Chronicling the crazy: November 2012

Monday, 26 November 2012

new teeth suck.

I think all parents dread new teeth. I certainly do. We had a tough night last night, usually bedtime is so easy. Maybe we are just spoiled but usually as long as we do all the steps of the bedtime routine correctly (which I will blog about later), Natallie is so happy to be put in her crib and going to sleep for the night. Last night, after I gave Natallie her beloved giraffe and bear stuffed animals, she was still clinging onto me. I left her 10 minutes but then couldn't stand the crying so I went back in to calm her down. As long as I was holding her she was fine but as soon as I inched towards the crib, she was in tears. I tried getting Simon to try and it was the same thing. She was just a clingly koala. We gave her some Tylonel and put her in her crib. We had to listen to another 30 minutes of this until she finally fell asleep. If you really want to hear what it sounded like, be my guest and click this video (It 20 seconds of her wailing videotaped thru the baby monitor).

Usually I love the baby monitor, it shows me Natallie holding her giraffe and bear, all snuggled in and peacfully sleeping but yesterday, I was just staring at the baby monitor feeling sorry for Natallie. Nothing breaks a mother's heart more than listening to her child wail and knowing they just need to sleep. She was holding the railing of the crib shaking the bars and looking towards the door waiting for me to come in. I wanted to run in and make it all better. Darn teeth, why must they cause my baby so much pain? After she got tired of standing and shaking the bars, she was on her knees holding the crib bars. I was telepathetically sending her message to just go to sleep and finally, finally, the light on the monitor went from bright red to green. Green is good. Green means Natallie is finally sleeping.

So....I wrote that blog earlier today and just in case you were wondering, tonight wasn't any better, she was super happy for the whole bedtime routine until I actually put her in her crib, then it was this.......ohhh that sad sad sad face!

It was totally distracting to hear her wailing on the baby monitor all through bible study. I kept glaring at the red light above the monitor willing it to just turn green. Be green! Be green! Go to sleep baby! Be green! Tonight it was about 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes of wailing before she fell asleep. Is it teeth or can a perfectly synchronized bedtime routine fall apart for no apparent reason???

Thursday, 22 November 2012

the dairy bar has officially closed.

It's a new milestone. the breastfeeding era is now over. the dairy bar has now officially closed. I've been working on cutting out the last morning feed for the past several weeks, my rule was that if Natallie asked for milk in the morning (i.e., signing milk with her pudgy hands), I didn't resist because I didn't really mind nursing her but just thought it was about time that we close the dairy bar. The morning nursing has been such a routine that it was the toughest one to get rid of...I tried replacing with a sippy cup of milk but that just made her mad so I tried bringing her into my room right away instead of staying in her room (where I usually nurse her) and distracting her by looking otu the window but that didn't really work either. I tried getting Simon to get her up and that worked for a one day but as soon as she saw me she would sign milk again. I thought I was going to be nursing her in the morning forever but then it all came down to a bowl of strawberries. Natallie has a sweet tooth (just like her mom) and I knew she would probably love to wake up to something sweet. A chocolate bar would of probably worked but that seemed slightly wrong so last week I tried going into Natallie's room with a bowl of strawberries. Viola! A very happy baby who didn't sign milk anymore. Too bad it's almost winter and strawberries aren't in season so the last few days I have been mixing up my over-priced strawberries with bananas and frozen berries. It's working....she now wakes up and eats her bowl of fruit on the bed and we look at books together. It's so cute, I love our mornings together.

It's the end of an era. She's almost a little toddler now, she knows about 15 signs, she is starting to say 'mama' and "dada" (although this could be wishful interpretation), she is insisting on eating by herself with cutlery and has got a mouth full of baby teeth, even the ones in the back that I thought they get waaay later! I catch a glimpse of them whenever she is wailing. That teddy that she plays with every morning must be shrinking! Here is 5 days old versus 15 months old.

So I think the next milestone is now skiing right? We'll see what happens at Big White this Christmas! Can't wait!

Saturday, 10 November 2012

crazy ridiculous love.

Everyone knows you do silly, ridiculous things when you are in love. When Simon and I were first dating, he lived in the Okanagan and I lived in Burnaby and once a month we would take turns sitting on the Greyhound bus for 8 hours one day so we could spend 48 hours together. We would try to stay awake for as long as it was humanly possible because we knew it would be another month until we would see each other again. I remember one time, Simon picked me up at nearly midnight at the Greyhound bus station and he had a rose and a thermos of hot chocolate waiting for me. We sat outside in the chilly night sipping the hot chocolate, and I knew I would sit on the smelly bus for another decade to spend another minute with this awesome guy.

One time, I took the Greyhound bus at midnight on Sunday knowing that I had an early morning class on Monday morning. I wasn’t able to sleep on the way back because the passenger beside me had just gone to Banff and Jasper and needed to tell me allllllllll about his trip the entire bus ride. And when I got back at 6:30am, I had exactly 60 minutes to get myself ready for my 7:30am class at SFU. I don’t think I heard a single word the professor lectured on that day.

When it was Simon’s turn to visit me, he was already feeling quite tired from working long 12-14 hour shifts fighting the gruelling forest fire in the Okanagan but he stayed up for our mega-date marathon anyways and the tiredness caught up with him on Sunday morning when he was *this close* to fainting during the church service. And did I mention the time Simon went out and bought a $200 tent so he could come camping with me and my friends. I didn’t know until later in our relationship that Simon dislikes, I mean LOATHES camping! I don’t think he has used it since that one time! Oh and we can't forget the time he put wore his bedsheets and went to a toga party just because he knew I would be there even though he hates dress-up parties (almost as much as he hates camping). Ahhh yes, we were 20 years old, young and in love. We did some ridiculously stupid things because of love.

So now happily married for almost 7 years, I now understand what it is like to be ridiculously in love with your child that you would do anything for her. When she was little it was getting up every 2 hours to feed her when she was little, lying on the floor with her for hours on the floor for ‘tummy time’ and rocking her until my arms seized up so she would fall asleep . Now it’s never being able to eat my food until it’s cold because I am too busy convincing her to eat her meal and planning her every waking moment with educational and scintillating experiences. I started bringing Natallie to the Strong Start program near my house and noticed that Natallie loves to play kitchen. We already have some pretend food at home but not the big play kitchen so I set my mind of getting Natallie a kitchen for Christmas. I have been scouring the internet comparing prices on Walmart, Target, Sears, Toyrus and Costco. I want to get her a really nice sturdy wooden one, not the big plastic kind. The one I wanted to get was almost $200, I found it was almost $100 cheaper at Walmart in the States and I was contemplating whether or not I should drive to Bellingham to get her the kitchen when I saw an ad up on Craigslist (which I also had been religiously checking every day) that was selling a brand new wooden kitchen for $100 (regular price $200), I was ecstatic when the person said it was still available. They lived in Chilliwack though, but I didn’t care. I happily drove an hour and half from my house just to get my hands on this beautiful lovely wooden kitchen. I think my husband and my sister think I’m ridiculous for driving so far but it made perfect sense to me. I can’t wait to give it to Natallie for Christmas. I can’t wait to pretend to bake a cake and have teddy bear picnics and tea parties with her. I will probably do many more ridiculous things just because I love Natallie but that’s OK, that’s just the way I like it.

Natallie's christmas present! So excited!

Monday, 5 November 2012

Natallie & Nala

Natallie with Rach's daughters Nala and Sienna (Kristin's daughter Alexa is there too!)

Rachael and I have been friends for over a decade and I treasure her friendship greatly. We were blessed enough to have eachother in our weddings. And now I feel even more blessed that our daughters are less than 3 months apart. Rachael's daughter's name is Nalani but we all call her Nala for short. I love how Natallie and Nala's names even sound alike, they already sound like they belong together. I hope they will be great friends when they are older! Natallie got to meet Nala the morning after she was born!