Turning over a new leaf...

This has to be some kind of (dubious) record - 4 months without a post! But as mentioned, I hope to be turning over a new leaf and blogging more often. The inspiration was that Greg and I went to see the movie Julie & Julia this evening and I remembered that I do actually like having a somewhat creative outlet. I also really like having a record of the goings-on in our lives and something to look back on. So I am going to give it a good try once again!

The movie was amusing - it was the first time in a long time that we have gone to the theatre together, for a movie that I wanted to see. The Julie Powell character was a little insipid - not sure if that was due to the acting, the writing or the person herself, but Meryl Streep was pretty funny and of course I enjoyed all of the food details. Thanks as usual to Sandy and Tim for babysitting!

I will do a bigger catch-up later, but in Avery news, she is doing well, growing quickly and apparently trying to take over the world, one boat at a time! (Though I was even a little nervous while this picture was being taken, I swear she was safe and there were lots of us around - she wasn't out on the open water or anything... :)

Recap...

Since I can't even manage to do one post per month, it is possible the future of this blog will be an endless series of recaps. Better that than nothing I suppose! In fact, this blog has already come in handy - Auntie Jamie (and Uncle Ted) put together another really nice birthday present for Avery. A retrospective of her first year, with photos mainly from Flickr and details mainly from here. The book is awesome and we really appreciate it. Especially because I am so terrible at doing those types of things, even though I really love having them.

The biggest news of the past 1.5 months is the trip we took to Mexico. Avery, Greg and I went with Ted and Jamie at the end of March, and we had a great time. Wasn't quite the vacations of old, but it went well all in all. The resort, the Paradisus Riviera Cancun, was very well set up for families and babies. The food was good, Avery ate well and slept well, and we all had plenty of beach drinks. The weather was mainly great, only a couple of days of strong winds meant we couldn't hang out near the beach. Basically it was just very nice to get away and continue to learn how to cope (well) when travelling with a munchkin.

Avery is continuing to grow up quickly - she's walking all over, often doing laps around the kitchen or dining room table. She isn't saying very many real words, but she is making herself better understood these days. She points very agressively at things she wants, and will shake her head no when she doesn't want something. It even seems as if she means it and isn't just doing the gratuitous "no" that kids seem to pick up. I am sure that habit will still make an appearance soon! Daycare is going very well. We switched to the home daycare in mid-March after some drama at the daycare centre, and it couldn't be better now. When I drop her off in the morning, she runs in right away to start playing. I even have to ask her nicely for a hug and kiss before I leave. :)

This past week I took my first business trip since Avery was born. It was a very quick overnighter in Toronto, with a full-day meeting on Thursday. There haven't been many times over the course of my career with the government that I have said the words, "that was a very good meeting, well worth the time to go, very informative," etc. This meeting was all that and more, since it ended a little bit early. :) We flew Porter to the island airport and it was everything good that I have been told. The Royal York was a very nice place to stay and I had a great sushi dinner with my mom at New Gen before I flew home. But on to the important stuff...I did miss Avery, but it was all over so quickly that I barely had time to worry. Greg did very well taking care of her, even coping with the 3am out-of-the-blue wakeup. Apparently Avery didn't miss me at all, but she was very happy to see me on Friday morning. And I was very happy to see her! (And Greg too, of course).

Greg and I were talking today about how things have changed, etc. And it is funny, but the thing we miss the most about our BA (before Avery) life , are the trips we made to Chapters/Starbucks on either Saturday or Sunday mornings. For those of you who didn't know we did this, we used to go there for a couple of hours, have a coffee and some breakfast, and I would read magazines and he would read books. It was a great way to chill out, kinda spend some time together, and I got to catch up on all the celeb gossip without having to actually waste money. Sigh...but if that is all that we really miss about before, I think we are doing fairly well. And it will probably only be about 10 more years before we can do it again! With kids in tow, of course. :)

She's 1!!!!

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Originally uploaded by The Herages

How did that happen??? This has easily been the fastest year of my life - Avery's too I imagine. :) She is growing up very quickly, walking, talking-ish, and starting to assert her little personality. I swear she had a couple of temper tantrums today! But overall she is doing really well, and she's an absolute joy. Except at 2am, but one day she will sleep consistently through the night, right?

We had her birthday party last weekend and it all went fairly smoothly. Greg and/or I did make a trip to Loblaws pretty much everyday for a week, but I guess that is how it works. Thank you to all of our family and friends who came to the party, thanks for all of the great presents for the Aver-doodles, and thanks especially to those of you who helped out. I was really kind of worried how it would all go, especially when Avery refused to take a nap beforehand. But she was a real trooper - it was like she knew that everyone was there for her and she was loving it! :) And of course, presents are always fun. And cake - boy did she love her cake!

So what else....works goes, pretty well for the most part. Avery was sick again for a few days this week, but seems to be coming around now. She has 6 teeth in total at the age of one - but two of them just cut in the last couple of days. We went to the doctor today and she is 29.75 inches tall and 20 pounds. I think we will probably turn the car seats around this weekend, since the weather is supposed to be pretty good. Should be a whole new experience for Avery, actually being able to see where we are going. Her eyes are pretty well hazel at this point - I think it would be neat if they stayed that way. And in the end we decided to switch her to the home daycare. We were there today for a little playdate and lunch, and I think it will all work out really well. Only issue is that the next youngest kid is 15 months old and I am not so sure he's keen on having a new baby in his hood. Oh well, I guess it's one of those things they all have to learn at some point.

In bigger and better news, we are headed to Mexico in a couple of weeks! I cannot even tell you how excited I am. We are going with Ted and Jamie, which is awesome. Mostly for their company and only a little for all of the help they will be with Avery. :) And, she just loves them, so everyone will be happy! We are going to the Mayan Riviera again, to the Paradisus Riviera resort. The only knock on the resort that we have seen is that it is not a party place and there are too many kids. Guess times have changed, haven't they, that we actually seek out this kind of place. Anyhoo, that will probably be my next post at the rate I am going so I will fill you all in on the trip then!

Reflections on working...again

Back to work it is...sigh. I started back at work on January 19th, so about 1.5 weeks in, I have some thoughts. To begin, working isn't the hard part. The hard parts are arranging daycare, planning in advance for things like dinner, clothes, bags, etc, making sure Avery is enjoying daycare (or at the very least, is not miserable), and trying to get everything done on time. Don't even get me started on the hardest part - getting out of bed every morning. 5:30am is just inhumane - especially for a now reformed night owl!

Anyway, enough complaining. All in all, things are going fairly well (the sound you don't hear is me knocking wood, on my head). Avery is doing pretty well at daycare, Greg and I are getting out of the house on time, and my new job is pretty cool so far. Hopefully that will continue, but at the very least, I am working with some really nice people. Greg has always managed to pick Avery up on time or early, so hopefully the impending snow won't throw a wrench into those works.

A little funny...my last week of mat leave we all came down with a vicious stomach bug. Avery got it first, then I did two days later, and then Greg two days later. Needless to say, this threw a wrench into all my plans for getting stuff done before I went back to work. On the upside, I did lose 5 pounds in about 3 days. Anyhoo, Avery had diarrhea and then became constipated. It seemed like she was in some pain at night when trying to sleep because she hadn't pooped in a while, so I gave her a little prunes for two mornings in a row. Well. Prunes work wonders on my kid. She had blowouts every day at daycare except for Friday, and kept coming home in totally different clothes than I had dressed her in in the morning. One day she had to have an impromptu bath in the sink there - apparently no one was impressed with that situation. I kept telling the daycare workers that this wasn't normal, and they kept grumbling at me. The ironic part of it was that I didn't have to change a poopy diaper for a week. Have to look at life's little pluses, right?

Our current dilemma is trying to decide whether we are going to switch Avery from the daycare centre she is currently in, to the home daycare where we have a spot in April if we want it. Greg and I are having real trouble making this decision. On the one hand, Avery seems to be doing pretty well at the centre and why should we rock the boat. On the other hand, the centre is a little chaotic, with lots of kids and several different teachers, and I worry she isn't getting a lot of individual attention. All things being equal, if we had had a spot available to us in each place in the beginning, I would have chosen the home daycare. I just had a really good feel about it when we visited. But now I don't know if the upheaval would really be worth it. Thoughts?

10 months old, a new start and catching up...

I started writing this post about 1.5 weeks ago and never finished it. I figured I might as well put it up now anyway, and then try hard to catch up with the rest of our lives. One of these days...

So Avery is now 10 months old...almost two weeks ago actually and I am only now getting around to writing about it. And it isn't as if I've been good about blogging otherwise. Oh well, I suspect it is only going to get worse because I am going back to work on Monday!!!! How the heck did that happen? I think I am still in denial. I suppose that will end fairly quickly. Using my brain again will be the real challenge! Not to mention getting up before 6 every morning. Avery started daycare this week, and we've been practicing getting up on time. It's going ok, though there isn't the pressure of drying my hair, putting on makeup and trying not to let her make my clothes messy before we leave. Watch me panic on Monday morning though, and this darn OCTranspo strike isn't going to help. But I know there are many many people far worse off than me!

Now that those important concerns are out of the way, how is Avery actually doing at daycare? Pretty good I think. She started on Monday and is going a little longer each day. She doesn't even notice when I leave and just starts playing with the various toys. She is a little quiet when I pick her up, but I hope that is just from all the stimulation and getting used to a new routine. Tomorrow she'll go for the whole day and hopefully it will all be fine! Getting her to nap and have her bottles properly there will take some time, but at least she is eating really well. Just like a good Herage/Pearce.

At the 10 month mark the little miss is crawling around very quickly, is constantly standing up with the assistance of everything, she's cruising and starting to transfer herself from one support to another. She is now saying "dada" regularly, though I think it sometime gets mixed up with "ta ta", which is what we say to her when we don't want her to touch something. I think she is also saying some form of "book" but it doesn't come out all that clearly.