G'n'R Out West

We had our final camping trip this past weekend.  We managed to convince a number of friends to join us in the mountains for our last camping trip of the season.

There were a number of kids as well as a few dogs.  So Adelle was well entertained.  As always, she came on a little strong and all the kids shy-ed away.  Luckily there was one dog there that loved attention more than she feared the wrath of our daughter, so she had a companion for the better part of the weekend.

We had great weather on Friday and Saturday and managed a few nice walks.  It was great to spend some time in the mountains.  I love to take Adelle camping.  She just has so much fun.  She had a hilarious time in the tent.  We did manage to get her to go to fall asleep both nights in the tent, but only after she had spent a serious amount of time goofing around in there.  Now that she is a bit more stable on her feet she loves the tent even more.  She stumbles around and thinks it is hilarious when she falls down.

Unfortunately, Adelle still isn’t quite as stable as is required to deal with walking around outside.  Our camping pad was topped with gravel and she took a few too many spills onto the ground.  Twice she ended up with a pretty good sized egg (one above her right eye, the other at the back of her head), both times she split the skin.  I guess that first little cut last month was nothing more than the start of the toddling injuries!

Adelle and Greg in the tent

Here is a beautiful shot of our girl that Greg took while we were taking a lunch break on a mountain hike

The baby is no baby anymore.

We had yet another busy month.  Poor Adelle experienced her first summer birthday.  We arrived home from our vacation on Sunday and celebrated her birthday on Monday with very little preparation.  It turned out wonderful…but it was rushed.  

 Sleep:
Sleeping was much better this month.  Bedtime is a bit hit and miss.  Sometimes it is easy to get her to go to sleep, sometimes it isn’t. I think there is a combination of her being stubborn and of her maybe having some teething pain and such things. 

For the most part she goes to be just before 8pm, sleeps until 3am, I feed her and then she sleeps again until around 7am. 

I am kind of out of touch with the daytime routine, but I believe the norm is one nap just before noon…occasionaly, when she gets up early, she has two naps. 

While we were on vacation she slept a lot less than normal, and had a few angry nights.  But all in all she adapted well.

Eating:
More and more this month we fed her what we were eating.  She is really starting to show an interest in what we are eating.  And somehow she always knows when we are eating dessert.  She can show no interest in us eating dinner, but we bring out dessert and she is all hands and squeals trying to get her some pie!

She is less and less agreeable to eating mush.  So I guess it is just about time we retired that type of food!  That is fine, she seems pretty open to eating just about anything.  While we were camping she ate bean buerittos complete with guacamole…it didn’t even phase her.  She woke up screaming that night, and I worried for a moment that she had indigestion…but hte word ‘milk’ settled her instantly…and she patiently waited for me to nurse her.

Getting Around:
She is really starting to walk well now.  She can even walk fast soemtimes.  While we were camping she would only walk while holding our hand.  The ground was just too uneven, and she wasn’t yet stable enough.  She decided that she was too mature to bother with crawling though, so she was a bit dependant on us to get around. 

Hair:
We cut it just a few weeks ago and she needs another cut again.  I even specifically had her bangs cut extra short…but it just grows too fast.

Eyes:
green/grey/brown…i don’t get them.

Language:
She has picked up a few more signs.  She now does bird, and she pounds her chest for ‘kids’.  Or mostly that is what she uses those signs for!  It is really fun trying to communicate with her.  The gibberish she speaks started to change a lot.  She now says a lot of one syllable noises, and less of the ‘talking’ she did before. 

She also says no very well, and says it VERY often.  Sometimes it is one big long ‘NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO’, other times it is more of a ‘nononononono’.  USuslaly it is against the universe vs against something we have specifically asked her.  She also consistantly used the word ‘mama’ for my nephew on our trip.

Personality:
Ridiculously happy, unless he is ridiculously mad.  Or at least that is how it seems.  She still gets angry VERY quickly, but she also forgives and forgets really quickly.  Same old girl.

She is still always getting into other kids business, and has no clue about personal space.  She has started reaching out for certain adults in certain situations as well.

Stuff that happened this month:
- she ate a bunch of junk food – turns out she likes it…surprise, surprise
- she had her first canoe camping trip
- we took her to folk fest and she had a great time dancing
- she got sick for the first time and it was really sad
- she got her first 4 top teeth all in one day
- she got her first cut this month when she fell and hit her head on the side of the tub

In memory of that incident…here is a shot of her little swollen eye

Adelle’s birthday has arrived.  Insanity.  I really can’t believe she is a year old.  I will do her official monthly update later in the week.  For now just a quick post about the big day!

We decided to just have a few friends over, as we didn’t really want to overwhelm her with too many people on her first birthday.  As it turns out it was just perfect.  I think all the kids had a fabulous time just running around our house filling it with little kid chaos…I LOVE the energy a house full of kids brings.

Here are a few pictures of the birthday girl

Adelle tentatively checks out the cake texture

Although initially uncertain about the cake, Adelle realizes it is worth further investigation
 

Stealing her dad’s entire piece of cake – once she has tasted the forbidden sugar
 

Dancing with some tissue paper – in the beautiful dress my friend Missy sent her, a cool dress intended to be worn as a dress when your baby is little and later when they are older as a little shirt.
 

I am so sentimental.  One year old…no longer a baby.

We have just arrived home from a big vacation to Northern Ontario to visit my sister and her family.  We had a great adventure and the cousins got to spend 10 days together.  It was so wonderful.  There is so much to say…and I know I’ll be forgetting about 98% of it…but I have to get this down before I procrastinate and forget even more.

My sister and Hugh took us along with thier kids and my dad on a 6 day canoe trip, followed by a few days of car camping.  Quite the adventure for us given that our longest canoe trip to date was 3 days…and that was without a baby!

My sister, Hugh and the kids sure do know how to camp!  We were spoiled by muffins, desserts, pancakes, crepes, pizza (including homemade crust)…you name, it, they know how to cook it over the campfire.  I was amazed.  There was so much to learn, it was very exciting, and so delicous.  I was a bit embarassed since they cook nicer meals on thier canoe trips, than I do at home!

The first night there was a pretty serious thunder storm, which got close enough to really scare me…it was the closest I’ve ever been to a storm.  The weather really co-operated.  It was warm, but not too hot.  One day it was even hot enough for me to take a swim…which is basically unheard of.  The last 2 days of the canoe trip were windy and a bit wet.  We made some unexpected stops and detours to protect ourselves from the weather, but all in all we made it back on schedule.  There were a few times when I got a bit nervous, because of the waves, waves I never would have ventured out in without my sister and Hugh by our sides.  I never got too nervous though, because my sister was there.  She is so great at getting me to try things I normally never would.

I am told Adelle did really well considering how young she was.  She was perfectly happy in the canoe and spent the better part of her days nursing.  In general she was happy and I got to paddle a few times, so all in all it was amazing.

The cousins had a great time together. Both my neice and nephew were very patient with Adelle.  Although, poor Noam, was always a bit put off by Adelle’s lack of understanding about personal space.  There were a few times that she’d be across the campsite from him and she’d take one step towards him and he’d say ‘no baby no’ in this totally ridiculously cute voice.  But there were also times where he really wanted to be close to her and share with her.

Some people will have a good laugh when they hear about Adelle’s eating habits.  My sister has relaxed food rules for her kids when they are camping.  Plus Lily has a sweet tooth (not unlike her mother, aunt Rachelle and uncle Al).  So there were a few treats that the kids were given.  Since Noam is a second child it is hard to shield him from the evils of sugar, so he eats a lot of what my sister gives Lily for a treat.  Since Lily and Noam are so loving towards Adelle they are very happy to share anything and everything with her.  The following is a list of foods that my dear daughter consumed while on vacation.  Some of them we offered to her, some of them she tried despite our best efforts to protect her.  Here is the list: cookies, maple syrup, gummy bears, chips, m&ms, rasberry pie and bacon.  ok…i think that is it.  It was terrible.  Oh, well….it had to happen some time, I just didn’t think it would be quite this soon.

Here are a few shots from our big trip.

On the last night I put down my pie…Adelle had been given a few little bites so knew it was delicioius.  Apparently, she watched me put it down and as soon as I turned my back she went for it.  It fell to the floor and she quickly snatched it up.  My sister watched the whole thing happen and all she could do was laugh.  I can’t really blame her, as for my part, I ran for the camera instead of taking the pie away!

A quiet moment on our trip as all the kids took a nap.

Munching down on a delicious (and very sandy) apple.

I love this picture because it really embodies my neice.  She is such a free spirit…and she is always hot.  All of us are bundled up to some extent against the wind.  Lily, has stripped off all her clothes down to her body suit and is dancing in the wind!

Adelle likes being up on our shoulders although, she hasn’t quite figured out how to get up there and it is usually a two person job as she is a bit of a kicker.

I love cousins.

Baby and Mama checking out the rocks.  Chi Chi called Adelle ‘baby’ the entire trip.  She called him ‘Mama’.  She would often call to him while pounding on her chest.  She doesn’t call me Mama, but after just a few hours, she attaches that name to him.  Too cute.  She spent the majority of the trip chasing him around.

The following is a list of Adelle dislikes, it is both short and long all at the same time

The list:
- everything

Yesterday she wasn’t interested in eating much.  However, last night there was no fever.  She was up a few times in the night and wasn’t really sure what to do with herself.  This morning she woke up angry and mostly has no clue what she wants, unfortunatly, neither do we.

She did eat some breakfast this morning (best she has eaten in days!!!).  She has definitly lost some weight.  We have no scale, but you can see her little ribs and everything about her just looks so skinny now.  She is eating now, so I assume that isn’t a big issue, we’ll see how she eats today and decide if we want to get her looked at.  She also has a little rash she developped last night and good cough.   She doesn’t seem bothered by either.

Our girl who usually inhales puffs by the fist full was eating them today in about 3 bites each.  At least she is eating.

An interesting new skill she has learned this weekend is saying ‘no’.  She says it when she is really upset and things are not going her way.  For example – she tries to turn the pages of the book and they book just won’t cooperate.  ‘nooooooo’ – as she starts to cry and give up on the world.

Poor bean.

We have a little sick baby.  She just has had a little fever for a few days now and we just assumed it was teething, because there has been some drool and a runny nose.  This morning she woke up very sad and cuddly, didn’t really want to eat and was just all around pathetic.  I’ve always wondered how you tell if your baby is spitting up, or barfing.  I didn’t have to wonder for long.  Barfing is so very different then spitting up.  It is impossible to confuse them.

Poor little girl had a real good one this morning.  She got a bit in her hair and so I should have given her a bath this morning.  But she was just so sad I couldn’t bring myself to torture her in the bath (oh, yeah, she hates the bath again).  So she smelt like a little puke baby all day.  so sad.

She was actually really easy to care for today.  Mostly she just wanted to cuddle or sit with you while you read her a book.  She would occasionally toddle off, but her balance was all off today so she never got too far before she had a little falling related meltdown and came back in for a cuddle.

She pecked at her food a few times today, but mostly she just played with it. 

 I sure hope tomorrow is better.   As easy as it is to look after her when she is sick…it is also very sad.

We had our first walking injury today. I was in the shower, Adelle was puttering about organizing our bathroom items.  Out of nowhere I heard a big clunk. I look out to see Adelle lying on the bathroom floor looking up at me with blood on her face.  Freakn’ scary.

Anyway, our little bean is just fine.  It looked like there was a fair bit of blood at first, but I think it was just because her face was wet so it looked worse than it was.  She banged her head on the tub and cut her eye lid in the process. She didn’t hurt herself too bad as she only screamed for about 20 seconds.  I think we were both a bit scared.

It swelled up pretty quickly, although, in the end it didn’t look too bad, hopefully she won’t have a black eye in the morning.

Adelle’s first good fall – note that she is not wearing a polk-a-dot shirt…the red is blood…so sad.