G’n'R Out West

As you know Adelle has zero interest in bottles.  However, she has been intently watching Greg and I eat for quite some time.  Recently she has shown a huge interest in cups.  I let her play with one a few times.  We made a few jokes about Greg and I drinking exclusively from bottles to make her think those were cool….and then maybe she’d start NEEDING that.

Today we gave her some milk in a cup.  She thought it was the best thing going.  So maybe this is a good thing.  She has no interest in a sippy cup but a regular cup is the most fun thing ever.  I guess we’ll see if this cup thing is a fad or if she is really into it.  It could certainly lead to some freedom for me. It is so fun to watch her explore new things.  As soon as we held the cup up to her lips she new exactly what to do.  It is so cool that she had that totally figured out.  It is a slow process and a bit messy.  But if she continues to be interested in it I am sure she will get better at drinking fast.

Christmas lesson learned: irresponsible mothers who let their baby chew on Christmas paper end up with green mouthed babies.

Our first Christmas with Adelle was wonderful.  Adelle was happy and we were happy despite the fact I slept for 3 hours the night before and Greg had a bad cold.  We had our cousins over for Christmas dinner.  It was wonderful to spend time with family….even though we missed being with our parents, siblings, niece and nephew so much over the holiday.  Adelle’s little 1 1/2 year old cousin Luca was here and he kept us well entertained.  He was also very gentle with Adelle and had lots of very very careful hugs for her. 

We have received so many beautiful Christmas cards from so many people.  We didn’t get around to sending our own this year….maybe next year.  But we sure do love hearing from everybody and appreciate every card we do receive.

We want to wish everybody a merry Christmas from our happy family to yours.

Our daughter who recently decided that upside down was a pretty good way to look at the world

Today Adelle is four months old and I can hardly even believe it.  Our nine months off together is going by so quickly.  We have such a great time together now that she is so interested in things.  Speaking of which, she has recently started showing an interest in our food and drinks.  Which makes me nervous since I am in no hurry at all to start her on solids.  She hasn’t managed to reach out and really grab anything yet (more due to her eye hand co-ordination then anything else).  But I think it will come soon.  We are at a really good stage now where we can eat with her on our lap.  It used to be that one of us would have to run around the house trying to eat and bounce her.  Now she will sit content on our lap because she is so interested in what we are doing.  I suspect this ‘easy’ meal time will pass once she figures out how to grab!

Sleep:
Sleeping is still going fabulously.  I put her in her crib at around 10pm or 11pm and she stays there often as late as 9 or 10 am.  More often than not she is sleeping through the night.  Although, occasionally she needs a little snack or a bit of attention to tide her over.  I usually put her into her crib wide awake and she is happy to hang out until she falls asleep. 

Napping is still pretty hit and miss.  And by that, I mean miss if we put her down and hit if we hold her while she sleeps!  Since it isn’t always reasonable for me to hold her while she naps, her naps are often short and interupted when I try to put her down.  The good news is that she almost always wakes up really happy.  So she must be getting what she needs.  On Mondays we swim and that totally tires her out.  So on Monday she usually has this amazing, long, wonderful, perfect nap.  It is a dream come true for me.  Some days I would like it if she napped longer and I day dream about taking her swimming every morning!

I find her sleeping habits really funny.  At night she thinks sleeping in her crib is the best.  She loves to lie there awake and she is really happy to wake up and find herself alone there.  If we dare to put her up there during the day she will usually wake up before we are out of the room, or if not then she will often wake up angry because she isn’t being held.  I find it so funny that she has this totally different standard for day and night time sleeping.

Eating:
Breastfeeding is going fabulously.  I finally love it.  I mean, I have dreamed of having that special time with my baby for years.  But when it finally came, i still loved the idea of it…but not the reality.  This month was really the first month that it seemed easy and was wonderful in every sense.  I never worried about her getting too little, too much, too gassy….was her latch good, did she fall asleep too quickly?  It has been perfect.  I have been able to relax and just enjoy our special time together. 

Bottle feeding still sucks rocks.  Greg and I have almost decided to give it up.  It is a bit sad, but we aren’t gaining any ground exposing her to a negative situation each night while Greg attempts to trick her into eating.  So we think we are just upsetting her and wasting our time.  It means I have a little less freedom, because we can’t leave her with anybody else (it would be cruel and unusual punishment to make anybody hang out with Adelle while she is hungry or try to bottle feed her!).  But, what do I care?  It isn’t like I actually have anywhere I really want to go, I guess I just like the idea of being able to go. 

Hair:
Same old story, thinning and getting lighter.  We had a bit of a cradle cap issue we dealt with a few days ago, but I think it went well.  If we are lucky we won’t have to put up with that too often.  Especially since bathing is still a completely horrifying experience for Adelle.  

Eyes:
Still a greyish-blue.

Personality:
She is so full of emotion.  When she is happy she is shooting love smiles all over the place.  When she is displeased with a situation she DEMANDS that changes are made immediately.  This makes it pretty easy to take care of her.  Sometimes you have to do something you don’t really feel like doing, but we can almost always tell what she wants. 

The car is going much better.  She doesn’t love it, and it doesn’t really relax her, but she definitely tolerates it now.  Occassionally she gets so caught up in the blanket she is playing with that she even lets a little giggle out.  She has also had a few good walks in her stroller.  She seems to prefer sitting in it facing forward (without the carseat) so she can see what is going on.  However, the last walk we took she lasted about 10 minutes in it before demanding to be carried.  Whatever, I’d rather cuddle than sit alone in a stroller too so I don’t blame her!  Needless to say, I am not so bold as to venture too far from the house without her sling! 

She still goes from 0 to 100 and back to 0 in no time.  I have a good anectode to share that fully showcases her unique talent.  I was washing her hair yesterday and she was totally loosing her beans.  It was a complete and total ridiculous meldown.  Once I was done, I picked her up to take her out of the bath.  The second I picked her up she stopped crying (even though she was naked and exposed to the cool air).  By the time I had her lying on her towel (about 2 seconds later) she was smiling at me.  I had to laugh, at least she doesn’t hold a grudge for the torture we put her though! 

People say that eventually you start to understand your childs crys.  I don’t think I can really ever tell with Adelle.  Everything seems to be an all out red alert emergency with her, so I can’t tell the subtleties of the crys.  However, if I am not sure if she is hungry I just put her in position to feed and if she is hungry she stops crying and makes this really cute and very anxious little cooing noise (almost like a little nervous laugh).  It is really cute.  I wish I could bottle that noise up.  I should tape it, so I will always remember what it sounds like.

She has found her thumb.  She doesn’t seem to use it for comfort or to fall asleep.  Just sometimes she needs a little thumb, and takes it for a few minutes and then forgets about it again.  It is really cute to see her (and hear her) sucking away.  Mostly she likes to just suck on her lips, so much easier than getting her thumb in position.

We have started reading to her.  She seems fairly interested in the books.  Occassionally she tries to chew them, but mostly she is content to sit, cuddle and look while I read to her.  She spends some time holding her toys but mostly she loves to explore her hands, our hands or to hold and lick and touch her receiving blankets.

Stuff that happened this month:
- she started chewing on things, instead of just sucking
- she really started to talk and sometimes she has so much to say
- she had her first picture with Santa Claus
- she was baptised and her Grandparents from Halifax came out for the celebration
- she started enjoying her swing and will also play with the toys attached to it
- we put her in her excersaucer for the first time and she seems to really enjoy one of the toys on it

Our chunky little lip sucking babe

We are all ready for Christmas.  The best part is that Greg has a few days off still that he will be taking over the next two weeks.  Starting on Thursday or Friday we will all be home all day.  There will be lots of  time for some quality family bonding.  It is so exciting.

Adelle has had a great week.  She has recently taken up thumb sucking.  It isn’t something that happens for long periods of time…but she has certainly figured it out.  So far she hasn’t been doing it at night…just occasionally during the day.  It is really cute. 

She has been sleeping great all week.  Until last night.  She was up a lot.  This morning Greg came out of the shower to me holding her hand (while half asleep) saying ‘now watch your daddy get ready for work then go back to sleep’.  A good parenting moment for me.  Eventually she was bored back to sleep and slept for a few more hours.  Of course I couldn’t sleep in past 7 so I didn’t get much sleep myself.  But that is ok.  We had a really busy day today so I hardly noticed. 

Tomorrow is our last yoga class.  I haven’t decided yet if we will sign back up after Christmas.  I think I will sign up for another stroller aerobics class, plus we have swimming lessons starting in February.  I think we will stay pretty busy without the yoga.  I will miss my yoga and lunch sessions if I don’t go back.  But I’m starting to get bored by it and I’m not enjoying it as much now that my body is feeling so much better.

This weekend our friends lent us their excersaucer.  It has been great.  Adelle thinks it is pretty cool.  She isn’t into spending too much time in it very often.  But on Sunday she hung out in it for a good 20 minutes while Greg and I put up the Christmas tree.  So that was really nice.  One more thing to occupy her while we get a few things done.  Soon she will be ready for her jolly jumper.  I am curious to see how that will go.

Goofing around with her dad:

Yesterday we had Adelle’s Baptism.  It was a busy day filled with lots of preparations.  Adelle was doing fabulously all day, until about 10 minutes before the ceremony when she fell asleep. 

She had been acting tired for a while, but we weren’t able to get her to sleep earlier.  Normally having a little nap when you are tired is a good thing.  It is not a good thing, when you go down for  your nap 10 minutes before you need to get changed into your baptism clothes.  We had to wake her up to change her into her little dress.  She just barely held it together for most of the ceremony…until the priest poured water on her head.  She doesn’t like water on her head on a good day…let alone a day when we’ve so rudely woken her!

After that it seemed like an uphill battle to keep our little girl calm.  She was ok for the most part until we got her home.  Then she really lost it.  It was like we were back to 1 month old Adelle.  It was all a bit unfortunate of course, because we had a house full of guests.  Greg and I traded off attempting to sooth her while the other spent time with the guests.  I use the term attempted because it seemed like most of the time she was not soothed. 

She was really upset and we didn’t know why.  I thought it might have been teething or perhaps some gas pain.  But when Greg did finally calm her it came out of nowhere.  I do wonder if she just gets brain overload.  We have had so many people around her this week.  Maybe after returning from church she was looking forward to a quiet evening at home with her parents….and then came home to a house full of guests.  Poor little girl.

She was a wreck most of the night.  Greg got her to sleep twice, but when she woke up she was definitely on edge.  After the crowd left her Grandpa got her to have another little sleep, and when she woke up from that (and a quiet house) she seemed more like herself.    It is so hard to know what to do.  She gets so upset I wonder if she’ll need therapy!

Thank you to everybody who came to celebrate our little girl.  It is always so wonderful to be surrounded by friends and family.  I know we picked a busy season for Adelle’s baptism and we appreciate everybody making time.  Especially those who squeezed in our celebration into a night filled with other festivities.  Like Greg’s cousin John and his wife Laurie who even had to fend off harassing phone calls from another party while they were with us!

Anyway, Greg’s parents leave again tomorrow.  It is sad because Adelle has finally warmed up to them.  It is hard to have family that lives so far away.  But with Greg’s parents retired, and mine retiring this year, hopefully there will be lots of time for Grandparents to visit anyway.

Adelle reminds us of her feelings about water on her head

With her Grandparents

We’ve had a really busy week.  Greg’s parents arrived on Wednesday morning.  Adelle was a bit strange with them at first, so the first day was a bit hard.  The only real quality time she spent with either of them was when we tricked her and passed her off to Grandma after she was already sleeping.  Yesterday was much better and she had lots of smiles for both her Grandparents.

Wednesday night we had our baptism preparation class.  The Godparents, John and Shannon, came with us.  It was a great class and it really gave me an appreciation for the baptism.  I don’t think I see it in quite the same light as if I were Catholic, but it has some meaning to me as well which I find very nice.   We are honoured that John and Shannon are going to play such a role in Adelle’s life and they both seem very excited to be a part of it as well.  It is nice to know that Adelle will have these wonderful people in her life.  They both live close enough to us that hopefully Adelle will get to know, love and trust them as she grows older.

Last night our good friends Lisa and Andrew were in town and they came to visit us.  So we had a full house over last night so that all their friends could see them at once (I’ll take any excuse to throw a party!).   It was really great to see Lisa and Andrew.    As per usual these days, a few of the women that were at our house last night were pregnant.  How exciting!  It made me a little jealous (poor Greg, we aren’t exactly on the same page yet about how many kids we are going to have).  Sometimes I miss being pregnant, and Adelle is so old now.  There are so many things I miss about how she was when she was a very little baby.  Not that she isn’t amazing now, but it is nice to think I’ll get to do it all again some day. I supose it isn’t that sensible to be thinking about having another baby just yet, and I am nothing if not sensible when it comes to this sort of thing.  So I know it won’t happen too quickly, but it is a fun thing to look forward to.

Here are a couple of pictures from our week:

Adelle saw Santa this week.  She was resoundingly indifferent to the entire experience.  There wasn’t even a flicker of emotion as she sat with him.  It was actually pretty funny to watch.

Tummy time for Adelle - lips in (who needs a soother with lips like hers?)

Party time on her tummy.  She used to detest tummy time but is slowly coming around to the idea.  I can usually get her for a good minute or two on her tummy these days.
 

Naptime with Grandma Fran
 

Hanging out with Grandpa Ron

I just had one of ‘those’ moments.  I bought some mustard at the store today.  As I was pulling it out of the trunk the bag broke.  So then I had mustard and shards of mustard covered glass all over the garage and one of my sneakers.  I contimplated just leaving it for when Greg got home (I hate the smell of mustard), but it was right where the garage door would land so I had no choice.  As I start to clean up the mustard my baby starts to cry.  Although she has eaten less than an hour ago she is beside herself with hunger. 

I rush to finish cleaning up as I fear I will track mustard everywhere if I don’t deal with it immediately.  In the process of cleaning it up I manage to cut my finger.  Then I get blood on my baby.  All this while the neighbourhood kids are returning from school.  I love to put on a show for the neighbourhood!

Anyway, my mustard covered shoe is still outside.  I am procrastinating dealing with it as I type this!

For all of you who have had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day experience I thought you’d enjoy my story.

Today a nurse came to our home.  We have applied for life insurance and so as part of the application you have a nurse visit you at home.  She brought a scale with her so we were able to weigh Adelle.  It isn’t accurate since we just weighed ourselves holding her with her clothes on but it was still fun.  She weighs 16 lbs. 

This is very exciting for me.  The smallest size of swim diapers is 16 lbs so I have been really hoping she’d pack on the pounds quickly so I’d be less nervous taking her swimming!!

We had a fun and busy week.  Adelle has been a dream.  She has been sleeping more and more at night so I am feeling great in the morning.  She always wakes up so happy.  I love that first smile of the morning.  We are always so excited to see each other.

This week she started biting my fingers when she puts them in her mouth.  Prior to this week she only ever sucked.  She also used to hate it when I rubbed her gums with a cloth to wash them.  Now she loves it.  She drools like crazy and her cheeks have been really red lately.  She has also had some super fussy times this week.   All this is making me think teething might be coming sooner rather than later.  However, I have no other baby to compare her to…so maybe these things happen independent of teething.  So who knows.  Either way I know it is coming sometime, and it makes me nervous.

I went downtown this week to meet up with some people I used to work with for a recongnition lunch.  I was really nervous about going in.  I’m not sure really why.  But I was, I guess I just live in a totally different world.  Anyway, it was really neat to see everybody again.  And I was excited to hear all about what has been going on at work since I left.  I love being home so much, but I do actually miss work.  I think that knowing how much I miss it will make it easier to go back.  It is so hard to even imagine going to work right now.  I feel like I fit this world so nicely.  The two worlds are just miles apart in terms of how they make me feel good.  Anyway, I am rambling…but the point is it was reassuring to know I am still interested in work, despite being so far removed from it for 4 months.

Adelle helps with laundry (and by helping I mean not crying while I do the laundry, which in my opinion is a HUGE help)

The best seat in the house (this is Adelle favorite place to hang out)