Week 44

The honeymoon is over. We have entered the separation anxiety phase big time. All of this week Liam has been far more clingly and screams his head off if I try to walk away. Makes dropping him off at daycare very interesting - I feel more sorry for Emily (our sitter) than anything else - on Monday Liam cried for an hour and a half until Ian finally arrived to relieve her. Welcome to the next few years of "leave me and you'll pay for it, I have lungs".

As I have mentioned before I do stupid things to keep my child happy. My latest stupid thing was to give him a full blister pack of gum - he absolutely loves chewing on it and hearing it crinkle. In an attempt to pit on some make up I sat him on the bathroom floor and gave him a pack to play with. I was halfway through brushing my lashes when he started to gag & drool and promptly spat a piece of gum out of his mouth. I raced him to the kitchen for a drink of water since he had now started to cry from the burny spearmint sensation. After a few gulps I managed to calm him down and then threw away the blister pack - he did have lovely minty fresh breath for the rest of the morning though. You would think that I would have learned my lesson but no - not even a few days later I have him a tube of toothpaste (another item that keeps him happy for ages) while in his car seat. We had only just left the house and were hurtling along towards the highway when I happened to do a check in the rear view mirror since he started fussing and realised that he had popped off the lid, stuck his finger in the toothpaste (spearmint flavour of course) and had taken a taste test which had not gone over well. I hit the brakes, wildly pulled off to the side of the road, jumped out of the car and yanked the toothpaste from his hands. This really made him angry and he started to scream - luckily he passed out a few minutes later - his screams drowned out by his happy songs cd and me singing B-I-N-G-O at the top of my voice.

The two front teeth have pushed out further and are still massive - I'm still not convinced that they will be of beaver quality but we'll see. At least they are out and he seems to be sleeping better, especially during the day - his naps are now anywhere from 1-2 hours at a time. Do you know how much I can get done in 1-2 hours? Tons!! I haven't had that kind of time to myself in 10 months. My abilty to do things in record speed is my forte. I almost get bored with that kind of time. Almost.

The crawling attempts are coming along well - he is improving on getting up on hands & knees but still moves around backwards. He is also starting to try & pull himself and apparently went for the buttons on the DVD player & cable box. And so the babyproofing blue prints are in progress - there is a lot of work to be done.....

Thursday I finally went for a hair appointment after months of wearing my mushroom cut hairdo in a ponytail. Fortunately my regular hairdresser was available and did an great job layering & trimming my locks while Liam sat on his playmat next to my chair and played happily with his toys (no gum packs or toothpaste I might add) for over an hour. As soon as he got fussy the receptionist came over and picked him up while still answering the phone and serving clients. Now that's service! I was really tempted to take him home with me (the receptionist I mean).....

Week 43

Happy Valentines Day! We decided to be different this year & went with an Italian Valentines theme. We each had to give the other an Italian gift & I made Ian an Italian dinner. Yes, you heard me - I cooked a meal. I can cook if I try to (with a little help from Mr. pre-packaged), I just don't like to admit it since I've become accustomed to my personal gourmet chef a.k.a. hubby making sumptuous meals for me the past 7 years. Why mess with a good thing? Anyway - I decided that this year I would pick up the spatula & surprise Ian with a 4 course meal. Made quite an effort too - luckily there is an Italian bakery as well as a specialty store nearby so I stocked up on easy to make but yet still authentic items & concocted a menu of bruschetta, boccocini cheese, basil & tomato salad, gnocci with tomato vodka sauce & a hedgehog gelato to end it all off. Ian was incrediby happy - thanks pre-cooked, instant in-a-jar foods! Liam dined on baguette pieces & boccocini cheese - unfortunately he wasn't so hot on the cheese & barfed it all back up so we went with Cheerios as backup and finished with strawberry dessert - yummy! For our gifts I gave Ian a Jamie Oliver in Italy cookbook, a bottle of Italian wine, Italian chocolates and pasta while I received 3 bath bombs in the Italian flag colours, chocolates & almond nougat & a purple sweater with a note attached depicting a story of how an Italian soccer team ended up with purple jerseys - interesting.... All in all it was a very nice Valentines!

Friday night Granny & Grandpa took Liam for a couple of hours so Ian and I could have a date night. I must say we really seem to appreciate eachother now that we have completely opposite schedules - I do miss our evenings together. We enjoyed some adult conversation over beer & wings (of course we talked about Liam for a good portion of the evening until the beers kicked in) followed by coffees - very relaxing. Liam had a core meltdown when we went to go & pick up up which instantly dissolved our relaxed state of mind - oh well, it was good while it lasted.

Last week was learn to crawl week & this week was learn to clap week. Saturday night seems to be the night of choice for doing something new - Ian was showing Liam how to clap & in true immitation mode he just started doing it - damn! I missed another milestone! He did clap for me on Sunday morning but that's not the point - Daddy once again got the front row tickets. I'll get my opportunity one day dammit - I've earned it after countless hours of being mommy! My kid owes me.

What I do get front row tickets to is the "oh so fun" teething show. Around Tuesday I noticed Sir. Drools-A-Lot starting to crazy chew on everything & after prying open his mouth (he's a strong little bugger) noticed four buds on the top gums. Holy geez what a nightmare few days! Eventually his gums split on Saturday (what is it with Saturdays?) and the two front started to push through (Daddy got to deal with the brunt of the screaming - ha ha!). The teeth are massive! Whoever made up that song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" is on crack. They look so huge I'm starting to have visions of my kid sporting big beaver buck teeth. He gnaws on things like he's a beaver already. I just have to keep telling myself my kid's not going to look like a beaver, my kid's not going to look like a beaver.............

Another first this week was an outing to the park at Beacon Hill to try out the swings - one of Liam's little buddies at Mommy group had given it a go and absolutely loved it so we figured we'd give it a try. Super hit! Liam laughed his head off the entire time - video and picture snapping was in order to capture the moment. Liam looked too cute with his tiny frame in the baby seat swinging back and forth while watching the bigger kids, drool runnning down his face. He loves to stick his toungue out and lick the air - very cute and very wet at the same time. So from now on park trips it is!

Since we are now finally over the last cold (although still coughing but not nearly as badly), we took Liam back to his bubble blowers swim lessons - I've dubbed it "snot blowers" since he seems to get sick everytime we have a lesson. Cross fingers "snot blowers" doesn't give us another round of pool cooties - I'll go off the deep end - literally!

Still "Offline"...thanks Future Shop (for nothing)

Just a quick update to let you know that we are sill "sans computer". Future Shop, the store of low prices and even lower standards of service, has taken a full week and a half to even get our computer "on the bench" and looked at. Surprise, surprise, the hard drive is toast (like we needed a tech to tells us that!). Of course, it will now take Future Shop a full three weeks to replace it. They need to order one in (because they just don't have any in stock in their 10,00 sq. ft. warehouse of a store??). The computer is less than a year old, however HP has a pretty sketchy record for returns due to manufacturer "defects" (now we find this out). Due to this being a warranty issue, we have no choice but to let the service-chalenged dimwits at FS feed us their seemingly endless excuses for the delay. Thus the blog will be rather sporadic for another few weeks by the look of things. The moral of the story - Future Shop sucks! Something everyone knows yet, rolls the proverbial dice on due to their uber-low prices. Next time we're buying local and giving the big-box-bozos a miss. For more horror stories visit: http://futureshopsucks.com/

ps. This message brought to you by Ian "I can't believe I bought another major electronics item from those ill-informed, under educated, neanderthal commissioned used car salesmen" Ward.

Week 42

We're all sick - Liam has a terrible cough & the nights of crappy sleep finally caught up to Ian & I and we both had to take days off work to recover. So it has been a more mellow week while we get through cold number who knows, I've lost count.

Liam's word of the week is "ma-ma" - I'd love to that it refers to me exclusively (in my defence he does look at me when he says it), but it seems that "ma ma" also refers to "give me food" or "give me boob" which basically comes back to me. He mumbles in garbled sentences & sounds like rain man (minus the hands hitting his head while rocking back & forth repeatedly). I'm looking forward to when he can actually tell me what he wants instead of me playing the guessing game. The catch of course is that once the talking starts, it won't ever stop so I can't win. Damn.

Relaxing bath time has recently turned into wet & wild fun park time where Liam enthusiastically hits the water as hard as he can soaking the entire bathroom floor. I now do a drop & run for cover manouevre where I sit him in the water and then flatten myself against the wall & wait for the onslaught. Somewhere inbetween the firing line I manage to get him clean. Ian is one step ahead of me as usual & has taken to wearing swim trunks - smart man. We have accumulated yet another bath toy (anything to keep our little man entertained) in the form of a watering can - anything that pours is fascinating to him. His favourite "toy" however is the polar bear shaped tap cover we got him for Christmas - it has holes in it for the tap spout & makes a great fill-up-then-pour-out-over-and-over-again play item as well as an excellent chew toy.

In the eating department we have now introduced toast with butter which is a huge hit - what kid doesn't love bread? At least we can still give him wholewheat until he discovers McDonalds all white sesame seed buns - then we're doomed. Darn the yellow arches.

In order to keep up with Liam's "It's been 20 minutes and I'm bored with my current toys entertain me with something else mommy" needs, we joined the local toy library. For $50 a year you borrow toys like you would at a library and save yourself hundreds of dollars while keeping your bundle of needs happy. Plus now we don't have to deal with constantly adding toys to Canada's wonderland a.k.a our livingroom.

Another big moment happened this week - Liam officially crawled on Sat night. Was I there to see it? Of course not! I was working but Daddy witnessed the event (I did get to see him do it today though). Apparently he slid himself backwards and was so enthusiastic he covered half the living room. Unfortunately the room is only so big and he promptly got stuck under the couch - Daddy was on the ball and caught it on camera before rescuing him.

And so it begins......

Week 41

Liam and I both have a cold. Again. It's like Ground Hog day - you just get over a round of snotty noses, coughing, humidifiers, steam showers and sleepless nights when it hits you again. I'm starting to feel like I'm sick more often than not. It's totally unavoidable, there are little germ bugs on everything & now that we're in daycare and swimming lessons & I work in germ central the only way to avoid being constantly sick is to become a complete germaphobe (way too much effort) or wear an airtight suit (not very attractive). The good news is that the more colds babies & toddlers are exposed to, the better prepared they are for school where all the serious cooties live. The bad news is that we still have 5 years to go before that happens.

Liam is into everything and he isn't even crawling yet. He's very agile & very destructive, especially where paper is concerned. He loves anything paper related, especially the part where you rip it to shreds & then try stuffing it into your mouth. His favourite paper products include; envelopes, book pages (the thinner the better), notepads & newspapers. Oh and tissue boxes with tissues inside. I made the mistake of giving him a box with a few tissues in it while trying to get some things done around the house. Kept him totally occupied for about 20 minutes but at a price. Before you could say "destructive", Liam had stuck his chubby little hand inside the box, yanked out all the tissues, ripped them to shreds and tossed them around him. It was a tissue war zone. Serves me right for providing him with messy entertainment. Oh well, at least he got 20 minutes of sheer "rip it up" exhiliration. They need to invent edible paper for babies. Maybe tasty treat books (read 'em, rip 'em & eat 'em).

Speaking of eating, I've been giving Liam small chunks of food & trying to get him to put them into his mouth by immitating me. It paid off - on Wed morning I put some Cheerios on his tray while he sat in his high chair and after a minute or two he picked one up & stuffed it into his mouth using his two fingers and then the palm of his hand (good shovelling tool). I started jumping up and down & clapping my hands which made him laugh. So he kept doing it and I kept jumping till my legs started to hurt. Another proud mommy moment! Of course I took pics as well as some video for memories.

So the past few dyas I've been experimenting with all sorts of soft chunks - the menu so far includes bananas, mangoes, strawberries, bread, rice and peas & corn (stills gags a bit with those but we're getting there). Rice crispies are a favourite in the cruchy department & keep him well occupied since they are small and require more concentration. His chewing capabilities have greatly improved now that tooth #3 has sprouted on the bottom - no sign of top teeth yet, but he is drooling a bit more than normal so they're coming. Daddy came to the drool rescue and brought home some vanilla teething biscuits that you can freeze & then gnaw on to your hearts content. Mostly Liam just sucks on the biscuit, gets bored & launches it over the side of his chair where he watches it land on the floor. In fact, most of the food items we give him land on the floor, get smooshed around the tray (I've started pulling up his sleeves like he's about to take on a major art project) or end up in some other crevice other than his mouth. By the time meal time is over it's a battle zone of rice crispies, cheerios & miscellaneous food chunks. In comes the new Shark vacuum cleaner we purchased on Friday. Our old vacuum cleaner couldn't take the heat anymore and we had to step up the suck. Between the new vacuum and countertop dishwasher cleanup is waaaay easier & my sanity stays in tact. I can live with the occasional trampling on an unsuspecting Cheerio.

We have acquired a new sippy cup with a snap open & close staw that works way better than the current sippy cup we've been using. I noticed that Liam loves sucking juice through the straws in my juice boxes & after seeing Caleb (play date buddy from last week) sipping quite easily out of his straw sippy cup I got Ian to pick one up. Works like a charm! In a couple of days he has learned how to hold the cup & sip through the straw himself although he still has a bit of trouble with controlling the flow of liquid coming up the straw but he'll learn. In the meantime we'll have to deal with a few gags & red eyes when too much water goes down the pipe too quickly. Just as long as he doesn't vomit up chunks we're all good!