insinuate this, I often feel like a bad mom when I say no.
Kiernan is 6.5 months old, and we are lucky to get 4 hours in a row, ever. I am blessed with a husband who helps me in the middle of the night because I don't think I could do it on my own. 4 hours in a row is good, we often have him waking up every 30-60 minutes during the night. It might not take much to get him back to sleep, but he wakes up and we have to go to him. It's exhausting and it's really starting to take its toll. As I write this he's been down for bed for an hour and a half and we've only had to go to him once so far - this is a good night.
I've been getting really discouraged lately, and that itself can make you feel like a bad mom. How can I be so grumpy and fed up all the time when i have this fabulous little guy in my life. And he really is amazingly fabulous! But I'm tired, all the time.
A friend, and mom of a non-sleeper, once said to me that it's having a non-sleeping child that shows you just how effective sleep deprivation is as a method of torture. You spend a night or two of ALMOST falling asleep over and over again before having your baby cry for you... it'll drive you to insanity pretty quickly.
Soon we will start some kind of sleep training, so that, in theory, Kiernan can help himself back to sleep when he wakes up in the night and all he needs is his soother. And we're a step in the right direction with him being able to replace his own soother now. But, it's a very daunting thing to undertake, sleep training. You know it's going to be a lot harder before it gets easier, and god, I have no energy for harder right now.
Here is a post that struck a cord with me, especially the way I've been feeling lately. I love him with all that I have. But you just can't understand what 'hard' really is until you're here.

My new friends took me in that scary light flashing machine!

It was a bit confusing, but still fun. And cute :)

Sir Yells Really Loud

Kiernan has found his voice. Well, we (and he) always knew he had a voice, but now instead of just really loud crying, we have really loud yelling!! He's REALLY good at being loud. But, he's happy and having fun. I will have to get a video, because when it's not being really annoying, it's actually very funny.

Have I mentioned yet that I got a new carrier a few weeks ago? It's a Kozy carrier and I'm really enjoying it. I can put Kiernan up on my back (with help until I've had a bit more practice) and he seems to be quite content to be up there for quite a long time. Today I had him up there for 30-45 minutes while we went grocery shopping and he just looked around, barely made a sound and then FELL ASLEEP. Sweet deal!

Finally, since I'm tired and not going to blog long, I will entertain you by sending you to a blog post that I found VERY amusing. Enjoy!

There's two!!

Upon investigation of Kiernan's tooth, Eric discovered that not only was the left bottom tooth almost completely cut through the gum, but the right one is well on it's way to coming through too! Two teeth at once - I have to say, he's being quite the trooper considering :) I expected far worse of teething *knock on wood*

oops!

Kiernan is getting to that age where I'm starting to be a little bit more relaxed with him. I'm not entirely sure if that's going well or not ;)

The other day we had an incident where we were playing and he banged his forehead against my mouth so hard he had to red lines in the shape of my two front teeth for the rest of the day! ack! And yesterday, I let him suck on my pear. I figured, since he's allowed pear now, and he has these mesh bags where he sucks on apples, he could suck on my pear for a second. I even read this thing that said he should be ready for finger foods and I SWEAR, ripe pear is on the list. Anyhow, he sucks on the pear and he likes it. I see that he got a tiny amount of pear flesh in his mouth but think its nice and soft and small, and he can handle that no problem. Well, apparently he had a bigger hunk in the back of his mouth I didn't see, which he proceeded to try to inhale. He started to choke, and I had to go in and fish the damn piece of pear out of his throat and then felt like the worst mother ever for hours afterwards.

I'm thinking that these are the kinds of things that just happen and I need to know that. But wow - not fun!

My public

I've been feeling a bit uninspired in my blog writing lately. I think it's partially because I've been reading a lot of other mom blogs (there are so many) and they are so well written. Someone was asking me what I get out of reading blogs about motherhood that are written by people that I don't know, and I think the answer is a) it's nice to know that there are others out there who are experiencing what I'm experiencing. As many new moms as I know right now, their experiences are so extremely varying that its nice to have an even wider net to cast for information and b) they are good writers! I enjoy their humour, wit; the way they can tell a story. Only problem is, sometimes it makes me want to be like them. I want to write these great posts, ones worthy of a following. So I try to think about what to blog about, and I get overwhelmed with the possibilities, or the lack thereof and just don't blog.
So I don't think I'm going to be the next big momma blogger - so much for that as my next career ;) And believe it or not, there are people who do mommy blog for a living.
But instead I can ramble on, and know that there are a bunch of you, people I know and who know K, that read to find out what's going on with us. And I know that this will be a great record of how things went in my first year as a mother. And I don't need to have themes for each post, and I don't have to have fancy titles. You'll still find me amusing, right? :)

Ok, enough woe is me crap :)

Lunch time!

Big toothy grin!!

Well maybe not yet, but I can feel the first tooth cutting through. Eric can't feel it and thinks I'm nuts - but I definitely feel it. It's the bottom tooth, on the right. So my dad was right, the other tooth, the upper right incisor is just hanging out in the gums, visible, but won't actually be the first tooth through.

Kiernan has had a cold this week and has been snivelly, snotty, and coughy. He got out of his 6 month shots with this cold, and his mama has been especially lax with the "sleep in your own bed" rules. I know I'm probably setting myself up for issues later, but I think part of the problem is, I really like having him there with us. Oh well, we'll figure it out eventually. I'm glad we've got a reprieve from starting sleep training this weekend (which is what we had planned) because we certainly aren't starting while he has the remnants of a cold and he's teething. I am secretly (well not that secretly) pleased :)

Oh, and if anyone out there is wondering how to take off post-baby weight. Go on the no soy or milk protein diet. I've lost 6 lbs in the last two weeks!

R.I.P. Goopey-eye

When we saw the pediatrician last week I asked her about Kiernan's goopey-eye. Our family doctor told me to just keep massaging it and if his tear duct was still blocked when he was one, then we would take further action. Yikes! That's a really long time for my son to look like he's got permanent mascara on his right eyelashes!

So I asked the pediatrician hoping for some new idea. She said massaging was the thing to do but then explained that massaging it was a very vague way of putting it. She said "take off your glasses and I'll show you". She finds my tear duct and pushes. hard. ow!

She explains that a tear duct is either blocked, or not blocked. There's no halfway. So one day, I'll push, and I'll break the membrane blocking Kiernan's, and then his eye won't be goopey anymore. Cool!

So I do it. Once. Not that hard. He didn't even cry. And guess what?! No more goop! Holy cow!

I mean, it must have been on the verge of popping to have gone so easily, but it is nice that it's no longer one of our issues. Hopefully it won't reclog or anything.

We have enough on our plates now because K has a cold, and he hates the gention violet we've been giving him for thrush, he's not eating as much as I want him to (probably a combo of thrush and cold causing that) and I ate cheese by accident on friday so he's having tummy issues (probably some of the new foods making that worse) and he may be teething (but I always say that) so for the last 3 nights the only way to get through the night has been to bring us in to bed with us. Great new habit to build right before starting sleep training eh? My biggest fear right now is that something else I"m eating is bothering him and I ought to be cutting that out too

For now, I am just trying to stay on the new diet and realizing I just can't eat out without a complete list of all ingredients and without being REALLY strict. No, oh I think I can get under this cheese they sprinkled all over the top and a bit into this salad. So I'm going to go on a cooking frenzy. I'm going to cook and bake and make my own food. And I'm only a bit bitter about it at the moment, but it comes and goes in waves that get much stronger at times. That or the extreme guilt that I hurt my son whenever I make a mistake. But no time for a pity party, gotta clean and cook!

Talking while you eat is rude Kiernan

Kiernan has started blah blah blahing whenever he eats. It cracks me up!

There's always so much to share!

Kiernan is a Foot flicker! Can a baby have restless leg syndrome? He wakes himself up flicking his feet against each other. He stops himself from falling asleep flicking his feet against each other. He's doing so well with the weaning from the swaddle and his arms not punching himself in the head anymore, and now his feet are outta control!! He slept for 15 minutes during his nap this morning, a nap that started later than naps usually do, and I think his feet are to blame. boo!

When we bought sushi and the rat toy from IKEA my mother in law advised us not to cut off the tags. And let me tell you, the tags on IKEA toys are LONG!! And she was right, Kiernan goes for the tags on toys first. And he eats them and chews them and sucks them until they are revoltingly wet. hehe.

We had a follow up appointment with the pediatrician this week and she thinks Kiernan is doing fabulously. He now weighs 15 and a half lbs and seems to consistently be in about the 25th percentile. When I expressed concern about him not being any bigger, she commented on his bracelets (the rolls of fat that are at his wrists :) and said he's nice and healthy looking, but just a small guy. Poor Eric, he so doesn't want Kiernan to be a little guy like he was. But I'm happy. Plus, I still take to heart the fact that a lot of these percentile lists are apparently put together based on formula fed babies and formula fed babies tend to be bigger than exclusively breast fed babies, and as we all know, Kiernan is exclusively breast fed cuz the little devil won't eat the formula!! ;)

Which segs me into another issue with breastfeeding. I have thrush. Yay. :P It doesn't seem to be too bad a case but I definitely wanted to nip it in the bud so I talked to K's pediatrician and she prescribed me something. Then I went to costco to have the prescription filled, even though I had decided I didn't really like that pharmacy. It was convenient, I was going to be there anyways. ANyhow, the pharmacist got me all in an uproar about how he didn't know that it was safe to take that much of that medicine, especially when nursing and how he was going to call the drug helpline and ack! Anyhow, I double checked with my doctor and the pediatrician who assured me they knew what they were talking about, only to have the pharmacist call back and say to go ahead and take the medication since it was obviously a bad infection (it's not) and the doctor wouldn't prescribe this possibly dangerous for you and the baby drug without knowing what they were doing. My doctor's office was like "we're not even giving you a high dose!" Anyhow, very unsettling. I'm going to stick to my rule of going to the little pharmacy in my neighbourhood that make me feel confident that they know what they're doing.

Most days I'm dealing well with all the dietary restrictions I have from K's food intolerances. I have learned that rice milk and almond milk are not good substitutes in my coffee for milk and so I am learning to actually like my coffee with just sugar. It's flavoured coffee so that helps, but maybe I'll work my way up to being one of those cool people who drink their coffee black. Hm, is it odd that I think people who drink their coffee black are cool? Anyhow, the toughest part about these dietary restrictions is eating out. I have accepted that I need to cook everything from scratch at home since most prepared foods have soy or milk, but I didn't realize how hard it would be to find food I can have in a hurry. Subway's bread all has either milk or soy. A&W puts whey in their fries and burgers! McDonald's has soy or milk in their buns. Their tortillas are fine but nothing they put in a tortilla is safe. So unless I ask for a burger in a tortilla :P then that's a no go. Yesterday we went for lunch at moxie's and I asked them what I could have. I gave them two options of what I might like to have and they essentially said the only thing that was safe was a salad with grilled chicken and they'd bring me oil and vinegar to put over top. I didn't get the bread that came with the salad. I didn't get the dressing. I got the extra guacamole. Eating out loses it's appeal when you don't get to eat what you want but need to eat the one or two things on their entire menu that doesn't have soy or milk. Imagine if this was a lifelong issue for me???

My baby is the cutest baby ever :) Ok, I know I'm biased, but whatever :) I have entered him into the achannel's cutest baby contest. Maybe he will win :) And, we've had two photo sessions with him the last week (my mother thinks I'm insane) one with our friend Julie and one at the Superstore. My kid is so cute!!! I can't post the superstore photos obviously, but here are a couple from Julie. I think Kiernan wishes I wouldn't make him pose quite so much sometimes (see last photo :)

My future's so bright I gotta wear shades

Free at last!!

Kiernan has officially outgrown the Miracle Blanket, and since they don't make it for babies over for 4 months, we had to revert to our old swaddling techniques, which, unsurprisingly haven't been working very well since the fact that they didn't work is what brought us to the Miracle Blanket in the first places.

So, we decided to see if we could wean Kiernan from the swaddle. Skeptically we have been leaving him with one arm free this weekend, and it's being going really well! In fact, he got the other arm out and one point and he slept that way for a good hour. AND we moved him from the car seat to the crib completely unswaddled and he slept for 30 minutes!!

Our hope is that this will allow him to re-sootherize himself when he wakes up in the middle of the night and eliminate a few wake ups that are just about us giving him back his soother so he can fall back to sleep. Keep your fingers crossed that it keeps working!!

Although in theory feeding Kiernan in the exersaucer seemed like a good idea...

... the pull of a good toy often was stronger than the desire for rice cereal :)

I know I'm not pregnant anymore but...

... how fabulous and idea is this??!!

I SO could have used this. Geez, I think I still could use this! :)

What he's been up to

Kiernan is changing so quickly and doing so many new things lately. Here is another list of things he's been doing:

- bearing a tiny bit of weight on his arms (much to mommy's delight)
- passing things back and forth from one hand to another
- reaching for things out of sight
- catching himself from falling a lot when sitting
- he can put his soother back in his own mouth. He generally doesn't care if he's sucking on the side or the handle instead of having it in properly, but when he does care, he can turn it around and put it in properly. It is amusing to watch him examine it to decide what he needs to do to turn it around the right way.
- He likes to lie on the floor and bang his feet into the ground. Daddy worries he will break his feet and never walk if he keeps it up.
- his new talking sounds are ever changing. I'm sure I've heard some mamama and dadada in there. :)
-he's stopped his fabulous sleeping :P
- he rarely ever rolls even though we know he can
- That teething blister is still there. Last night he started drooling like crazy and crying like nuts so we think he could be teething again, but who the heck knows.
- He's going to be six months old in 4 days!!!!!!

Is it bad that when we found him like this we got the camera instead of helping him? :)

If I needed proof

I thought about entitling this post "Crap ass!" but then thought perhaps that would be a bit too negative of me. ;)

I started my new dietary restrictions around Valentine's day and have seen an enormous improvement in Kiernan. By me cutting out all dairy and soy from my diet, down the ingredients of everything, we have a much happier baby, who sleeps better, and who is getting chunkier, seemingly by the minute.

Sometimes I wonder if I really need to be as careful as I'm being. Am I right to be nervous to ever eat out anywhere in case there is something in what they give me that I can't have? I went to Lone Star last week for fajitas and even called ahead to make sure there would be no soy or dairy in anything that I would be having and they assured there wouldn't be. When we got there my waitress informed me that there was in fact a milk byproduct in the tortillas. CRAPASS! (oops, couldn't help myself) So they gave me some corn tortillas instead and I had those. I was tempted to just have the regular ones anyways, what harm could it do? But instead I ate the crappy corn ones. (I did complain though, since I had called, and the fajitas were free).

Anyhow, I wondered if I was making the right call being so stringent. Then I got a cookbook I ordered in the mail called the Milk and Soy Protein Intolerance Cookbook (no bells and whistles on this book ;) and it listed everything I shouldn't eat and I found out I can't even have the non-dairy creamer I was using in my coffee. CRAPASS! So I bought vanilla rice milk and tried that. (revolting btw) Then I tried chocolate flavoured almond milk and that's ok. I have vanilla flavoured almond milk that I'm going to be trying next so hopefully that will also be ok. I'm getting used to the restrictions.

I've been doing really well and finding all kinds of recipes online and cooking a lot more since there are almost no prepared foods I can have. It gets tiring though. Fortunately a lot of web sites have listings of all their ingredients, if you're going to go to a chain. Friday night we ordered pizza pizza because their dough and sauce is fine, and so is their pepperoni and italian sausage. No steak strips though. And cheeseless pizza just isn't as good as pizza WITH cheese ;)

Anyhow, the other day I was going to make this recipe for pork tenderloin where you put a can of cranberries and a packet of onion soup mix into the crockpot with the tenderloin and cook on low for 8 hours. Easy peasy. Then I read the onion soup mix - soy protein. boo. So then we looked online and figured out that I could use beef bouillon and onion and onion powder instead. So I did that yesterday morning. About 4 hours into cooking I realized that I had never checked the ingredients on the beef bouillon. Vegetable protein, including soy, was listed way down the list. GRRRR! As if!! It never occurred to me to check it!! BOOO!

I decided to eat it anyways. A bit of soy in the beef bouillon in this recipe couldn't be that big a deal - I was eating TONS of that stuff before and that tiny amount couldn't hurt once in awhile. Wrong! Although the pork was delish (and hopefully I can find a substitute so I can make it again) Kiernan woke up this morning at 5 farting and screaming and cranky like we haven't seen him in... well since Valentine's day. I can't believe that trace amount affected him so much. It could be a coincidence but we've gotten pretty good at detecting reactions and I'm pretty sure this was one. So... I wasn't wrong. I really do need to be that careful. And it makes me all the more nervous. I can't eat anywhere that can't give me a full list of ingredients it seems like. Or I need to talk to the actual cook. Eating at a mall is out. I had a soup the other day, it could have had bouillon in it with soy. K didn't react like there was, but what I thought was probably a safe bet, could have caused problems.

So ya, I have proof that what I'm doing it worthwhile at least. And I'll get used to it. Oh, one last crapass.... we bought an electric breast pump yesterday. It works well. I pumped last night after dinner... guess where that milk has to go now? :P

I guess I should have just called this post crapass after all :)

He looks like WHOM? :) (UPDATED)

My choices of daddy pictures were unfortunately limited...

The miracle blanket and Kiernan - a photographic story

Step One:
Lay the blanket on a flat surface with the foot pouch at the bottom and lay baby between armflaps with tops of shoulders slightly above top of blanket.


Step Two:
Fold the armflaps over the outside of your baby's arms and tuck them snuggly under her back on each side. IMPORTANT: You should lift the baby's bottom to be sure the armflaps are flat and snug under baby's back.


Step Three:
Pull the footpocket up over the feet. NOTE: Some babys' feet may not reach the foot pocket yet. This is okay: It will be there for them as they grow.





Step Four:
Fold the right side of the blanket over your baby's belly and tuck it under the left arm pit (her right). This flap should wrap all the way under the baby's back.


Step Five:
Wrap the left side of the blanket over the top of her belly and all the way around her until you run out of blanket. This is where it is important to pull the blanket snug. THE BLANKET MUST BE PULLED SNUG.




Now just in case the Miracle Blanket people find this and get all up in arms, we think its funny that they show this happily swaddled baby in their instructions and that K is so obviously displeased by the results of this process every night. And yet, without it, we would never get even a semi-decent night's sleep so we highly recommend it for anyone with a highly flaily baby who wakes him/herself up whenever his/her hands are free to roam around and whack him/herself in the face ;)

Daddy thinks he's funny

Virtual baby book

I was thinking the other day that I don't record any of Kiernan's firsts, or any of the things that he does anywhere but in this blog. Is that going to cause problems one day? Is this blog really going to ALWAYS exist? I wonder if there are services that will print and bind old blog postings for you. I plan to investigate.

So here is a quick list of things Kiernan has been doing that we don't want to forget happened around this time:

- last night he slept for just over 6 hours straight! AND! They were hours I was asleep! AND! They were hours one would usually be asleep at. He woke up to eat at 11 (back down around 11:30 or so I think) and woke up just before 6 this morning. Eric and I both looked at each other unsure as to whether we believed that had actually happened? Had I woken up and fed him and forgotten? Did we ignore his cries? How could it be? But really, I think he just slept that long. SCORE!
- He's really rolling now! I know I announced he was rolling eons ago, but he seems to be doing it now without any coaxing from me. It's still a crapshoot, you never know when he's actually going to do it, but he does it! And both ways - back to front and front to back. I still don't think he really does it on purpose though, so that'll be the next step.
- He's talking more and making new sounds. wawawawa is the most common, but he also looks at me really thoughtfully and seems to try to make thhh sounds a lot. He also now smacks his lips now.
- He's turned serious. The boy who would smile at any lady in sight is stingy with the smiles lately. He looks at everyone with a strong "I'm not sure about you" look.
- Foot flicking boy. He rubs his feet together like a grasshopper all the time. This distracts him from falling asleep and he also manages to kick his robeez off all the time (much to his grandmother's amazement!)
- We tried some sweet potato this morning. I guess the cereal is bland enough that he accepts it without being shocked about it, other than that it isn't applesauce. He clamped his mouth shut after a few bites of sweet potato. We'll give him a few days to warm up to the new taste sensation though :)
- He cuddles! And sits quietly with us. It's amazing. I think in combination with his tummy not holder, he's older and calmer and is happy just to hang out sometimes. It's really nice.