PS: TTC (06/26/14)

Deb got the green light for trying to get pregnant a little while ago, and I’m not sure if I have mentioned it here.  My Sherpa duties are starting next month.  When Deb starts her next cycle we are in the first month of trying for Deb to get pregnant.  That should be in a week or so.  Woohoo.  Fingers crossed her ovulation goes well next month.  

Short version update (06/25/14)

I am so behind on blogging, and following all your blogs too.  Life is quite a zoo with a little one.  The past month and a bit has been especially crazy as it seems we had extra visitors this month.  We had Deb’s brother stop through twice.  He was working in Saskatchewan and so he stopped in on this way through, on the eve of Mother’s Day.  Unfortunately that evening I was in emergency due to a lung infection, so it was extra crazy to be prepared for him.  He and his wife are pregnant, and so we did some extra garage sale shopping for them to have the basics for baby so they don’t have to buy new, as they live in a smaller community and don’t have access to the bountiful garage sales that we have in Calgary.  He was just in for one night and then carried on to his destination to be at work on Monday. 

We’ve also had a visitor from across the pond, England.  It was Spencer’s Great Uncle, from my Dad’s side.  Like any great event we got photos done at Walmart with him, but they haven’t arrived yet.  He was in Calgary for a week then we took him to Fernie to visit his friends and my sister and her family.  He has friends in Fernie, because when my dad was alive he came over for a visit for 10 years on the trot.  While he was in Calgary we went to the Calgary Tower, the Glenbow Museum, Spruce Meadows, and Banff which is where we got to see the Cave and Basin and go up the Gondola.  We drove him to Fernie and along the way we stopped to see Lumbrick falls.  Deb and I stopped in Fernie for the night and we all had breakfast at my sister’s together.  My sister’s husband brought my Uncle back the following Saturday, and he spent the night to catch his flight the following day. 

While my uncle was in Fernie we had an old friend of mine visit from Halifax.  He is about to be posted to Colorado Springs, he is in the military.  When he comes to visit his family in Fernie, he flies in to Calgary, then spends the night and visits then continues to Fernie, and he does the same on the way back.  So that was a juggle in our spare room.  First was uncle, then three days later we have Halifax, then two days later uncle, then three days later Halifax.  While we were in Fernie is when Deb’s brother swung back through Calgary.  He was supposed to come through on the Friday, which would have been good timing, but life happens and he came through on the Saturday, so we didn’t get to visit on the way back.  He was, however, able to pick up the bounty of baby stuff, and we also picked up stuff for his step daughter who is 4.  The boxes and gak purchased was a space about the size of a VW Bug.  But babies require a lot of stuff; we were able to get strollers, a crib, mattress, exersaucer, swing, playmats, toys, rocker, etc.  On his way back though Cherry caught a ride back with him to visit with him for a week and she flew back on the following Friday. 

As part of our garage sale adventures we met a lovely lady, which we had purchased a play kitchen from, who offered to give us some clothes which her little boy had grown out of.  Last week I went and picked up three bags of cute clothes.  They are a good fit for the now size, which we seemed a little short on in our stock pile of clothing.  We now have clothing for bigger sizes to cover, hopefully, till next garage sale season.  (Deb and I need to lay off the garage sales for a while, or be very picky on purchases, as we also have a lot of toys to cover till then too, and a few a lot past that, all of which we are currently trying to sort out now, in Cherry’s basement, as she also had kids come over, so she has toys for them to play with.)

For Mother’s Day, Deb got me a cutie picture frame to put in the photos Spencer and I did for Mother’s Day.  However the photo she had in the frame till the photos arrived was cutie, so I have left it as is for now, and a lovely heart paperweight that when you hold it a message appears. 

Here are the Mother’s Day Photos

For Father’s Day I got one of the multipicture frames and put in a bunch of “Firsts” photos with captions on them, like first time in a big boy bath, first smile, and first time meeting his parents. 

That is pretty much the speed version of what we have been up to for the past 6 weeks.  The next post will be all about Spencer, now that his a whopping 6 months old. 

The big debate right now for Deb and me is whether to move to BC.  We are contemplating moving closer to Spencer’s god parents, and probably bringing Cherry and Randy (Deb’s mum and husband) with us.  It is a huge decision, and it is very dependent on us getting employment there before the move.  I am hesitant to move to a small town, as I grew up in one and as a pre-teen/teen, all I seemed to be doing was getting into trouble for lack of something to do.  Plus the small town factor limits Spencer’s education options.  Deb keeps saying that there is what we need on the main land, but then we need to deal with the ferries, and I could never live in Vancouver.  Just driving through and I got an asthma attack.  There are benefits to small town living though; I just find it hard to remember them.  It is especially nice to know more people in your town, which gives Spencer more freedom to play as a kid.  It seems to be a giant circle of benefits of going and staying.  We are going back in August to be able to get a feel for the town and see if we think it is where we want to be.  I’m kind of putting it out to the universe and god that if that is where we are meant to be we will both get pretty good jobs before moving there.  We plan on applying to the pulp mill in advance just to get our names on their radar for positions we might qualify for.  Rumor has it they need a new payroll person.  But I might have missed that position.  So we will see how things go and go from there.  

He's not traumatized ....

We are.

So there are a couple new things happening. First off on May 19 he got food other than formula and breast milk. We chose Gerber oat cereal. We had debated on the cereals at all because of the lack of nutritional value with the rice cereals, basically being like white bread. But the up side is it is an easy food to digest. We met in the middle and went with an oat cereal as a first.  He loved it. The feat time was very runny but the second time a little more food like, but not full strength. We will wait the week out and see how it goes before introducing anything else. Probably my next food will be our frozen pumpkin or butternut squash. Lets see how it goes. 

Next big news is he is sleeping in his crib. So far he has been sleeping in a playpen in our room. We went to Edmonton this weekend and when we got back we figured it was time. Now comes the traumatized part. Last night was third night in his crib and second with food for dinner. This morning at 6:30 Deb's alarms go off and as I wake up I realize Spencer slept through the night. As I mention it I go and look at the video motor and he appears to be in the same position relatively that we left him in. As I watch he does move but we kind of hear noise coming from the nursery but not the monitor. Deb goes to check and sure enough spencer was out of his swaddler blanket and had turned on his fish mobile (yes he can turn it on and off purposefully) and was turned around a little. He was fully awake and fussing. However the video showed him still in his sleep position and was not broadcasting his noise. Here enters my panic. How long has he been fussing did he cry all night and this is as much energy he has left to "fuss". Deb brought him in And i put him on to feed. He had not been crying he was not stressed he was just awake and now happy to be eating. 

While having a good eat his eyelids started to droop and as usual he fell back asleep. I told Deb I would never trust this video monitor again. The screen had froze and needed to be rebooted. Then it worked again. Spencer was just fine. I was in a state of "what ifs". What if the swaddle blanket had wrapped around his neck, what if he had been screaming all night... The usual mother paranoia. So until we get a better video monitor we will set up a back up audio one and even with that I don't know if I'll sleep well trusting technology. 

I am now cuddling him as he sleeps calming my own nerves and randomly kissing his head. 

 Here is a photo just because. 

Our Little Man (05/05/14)

He just keeps amazing me.  He is discovering his toes which is fun.  Although he had tried to roll over a couple of weeks ago, (from his back to his side) that has come to a stop.  I’m sure it will start again soon enough.  He is loving the exersaucer (s).  He can now operate more of the toys on them; which started at his god parents’ house.  They had got an extravagant one, but was a bit more user friendly than the one we had.  And this past weekend we did garage sales galore for new baby items for him, which included a Tigger Jolly Jumper, a suspension exersaucer, age appropriate toys, and a few that are a little ahead of him, a portable high chair that is smaller to be his size for now, but expands for later, short answer, we bought a LOT of stuff.  All the new toys are tuckering him out.  As he learns new things he seems to look at everything else differently, learning about objects a little more.  He is getting ready to take over the world, lol.

After his nap.....fell asleep in the kitchen exersaucer.

We did a long road trip to the coast for Easter to see his god parents.  The drive went surprisingly well.  He is a great traveller.  I sat in the back with him to be able to aid him as needed, ie feed, turn on the fish mobile for entertainment to get a few more miles, hold his hand while he fell asleep, etc.  The trip was a great one.  We had a minor vehicle mishap in Kamploops.  The battery had died, but because the dash was doing some funky things we took it to a dealer to have a look at it.  That cost a fortune for one car battery that Deb could have installed.  Alas, at least we didn’t break down in a town that didn’t have an open shop, or on the side of the highway.  We do have AMA, but the wait times would have been horrible. 

This was on the BC Ferry on the way home.

While there, it seemed the ocean air was a sedative for Spencer.  He slept most of the time.  We were lucky if he was awake for an hour at a time, then down for a 3 hour nap.  On the way back we also swung down to the south of BC to visit my sister and her family, and stop by Fort Steel.  It is still in winter season, but it was a nice stop to see the changes there from when I was there last, years ago.  As soon as we hit the Alberta boarder though, Spencer was AWAKE.  He still travelled well which was great. 

Of course we continue with the smiles card photos.  Here are some of the latest and greatest. 

PS: He chats up a storm when in the mood, which seems to be fairly frequent lately.  He makes a myriad of different sounds and noises, ma when upset, ra when chatting, and the usual baby noises.  He is starting agoo lately, and his new one is razzing.  When I read about listening for babies making the razz noise, I didn’t know what they were talking about, as soon as I heard it, I knew it.  

Pinsperation for Easter.

Above is the original pin. 

Above is Spencer's photo with our Favorite photographer H. I think we nailed it.

New (to us) change station

Spencer has outgrown the "temporary" change station we had on the main floor. So deb refinished and repurposed a dresser.

Before

After 

It works very well. 

They grow so quick, 16 Weeks (04/10/14)

First, here are some photo updates;

Just a note about the giant giraffe; he was a gift from our favorite photographer H.  They had it for their grandson when he was little.  He has slightly outgrown it, and when she found out our theme was also safari she gave it to us.  It hung out at the photo studio for a while, but we are finally driving our minivan (well, soon to be ours) and was able to get it home without putting a kink in its neck. 

  

As for an update, I’m still slightly battling the blues, but slowly getting better.  Sometimes I still have emotional relapses, but not nearly as bad as it had gotten. 

Spencer is growing so quickly.  We purged his wardrobe of a box of clothes he had outgrown, and replenished from our totes of stored clothes.  His head is stable when he is upright.  He still loves to stand.  He is starting to get the hang of the exersaucer, but mostly can`t quite reach the toys to play with them yet, but he loves that he is upright and able to look around.  Yesterday he finally started rolling.  So far he can roll from his back to his side.  His tummy time is getting better, when he is up for it.  He can lift his head quite well now, and I imagine rolling will come soon.  He is starting to try and push himself up on his arms, so crawling is coming around the corner soon enough. 

He loves some playpen time to pull at the wonky wigglers that are on a string and vibrate back up when pulled.  When he first couldn`t quite get a good grasp, he lifted his legs to be able to push against them to be able to get a good grasp on the legs of the wigglers, now he does a combination of that and just able to grab the legs, even though they dangle and he needs coordination to grab them and not push them away. 

This is still slightly up for debate, but Deb is convinced he is teething.  In the afternoon he doesn`t want to eat and gets very irritable.  The other day we crushed up some ice and put it in a cloth.  He really enjoyed munching on that for a moment at a time.  So I`m coming around to the fact he might be teething, even though we can`t feel anything that is trying to come through.  His gums are just so small it is hard to believe teeth will be coming through them soon. 

Here is a photo we got when we went to the zoo last weekend.  He actually stayed awake for the whole visit.  Lots of fun.