Eat Your Veggies

I tried to get Juliet to prove that she could flip onto her tummy again today but it didn't work.  Oh, well.  She slept really well last night.

Today we had a great day - Juliet was easy going and didn't complain as I dragged her around town.  First we went to Bayview and went to a couple of my favourite bakeries.  We bought chocolate chip cookies from Epi and cinnamon scones from Cobs.  Then we went to Loblaws to check out the Joe Fresh baby clothes and then to Winners to look at their baby clothes, but we left empty handed from both stores.  While we were out, many strangers spoke to us which is truly one of the weirdest things about having a baby.  People will just talk to you about your baby - how old they are, what their name is, are they a good baby, etc.  I'm used to just minding my own business and, you know, not talking to strangers, so for me it is still an odd experience.

Here we are at Epi.  Juliet was like, "Mom, can I have a chocolate croissant?" 

As many of you know, Juliet seems to have some kind of intolerance to cow's milk so I have been avoiding dairy for the past couple of months.  When we got home from running errands today, I needed a snack and so I made this:

Looks like a grilled cheese, right?  Well, not really - the cheese is veggie cheese, which, for those of you that know me should realize is the last thing I would ever eat.  I'm not exactly sure how they made cheese out of vegetables.  But I'm trying to be flexible and eat things that obviously won't harm Juliet so I thought I'd try it.  It was...not good.  But I ate it anyway.  I guess this is what people mean when they talk about the sacrifices a parent makes for their child.

Young Love

We bought a car!  We finally completed the deal yesterday after the dealership capitulated and agreed to our demands.  Well, really my demands - Leo wanted to get the deal done on Saturday but I was being stubborn.  So we will be proud new owners of a Nissan Rogue once the dealership can locate one for us, hopefully in the next few weeks. 

Juliet came with us to do the final paperwork at the dealership and lucky for me she pooped and was hungry so I was able to get out of sitting in the office when the sales guy tried to tack on the extended warranty, rust proofing, upholstery protection, etc.  Boring!  Leo had to sit through it, though, and nod politely while not listening.

Other than that, here's what we've been up to.  On Sunday night, we had Thad and Miranda over for dinner.  I made ribs.  Miranda held Juliet and was really good with her:

"Enough with the camera, mom!"

And today I went to visit my friend Sylwia and her son Gabriel.  Sylwia and her husband have been successfully sleep training Gabriel and he was in great spirits for our visit.  We put him and Juliet together on the bed and although it started out with some crying, by the end they were holding hands!  I swear we didn't position them that way - they just were lying next to each other and found each others' hands. 

Speaking of sleep training, Juliet has actually been sleeping pretty well lately.  Generally she will go to bed at 11pm, sleep until 6am - get up for 20 mins to eat - and then go back to bed until about 10:30am.  Not bad!  She hardly naps during the day, though, and there isn't any real schedule for those naps.

She reached a milestone today - she flipped over from her back to her tummy for the first time.  It's exciting to reach this milestone but it means we have to be more careful when she's on the change table or couch - she could just flip off.

You're Fired!

After Juliet's bath last night we gave her a comb-over and she did her best Donald Trump impression:


"You're Fired!"

We're planning on turning this blog into a book once I'm done my mat leave.  Do you think when Juliet reads this 20 years from now she'll get the reference?  Me neither.
Anyhow, yesterday we went to the bank to open up a RESP for Juliet.  The bank worker was somewhat incompetent so it took over an hour when it should have taken about 15 minutes.  During that time, Juliet smiled, puked, and slept (in that order).


"1.25%?  Really???  That's a terrible interest rate, dad.  Let's leave."


Today we went to look at SUVs as our Saturn sedan is getting a little cramped with the car seat and stroller.  No deals yet, but stay tuned.

Juliet fell asleep at the dealership in her new "donut" bed thingy.  We just left her in the waiting area while we negotiated with the salesman and she slept nicely.  Just kidding!  Grandma came along and watched Juliet while we negotiated.

And just to end on a happy note, here's a picture we took yesterday of Juliet with a big smile:

I love her gummy smile.

Boob Medicine

Juliet is feeling much better from her cold and is pretty much back to her normal self.  As most of you know, Juliet is breastfed and I read about how when babies get colds, somehow that is communicated to the breast and the mother makes antibodies for the cold that are then delivered to the baby when nursing.  I explained this phenomenon to Leo and when Juliet seemed to be feeling a lot better so quickly, he remarked that it must be the "boob medicine".  I guess so!

One recent development is that Juliet has discovered her toes.  She keeps on trying to stick them in her mouth when we're changing her diaper.  It's cute but makes the diaper changing process much more difficult.

"Mmmm...toes...want to put them in my mouth"

Summer Cold

I have some sad news - Juliet has her first cold :(  She woke up 2 nights ago crying and coughing and had a stuffy nose.  By morning she had a low grade fever of 38 degrees (under arm).  Of course, being new parents, we contemplated taking her to the doctor but Juliet's grandpa suggested we call Toronto Public Health so we did and they said we could just treat the cold at home.  So far we haven't actually done much to treat it since we can't really give her anything - just wipe away the mucous and try to keep her nose clear (which is harder than it sounds since you can't instruct babies to blow their noses).  Anyhow, it's day 2 of the cold and she seems much better today.  She's not her usual chipper self, but she's not too fussy.  And I think her fever is all but gone.

Other than the cold, here's what we've been up to:

On Friday, we visited our friends Eva and Dave and had a lovely dinner at their place.  I forgot to take pictures, so no visual for that one.  On Saturday, our friends Steve and Luda and their 3-year old daughter, Isabella, came over to meet Juliet for the first time.  Isabella kept calling Butters "catty" - not kitty, not cat, but catty - it was very cute. 

Luda holds Juliet

Luda and Isabella show Sophie to Juliet.

On Saturday night, we went to see our friends Chrissy and Trevor in their new house at Avenue & Wilson.  They haven't moved in yet, so the house doesn't have any furniture, but it was gorgeous.  Here's the kitchen:

After viewing the house, we went to dinner at a local pub and no fewer than 2 of the servers remarked on how well behaved Juliet was during dinner.  I think it was because earlier that evening, they apparently had a 3-year old in the pub who was an absolute terror, so by comparison a 3-month old baby like Juliet seemed like an angel.

On Sunday, we did a little shopping and Leo put Juliet in the carrier and used it in the front-facing way for the first time.  I think she enjoyed it, don't you?

"I like Winners! Such great deals on brand names!"

Take Your Baby To Work Day Part 2

Today my work was having an all-day seminar on Creativity and Innovation.  I wasn't required to go - I am on mat leave, after all - but I thought it would be a good idea for me to go so that my colleagues don't forget about me.  Trouble is, Juliet is currently only breastfed - we had never given her a bottle.  Grandma kindly agreed to babysit for the day but we needed to teach Juliet how to take a bottle. 

Long story short...2 weeks, 5 types of bottles, and many attempts later, we still remained unsuccessful.  Juliet just doesn't know what to do with the bottle - most of the time she will not even open her mouth up to take in the nipple.  And then she just starts crying.

So, I had all but given up on going to my work seminar but Juliet's grandma suggested that she and Juliet go with me to work and stay close by and I could come feed Juliet during the breaks.  So that's what we did and it worked out well.  Thanks, grandma, for allowing me the opportunity to go to work (never thought I'd say that!).

Look how happy Juliet was to be at work!

Where's Juliet?

I haven't posted for a few days but that isn't because Juliet hasn't been busy.  Last week, grandma came to spend the day and we went to the nail salon to get manicures and pedicures.  Here's little Juliet picking her polish - she chose a hot pink shade, perfect for summer!

Ok, just kidding, Juliet didn't get her nails done.  She sat with grandma as grandma got her pedicure and was pretty well behaved.  On a side note, there was a 3-year old getting her nails done at the station next to me, so I couldn't help but wondering whether that would be Juliet in 3 years (hopefully not, it was kind of pretentious).

Here's Juliet sleeping on grandma after our trip to the salon.

Last Friday, Juliet and I went to visit one of my colleagues who had twins that are now 6 months old.  I wondered how chaotic and different it would be with twins, and sure enough, it seemed pretty crazy even though the twins were well behaved.  The interesting thing about the twins is that they are of mixed race - the mother is Chinese and the father is Portuguese - and the twins look nothing alike.  They don't even look like siblings, let alone twins.  I didn't get a picture of them but her is a pic of Juliet hanging at their condo.

She's like, "Hey, this isn't my stuff.  Where am I? And who are those other babies?"

After the visit, we went to grandpa's for a BBQ.  There wasn't any particular reason - just an excuse for Grandpa and Aunt Shona to visit with Juliet.

On the weekend, we did some more purging of our belongings to continue to make room for Juliet and all of the "stuff" that seems to come with babies.  We cleaned out our front hall closet to see if we could get rid of some shoes.  Guess how many pairs of shoes we'd accumulated?  20?  30?  40?  The answer is 48 pairs. 
Of those 48 pairs, 33 or 69% were mine, so I can't blame Leo on all those shoes.  After throwing some out and donating some to charity, we were still left with 29 pairs which I'm not proud of - I wish I could have reduced it further, but it's so hard to part with some shoes!

Can you find Juliet?  Ok, so she's not that hard to find.  But the point is that we have a lot of shoes.

Bumbo

Anjana came over yesterday and spent the day with us.  We went to Bayview and walked around and did some shopping, finishing off the trip with a visit to one of the french bakeries for a pain au chocolat.  Yum!  Anjana also took some beautiful photos of Juliet.
Before I post the pictures, here's another video.  The video is of Juliet sitting on a "Bumbo" seat for the first time.  For those of you that may be new to Bumbo seats, they're sort of a molded plastic seat that people use for various purposes.  It's apparently useful to use when feeding your baby once they've graduated to solid foods.  Anyway, Juliet did pretty well sitting in the seat:

And now for some gorgeous pictures of Juliet, courtesy of our photographer, Anjana:

Lunch Date

Juliet has been busy for the past few days.  On Monday, we went to lunch with my friend Sonal.  And yesterday we visited my friend Sylwia and her son, Gabriel.  Gabriel has been pictured on my blog a few weeks ago - he's 3 weeks older than Juliet.  He smiled and giggled up a storm - I kept on trying to capture his smiles with my camera but he would always go straightfaced right when I took his picture.

Sonal was really good with Juliet - she held her when Juliet started to get fussy so that I could finish my lunch.

Gabriel wouldn't smile for my camera but seemed to smile at all other times!

Juliet "plays" with Sophie - she doesn't really play yet but she has sort of started to hold things, so that's progress.

Debutante Ball

This weekend we went to Oma's where Oma hosted a party to introduce Juliet to Leo's side of the family.  Many people came to visit and meet Juliet for the first time.  She did really well considering we were sort of passing her around so that everyone had a chance to hold her.  She spit up on her great aunt Pat, but Pat didn't seem to mind.  I've heard that it's good luck to have a baby spit up on you, so that's what I told Pat to try and smooth it over :)

Great Aunt Pat holds Juliet - this is prior to the spit up.

...and this is Pat cleaning her shirt AFTER the spit up.

Great Nana was there, too.

Great Aunt Rose enjoyed holding her.

Paula strikes a pose with Juliet.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, it was Leo's and his mom's birthday (the same day) a couple of days ago.  There was a big cake that was half chocolate and half vanilla.  Leo's mom got us Juliet's name in framed letters, above the cake in this picture.  The letters are pictures of items that aren't actual letters - e.g. a swing doubles for the "U" - it's really clever!

Juliet fell asleep on cousin Anna-Lee.

Leo's mom's friend Jamie holds Juliet.

Great Aunt Gertie holds Juliet.

Juliet fell asleep in her beautiful pink dress before the party started.  So cute.

On Sunday, Juliet became an international traveler!  Ok, so it wasn't as exciting as it sounds.  We took a little trip over the border to the US to pick up a few things.  Juliet used her passport for the first time.  It's sort of ridiculous for a baby to have a passport - she is going to look nothing like her photo a few months from now, let alone two years from now.  The border guard didn't ask her any questions, thank goodness since she would have had trouble answering them!

A pic from shopping at Walmart in the US - note the HUGE buckets of cheese balls!

And Juliet fell asleep on the car ride back - she's our little Al Bundy in this picture.



Happy Birthday Dad (and Oma!)

Today was Leo's birthday (and also was Leo's mom's birthday) so we went to Red Lobster for dinner.  Normally I don't agree to go to Red Lobster (not that there's anything wrong with it - I just prefer other things) but since it was Leo's birthday, it was up to him to decide.

Juliet was really well behaved during dinner which was surprising since she's been a bit of a challenge the past couple of days.  I think she's going through a growth spurt as she's eating every hour or so during the day and isn't sleeping very much.  I've read that there is typically a growth spurt at 3 months (which is 5 days from now), so this must be it!

I'm surprised we could still do up our pants after this meal - we had so much bread, salad, shrimp (and in Leo's case, Lobster) and dessert.  Juliet nursed while we were there, so she had a meal, too!

She has a funny look on her face here.

Cottage Life

Whew!  It's been a long time since my last update but Juliet has been busy.  We just got home from a week at a cottage located at Round Lake Centre (about 2 hours northwest of Ottawa).  The most exciting thing that happened is that Juliet learned that she can express herself with her voice.  Often, now, she will "speak" to you when you talk to her.  Here's a short video - sorry it's horizontal - next time I will know to move the camera the other way.

The funniest thing is sometimes when she starts to cry, she will hear her own voice and then get preoccupied with that and forget that she was starting to cry and she will then be happy.  So cute!

Ok, now it's time for picture overload so get ready. 

Here's the cottage itself - it is pretty small but very cute and has everything you'd need.  It's right on the lake and has a small dock.  It was great - we BBQed every night for dinner.



Juliet loved looking around at the trees.



We dipped Juliet's feet in the lake and she didn't seem to mind. The lake was very clean and clear. We put a little bonnet on her to protect her from the sun.  Grandma thought she looked like a little "Quaker Girl".

This is currently one of my favourite pictures of Leo and Juliet - they both look so serious. 

 Below are pictures from our visits with family - Juliet with June & Charlie, Babs & Gerrie, and Gale.  Juliet was really well behaved on her visits and everybody enjoyed meeting her.

The trips to and from the cottage were Juliet's longest road trips yet - about 5 hours.  Both times she did really well and only really started to fuss in the last 20 minutes or so. 

Another exciting thing happened while we were away was that Juliet slept through the night on the last night we were there.  She went to bed that night at about 10:30pm and slept until about 7:30am.  Frankly, it wasn't that great of a sleep for me because I still woke up at about 3:30am out of habit and couldn't get back to sleep for a couple of hours and kept on checking on her to make sure she was ok.  She hasn't slept through the night again since that night, but at least we know it's possible!