LLL

Today was quite the busy day for me and Juliet.  In the morning, we went to a La Leche League meeting.  For those of you who aren't familiar with La Leche League, it's an organization of breastfeeding mothers that get together regularly to discuss and support breastfeeding.  Leo asked me why I was going to the meeting since I seem to have breastfeeding down at this point.  I wanted to go to the meeting for two reasons - now that Juliet has teeth, I wanted to get advice on what to do when she inevitably bites me, and also I wanted to discuss the introduction of solid foods with the other mothers.

So anyway, it was a good meeting and I got some good ideas and advice from the other moms.  There's another mom that goes to the group that has a baby 1 day younger than Juliet and that baby also has a milk protein intolerance, so I got some tips from her too.  Here's a picture of Juliet with one of the group's leaders:

Juliet: "That hair is just too tempting to resist.  I don't care that it belongs to the daughter of the LLL Leader."

After the meeting, Juliet and I went to Pain Perdu, a local french bakery (which, if you read this blog regularly, know is one of my weaknesses).  I had a baguette with ham and, of course, a pain au chocolat.

After lunch, I went to visit my friend Sylwia and we went for a lovely walk in a big park near her house.  Afterwards, we went back to her house and got caught up and then staged an impromptu photo shoot with the babes.  It was really fun as the babies are now at the age where they have sort of started interacting rather than just paying attention to the moms.

Gabriel and Juliet are clearly buds.

Gabriel: "Oh, just a sec - you got a little schmutz on your face, Juliet"

Sylwia holds the two babies.

6 Months

Happy 6 month birthday, Juliet!

It's hard to believe that Juliet is already 6 months old.  Yesterday, I took her for her 6 month check-up at the doctor.  She weighed 15 pounds, 2 ounces and was 66 centimetres long.  Both stats are apparently at the 50th percentile, so the doctor was happy with her progress.  Juliet got 1 vaccination (I forget which one) but was totally fine - she didn't even notice the needle going in.

Today we went to post-natal yoga.  Juliet was being quite fussy as she was really tired but wasn't able to nap while at yoga.  Luckily the other babies there were also being fussy today, so everyone understood.  At some point I was doing yoga and I looked up and I realized I was the only one left doing it at that particular time - all the other moms were tending to their babies.

One thing that's kind of new is that Juliet is getting more and more mobile.  She can really pivot while on her tummy.  I can leave her in one position, walk away, and 2 minutes later she's in a totally different position.  Soon she'll be crawling!  This is exciting but also daunting as we'll have to babyproof our new house.

On to the pictures...

Juliet sits really nicely in the Bumbo chair now.  Remember when she just sort of slumped over in it?

"Yay!  This is a fun ride on daddy's legs.  Weeeeeeeee!"

Packing, Packing, Packing

This past weekend we spent nearly the whole weekend packing for our upcoming move.  I can't believe we move 3 weeks from tomorrow!  It's funny - when packing you come across random items that you've nonsensically kept for many years.  For example, I found the receipt for the TV purchased by my parents in 1993!  Why did I keep it all these years?  I don't know.  I also found that we have like 50 mugs, despite the fact that only 2 adults live here and one of them does not drink hot beverages.  Needless to say, we have lots of stuff to give to Goodwill.

Juliet was really good while we were packing.  Leo and I essentially took turns amusing her while the other packed.  We got into such a groove of packing, we almost packed Juliet!

On Sunday night, we were feeling lazy and didn't feel like cooking, so Leo picked up some Swiss Chalet.  When he was done with one of the plastic containers, he started tapping it with his fingertips like a drum to amuse Juliet.  Juliet was watching him intently.  Then he put her fingers on the container and started tapping them to the beat.  She loved this game.

P.S. Sleep training is going pretty well - tonight she went to bed with no crying for the first time!

Mirror, Mirror in the Book

Last night Leo and I finally got to the point where we let Juliet cry herself to sleep.  It was very tough but she hasn't been sleeping well at all lately and has become completely dependent on one of us to either feed her or rock her to sleep.  Furthermore, if she wasn't in a deep sleep, she would just wake up as soon as we put her in her crib.  So last night we decided to put her in her crib while she was sleepy but still awake, and let her cry and hope that she would put herself to sleep.

It was very tough - she cried for 25 minutes - but eventually went to sleep.  We thought she might only be down for an hour or two - most of the time lately she only sleeps for 3-4 hour stretches at night - but last night she ended up sleeping 10.5 hours in a row which is the most she's ever slept in one stretch.  So, although it was difficult to do as parents, I think in the end she ended up being more well rested.  She even napped much better today which was surprising since she slept so much at night.

Anyhow, on to the fun stuff...

Today Juliet and I attended a pilates class.  It was my first time ever going to one, so I didn't know what to expect, but turns out it's a lot like yoga.  I like yoga better.  Juliet was really good, though.  The baby next to us screamed the whole time.  Not like a scream cry - screaming was just this baby's version of babbling.  I was happy that Juliet's coos are a lot more peaceful!


I thought I'd make this picture black and white to be more artistic :)

Later on this afternoon while I was making dinner, Juliet was playing with her little book that has a mirror and she noticed herself and just stared at the mirror.  It's the first time she's done this - it was really cute.  Then she started licking the reflection of herself in the mirror - it was so funny!

P.S. Juliet flipped from her tummy to her back several times today.  I'm not sure she meant to do it - it just sort of happened when she was trying to pull herself towards a toy - but at least we know she can do it!

Pain au Chocolat

Yesterday, Juliet and I visited our new house again since we had to meet up with the carpet guy so that he could take some additional measurements.  Afterwards, we needed to kill some time before our weekly mommy group so we strolled around our new neighbourhood and had lunch at one of the many french bakeries.  Here's Juliet with my pain au chocolat:

"Oui, oui -j'aime les pains au chocolat!"

At our mommy group, one of the speakers was a woman who started her own baby food company.  She passed around some samples so Juliet tried a few new foods.  She didn't seem to care for apple, but she really liked the butternut squash.

This morning, Juliet and I went to post-natal yoga.  Juliet was really well behaved (last time we went she was NOT!) so it gave me a chance to do lots of yoga.  I was so proud of Juliet because she spent most of the 1-hour class on her tummy and was quite content.  Just a few months ago she hated tummy time, but now she doesn't mind it at all.  I am still waiting for her to flip from her tummy to her back, so I'm trying to give her lots of tummy time so that she has the opportunity to flip.

Grandma came over during the evening to spend some time with Juliet and give me a bit of a break so that I could run some errands.  Grandma took Juliet for a walk and played with her when we got home.  I think Juliet had a great time!

"Hair is fun to pull!"

Trick or Treat

Tonight was Halloween so we took Juliet trick or treating for the first time.  Well, not really.  We drove over to Chrissy and Trevor's and just trick or treated there.  And to be honest with you, even though Juliet was the one in costume, Leo and I ate the candy.  Such bad parents!

That's Chrissy's hand beside Juliet.  Chrissy was surprised to see us at her door but happy to see Juliet in her pink cat costume.

Juliet promptly fell asleep in the car on the way back from Chrissy's.  Which was nice because she hasn't been sleeping well lately.

Now that the countdown is on for our move to the new house, our weekends have become busier.  On Friday, grandpa came over to fix up some things in our condo to get ready for the move.  But he wasn't too busy to spend some quality time with Juliet.

I love this picture.

 On Saturday night, Leo and I went out for our anniversary dinner (3 years) and grandma came over to watch Juliet.  This is probably the longest I've been away from her - a little over 3 hours.  It ended up working out quite well and we had a lovely dinner at the same place where we had our pre-wedding dinner (the restaurant is called Wine Bar).  Grandma reported that Juliet was well behaved and ate some oatmeal cereal and had a little bit of expressed breastmilk from a sippy cup, so she wasn't starving or anything when we got home.  Grandma snapped some pics of her while she was babysitting:

Juliet has been sticking her tongue out and making a "THPPTPHTPHPHHPH" sound (classy, I know), so this picture is very à propos.

And on Sunday, we visited our house!  We went there with the guy who is doing our carpets so that he could take some measurements.  The lady that currently owns the house was there and she of course was so excited to see Juliet again - the last time she saw Juliet was the day we bought the house.  And we all know that Juliet was the one who sealed the deal.  Thanks, Juliet!  I hope you like our house when you grow up.

Juliet with Winkie, the lady who sold us our house.

Our Little Pumpkin

Ok, it's a bit early for Halloween, but in today's photo, Juliet is wearing an adorable Halloween sleeper that was given to her by her Great Aunt Pat.  It's really cute - it has little pumpkins on the feet, a big pumpkin on the bum, and a matching pumpkin hat.

The picture was taken this past weekend when we were visiting Anjana at her house in Waterloo.

Today was another busy day.  Juliet and I went to Yorkdale initially just to kill some time but we ended up going to the Bell kiosk and setting up all of our services (phone, internet, TV) for our new house.  Now that Bell bought the company I work for, I get a decent discount so it's Bell all the way for all of our services.  After that we went to Home Outfitters and bought some new sheets for our new king bed.  I wanted a second set of sheets, but they were all out of the ones I wanted so we ended up driving to another Home Outfitters in Scarborough so I could get the sheets.  Somehow between the Bell stuff and the Home Outfitters stuff, that took up the whole day AND I'm exhausted.  Oh, mat leave.  Somehow so simple yet so exhausting!