A girls' week

xxoo.S

Mother's Day

We spent the weekend in Kingston visiting with the Grandma's for Mother's Day. I love to get home to visit family - and really, it's only 2 hours away - but it was tiring. Very, very tiring. No more lengthy car rides for me for a while...

My Mother's Day bouquet Maddie brought home from daycare on Friday.

xxoo.S

Kid-free

With the Hubs away on a weekend fishing trip (it's opening season of Pickerel and he has strict instructions not to return home empty-handed!), we decided it would be a great weekend for Maddie to go visit her grandparents while I stayed home. It's meant to be a relaxing weekend for me, but of course I made a list within minutes of these plans falling together, of all the things I want to get accomplished.

I love my lists.

Except at the end of the weekend when I look and see only 1 or 2 things crossed off.

But I'd say as long as one of those items crossed off is "paint the effing nursery" then I will have gotten my job done. Because aren't you tired of listening to me talk about how I need to paint my nursery... how it's going to get done THIS weekend... how I MUST make sure we finish it that week?  Yes, me too.

Well, I'm happy to report the first coat is up. The blue coat. And it's.... bright. (This is a nice way of saying that a Caribbean sea snuck in the nursery window and threw up all over the walls).

I was going for "tiffany box blue" ... something in the realm of light turquoise-blue and less "baby-boy-boring-nursery-blue".

Well. I succeeded in it not being boring.

Am hoping that just the first coat is drying so dark because I am painting over a putrid peachy-beige colour (that inhabits almost every wall in our entire house, and will get painted over in the next year because h.a.t.e.). So maybe the dark base is making the first coat seem a little..... bright?

And yes - I realize you usually use a primer in these cases - but all these fancy new paints have "primers built in" - so you think you're saving yourself a step.


All said, I fear I may be having colour-remorse. We'll see - I don't think I can make a decision until the second coat is up and the wainscoting is painted white.

Would love to show a pic of what I mean, but we have well and truly lost our camera. I've search high and low and I think it's been left behind somewhere or another. Which sucks, as for a point-and-shoot that was over 5 years old, it really was a fabulous camera (Panasonic Lumix). BUT this means since we're in the market to buy a new camera now, that I'm looking at all the fancy DSLR models. Because, why not, right? Welcome any suggestions!

xxoo.S

We were ready for you long weekend!

With the in-laws confirmed as built-in helpers and babysitters, we made the commitment - this weekend was:

BIG. GIRL. BEDROOM. WEEKEND.

Oh that's right - it needs the caps.

We took advantage of the outrageously gorgeous weather and painted up a storm in the garage. With the door up. As people walked by, looking on suspiciously, at an enormously pregnant woman painting a dresser.

It's low VOC paint people! I am safe! I am thoughtful of my little unborn sprog! I promise! 

I didn't really yell this at them. But I wanted to. Oh how I wanted to...

So... drumroll please... it's done. The deed is done. She slept in her big girl bed for a nap and all of last night. She doesn't seem to understand yet that she is fully able to escape the bed, should she wish to do so, at any time. AND THAT'S FINE BY US!

We caught the entire "unveiling" on video for all eternity, and if I ever find some spare time, I will post that - because the squeal of delight she gave upon entering the room was flippin' fantastic. And made it ALL worth while. As did her repeating "you turned it over" with a massive smile on her face, while she opened and closed every drawer of the dresser about 50 million times. For the record - "turned it over" means (we think) you changed over my room. Not that we literally turned shit upside down. Because, duh - clearly that's not what she meant. (That's totally what I thought she meant at first, and I was all - no, everything is it's right place. Oh, you don't mean literally? Right - I'madumbass.)

It still needs some art on the walls - but I need to figure that out. And get some paint to cover up the patching of a few holes. And find a bed skirt, because who thinks about a bed skirt in all the planning? But here's the pics anyways...

Zee fancy white iron bed that I covet and wish I could be 10 years old again for... 

thank you Costco!

My childhood dresser, that was someone else's before it was mine. 

It has been blue, pink, white, stripped + varnished, and now painted again. 

With new hardware. Dontcha just love the lil pink glass knobs?

Her reading "nook". Again - can I tell you how jealous I am of her room? 

Because dude. I want a reading nook.

The infamous chandelier for the closet. 

Adorable, perfectly sized, and matches the dresser hardware perfectly.

She likes it.

xxoo.S

The hard graft weekend

After spending a week in Kingston, away for the March break visiting Grandma & Grandpa V, our little Miss M was lovingly returned to us Friday afternoon.

We celebrated by zipping out to a Raptor's game and leaving her with the Grandparents for the evening, yet again.

Oh Maddie - we love you. But we also loved our platinum seats (although the game was less than loved - they took a bad beating).

That's okay - we had vowed to stick close to home for the rest of the weekend. And stick we did - in the garage. Cutting mitre joints out of the tiniest mouldings you ever did see. I shouldn't say "we" as I left the cutting and measuring up to the Hubs and his dad. I did join them at Home Depot to buy supplies. And I had done all the measuring for the room weeks ago. So I feel like I did my part. And Hubs got to play with his saw. And learn stuff. And hang out with his dad.


But I did help with the installation and the mudding and sanding. The result is looking fairly spectacular (if we do say so ourselves) even without the paint or any furniture.

For the record - wainscoting (or really "trick-the-eye-mouldings-in-the-shape-of-proper-wainscoting") is not impossible or even all that tough. But it IS time-consuming. Like several evenings of measuring and leveling and drawing out all those boxes on the walls. Then many hours measuring and cutting and measuring and cutting. And more hours spent gluing and mudding and sanding. But the results we are more than happy with.

Now our focus is back on Miss Maddie's room. Her "big girl" room. We have the bedding. We have the bed. We have (some of) the furniture painted. Now we just wait for the knobs to arrive through customs. And paint a few frames for some wall hangings. And then it's set up time.

Once she gets settled into her room and doesn't miss her crib anymore, then progress will begin again on the nursery.  Since she was already calling the nursery (while we were working in this weekend), "Maddie's big room", I'm pretty sure we should make sure she loves her room first to avoid any pre-emptive jealousy.

And what's not to love? As of this weekend her walk-in closet features a newly installed pink crystal chandelier (another project checked off with help from Grandpa). I would show you pictures, but let's wait until we actually have things set up for you to see it in all it's glory.

And last but not least, we are also proud owners of a functional doorbell once again.

As exhausting as "project" weekends are - don't you love that fulfilled feeling of accomplishment when you collapse onto the sofa on the Sunday night?

xxoo.S

The weekend, the battle of wills, and an evening sans bebe

We spent the weekend in Kingston - visiting the grandparents, including spending a day at my dad's cottage (which is actually a house, as it's winterized and is where he lives, but for some reason is still called the cottage, and anyways.....).

The day at the cottage wasn't as warm as we would have liked, but it didn't rain - so that was good. We spent the day outside - Maddie playing with all my old toys. That was a bit trippy, as I had barely remembered the toys - until of course I saw them again! Vintage Fisher Price is awesome - they just don't make toys so compact (choking hazard?) or with so many little pieces and bits (again, choking hazard?).

There was the classic A-Frame house with all sorts of little bits and pieces included.

And (this was the biggest hit with Maddie) there were Sesame Street Little People .... including her fave - ERNIE!

I was a bit nostagic seeing Mr. Hooper again - because, sad right? He's been dead for a while I think...

And then there was the pull horse - another big hit with Maddie.

She was pushing herself foward and backwards up and down the deck. And we adopted a bit of a vintage parenting attitude for the day - letting her just roam around instead of hovering over her to ensure she didn't push herself right off the deck (she didn't, and she had a blast - so lesson learned? Lighten up a bit and just let her play.)...

There were tonnes of other toys, puzzles and dolls that they had kept in storage as well. It was fun to pick through and go down memory lane a bit.

The only stickler to the visit to Kingston was Maddie's reluctance to take an afternoon nap. And by reluctance, I mean full-on army-trained resistance to the Nth degree. She sobbed and cried everytime I tried to put her down - regardless of how tired she was. I'm really hoping she's not trying to drop the afternoon nap, as um, she's not even 2 yet.

Since we had to work Mon-Tues of this week, but were coming back down to Kingston to spend a few more days with familly for the holiday and remainder of the week, we decided to leave Maddie down with her grandparents, while we enjoyed a few days sans child. We're working, so it's not too exciting, but we did hit up dinner and a movie last night. Movie = The Hangover, possibly the funniest movie I have seen, ever, in my lifetime. So do I recommend you go see it? Hell, yes.

Tonight we have plans to do a BBQ at a friend's house - hopefully anyways, as long as the rain holds off. It's funny how easily you can fall back into the pattern of free-wheeling, come-and-go-as-you-choose behaviour...

Life is a lot easier to manage without a little ankle-biter running around, but I keep getting a little pang of loneliness when I walk past her empty room. From all accounts though, she's having a blast at Grandma's, and I (hope) will be very happy to see us on Wednesday morning...

xxoo.S

PS - Canada Day pics will come tomorrow - she has the cutest damn dress you ever did see - let's just hope it doesn't rain...

Gardening hell with a little shopping thrown in

I like owning a house. It's fun to sleep on a different floor from where I eat. And it's awesome to have an outside space to call my own. Other than a 6 foot by 2 foot balcony hovering somewhere at smog level.

But oh, how much harder this gardening is. Because when I lived in my little smog-level apt, I could throw a few begonias in a box, sprinkle some dirt and call it a day. They lived (sort of) throughout the summer, and the 5 minutes a day that I sat on that crowded little balcony, I enjoyed them.

Now that we have Miss 'SIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE (did that convey the essence of the whine in her voice when she wants to go outside?) we're outside all the time. And that's cool. Because that was one of the selling points Hubby used in his sales speech to get me up to the boondocks. Cue sales speak:

"You're always saying we never go outside and just enjoy ourselves. Now we'll be able to go outside every.single.day if you want to!"

And I did. I do. I like living outside in the warmer months, it's what I've always done and I get a little stir crazy if I'm stuck inside when the weather is gorgeous outside.

Except when you own a house, being outside and enjoying it means you have to make it look pretty. Otherwise you're just outside with constant reminders everywhere you look about how lazy you are, and damn, how nice is that neighbour's lawn?

And so, these past 5 days, while I was on holidays and Maddie was home and my mom was down visiting, that's what I did. I gardened. And I planted flowers. And I dug up flowers. And planted rhubarb. And mulched. And weeded. And and and...

My side garden with the new perennials is still looking pretty sad and forlorn. But the front and back gardens (which really? are just weird bushes that I don't know the names of and some wood chip - how can so little be so much work?) are looking pretty bloody fantastic. 

Oh, and the tip to mulching? Stamp it down after you put it down. So it sticks. Because otherwise it blows all over the neighbour's yard and you look like a jackass trying to clean it up. Just saying...

In other news, Mom and I bought out the Please Mum store during our shopping excursion. And then bought out Old Navy. And then went to Once Upon a Child to buy more - because you know, she needed more.

Hilariously, Maddie's name for my Mom is "Bucky". Where she got this from, I have no idea. But it makes me chuckle a little bit each time she says it. Because it's said in this loud (I-know-no-volume-control) child's voice that screeches the end into a question - like BUCK-YYYYYY????Fairly hilarious, must get it on video before that fades.

I love when family (or friends) visit and become amazed at how much Maddie has progressed since they last saw her. Even if it was only a week ago. 

Of course I'm like, I KNOW right, she's a flipping genius! But it is pretty amazing how much stuff they learn in such a short period of time. Like sentences. Last week she was just saying Mommy's car-car. Now she says, "all done", "no milk, Maddie juuuuuuiiiiceee - yesh yesh, please Maddie juice", and "snuggle-buggle". 

Okay, I realize the last one doesn't qualify as a sentence, but this is pretty much the cutest thing she says. We've been giving her snuggle-buggles at at bedtime for months and she now says it when she wants a cuddle. You could die from the cuteness of it all. DIE I tell you.

And lastly, she reads along with her books now. "Moo Baa La la la" to be specific. She makes all the sounds the animals make. Another must for that video machine that I let gather dust far too much. You'll see this and your heart will melt.

Um - okay, a gardening/weekend update post has morphed into proud-mommy-dearest-hell. And we're through here...

xxoo.S

The partaaaayyy

So we had Miss Maddie's birthday party on Sunday - and it was a success to say the least.  My main concern was how Maddie was going to weather all the attention and people, and I'm glad we kept it small, as I think she was close to the breaking point a few times.

Everyone was very generous and there were lots of presents to open.  And Maddie was actually pretty interested in the opening presents part (with the help of her cousins, of course!).

After we finished opening presents and Maddie got a chance to play a bit (and the grownups got to eat a bit), we moved on to cake!  We stripped Maddie out of her party dress, down to her diaper, for the cake eating event - there was no way I was letting that pretty dress get ruined by the red icing!

I was pretty happy with the cake, and it was so worth all the work it was to see Maddie's face when I showed it to her.  She loves her Elmo!

We let her get a taste of icing before giving her a piece of cake with most of the icing scraped off (yes, mean Mommy) - she liked the cake, but not as much as the icing!

She had a great time at the party - and when everyone left - slept for almost 2 hours that afternoon!  

Thanks again to everyone for making the drive up for the party - it was definitely appreciated!

xxoo.S

PS - I can't believe I forgot to tell you how she looked like she was going to cry while we all gathered 'round and sang Happy Birthday.  She just kept staring at me the whole time, like "what the heck is happening mom?  please make it stop!" ... I guess it's hard to understand what really is going on at that age - luckily she got her mind off the attention by digging into the cake as soon as the singing was done ... here's a video of the action...

Been a while...

Wow - where did July go and how did August get here so quickly? I am officially on 'countdown' as the summer slips away and the days bring me closer and closer to heading back to work. To say I'm looking forward to that would be an outrageous lie, but you can't dread the inevitable, so I'm just trying to enjoy these last few days as much as humanely possible. Which also means we've been incredibly busy lately...

The weekend before last, my step-brother and his family came to visit us for the weekend. My nieces were so revved about getting out to Canada's Wonderland for the day - actually, I think the adults were just as excited to take them!

They arrived on Friday afternoon and Seth and Derek headed into the city to watch a Jays game, while all the 'girls' stayed home, ordered pizza and layed low. Saturday morning we were awokened by thunderstorms - not a great start to our Canada's Wonderland adventure... fortunately we decided to risk it and headed out anyways. Lucky for us, the rain tapered off just as we arrived at the park. We spent the first half of our day in the kids area, watching the girls ride (Auntie Sara joined them on a few rollercoasters). Even Maddie got to take a ride - we took her on the carousel!

The rest of the day was spent in the waterpark - really shows how long it's been since I've been there - I'd never seen it before and it's huge! We headed home late afternoon and bbq'd hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. The girls watched some of the Hannah Montana concert (in 3D no less!) while we finally got Maddie down to sleep.

The Thompsons left us just after breakfast on Sunday morning, and we spent the rest of the day trying to relax and recoup from all the activity. On Monday I headed out with Maddie for a visit to Kingston - we spent the week there visiting with a tonne of family and friends. Tuesday morning we headed out to my Dad's and Maddie took her first official dip in a lake!

She was enjoying herself until a boat went by and the waves kind of scared her. We visited with Stef and her little boy, Quinn on Wednesday afternoon and headed to Picton on Thurdsay for a craft show. Friday was spent shopping with Gramma Vallier (Maddie and Mommy got spoiled!).

Saturday was our big milestone day - I left Maddie for an overnight stay with Gramma Vallier while I joined Seth, Greg & Liz up at Greg's cottage for the night. From all accounts she was extremely well-behaved and while she didn't take a bottle, she did sleep pretty well.

On Sunday morning, Liz and I left the cottage and headed to Stefanie's house in Inverary for an overnight visit. It's so much fun to watch Maddie and Quinn play together - especially now that they're both mobile! We headed back out to the cottage Monday morning, so Maddie got to meet Greg's parents, and Maddie got to hangout in the sunshine and take another dip in the lake with her Daddy.

It was a busy busy week, and now we're just resting up in preparation for another busy week, as Mama Hat (Grandma Thompson) is headed up for a week-long visit as of this coming Saturday. August is going to be done before we know it!

I'll leave you with a few more pics of our roadtrip...

Maddie loves her rhubarb! Especially after a good dunking in the dog's water dish!

Me and Stef with our little ones!

After a dip in the lake with her Daddy. And check out the 2nd bottom tooth! (it made it's appearance on Friday)

There's lots more pics on our Flickr account - check them out if you have a chance.

xxoo.S

Clap clap clap

Chalk another one up for Maddie's milestones. Just before Grandma Thompson left yesterday, Maddie started clapping. She loves to clap at her various musical toys, especially her signing/dancing Elmo doll. He gets many encores.

So we had Grandma Thompson visiting for the weekend and it went by so fast! We did a bit of shopping on Saturday, Sunday we watched Daddy play baseball in the morning and that evening we cooked a turkey for dinner and had Greg and Liz over to share with us. Monday we did a bit more shopping and then Tuesday I made my first pie. So I guess I reached a milestone yesterday as well! It's strawberry/rhubarb and I don't know if it's any good yet as Seth hasn't been home long enough for us to share a piece (and I don't want to eat the first piece of my first pie all by myself!).

This weekend we're going camping. I've been told several times just how crazy people think we are for taking an 8 month old camping. My response has been, if I can survive Ireland, I think a little bit of camping will be just fine. We'll see...

Now we're off to the zoo (fun!) and this afternoon we have another daycare interview (not so fun!).

xxoo.S

Gratuitous Kingston Pics

Maddie discovering her new best friend - Bailey the dog!

Maddie with Grandpa Burke

Maddie with her cousins, Rebecca + Victoria

Maddie with Grandma Thompson outside our new favourite store!

Maddie took her first bath in a 'big girl' tub while we were in Kingston (I forgot to bring the baby bathtub...)

Sleeping in her playpen at Grandma Thompson's

Playing with Quinn (Stefanie's little boy) - well, more like Quinn stealing her sippy. Stealing... playing... po-tay-to... po-tah-to

To see more of pics of our adventures in Kingston - visit our page on Flickr.

xxoo.S

Update post

It's been a while since I posted an update and as opposed to laziness being the reason, it's actually because we've been very busy these past few weekends.

The first weekend in March we hosted friends for dinner on Saturday night. I made roast beef, whipped potatoes and a broccoli dish that turned out quite well. We hoped that Maddie would cooperate (especially as we planned on dinner at 6pm, so that we could still do her bath routine at 7:30 like always). Unfortunately the little miss was incredibly grumpy while we ate dinner, took longer than usual to go to sleep after her bath and then awoke every 45 minutes afterwards until our guests left at around midnight. It was pretty frustrating, and even after they left it took me another hour to get her down to sleep for the night.

Another *fun* turn of events that started that same Saturday was a lovely nursing strike that miss Maddie decided to go on. This means that every time I knew she was hungry and it was time for her to feed, she would start crying her head off and fight me like crazy. It took a little bit to figure out that she would fight less if I laid down with her in the bed to nurse - which is what we had to do for almost every feed for the rest of the week. Yes, that's right, this fun little nursing strike lasted a full week. I was ready to quit breastfeeding altogether and as quickly as it started, it (knock on wood) went away. I think it was probably teething (we went to the doctor to make sure it wasn't an ear infection) - but no teeth have popped through yet, and so we wait some more...

Thursday that week, we had a visit from Grandma Thompson - she came up until Monday morning, so it was a nice long visit with Maddie. We did a bit of shopping, but mainly stayed around the house. On Saturday night Grandma babysat little Maddie while Seth and I went out to dinner. We had a great dinner (even though the restaurant was surprisingly packed for all the snow we got that night). Unfortunately Maddie gave Grandma a pretty hard time the entire time we were gone - although she was asleep by the time we got home, doing little sobs in her sleep and all that drama! Oh well, as sad as it was to hear that she cried almost the entire time we were gone, on Sunday was when she gave up her nursing strike - so while it was a traumatic night for Grandma and Maddie, it was a happy Sunday for all of us as she was back to feeding properly.

After spending practically the entire week sick and in bed as much as Maddie would let me, this past weekend was again busy. I had lunch with the girls on Saturday afternoon, and then went out to dinner with Greg & Liz that night (shout out to Rob & Vone - thanks again for babysitting - woot woot!). After dinner, we headed back over to Rob & Vone's to have a few drinks (well, not me, the DD) and play some Guitar Hero. I was so nervous leaving Maddie a 2nd Saturday in a row, and apparently she did cry a fair bit, but not as much as the previous Saturday. She was actually cuddling in sleeping on Kelly when we got there - with a little homemade sign on her back that said "FURNACE!". Too funny. She is a little heat box - she gets that from her daddy!

So that catches us all up - except on the most important news. Well, 2 things actually. First - Maddie has learned to roll from her back to her front - she started doing it on Sunday, March 2nd - Seth witnessed this milestone first when she was on her playmat, reaching for one of her blocks. She doesn't do it regularly, but definitely more often than she has rolled from tummy to back.

The 2nd big news item for us is that Seth got a new job! He starts on March 24th as the District Sales Manager - Ontario for Columbia Manufacturing Ltd., a maker of skylights. So he will be taking care of all the Home Depot, Rona etc. accounts across the province after a week of training in BC. His last day with Enterprise is tomorrow morning - he should be home to us by early afternoon and then he has the rest of the week off to spend with his girls.

We have some errands we want to get done around the house this week, and Seth is going to see what he can do about buying a car. We're also planning on trying some 'sleep training' with Maddie - starting tonight actually. I expect it will be a long week - but hopefully it will be successful... yes, as you can see - we're still obsessed about the sleep here! :)

xxoo.S

New pics posted ... oh and still no sleep

I'd love to give you all an update on the sleep and say that my 'tactics' have started to succeed ... sadly they have not. In fact I have given up entirely on the crib as I didn't want it to have a negative association for her and that seemed to be the direction we were headed in. So she takes her morning nap in the cradle and all subsequent naps have either been in my arms, on me, beside me (in the bed) or in the carseat (while we're out). I took the advice of a few friends and decided that I'd worry about breaking bad habits later and just do whatever it takes right now to get some sleep - at least for the next couple of weeks until we're all back on an even keel. So for now, we're back to getting her more sleep and hopefully we start to see that positively affecting her nighttime sleep ...

As promised, here's a few pics from the past couple of weekends (lots more uploaded on our Flickr account)....

Big smiles for her Auntie Liz

And more big smiles for Auntie Steffie (she loved all the attention for girls' weekend)!

And last, but not least, here's Maddie in her brand new baby sled (a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Vallier) - we pulled her around the backyard in it last weekend...

Maddie and I went to a movie today (love the movies for mommies idea - although I missed a bit of dialogue from all the screaming babies, but couldn't really be annoyed as Maddie was one of them a few times) - Definitely, Maybe - good chick flick. That's all the updates for now, nothing much more to tell.

xxoo.S

Feeding frenzy

The weekend after the last post Maddie and I spent in Kingston for a meet + greet shower that my Mom hosted. Not going to lie to you - the drive to Kingston with a 3-1/2 week old is not something I would happily repeat. Something that should have only taken a couple of hours (at most) turned into a 4 hour exhausting drive due to rush hour traffic and a 1/2 hour feeding that had to take place at the rest stop in Trenton.

It was nice to see everyone though, and for Maddie to meet everyone (and be SPOILED with presents). But I learned a few things... a) she doesn't like her playpen for sleeping, b) she will however sleep in her carseat - um, ok whatever works, and c) she will also sleep forever folded up like a pretzel in the baby sling I bought.

Because Friday night was a sleepless one, I kept Maddie in the sling for the most part of the shower - otherwise I think there would have been one FUSSY baby on my hands for the afternoon. So she slept through most of her shower - but as the end of the shower coincided with her feeding time, she did make an appearance right at the very end and got passed around to many women's arms in a matter of minutes. She handled all the attention like a champ and then fed for almost 45 minutes - I guess all the love makes one hungry!

Saturday night was a bit better for sleeping - probably because I didn't even try to get her to sleep in her play pen, instead letting her (gasp!) co-sleep with me in the bed ... whatever works people, whatever works. It's so funny how you can have pre-conceived notions of things you would never do with your baby that quickly get ignored when you realize it could give you a blessed 2 hours of sleep. 2 solid hours? Like heaven in a jar...

So that was our weekend - on Sunday Gramma Vallier joined us on the trip back to Brooklin as she was coming up to stay for the week with us. She spent the week cuddling Maddie and making Seth and I dinner - needless to say we were all quite spoiled.

And she got to join us at Maddie's 4-week doctor's appointment - yes, our little girl turned 4 weeks on Tuesday (Nov 6th) - wow how the time has flown by! For the record, she was 9 lbs 8 oz and measured 21-3/4 inches. That's over 2 lbs gained (from her 7 lbs 3 oz birth weight) and almost 2 inches grown (she was just over 20 inches when she was born) - who says breastfed babies are scrawny!

Seth had this Friday off and so we headed into the "city" to attend the Baby + Toddler show at the MTTC. We almost didn't go as Maddie was clearly starting a growth spurt and was feeding every hour to hour and a half, but then thought we might as well go and see what free samples we could get. Well, the show was nothing like the one that I had attended back in the spring when I was pregnant - it was smaller and had very little in the way of free samples. It would have been a great show if we were going to shop - lots of cool little vendors selling some adorable things, but luckily we had left our wallets in the car.

Anyways, after a little over an hour, we called it quits and headed back out of the city. Unfortunately it was 3:30pm on a Friday afternoon, so it took us 2.5 hours to get home (that's with a few feeding stops for Maddie - watching her cry for food while on the DVP was heartbreaking - again, not a trip that I will happily do anytime in the near future).

Not sure if it was number of feeds that she had that day, or the exhaustion of the 'outing' to the city, but for the first time ever, she slept for 4 straight hours that night (10-2am) ... not that there was a tonne of straight sleep after that 4 hours, but still, 4 hours feels like 8 right now. And she had a great Saturday - very happy and content, although still feeding like a lion. We visited Uncle Greg and Auntie Liz for a few hours on Saturday night - our first social outing as a family, sad but true! Lots of fun though, Auntie Liz kept Maddie amused while Greg showed us their latest Wii game - almost felt like a normal Saturday night, except we left at 9:30pm and were exhausted.

We got another 4 hour sleep out of her last night as well - maybe we're actually getting into some kind of routine here? Not sure - don't want to speculate as I might jinx it. She was up and raring to go this morning at 6am though - and our big milestone for the day was daddy giving Maddie her first bottle. I thought she might fight him on the bottle at first, but she took to it like a champ - made me feel a little sad actually - who woulda thought I could be so easily replaced? Kidding...

So there you go - that's the updates in our lives right now - I'm convinced she's grown another inch just this weekend if this growth spurt is anything to go by. I will try to measure her this week and let you all know. In the meantime - here's a few more pics from the past week - you can see she starting to lose her hair - I hope not for long - her poor little head will be cold without any hair on it this winter!

Cheers,
S&S