10 months (ish), Snot Face is back and general venting

Kids and colds are horrible.  Play groups are just a giant petri dish of germs.  Spencer managed to go almost nine months without so much as a cold.  Now that we are going to play groups and indoor playgrounds, snot galore.  This is Spencer's second cold in almost a month.  The first one took about three weeks to clear.  I hope this one isn't as bad. 

To help him with the cold we have a humidifier going during naps and at night time.  We are putting baby vicks on his chest and back after his bath/shower.  I've also been putting it on before a nap this time.  We also have the spray nasal saline solution for him that we use at night.  If his congestion gets worse we used it before each nap last time too. 

Poor little guy.  He gets spackled from head to toe after a bath almost. He gets baby Aveno for eczema on his cheeks.  That seems to finally be clearing up. We aren't sure if that is because he hasn't been having infant cereal much any more or because we have cone back to the blue label formula. 

Because he is sick he gets Vicks on his back and chest. Then he gets barrier cream and now because he is teething he also breaks out in a rash. Poor little guy. 

The latest battles have been feeding him. He is becoming picky and doesn't like being fed by a spoon. He wants to feed himself everything and even then he is picky.  We tried to ignore bad behaviour but now it has escalated to Spencer making himself puke. It used to be when he was bored in the playpen or exersaucer and I have merely tried to ignore it or reprimand bad behaviour but not give in to what he is trying to achieve. The other day during dinner Spencer was refusing all food and flinging it everywhere. So we decided to let him cool down in the high chair a bit. Well he started to make himself gag. The instant decision was to ignore him and wait out his tantrum of sorts. That was very hard and very messy. It lasted almost 15 minutes before he stopped doing that and moved on to crying to get out attention. I almost didn't make it but Deb helped me be strong and wait it out it I was ready to cry. Since then the "tantrums" have been much shorter and becoming fewer slowly. Being a parent is not for the feignt of heart. Hopefully this works. Ignore bad behaviour reward the good. 

The upside to going to play groups is Spencer crawling well and he also learned to go from the crawl position to sitting. He has loads of fun there. With being able to crawl he has been pulling up on different things exponentially, trying different techniques and what not. Considering though he has been pretty cautious about moving between objects. He is not cautious, however, about crawling off objects, ie the bed, stairs, the couch. We need to catch him all the time. Sometimes it turns into a game. Spencer has also been climbing stairs with relative ease. Sometimes he gets tired sometimes he does the entire flight. We now need to work on his down technique. He has no fear and wants to just walk down them or crawl down them. 

Ill try and upload a few videos when I'm on the laptop. 

This month has been a no spend month as mentioned before, and any money saved is going towards the Malawi Water Project with Helen Timoffee. It has been a good month and I'll give you the total at the end of the month. But with that being said, we have been watching Kijiji Free items and found a free play structure for the back yard. It was a great find and Spencer loves going on the swings and down the slides and can climb the climbing wall with some assistance. 

Unofficially

We are having a boy. 

The 12 week ultrasound was showing a proud baby boy measuring about 2 days ahead of schedule. Next ultrasound should confirm. 

Toys at the table?

Spencer is a very active little boy.  When it comes time to eat, sometimes it is difficult to get his attention.  We are pretty routine that when it is time to eat he sits in his high chair.  Sometimes he isn't particularly fond of what we are feeding him.  When this happens it ends up all over.  As a distraction toys and or singing to him was introduce to get him to eat.  He would play or listen or interact with Yaya and we could feed him the portion we needed to of the veggie or what have you. 

This did bug me quite a lot.  It does feel like we are trying to bribe him to eat.  And to me this is not a good habit to get into.  We had a family discussion a couple of times saying no singing or toys at the table, or at least until he is done eating.  However the next day Yaya would start up again or ask if she can do patty cake.  By doing so, Spencer hears that and knows what it is and gets excited.  So I give in and say fine.  During the day when no one else is there we usually do pretty well.  Don't get me wrong we have a few off times.  I do more of the positive reinforcement approach and thank him for eating well and clap after a course that he eats without protest. 

For the most part the toy distraction works, but it seems to be a short period before you have to start something else to get him to eat.  Deb thinks, once he is eating fully by himself he won't need toys, he will just eat.  That might be applicable.  After last night's talk with her she will back me up with Yaya, but I kind of feel she isn't fully agreeable why I don't want toys at the table until after he is finished eating at least.  Am I being too strict about this? 

Stairs....oh dear

Today on Debs birthday Spencer decided to tackle stairs. We are in a 5 level split so we have sections of three stairs he has access to from his play area.  He was at his activity table and sat down then crawled over to the stairs and proceeded to up them. It was with great difficulty but an I caught him once but he made it. I guess we need more baby gates.

We also had a wonderful game of baby pong. He was using a ride on/walk behind toy from one end of the room to the other and at each end we would turn him around and send him back. In the middle was Yaya adjusting trajectory if needed. He was at it for a long time. But loved it.

Just the other day he stood by himself, no leaning or holding.

This is a push car we got at a garage sale.  He loves it 

It's official

Spencer is now crawling. He is still hesitant but is now going through the motions and gets a few feet forward. It started yesterday with purpose. 

Yesterday he also pulled himself up in his crib. We got to watch it on the monitor a couple times as he stood up then sat down then up again. When we came into the room he repeated the motions as if to show us. He was so proud of himself. 

Poor little guy though. He is still suffering from a cold. We are about 6 days in, runny nose, cough. Hopefully he gets better soon. If anyone has suggestions to help him get through this that would be lovely. So far liquids and humidifier during sleep and baby Vicks at night. 

$0 Spend month for October

Well this is going to be a challenge.  Here is the parameters.  Monthly bills still get paid, but every transaction is going under scrutiny.  The big savings is happening on groceries.  We are only allowed to buy produce (provided we don`t have it frozen.), milk/dairy, and ground beef if lean goes on sale as we have almost run out and we always try to buy meat on sale and freeze it.  We are also allowed to buy NEEDED items for Spencer, ie infant cereal.  Most other items we should have enough stock piled to cover the month.  That does mean however, no Walmart Smiles packages.  Only the free singles.  That will be hard, but I'm sure we will make it.

The general idea is to help bring budgets back into manageable spend, stop bad spending habits, and deplete items purchased but not being used because they are forgotten. For this month, any savings we do, we are donating to the Malawi Water Project.



This charity has been close to Deb's heart since it's development in 2009 (I think that is when.)  Back then Cherry was reading an article in a Calgary newspaper, about how Helen was trying to help in Malawi, which started by them sponsoring a child there and they went to visit.  The trip there showed how in need everyone was there.  When they got back they decided to try and fill a shipping container of needed supplies to send over there to help.  Cherry contacted Helen and met her for dinner with Deb to explain the project.  Cherry and Deb were on board.  Deb helped round up construction supplies and tools to send over.  As much as that helped there was just too many people that needed things.  Helen and family looked at the greater need, clean water, a lot of remote villages in Malawi needed access to clean water.  This is where the Bio Sand Water Filters come in, showed in the picture above.  For full details see their website.

Alas, on September 27th, we went to their fundraiser and wished we could do more.  We made a donation from the sale of Deb's rental house, but with being on Maternity leave and also donating to our church we didn't put any additional aside.  We are very blessed to live in Canada, and be able to do the things we do on a slight whim (but after much talk from the whim), like last month purchasing a new car. If we can afford to do that on Mat leave then we can afford to do more for the charities close to our hearts, and this is definitely one of them.

So, for every $1 we save this month we are going to donate it to the Malawi Water Project.   We are also having a mini garage sale and donating the proceeds from that too.  Let's see if we can stick to it.

Deb's cravings are starting, she has been craving Mexican, can't stand the smell of raw onions (I had that too), and her general appetite is getting stronger.  The onions thing didn't help that yesterday I processed 20 pounds of onions into freezable state, along with 20 pounds of carrots into puree for soups and baby food.  By the end I was fairly immune to the onion smell, but Deb wasn't too fond of our house.

Poor Spencer has his first cold right now.  Snot and sneezes everywhere.  We have a humidifier running full blast while he sleeps.  It is like running into a rain forest at night.  Hopefully he is better soon.