Finger Foods

It’s been a while since my last update so once again there’s lots to catch up on.  Juliet and I have had a tough 3 weeks as we both were quite sick with a bad cold – mine turned into bronchitis and Juliet just had a really bad cold.  This is the most sick Juliet has been – there was one night where she was so lethargic that it was quite scary.  She was just laying down on my chest (not sleeping, her eyes were open) when Leo had come home from work and she didn’t even lift her head to give him a smile.  It was very sad.  We probably would have taken her to the hospital (being overprotective first time parents and all) but I had just taken her to the doctor that day and the doctor advised us to wait it out and she would likely get better on her own. 

Slowly but surely, Juliet has been getting better although she still has a slight lingering cough.  We resumed most of our activities (swimming, playgroup) last week and Juliet seems much happier now that she’s busy again.

"Hello, blog fans.  I was sick but I'm feeling much better now."

During part of the time that we were sick, we had a visit from Oma, Chris, and Aunt Laura (coincidentally, Aunt Paula had visited separately the day before they came).  They helped out again with our house – working in the yard, putting up curtains, changing the switch plates.   Juliet tried to help but she’s not much of a handywoman (yet)!  Leo and Aunt Laura took Juliet to music class and it was the first class of the new session, so they didn't know any of the songs.

"I'm not really helping but I like being up on this ladder with dad!"



Apparently, Juliet has said something shocking to Oma.

Speaking of our house, the house next door to our house was sold to a builder before we moved in.  The house next door is (was) a small bungalow, so we knew it wouldn’t be too long before it was torn down and an infill put in.  Well, the tear down process started yesterday, and today there’s no house left.  I took this picture yesterday…Juliet and I went out to get a few groceries and when we came back, the house next door was half gone! 

Surprisingly, Juliet has been able to nap through the noise next door.  I just turn the white noise machine way up and then nothing seems to bother her!  Not sure that will be the case once they start hammering at 7am each morning...

Last weekend, Grandpa and Aunt Shona came to visit Juliet and they were impressed with her new skill.  More and more, Juliet now prefers to eat “adult” food rather than her baby food, and has learned to finger-feed herself with a good degree of success.  She still misses her mouth about 20% of the time, but she seems to much prefer this to mushy baby food!

"Stop tickling me, grandpa!"

"Yes, I am feeding these Cheerios to myself.  How impressed are YOU?"

And finally, I have a nice picture of me and Juliet – I’m normally the photographer so there aren’t too many pictures of the two of us, so I really like this one – I may frame it.

The van Whatever Family

On Friday, we reached a bit of a milestone for Juliet as she went to bed for the first time without my involvement, or rather, without being fed to sleep.  At night when we put her down for sleep, we have a whole routine which ends with me breastfeeding her.  I feed her until she falls asleep and then gently (and quickly) put her in her crib.  But on Friday night, one of my mom groups was having a wine tasting night and I had to leave before Juliet’s bedtime.  Leo did our whole regular routine on his own (butterfly song, key sleep-related words, story) and then attempted to feed her with a bottle.  According to him, it went ok, but he thought she was confused by the sudden appearance of the bottle – she never gets a bottle and she kept pulling off and looking at the door as she was wondering when her real food was going to walk in.  It was pitch black in her room and Leo thought milk was getting all over her face.  After a few minutes, Leo decided to simply rock her to sleep on his shoulder and that worked well.  So, all in all, it went pretty well and we all survived the experiment!  Hopefully we can both be a little more independent now.  

Trying to teach Juliet the concept of goodbye while I was on my way out to the wine tasting party.


Juliet came down with a cold this week so we didn’t go to all of our regular activities and sort of tried to take it easy.  But her cough has been persistent and it seems to be getting worse.  We’re going to call the doctor tomorrow just to make sure it isn’t anything more serious like bronchitis.

One activity we did attend this past week was music and it was the last class of the winter session.  For the first time, Leo let her crawl freely during the class.  Usually she just sits in front of Leo during the class, but all the other kids just run around so we thought we’d see what happened if he just let her go.  She liked the freedom and crawled straight towards the instructor.  Her favourite part was when she got to sit under the rainbow-coloured parachute.  We’ve already signed up for the next session of music, so now Juliet and Leo have to learn a whole new book of songs.

Today, Juliet had an interesting day.  We recently applied for Nexus so that we can skip the line when we cross the border to the US.  We often visit the US when we go to Oma’s (she lives right near the border) and in order to use Nexus, everyone in the car has to have a Nexus card so we had to get one for Juliet as well.  Part of the process for getting Nexus is passing an interview and getting a retina scan and fingerprints taken, so I wasn’t sure what they would do with Juliet.  Turns out they didn’t try to interview her (good thing because that would have been frustrating on both ends!) and there was no retina scan but they did attempt to get her fingerprints.  Needless to say, it didn’t end up working but anyhow she ended up passing.  When we were initially waiting our turn, the border official was like, “Oh, are you guys the van whatever family?  I’ll be with you in a few minutes”.  Very professional.

After our Nexus interviews, we went to grandma’s for pizza and beer with grandma, Juliet’s great aunt Cathy and great uncle Marcelo, and friends Dave and Ralph.  Juliet didn’t have any pizza or beer but she tried cucumber for the first time (she sorta liked it).  She tried to feed it to me and I couldn't even pretend to have a bite because I of course don't eat cucumbers.  Bad example, mommy!

Juliet hangin' with dad at grandma's.

One thing I've learned since becoming a mom - NEVER leave the house without toys!

March Break

Last week was March Break for most area schools and we're sort of in between sessions for things like swimming and storytime at the library, so we took a breather from our regular routine. 

One of the things we did was a road trip to visit Anjana, Bryce and Nayan.  Along the way, we picked up the curtains for Juliet's room so hopefully they will help Juliet have naps in her crib during the day.  Currently, Juliet only sleeps in her crib at night but during the day she naps while on walks or in the car.  Anyhow, back to our visit with A/B/N.  Juliet still looks like a monster next to Nayan.  When we put them beside each other on the couch, we put them far apart because I was afraid Juliet would eat him, or at least grab him in some way.  My fears came true when she head-butted him 2 seconds after we placed them together.  I can't wait until they're old enough to play together.  As a sidenote, it's crazy to think that Anjana and I met as roommates in first year university together and now we both have babies.  How far we have come :)

Ladies man, indeed!

Last week we also used our barbecue for the first time!  Juliet doesn't normally eat green things (she tends to take after me in that way) but she did have a piece of grilled asparagus.  Here she is with our first BBQed meal.

Mom, why are you constantly putting me in in Christmas bibs?

Yesterday, Juliet and I went to the mom group where the babies are watched by caregivers and the moms are in separate rooms.  Juliet continues to have separation anxiety in this setting and she was quite upset. I kept having to come back into the caregiver room to calm her (which was fine because the speaker was boring) but then our whole day was thrown off because she was so upset that she didn't want to nap for most of the day and then got overtired.  It was one of the most difficult days we've had in a while.  Eventually I gave up and decided that we should lay down and try and nap together and finally that worked and she got a bit of sleep.  The day made me weary of what it's going to be like when Juliet goes to daycare in a couple of months. 

Thankfully today was better and Juliet had a couple of decent (but not great) naps.  That's one thing I've learned about having a baby - my (and Juliet's) days are ruled by naps.  Bad naps = a bad day; Good naps = a good day.

Now for some "classic" Juliet pictures!

Last week Juliet's Aunt Paula sent me some pictures that were taken at Thanksgiving last year. There are some neat pictures and it's amazing to see how different Juliet looks in these pictures that were taken just a few months ago.

Hangin' with Oma.  Juliet didn't have very much hair back then, did she?

Sleepin' with Oma.

Oma putting a pretty flower in J's hair.

We went cosmic bowling (glow in the dark bowling with dance music) and Juliet did well with it!  She hung out in her car seat while we bowled and danced to the music for her.

Hero of Hidalgo

Hello everyone!

Yes, I know it's been almost a month since my last update.  My excuse is that my computer cord stopped working and it took over 3 weeks to get a new one.  Well, the new cord arrived today so I can finally post an update.

I have lots of updates.  The biggest news is that we took Juliet on her first big trip.  We went to a little island off the coast of Cancun called Isla Mujeres.  It really is a little island - it's only about 7 km long and about half a km wide.  It's sort of our "go-to" beach vacation spot so we were excited to bring Juliet there. 

Let's start from the beginning.  This was Juliet's first plane trip and to say that travelling with a baby is stressful is an understatement.  Juliet comes with so much stuff - diapers, food, toys, clothes, stroller - that there was barely any room for me and Leo to pack anything for ourselves!  But the good news is that Juliet did pretty well on the plane (4 hour plane ride).  Her ears didn't seem to bother her on takeoff or landing (she breastfed).  The main issue is that she got restless and had trouble sleeping while on the flight, which happens to the best of us.

Leo and Juliet wait for the monorail at the Toronto airport.

She looked so peaceful - she had no idea of the crazy journey ahead of her at this point!

We eventually got to Isla Mujeres using nearly every mode of transportation known to man (car, monorail, plane, car, ferry) and Juliet was a trooper.  We finally arrived at our rented condo and it was very nice.  In the past Leo and I would stay in a hotel room but with Juliet we needed a separate room for her to sleep in and some added amenities like a microwave to heat up her food, so we chose a condo.

Ok, now I have to tell the Hero of Hidalgo story.  The island has a pedestrian-only street called Hidalgo that is lined with open air restaurants and shops.  Every night after dinner, one of us would be carrying Juliet as we would walk back to the condo using this street.  One of Juliet's new favourite skills is waving hi/bye so she would excitedly wave to all the patrons dining outside and they would wave back.  Many of the patrons had likely been drinking for hours at this point, so they were especially charmed by Juliet and many would call out, "hi baby!" or "look at the cute baby, she's waving at me!".   I don't know if I'm describing it properly, but it was quite magical - it was like Juliet was the queen in a parade.  At some point Leo appointed her the Hero of Hidalgo.

This picture is really dark but this is Leo and Juliet (in non-waving mode) on Hidalgo.  Note that they both have the same super serious expression.

We generally had a pretty low key vacation where we ate out a lot, went for walks, and hung out by the pool.  With Juliet we obviously couldn't just veg out by the pool and read for hours on end but most days we simply brought a playpen outside and took turns playing with Juliet and taking her in the pool.

We love eating at the restaurants on Isla because they use simple, fresh ingredients and the cost is very reasonable.  I was a little worried about bringing Juliet to restaurants all week, but all of the restaurants were very accommodating and the other patrons fell in love with her.  Everyone would comment on how "smiley" she was and it was interesting to see how older ladies and gentlemen would gravitate towards her to get their "grandkid fix".

Here's Juliet with a couple of grandmas.

 

"Mmmmmmmmmmm margarita!  I can't wait to have one in about 18 years!"



This is us at our last dinner on Isla at an awesome Mediterranean restaurant called Olivia's.  They had the best hummus ever, which of course Juliet loved.

Here's another new thing Juliet is doing.  While you're holding her, she'll throw herself back because she wants to be dipped.  It's pretty funny but we also need to be careful or she'll just jump out of our arms.


Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

  On one of our walks, we came across a shabby old blue door and decided to stage a photo shoot. 

Sidebar: the dress I'm wearing was a purchase made when I was on a family vacation to Hawaii when I was about 14.  Amen to the breastfeeding weightloss program!

And here are some pictures of Juliet in the pool, at the beach, and experiencing the ocean for the first time.  I think she was more intrigued with the sand between her toes than the ocean itself.

It was a fun but exhausting week.  Juliet just couldn't keep her eyes open while we were at the Cancun airport waiting to get on our flight home.  She slept for almost half of the flight which made it easier on us as well.

PS. Other new things:
- Juliet got a few new teeth - two more on the bottom, one more on top (7 total at this point)
- Juliet now attempts to feed us when she is eating a cookie - she'll hold it out for us to take a bite as well - and she loves this role reversal
- She's not really cruising yet, but she tries to pull herself up on almost everything
- I think she tried to say "Butters" but it came out "ba ba".  But that could also have just been random sounds she was making :)

Family Weekend

Yesterday was Family Day but Juliet had so many visitors over the weekend that it was more like Family Weekend!  Oma, Chris, and Aunt Laura came to Toronto on Thursday and spent the weekend here.  Chris did so much work on our house - installing vanity lights, hallway lights, vertical blinds, new outlets, and helping Leo put together the BBQ - all in 3 short days.  Oma and Aunt Laura took Juliet on some nice long walks and we even took her swimming. 

The cap was not my choice - the pool makes anyone with long hair wear them when you go to open swim.

Juliet was in great spirits with Oma, Chris, and Aunt Laura and didn't make strange at all.  Generally we go out to dinner while they were here but Juliet's at a weird stage where she demands a lot of attention at feeding times, so you can't really go out and have a leisurely dinner.  So rather than dinner, we had brunch at the local Golden Griddle and Juliet did really well.  She ate an entire jar of creamed corn and wasn't fussy at all.  The waiter gave her a balloon that she was quite fascinated with and we took it home and played with it some more.

Juliet also had visits from Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Shona.  Grandma came and spent time with Juliet and gave me and Leo a much needed night out alone.  And the next night Grandpa and Aunt Shona came over for dinner and Grandpa installed some smoke alarms for us.  Grandpa picked up Leo's guitar and sang Juliet a few tunes and she seemed to like it.  I think Grandpa and Leo should form a band :)



 Today was weird because all the sudden the house was empty and it was just me and Juliet again.  Back to our normal routine, I guess!  Juliet had her swimming class and this time it was more fun because Gabriel was there.  This isn't his regular swimming time, but he had a make up class so they came to our class.  Sylwia took some great shots of our class.  That's Sylwia's husband, Mitch, with us in the pool. 




In the class, we put the babies on this pink mat and got them to crawl to us. 
Juliet didn't really like this part but did well in the rest of the class.

After swimming, Juliet was a bit cranky - maybe she was wondering where everyone went and was bored with just being with me.   She was also tired (as was I) so we spent most of the afternoon napping together in our big kingsize bed.  Once she had that good nap, she seemed much better the rest of the day.

Valentine's Day

Happy belated Valentine's Day, everyone!

Yesterday was Juliet's first Valentine's Day.  Not that it's a big holiday or anything, but it was an excuse to dress her up in something cute and pink (not that I don't do that every other day...).  This sweater was lent to us by Juliet's Oma - it used to belong to Aunt Paula.  Hope I got the hat part right!

Yesterday was Tuesday so that means we had Juliet's swimming class.  Juliet continues to do really well and make progress and the instructor again remarked at how far she's come.  I didn't mention to her that we've been regularly been doing extra practise sessions on the weekends!  Actually, this past weekend we went swimming and this time Leo came for the first time since we started the lessons.  He said he definitely saw improvement (vs. when we used to go swimming at the condo) - she was kicking and splashing and holding her breath and closing her eyes when we dunked her. 

Juliet's also had a few visitors in the past few days.  Well, sort of.  My friend Sylwia and her son Gabriel came over on Friday to visit but Juliet still seems to be on the opposite schedule as Gabriel and she slept the ENTIRE time they were here.  She seriously woke up 30 seconds after they left.  While they were visiting, Gabriel gamely ate an entire jar of peas.  I was so impressed, so the next day I went out and bought the same brand of peas and Juliet would not eat them.  If it isn't sweet potatoes, corn, or some form of chickpeas, she's just not interested.

Gabriel played with Juliet's toys while she napped.

And then Juliet woke up and played with her own toys after they left!

On the weekend, Leo's friend Chris and his wife Ashley came to visit and they met Juliet for the first time.  Juliet didn't make strange. 

Leo dressed her on Saturday and he must think this outfit is cute because whenever he dresses her he ALWAYS picks this one.

Today we went to storytime at the library and Juliet kept crawling away from me and I had to keep chasing after her to make sure she didn't poke any kids in the eye.  The mother of the little girl next to me asked how old she was and when I told her J was 9 months the mother was surprised she was so mobile.  It's certainly a challenging yet fascinating phase as she is able to much better explore the world but also has the potential to get herself into a lot of trouble!

Loose Ends

I just wanted to tie up a couple of loose ends on the blog where I said that I would revisit something and never did.  But before that, I'll tell you about our day. 

Today we went to a playgroup with five other moms & babies that are from one of my mom groups.  Juliet ended up napping in the stroller on the way to the playgroup so she missed the first part (I left her outside on the back deck - all bundled up in  her stroller, of course).  She woke up about 45 minutes in, so she was able to join the group and was in a good mood.  Oh, and we weighed her last night and she was 17.5 pounds.  That's a little lighter than I had thought - I guess at some point there is a natural plateau.

Tonight we tried her on a couple of new foods from a local organic food company.  We tried two flavours - peas and root vegetables - and Juliet didn't really like either.  The food is not cheap, either, so it's a shame to have it go to waste.  After trying various tactics, Leo and I finally found one that worked - we mixed the food with hummus (about 50/50) and fed it to her on a cracker.  Seriously.  I'm getting nervous that Juliet is going to be as picky as me.  The only things she really likes to eat are hummus and sweet potatoes.  Everything else she either just tolerates or completely refuses.

Loose End #1:  I said a while back that I'd post the final picture we chose on our holiday card (rather than just the outtakes which I posted).  Here's the final one plus a few more ones that were contenders to be the final one.

This was the one we ended up choosing.  We liked it because it was as if Juliet was saying, "Happy New Year!"

Leo's and Goobs' eyes really pop in this one.

This was the best of the lie down shots but it was still kinda awkward.

This was our semi-finalist.  I really like this one, too.

Loose End #2: I also said a while back when we got our house that I would share the story of how we got it.  As most of you know, we looked for a house for 2 years and it was quite the process.  But buying our actual house was QUICK! 

It came on the market on a Wednesday and I saw it that day with our agent.  I was informed that they were "holding back offers" until Monday.  This is a common tactic in the current Toronto market that is used to presumably drum up a bidding war.  Anyhow, the day after the house came on the market, Leo, Juliet and I saw it together in the evening.  The owner was present - an elderly lady - and she totally fell in love with Juliet. 

We decided to submit a "bully offer" - rather than wait for offer night on Monday, we would submit a strong (read: over list) offer beforehand.  So on Friday afternoon, our agent submitted our bully offer and we got the house!  There was no back and forth negotiating - it was just like, this is our strongest offer - take it or leave it.  The owner remembered us and mostly remembered Juliet.  Apparently, when our agent was presenting our offer, the owner was preoccupied and was like, "Is the baby nearby?  When are we going to see the baby?" and her agent was like, "Let's just go through the offer first." and was trying to keep her on task.  So basically Juliet got us our house!  What a great feat for a little baby :)