G'n'R Out West

Today I was at a mum and baby excessive class.  Simon was drooling like nobody’s business as I was doing sit ups.  I was both playing with him and doing the exercises.  By the end of my sit up routine I had drool all over me.  My girlfriend and I were giggling about it.  She said ‘at least it isn’t puke’ and right when I said, I’m sure there will be some of that there soon’….he puke.  ALL OVER MY HAIR!  It was totally disgusting.

So in case you are keeping track (I am): Once in the hair, twice in the mouth and 6,305,492 times on the shirt, pants and socks.

sigh…

No matter how many times I tell Simon to stop growing up he just keeps at it!  It irritates me to no end.

Sleep:
The big news in the sleep department is that Simon is in his crib… sort of.  He spends the first part of the night in his own crib and after the first waking he joins us in our bed.  He sleeps very soundly both in the crib and with us. 

Because he sleeps with us, and is rather unimposing, I can’t say for sure exactly how much he wakes or is asleep.  My best guess is that we put him in the crib at 10pm, he wakes by 12am, again around 4 am and then 6 am. All just to eat, so he isn’t much of a bother, such a considerate little guy..  He is usually up for the day around 7:30…unless his sister decides to wake him up…sigh.

As for napping, he tends to have a few naps throughout the day. Sometimes in the sling, sometimes in the car, sometimes in the bassinet.  It all depends on how our day is going. 

Eating:
He still nurses like a champ, get in, get out and get on with the day.  We are still struggling to figure out what I am eating that is bugging his guts; however, just tonight I was talking with somebody who gave me the tip that most vitamins have milk products (and other allergens) in them.  Tonight I won’t take my vitamins and tomorrow I am off to the pharmacist to find an alternative. Our pediatrician seemed great and I thought we might have learned a few things, but in light of this new information, my vitamins may have been messing up the results. So for now, back to the strict diet for 2 weeks while I see if there is milk in the vitamins that were causing us problems.

Simon is starting to be very interested in food.  It can be a little frustrating eating dinner with him on our lap.  Luckily he has taken to sitting in the highchair.  This seems to make him less frustrated…and therefore we are also less frustrated! 

He still has never seen a bottle touch his lips (except when Adelle is ‘feeding’ him). At this point I can’t see why we’d bother.

Hair:
His hair is fairly even, getting longer and lighter.  There still isn’t much too it. 

Eyes:
They are sometimes brown, sometimes blue-ish.  I guess they are still changing. 

Personality:
He is so relaxed and easy going.  Such a calming influence on us.  When Adelle has one of her more high energy moments Simon stares at her like she is an alien.  It provides some comic relief for Greg and I. 

He has only cried uncontrollably once in his entire life.  Just this past week, he was in his crib and I was having a VERY VERY good sleep (aparently so was Greg).  Simon is quite accustomed to being fed as soon as he starts to stir and by the time I woke up he was quite pissed off.  It took me at least half and hour to get him to forgive me and calm down before he would even consider eating.  Poor thing!

Simon has finally started to really laugh and giggle.  It is hilarious fun.  He loves to laugh at his sister.  He loves to play with his toys.  He loves to watch me move around the room and he can get rather panicked when I disappear.

He loves fast motion, tickling and especially the wind in his hair…or lack of hair.  The funniest thing he has ever experienced is outside in the wind, being thrown up in the air.  It doesn’t get better than that.

Simon doesn’t say too much, just occasionally yells or coos to get your attention.  He did learn how to scream on Good Friday…just a few hours before we went to church.  He did lots of practicing during the two hour service.

He has never played strange with people.

 Stuff that happened this month:
- he started hanging out in the high chair
- he got baptised
- he spent time outside for the first time without a toque – and LOVED the wind
- he rolled over…twice
- he really started to giggle

Our big guy joining us up at the table

Our little guy with the start of those red baby teething cheeks

It has been a rough week.  I think two days this week I called Greg at work (at around 10am) wondering if he was planning on leaving soon.

It is particularly humorous since this week at my parenting class we were talking about temper tantrums.  As we were sitting in our discussion I was thinking to myself about how bad Adelle’s had been before she turned two…but how it felt like we had her a bit figured out now and they were few and far between.   I was feeling pretty high and mighty about having conquered the tantrums.  I had heard that as they approach 3 the rebellion boils up again…but I was quite confident that Greg and I had done such a good job helping Adelle through the pre-two tantrums that we had saved ourselves from the pre-three ones!

I love how your children can humble you so so so very quickly.

There was one tantrum last week, another on Monday and both times I remember thinking how odd….and then since Tuesday it feels like I am on constant alert watching for the signs and trying to avoid them.

I haven’t quite figured out what she needs, or maybe this is just something we all have to suffer through together.  

Today we were at Superstore, we had a disagreement about the purchase of some shoes and very quickly things went from bad to terrible .  Of course it all came to a head at the till, as I was trying to pay.  Simon in the sling, Adelle back and forth between arched over upside down in my arms and lying on the floor screaming.  Of course, by this point her shoes  and her almond snack had been thrown out of the shopping cart and were scattered all over the check out area.

All I was thinking was I was just minutes away from the car where my child would be safely strapped in the carseat and I could just take a few minutes to breath.  I was holding it all in and was almost done, when the woman across from me said ‘I know it seems hard, but you are doing a really good job.  I’ve been there too’.   It was very nice of her to say, but very quickly my emotions went from being pushed deep down inside to right at the surface…and then I started crying at superstore.

We were stopped again outside, by another mother, with an offer to put the groceries in the car for us and another ‘I’ve been there’ comment. 

Despite my tears it was really nice to have a few people aknowledge my pain.  It can be terrible knowing everybody is looking at you.  It is nice to know a few of those eyes had understanding hearts behind them.

Thank goodness it was Saturday and Greg was at home when we got back.

Little old Simon got baptised this afternoon. His Godparents are my cousin Kevin and his wife Kathleen. We are their son Aidan’s Godparents….does that make them God-brothers?

Poor Adelle is still a bit jet lagged and got up at 4am.  Mass did not start until 12:30 today and by then she was no longer interested in co-operating with anybody! 

Simon did well.  Of course we had to wake him up to get ready for the big event, but he quickly recovered.  He had an unfortunate diaper blowout just moments before the big event.  However, luckily for us the shirt Grandma Fran sent was big on him and covered up the unsightly evidence! 

Simon thought it was pretty funny to be put almost upside down over the holly water…however, having water dumped on his head was thoroughly disappointing.

Our Parish has recently been blessed with a new Priest.  He gives interesting and thought provoking sermons….he is also a little sarcastic with a really impressive Italian accent.  It was nice to have Simon baptised by father Luciano Cortopassi.

After the service we had a number of friends over to the house to celebrate Simon.  It is hard to live far from family at times like this – and we are very grateful to have a great group of friends to be able to share these occasions with.

All in (the poo, the surly sibling) it was a memorable event.

Greg and Adelle have just returned from Sydney. They went back to Cape Breton for Nana’s funeral. Despite the reason for returning home it sounds like they had a really good time. There was lots of time spent bonding with the family and thinking about Nana. I think Adelle asked Greg a few good questions about death - I can only imagine what all is going on in her head. We took out a few books from the library to have around the house to help her think a few more things through.

When we were all reunited at the airport it was really moving to see how excited Adelle was to see Simon. She just couldn’t seem to get close enough to him or hug him enough. She was excited to see me too, although I was certainly third (behind Simon and the helium balloon I brought to the airport for her). I did get a hug, but it didn’t last long. When I told her I was glad she was home and I missed her she told me she missed Simon….sigh….

Simon and I had a good week. It was VERY lonely around the house, but it was a great opportunity to get a million things done and truth be told, a nice break from our regular routine.

Simon had a pediatrician appointment this week as a follow-up to some blood we found in his diaper earlier in the month. As it turns out he has very low iron levels. The doctor believes these are a result of the bleeding which is likely caused by an intolerance to something I am eating. For the last three weeks I’ve been off gluten, eggs, milk, soy and corn (it has been a long few weeks!). Assuming his gut heals quickly I should be able to start introducing foods and hopefully be able to narrow it down – the most likely culprit is milk…oh sweet delicious milk, how I will miss you and your friends butter, ice cream and cheese!  In the meantime taking stool samples to the lab has become a hobby of mine.

Simon is on iron supplements now, and appears to be rather constipated and uncomfortable. We’ll see how the weekend goes and I may call the pediatrician early next week if his body doesn’t start adjusting to the supplement. Hopefully it will be much easier when he is on solids in a month and we can bring up his iron a bit more naturally. It is hard to want to treat him with the supplements when they seem to bother him, given that he was completly symptomless before.

Simon rolled today for the second time (front to back). What a clever little dude. Adelle and I both saw this roll…thank goodness!

Easter came and went pretty quickly this year.  The news of Nana overshadowed the event.  Luckily for us we were able to celebrate with my cousins Kevin, Kathleen and Aidan so that took our mind off Nana for a while

It was lovely to be with them. Adelle adores Aidan. He adores pulling her hair, and we are fairly certain that she loves tempting him with it. I think it can be a bit tiring for Kevin and Kathleen as Adelle can’t help herself but get close to Aidan…and he certainly can’t help but pull all that hair!

Adelle and Simon’s Great Grandmother passed away this afternoon.  It was very expected…but still so sad. 

This Christmas we had vowed not to travel – since Simon was just a few weeks old.  Then Greg’s good friend Drew decided to get married over Christmas break in Nova Scotia.  It was an event we couldn’t miss.  Because of Drew we went back to Halifax, and since we were there we made the trek to Sydney to visit Nana.  Funny how somethings just end up happening.  Thanks Drew.  Without you and Colleen and your well timed wedding, Simon would never have had the opportunity to meet Nana.

Negligent parent, misses everything.

So sad to be a second child. I put Simon on his stomach with a toy while I brushed Adelle’s teeth, I turn back 30 seconds later and old Simon is lying on his back.  He looked about as shocked as I was.  He has yet to repeat his new trick…sigh.

In other news, Simon added his ’special sauce’ to Greg’s dinner tonight.  Projectile vomiting has never been so funny.  Greg found it less humorous then Adelle and I.

Yesterday I was holding Simon on my lap.  He was standing, he loves to stand.  He kept throwing himself backwards quite forcefully.  At first I found it a bit odd until I realized he was smiling.  Hmmm…perhaps he is a bit of a daredevil, just loving the the rush of almost falling!

Adelle, on the other hand, is a little mini me.  She wanted me to buy her a notebook.  I decided to get her one.   In the car ride home she asked for a pen.   I passed one back to her and she immediately started writing.  When I asked her what she was writing, she told me a grocery list.  Sigh, days like these make a mama so proud!  Oh, and these same days make Greg roll his eyes!