Stranger Danger

Remember I mentioned Juliet didn't do so well at her swimming lesson last week?  I thought it was because she was tired but wanted to be absolutely sure.  So on Sunday, grandma came over and Juliet had a good nap and then we took her swimming.  She did much better this time and loved the water again.  I was also able to move our weekly swimming lesson to a different day and an earlier time so hopefully that will work out better.

I took a couple of pictures when we went swimming and I just love how they turned out.  It was about 4pm and the sun was just setting, so the lighting was beautiful and warm.

On Monday we went to one of my mommy groups (the one where the babies are watched by caregivers) and Juliet did not do well at all.  I think she is at the exact age where separation anxiety becomes an issue.  The caregivers had to come get me because Juliet was crying and she didn't really calm down the entire time I was there.  I was a little pissed because the caregivers were like, "Oh, she's your first, isn't she?  Don't worry, you'll learn with the next one."  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...she just doesn't like strangers!

The rest of the day wasn't much better - Juliet had one of those days where she hardly napped and then got overtired.  I bought a travel stroller from someone in Oakville (via kijiji) so we combined that with a visit to grandpa and Aunt Shona.  Juliet was cranky and tired the whole day and I think her and I both were happy when the day was over with.  It was just one of those days.

Her fine motor skills are improving - here she is at grandpa's working on eating an Arrowroot cookie.  I wish I could eat cookies in the name of "learning"!

Before eating the cookie, Aunt Shona fed Juliet some sweet potatoes and peas which she clearly was excited about.

Today we went to a new activity - baby storytime at the library.  It was free so I was pretty pumped about that, but alas, you get what you pay for.  It wasn't that great.  Too many moms & babies (maybe about 25 of each) and the babies just aren't into sitting and listening to someone reading a book.  They also sang songs but they were pretty pedestrian songs (Wheels on the Bus, Old MacDonald).  I'm apparently a baby song snob, I know. 

Anyhow, later in the afternoon we had a playdate with another mom & baby girl that live about 4 houses down from us.  Again, the babies are really too young to play - they sort of just poked at each other's faces.  But it was great to have another little girl close by that is so close to Juliet's age.  Maybe someday they'll be BFFs!

The Saddest Pizza in the World

Tonight, Leo and I had a craving for pizza.  Since Juliet still appears to have a dairy intolerance (via my breast milk), my half of the pizza didn't have cheese.  Blasphemous, I know...

Juliet, if you're reading this when you're older, this proves how much I love you. 
I ate CHEESELESS PIZZA for you!

Yesterday, I took Juliet to her second week of swimming class.  Remember how she did really well last week?  Not so much this week.  I think she was tired and cranky because she didn't have any kind of morning nap - last week she got a quick nap in the car on the way to swimming, but this week she didn't have a nap.  The class starts at 11:30am so it's at a really awkward time - she gets up most mornings around 8:30am so the class starts right at the time where she should be napping.  I think I'm going to call the swim school and try to get into another class that starts either earlier or later.

After the class, I went to visit my friend Sylwia and her baby Gabriel.  Unfortunately, Juliet and Gabriel seem to be on completely opposite sleep schedules, so they only really spent a couple of minutes interacting (grabbing at each other).  It was fun to catch up with Sylwia and Juliet had a great time playing with Gabriel's toys - especially the one that looked like a phone.

Today, Leo took Juliet to her music class.  According to Leo: "She liked shaking the bells and the rattle. She observed the older kids running around."  Sorry, his descriptions are boring.  :) After the class, we went out for brunch and ran a bunch of errands (Costco, Home Depot, Moms to Be).  Juliet slept for almost 2 hours in the car while Leo and I took turns running the errands.  Tomorrow I think we'll take her swimming again but this time we'll make sure she's well rested.

P.S. Milestones - Juliet keeps going from a crawling position into a bridge and has started to pull herself up on furniture. 

At brunch.

Crinkle, Crinkle

Today, Juliet and I attended a playgroup for the first time.  It's associated with one of my mom groups.  Basically it's a group of about 8 moms with babies around the same age as Juliet that get together each week at one of the mom's houses.  The moms chit-chat and the babies sort of play.  They're really too young to actually play together - they're all so grabby that they just try to poke each other's eyes out.  And the babies are at the age where they tend to hurt themselves easily.  They're learning to crawl and walk, so there's lots of opportunities to bonk their heads - so half the time we just try to keep our babies from getting hurt.  The other moms thought Juliet was a very happy and smiley baby.  Which was pretty much confirmed later with the video below.

Other news: Juliet's second front tooth broke through today!  She has had rosy cheeks for a few days and the past 3-4 nights have been more restless than usual, so clearly that tooth is the culprit.

I shot this video as I was making dinner and tidying the kitchen.  I picked up the paper/plastic wrapping from a baguette and Juliet just loved the crinkly sound.  I don't know why she found it so funny!

Food, Food, Food

Juliet's world continues to revolve our various activities and, of course, food.  We keep trying to encourage her to take in more and more solids with varying degrees of success. 

Last Saturday, Grandpa and Aunt Shona came over to spend some time with Juliet and help with some projects around the house (installing a second baby gate and some towel bars).  Shona helped feed Juliet and we tried to get her to eat an Arrowroot cookie.  Juliet isn't into peas.  I don't blame her.

Juliet doesn't seem overly excited at eating an Arrowroot cookie.

Later that night, Leo, Juliet and I went out to dinner to a Mexican restaurant with our friends Chrissy and Trevor.  Chrissy and Trevor do not have kids, so I'm always hyper aware of Juliet's behaviour when we're out with them.  She did really well at dinner, especially considering we left the restaurant at about 9pm which is her usual bedtime.  She was getting restless but wasn't crying or anything, so it wasn't too bad.  It's great having her around when I have something on my plate that I don't want, because I just let her try it.  At the restaurant I gave her a bunch of my avocado and she really liked it.  I think I'm going to buy an avocado and give it to her again.  I've never purchased one, though, so I don't even know how to cut it.

Juliet and Leo at the Mexican restaurant.  She's just drinking water.

On Monday evening, grandma came over for a visit and she fed Juliet as well.  Whatever she was eating in this picture she liked - I think it was sweet potatoes - but when we gave her some of our own mashed potatoes that we were eating for dinner, she HATED it.  It was so weird.  I used Yukon Gold potatoes, so maybe that was it?

Grandma shows Juliet how to open up wide.

And here's a random picture of Juliet taken when we went out to brunch this past weekend.  I love her lilac gap hoodie.  I think lilac looks good with her eyes.

Warm Splash

Today, Juliet and I went to her first official swimming lesson.  Juliet hasn't been swimming since we've moved into the house (but she went semi-regularly at our condo).  Juliet's swimming lessons are at a pool that specializes in swimming lessons for babies - they have the warmest saltwater pool in Toronto. 

This morning we woke up to the biggest snowfall of the winter season so far, so it was a bit of a treacherous drive to our swimming lesson, but we got there safely.  Juliet and I got changed into our swimsuits and then headed to the pool to check in.  While we were checking in, I felt a splash of the water on my toes and it was indeed warm...but then I realized that there's no way I could have been splashed because of where I was standing.  It was then that I figured out that Juliet peed all over me and it had dripped onto my toes.  Swim diapers are only meant to catch poo, not pee, so when she pees it just simply drips through.  Fun start to the day!

Anyhow, she did really well at her lesson.  She really likes swimming now and I think she was the second best swimmer there (the best swimmer was 11 months so he has a head start).  Not that I'm biased.  We even dunked her head under water and she didn't mind at all.  A couple of the other moms remarked on her beautiful eyes and long lashes.  After the swimming lesson was over, Juliet finally had a nice, long nap.  Not like her usual crappy short daytime naps.

Not the best picture since J isn't looking at the camera.  That's our instructor (who owns the swim school) in the background.

What else have we been up to this week?  Yesterday we went to a breastfeeding support group meeting.  I wanted to ask the others what to expect when I go back to work - even though it's still a few months away, it's hard to imagine that Juliet will completely wean by then.  Their advice was essentially not to worry about it right now - 4 months from now is a long time in baby development time.

At my breastfeeding meeting, she was crawling up a storm - showing off her new skills to the other babies there.

And on Wednesday, we went to grandpa's so that he could spend some quality time with Juliet.  We gave her some more beets while we were there, as you can see from the picture below.  In the evening we skyped with Oma and that was fun.  Although I think next time we'll have to try to do it a bit earlier in the evening since by the end it was close to J's bedtime and she got cranky.

Tomorrow is Juliet's first music class and Leo is taking her, so hopefully that will be fun for both of them.


MORE BEETS!  I forgot to bring a bib, so we tied one of granpa's old dish cloths around Juliet's neck.  Also, this picture makes grandpa look like he really likes to drink. :)



We got the beets!

As I mentioned in my last blog post, my friend Miwa came by last week and lent us the next shipment of baby clothes.  That meant that I needed to sort through Juliet's clothes again (I do this about every 3 months) to put away the ones that no longer fit.  Juliet liked playing in the piles of clothes - I'm pretty sure she has more pants than me and Leo combined (I'm not kidding).

On Monday, I joined a new neighbourhood mommy group.  I had to go line up early to make sure I got in (there were only 5 spots available).  It's different than my other mommy group because at this one the babies are in a room separate from the moms and are taken care of by caregivers while the moms (about 70 of them) have coffee/chit chat and then listen to a speaker. 

It was the first time I've ever left Juliet with a complete stranger and I have to admit I was a little uncomfortable with it.  It was only for 1.5 hours, though, and I figured it would be good practice for daycare (both for me and Juliet).  The funny thing is at one point I was in the mom room and I overheard one of the caregivers come in and was trying to find Juliet's mom - apparently she was being fussy.  So I left the room and nursed her and went back to the mom room...and then another caregiver came back 20 mins later and said she was being fussy again and asked whether she was hungry or whether they should try to put her to sleep.  I said to put her to sleep, so they did, and from that point things were fine and they thankfully didn't have to come get me again.

Today (Tuesday), I went to my other mommy group.  Today's speaker was a lady that owns her own organic baby food company and she gave us some samples.  When I got home I thought I'd see if Juliet would like any of the samples I brought home.  I wasn't too hopeful because she seems to be a bit picky but much to my surprise she loved the beets!  Actually, the food was a mixture of beets, apples, and flax seed - but anyhow, she took to it quite easily.  I think we're going to end up buying a bunch of this food because it seems good and they use interesting ingredients (example: some of their recipes include quinoa and chickpeas).  Of course, this food is more than 3 times the cost of the PC brand we've been feeding her the past couple of weeks.  Sigh.

Juliet looked like a little vampire after she finished eating the beets.  "I vant to suck your blood!"



Drill, Baby, Drill

My friend Miwa is truly Juliet's fairy godmother.  Her daughter, Emiko, is a couple years older than Juliet, so she has lent us gear, toys, and clothes that she no longer needs.  Yesterday, Miwa came over and brought us a high chair, some more clothes and some more toys.  As we started to sort through the toys, we let Juliet sample them to see which ones would be her favourites.  I think she had stimulation overload!

"Thanks, Miwa!"

Later that night, we used the high chair for the first time and it was indeed easier to feed Juliet.  She now seems to genuinely like chicken and sweet potatoes.  She doesn't like peaches very much.  (I don't blame her but I'm trying not to influence her food preferences.  I'm not the most adventurous eater, as most of you know...)

Juliet using the high chair for the first time.

Today, we ran some errands during the day as we're looking for light fixtures for our new home.  We dressed Juliet up in one of the cute new outfits from Miwa.  This outfit was so cute that I would wear it if it came in an adult size!  The sweater is from Joe and I think their stuff is really cute.

After our errands, we came home and grandpa came over to help install one of our baby gates.  Now that Juliet can crawl, we need to start baby proofing our house.  The gate was a bit of a nightmare to install but in the end, it works so that's all that matters.

Juliet watched as dad and grandpa installed the gate.  I think she was intrigued by the sound of the drill.

"Thanks for your help, grandpa!"

Happy New Year

Ok, I know it's a little late for a New Year's post, but better late than never, right? 

On New Year's Eve, grandma came over and all 4 of us went for dinner to McSorley's (a pub) on Bayview.  One of the waiters saw Juliet and offered to get her a balloon.  I thought to myself that she was probably too young to play with a balloon but turns out she enjoyed playing with it after all.  Yes, mommy is wrong sometimes.  ;)

When we came back from dinner, I fed Juliet and we put her to bed which gave Leo and I a chance to go over to our friends Christine and Trevor's place while grandma watched over Juliet.

Here we are after coming home from dinner on New Year's Eve.

This is actually a picture of Nayan (Anjana and Bryce's baby).  I came across this picture on his facebook page and see from the note that Juliet must have snuck out on New Year's and met up with Nayan.  Looks like they did some hard partying - Juliet's in BIG TROUBLE.  I hope Juliet's other boyfriend (Gabriel) doesn't see this picture!

Other than the New Year's festivities, the past few days for us have been all about trying to get Juliet to eat more solid foods.  As I mentioned, she really hasn't been sleeping well (about 2-2.5 hours at a time) and so I think that maybe she's burning lots of calories now that she's crawling and so she needs to increase her food intake.  So in the past week we've been trying really hard and have given her the following foods with varying degrees of success: carrots, squash, apples, bananas, hummus and chicken, and of course baby cereal (rice/oatmeal).  We've also given her little scraps of whatever we're eating (pieces of rice, broccoli). The weird thing is that she only really seems interested at dinnertime - in the mornings, she'll eat one bite and that's it.  And something she loves one day (hummus), she just won't be interested in it the next day.  It's been very slow going so far.

Leo feeds Juliet some roasted chicken, which she actually seemed to like.  At least at the time, anyway.

Luckily my friend Miwa is bringing her high chair over tomorrow - I think Juliet is ready since she keeps reaching for food while she's sitting in her bouncer (don't worry, she's strapped in).

The obligatory baby-with-food-on-face shot.  In this case, it's sweet potatoes.  Sometimes food even ends up up her nose!