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May 1, 2004
8.5 Months
First of all, the weather has been crazy here. It was absolutely, positively beautiful in March, with several days in the 20’s (that’s Celsius, folks) and April has been pretty good. Except for the past couple weeks. We have had some good days of sunshine and all, and then a huge storm comes in and it SNOWS! Ugh, blech. Then, it is cold for a few days, then it warms up, then in comes anther storm and it snows, AGAIN! Ugh, blech, ugh blech. I have no clue as to how May is going to be, if the past two months are any indication. We have been hoping that the warmer weather will stay, so that our garage pad can be poured and the landscaping started, but who knows, now! Unfortunately, Simon and I have only lived here during the winter, so we have no concept as to how summer acts, let alone spring. I really hope that we have a nice summer… it would be great to get out with Iain and stuff… :-)
Okay, house stuff. I will try to be brief, as I realize that last entry was giant. We are starting to get just a bit irritated at the builder. He has not really finished the huge list of items that remain to be finished, and we are starting to get worried. The only thing that has been resolved really is the plumber. There is still the electrician (oh, how I could rant and rave about this utter, stupid, idiot of a tradesman), the cabinetry guy, the concrete guys, the door guys, the stair guys, and the stucco guys. I have met with the builder to express my frustrations, but his excuse was that he wanted to give me privacy, what with Iain and all. I grant him that I have been leading him to believe that I am nursing Iain and not to be disturbed, but c’mon, work needs to be done too! Schedule it and that is fine with me! I only pump once in the day, and can schedule around that. So, we resolved to get the majority of the items completed in the next couple weeks, and finally, as I write this, I can say that the majority is indeed complete. The cabinetry guys are still coming, as are the stairs guys and the doors are still on order. Oh, and the concrete won’t be done until the garage is done, but I think that that is it.
So, I can finally feel as if I am able to leave the house if I want to. The past four weeks I feel as if I have been trapped in the house because I have had to let in tradespeople or installer or something and must be home to supervise or show them whatnot. It has been incredibly difficult for me, because I want to get out of the house and not feel trapped, but I am almost doubly trapped by having to HAVE to be here etc. It has made me feel all the more lonely, almost emphasising the loneliness that I do feel. I know that it is going to take me a while to meet and make new mum friends here. I do. But it doesn’t make it any easier when you are in the doldrums, you know? I am going to go to a LLL meeting in a couple weeks, and I still have my Wednesday mum’s group at the church, I am also going to drop into the baby storytime and make sure that I register for the upcoming baby swimming session. So, slowly and surely I will make friends. It is just hard right now is all!
We got our alarm system installed as well, which makes me feel better. This was an issue when we offered on the house, and we got it included that a security system would be roughed in. Well, the alarm fellow shows up to do the install, friendly little man, and immediately there is a problem. Turns out that the electrician used PHONE line, not standard security wire line, to rough in all the contacts etc. Furthermore, he didn’t label ANY of them! There was just a huge jumble of phone line in the basement, that’s it. Even further, there were no contacts on the basement windows and the contacts for the front and back doors were as wrong as you could do it. There were several phone calls to the builder and the electrician, the builder said that the electrician phoned three companies and talked to them about the install. The electrician, when pushed by me, said that he phoned three contractors, and other guys (other guys? What is other guys?) to make sure that the line would be okay. The poor alarm guy arrived at 3:00 for an hour install, only to leave at 7:00 pm! It took him four times as long because of all the extra work. All I can say is that I am really glad that we had a flat fee installation. I don’t want to know how much all that extra work would have cost us!
I live in the Parthenon. Okay, I don’t, but it sure feels as if I do. I have been living now, for two weeks with scaffolding enveloping our house while the stuccoers slowly stucco my house. It seems as if they are on more breaks than actually working. Anyway, the erected the scaffolding almost two weeks ago, did the scratch coat, and then nothing happened until a few days ago. Then suddenly, they went to work again and it did, literally, feel as if I lived in some ancient ruin. The noise of the scraping tools on the side of the house, the banging together of the scaffolding, the voices shouting out over the banging, scraping and music…I was dearly glad when they finished for the day. They had also taped plastic over all the windows, so I couldn’t even open any windows to let in fresh air. And they only do the stuccoing when the weather is warm, so you can imagine how warm it was in the house, not being able to open up any windows to get a breeze! Iain, thankfully and mercifully, went down without a problem both days that they were working and slept through all of the noise that they made. I am truly blessed with an amazing baby to be able to sleep through all of that noise! :-) They are not quite yet done, but have seemed to forgotten about us again, so I wonder when our house will be finished, and more importantly, when the scaffolding will come down! I can only hope soon.
We went down to visit friends of ours who live about an hour and a half south of the city. They have a farm, but from what I gather, have leased it and sold all the machinery just recently. The reason for this is that the husband, T, has successfully been chosen as the Conservative party candidate for the next federal election. This is a giant riding and also a giant decision for the family. The pair have been farming their land for thirty years, have two children who have decided to pursue different jobs and have been heavily involved in the national farming community for many years. Simon and I completely support them in their campaign, we both feel that he will bring an honest and very educated perspective to the federal political landscape, and we sincerely hope that he wins the riding for his party. We haven’t seen this couple since summer 2001, when they were able to have dinner with us in Halifax during a farming conference they were in town for. They are the parents of one of Simon’s engineering buddies, and have known Simon for years. Both of them have completely enveloped me in their warm friendship that they have with Simon and were really excited to meet Iain. We had a wonderful afternoon and early evening, Iain, true to his nature was a good baby, again not going down for a nap because of all the excitement, until I lulled him to sleep with his 6:00 bottle. Finally, then, he fell asleep, and again on the way home. :-)
We have also had a couple of dinner’s with my cousins at their mum’s house. I say my cousin’s mum, because my uncle remarried after her, and has since passed away. Gets a little confusing in my family… But we wouldn’t have it any other way! :-) She does a Sunday dinner, with friends and whichever children are either in town or are able to make it. Solly, the children’s nanny, who has been with the family for 25 or 30 years now, also always comes. I have memories of Solly from as early as I can remember, she was beyond excited to meet Iain, the next generation in our family! I was surprised at how much one of my cousin’s played with Iain, he was really gentle with him and just doing some really funny stuff during the course of the night. The only girl in the family has two small lapdogs and Iain just LOVED them! It was the funniest thing. He would see them and make his excited noises and he gets all tensed up and opens and closes his hands into fists. He then reaches out really tentatively, doesn’t quite touch the dog, and pulls back… the second time he does touch and he gives a little squirm in your arms… Hee hee…The second time we were there for dinner there were more of my cousins in town, so there were more of us. Again, Iain was the talk of the night and this time he really went to town on the doggies, chasing them all over the house, of course, nowhere near to catching them, but it was great fun watching! :-)
We had also gone to lunch that afternoon of the second dinner at my Uncle’s old club (he bought it and totally refurbished it into a spectacular men’s and women’s club in downtown). It was hosted by my aunt and all but four of the eleven cousins were there. The missing ones weren’t in town, hence their absence. My aunt was sincerely pleased to meet Iain, as was her daughter. For both of them, it was their first time. :-) Actually, for many of the cousins, it was their first time meeting Iain. We all had a great time, as usual, the food was absolutely excellent and Iain loved the spicy tomato soup that Simon had. Everyone loved watching him eat it :-) We even managed to put him down for a nap in a quiet corner for about forty-five minutes as we finished lunch and had dessert. I got a chance to talk with my aunt too, which was really lovely. I haven’t really had the opportunity to talk with her in a long time, when I saw her last it was at my uncle’s funeral, and everyone was just a wreck – not the appropriate time to talk about trivial things, as she was REALLY hard hit by her brother’s sudden death. So, anyway, it was really great to see her, and even better, to see her in such good spirits.
During the lunch, I kept seeing her out of the corner of my eye, doing something that my Mum does, or saying something that my Mum does… it was really eerie. I told her that later as I chatted with her while Iain slept, and she seemed pleased, which was also a good sign. :-) She and my Mum haven’t had the easiest of relationships, but it seems to be on the mend the past few years. She also said to me that every town that she was in in Spain (she just returned from several months there) there was a little baby store, but she didn’t know what to get us. She wanted to get something for Iain’s Christening, but then didn’t know what. I told her that we were going to let Iain choose his own religion, when the time came, but that Simon and I would talk about it, because we have really been trying to set new traditions with this family. She was pleased with this answer, I could tell by her smile, so while I am not sure what this gift should be right now, it is something that I will contemplate over the next couple weeks.
We did a whole house clean this weekend too, just before the lunch and dinner with my various family members. I write about this after the meals because something happened during the cleaning that we only found out about when we returned home after dinner. So, we went and did our famous top-to-bottom clean, where we… you guessed it, start at the top and work our way down the house, cleaning as we go. We have determined that we are never going to have marble in our bathrooms again, and wish that the builder didn’t put it in (it was already installed when we purchased the house). It is a real hassle to clean, requiring it’s own cleaning product and careful handling. Way to much hassle for something so beautiful! Anyway, we did the bathrooms, vacuumed the floors, dusted our bedroom set, mounted Iain’s bookcase and organized it so that the bottom two levels were safe for him, vacuumed the hardwood and then mopped it all. Didn’t get to the kitchen, time ran out and we needed to have showers before going out for the lunch. Next weekend we plan to tackle the kitchen more and do the basement as well, which looks like a bomb went off in it. Or, our version of a bomb going off, which probably still looks pretty darn neat and tidy to most people.
A side effect of doing this clean is that I am now much more comfortable putting Iain on the floor. It is so much more clean now, I really hated putting him on the floor and having him crawl around in all the construction dust, only to have him munch on his hands after they have been all over the place on the dirty floor. So… now it is much cleaner for him, yeay! Oh, and I am really quite impressed with the in-house vacuum. I have used one in the past, and it was terrible. Because of that poor experience, I didn’t want one for myself, but am SO glad that the builder put one in. We swiffered before we mopped, but hardly anything came up on the swiffer, whereas in Halifax, after we carefully swept the floor, we would go through at least two swiffer cloths, and this house has a greater square footage and we only went through one cloth! Now I know that I can just vacuum and know that it is really quite clean. Less work? I don’t have a problem with that!
Okay, back to the point. When we started downstairs after our showers and getting dressed, we heard a bang. We looked at each other, trying to figure out what it was, but couldn’t really tell, and there was no further noise… We dismissed it, thinking it was nothing. Weeellll, we get home from dinner and Simon wants to have a shower. He tries to open up the door to the closet to hang up his clothes, but it wouldn’t open all the way. The shelf, holding up ALL of my skirts, dresses, sweaters, Simon’s slacks and our bathrobes, had fallen down. That’s what the bang was earlier that day. Simon called me up to show me and I was astounded. The support brackets had bent down, the clips were pulled out…We have done numerous closets and this was the first time anything like this had happened to us. We don’t know what went wrong, but will put in posts and hopefully that will resolve the problem. Meaning, it won’t fall down again. Meanwhile, we trudged all the clothes into the still-functioning guest room closet. Next weekend: tack on buying and installing posts for closet. :-)
What else… oh! I had another visit with Jen and her son, Sam! This time, she came over to my house, and we had a wonderful time. I made tea, she being another former Atlantic Canadian, loves her tea! :-) I gave her a full tour, and one funny thing is that when I showed her the closet, this was prior to the shelf falling down, she immediately saw the lavender dress that I wore through all the belly pictures that I posted, and exclaimed “I know this dress!” We had another great visit, Sam played fairly well, although he was a little fussy during the visit – just something that he was going through is all! Iain was really interested in whatever Sam had, which led to some fussiness on Sam’s part, completely normal for an only child so far! Hey Jen, I’ve got my fingers, legs, toes, criss-crossed that he is definitely NOT going to be an only child! Got some great photos, but seemed to have lost that roll of film! Wahh! :-( I hope it turns up. We are going to get together again in a couple of weeks, this time down at her place right now, with some other mums that she knows with kids Iain’s age. Sounds good! :-)
I have also started doing my Pilates with some regularity. I had bought a video set back in the apartment, but we didn’t have the TV hooked up in the bedroom until just last week. So, the first time I did the extended session… man! It was really hard, there were many exercises that I was really struggling with. BUT… the second and third time, it was much easier. I think that that was because I was more used to the exercises and such, knowing how to hold my body etc. Only a half dozen of the exercises were hard those times. So, progress! I am going to keep trying to do at least two to three sessions a week, in addition to the Pilates that I do at the Mums and Babies group on Wednesday’s. Here’s hoping!
Ah, routine, routine, how I LOVE routine! So, finally, I have been able to get into somewhat of a routine here at the new house. Mondays are shopping days and I go out to Costco if needed, but always to the grocery store. This usually takes the whole day or morning, with me returning around lunchtime and a sometimes sleeping Iain gets transferred out of the van and into his crib. I then unload the van and put everything away. Tuesdays are laundry days and I do laundry all day. Sometimes I get it all done, sometimes not. I do really enjoy doing it though, it gives me the most satisfying feeling seeing all the neatly folded piles of clean, fresh clothing to go away. Oh, and to all you cloth diaperers out there, is there nothing like the zen you get into while folding these tiny diapers? :-) I have loved it since the beginning. Wednesdays I have the Mums and Babies group, Thursday and Fridays are just errand days, and working on the good ol’ thesis (ugh).
Pumping is coming great because I now have a desk in the guest bedroom so that means that I am OUT of the bedroom! Yeay! :-) I am SO glad to be off the bed and in a chair, it is much easier to deal with pumping now that I have a real pumping station set up. I notice that I am more efficient getting set up and it sure is nice to be able to read emails, diaries, posts and write entries while I pump. I have set up all the bottle things in a drawer in the dresser, and the bar fridge is also in here, so all I do is pump, pour out the milk into the bottles and put it in the fridge, all in one room! :-) Makes it all so much easier. The bottle warmer sits on the nightstand, ready for use as well. So everything that Iain needs for nourishment essentially is in this one room, right next to his. Before, the warmer was in the guest bath, and the bottles were downstairs, which didn’t make it fun if Iain woke up in the middle of the night hungry.
One last thing. We have started to rotate through the freezer stash of milk, because some of it is approaching 5 months old, and it is not good to have it there for too long (some guidelines say 6 months, some say a year – I like the 6 month ones). So, all of the milk was in freezer bags separated out into days. There is 30oz per day, 6 5oz bottles. Iain is still pretty much eating 30oz right now, in addition to the solid food that he gets at dinner time. He has a 6oz bottle at 8:00/8:30, 2:30, 6:30, 8:00 and the last 6oz at 10:00. While it is somewhat more difficult to deal with the frozen milk versus the already-prepared bottles, it isn’t too bad now that I have a system down. Unfortunately, because of all the transferring that the milk went through (our Halifax freezer, across the country in coolers, into a friend’s freezer, into their second freezer and FINALLY into our freezer) many of the corners of the disposable liners that I freeze in have been damaged, so there are tiny little holes that the milk leaks through when it is warmed up. I try really hard not to get too frantic about this precious gold spilling out into the warmer, but it’s really hard! I worked SO hard for at that time! Some of them that start to leak while in the ‘holding’ container in the fridge I have doubled up on the liner, but I don’t want to waste liners, so I wait until the milk starts to defrost and then check the milk by dragging the bottom along the nightstand; if there is a milk trail, then I add the second liner. I use the Avent disposable liners, with the clips, just because I always have. I don’t mind that they don’t have the easy seal that the Lansinoh and Gerber (I think) have, When freezing milk, I make sure that there is no air in the bag, fold down two times and the fold in the sides, put the clip on and freeze it flat. Then, when it is frozen, I remove the clips because and the folds stay closed! This time, I am freezing in 6oz bottles, as that is what Iain is drinking now. I reserve some of the fresh milk to top off the 5oz frozen milk to 6oz. I think that is about it for pumping and milk this entry! :-)
And Iain LOVES his milk. His expressions when I give it to him are hilarious! His eyebrows go up, his eyes slightly roll back into the back of his head and he holds the bottle with both hands initially. Really cute. Makes pumping worthwhile when I see him eat like that. After the initial ecstasy wears off, he will hold his bunny in one hand, or his soother, and wave it around during the feeding while he holds the bottle with his other hand. :-) Yeah, he can one hand it. And he uses the Avent system, and can one hand the large bottles too. Did I mention that he has huge hands? LOL I have noticed that he will usually hold the bottle in his left hand and use his right to wave things around, or bat at things if he is in his little chair. Is this showing a preference for what hand he will eventually write with? Only time will tell! :-)
Okay, time for Iain news! Get ready, there is a ton this time. First of all, Iain has climbed the stairs, the entire set, from bottom to top. HOLY COW! We didn’t really help, except to keep moving the toy he was after sequentially higher up the stairs. I was right behind him to catch him if he lost his balance, but he didn’t give any indication the entire trip that he was going to. He just climbed the entire thing. I can barely grasp the amount of strength that this entails in someone so young. He didn’t need to take a break, at the top, he wasn’t tired, but then went on crawling around the upper level, following us around. When it came time for his bottle, we were still up there, and so Simon decided to test him. He put the bottle on the first step down, just to see what Iain would do. Well, he crawled over to the stairs and reached down, face forward. So, Simon moved it to the second step down. Well, here comes the eerie part. Iain turned on his side, trying to get down the stair, but knowing that he shouldn’t go face forward. He managed to get one leg down and was reaching but couldn’t quite get the bottle. The determination and smarts of this little boy completely and utterly astound me. How did I give birth to a son who was so smart as to know how to do this?? :-)
I have caught Iain asleep in his Megasaucer twice now, and it is the sweetest thing. I put him in it so he can watch his language video, when I put it on he gets the biggest grin on his face and looks at me and then the video a couple of times, as if he is saying, thanks Mum for putting on my video! Anyway, the first time we needed him occupied while we cleaned the house, he was just too busy getting into things! It had been quiet for a little while and Simon went down to check on him. He whistled up to me, I came down and saw him, clenching his bunny, fast asleep. I did take a moment to snap a couple of pictures, how could I not! He didn’t even budge when I picked him up out of it and laid him down in his crib, slept soundly for two more hours… The second time, I was trying to get some work done on my thesis, and once again needed him occupied for at least a half hour, once again, it was quiet for a long time and when I went down to check, low and behold, he was fast asleep. Again I was able to get him out and into his crib without him waking and he slept for another two hours! :-) It is the sweetest thing though, to see him sleeping like that, turns my heart.
We have been trying to teach Iain “no.” We have a fireplace insert in the living room and cellular blinds on the patio doors that are off the living room that cannot be touched by him. It is just too dangerous! So, when he goes near these things, we have been saying his name and then “no.” He is getting it too! His hand stalls in mid-air and he looks at us, moves his hand again and we repeat the “no” and he looks at us again. It has gotten so that we say no and he, most of the time, redirects his attention. Not so successful upstairs in the office, with the recycling box filled with oh-so-crunchy paper, or the garbage, also filled with oh-so-interesting items. But, it is coming!
Iain consistently reaches for me when he is in Simon’s arms. This is particularly the case when he is tired or has had a bump or fall and is upset. Simon will pick him up and I will come over to either help console him if he is really upset, or if we are just talking, come over to finish the conversation. Iain will reach out his arms to me and lean over until I have to pick him up out of Simon’s arms because he will fall over. I love that he is doing this for the developmental level that it takes to recognize that he wants to be with one of us or the other. For a long time, he has known that he plays with Dad, and Mum is there to snuggle with and fall asleep with. It is hard for Simon, because sometimes it is he who wants to console Iain, but hey, it is me who is with him all day now…can’t really argue with that. And he still LOVES playing with his Dad.
Simon has started to carry Iain on his shoulders when we are out doing errands, particularly if it is just a quick jaunt in and out of the store. So much easier than getting out even the umbrella stroller and setting it up, buckling Iain in and so on. Iain absolutely LOVES it up there. He has a complete ball! He holds onto his Dad’s ears, which are perfectly placed and sized for his little fingers and hands, and make great handles. Simon holds his feet and we walk around. The looks that we get from other people in the stores are great too, what is better than a little baby boy on top of his Dad’s huge shoulders? :-) One thing that Simon does with Iain while he is up there, is lean back so that Iain has to really hang on. There is a picture of him sort of doing this on the website, but Simon is on the sofa. Essentially, Iain rides Simon’s shoulders as if he was riding a bull, and getting bucked around :-) He just laughs and laughs when they do this together! Totally fills my heart with love for the two amazing men in my life! Occasionally, Iain will fall completely backwards and hang down Simon’s back, and then I have to help him back upright, but he loves doing that too. Such a happy and playful baby boy, Iain is.
One thing that truly catches my heart is how much Iain is like me when he laughs. When you get him started, like when we growl into his belly, he just can’t stop, and his laughter is exactly mine. I love it. :-) To have gotten my laughter? How great a gift is that? I cannot even begin to measure that. We will be playing on our bed, Iain will be sitting up and we push him back onto the bed, and he just starts up. We play wrestle like this and he is completely into it, coming towards us crawling right into our face because we are going to roll him around or push him back, or growl into his belly. We can play like this for up to a half hour sometimes and it is so precious, so sweet. It’s usually around bedtime and he is in his sleeper, all snuggly and clearly SO happy. The sound of his laughter is so joyous and pure, it almost makes me cry, but then again, I guess it is just because it touches my heart so deeply. I love him so much at those moments!
Iain has formed associations with a couple of stuffed animals, and it is just great. I love that he reaches out particularly for specific animals, and best yet, he is ALWAYS comforted by one bunny rattle. I am so pleased with the bunny rattle, because it was the very first stuffed animal that I bought for him. We were in Sears when he was just two weeks old when I passed it and said I was going to buy it. Simon said that he didn’t need it, but I replied that I was buying it anyway! LOL Cut to 8 months later, and he clutches the ears as if they were the only thing in the world to him, rubs them against his face, transfers hands with it, or holds onto both ears with both hands… SO cute. The best thing is that if he is just starting to go to sleep and needs a bit of help, I will hand the bunny to him and off he goes into dreamland. Because of this, I have started to have it when I give him his last bottle of the night, because of his hand waving tendency I spoke of earlier. That way he waves the rattle and holds the ears, and not my hair or lower lip :-) I wanted to get him something else comforting, so I went to Toys’R’Us. I passed by the stuffed animal display going in and found a ‘blanket’ bunny. It is a bunny, but all flat so that the head is the only thing ‘stuffed’. I am sure that you have seen similar creatures. Anyway, it has nice soft ‘fur’ and I handed it to Iain and he gripped it the entire time I was there. He was in the Bjorn at the time actually, and by the time I got to the cash register with the other items I was buying, I had completely forgotten that he had it and had to be reminded by the cashier to purchase it! Ooops! Anyway, Simon has named it Floppy, because, well, it’s floppy. And Iain will give it the biggest hug when we hand it to him! :-) Quite a hit.
Lastly, I wanted to remember this. Iain will clench and unclench his right hand, moving his thumb in and out of the grip of his fingers, over and over. I have no idea what this implies, but the sheer fact that he does this unconscious movement is fascinating to me. The other thing that he does is scratch or scrape his hands on my chest when he holds me. Or in his car seat, he will do that against the belts, making a neat sounds. Once again, I have no idea what this movement means, except that I want to remember that he does do it. If I hear a funny sound while I am driving, it is usually him scraping his hands on the belt or something. Don’t know yet if it is both hands or one dominant hand that he does it with, like the clenching hand, I don’t know if it really matters! Just wanted to write it down is all.
**Talk to Me**
Did your builder start to lag on the little things that were left to finish, like our is, and how did you deal with it?
Do YOU love routine as much as I do? What is your routine around the house and with your kids?
What traits have you passed on to your kids, which ones to you love and which ones do you not?
Namaste, Laura and Iain
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