Snuggles, Kisses and Basement

Meals has been very snugly lately, not really for any reason it seems (well maybe her teeth are bugging her), it is so cute. She is also much more undiscerning with her kisses (with are more just open mouth suction cups). This week was also the first week we really used our basement. On Tuesday my dad was in town on business and came for dinner. He hadn’t see Meals since well before Christmas so I think he found a big change in her. Amelia certainly put on a show her him, the highlight was her standing at her toy box staring into it bending her knees and grunting every 5 secs or so, I don’t know what was going through her head but it was very funny. Wednesday I had abit of a rough day, Meals was being a terror and was totally obsessed with the stairs, even if I sat on the floor and played with her she was still not interested and after a minute she was back at the stairs. I got so frustrated!!! Then the cats started yelling at me for attention too and I lost it. That night Jeff and I cleaned the basement and moved all the tools out and move the computer and toys down there and Thursday was our first day in the basement, even with no TV down here it is like a holiday. Everything is baby proofed and there isn’t much mischief for her to get into. On Thursday night we ran over to IKEA to pick up a side table and a entertainment unit (for the TV, once it gets fixed) and now other than waiting for our desk and abit more painting, the basement is pretty set. Of course we left the two IKEA boxes on the floor on the tile and the next morning Amelia maybe a beeline for them and was on top of them, Mischief found!! On Friday night we had out neighbours Leigh, Rob and Ronan up for pizza and wine (our first entertaining in the basement). It was cute to watch Meals follow Ronan around. Saturday evening I had my gourmet group over for dinner, Jeff had his office party and Meals had playtime over at Grandmanam and Pake’s. I spent Saturday cooking and cleaning and Jeff and Meals helped me. The theme this time for my gourmet group was appetizers and cocktails, made for a very fun night. As you might expect Sunday was abit of a right off for me I spent the first couple hours of the day lying on the couch in the basement napping while Jeff played on the computer and Meals played with her toys. It was so nice to just relax and not have lots of things to do that day. It was the prefect morning (with the exception of the headache) with all the family just lounging, even the cats came for a snuggle on the couch. Yesterday afternoon we did some errands then went over to John and Denise for Sunday dinner, yummy as always. This week we don’t have much on, hopefully I will finally get the last of my painting done. In the past week in addition to snuggles and kisses Meals has also started grunting, babbling a lot more. Her other favourite thing is to find things on the floors eg. toys, lint or other things she shouldn’t have and then bring them too me, it is rather cute. She quite delighted if I pretend to chew it then she usually wants the treasure back after a minute.

10 months

Another month gone by and what an eventful month it was. Meals is growing along. With the addition of two new teeth this month she is now up for four, well two full on teeth and two little nubs. I think the teething has caused some of the fussiness and clinging in the last couple weeks but is kinda hard to tell what is a result of teething and what is just from travelling, changing schedules and adjusting to less attention on the return (no Meals I can’t hold you 24/7). Amelia is very mobile and into everything. She has now worked out how to open the kitchen cupboard doors and drawers, there have only been a couple pinched fingers but I am sure there will be more, ugh. This month her big achievement (at least I would think in her mind) was learning to climb the stairs and in the last couple weeks she figured out to go back down too. She is walking around at all the furniture, cupboards and peoples legs. She doesn’t like standing on her own and when we try to make her there are many grunts and tears but she seems to be able to stand on her own just fine for those few seconds before she either squats down on the floor or throws herself at us. Amelia has also developed a very funny high-speed crawl that involves much more bum wiggle than the regular crawl; she kinda reminds me of a very excited Labrador Retriever, maybe she has been spending too much time with Jasper. She has started saying Dada, she was very excited and proud of herself when she figured it out. When she is mad at me or frustrated she makes a “nanana” noise and recently she has started going “rarara”, no clue what that is about. Amelia still hasn’t developed the very picky palate I had as a child and she will eat most things. Amelia hasn’t figured out that she can take things out of her mouth or spit them out. It is wonderful. As long as we can get it in her mouth it will go down, however getting in is sometimes a change. This month she developed a deep and abiding love for bread in any form. While in Cuba we would keep her quiet during dinner with buns, at first we would give her little pieces but by the end of the trip we would just rip it in half and she would go to town. I also tried her on liver, YUCK!! I won’t eat it but she seems to like it, apparently both Jeff and I grew up on the stuff but neither of us will touch it now. Since we have returned from Cuba I have started giving her some cheerios or fishies in a Tupperware for a snack on the floor and during meals I give her a spoon with abit of food to play with while I feed her. The cheerios and fishies all end up on the floor and are eaten from there and the Tupperware turns into a drum, oh well I’ll keep trying. On the spoon front at first as you can imagine it was very mess with food all over and lots of pinching the food with her fingers. After a couple days of food flinging she started to catch on and now she gets the spoon into her mouth and as long as the consistency of the food is thick enough the food gets in too. For now I just refill her spoon for her and give it back to her, she usually gets one spoon in for every three of mine. I have not started giving her bowl privileges yet and if the cheerios and fish are any indication she won’t be getting the bowl for quite awhile. This month Meals also swam in the ocean and played in the sand for the first time, what fun. I think she quite enjoyed her first hot vacation and thrived on all the attention she received. She is quite the little ham with smiles for everyone.

Amelia - 10 Months

If you look close you can see the little nubs of teeth.

Home Sweet Home

Well I love going away but it is rather nice to be home and getting back to normal life, although I could do without the weather. This weekend was busy with basementing, shopping for furniture for the basement and cooking. Meals was very out of sorts on Friday and Saturday, very clingy and lots of crying. I couldn’t figure out if she wasn’t feeling well, if she was just over tired or if she was in withdrawal from all the attention she received in Cuba. By when she even cried through her bath I was starting to think something was really wrong and I was going to make a doctors appointment on Monday. Luckily she had a good sleep that night with a long sleep in and Sunday she was back to our normal happy baby, thanks goodness. Jeff and John did the last of the electrical on Saturday, installed the baby gate for the basement AND help Daryl bring my parents couches over to our place, YES we have funtiure!!!! Yeah!!! On Sunday we went to our favourite furniture place and ordered a desk, now we just have to wait the painful 6-8 weeks till it gets delivered. BOO!! Last night we hosted Sunday dinner for our family and Dan and Gwen. It was lovely to finally have these two over and get a chance to show Gwen all the hard work Dan has been doing in our house. Dinner turned out very well (after an initial rough start for my soup). Today we are off for a walk with Denise and tomorrow my Dad is coming over for dinner. Yippee!! More pics from Cuba....

Adiós Cuba!!!

Well after a week of holidays we are back to real life again today. We had a wonderful holiday although some iffy weather at times. We left for Cuba last Thursday, leaving the house at 3:30 in the morning, ouch. We thought maybe if we packed up that car and got everything ready then went and got Meals and put her right into the car and left that we might get her to stay asleep… Yeah right she knew something was up and spent the entire drive to the airport smiling at us with the “Super Smile”. We were VERY happy when we checked in and found out that we had an extra seat for Meals. During take off she fell asleep and slept for about an hour, yippee. We had a great flight down after, Meals woke up she played and smiled at everyone. Jeff and I are both very happy that the change in pressure doesn’t seem to bug her. We arrived at our resort to a rather chilly day (only 19, eep), we checked out the resort and had a bite to eat. I must say I was rather stressed out cause I had read and been told by so many people to be careful about what I fed her etc. By the next day I had given up and other than the water (just bottled for her) Meals was eating everything, the stress was down, Meals was happy and no problems occurred. Our first couple nights there were rather stressful for Jeff and I, Amelia didn’t want to sleep and the second night she was up till 1am crying off and on. This is not normal for Meals or us and Jeff and I were vowing that we would never go on holidays again till she was out of the house. After the second night we moved her crib so she couldn’t see us and we went back to normal house rules, after two enforced naps she was back to normal and went down without a peep the rest of the holiday, thank goodness!!!! With the sleep sorted out Jeff and I were feeling much more relaxed, everyone was very kind to us offering to take Meals to play or going back to the room for nap time. We had so much fun playing with Amelia on the beach, we had to remind her many times not to eat the sand (she only listened sometimes) but it was fun none the less. Her first time in the ocean she wasn’t so sure but the second time I took her in and my mom smiled and jumped around like a seal doing tricks and she stayed very entertained and happy and after that the ocean was fine. Unfortunately with the weather being on and off the pool just didn’t heat up enough for Melie, we went in one day but didn’t spend much time there, the ocean was more fun. The resort was beautiful and the staff was soooo friendly, everyone knew Meals name and Jeff and I heard more than one “hola, Amelia’s parent’s” ha ha. Meals received the grand tour of the resort by the staff; as soon as we would take her out of the highchair after she had eaten she would be swept up by one of the servers and taken for a tour. One of the barmaids in the lounge was so talented she would sweep Amelia up with her tray in one hand and Meals in the other, they would go back and get drinks and say hi to the guys in the kitchen then come back with a tray full of drinks. I was a little nervous about my daughter deciding to grab one of those pretty drinks but it didn’t happen. It was very embarrassing when they would bring her back and she was cry and not want to let go, I think she would have like to be adopted and lived on the resort with all her friends. There is no question that at least for now Meals doesn’t have a shy streak. I have a feeling mealtime is going to be abit of an adjustment for Amelia now that we are home. The trip home was pretty grating with over a 2hr delay in the nasty Cuban airport then arriving in some rather depressing Toronto weather, yet still very nice to be home and only one day and the weekend, yippee!!! Well wew were away Meals also got her two front teeth while we were away, we are calling them her cuban teeth, good for opening rum bottles and chewing on cigars. Meals also has started eating bananas like a little monkey (not mushed), she is now alittle banana vulture I think she can hear then pealing of a banana and rushes over. Oh and while we were gone Jeff started an intensive train in "Earmuffs" she is starting to catch on...

Mom all ready to Cuba!!! Let's go!! Yup we are off to Cuba tomorrow morning!!! Yipeee!!! Can't wait. So yup we'll be back next Thursday. Ta ta

I'm comin' to get ya. 

Playing with blocks.  

More carpet and some Harry Potter room shelving. 

Amelia exploring her new room (Denise supervising). 

Two of my babies enjoying the new carpet!! 

I forgot to post this last week, here is one of the pics from swimming.  

“Dada”s little girl

It has been a busy week in Meals’ world, she has learned to climb the stairs and she has started saying Dada. The stairs thing started so quickly, you could practically see the wheels turning. In the middle of the week she finally noticed the stairs, I knew it was coming but I was dreading it. Until then she had just checked out the kitchen but usually stayed pretty close to the toy box or the coffee table. Well at first she just hit the stair then she stood at it then sure enough she tested out the first step. For that day she just did two stairs, still in pretty safe range. Well by Thursday when Denise babysat she made it to the top and had explored all the bedrooms. Since Thursday Jeff and I have been doing a lot of stairs. She has a system she gets up at the stair bangs it twice with her hand then gets her knee up and then the other. The two bang happens at ever stair, Denise things she is testing it saying “hello, you strong enough? You know I am a big baby”. The other big event was her saying “Dada”, it was pretty cute we were driving to Sherway to do abit of pre-vacation shopping and we were talking and Meals was babbling in the back then all of a sudden there was a dadada followed by a huge crackle, seems she was pretty pleased with herself. After that the dada’s were pretty free flowing, Jeff went to pay for something at the cash while Meals stayed with me and there were many “DADADA”. Oh did I mention that in the last few days Meals has been turning into a daddy’s girl. I was out for a fabulous dinner at Canoe with some girlfriends on Thursday night and Friday I helped a friend out and babysat for her, so both nights Meals and Jeff had the house to themselves, those two nights were all it took (that and I pretty sure the high energy horse play that Jeff partakes in) and Meals was yelling for Dad by Sunday. After 9 months of being the loved one it is abit sad for me to pass the torch but it is pretty damn cute to watch so I’m over it. Well in other news the carpet is going in in to basement as I type, Yippeeeeee!!!!! (and some other less appropriate shouts of excitement). Jeff and John finished of the shelving in the Harry Potter room (the room under the stairs the is going to be toy storage/little desk for Meals and lots of shelves for books etc.). It looks friggin’ amazing!!!!! The guys did a fantastic job, I can’t gush enough. When I came up with the idea of finishing that little closet (drywalling, carpeting etc.) it was met with less than enthusiasm but being the pain in the ass that I am it got done and I am soooooo happy it did it looks so cute and there is so much storage and it adds a uniqueness to the basement I think. Everything in the basement looks great Jeff, John and Dan and his crew all did a beautiful job. I can’t wait till Meals and I can move down there during the days. What else, there has been a lot of preparation for Cuba going on (we leave Thursday) eyebrow waxing, pedicures etc. you know all the essentials J but I still haven’t even started packing, eep. I have been a little obsessed with the basement and have been putting all my spare time into that so the next few days are going to be full of packing and organising. So many things to bring when travelling with a baby thank goodness all the grandparents and Julie are coming with us so I can spread some of her stuff around. I also have to get the furry babies bags packed for a stay the winter camp over at my parents (my grandfather is coming down from Kingston to babysit the herd). Dexter and Maisy have been ramping up their usual craziness lately cause I think they are getting excited to go see Basil. OH and Mr. Dexter my lovely little cat has taken to getting on the kitchen counter and drinking of the sink, BAH!!! I have a cat that likes to drink on the counter and a daughter that likes to eat out of the cat bowl, what is wrong with this picture!!! Last night we were off at the home of the mega TV (aka John and Denise’s) for some Super Bowl viewing and some homemade pub grub. We all actually watched the game this year and stuffed our faces. Meals explored the house with Pake close in toe, this whole stair thing is really opening up whole new worlds for her.

Stairs!!

Sorry i did it again, I turned to camera the wrong way. Anyways as you can see Amelia is climbing the stairs, CONSTANTLY!!! for now we follow her up everytime (which is quite a few times), we aren't really sure what we are going to do about our stairs yet, our basement is almost finished and that will be totally babyproofed and I think we are going to see how things are once we are settled down there. For now we are just doing lots of stairs.