Mother’s Day!

Our Mother’s Day was absolutely fabulous!

Cale woke up much earlier than either Nova or I did and made me breakfast in bed, then allowed me to nap while he did the Dad thing for the rest of the morning.

Then we packed up and headed over to MY Mom’s to spend some quality time playing in the sunshine, sliding around on their Lil’ Tykes slide and just having a great time! My Mom even allowed me the chance to sneak in another nap! (She’s the best.)

This is a great month for Mom’s as we’re heading to Saskatoon for the weekend to spend some time with my Grandma for her 80th birthday! Plus my amazing cousins (parents to 3 girls) are generously hosting a Sunday BBQ that will no doubt be amazing amounts of fun. There’s really nothing better than family, sunshine and getting away.

A big, huge Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Mama’s out there in all of your many shapes and sizes. Just having a baby isn’t what makes you a Mom, it’s all the love you have squished up inside of you and all the ways it comes pouring out of you. So whether you’re the Mama to your own baby, someone else’s, future babies, or even fur babies (we know you Mama’s are out there in spades) this is for ALL of you and for all you do. <3

My mom, me, Grandma, and 2 month old Nova.

de diez meses

The 10th month! We’ve reached it! And along with it Nova has jumped some serious hurdles when it comes to mobility! We are talking crawling, scooting, scurrying, pulling up and puttering along, she can get from the table to the couch to the chair and all the way around her crib! The laugh of triumph that accompanies these feats is just as exciting and entertaining as watching her figure out her balance and just how strong she can really be! Of course, these outings are not without the occasional bump on the head or a scratch or two on Mom and Dad’s faces as we help her out but it’s all worth it. We are sure that this is only the beginning and wonder if we should start a running tab in the emergency room now, or wait until the first real disaster. If she’s anything like her Dad they are going to know us very well.

With her new-found movement comes a whole new stack of personality traits. Now that she can get away from anyone she doesn’t like she is becoming very clear that her personal space is HERS and we had all better respect it! Growls, batting our hands away and quite simply just turning her face or back on us completely are not uncommon these days. And if you ignore these “requests” the screaming and kicking and tantrum throwing begin! Whoa, Nelly!! We are envisioning many career choices based on these two new developments.

Acrobat
Actress
Tennis Player (Those Williams sisters have serious tempers.)
Miss Universe
Professional Sprinter
Physicist

Among many others. Naturally, we’ll let her decide when it really comes down to it. (From a long list of pre-approved options. Lol.)

Related to her delicious temper but decidedly more positive is her very cute, increasing knowledge of communication. We are working on our elephant sounds, saying “Dad” and “Dog” which so far both come out as, “Duh!” and pointing! Pointing at Bella, pointing at Mommy, pointing at outside, pointing at her bed, pointing at everything and anything she wants! Seeing her make connections between the things in her life and the fact that she can have an opinion on them and WANT them is really exciting. We’re having a lot of fun helping her out.

Yeah...she's pretty pleased with herself right now.

Her tongue is constantly out as she expends serious effort learning her new tricks.

Come on. Try and resist this face.

Crawling!!

8 Months – Octavo Mensis

Sorry for dropping off the face of the planet there!

It’s been an entire month since I last updated and what a month it has been. This week Nova (and the rest of us) will be moving to our new home. I thought that moving with a baby would be challenging but as it turns out, it’s not really so bad. Her things don’t take up a lot of room and she’s pretty content to let us sit her down in all sorts of hilarious objects (boxes, empty refrigerators etc.),  with various things to play with (newspaper, plastic dishes, random things from my own lost childhood). There are going to be a lot of fun things for us to do in our new neighborhood like Baby and Me swimming lessons, dance lessons, yoga, and lots of parks for us to play in. February is coming to a close and this will be a wonderful place for Nova to have her first birthday and get her waddle, I mean, walk…on.

Is she walking yet? NOPE! But she is determined to move one way or another. To our amusement and her increasing frustration she is able to push off of her hands and move backwards away from the object of her desire. In a very funny and interesting turn of events, she has learned that she can turn herself in a 180 and THEN push backwards to get to where she wants to go. Smart kid right?

She’s also teaching us that she doesn’t particularly care what stuffed animal or toy she plays with so long as it makes noise, she can put it in her mouth, it doesn’t hurt if it accidentally falls on her, and provided that she is in a “playing” sort of mood. If not, beware! In a foul mood, this child will push, kick, roll, flail, and generally make a fool of herself until she is a) fed or b)put to sleep where she will indignantly roll over, shove her thumb angrily into her mouth, and stare bloody murder at us until we vacate the premises and let her sleep. “How dare you delay my nap you devil woman?!”

Yes…we have a feisty child.

She is not talking, walking, showing teeth, or pulling up on anything yet but stay tuned for those milestones, I feel that they are only a hop, skip and jump ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s so nice to have a cuddle with a person that you love
Feels so good to have a snuggle with a person that you love
When I’m happy or in trouble I run fast right on the double
Just to sit and have a cuddle with a person that I love”

Great Read – Dinosailors

Picked up a great board book from Chapters the other day:

Dinosailors by Deb Lund is fabulous! We love it! The rhyming really seems to soothe Nova and the colors in the book are phenomenal so she’s getting a lot of visual stimulation as well. Howard Fine as an illustrator is absolute perfection. The story is hilarious and the characters are oh-s0-very lovable for anyone who happens to be a dinosaur fan. Who ever thought that a T-Rex and a Brachiosaur could get along on something as small as a ship?!

I definitely recommend it for girls or boys (although it DOES have a more male leaning…simply because they are dinosaurs). It’s supposed to be for ages 3-7 but Nova is only 2 months old and there is lots for her to be entertained by when it’s story time. I’m looking forward to heading back to the bookstore for the next installment…

Co Sleeping

Thus far, we have been a co-sleeping family. The night Nova was born she snuggled up to me and we both fell asleep in our queen size bed.

Cale’s Mom very kindly purchased a co-sleeper for us as a gift and I love it! It is so handy for easing parental fears such as, “Am I going to roll over on my baby?!” because the answer was, “Nope!” the co-sleeper was great but it turned our queen bed into more of a twin since it takes up quite a lot of space. Not to mention that our little lady would wake up every hour and a half or so and fuss before falling back asleep, plus she would squirm around until her legs were completely off of the sleeper and I’d spend most of the night putting her back into it.

We decided to put the co-sleeper aside and instead made her a little fortified pillow fort. It gave us a bit more room and she seemed to sleep more fitfully, usually only waking once or twice, making a few grunting/fussing noises and then falling back into deep sleep. Great!

Then about a week ago I fell asleep with her while she was nursing at around 10:30pm…and we didn’t wake up until 6:30am!!!! This was our most successful sleep! I couldn’t believe it! So we scrapped the pillow as well and just cuddled. The only problem is that aside from that one night when I must have been exhausted, I haven’t had great sleeps. She sleeps like a rock but I find myself waking often, afraid that I’m going to roll or pull the blankets weirdly or something else equally as scary for baby.

So…tonight we are trying to see how she sleeps in her playpen, which has been in our room, pulled up to the side of our bed since her birth. She’s got her pjs on and she’s swaddled and I even threw a thin blanket on her to make sure she’s warm.

I LOVE sleeping with her, but I recognize that I’m no good to her on no sleep. Ha! So, this is an experiment to see how she sleeps on her own. I’m partly trying to get a little more sleep for me, but also making sure that she is getting the best sleep also. If she ends up waking me at 2am and 4am and 6am then I’ll bring her back to bed with me. But if she sleeps well through the night then I’ll know to trust that this is a good sleeping arrangement and we can cuddle during her many daytime naps.

So far she’s sleeping well! I think this first night I won’t get much rest, but we’ll see. I’m sure we’ll have many more Sleepytime Adventures over the course of her life. this is only the beginning.

Diaper Rash

My poor little lady developed the beginnings of a diaper rash this week. I read about a few remedies, and of course, asked my mom what we should do to help clear it up. The overall consensus was that we needed to air the area out! Ha. That, naturally, means diaper free time for our little babe so every day since I’ve been laying down some towels and a waterproof sheet and we have 30 minutes of diaper free time. She seems to like it so maybe she’s already more like me than I thought!

Juuuuust kidding!!!! ;P

Aveeno Baby Wash & Shampoo

All jokes aside, paired with the air time I picked up some diaper rash cream. I’d read lots of good things about Zincofax so that’s what I was looking for when I hit up the local Shopper’s Drug Mart. When I got there though, I discovered that Aveeno makes a diaper rash cream. I’m already a huge fan of their baby line. We have a house stocked with their Baby Sun Screen and Body Wash/Shampoo combo and I love those two products.

Aveeno Baby Sunscreen SPF 55

That, coupled with the fact that I, MYSELF, use Aveeno products (ranging from hair products to skin care) I was super excited to try it out. Turns out, it worked like a charm!!! We just got it yesterday and already today her little tushie is clearing right up. I am totally confident that within 24 hours she’s going to have a smooth, soft baby butt again. PLUS her discomfort when you-know-whatting is totally diminished! I felt so bad for her! From the looks of things I would have been cranky too!

Luckily she’s happy as a clam today and is currently sleeping like, well, a baby! Ha.

Thanks for coming to the rescue yet again Aveeno. I would totally recommend this to ANYONE. I love that they use mostly natural ingredients (like Oatmeal) and the zinc oxide really works well with it on Nova’s sensitive skin. The price is right at around $6 so I was pretty happy with that find all around.

Aveeno Baby Diaper Rash Cream