Baby Chaos

This weekend was crazy, but a good deal of fun. Our friends Julia and Rafa were visiting from Kingston Friday through Sunday. Julia is expecting a baby boy in January, so we were happily passing on a lot of our baby stuff.
On Saturday my public health group of moms decided to have our bi monthly get together to celebrate all of the babies turning one. The dads came too, so we had seven babies with their parents for lunch at Alice's house at 11 am. At 3pm of the same day, all of my Salsa babies moms decided to have their get together. I offered up our house, so we had seven more babies with moms at our house.
Then, on Sunday because Julia was here, we had Jenn and Griffin and Gretel and Phelan over. I tried to get some better pictures of all three babies, but they were pretty intent on stealing toys from each other, so it was challenging to stop for pics.
Check out the pics of baby chaos weekend below.

Pics of the public health group moms

Pics of the Salsa Babies and Moms
Phelan and Adara who insisted on sitting in her bath tub for the majority of this visit!

Morning Crib Play

Adara has taken to waking up at 5am over the past few weeks. A bit trying, but when she first gets up we have a lovely 15 minutes or so when she's perfectly happy clowning around in her crib with us sitting beside. Here's a picture sequence that covers less then a minute or her play when she woke up from a nap the other morning. She just loves being in her crib with her beloved cow, Bessie, and one of us sitting on a chair beside watching.

Child Literacy

Tonight, after a long work week, for the first time all week, Adara happily agreed to having a nice long, calming bath. All week she has been leaping out after about 30 seconds and begging to be put to bed. She had a day with daddy today instead of at daycare, so I guess that she was a little less tired.
We had a lovely dinner in which Adara ate the middle eastern food that we were having. Chicken shwarma and eggplant, potatoes and cauliflower in a garlic yogurt sauce. Loved it, couldn't get enough!
So, after dinner, I gave her her bath, got her dressed, fed her the bottle and read her two books, all of which she was perfectly silent for. Then,she took the book from me, turned back to the beginning and very patiently opened the book and page by page babbled at me. Turn a page, babble, pause, turn a page, babble pause. So sweet to see that she wanted to "read" the book to me. Totally melted my heart!
In the picture below (very fuzzy) you'll see her latest trick. She likes to take my underwear out of the laundry basket,hang it around her neck and run around the house. Why? Who knows! Does it smell like me, is it the reaction that she gets from us, or does she just like showing off my underwear to the world? Oh wait, I'm the one who posted the picture of admittedly dirty underwear... oh well, mothers have no shame!

Baby Olympics

The 20 metre water jug run by world class Olympian Adara Stannard-Fry!

Happy 11 Months Adara

Eleven Months, huh? Happy eleven month birthday baby girl! Next month we switch over to one year, and then I'm thinkin' that the monthly birthday messages are done. I always thought that it was a bit crazy when you ask a mom how old their baby is and they say 17 months. Just say a year and a half people, it's gettin' a bit silly!
So, this will be your last "month birthday". I can't believe how quickly it's gone. At this time last year, I had two weeks of work left at my old job and was just prepping to start my leave. I was excited and ambivalent and tired and exhilarated. I spent a lot of time out with friends, having lunches and dinners and getting pedicures. In fact, it's quite likely that I was in labour with you while enjoying a lovely fine dinner with your father the night before you were born.
Anyhow, that was last year at this time. This month for you has been all about daycare. So far, you seem to love it. When we take you over in the morning you are calm and serene and smiley. When we enter the house, you wave to the other children and happily accept their hellos and hugs. When we leave you bestow smiles and waves and kisses galore. And then we go home and you collapse into an exhausted hungry, cranky mess. Much like your parents, you save the energy for the public and let it all hang out at home!
We're so proud of how well you are doing. You're running like a maniac now and are into everything. This month you've also learned how to lower yourself off of the futon onto the floor without falling on your face. You're quite proud of this skill and repeat it over and over, awaiting our clapping adoration.
And you get it. 'Cause really, when you get right down to it, we're all just Adoring Adara.

A Whole Lot of Nothin'

It's been a hard week. A really very hard week. Adara started daycare this week and is doing wonderfully. Len went back to work and is doing great as well. Me, not so much. I'm finding the challenge of leaving at 8 am, working all day, returning by 5:30pm, giving Len a quick kiss as he leaves, cooking , feeding the babe and me, bathing her and getting her in bed by 7pm to be too much. Really too much. My work is suffering, my emotions are suffering and it's just not good. It feels like I'm consistently in a hurry.
My new job is also very challenging. There's good things about the challenges, but it's also incredibly stressful in a "this might all blow up tomorrow" kind of way. I also find that post baby, I'm just a different person. My emotions run wild, I'm easily upset by small things. Have other moms found this? Someone said to me that this happens for a few months when you stop breastfeeding and I'm seriously hoping that this is the cause. I've found myself to be snippy,discouraging and generally obstructive at work this week. If I was my boss, I would take me aside to talk about how to "modify behaviour and encourage me to be a team player again." Unfortunately, I am my boss, so I had that conversation with myself last night and had a much better day today. Only to have a rotten evening at home.

And then, there's my sweet angel. At dinner I'm completely exhausted and beside myself and Adara is screaming because she too is over tired and doesn't want to eat. And then, something must have told her that I was going to cry, because she just stopped. Then, she smiled her big open mouthed toothy smile at me and starting madly shaking her head from side to side; which she totally knows makes me laugh. My sweet Bella.

Monkey on the Move

As you can probably tell from the pictures in the last little while Adara is developing a real sense of humour and adventure. She goes from room to room opening cupboards, pulling things out, throwing things in to the tub, etc....
When Adara first started crawling I asked my mom about putting latches on cupboards and the toilets and things. She said, "Oh, Liam (Adara's sweet cousin) never got into any of those things, why don't you just wait and see". I rather suspect that the words "Liam never did that" are going to come up a lot. Not negatively, just truthfully. She's wild where he was gentle and cautious. She's easily angered, where he's always been sweet tempered. It's kind of fun to see the differences.

Adara started daycare at a house around the corner this week. We had intended to put her in a fully registered daycare, but were unable to find one. We were offered a spot in one in April and one in November. Unfortunately, we needed this week as Len went back to work tonight.
So, one of the registered daycares near us, runs an at home version as well. The homes are overseen by the centre, but not fully registered. We placed Adara there for the first time yesterday and Len and I were both a little anxious.

Needlessly anxious of course, she loves it. She's happy and energetic playing with the other kids, and tired and ready for bed when she gets home. We always knew that she was a social creature. She's happiest in crowded restaurants and coffee shops, always has been.
In other news, we can't seem to figure out what to feed this kid. She's sick of baby food, loves bread and cheese and apples, but will not eat real (ie non pureed) vegetables of any kind. Ideas, moms?

Favourite Pic of the Week

The proof

Here's a not great video of Adara walking. She's commonly walking 15 steps at a time now, just not for the camera!