I thought it was so cute when little kids look at the display on the camera after photos have been taken. I'd never shown K so he never tried to look... so I started showing him. He's a little too anxious to see the photos to finish posing now...
Oh look I sort of got one (can you tell his already starting to push himself off the zebra?)
Oh well, he's cute close up too :)
Don't you think it would be nice to be able to go to a drivethru for candy and chocolate. Because in February not only do I feel like eating constantly, but I'm also really lazy ;)
You think you bought:
But really you bought:
With upholstery the beige colour shown here (no black line) :
It'll be ok right??
There are a lot of things I didn't know about pregnancy or early motherhood before they happened to me - some of the things I really wished I had known. I feel like compiling a list so I'd love your feedback on things you didn't know and wish you had and we'll make one big long list.
Here is a start:
- Any line, no matter how faint, on a pregnancy (other than the control line ;) is a positive
- Your water doesn't just break and that's the end... you keep producing water, so until the whole deal is done, once the bag is broken, you keep on leaking!
- When you're in the hospital after a vaginal birth, the nurses keep coming in and asking to look at your bum - don't know if this would have been any less uncomfortable/annoying if I'd known ahead of time
- make sure the baby is facing towards you for the on the scale photo
- from my husband: when you head across the room to watch the baby being weighed, don't look back to see how your wife is doing, cuz there's likely to be lots of gore going on over there.
Any others? I'm sure more will come to me too.
We bought a new car - and we get it tonight. WEEEEEEEEEEE! I'm super excited.
I never thought I could be a one car family, but I did survive for several years. Now that we have Kiernan, I'm working full-time, we have the business, and Eric is working not near the transitway, it was the perfect excuse to just get a second car! :)
Isn't it pretty?
(* not actual car. We don't live anywhere that picturesque and our license plates our uglier ;)
Our new mini mini-van is going to be super handy, and I have never had any "no no, I can't be a mom with a mini-van issues" so I'm super cool with it all :)
Yeehaw! AND, I'm going to start driving to work so no more blasted bus. Even if that isn't as friendly to the earth as I kind of would like to be. I'm being really good about the plastic bags and using my Sigg bottle - does that compensate? ;)
Kiernan wore his Sens shirt today to make his Grandpa proud - looks like he's a good luck charm!
Here he is with Mitch - Kiernan looks very disappointed that Mitch was going to the game without him tonight ;)
When we bought our house the one thing I knew we were going to update was the bathroom. Why? Here are some photos I took when we came for the home inspection...
I know you're thinking "WHAT??! That green countertop and floral motif in the shower are super retro chic and I would pay for someone to put that IN my bathroom" or not ;)
Then the kicker came when I was pregnant with K and was SO uncomfortable that I decided to take a bath to take some of the pressure off. This is a big deal because I'm not a bath person - the only reason I take a bath is if I think it will somehow take away pain (I've submerged myself more than once hoping it will take the pain of a headache away).
Anyhow, I decided to take a bath. I filled the tub, got in, and realized the bathwater pretty much covered only my body below the belly. Stupid shallow good for nothing bathtub!! (here is a photo after the renos started to give you an idea of how big the tub was. And why did they cover up perfectly acceptable white tile with that flower madness above??)
Last summer we had a new tub installed - complete with tiled walls, a soaker tub, and a curved curtain rod. It is lovely - if a little hard to photograph.
Isn't it pretty? And if I ever feel the need to take a bath again, I'll probably fit ;)
... our bathroom is being renovated - yay! But now we have no toilet in our upstairs bathroom until the tile dries enough to be grouted, and then I'm thinking until the grout is also dry. So that means we have to go to the basement to pee. Does hiking to the basement everytime I need to pee and to the kitchen to brush my teeth qualify as exercise? Probably not
I will post reno photos soon - because our bathroom is looking so pretty!
Non sequitur: too much coffeeeeee.... I'm shaking like a leaf.... maybe I shouldn't have had two large Second Cup coffees coffees in under 2 hours ;)
Me: Old MacDonald had a farm
Kiernan: EI-EI-O
Me: And on this farm he had a
Kiernan: COW!
Me: E-I-E-I-O, With a
Kiernan: moo moo moo
me: here and a
Kiernan: moo moo
me: there. here a
Kiernan: moo moo
me: there a
Kiernan: mooMoo!
Me: everywhere a
Kiernan: moo moo
Me: Old MacDonald had a farm. E-I-E-I-O. And on his farm he had a
Kiernan: COW!
Me: no, how about a horse. E-I-E-I-O. With a neigh
Kiernan: MOO MOO!
Today a coworker came back to work after her maternity leave and it reminded me of how I felt when I came back.
First of all, I can't believe it's already been 5 months!! As if!!
Secondly, I had such a hard time re-adapting to this working life it almost physically hurt. More than several times I had to close the door and cry - not just because I missed Kiernan, but because I didn't want this life anymore. I liked the life I had at home as a mom.
Thirdly, it reminded me how much I want that life again.
- It is sad that Heath Ledger is dead.
- I continue to feel fat and continue to not do anything about that - I need to figure out how to change that.
- I suffer from seasonal affective disorder but I think the combination of using a golite, taking vitamin D supplements and getting outside into a bit of sun a bit more often may actually be making a difference.
- Kiernan cracks me up.
- I think we're going to buy a Mazda5. I'm super excited. Super DUPER excited.
- This weekend I'm going away for a girls' weekend.
- One day maybe enough people will read my blog that if I go away I will need to get people to do guest posts. Who wants to volunteer?
- Don't forget to enter the contest at Apples'n'Oranges for a fabricawakuwaku doll - they're super cute and each one is one of a kind.
- I ordered us all some SIGG bottles this week. They cost a fortune but I'm feeling really convinced by the "plastic is bad" stuff. I got them at Stork Baby Boutique - another mom-run baby store based out of Ottawa.
"Kiernan, do you want to go dodo?"
"no"
"do you want your suces?"
"sucy!"
"Your sucys are in the crib"
"crib"
"do you want to go dodo?"
"dodo"
and then he goes down quietly and to sleep. so sweet!
On our way home from the b&b last weekend (I will eventually get that post up :) I decided to go all Pioneer Woman and stop and take some of photos of cows :)
Except.... my camera isn't as good as hers, nor is my lens, nor are my photoshop skillz. aie. But these cows looked so sad coming up the ice it looked like they hoped might have been a drink... I had to try to get a shot anyways.
Plus, I've been meaning to tell you that Pioneer woman's blog is worth checking out - if you don't already read it since she has like 10,000 readers a day or something ;)
Kiernan and Daddy started swimming lessons last week, and despite eric's fear that K would freak out and hate it and have a temper tantrum, all went splendidly well! Kiernan had a really good time and particularly loved daddy blowing bubbles... he tried too but essentially ate and dribbled out water, but these things take time :)
Here are a few photos - because it's been far too long since I've posted photos of the little monkey :)
Blowing bubbles... eating water... same thing right?
Ha ha! This is fun!!
bbbrrr.... now I'm super cold...
Spinning around and around until you get dizzy and fall down. Then waiting until you're able to stand up again and doing it again. Really - super fun. Just ask Kiernan! :)
Sunday afternoon we were at Eric's parents' cottage after our night away at a B&B (more to come on the lovely place we stayed at soon) and just relaxing. Kiernan was playing with some of the toys Grammy had for him, including a small ride-on bike. At some point he lost his balance and fell off the bike, banging his head on the coffee table on the way down. He broke into tears and after a couple of minutes of being comforted he was ok again.
Except, the fall had really upset him and he wasn't quite over it. So he told us about it!!
He said boom a couple of times and pointed at the table he had fallen onto. Then he lay down on the floor, close but not quite where he had landed, and pointed to where he had been and said boom again a couple of times.
We were really quick astounded - his first story!
In continuing with Delurking week (and stealing she likes purples' idea) I thought I'd ask a question to see if more people would tell me they're around :) I need to get working on getting my readership up I tells ya.
I want to know what your favourite book is. I'm looking for ideas for new authors. I read a lot of.... fluff/trash. A lot of the books I read are meant to be things I can read while half asleep, things I can skim without missing the meaning. I don't EXCLUSIVELY read that, but it's honestly my preference.
My favourite books however, are by two authors of very similar style. Diana Gabaldon and Sara Donati. Anyone know of any authors who write like this? I love that there are books and books in the same series too... so my enjoyment of these stories just goes on and on :)
Are here is the alien delurk button - as promised :)
Despite my horrible lack of blogging commitment as of late, I still seem to get an average of about 25 hits a day (wow!) - and I want to know who you are. And guess what?! I have a little icon that will make you tell me!!
See? Time to leave me a comment and let me know you're around. So I can say "thank you thank you continuing to check in on my little blog to see what I have to randomly say about my life".
Seriously. I love that there are a few of you out there who come by to visit. And imagine, there might even be a couple of people who read through a reader and I don't even see their hits. Wow. :)
(Delurking day is happening all over - go check out rude cactus where I got this funky button, and She likes purple tells me we can do this all week and maybe I'll use the alien button tomorrow :)
When I was pregnant, heck, before I was pregnant even, one of the running jokes that was going around was that Eric and I would have a baby who was really into sports, not into reading, and really tidy - in other words, nothing like us and we'd have no idea how to deal with him/her. We're still waiting to see on all these things (although K's crazy obsession with books leads me to believe the "not into reading" one is wrong :) but there's one I never thought of - not into eating.
Now me, I'm into eating. I LOVE to eat. Way too much unfortunately. Appetite has never been an issue for me and I don't get it. Who doesn't like to eat?! It's YUMMY!
But my boy - not an eater. And it's the most frustrating thing we've had to deal with with him yet I think.
He had another doctor's appointment yesterday and he's finally weighing in over 20lbs (YAY) but he's still at the 3rd percentile (boo) despite the fact that we're lacing his food/juice with protein powder and trying to feed him whenever he comes near us.
We still haven't managed to re-introduce dairy or soy (cheese! do you realize what the value of cheese would be??) but now we have a new plan. We are going to wean K off the prevacid he is still taking for the reflux. He's already down to half the amount he was on before he turned one so hopefully we can wean him off the rest. Apparently the acids we are repressing with the medication could be useful in the digestion of dairy so we need to get them back into operation. Also, apparently, too much acid prevention in general can cause allergies in children because their bodies never learn how to digest certain foods. (joy)
So keep your fingers crossed that the weaning of the prevacid goes well and that the introduction of dairy goes well.... cuz he'll like cheese right? and yogurt? everyone likes those. right? ;)
We got in trouble with the law today...
that's right, the cops showed up at our house to have a bit of a discussion with us about noise pollution.
There had been a complaint about our dogs you see, how they're barking and howling all night. The humane society had been called and the police were just following up.
What? We don't have dogs? Oops... they musta got the wrong house. Did we know anyone with dogs barking and howling all night around?
Maybe it was Kiernan... he's gotten awfully good at answering "what does a dog say?"
Do you ever realize just how different your life is than you thought it was going to be? How different it all played out than the original dreams you made during sleepovers with your bff in high school?
If all had gone according to planned I'd have at least 2 kids by now and I'd have been married coming on 10 years. When I hit 25 and I was still single, that hit me hard... nothing was going according to plan!
As hard as I tried throughout the years the feeling that I was off schedule, or running out of time, never really went away. The longer it was taking me to find the man of my dreams, the longer it would be until I could have kids! PANIC!
I met Eric when I was 27 and it wasn't long until we had bought a house, gotten married and were planning for a new baby. And the deeper I got into the life I had always wanted, I realized just how well it had all panned out.
Despite the longing for what I didn't have, I got to do some awesome stuff! I travelled to the UK on my own, I lived in Korea and taught English, I went back to school when I finally figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I got to go out partying with friends, live with a great friend in a cool apartment, I started my career, I had the freedom to take risks I couldn't have taken with a family - life experience abounded.
When I finally got to here, I had years of wisdom and maturity that I feel have made a world of difference in making me feel comfortable as a wife and mother, not to mention I'm financially stable and don't have to worry about the cost of having a family. I'm glad it didn't work out the way I planned to be honest - old eggs and all ;)
I booked a photo shoot for the family at the Real Canadian Superstore months ago and the appointment was the week I had my tooth infection. So... I obviously couldn't be in the photos since my face looked stupid ;)
A friend of mine, who has taken a bunch of great photos in the past of Kiernan and for Apples'n'Oranges, agreed to have us come see her in the week before Christmas, and despite us being late, and it being Kiernan's cranky time of night, we got some photos I'm really happy with.
Her prices are SUPER reasonable so if anyone is looking to have portraits done, I'd be happy to send you her information :)
I've seen this meme on a couple of blogs and decided to do it too. You take the first sentence of the first blog post of every month and list it. Turns out, I use my titles as part of my first sentence so I had to cheat on a couple of occasions and include the title as part of the sentence.
If you decide to try this meme too, leave me a comment, I'd love to come and see!
I remember they days when the holidays were relaxing. Even when I had a million things to go to and do... I still felt like I rested. And I realize, it's just a whole different game with a baby in tow.
I guess I didn't notice last year because I was on mat leave and because I was just generally exhausted anyways with a baby that woke up every half hour all night :P But this year, I realize that even though I've been off work for 1.5 weeks, I don't think we've had any down time at all. Gone are the days when you could recuperate the next day by sleeping in until noon.
And I'm one of the lucky ones who got Dec 21 to Jan 3 off without having to take holidays. I feel so greedy but next year, I'm taking extra days. I'm taking days when there aren't any events going on. And I'm going to work on getting used to the fact that when you have a baby who is go go go all the time, you just don't get to sit and relax all that much (it's kind of amusing to note that one of the only things that will stop K from his constant running around is to sit down and watch Diego. go go! ;)
Happy New Year everyone! My new year's resolution this year is to try to do a little bit less. You?
Another Xmas gone - crazy how fast it came and went. It was a blast to watch Kiernan helping everyone open presents and play with all his new toys. But it sure is a challenge to lug a child to event after event. Even for Kiernan, who isn't that "locked in" to a schedule really seemed overwhelmed by the changes in his schedule and all the excitement.
And I really realize how hard it is to do everything we did before kids. There are up to 7 "events" to go to in 3 days. Makes me tired to even think about it. But regardless, here are some uber cute photos :)
What's more fun than a box with a hole for your face? :)
No, it's ok, I can play with it through this hole.
Giving his baby cousin a kiss
Happy Boxing Day - Come check out the 25% off sale at Apples'n'Oranges that's on until January 2! :)
Have I ever raved about our childcare provider? She's fabulous and I'm beyond thrilled that we found her and that she was able to take Kiernan. I always feel comfortable with him there and given some stories I've heard about other daycares, it's really nice peace of mind.
But on to the real point of this post: the daycare party we went to tonight. I didn't even know there might be such a thing!
We went and got to mix, mingle and eat (yummy yummy things) with all the kids and their parents. She gave each of the kids a really nice gift and then all the parents were presented with the gifts that their kids had made for them at daycare. And despite the fact that Kiernan is only 15 months old, we still got a bag of goodies and I wanted to share a couple of the new adornments to our tree. Aren't they pretty? Aren't we lucky? :)
This one is a true work of genius. See how he left a window for view the piece from two points of view: the inside and the outside. But seriously, he got to shake shake shake the ball full of paint, and I'm sure he adored that! :)
My dad cracks me up. Seriously. He randomly sent this to me tonight. Just in case you didn't realize it, that's Maxwell's equations, the heart of electrical engineering. And who knows, maybe Kiernan will actually follow in his grandpapa's footsteps, unlike his mother, and actually understand math ;)
So I've decided I'm going to not buy wrapping paper anymore.... why wrap everything up in paper just to get thrown out immediately when there are all kinds of other alternatives?
I'm not going to not use all the paper I pre-bought mind you, and I know that watching kids tear into paper is fun, so I think alternatives like newspapers might work. I'm also thinking of making some xmas bags by going and buying fun xmas fabrics for kids and making a bunch of different sizes. Heck, the bags might actually slow down some kids and be handy for older folk who can't get the tape up off the packages anyways!
So here's my question. Do you think people would buy homemade bags like that? Would you*? I will post prototypes once I've made some after Xmas with my hopefully new sewing machine. hehe
* By you I do not mean Lida or Jenny ;)
I was worried about this year's Santa picture, since so many kids cry at this age when they go near Santa. Kiernan was pretty wary to say the least, but considering some kids won't even go near Santa, I'm pretty happy with what we got.
Our scanner isn't hooked up so I just took a photo of the photo :) And by the way, if you're in Ottawa, I highly recommend the Place D'Orleans Santa - very realistic!
In my life, I've had a lot of misfortune in the areas of my health. Not life or death health issues, but issues nonetheless. For example, the pink eye I had in Korea where my eye was so badly swollen I could barely see out of it and I had to go for antibiotics in the bum shots (because that seems to be the solution to all illness in Korea and I just had to keep my fingers crossed that they understood "I AM ALLERGIC TO PENICILLIN")
Then, there was the time that a ladybug bit me (about 6 years ago there was this weird infestation in Ottawa of a mutant ladybug from Asia that was supposed to be good for farming or something - they were brown instead of red with dots, but otherwise looked like a ladybug) and it gave me a strep infection in my finger. My finger swelled to twice it's size, then blistered and the skin all fell off and I had to see the doctor daily to make sure it wasn't turning into flesh eating disease. GAH!
Despite the fact that these things actually happen to me, I think that there are a number of people out there who think I'm a hypochondriac. Now, let me say, I do appreciate playing up a story to make it sound as dramatic as possible. But, generally, I don't think I have diseases I don't have. But I worry people think I'm a big faker.
All this is preamble to tell you a bit more about my saga of the tooth infection. Tuesday my face started swelling. I thought that seemed a bit unusual, but really, not that big a deal. by yesterday morning it was even more swollen so I thought "I'll just check with the dentist". I call and ask if it's normal for my face to be swollen and am told probably not and I should come in so the dentist "can drain things". :P
I went in and he drained an abscess (ew) and it hurt - a lot! For a long time! And he said it might get more swollen for a bit but then I'd feel better.
Today I woke up and was horrified at how swollen I was! We took a picture, but it couldn't really capture how swollen I am. And I thought about posting it here but I'm not sure I can bring myself to, but I have proof that this thing has been insane and will email it to people who ask ;) But I do feel better and think I can probably even go back to work tomorrow without falling on my face tired after being there for 10 minutes.
After an eventful week last week of snow storms keeping me home, a
stomach flu, and an interview I only made it to work for not quite
2 complete days last week! Despite feeling pretty bad all weekend and
developing a tooth ache on Saturday I wasn't going to call in sick
again.
I woke up this morning at 5 with the tooth ache hurting like crazy! So
I took some drugs and after awhile managed to fall asleep for another
hour. By the time I woke up for the day I was ready to take more
drugs and it had only been 2 hours! I called the dentist because I
couldn't stand it and she made me an appointment for tomorrow morning
to see the dentist hypothesizing that what might be happening was that
my tooth (the tooth causing the problems has a crown on it) might have
broken under the crown and was irritating the gums. And I took more drugs even though it hadn't been long enough. :P
I got to work and the pain was getting progressively worse. I brought
Kiernan's ambasol to work with me, but really, that wasn't doing
squat. So by 10 I called the dentist and begged to be seen today. I
went in for 10:50 and had some xrays done. Turns out the tooth wasn't
broken, I had a tooth infection! I don't think I'd heard of tooth
infections (without work having been done on them) until last week
when one of my co-workers had one - and I didn't think they were
catchy (which I said to my dentist, cuz, well, I'm me) and he laughed
and said no, that probably my root canal had failed.
Great. Woo! Now what? So he prescribed me tylenol 3s, antibiotics
and a referral to a specialist for right away. But first he realized that the inflamation of the infection had brought down the tooth in question lower than all the others so if I bit down at all I automatically hit it. Since it was a crown I got to sit there while he filed it down and down until it wasn't so high anymore. Fortunately he got there before the gold underside of the crown would have shown through - although having a gold tooth would have made me all hip or something I think? ;)
I headed right over to the endotologist (I still don't even know what
that is) and yay! got to have an emergency root canal do-over. He
went over the reasons root canals could fail 1) root not cleared out
to the end of the tooth 2) more than 1 root in the tooth and not all
of them had been cleaned out 3) root not filled densely enough to
prevent badness getting in. Guess which category my tooth fell into?
That's right - all three!! Weee!
Then, he freezes my tooth and I'm all excited because the pain will go
away.... but no, the infection/absess is so strong it's in the jaw and
he was never able to freeze it so that I couldn't feel it at all.
Fortunately it was frozen enough that for the most part I couldn't
feel his drilling. fiouf. I did learn a bit about what endotolists
do... one is that they use microscopes to do their work, and another
is that the thing at the end of the mircroscope is reflective so it
was reflecting what he was doing, including the mirror he was using so
I got to watch a lot of it. And let me tell you a) ew b) man teeth
are deep! and c) i really liked this guy, he was great and he was
nice, and he felt really bad that he hurt me sometimes because the
freezing just wasn't strong enough
So I'm home now, about to let the tylenol 3s take me away to la la
land and hoping that the infection doesn't fight back too hard. Cuz
really... I should go to work some time I think ;)
UPDATE: The drugs don't work. waaaahhhh. I've decided this is worse than labour - at least the drugs they gave me worked for that pain and I got breaks. sigh
Kiernan has learned to climb up onto the couch and likes to do it to watch tv. I have to say, Kiernan sitting still and not constantly burning the few calories he's willing to eat in a day doesn't seem like such a bad thing.
Except wait a minute...
Kiernan... sit down...
Didn't last long though....
Oh well... I guess I just need to accept I have to constantly chase after our little monkey, not sit and watch tv with a little couch potato ;)
I've been horrible at blogging lately so this post comes a few weeks after it actually happened (I was shamed to see that I had only two sets of photos from the entire month of November - sigh)
The snow came really early this year and we got Kiernan all bundled up in his snowsuit and new boots to experience the snow. I'd heard all kinds of fun stories about kids being full of joy and wonder when they first experience snow so I was super excited! Out we went, we set him down, and realized... maybe we should have practiced with the new boots before we set him down in particularly tough terrain....
It never got any better after that... 
the love of snow was going to have to come another day. And practicing with boots inside first seemed like a very good idea :)
