Feb 2011 - lots of news to report

It's now Feb 24, 2011. Our family is expecting another little baby in our lives - due March 2nd, 2011....so less than a week till the due date. The ultrasound from 20 weeks said this baby is a BOY!! We're very excited...apparently now we'll have the million dollar family. I know what this means...we can't re-use clothes and toys from the first baby, so it'll cost us a million to raise this family. LOL...

My pregnancy so far hasn't been too bad. I didn't have a lot of morning sickness, it was manageable..not too many cravings or food aversions. I was able to keep up my 'regular' routine of exercising 4-5 times a week throughout the pregnancy. I ran until I was 30 weeks pregnant (3-5 times a week , 5km runs) and since then I've been doing either 30 min on the treadmill (walking) or 30 min on the stairmaster or elliptical machine. Some light weights and I've tried to do some stretching which seems to help...

I am now 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I have had a cough for the past 3 months and some pretty terrible rib pain (on my right side)...I had a bit of an unfortunate event happen last Sunday where I was on Jayla's bed waiting to put her to bed and I had to cough, I leaned up on my elbow to brace myself and during the cough, I thought I heard something snap or pop.....9 hours in the ER and 1 x-ray later, no crack/fracture was confirmed...but they ruled out a hole in the lung or a blood clot...Monday was Family day, so we were home resting & catching up on sleep. This week I haven't been into work (3 sick days) but I went to my chiropractor today and that has done a great deal to reduce the amount of pain I was feeling in my right side. I will return to work tomorrow and then also work Monday & Tuesday and officiall start my maternity leave on Wednesday March 2nd.

The plan is for me to take 31 of the 35 weeks of parental leave and then use my 20 days (4 weeks) of vacation. That way Martin can take 4 weeks of leave as well and we can be off together with the baby. We'll likely plan for a trip - to Florida with both children during that time off. Since this will be our last baby this seems like the best plan for Martin and I - plus because I have all my vacation days from 2011 (plus 5 carried over from 2010) and then I'll also have all my vacation for 2012 to use when I return.

I think we're ready for this baby - as ready as we can be....but It's frightening to think we're going from 1 quite independent preschool daughter to 2 kids...I'm sure we'll get into a routine eventually....but who knows how long that will take. I also am worried that this baby will be a tough one again (like Jayla with colic)...but I can only hope that this one doesn't have the same thing going on. I know we'll get through it, but it's a scary thought to think that we will have to go through that again...

I think this is the update so far...I will update again once things start moving around down there and I have some labour & delivery news on baby boy schiller!

Jayla is now 2 years old...

Okay, I seriously can't believe it's been like 5 months since I've posted an update here. That's so sad. So much is changing everyday. We have quite the bright little girl on our hands...



Everything is amazing. We are so lucky to have Jayla in our lives. Of the many, many things she's doing and saying these days, here are some of my favorites...

• when I lay down on the floor, she'll come and straddle me and hop up and down and say 'jump on mommy' and then lean in for a kiss every once and a while...
• if something is in her way (inanimate objects included) she'll say 'ee-me rock' or 'ee-me book' - which is her word for excuse me...
• everything now belongs to her...she uses 'my' in front of everything - my daddy, my mommy, my bowl, my nilk (=milk), my ball, my nana, my doora (=dora)...
• she's saying please - with only minimal prompting.....
• she calls yogurt 'gi-doke' - I don't know where she got that word...
• she calls movie (like to watch dora or elmo) 'booey' I guess that one makes sense.
• she has the best facial expressions (I like the exited and suprised ones the best)....
• for a while she had been saying 'mmm-hmmm-a' to show agreement - instead of saying yes, or yep, or yeah....and then recently she started saying 'la' for yeah...
• oh and there's this episode of dora that she's watched a few times that has a part where dora has to say the 'magic word' to open the gate to let the prince out...the magic word is 'abre' (open, in spanish??) and if I say to Jayla - what's the magic word that Dora has to say to let the prince out, she wispers 'abre'....it's so cute.

Now for her 'abilities' in terms of leaning etc.

• she knows lots of colours (red, yellow, green, purple, white, orange, black, pink, blue) - can recognize, point to and say when pointed to these colours....
• she recognizes shapes - if I say the shape (square, diamond, heart, moon, circle, triangle) she can point to them....
• she can mimic most of the letters of the alphabet (after we say them)...
• she's not interested in numbers, at all
• and she has far too many words (in terms of vocab) for me to list...

Jayla still loves Nana the most...and if Papa doesn't come with Nana on her visits, Jayla asks where's Papa....She's a good sleeper (7:30pm-7:00am) and for the most part she goes to bed really well. And still napping pretty consistently for 1.5-2 hours in the afternoon. Eating, well, she's pretty picky and sometimes I think that has a lot to do with us. We're too accomodating. She likes soup and I can sneak veggies into it (without hiding them too much) and she eats it all up. She'll eat macaroni (with veggies), grilled cheese and zoodles (I know, bad right)....but again, that way, I know she'll be getting in her veggies...She's good with many fruits and carbs - of course. Loves cereal, honey-toast (as she refers to it)...and cookies - although she's good with any kind (so we find the low-sugar options)...And yogurt & freezies are among the favorites....

This isn't exactly the update I wanted to provide, but now that we know where she is...I can try (I know, I say this every time) to keep this updated more regularly...

Here are couple pictures:

Over 18 months already...

I'm not going to make excuses for not updating this blog. It seems there are too many options these days....message boards, blogs, facebook, emails - well, that's all I use, but sometimes I don't even have time (or energy) to look at any of the.

So here is the update on us...Well specifically Jayla.

She is so amazing. What a great kid she is. She so entertaining. It's funny how the simplest things bring her so much joy and excitement. Just the mention of painting (at Lisa's - the caretaker), or at home when we bring the play-doh out, or Mr. Potato head 0r a Freezie. I mean she's absolutely thrilled just upon hearing these words.

And Jayla is so smart. I mean, I know we're biased, but seriously, I think it's amazing how much toddlers absorb at this age. She's learning so much. She understand more than we even give her credit for...and I think it's a lot. I don't think I could even go through the list of what words she knows at this point...but I'm going to attempt it...

Spoken words:
mama, mommy, dada, daddy, nana, papa, Jayla, elmo, dora, banana, cheese, freezie, apple, toast, book, baba, block, duck, quack, bubbles, bath, boat, tree, choo-choo, boots, shoes, socks, hat, cookie, cracker, yogurt (although, it doesn't sound like that), play-doh, jump, click, movie, juice, ouch, beep....I'm sure there are more...

And animal sounds:
dog, cat, elephant, giraffe, lion, snake, sheep, horse, cow, rooster,

Signs for:
more, again, fish, please (and we're working on thank you)....oh and she does this bouncy thing now for bunny...

More updates soon...

She's walking, talking and even started crawling!!!

Lots has happened since I last posted. Jayla has been walking since about the middle of June. So, I guess that happened around 14 months. She did take some steps (sometimes lots) between two people or objects, pieces of furniture, but now she's pretty steady on those chubby little legs of hers. And chubby they still are. Jayla is starting to slim out a little. And man is she tall. Sometimes her dad and I look in on her in before we go to bed and she looks as tall as a 3 year old. We're pretty sure she's somewhere around 34" long. The measurement we got at the doctor's office at her 15 month appointment was 32.5 inches, but you know how they squiggle around on the table....

Okay, so back to the other stuff. The talking is especially taking off these days. It's amazing how many words a 15 month old can have. We don't have an official list, but off the top of my head; mama, dada, nana, papa, dog, arf arf, boo (for moo), ah ah (for the monkey sound), duck, quack, book, baba (even though she's referring to the sippy cup), bubble, nana (for banana), mmm & num num, cracker, hi, truck, tree, and the newest is melmo (for elmo) - sounds like mama a little bit. But really, I'm sure there are more, but not that I can think of right now....I love hearing her talk. Her little voice is so sweet (when it's not making a screaming sound). Luckily she doesn't do a lot of screaming - phew!!

On to the next one. Crawling. After her waiting till 11 months to roll over - I guess I can understand that she was one of those babies who wanted to take their time in other things she does. She was trying to get onto her hands and knees for a couple weeks. Then once she figured out that her arm strength was enough to hold her up, she was able to get that crawling motion. She figured it out....I was so proud of her. And she was so proud of herself too...as she should be. It's crazy how much there is for a little baby to learn....But luckily there's not pressure, well, very little pressure actually. Really as long as they can do certain things by the time they go to school - walk, run, climb stairs, dress themselves, probably use the potty......but we have lots of time for that.

I now have a laptop, so I think I'll be able to keep this upto date a little better. But I can't make any promises.

She's Officially One!!!

I can't believe it's been a year, Jayla's first birthday is already here!

That's what the invitations said. The party is tomorrow, but her actual birthday was yesterday. I still have another week before I return to work, and I'm so happy that I was able to be off till after her birthday.

So, for the party, we're just doing a lunch thing. BBQ burgers & dogs, and of course a cake.

Here's the plan for the cake...although it's not even in the oven yet...so we'll see how it actually turns out. It doesn't seem too difficult, I think I can handle it.

Now, I'm actually wondering how Jayla will react to the cake. She seems to be one of those babies who doesn't like to get her hands dirty. Even if there is the tiniest piece of sweet potato stuck to her finger, she's conciously trying to pick it off....so icing, all over her hands & face and probably body too - I don't think she's going to be diving into that cake...but we'll see. Speaking of body, do the mama's and daddy's take the baby's outfit off for the cake experience? I guess we could crank up the heat so she doesn't get too cold. But I think that it's probably a good way to control the mess. (not that we're worried about a mess - afterall, it's a white cake, not chocolate).

So, one year old. Wow!! Where has the time gone. Martin put together a video for his volleyball girls and at the end added a montage of pictures of Jayla from birth till now. It was so amazing seeing the changes - progressively getting plumper and just having a more mature look to her. I can't believe how much these little ones change in such a short period of time. Seriously. I never would have expected a year to come so quickly.

Jayla is becoming more independent in some ways, yet in other ways, she's almost becoming more dependent. I don't know if she senses that my return to work date is nearing and feels she must get in as much mommy time as she can, but she really loves to cuddle and be close to me these days. It's so sweet. When she's crusing around the coffee table (as she does is such a professional manner), she often stops and transfers herself over to where I'm sitting on the couch or ottoman and plows herself into me all lovingly. It's so cute. And then she starts rat-tat-tapping on my thighs. Super cute! But like I said, with her 'growing' up, she is more independent too. Wanting to do stuff herself, without help. Although since she's not crawling or walking, she still relies on the grown ups to help her out - on her demands!!

So, no, in answer to all your questions, she's not crawling, or walking. And no, it's not late. Some babies never crawl and babies walking, well, that can happens as early as 7 months (as we've seen with some friends of ours) or as late as 18 months or later. So, we have nothing to worry about. I really actually think it's so sad that there is so much pressure on the gross motor skills of babies. I don't ever get anyone coming up and asking me if Jayla can feed herself, or drink from a cup, or can she sign milk, or more or say ball. It's always the standard, "is she walking?" and "is she crawling" - or another - is she sleeping through the night. Although, I guess at a year they expect all babies to be sleeping through, so we don't get that question often anymore. By the way, for the most part, the answer is yes. But poor Jayla was up quite a lot last night. She was not feeling very well. She woke up with a terrible runny nose. I just hope it's not more teeth. I'm not ready for that again (yet!).

The caregiver. We found someone we really love! It's a good feeling to know that you feel comfortable with the person who is looking after your baby. I'm sure some of you know this, but we actually had worked out the details of day care for Jayla back in September. But then we had some bad news presented to us about a month ago. It turned out that our caregiver's client's had changed their mind on some stuff, and there wouldn't be a spot for Jayla. So, on the hunt, I (and Martin) interviewed about 8 people (in person, not to mention all the other emails & phone calls that I made)....and we were successful. Thankfully. We actually tried a couple visits this past week for Jayla and she did very well. There's a little boy who is exactly one month older than Jayla (and yes, he crawls, walks, says lots of words and phrases, sleeps through the night and is an all around great kid!! - she'll probably learn a lot from him). It's the caregivers son. She actually has 4 wonderful kids, the others are all in school. She's a wonderful lady and has a great family. We're happy to have found her! So, I'll be taking Jayla again this week - 2 half days and 1 full day. Hopefully it goes well. I'm sure it's going to be harder on me than it is on Jayla. She's a tough kid!!

Oh and if I come across being cranky, I'm starting a severly regimented eating program. I was tired of trying (but not really putting in the effort) of doing it myself. So, now I'm extremely restricted and I'm going through sugar withdrawl and I'm cranky and nit-picky and and having to deal with cravings in the worst way! But I'm sure once I start seeing some of the pounds move off the scale and I get over the worst of the worst, I'll be back to normal again. Hopefully anyway. I just really want to take care of myself. Jayla deserves me to be as healthy as I can be.

Speaking of Jayla...she's up from her nap...so off I go!

But before, here's a couple pictures.

She's growing up....

Well, I just wanted to post quickly. Jayla is up and ready for her morning bottle but I wanted to give an update on all the new things she does.

I'll just list them, since it's easier and I don't want to forget stuff.

Jayla now walks - with assistance, holding onto our fingers.
She's been clapping again (phew, I guess there were too many other things to learn for a while there).
She feeds herself, stuff like toast, cheerios, cheese, pasta. The fruits and veggies are still too slippery.
Jayla stacks the donuts on the stick (fisher price toy), she loves to put things in bigger things. Like blocks in the bin, or some of the special shapes in the elephant mouth or the birds in the birdhouse.
She understands a lot of commands: give the bird to mommy, can you feed mommy too?, clap your hands, wave bye bye (this is new, just yesterday), give mommy a kiss/hug....it's really great!

Okay, I'm sure there are more, but this is all I can think of right now....

Another thing....I'm officially finished nursing. I was down to one feed per day. Then I just cut it out completely. It's actually been going better than I thought, physically anyway. Not that much pain and a little cabbage in my bra when I feel really full helps tremendously. As for the emotional aspect, yes, I feel sad about it. Especially now that she's not feeling well. This is when it would really be helpful for some comfort for my little baby. But I know that they don't really need it for sucking, or for comfort at this point....but it's just something that I was able to provide for her. I'm very proud of how long we lasted, I just felt that it was time for me to have my body back to myself. It does seem a little selfish I suppose, but I really think that I did a wonderful thing for her for the first 10 months of her life.

So, yes, we are settled and it's going very well. We've slept very well (all 3 of us). Martin and I have been going to bed around 10 instead of closer to midnight and Jayla has been doing 8pm-7am, pretty consistently since we moved in. *knock on wood* I don't want to jinx it...

Okay, so I should go and check on the little monkey and get her a bottle, but I'll try and update with some pictures later.

She feeds herself!

Our little Jayla is growing up! She is now feeding herself, finger foods. We give her cheerios, veggie puffs, little pieces of cheese - so far that's all we done. I tried banana, but man that stuff is all gooey and slippery, so it didn't go over as well. She had good intentions, but it kept slipping out of her hands.
Here's a picture of the little one at work...fighting for a piece of cheese!











She's doing very well with her eating again. She went through a short stint where she was not impressed with food. All she wanted to do was nurse and even the bottle was a battle! But she's over that....now she loves most foods. She's luckily not picky firhg now...but I"m sure that's yet to come. She enjoys vegetables like, sweet potato, carrots, cauliflower, parsnips (if it's mixed with something else and cheese) and peas. For fruits, anything goes, mango, peaches, apples, pears and we recently tried avocado, which I think is a fruit. She also likes chicken when mixed with other foods...apples and chicken is her favorite so far.

Food talk leads to weight talk. She's about 25lbs. Her weight gain has slowed down, but it's hasn't come to a standstill yet. But that's okay, as she gets more mobile, I'm sure she'll slim down. I'm certainly not worried about her weight, it's my back I'm concerned about. Luckily Jayla is not one of those babies who wants to be carried and held all the time. She's so content playing with her toys sitting on the floor, watching a bit of baby einstien (beethoven is her favorite) , reading books, a little time in the exercsaucer and of course meal time!

She has been so loving lately. Jayla has learned to kiss (open mouth, with some tongue - but watch out for banging heads!) and hugs and cuddles. She's very snuggly these days. And I think she knows that she's being cute when she does it. I'll say, give mommy a kiss and she'll lean in with her mouth wide open and then slip me the tongue! Haha.

I think Jayla is slowly learning how to wave. I've seen her wave 'hi' to babies in stores, but she doesn't to the wave bye-bye yet. I think it's cute that she just randomly waves.
Oh and I stole this little saying from a friend. She was actually shaking her baby's foot when she said it, but she just quickly repeats 'how do you do?, how do you do?' and I actually have Jayla putting out her hand to shake mine while I say it...it's so cute! And she gets such a kick out of it.
Here's a picture of her doing it with Nana...











And here's just a cute picture of Jayla on the computer chair. She was getting a ride last night. I think she likes it. That's the cutest little sleeper too, don't you think?










Okay, well, we move this Sunday, so maybe we'll have more to update once we're settled!

Baby getting fussy, here I go! I'm off...