august 2009

august 28

we're off to vancouver this weekend to hopefully buy a boat. things aligned on the last minute so i've been scrambling to try and remember what to pack. last time i forgot any bibs, the time before it was baby spoons and this time i almost forgot to pack any clothes at all for zoe! it's tricky keeping track of 5 people's worth of stuff.

this week zoe was very busy - she's produced a new tooth and can apparently crawl. she also has a new hobby - trying to pick the fibres out of the carpet. this hobby has the added benefit of sometimes producing something exciting which aly and toby have left lying around on the carpet.

august 21

zoe has another hair raising day....

aly and her new reading glasses

so the house is in the chaos in the midst of the kitchen renovation. despite my best efforts, the contents of the kitchen seems to be spread across most of the house. at last count there were 7 rooms in the house somehow impacted by this one-room renovation. the other day one of the electricians asked me how i was so calm and whether i was really ready to explode. it's a good question. i suppose i have my eyes on the prize and am grateful that things are a little more relaxed during the summer holidays with no lunches to make or dinners to shovel down children for school-night bedtimes.

one thing which may test my patience at some point is all country music, all the time! it seems the main contractor, jerry, is a bit of a fan. you'd think after 8 years of living in north america i'd be used to it by now. i can't really complain though - other than his taste in music and any of the workmen's ability to put the toilet seat down, they are very well behaved and tidy. it's a very different experience than being in england. i can't for the life of me persuade anyone to have a cup of tea or coffee. in fact jerry brings his own thermos of coffee, and another with iced water. the best i've managed is talking one of the electricians into a cookie and the other into a glass of apple juice - i suddenly feel very foreign!

the before

the during.. [the after to follow sometime in the next 2 months!]

aly asked one of the builders the other day when they were going to stop making holes and start filling in the holes. a fine question i think!

august 16

the cousins - britt, cyd, zoe, dani, toby, aly

so we've just got back from a weekend in victoria doing a child swap [aly is back for a week while toby is staying there for a week]. we also got a chance to celebrate tonya's birthday with her which doesn't happen very often.

tonya's birthday dinner

aly has been having a fantastic time with her cousin cyd and everyone else in victoria. we're vaguely [yes sascha - vaguely!] toying with the idea of buying a small boat to do a bit of sailing in the next year or 2 to see how the children do, so we went to look at a few boats in victoria. it's weird to be in a marina again because it's been such a long time and really seems like a life time ago.

there was no room at the inn with 8 people already staying at the house so we stayed nearby in sidney where zoe decided not to sleep so now we're back and i could use a weekend to recover, but we had a great time none the less. we went to see aly in a horse show today [costume class!] but we missed cydney winning all sorts of ribbons in her events unfortunately. anyway, it was great to get away and see everyone - especially to see the 6 cousins together for the first time. tomorrow it's back to kitchen renovation chaos!

with aly away, toby had to take on her usual role and do more baby entertaining!

august 7

aly [complete with newly acquired reading glasses] is in victoria for 2 weeks and toby is in tennis camp in the mornings for 2 weeks so it's suddenly feeling very quiet around here.

i was thinking it's about time i did a quick zoe update, so here goes..

• her two front bottom teeth are now almost fully in. no sign of any more.
she's happily munching away on lots of finger foods which makes life a lot easier since chasing cheerios around her highchair keeps her entertained long enough for me to shovel my dinner down! she's an excellent eater and doesn't usually turn her nose up at anything. in fact, the only thing i can think of that she doesn't like is meat puree by itself. who could blame her though - have you smelt that stuff?!
• she's still very clingy with me, but doing much better around strangers than she was thank goodness [there's nothing worse than someone smiling and gooing at your baby only to have the baby instantly burst into tears!]
• she's getting good at standing whilst holding onto something and remembers most of the time that she needs to keep holding on to it if she doesn't want to fall. she's always liked to stand so will happily do this for 5-10 minutes if there's something interesting enough in front of her. she cruises a little bit, but still only moves her arms and forgets to move her legs most of the time. she can stand by herself for a good 5 seconds now and will happily walk around for a few minutes with someone holding her hands. she's still not very keen on the whole concept of crawling. i know toby only crawled for a week or 2 before he started walking instead so maybe she'll do the same.



• she's generally quiet - not much of a babbler. i think the health nurse would like me to be a little more concerned than i am but i spent a lot of time worrying about aly for the same reason and it turns out that aly just never made any noise without a very specific reason [unlike toby who never stopped babbling from birth and still talks nonsense all day everyday!]
• her sleeping is much better than it was. it's a good day to be writing this because i only had to get up to her once last night. usually i feed her twice in the night and that's ok with me. we don't bounce her to sleep any more - just put her in her crib for naps and bedtime. she sometimes cries for a few minutes, but quite often just goes straight to sleep.
• she can not only flap but also clap [a big break through!] and is [i think] starting to do a couple of baby signs - 'fan' [can you tell how hot it's been] and 'hear'. she also definitely understands the sign for milk. incidentally the sign for milk is a cow milking sign. not sure how i feel about being likened to a cow.

speaking of me, i'm loving not being pregnant and i think i'm hoping to stay that way for the rest of my life [sorry zoe - looks like you'll be the youngest]. strangely i've put ON about 10-15 pounds SINCE giving birth. very unusual for me to ever put on weight so i'm pretty happy because it brings me up to a fairly good weight. not sure if it will stay on once i stop breastfeeding [i'm aiming for that to be no earlier than her first birthday this time] but i guess we'll find out. i'm not concerned about the weight but do need to be more fit than i am - i had to give up my mom and baby exercise class during the summer holidays because of having the other 2 with me. anyway, i've decided on a new exercise regime - alternating days of 30 minutes of wii active, 30 minutes of rollerblading or ice skating and 30 minutes of wii fit. fortunately the temperature is back down into the 20s for a few days so it's no longer too hot to move.

august 1



very happy the temperature has come down a bit. it has been hot hot hot. record breakingly hot [i believe july 29 was the hottest day ever in vancouver]. i know we really shouldn't complain because we spend all winter moaning about the rain [and this year, about the snow] but we're really not equipped to deal with temperatures in the 100s. we have one, small, portable air conditioning unit and a very hot house - upstairs where most of our living space is anyway. the house literally smells like a sauna and even the toilet seat is hot! we were taking turns in the room with the air conditioner and tried to spend as much time out of the house as possible. i even conceded to spending an afternoon in the chaos of chuck 'e' cheese [which has the added benefit of being so loud no-one will hear your baby scream]. i'm definitely a temperate-climate type of girl.


friday harbour

we've just spent a lovely few days away in friday harbor - on san juan island in the US. it was a lovely trip with some disc golf, walking, shopping, whale watching [or as it turns out harbor-seal-watching] and eating. we took the ferry over from victoria since we were on vancouver island picking up aly from camping in nanaimo [which was 'great' apparently] and visiting cyd, pete and hitomi, colin and nikki.


the disc golfers


roche harbour sculpture park


whale watching at lime kiln



on the way back we took the ferry to the US mainland and drove back - just a 2 hour drive and a breeze through the border with a family of canadian passport holders for the first time in our lives. [until now it's been a jumble of 3 different nationalities and some eyeball photos/fingerprinting for me]. naturally we stopped off at target on the way up for old times sake. we also went to the build-a-bear workshop and made bears for the first time ever. zoe did much better being away from her bed this time around thank goodness.



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