Week 27

Liam is fast becoming a seasoned traveller - we just returned a few hours ago from a nice, relaxing 4 days in Whistler where Ian had a conference at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, a lovely typical ski resort hotel at the base of Blackcomb Mountain. After settling in we decided to venture out in search of dinner and quickly found out that we had forgotten to bring Winter jackets - dumb city folk that we are - in about 5 minutes we were freezing our asses off (Liam was fortunately well prepared thanks to Mommy and was bundled up like a snowman). So the dinner mission turned into a "I've gone completely numb and need a jacket right now I don't care how much it costs"mission. Luckily I found a nice down puffy number in about the third store we walked into and was warm & toasty in no time. Unfortunately Ian didn't find anything but he's like a seal and far more likely to survive in such cold conditions. Plus he has way more body hair than I do. After a nice pasta dinner and some wine we headed back to the hotel and tried to put Liam into his hotel crib which looked more like a jail cell with its stark white metal bars. Being used to more upscale digs he refused to settle down and eventually rolled to the edge and got stuck in the bars. So he was promptly removed from his cell and into a much nicer queen size bed. Of course this meant that one of us had to sleep with him so we took shifts and ended up sleeping in separate beds the entire time - how romantic. Made no difference to the length of time Liam slept which is still every 3-4 hours. Sucky. Not even a huge plush queen size bed could lull him into longer la la land. His internal clock is simply programmed to wake up at precisly between 3-4 hours and he's ravenous by then. We have decided to start upping the calories during the day to see if that will help since the breastmilk is definitely not cutting it.

Fri morning we went out for a walk & saw a black bear grazing for berries on the mountain - apparently she has a couple of cubs but they were stashed away in the nearby trees. Not wanting to become a food source we kept our distance but it was still cool to see - we got so used to bears when we lived in Whistler it was hardly a big deal but after a few years of being away the novelty was back. Speaking of cubs while Ian went back to his conference I met up with my girlfriend Kristal and her baby Kamryn who is 3 weeks younger than Liam - Kristal and I used to work together in Whistler and have kept in touch ever since I left. It's amazing how much more advanced little girls can be with development. While size wise Kamryn and Liam are a pound apart, Kamryn already has 5 teeth while Liam is Mr. Gummy and has yet to produce a tooth. Kamryn is also drinking out of a sippy cup and has tried more foods. Liam is a boob boy and not too fond of solid foods so far. They did attempt to hold hands which was rather cute - other than that they just kind of checked each other out & didn't say much (probably couldn't get a word in edgewise with their mommies yabbering away and catching up). After a few desserts for lunch (I'm not the only one with a sweet tooth) we met up with Ian on his break and hit the village for some shopping & to hook up with Aunty Jo. Since it was so cold we got Liam the cutest Helly Hansen toque which was more of a hit than the wool hat with flaps Ian brought back from Toronto (although the flap hat is just gorgeous and worth the fussing). We were sorely tempted to get the Helly Hansen ski jacket but figured we'd wait on that one and see how big he gets first. Helly Hansen is not cheap! After a day of shopping around & Ian being in and out of his conference we rather beat so we stayed in and ordered pizza & conked out early (huge party people that we are).

Saturday Ian finished up after lunch so we went back to do - yes you guessed it - some more shopping and ended up picking up some warm mittons for Liam (I was on a roll with the warm items), a pair of Adidas shoes (size 3 - soooo adorable & expensive - oh well - soooo adorable) and a nice Helly Hansen fleece jackey for Ian. What can I say - we like Helly Hansen. Then it was off to the spa for me while Ian & Liam went for a swim and had some mano a mano time. While I enjoyed a manicure and an eyebrow/eyelash tint (so I don't have to wear makeup every day but still look like a have makeup on) they hit the health club and then went for a walk in the village. Was wonderful to have some alone time and be pampered - I really need to do that more often! After oozing my way out of the spa we sat in the lounge near the big fire place and enjoyed a light dinner & drinks to live music. Liam seemed to enjoy the atmosphere and high pitched squealed at the top of his lungs. Felt kind of sorry for the snuggly romantic couple on the couch next to us but oh well - such is life when you have a little tike that likes to exercise his lungs.

This morning we decided to wake up at the crack of dawn and catch the early ferry back over to the island so we could do some more shopping (because we hadn't shopped enough you know). 4 hours of travelling & 4 hours of shopping plus 2 hours of travelling back to Victoria later we were once again beat (gee I wonder why). I'm improving in the amount of stuff I travel with and only three quarters of the car was full this time (shopping included). I managed to only pack 50 diapers, 12 outfits, one bag of toys, 4 blankets, 1 stroller, 1 bouncy chair, 4 colourful tugboats, baby wash & 10 cloths and cereal with Winnie-The-Pooh cereal bowl. That's a big improvement in my books. Plus of course we accummulated a fair amount of items while on our shopping spree. Not only did we pick up the items in Whistler, we bought the remaining pieces of Liam's Christmas outfit which takes cute to a whole new level. While in Toronto Ian bought him little grey wool pants with matching argyle sweater & the little flap hat - we saw the exact same store in Nanaimo today and couldn't resist adding the plaid tie, plaid socks, plaid sport hat & shiny black shoes. He is going to look so gorgeous everyone is going to want to eat him up. Thank God I have a 1 GB card in my camera - I'm going to go trigger happy for sure.

While away I suddenly realized that it had been about 5 days since Liam had a "bowel movement" - they say babies can go about a week before it needs attention. I started having visions of trying to put a suppository where the sun don't shine which did not appeal to me at all when we finally pulled into the driveway and while walking up to our doorway smelled something that resembled bad sewage. Thinking that the neighbours across the street were draining the toilet in their RV I ignored the smell until we got inside where the smell was worse. After eyeballing the cat to see if maybe he hadn't cleaned his own ass properly Ian flipped Liam over and noticed the all too familiar brown stain oozing through his baby blue Winnie-The-Pooh pants. It smelled so bad we were both gagging and Ian took off claiming that he needed to bring in our stuff and leaving me to deal with the blowout of the century. A week's worth of back up has to top my list of the worst poo to date. While trying to take his sodden diaper off the poo smeared all down his leg and I started yelling for Ian to help me. Fat chance - Ian passed me paper towel from a good distance while gagging at the same time. Since I was laughing and gagging at the same time (it was seriously the grossest thing I've done in a long time) I got Ian to take a photo which he did with one arm over his nose. Eventually we got the diaper and pants off and hauled Liam into the shower where we rinsed off his entire lower half, soaped him down and rinsed him off again. Unfortunately 5 minutes later we had an after shock off poo flow but it wasn't nearly as bad as the earthquake preceding it. I guess it's safe to say we are officially not backed up anymore and we are never going to feed him meat. Ever.

Week 26

We have officially hit the 6 month mark - half a year already - where did it go? Seriously, I feel like a just blinked and all of a sudden I have a cooing, smiling, interactive pink fleshy blob. He looks so much more like a little boy now than a baby. It's all going by too fast - I can see the "mom can I have $50" and "mom - you're so not cool" already. Thank God for this weekly blog or I'd never remember the day to day stuff.

We have finally recovered from the flu - unfortunately for Liam he was promptly carted off to the clinic today for his 6 month shots which had to be cancelled while he was sick. Luckily there were only 2 shots - he had a reverse reaction this time and didn't squeak much while the shots were being administered but screamed murder right afterwards. Then he glared at the male Russian nurse who gave him the shots which made me feel far less guilty and fell asleep about 2 minutes later. Next set of shots are not due for another 6 months and that should be fun - toddlers freak out way worse than babies - you can hear them screaming the loudest and longest. That's when mommy will yank out a treat from her purse and call the nurse bad to make herself feel better.

We have missed 2 weeks of swimming lessons thanks to the flu but have created fun land in the bathroom for bath times with the addition of 3 squirty animals and 4 colourful tugboats. In an effort to remain organized I picked up one of those bath toy hampers which adds flare to our adult oriented bathroom environment. I am slowly losing the battle to the tiny toys that keep my child entertained. I can only imagine what the place will look like in another 6 months. Liam loves his toys - of course the squirting is done by me while he slams his hands on the tugboats and sinks them. Simple but effective technique that boy has.

Daddy has left us for Toronto where he has been on a conference for the past week - sad thing is that we've been more lovey dovey with pukey "I love you and miss you" emails than we have the past half a year. Funny how you drive each other up the wall and bicker constantly from sleep deprivation and the minute one of you leaves, it's back to love town. My mom and sister agreed to stay with me while he's been away which has helped tremendously - I don't think I could play the single mom game for an entire week - I'd go batty. As it is Liam is still not sleeping as well as I'd have hoped, but he is getting better and does 3-4 hour stretches now. As soon as we get back to more than 5 hours I'll be ducky. We are off to Whistler this Thurs till Sunday for another conference (what can I say, Daddy is a busy man) and then we are finally moving Liam to his nursery. Yes, the time has come - he's a big boy now and mommy will get over it.

So while Daddy has been away, my mother took a look at my wardrobe and declared that I was completely drab. She has a point - all I wear is black, brown, blue or the occasional pink. So this weekend she hauled me off to the mall and I bought an entirely new wardrobe of colourful shirts in 2 hours flat. I must admit it felt great to burn some money on myself - does wonders for the self esteem. In celebration of the new me, I ceremoniously threw all my old preggie undies in the garbage - I wanted to burn them but figured a bonfire in my living room was probably not the safest idea. My mother had seen my underwear drawer and freaked out - it's kind of embarassing when your mother's undies are way sexier than yours. So we overhauled that dept too and Ian should be a happy man upon his return (although I doubt he's going to go up to his mother in law and say thanks for making his wife's underwear sexier). Apparently he's been doing some shopping himself and got Liam and I a few designer items. Yipee - bring it on! I'm a yummy mummy now!

Week 25

The baby is sick, I'm sick, Ian's (slightly) sick, Aunty Caylin is sick. The only person in the house who is not sick is Granny Ev who seems to have some super human immune system (or maybe it's the fact that she's been through so many bouts of colds she's built up a resistance to just about all strains). Around Tues we noticed that Liam was starting to cough and didn't want his rice cereal which he usually loves. On Wed I carted him off to the doc for a check up as he had gotten worse - apparently he has a virus and there is not much you can do except give infant Tylenol and use a humidifier to help with the enormous amounts of snot. By Thurs Aunty Caylin came home from school sick and Liam had progressed to a nastier cough & more snot. By Fri I was looking after both Liam and Caylin while nursing my own progressing virus. Yesterday & today just sucked. I thought the past couple of weeks were rough with the lack of sleep and broken finger - it was nothing compared to "virus week". Liam has been just miserable - his cough has gotten worse each day, he keeps sneezing large green boogers out his tiny nostrels, his eyes are red and puffy and to add the cherry on the top he has lost his voice due to inflamation of his vocal chords. It's heartbreaking to see him fuss and cry and nothing coming out of his mouth except a flat wheezy noise. 9am this morning we were back at the doc for another check up - can never be too paranoid in my opinion. The humidifier has been cranked creating a greenhouse effect in the house - Friday night our room was so tropical water was dripping from the walls, everything was damp and Ian was lying butt naked on top of the bed covers like a glistening starfish. We've had sicky poo propped up on an angle sleeping between us - both Ian and I wake up alternatively throughout the night checking on his breathing which gets quite shallow. There was no doubt that we would get sick, there's not much you can do when your child needs to be held and clings to you like a little mollusk for comfort. Everyone said it would suck when your baby first gets really sick and they were right. It sucks BIG TIME. Plus sources say it can take up to 2 weeks for a baby to get over a bad flu. Lovely. Plus my doc happened to mention that the next 5 years are the worst for colds. Even better. Bring on the snot I say. I'm stocked with extra tissue boxes and snot bags as I call them (for disposing of snotty tissues). There are several around the house since all of our noses are running and we keep sneezing. I've noticed my mom hasn't complained about the cold since we've created a Dominican environment in the comfort of our home thanks to the humidifier. The plants are going to start multiplying at this rate and creating their own jungle like Little Shop of Horrors.

Not much else to report - this week has been all about snot and tears. In the short moments when I've managed to peel sicky poo off me I've managed to get him in his jolly jumper for a bit of bouncing. He loves the jolly jumper and is an accomplished little bounder - gets some good air time. He's like a little russian dancer - does one foot at a time and then just gives her with both feet when he wants to bounce higher. Jolly jumping gives me at least half an hour of time to get a few things done which is fabulous. Another thing that Liam loves that buys me time is stuff that crinkles - everything and anything crinkly he goes for - right down to a simple water bottle. Forget all the expensive stuff - a $10 Winnie-The-Pooh crinkle book (his favourite toy right now - has crinky pages with all the characters & the ends of the pages double as teething pieces) and a $2 empty plastic water bottle (yummy to squeeze & gum on) and we're good to go.

I've had a couple of therapy sessions with the postpartum councellor - this week we talked about my inability to relax and my constant strive to have a perfect house. I'm always cleaning or running around doing something housework related and yet I never seems to be satisfied - there always seems to be something else that needs to be done. She informed me this gets worse as kids get older and that I need to learn to let things go - not an easy task since I've been anal for as long as I can remember. The fact that I never relax or take time to rest when Liam is resting is the reason I am so exhausted (plus the fact that I've been having crappy nights of sleep for 3 weeks now). My mind never stops racing, day or night and I constantly worry about everything - no wonder I have lots of meltdowns. Basically the therapist has given me some coping strategies and exercise to put into practice to address the thoughts I have. I also got a book she recommended called "Women Who Worry Too Much" which is amazing. It's like looking at myself in a mirror - everything the book describes about being a person who worries is me to a tee. By facing the sources of my worry and working through them I'll hopefully be able to get my worry under control in time - of course I'm worried about how I'll be able to do that but I'm sure I'll figure it out!

Weeks 23 & 24 - Happy Thanksgiving

Ok, so I'm a little behind on the blogging end of things - its been a rough couple of weeks. Good thing we went away and got some R&R since its all gone to hell since we got back home. The routine has been completely disrupted and we have not had a good nights sleep in 2 weeks now. Not sure what happened, but somewhere between Punta Cana and Victoria a switch flipped and Mr. Sleepy decided to become "Mr. I'm-going-to-wake-up-every-couple-of-hours-and-drive-my-parents-over-the-deep-end". At first we thought it was because he had a bad cold and the congestion and coughing kept waking him up, but after the cold got better, the bad sleep gig continued. So we decided maybe it was time to introduce the solids (more about that later), but that did not seem to make a difference either. So the final consensus is that we are going though a "phase" and there is not much else we can do about it except wait it out and hope that eventually it will pass and we'll be back in la-la-land. In the meantime I'll continue to drink strong cups of Dominican coffee and cry my eyes out from sheer exhaustion.

Last week Wed Granny Ev and Aunty Caylin arrived back from the Dominican after almost a year of being away - must say it's nice to have them around for the extra babysitting. They are staying with us until they find a place so we have lots of help at the moment. As I said above we started the solids on Thurs last week beginning with every baby's favourite; good 'ol rice cereal. The first couple of teaspoons Liam made a weird expression, but all in all it was an instant hit. We hauled out the high chair and now feed him the cereal for breakfast and dinner. Someone should have seriously warned me how messy feeding a 6 month old can be. Of course all he wanted to do was grab the spoon and on route to the mouth would flick the fully loaded cereal right back at me covering both of us in sticky white stuff. I should have saran wrapped myself before attempting the whole feeding thing to begin with. Even with a bib and a face cloth the stuff gets everywhere - usually most of it doesn't make it into the mouth so we play Buzz Buzz spoon to get Liam to open his mouth so we can shovel in as much as possible before he spits half of it out and it runs down his chin. My type A personality just isn't good with this kind of mess but I'm fighting a losing battle and have resorted to cleaning him up only when we're done eating instead of obsessively compulsively wiping his face after every spoonful which only annoys him. Daddy has a natural knack for feeding & somehow manages to avoid getting cereal all over himself. Plus Liam seems to listen to him and has much more control of getting the spoon into his mouth. Bugger. A week after introducing the rice cereal we went to sweet potato - this was not a hit. After a few teaspoonfuls and a "yuck" face, Liam progressed to all out gagging. Three separate attempts later the gagging turned into crying and we have chalked a NO to sweet potato. This week we are on to carrots - we'll see how that goes.

Of course what's coming out of the other end now that we are officially on solids is worth an honourable mention. I was always warned that solid food poos were gross, but I had no idea how gross. It's worse than gross - it's downright "I need a puke bucket next to the diaper genie" disgusting. We went from somewhat-stinky-but-bearable to what-the-hell-is-that-smell-oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-barf. The poo literally turns dark green and is just plain nasty. The frequency of the poos decreases with solid foods as well and is replaced with equally nasty farts. Your bundle of joy goes from "ooooh he just did a toot" to "god my kid just reeks!". Can't wait till we start meat - I may have to invest in a gas mask.

Above the belt lets talk about breastfeeding and what it does to your boobs. Liam has always had a preference for the bigger left boob and eventually over the months I've been breastfeeding,the smaller right boob or "little boob" as I affectionately call it got a complex and started producing less and less milk. Well over the past couple of weeks little boob gave up the ghost and stopped producing milk altogether leaving the bigger boob to do all the work. That wouldn't be such a big deal except that the size difference between the twin peaks is huge. I'm about ready to run away and join the circus. Better start saving $5,000 for the boob doctor.......To make matters worse Liam likes to slap me hard while he's feeding - nothing like being beaten up by your 6 month old. We figure he's going to have a preference for lop sided breasts when he grows up. You know what they say about boys being attracted to women who remind them of their mothers....

So if it wasn't enough that I'm completely exhausted, I had to go and add an injury to the mix. On Wed morning (a day I should have had 2 cups of coffee instead of just one) I had just put Liam in his car seat as we were taking Ian to work when I slammed the car door and accidentally left my right pinky finger behind. After about a second I screamed blue bloody murder and after extracting my finger started bleeding all over the driveway. Ian ran inside to grab wet wipes (always handy) and a bag of frozen peas and 10 minutes later we arrived at the hospital emergency. Felt kind of stupid with my bleeding pinky, but I was in a lot of pain and fighting the urge to vomit everywhere. After being admitted and waiting for 2 hours Liam got hungry and I had the challenging task of whipping out a boob with one hand while holding the still bleeding pinky up in the air. Nurses were giving me an odd look as they walked by - must have looked pretty funny. An x-ray later it was revealed that I had a fracture and needed a splint for a couple of weeks. Lovely. Try changing a diaper at 3am in the dark with a broken finger - it's not fun. Plus Liam is totally facinated by the splint and keeps trying to grab it. Yes - it does hurt. The biggest bummer is that I cannot get the finger wet for 2 weeks and have to miss Liam's swimming lessons. Which brings us to the next "what's new in Liam's world" topic.

Last Thurs we started lessons at Crystal Pool around the corner for us. The group Liam is in is called Starfish and goes from 4 months to 18 months. He absolutely loves it! The group sings songs, plays games and basically gets the babies comfortable in water. Last week Ian dunked Liam under the water a couple of times - he blew into his face and when he took a breath in under he went. The first time he was shocked, but ok; the second time he freaked out and started bawling. We'll have to work on that one. I stood on the side and got trigger happy - photos attached of course.

Liam is in the "explore everything with my mouth" phase big time. If he can grab it, it goes in the yap. His teeth seems to be bugging him a lot now too and he constantly gums on his teething toys. I've been giving him baby Orajel to help with the pain and itching and wondered why he always made such a face when we initially put it on his gums. So I decided to pop some in my own mouth and see what it felt like. After the initial firey burn (explains the shocked expression) my whole mouth went completely numb. Unfortunately I forgot that I still had some Orajel on my finger and went to wipe some chocolate milk off the top of my lip. 5 seconds later my lips and mouth were numb and I started to drool. Serves me right for taste testing baby products.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Ian's boss sent us a gorgeous bouquet of flowers - unfortunately we put Liam's little chair next to the vase and he managed to yank the heads off a few of the daisies while we weren't looking. Ian eventually noticed the flower stash hidden underneath his legs. Thank goodness he didn't shove them in his mouth - can't have been all that appetizing to him!