All I want for Christmas is my top right lateral incisor...

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone and an early Happy New Year! I hope everyone is having a very nice Christmas season and relaxing a little. Hard to believe I will be back to work in a few short weeks, but there it is. On to funner topics....

Avery's first Christmas has come and gone, and it was a great time. Of course she didn't have a clue what was going on, and since her attention span is still pretty short, even the appearance of a bunch of new toys didn't really seem to make a big impact. But we enjoyed it anyway. My mom came to spend a week with us in Ottawa, and we had a very nice cheese fondue on Christmas Eve, and then went to Greg's parents' house for dinner on Christmas Day. Sandy, Tim and Jamie made us an excellent meal and it was very nice to be able to spend Avery's first Christmas with all the Herages/Kroekers and my mom. Too bad Grampa Kelly didn't get to see Avery over the holidays, but don't feel too sorry for him. He and Cassandra are sunning it up on a Hawaiian cruise. We'll seem them next week when we go to Toronto.

So Avery has finally cut another tooth - the aforementioned top right lateral incisor. Bonnie assured me that it wasn't strange that Avery is getting this tooth before she has her top central incisors, and that I didn't need to rush her to the dentist or anything. It is going to look a little strange when it comes all the way in though, with only that one and her two bottom teeth! :)

This week we finally put away Avery's playmat - we had the Fisher Price Rainforest Melodies & Lights Deluxe Gym. I would highly recommend this one as Avery really loved it, it was fairly durable and she got some use out of it even over the last couple of months. Granted it is probably not meant to be used as a standing support, but somehow she made it work that way! :)

And finally, I managed to do a little shopping today beacuse I desperately need to revamp my work wardrobe. The best deals I found were at the Gap at St. Laurent mall. I got 4 pairs of work pants that ranged in price from $15 to $25, and they all fit fairly well. Can't beat that!

My they grow up quickly!

In a shameless rip-off of Julie's six month update for Nicholas, here is our nine month version for Avery. And no, there was no coffee in the Starbucks cup - she just really loves playing with them. Looks like she'll be taking after Mama anyway! :)

Weight: 18lbs 14oz (pretty average and about what Nicholas was at 6 months :)

Height: 28 inches (just slightly taller than average)

Eye Colour: Greeny-brown, but changing with every outfit

Hair Status: Rocking the faux-hawk most of the time, waiting patiently for enough hair to put a barrette in

Teeth Status: Two bottom front teeth came in 2 months ago, still waiting for the rest of them

Nicknames: Sweetpea, Monkey, Doodles, Squirt

Prized Collection: Shoes! Already taking after Mommy, Gramma Sandy and Great Aunt Arlene, Avery owns 9 pairs of shoes, slippers and booties. And Mommy most certainly did not buy all of them.

Biggest accomplishments: pulling herself up anywhere and everywhere, crawling up a long flight of stairs with bum support from Mommy or Daddy, clapping, waving, shaking her head "no" and saying "mama" for just about everything (but I know she really means me :)

Ways to describe her physique: healthy baby girl, cutest budda belly and feet

Favorites: Trus and the cats, the "exerpooper", her mini-soccer ball, pulling books off the bookshelf, TV, and still anything she can put in her mouth

Most likely career: Surgeon (due to her manual dexterity in finding the tiniest bits on the floor to pick up and eat), or teeth model (but she still has to grow many more)

Who sleeps most? No one - we are all still working on improving her day and night sleep...sigh

Most endearing qualities: heartwarming smile, tenaciousness, cuddliness

Favourite food: multigrain cereal, yogurt, cheese, bananas, beef stroganoff (the grown-up kind)

Marital status: single, but flirting with all the boys

What’s next? Standing, walking, running - and then next week, hopefully she will say "dada"

Possibly the cutest thing ever...after Avery of course!

Have you seen this? It's a Puppy Cam of six Shiba Inu puppies - check it out. I'm not sure how it all came about, but it is pretty fun to watch. Even when they are mostly sleeping and they walk over each other to get the best spots, or nip at each other's ears just for kicks.

Yay to the return of Top Chef!

So I love the show Top Chef - if you don't know it, it is a Bravo show that is shown on the Food Network in Canada. It's a reality show where chefs compete against each other in a variety of challenges to become "Top Chef" and win some $ and cool prizes - as well as the bragging rights of course. What I love about it is that most of the "cheftestants" (their word, not mine) are trained, professional chefs and they come to win. There is also a healthy mix of personality clashes and personal baggage to round out the cooking action. It is nice to watch a reality show where the participants are skilled and not just fame-seekers. I guess that is also why I like So You Think You Can Dance...but I digress.

Unfortunately I wasn't aware that Season 5 started last week and I only caught part of the first episode, but no worries - I plan to be a dedicated watcher nonetheless. For anyone who is a wannabe chef and amateur foodie, this show is for you. It's on the Food Network Wednesdays at 10pm. And it is worth staying up for! :)

She's on the move!

Avery has officially started crawling. The first real crawl happened at 8 months and one week, just after we came back from Toronto. Too bad Grossmueti didn't get to see it in person, but I am sure she will get her fill at Christmas. Grampa Kelly and Cassandra will just have to come to Ottawa sometime soon to see it themselves.
So the crawling - she isn't too speedy, thankfully, and she hasn't gotten into much yet. But it really doesn't take long for her to move somewhere and do something you weren't expecting. We will be spending the rest of this weekend finishing the babyproofing we should have done ages ago.

Our trip to Toronto last week was very nice - more or less the same type of visit, visiting with a lot of friends and family. Had a fun fondue dinner with Avery's "Toronto aunties" - it was great to see everyone, especially Kate whom I haven't seen in 1.5 years, but I am totally over fondue. The cheese one was fine, but I no longer enjoy broth fondues. It takes too long to cook stuff, the sauces are always too far away, some people (Greg) are way squeamish about the raw meat, and I ended up walking around the table for a good part of the meal. The chocolate fondue was nice, but then, it has chocolate going for it.

In other news, we are still working on daycare options. We definitely have a spot at a daycare centre close to home if we want it, and I am fairly sure Avery will end up going there. In the meantime though, we are continuing to check out home daycares. The first one we went to was a bit of a shock to both Greg and I. I am sure the provider was great, but Avery just seemed so young compared to the other kids and it was hard to imagine this person coping with 5 kids at once. And one of the kids threw a toy at Avery's head twice while we were there - doesn't exactly inspire confidence. But we will keep looking, just in case the perfect place is out there. At least we know we won't have to scramble for something at the last minute!

8 months and counting...

As you may have guessed, Avery is now 8 months old. Honestly, could the time be flying any quicker??? Sure, there are still some days that seem to drag on forever, but mostly I can't even remember what it was like when she was really little. Thank goodness I have been using this blog to record at least some of the memories!

So - what is Avery up to these days? Well, push-ups, crawling/sliding backwards, turning in circles, sitting up and the occasional faceplant. So far there is almost no forward momentum. She crawled forward a couple of paces last Sunday at Gramma and Grampa's house, but has shown no interest in repeating the feat. None of her toys seem exciting enough for her to really work to get them. When she did crawl, it was because she was after my foot. So I imagine it won't be long, but then again, neither Greg nor I will be surprised if she skips real crawling and goes straight to walking. She loves to stand! She uses our fingers to pull herself up and each day she does more of the work herself. Her balance and core strength is not good, but her legs seem pretty strong. Must be all the jolly jumper workouts. They should make those for adults. :)

Eating is still going well and she has tried a good number of foods. Favourites are still the sweeter veggies, yougurt, most of the meats (she has tried beef, lamb, chicken, fish and pork), puffed wheat and cheerios. However, anything with texture that doesn't melt in her mouth is rejected after only a couple of bites. So far this includes cheese, tofu and grated apple. I am going to try pear with her next, but I am waiting for the pears to ripen a little more.

I am not sure about her height and weight, but I am guessing she's about 17.5-18 pounds now. I suppose I could measure her height myself - one of these days. Lately I have been getting comments that she seems delicate/petite or very small for her age, so I hope she is still on the right track. But she still has her thigh chunk and wrist indents, so I don't think she has become too skinny or anything. She seems pretty healthy to me!

Avery's first Halloween came and went and she dressed up as a turtle, courtesy of Aidan Ferguson. We took her around to a couple of houses, mama got a little candy, and then we came home to hand out our own candy. It was a bit complicated because Greg was at curling (he couldn't skip it as well, because we are half the team after all), so I fed Avery her dinner in the front hall, kept Trus on a leash so that he wouldn't jump up at the kids who came to the door and handed out candy until it ran out. When it did, I blew out the pumpkin candle thinking that would indicate to the kids that we were done for the night - but they rang the doorbell anyway. So I turned out the porch light as well, making it extremely dark on our walkway - and they still came. So I stopped answering the doorbell. But there was one persistent little trick-or-treater who rang the bell twice and then knocked. I answered the door and told him I had no more candy (because he obviously wasn't going away without a reason), and then he apologized and said he was sorry to have annoyed me. Ahh, kids...they'll do almost anything for a little candy! :)

Update on curling and sleeping...

Since I am sure you are all burning to know how curling and sleeping went last night, I thought I would share. We won at curling and Avery kinda slept through the night! In all, I would say it was a pretty good night.

Greg ended up skipping our game and Andrew and I threw 3 rocks each, while Rory threw the last two. I was not much help in the game, but thankfully the other team wasn't having a great night. There really are so many things to think about you are throwing...getting the handle right, aim, balance, weight, etc. There is always at least one that I completely forget about. The whole thing really reminds me of golf where it is so easy to overthink things. And then there is my knee. I don't have great balance as it is, and I basically fall on my sore knee every time I throw. Today it is swollen and bruised again, and I am starting to get concerned that it is more than just a bad bruise. The swollen part feels a little like there is gel in there when I touch it. I'll give it a couple of days again and then maybe think about seeing the doctor.

So the sleeping - Ted and Jamie babysat for Avery and said she didn't hardly make a sound the whole time we were gone. Greg and I finally went to bed around 1:30am and Avery starting whimpering around 3-ish, I think. We had decided we weren't going to go check on her (or change her diaper) unless she really started screaming and after about 5-10 mins she quieted down and went back to sleep. I think the fact that Greg and I were so tired helped us wait out the crying, because neither of us had the energy to get up! We all basically slept in until about 8am, with a quick feeding at 6am. Avery diaper was totally soaked, and it had leaked a little around the edges of her diaper shirt, but she didn't seem to mind. So maybe the middle of the night diaper changes really aren't necessary.

We shall see what tonight brings - I don't have high hopes since I just heard her moaning a little and she has only been asleep for about an hour at this point. Sigh....

A sleep question...

As I mentioned many times before, Avery does not sleep super-well at night. And her patterns are constantly changing. Last week she had a thing going where she nursed and then went to bed at about 8-ish. She was up again like clockwork between 10:30 and 11:30 pm, at which point her diaper was usually saturated and she was more than willing to feed again. I changed her, then would feed her, and then she went back to sleep fairly easily after that. Then she would be up again between 2-3 am, diaper full again, and we changed her again. Getting her back to sleep after that was usually much more difficult. So more often than not, we gave in and brought her into bed with us. Needless to say, she loves it and sleeps "like a baby" in our bed.

So my question is, any ideas why she is soaking her diaper so much during the night? This is a relatively new thing and she still pees normal amounts during the day. Of course, everything has already changed again - last night she didn't wake up until about 2am and her diaper wasn't that wet, so who knows what tonight will bring. Tonight I am going to try giving her a teddy bear from my mother-in-law when she wakes at 2am - this teddy has a removable pouch that you can microwave to warm up and then put it back in the bear. I am hoping snuggling up to the warm bear will feel the same as snuggling up to mommy or daddy. :)

In other news, I have started to wean Avery and it is going fairly well. Some discomfort now and then, but she is taking bottles fairly well. And by the way, spinning class is hard! Jen-Anne McNeill is our instructor and boy is she keen. It is a really good workout and especially for me because I have never done much biking, but boy is my butt sore afterwards. And speaking of sore, we are curling again tomorrow. My knee is still bruised two weeks later from the last attempt. Maybe I will take a picture of it this time if there is anything good to see. I didn't curl last week because I was sick, and the team won without me. Greg is likely not going to curl this week - I am not so sure we are going to win without him and with me instead. I will keep you updated! :)

7 months old and a trip to Switzerland

As usual, I have been meaning to post forever. A fair bit has happened over the last few weeks, so I'll just have to do a major catch-up post in the spirit of Dana.

Avery is 7 months old now - and I am still astounded how quickly time is flying. She is continuing to grow, though she has definitely slowed down in gaining weight. She is about 27 inches now, and around 16 lbs 10-ish oz. She actually lost a little weight in September, but more on that later. She is eating a bunch of different veggies and fruit now, loves her cereal and yogurt, and tried beef for the first time today. She wasn't overly keen on it, but she didn't totally reject it. So we will try again tomorrow. She cut her first tooth (bottom front left) last week, and I think its partner is on the way. She is saying "mama" now - ok, not really, but she does say "mamamamama" and sometime she says it in my direction. :) She is sitting up pretty well, and is starting to push forward over her legs and feet - usually ending up in a face-plant. No real crawling, but she often sees something in front of her that she wants to get, pushes and pushes, and then gets really mad when she ends up farther away from it, rather than closer. Very cute! Sleeping continues to be a disaster, but I have resolved that it will work itself out one of these days. If I end up with a 3-year old that doesn't want to sleep on her own ever, I guess we will all know why!

The most major event from September was our trip to Switzerland. Avery, my mom and I went for two weeks and stayed with Aunt and Uncle in their small town between Basel and Zurich. Now that I have some perspective, I can say that overall it was a pretty good trip. Avery did awesomely well on all of the plane rides and most of the train rides. Jet lag was hard to cope with (I guess babies can't logic it out and stay up for the sake of getting over jet lag faster), as was Avery's teething, diaper rash and stomach bug that resulted in many, many, MANY diaper changes per day. Hence the aforementioned weight loss.

Regardless, we did manage to fit in a number of outings, to Bern, Zurich, Luzern, Lausanne and Locarno. We went to a really cool glass factory in Hergiswil where we watched glass being blown into vases, etc. Highlights of the trip were the free wine festival/tasting that my mom and I stumbled onto in Locarno (with Avery in the carrier on my back), and all of the awesome food we had. Most of it was cooked my aunt Ursula, but there were a few great meals (and desserts) to be had in restaurants as well. I was able to see all of my family there, which was great since it had been about 15 years since I had last seen some of them. And I really appreciate the hospitality of Ursula and Gil, as well as the chance to hang out with my aunt Barbara, my cousins and their kids, Sebastian and Clara-Elisa. Hopefully it won't be another 15 years before we go back and hopefully Greg will be able to come the next time. I don't think he would stand for staying home alone again! :)

Other recent events: Meghan and Dave's wedding last Saturday was a great time and Meghan looked gorgeous (ok, Dave looked pretty good too). I got a cool cover-up for the baby carrier so that I don't have to be so worried about Avery freezing her butt off when we go for walks. I have gotten back into my exercise classes through Mommefit, and started spinning class with Jammer as an instructor. She was awesome and boy, did my butt hurt the next day! However, that hurt was nothing compared to the bruise I got on my knee while curling last Friday night. Greg and I joined a curling team with my friend Rory and her friend Andrew. The three of them have all curled for years - I have not. So you can understand why I was a little nervous. Once we started, my nervousness about not playing well quickly turned into nervousness about falling and cracking my skull open on the ice. I did fall twice and the second time I completely schmucked my knee. That was when I went to buy a gripper for my slider foot and that made all the difference in the world. I am mostly looking forward to curling again this week, as long as my knee isn't as sore. Or maybe I will just have a perma-bruise until the season is over. It is a beaut, let me tell ya!

6 months old!!!

So I never meant for this blog to only get updated once a month to coincide with Avery becoming a month older, but it seems that is all that I am inspired to write about. I will try to pick up the pace just a little bit!

On that note, Avery turned 6 months old today. How the heck did that happen? It hit me the other day that I only have about 4.5 months left before I go back to work. Eeek! Really, I am of two minds about that. I was always pretty sure that I wasn't meant to be a stay-at-home mom, and now I am quite certain, but it will be heartbreaking to send Avery off to daycare. I guess it is for everyone. And speaking of daycare, that is my new project. No real progress yet, but I am hoping to get something resolved well before panic mode starts. I think that would be in December, so I still have a bit of time.

Avery stats are now 26.25 inches tall and 16 lbs 12 oz. I guess her growth rate is slowing down now because I was pretty sure she was going to be close to 18 lbs. I guess it just feels like that when I end up carrying her around a lot. Like today at the mall - nothing like carrying a grumpy baby while pushing bags in the stroller with the other hand! :)

She is quite the roller - definitely have to watch her on the change table at all times - but is mainly going in circles because she definitely prefers one direction. She can spin on her belly and is starting to do push-ups. She sometimes pushes backwards on a slippery floor and once in a while will hold a crawling position when she is put there, but collapse is imminent. She can sit up pretty well, though falling happens in all directions and without warning - usually as a result of something interesting catching her attention. She is now eating a fair bit of cereal and she's tried (and mostly liked) carrots and sweet potatoes. Bananas are a different story - much to her father's joy, she seems to be rejecting bananas. However, I like bananas and still find the puree to be revolting. So maybe when she moves on to a normal banana she won't hate it as much.

We (Avery, my mom and I) are heading to Switzerland next week for a 2-week vacation. Greg isn't coming because it is a bad time for him at work - he is hoping we will get to go sometime later, hopefully with kid#2 and when they are a little older and able to enjoy themselves. I am looking forward to the trip, as I haven't been there in about 15 years, but I am also a bit nervous. Mostly about the flight, but also about how Avery will adjust when we get there and whether she will keep the house up at night. On that, she is still very inconsistent with the sleeping. I noted Julie's comment about Nicholas being a better sleeper at 6 weeks than 6 months, and I think Avery falls into that category too. It seems to be getting a little better, and I am now making an effort to wait longer before I feed her - more like 4-5am instead of 2-3am. But she is still not good at soothing herself; hopefully that is something she will grow into. Maybe Liam can give her some lessons!

5 months old!!!

I can hardly believe, but Avery was five months old today. Time has flown by so quickly, and now I can barely remember what life was like when she was a newborn. Oh well, I guess that is what they all say! :)

So the stats: when Avery was at the pediatrician in mid-July she weighed 15 lbs 10 oz and was 25.75 inches tall. She is probably now around 16-16.5 lbs and about 26 inches. We moved her into her new car seat this week (and as everyone warned me, I do miss the bucket!). She still sleeps a fair bit when in the car, but she also reaches her limit much more quickly these days and sobs as though the world is coming to an end - until we start moving again. She is now eating rice and barley cereal twice a day - she really seems to like eating, but I wonder how much food is actually getting into her, since she also likes to eat her fingers and toes during meals. She is getting closer to sitting up on her own, she is sort-of imitating some facial expressions, and I don't really think there are any signs of teeth yet though - but I could be wrong on that one!

We moved her crib into her own room a couple of weeks ago and at first her sleeping patterns didn't change at all - in a good way. However, the last few nights have been rough. She wakes up several times, not always to feed but sometimes because she can't soothe herself back to sleep or because she ends up on her stomach and doesn't like it. And last night, just when it seemed like Avery was actually going to sleep a little longer, the alarm on the monitor went off twice! Both times we rushed into the room to find her calmly sleeping on her back, but I suspect she rolled so close to the bars that she rolled off the sensor pad. We have the Angel Care monitor that detects movement (breathing/heart beat), as well as sound. At some points I have loved the comfort of knowing she is still breathing without needing to check on her every 5 minutes, but now I am nearing the point where we might only use the sound feature. To be determined in the next couple of nights...maybe this sleep issue is just the 5-month phase that Bonnie told me about. Or maybe it is nothing and I just wasn't expecting baby sleeping to be this inconsistent and confusing! :)

In other news, we had another successful trip to Toronto last week. We saw most family members and friends, made it to the Canadian Open golf tournament for a little bit, and even hit the Big Apple on the 401 on the way home. I have always wondered what it was all about and now I know - we weren't missing too much. Greg is heading back to work tomorrow after being off for all of July. It was a good month and we did some fun things - but all fun usually comes to an end. It will be a hard adjustment for both of us - no more sleeping in for him and much more planning and coping during the day for me, but at least now I can try to get Avery on more of a schedule. We shall see how that works out!

City Chase 2008

Today Rory and I participated in the 2008 City Chase, taking place in Ottawa and Gatineau. It was a pretty good time and we did fairly well considering our general state of unfitness. I believe we came in 88th out of 340 teams, and were about the 6-7th place all-female team. Hey - we'll take our victories where we can get them! Not quite as good as in 2006 when we were the 3rd all female team and 29th place, but really, sometimes I wonder how well we could do if we were ever actually in shape! :)

Some of the fun things we did included a disc-golf challenge in JC Park, walking on stilts, fencing, batting and catching, and shotting cans with a paint ball gun. We really didn't do any of the crazy checkpoints this year, like eating gross stuff, touching spiders or canoeing on the river. On the one hand, I regret that the checkpoints we did were pretty tame, but on the other hand I appreciated that we weren't particularly dirty or wet at any point. It was a really nice day for the race, though we did have to make sure to drink enough water once the sun came out.

A little funny...after the race Rory and I were joking about "when we go to the World Championships in Morocco" (which we were going to get to by having our names drawn out of a hat instead of winning a local race). We had been told that the race for Worlds lasts 40-72 hours, rather then the 6 hours of today's race. Considering that we were basically dead after finishing at around 5 hours today, I thought 40-72 hours might be a bit much. In response, Rory said, "we might need to stretch first". hehehehehe

Thanks to all of the people who helped us out with the clues and finding checkpoints, etc - Greg, Dave, Kevin, Bonnie and Catrina. Thanks to Tim and Sandy for coming over today to help out around the house and look after Avery. I sure hope I didn't miss anyone! :)

Avery at 4 months...

Note: I started writing this post on July 5th-ish, but am actually finishing it on July 12th - not sure what the date will be when it gets posted.

Yet more time has passed between postings, and it seems I am now just trying to keep up with the major milestones. Avery was 4 months old on July 4th, Independence Day coincidentally because she seems to be getting more and more independent all the time. She can now roll both from back to front and front to back (with varying degrees of success), which means I can't really take my eyes of her when she is on the playmat, lest she roll with any speed into the wall. I've said it before and I will say it again, thank goodness for the Jolly Jumper when I am trying to cook or to just get a little bit of a break!

I am going to go ahead and guess that she is about 25-26 inches long now, and somewhere between 15-16 pounds - she is now in six 3 diapers. We are no good at weighing and measuring her at home, but she will be going to the doctor next week for her 2nd vaccinations and we'll get the real story then. She has been doing fun things like putting her feet in her mouth for a couple of weeks now, and she has gone swimming in our pool a couple of times this summer.

The pool is pretty chilly, so I think she mostly just tolerates it for my sake rather than actually enjoying the experience. Hopefully that will change as the pool warms up. You will note her stunning orange swimming ensemble in the pic - it is from Sunseals (a Canadian company) and while it was not cheap, it seems to be doing the trick to keep the sun off her since we aren't supposed to use sunscreen yet.

Today we have an impromptu swim visit from the Fergusons, which turned into afternoon beers, and then morphed into dinner. If there is one thing I love about mat leave (other than watching Avery grow up) it is that I am enjoying being more social on weekends, worrying less about getting chores done and fitting in everything I need to do before going back to work on Mondays. It is so nice just to lounge around and not worry about time passing too quickly!

Greg has been on parental leave with me since the end of June - things are going pretty well (neither of us has gone postal on the other one yet :) and we are even getting some things done around the house. It will be a bit of a shock when he goes back to work in August, as I will have to start coming up with ways to fill the days for Avery and I again. My plan is start her on solids in early August, so that should hopefully provide both of us with some entertainment and maybe even bring some structure to our days - we certainly don't have any of that now!!! :)

Speaking of lack of structure, each night seems to bring a new sleeping adventure. Avery is always waking up at least once in the early morning and wants to be fed. If it was always 4am or 5am, I could understand that. But sometimes it is 1am, sometimes 3am, and sometimes 5am. I can't tell if it is something waking her up (like the animals), that she just wakes up and can't soothe herself back to sleep, or if she really is hungry at each of these times. At any rate, I almost always end up feeding her and then trying to convince her to sleep again. Usually Greg ends up rocking her for a while, which means neither of us gets much continuous sleep. So who really knows. The next thing we are going to try is to move her crib back into her room from our bedroom, hopefully this weekend. Public health recommends babies stay in their parents' room until 6 months, but we've already had her with us longer than most people we know (except for the Lawsons), and I think it is time. Hopefully this will result in better sleep all around! :)

Saying goodbye to the Miracle Blanket

As Avery is now 15 weeks, it was well time to try putting her to sleep without using the Miracle Blanket. As mentioned previously, this swaddling blanket was a present from Amy who nicknamed the resulting arrangement as the "Baby Burrito". But really, Avery had been sleeping through the night for approximately the past two months and I wasn't very keen on what would happen when we stopped using the blanket. I was also nervous because of the problems the Keans had with Daniel once they stopped - what was it? He didn't sleep through the night again until he was 10 months???

Anyway, given that Avery had started to work at least one arm or one leg out of the blanket for the past couple of nights, I figured it was time to make the change. So last Friday night we gave it a try - putting her in a sleep sack instead. And it really wasn't too bad!! Since then she has woken up fussing a couple of times in the night, but usually putting her soother back in her mouth helps her to go straight back to sleep. That is, until last night...I am not sure what happened, but she more or less woke up every 3 hours again, just like when she was a really newborn. I ended up feeding her each time and then rocking her back to sleep. I have a couple of theories - one is that this is her 3-month growth spurt, but a couple of weeks late, and the other is that she really didn't like the spicy Thai red curry chicken I made and had for dinner two nights in a row! I am hoping that whatever the reason, it is just a very short phase and we will go back nice sound sleeps very soon. I am not sure how well I will be able to handle sleepless nights again, now that I have gotten used to the luxury of many hours in a row! :)

P.S. An update on the passport experience...I am fairly certain I received both Avery's and my passport within a week of going to the Gatineau office. So once again, I highly recommend going there if you need your passport in short order.

Avery at 3 months...

How time flies! Especially when you have a new baby and/or guilt about not posting anything for a long time...to be honest, I haven't really felt there was much of note to wrote about over the last few weeks, but Avery's 3-month bday seems like a good enough reason!

She is doing super-well, measuring in at approximately 24 inches and weighing somewhere between 14 and 15 pounds. I don't have a more precise weight because she is now too old to go to the public health well-baby drop-in sessions and at the last one we went to, last Monday, they told me she weighed less than she had at her pediatrician appt 3 weeks before that. ? So at this point, I am just guessing. She is pretty active and happy (most days anyway, yesterday was bit of a rough ride), and still has no semblance of a schedule - though I suppose that is probably more my fault than hers :) A couple of weeks ago she seemed to be starting to roll-over (check out some videos on flickr), and even spontaneously flipped from tummy to back, bonking her head in the process and surprising Greg big-time. But she hasn't seemed too interested in trying again since.

We had a little adventure today - we went to get passports with Julie and Nicholas. The whole experience couldn't have been smoother. Avery slept the whole time, there was zero line-up, we were able to have a nice lunch, and apparently Nicholas even slept in the car both ways. We should go get passports everyday!!! At any rate, I would highly recommend going to the Gatineau office if you need to renew your passport anytime soon. The building wasn't the most straightforward to navigate with the stroller, but that is partly me not being adept at navigating the stroller in general.

Tomorrow we have a breakfast date with a friend from work - we are supposed to meet up at 8am. I am hoping this all works, but I suspect we might end up a little late. I fully intend to blame it on traffic. Friday is a lunch date in Gatineau with other work friends, and then my mom is coming in the evening for the weekend. Looking forward to some grandmother fun and good weather hopefully...and hopefully the new pool will be installed very soon!

Toronto Odyssey

4 generations of Pearce
Originally uploaded by The Herages

It has been a while, hasn't it, since I posted anything. That certainly doesn't mean nothing has been going on, but more that I just haven't managed to get the timing right to write out a whole post in one go. So on to the update...

At the end of April, Greg, Avery and I headed to Toronto to visit my family - pretty much all of my family and many friends as well! Greg headed home after the weekend (by flying with Porter and hanging out with Stephane Dion on the plane - ok, he didn't really talk to him but they were on the same plane at the same time :), and I stayed for another week. During that time Avery and I visited with my mom, dad, grandmother, various aunts and uncles, my university friends, my high school friends and a friend from my old work. Avery was a star through the whole thing! I, on the other hand, was a little tired by the end of it. :)

Special thanks to my mom for putting up with us the whole week (though I don't think she really minded), to my dad and Cassandra for hosting a great party and letting us see most of the family all in one go, to Andrea (Rabel) Comeau for having a lovely baby shower for us, and to all our other friends and family who had us over for visits.

Avery turned 2 months old while we were there - as of last Tuesday (9 weeks), she weighed13 lbs 5 oz and was 23.5 inches in length, apparently a little above average on both counts. I think I misstated her length in one of my earlier posts, because I don't think she has been shrinking or anything! She's a pretty happy baby and seems to enjoy life, even though she only poops once every 2-3 days. I keep thinking I've seen the biggest poops ever and she keeps surprising me. Yesterday I had to wash the cover of her little rocker chair among other things because there was leakage everywhere...hopefully she will grow out of this phase sooner rather than later!

New stroller

The new stroller has arrived! Actually, I drove down to Ogdensburg last Friday to pick it up because we ordered it from Amazon.com (why won't they shop to Canada????). Anyway, Sandy (Greg's mom) graciously babysat for me since Avery doesn't have any ID yet and can't cross the border. It turned out that Avery slept for approximately 2.5 out of the 4 hours I was gone and pooped twice. Lucky Sandy! :)

The stroller we got is the BabyJogger City Elite Single - it is considered an all-terrain stroller but is not specifically intended for jogging. Now, does it seem odd to anyone else that a company called BabyJogger would make any (or in fact, several) types of stroller that are not meant for jogging? At any rate, I have spoken to a few people who have jogged with it anyway and didn't have any concerns. Right now we have to use the car seat adaptor with it, making it look enormous, but the ride is much smoother than the Graco travel system stroller we have. On the downside, there is no real cupholder and the basket in the bottom is smaller and harder to get into. With respect to the cupholder, I have already bought an attachment package from Prince Lionheart that will help clip any number of water bottle/sippy cup/other kid things to the handle, etc. I will let you know whether it works out. We also got a bug canopy (for those weekly trips out to Manotick) and a rain/wind canopy. I am not sure the rain canopy will fit because it isn't specific to the City Elite model, but that one came from Kiddytown and they are pretty good about taking things back.

All that to say, I haven't actually tried jogging with the stroller (or with Avery to be more precise)...I am a little nervous because her head still moves around a bit while walking and it will obviously be worse if I am moving faster. We bought a better head support for the car seat (yes, I have been doing a ridiculous amount of shopping this week), so that should help. We are heading to Toronto tomorrow for a visit and we are only bringing this stroller, so I will likely have to give the jogging a try while we are there.

A quick update on Avery - at 7 weeks (this past Tuesday) she weighed 12 lbs 3 oz. Not quite growing at the same rate as Nicholas, but it is fast enough for my liking! I am going to have to work on my arm and back muscles to be able to keep lifting the car seat. She has already grown out of a ton of clothes, (quite sad when they only wear the cute outfits a couple of times) and is wearing some 3-6 month items now. Then again, the sizing is all so variable, it is hard to know what she should really be wearing. I tried to measure her length the other day, but it came out as 22 inches, less then the 23 inches she supposedly was when she was born. I don't think she has gotten any shorter, so my measuring skills may not be up to par. I'll have to try again sometime soon.

Broken down pool

I mentioned in my last post that our pool was broken...well this was what it looked like about a week ago. Now, the snow is all gone and the pool walls have collapsed inwards even more. Basically, due to the ridiculous amount of snow we had this year, there was too much pressure on the walls of above ground pools and 500+ of them across the city were damaged and have to be replaced. Good time to be in the pool business I guess.

Luckily most of the costs are covered by our house insurance, so we will be getting a new pool probably in June. That means we will have a slow start on the swimming season this year, but hopefully we will catch up in July and August. If the replacement pool wasn't covered by the insurance, we would have ended up with a really big vegetable patch instead!

Running...sigh

Inspired by Julie's first post-pregnancy run, I finally managed to get motivated to do my own first run. And I use the word "run" even more loosely than she does. A brief disclaimer: I have always been a follower of the "run a bunch of minutes, then walk one minute" school of running. Partly because it helps me get my breathing under control and stretch a little, not to mention drink some water rather than spilling it all over me, but also because of the mental help it provides by breaking the run into more manageable chunks. So today's run (my first real exercise in LONG time) was actually in 3-4 minute intervals of running, with 1-minute walks in between. When I am in better shape, I usually do 10 and 1. Something to aim for at least.

I have never been good at distance running, and I have to admit that I really don't enjoy it, even when I am in better shape than now. It just gets to be less painful, rather than more fun. However, I have found that it is really the best way for me to lose weight and trim down in general, so hopefully I can keep this up. I am also hoping the novelty of the jogging stroller will be good motivation when it comes next week.

So the run itself...I was super-slow, a little cold when running into the wind, and generally dying by the end. On the positive side, my shins didn't hurt and my feet didn't fall asleep (I know, I usually tie my shoes too tight) - these were my main issues when I last quit running. But I have felt like crap for the rest of today. I have never been a believer that exercising gives you more energy during the rest of the day. Or, it could be this silly cold we have been passing around for the last couple of days. If that is what it is, sorry Kean family!

One up side for the run - I set out saying I was going to do 5km regardless of how long it took me. I had previously mapped out a couple of routes on Gmaps Pedometer and thought I remembered which one was the 5km version. When I got out there I quickly realized there was no way I would be able to do the route I had planned, so I cut out about a third - and I was annoyed that it still took me so long to do. When I got home I decided to map the route I did to see how long it was, and it turned out to be 5km! I guess I had mixed up the two routes and the one I was thinking of was longer - somewhere between 6-7 km. So I felt a little better about the whole thing.

At any rate, that was my running adventure for today. Hopefully they will get less eventful, more a part of the weekly routine, and more "fun". At least the nicer weather will definitely help and I am sure I will appreciate any running I have done once ultimate starts again.

Next post - our broken pool. Another sigh...

5 weeks old...and too drunk to make it to the crib

5 weeks old...and too drunk to make it to the crib
Originally uploaded by The Herages

Perhaps posting this photo is just going to get me in trouble ( I swear there was no way she was going to fall and my mom was right there to catch her just in case), but I thought this was too cute a pose to pass up. I also wanted to show off the ridiculous way Avery's mother had dressed her - diaper shirt courtesy of Christine Mason, pants courtesy of Maya, Natasha and/or Jaida Lawson and hoodies courtesy of Aidan Ferguson (via his mom of course). Oh, and the hat is from the Lawsons as well. At least each of the items has pink on it - that means the outfit kinda matches, doesn't it???

Anyway, Avery was not really drunk but rather still passed out from a car ride. I think she has now hit her 6 week growth spurt because she slept a ton during the day for the last couple of days and today she didn't even fall asleep when we were in the car. She has been sleeping now for about 45 mins and I think this has been the longest stretch so far today. Hopefully this pattern won't emerge tonight as well.

In other news, Greg and I managed to sneak out for a movie this week - we're only getting out this much because my mother was here, and I assume we will settle into a more normal routine for a couple with an infant now that she has gone home. We saw Run Fatboy Run, and despite some not great reviews that I read, we really liked it. The movie had a few moments of super-gross out humour a la American Pie, etc. as well as general good laughs. Of course the whole thing was unrealistic, but isn't that what going to the movies is all about?

The other "big" development for the week is that we have already bought another stroller. I have only used our current stroller about 5 times, and while it isn't terrible, I got the bug for a different one after trying the Mason's Bob dualie stroller. We ended up ordering one from BabyJogger - but I will write about that once it comes and I get to try it out a bit. Jogging, of course... :)

Our vist to the Sugar Bush

This morning Greg, Avery, my mom and I went to a local Sugarbush to get a pancake breakfast and check out the maple syrup action. Ok, it wasn't really morning any more by the time we got there, but it was our breakfast and lunch. Proulx Berry Farm is really close to our house, which was one advantage, but it is not a huge place and wasn't terribly well organized, so we ended up waiting in line for over an hour outside to get to the food. Thankfully, it was a gorgeous day today and warm enough to spend the time outside. I also suspect this was one of the last weekends the sugarbushes will be open, so people came out in droves. Overall it was quite fun and the food definitely hit the spot after waiting so long.

Avery was a champ through the whole thing! I had her in the carrier the whole time and she basically slept through it all. We did take her out for a while once Greg was done eating - maybe she won't make a face when she finally gets to taste maple syrup. Or maybe she will prefer Aunt Jemima syrup like her mother, much to her father's chagrin!

I am really liking the carrier - it is a Beco Baby Carrier, and I bought it at Milkface in Ottawa. (It seems this blog is also going to be a bit of a baby product review site.) This particular carrier was recommended by Dana. What I like about it is that it isn't hard and cumbersome, nor is it particularly big. However, there is enough support so that I don't feel it in my back and it is fairly adjustable so that Greg and I can both use it. Avery really likes it so far, and typically falls asleep within minutes of being in it. Today I kept debating whether it would have made more sense to have brought her in the stroller, but because the dining area was so crowded, having to cart around the bucket car seat would have been a huge hassle. It all seems to be one big experiment!

4 weeks old, an anniversary and the Miracle Blanket

Avery turned 4 weeks old on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - and Greg and I celebrated this occasion by leaving her at home and going out for dinner for our 2 year anniversary. It was all a coincidence and we didn't intentionally want to leave her at home, but it worked out nicely since my mom is currently visiting us and could babysit. It apparently all went smoothly and Avery enjoyed her bottle of boob juice immensely. I only checked my cell phone about 3 times and never called. I was working on the assumption that my mom would call if there was a real problem.

Greg and I went to a restaurant called Ambiente, which is located in New Edinburgh. We had been there once before for a special dinner and enjoyed the food just as much this time around. I would highly recommend it, though it isn't cheap - but the service is excellent, the decor is nice and subtle, and as mentioned, the food is excellent. I also had my first full glass of wine in approximately 10 months. It was a lovely Chenin Blanc from Ontario to go with my scallops, but I never caught the name of the winery. I then asked about Chenin Blanc in the LCBO, since I didn't know anything about it, and apparently the LCBO doesn't have it very often, much less those from Ontario. So I am going to have to do some more research.

And then there is the Miracle Blanket - this was a present from Amy and Kevin who discovered how well it worked when their son Liam was a newborn. I believe most of our friends now use them on their infants. Amy calls this the "Baby Burrito" and I like to refer to it as a baby straight jacket. At any rate, it works quite well. Avery doesn't see the blanket and start to calm down immediately like some kids do, but at least she doesn't fight me when I wrap her up anymore. She does actually quite like to have her hands free normally, but I think she has accepted the swaddling as part of her night-time routine. And she is sleeping a little longer these days - she sleeps anywhere from 3.5 to 5 hours after her last feeding, and then another 2-4 hours after that. Some mornings I am relatively refreshed, other mornings it is all pretty rough - we never quite know what it is going to be. Now if only I could learn how to nap during the day! :)

Avery's progress so far...

Now that it has been a couple of weeks, it is time to write a little about how Avery is actually doing (and how her parents are adjusting to being parents). As I mentioned, there have already been many highs and lows in this short time, which I suppose is just good practice for parenthood in general. Avery is doing really well - after the slight scare at the hospital when she came close to losing 10% of her birth weight, she is now at a whopping 9lbs 5 oz (her birth weight was 7lbs 11 oz) in 2.5 weeks. I actually asked the pediatrician if I should be concerned that she is gaining too much weight, but he said that really wasn't a problem since I am breastfeeding.

At any rate, much has happened over the last couple of weeks. Uncle Trus (our dog) came home from living with the grandparents and has adjusted very well to having Avery around. He basically ignores her, which is just fine with us since he still doesn't really like other kids - we confirmed this when Brent, Chelsea and their 7-month old son Aidan came to visit.

We also had another medical scare - Avery had a slightly elevated level on one of the conditions they test for during the Newborn Screening program. She is fine thank goodness, but she had to have extra bloodwork and a urine sample to make sure she didn't have a genetic disorder that can result in a range of conditions called organic acidemias. Needless to say, when the hospital does the screen after they are born and tells you that no news is good news, and then you get a call from CHEO...panic definitely sets in quickly. But really, she is totally fine after all.

Avery has already had many visitors, which has been awesome - and thank you very much to everyone who brought us food and/or had us over for meals over the last couple of weeks. It has all been extremely appreciated! One highlight visit was from Uncle Dan and Auntie Andrea who came to Ottawa from Calgary. They were, of course, stunned by the amount of snow we have here, but were also quite thrilled with their little niece.

Another special visit was from Grampa Kelly (who barely said hello to his daughter before checking out his granddaughter), Cassandra and Shelly. They also brought Avery a special rabbit teddy bear they created themselves at Build-a-Bear. The teddy is named Robin Rabbit, thus carrying on the tradition of the name Robin in the Pearce family.

Avery had her first Easter dinner over at Gramma and Grampa Herage's house and wore a very cute outfit (courtesy of Dana) - since Avery mainly only wears sleepers, we had to get her a little more dressed up for a special occasion. And she had to put on her Easter bib:

And finally, on Thursday Greg went back to work so Avery and I decided to have a big adventure and take a road trip to Brockville to see the Masons - particularly Avery's birthday buddy Nicholas. We spent a very nice afternoon with them and had two great meals. Nicholas is definitely a cutie - must be something about being born on March 4th! :) I didn't manage to take any pictures of the two of them, but when the Masons post theirs, I will link to it. Here they are:

The hospital experience and first few days

So it turns out that Greg and Avery are asleep in the glider as we speak...thought I had better take this opportunity to start typing before they wake up - or until I get too sore, if you know what I mean! :)

Our time in the hospital...it was certainly a whirlwind and great learning experience, with a bunch of highs and lows. On the whole, I have to note that the nurses who cared for Avery and me were awesome and complete professionals. Two stood out in particular, Helen and Jovanna (sp?), but all of them were very helpful in their own ways. Not to say that there weren't some frustrating times, but overall it was fairly positive.

We started off in a ward room in the Mother-Baby unit - we weren't very excited about this having requested a private room, but we did eventually get moved at about 11pm on Tuesday night. At least there was a place for Greg to sleep in the private room!

Tuesday went by in a blur - we had a ton of people come visit, including Gramma and Grampa Herage, Gramma Pearce, the Keans, the Haggertys, Bonnie and Ted & Jamie. It was nice to have everyone and the presents were all very much appreciated! Day one we started learning how to breastfeed, change diapers and bath Avery among other things. It was a little hard to take it all in, but we kept plugging away. Having been fairly nervous about nursing, it was a little disconcerting when Avery would hang out at the breast but not really suck. The nurses weren't concerned because they said she didn't really need to take anything in for the first 24 hours, but it made me a little worried. That night, however, our nurse showed us a way to nurse that Avery actually seemed to like and she started snacking on the colostrum. She continued to nurse over the next day with more success some times than others, and to be quite frank, my nipples were starting to show the wear and tear. I know proper breastfeeding is not supposed to hurt, but hurt it did! Wednesday night, Avery was extremely cranky and wouldn't settle down. Our nurse took her away a couple of times so that Greg and I could get a little sleep, which really helped.

By the next morning, the nurse on duty became concerned that she had lost too much of her birth weight. We were supposed to be discharged at 9:30am, but the freaking-out about her weight delayed that all by a couple of hours. Avery got down to about 9% of birth weight lost, still above the cut-off of 10%, but the pediatrician insisted that we supplement the breastfeeding with an oz or so of formula at every feed. I have to admit that she did settle down quite a bit after having her first bit of formula, so it was clear that she was hungry and was not getting anything from the colostrum. We were not happy about this situation and were worried the formula from the bottle would wreck the little progress we had made with breastfeeding, but it was simply a matter of my milk needing to come in - which it did during the night on Thursday.

After supplementing for about 36 hours and my milk coming in, we took Avery to the pediatrician on Friday morning. They weighed her there and she was up about 5 oz from the day before - so at least we didn't have to worry that she was starving any more. By the time we went back to the pediatrician on Monday morning, she was up to 7lbs 14 oz - above her birth weight in less than a week. Seems we have gotten the hang of this nursing business after all.

While still in the hospital, we were lucky enough to see the lactation consultant. She was so helpful and even though I may not have been having as many difficulties as some people, she was still able to give me a couple of tricks that really made a difference. She was also a lot less stressed out about Avery's weight, lack of bowel movements, etc. than the nurses, which helped calm Greg and I down enormously. We did make a call to Telehealth late on Friday night, but hey, we are first-time parents after all! And now I hear the little angel waking up, so I had better go feed her!

The labour and delivery story...

IMG_1003
Originally uploaded by The Herages

I wanted to try and get the full labour and delivery story down before I forget it - even though it has already been about 2 weeks, I still feel like it was yesterday. And this way, the little princess will be able to read about it one day (I hope), since she won't have a traditional baby book. I have never been any good at those things!

My contractions began on Sunday, March 2nd at about 10pm. Since I had had a couple of contractions here and there, I didn't really think labour was actually starting. After all, I had plans for Monday that I really wanted to get done! :) However, they kept coming and I didn't get any sleep that night. I basically hung out in the bathroom so as not to wake up Greg, reading and breathing through the pain. I took a really long shower (long even for me), and eventually tried to sleep a bit. At about 5am I woke Greg up because I didn't feel like doing the contraction business on my own any more, and let him know that we were likely going to the hospital soon. Of course, we had freezing rain that morning so he had to spend about 30 mins scraping off the car while I hung out on the exercise ball. Our hospital was the Ottawa Hospital - General Campus.

We ended up heading to the hospital around 1pm on Monday because I had a previously scheduled ultrasound to check on the baby because I was overdue. Of course, I don't really remember having many contractions on the way to the hospital or during the ultrasound, but they were about 8-9 minutes apart when we left the house. The ultrasound went fine and we were told the baby would weigh about 8 lbs. We then headed to the triage desk and I was assessed as being about 2.5 cm dilated. Because the hospital doesn't admit people until they are 3cm dilated, they told us to go walking around and get something to eat. I wasn't really keen on that idea because I was having serious trouble keeping food down (ask Greg about me vomiting up blueberry sauce in my hands in the bathroom at about 6am - and about him having to clean it up). But we went to the caf, hung out for a couple of hours and then went back to triage. I was eventually assessed again and was only at 3cm - and the hospital still wouldn't admit me! I got seriously cranky because the contractions were pretty strong and about 5 mins apart, so they offered me Nubane, a narcotic. I had never really thought about taking narcotics that early in the process, but I did and I was so glad because I was able to sleep on the couch in the early labour room (!) for a couple of hours, and when I was assessed later, I had dilated to 7-8cm. So they finally admitted me then!

When we got into the labour and delivery room, I had to make a decision about having an epidural. I had never planned on having a natural birth with no drugs, but I was just trying to last as long as possible without taking anything. I guess the Nubane kind of threw a wrench in those plans, but I definitely don't regret that! I started waffling about whether to have the epidural or not, since I was relatively far along, but in talking it through with the nurse, I realized that I would probably "need" one eventually. So I got the epidural at just before midnight on Monday. The worst part of that was having to get the IV needle inserted - the nurse missed and blew the first vein she tried on the back of my hand, and I had a bruise for about 1.5 weeks as a result. Thankfully she called in another nurse to try the second vein and that worked fine. Of course, once the epidural was in my contractions slowed down and became fairly irregular. This allowed me to get some sleep, but they eventually had to give me oxytocin in order to make the contractions regular and have me start pushing. So much for no interventions!!!

I finally started pushing at around 5:20am on Tuesday. I pushed for close to 1.5 hours with very little progress - in retrospect, I think I just wasn't pushing as hard as I could have but I really didn't know what was what at the time. A decision was eventually made to use the vacuum to get Avery's head out, because I really wasn't going to be able to get it done on my own. With the use of the vacuum, hospital protocol states that certain people need to be in the room. All of a sudden it seemed like there were about 10 people there - 2 nurses, one OB, 2 residents, a med student "observing", and a few people from pediatrics, along with Greg and I. And of course, this was shift change time, so as soon as I delivered Avery there were a whole bunch more people coming and going.

So the vacuum...basically once it was on it was about 2 more contractions before her head was out. And they weren't fun contractions but at least it was over with fairly quickly after that. The part that I found challenging (well one part), was the "stop pushing" phase. How do you stop pushing when that is all you have been doing for 2 hours and the baby isn't completely out yet? There was some tearing of course and the requisite stitching afterwards. I guess the residents sewing me up saw the looks on my face because they offered me a local anaesthetic for the pain of the needle. I took it because they said it would take them 5-10 mins to finish. Shouldn't the epidural have covered the pain of the sewing process as well???

At any rate, by this point we had held Avery, figured out she was a girl, weighed her in at 7lbs 11 oz, and gotten her back all cleaned up. The first thing I said to her after that was that I hoped she was ok with being an only child because I really didn't think I could do that again! Of course I was kidding, but holy Hannah, was that ever a process!!!

So that is the labour and delivery story. Next time Avery takes a nap, I will try to write down some memories of our stay in the hospital. I can't believe this all basically happened two weeks ago. Time is flying and yet the nights seem to drag on and on... :)

She's finally here!

Just a quick post to announce the arrival of our daughter Avery Beryl Pearce Herage. She was born on March 4th at 7:03am, weighing in at 7 lbs 11 oz. As you may know, I was completely expecting that we were going to have a boy, so I was a bit surprised when they told us she was a girl - especially after Greg mistook the umbilical cord for...well, you can probably guess. I understand her leg was obscuring a good view of the evidence. :)

I plan on writing more about the whole experience shortly and posting pictures on Flickr, but that will have to wait for another time. Till then, we're off to experience all the wonderful and crazy thrills that come with parenthood!

40+ weeks and still waiting...

As you can probably tell, I am not super-excited that I haven't given birth yet. I was really keen on having this kid in February, though not for any particularly good reason, and the fact that it is not going to happen is a little bit of a bummer. At this point I have basically convinced myself that I will be induced next weekend and that my likelihood of having a C-section is now much greater. I know there is still a good chance that I could go into labour on my own during the next week, but right now it doesn't feel very likely. Nothing whatsoever is happening!!! I am starting to understand what Amy went through when she had Liam. :)

Since I have now been off work for about 3 weeks, you may wonder how I am keeping myself busy - I have not been too successful with that at all. I am trying to catch up on all the emails I neglected over the past few months, I've been looking into writing a will, I need to check out some mutual funds to try and revamp my RRSP (but I really have no motivation to get that done), my brother tried to convince me that I should actually do my own taxes this year for the first time (instead of having my accountant/mother do them for me as usual), but I don't know if that is likely to happen since I don't even have my T4 yet. What else??? I am working my way through book club books, but as interesting as they are, I can't seem to stay awake while reading. I haven't been getting out to walk Trus much, because of the cold weather and because I only have a certain amount of endurance for him pulling me along at this point. Hopefully we can go when it warms up later today. Other than that, I have been watching far too much stupid TV. I am trying to stay away from it, but sometimes I do just get sucked in for a few hours. And my desire to clean really hasn't kicked in yet - I understand that it can be helpful in stimulating labour, but a lifelong aversion to cleaning can't be overcome just like that! :)

So that is my whiny post...expect a few more over the next couple of days! :)

It's finally ready!

The baby's room that is...not the baby him or herself. We're still waiting for junior to make a grand appearance, but since we've finally done everything in the baby's room that we were planning on doing, I feel a little better about the idea that the baby can come any time. It is somewhat ironic considering the baby will likely sleep in our room for quite a while before moving into his/her own room. However, I strongly felt that anything we didn't get accomplished before the baby was born was seriously unlikely to happen anytime soon after the baby was born. So we are now good to go on that front.

This is me at 39 weeks and 2 days...and counting. I am wearing my new Lululemon sweatshirt because I love it (it is orange after all), even though it is very uncomfortable when I do it up. I am still not quite at the point that I desperately need to get the baby out, but if this whole pregnancy thing extends into March, I am not going to be a happy camper! I am also a big fan of the double chin in this shot. At least my swollen ankles aren't showing here... :)

So the pictures are obviously of the baby's room and the froggy and friends theme we picked. It all evolved from a print I picked up at a local art store a long time ago, in fact when we were expecting the first time around, but I am glad we chose to use it now. I quite like how everything turned out, especially since I have no knack for decorating and actually don't even really like doing it that much. And after the pseudo-furniture fiasco we had when trying to buy the crib and dresser, I am really glad it all worked out. We were originally going to go with the same set but in a really dark finish. Even though that is typically my preference for furniture, I think the white actually looks quite nice. I suppose it is more baby-oriented, rather than adult-oriented.

Anyhoo, that is all for now...happy weekend everyone!

Amazing quilt!

IMG_0968
Originally uploaded by The Herages

This is kind of a test to see how this blogging from Flickr function works - but I thought using a picture of the quilt Julie made for us would be a good place to start.

We would like to use the quilt as a wall hanging in the short-term and we are currently trying to figure out how to hang it on the wall with no damage to the quilt (or wall). This kind of thing is my major pre-occupation these days!!! That and laundry, which I have been putting off for too long now. So off I go... :)

New Blog - February 2008

I have decided to start a new blog, since I plan on being much more diligent about writing this year while on maternity leave. I am going to migrate all of my old posts here so that I don't lose them, but the chronological order will be a little messed up. Hopefully I will write something new very shortly - hopefully there will be something new to write about very shortly!! Still no progress on the baby-delivering front as yet...but stay tuned!

My first entry - July 07, 2006

Not quite sure how I ended up starting this blog. All i did was ask a simple question to help someone else start one and look what happened. Oh well, perhaps I will actually like this - if I remember to write entries. It seems to me this is an awful lot like a journal, which i have never been particularly good at doing.

Since I can't come up with anything good to write about now, maybe I'll just sign off instead. Surely tomorrow I will have some good ideas!

The weekend - July 10, 2006

We didn't have that exciting a weekend but it was nice overall...cooked dinner on Friday (actually quite a change for me!), had a nice dinner out on Saturday at Kinki in the market to celebrate the unofficial good news about the job, and then went to see "The Devil Wears Prada". Of course Greg was one of about 5 males in the audience, but he suffered through it. I decided it was my turn to pick the movie because we had seen a fair number of movies based on comics lately (definitely not my first choice). Even though the movie was fairly superficial, there was a good little life lesson about being too attached to your job. I suppose I can relate to that and it made Greg think that he's right about me working too hard.

With respect to Kinki, that was my second time eating there. The first time I went with Rory and as far as I recall, we had great food and great service. I had heard in the meantime that the service was no good, but Greg and I really enjoyed both the food and the “atmosphere” on Saturday night. It wasn’t super-busy, but we had a seat under the covered patio and the food was delicious. It is definitely the best sushi I have had in Ottawa…though I suppose that isn’t saying too much. Honestly, for the maki I ate I would have probably paid a third of the price in Toronto. Sigh...My favourite Japanese restaurant in Toronto is New Generation Sushi (mostly it is really good quality fish for really good prices - there isn't too much "atmosphere" though!)

On Sunday we went over to Greg's parents' place and went for a swim in the pool. As you can see from the picture, our dog Trus is not much of a swimmer. Mostly he got his exercise from running around the pool and barking at us all afternoon. Have you ever heard of a dog that can't doggie paddle?

Sunday night we watched the movie Syriana. (Note: we watch a lot of movies. Greg takes DVDs out from the library and there is no predicting what will come in when. They get a lot of new releases around the same time that Blockbuster does and Greg reserves them online. Way cheaper…but sometimes a little bit challenging to watch them all before they are due.) At any rate, back to Syriana. It was definitely an interesting, gripping movie. But I can’t help but feel that I missed the point of about half of it. I’m sure I could watch it several more times to figure out what was happening, but who has time for that? Just typing this entry was almost more energy than I have…

"Bureaucratically Incorrect"

If there is anyone out there who has a copy of the book Bureaucratically Incorrect: Letters to a Young Public Servant by Bob Chartier, or knows where I could buy one, I would really appreciate it if you could let me know. It is supposed to be available at Chapters or Amazon, but my searches don't seem to be working. James was stunned that I hadn't yet read it and said that he figured all Ottawa-types would have gobbled it up. I seem to have missed that boat.

The debrief on fasting and Cameras – July 18, 2006

So for all of you who are anxiously awaiting a debrief on the fasting…here goes. Greg essentially fasted from 6pm on Friday until 1-ish pm on Sunday. At that point he had a couple of carrot, apple, ginger juices from Booster Juice (barf in my opinion ). Then it was on to several bowls of popcorn (air-popped even) and a few other munchies. Nothing really heavy or substantial though. I don’t actuallyknow whether the fasting did him any good in the end, but he was definitely quiet and lacking in energy all weekend. Don’t be alarmed…on Monday night he was back to his usual “annoy Alyssa to death” self.

My fruit fast certainly didn’t provide me with any of the results I was expecting – I’m sure no one wants the details of that. However, despite being hungry often, I was never really lacking in energy. And, not drinking coffee for two days didn’t kill me. It was worth it just to find that out really. I also cracked when Greg started eating popcorn, so i basically was on fruit only from first thing Saturday morning to 3pm on Sunday. I might try it again one day, but it would probably be wise to officially stop drinking coffee before that. So really, I might never try again!

The stupid thing we did was go to see Pirates of the Caribbean on Saturday night. Stupid because the movie wasn’t great (basically it is just more of the same), and because we were ready to eat the popcorn of the 10-year old girl beside us. Without saying please.

A new topic – I’m thinking about getting a new camera. Mine still works fine, but the lack of optical zoom does drive me crazy (and yes it is that old and that low-level a model that it doesn’t have optical zoom). Of course we have Greg’s nice camera, but he isn't super-keen on me using it and I do find it somewhat complicated. I would just like one that I can take anywhere and get great shots, without worrying about it being too delicate or attractive to thieves! If anyone has any suggestions about a good camera to buy in the $3-400 range (all in), I would love to hear them!

Ahhh, life! - July 15, 2006

I started an entry the other day and then lost it because our computer is super-unreliable...I haven't been willing to try again until now.

Big news of the week is that I sprained my ankle on Thursday night at a Flossy ultimate game. (See photo from a non-eventful Flossy game from the week before J, courtesy of Jody.) While the sprain isn’t that bad, hobbling around is fairly annoying. Most annoying however, is that Rory and I just signed up to do the Ottawa City Chase on July 22^nd – you can check out what it is all about here: http://www.citychase.ca/en_site.asp. Not that we thought we might win or anything, but in order to get into the spirit, teams at least have to do some running. Even Rory and I. So I guess we’ll have to see what can be done because it would be a fairly expensive default. I still really want to participate though!

Other news of the weekend is that Greg and I are doing fasts of a sort. I guess mine really isn’t a fast, but instead I am only eating fruits and drinking water – it’s supposed to be very “cleansing”. Greg is only having water for the weekend. I am a little worried he’s going to pass out, but I suppose people do this sort of thing all the time. Should be interesting to see if we are still talking to each other by the end of the weekend, since my weekend diet does not include coffee. Could be treacherous!!!