Holy growth spurt Batman!

It's not like I've suddenly noticed Abner sprouting up a few inches overnight or anything, but I certainly couldn't help but notice that her appetite has gotten a bit out of control these days -- as in...teenage boys and their cavernous stomachs ain't got nothing on my little girl.

As I write this, she is sitting at the other end of the table scarfing down her lunch of:

• 1/3 cup chicken noodle stew with cereal
• 1/3 cup cottage cheese
• 3 steamed carrot sticks
• 1 strip of toast (left over from her mid-morning snack)
• 1 handful of peas
• 1 handful of puffed corn
• 1 handful of cheerios
• 1 inch of banana

It's insane! This is on top of what she ate this morning:

• 2 pieces of toast
• 1/2 cup apples and cereal
• 3 inches of banana
• 1/3 cup apple/mango/peach puree

Watch out people...she's an eating machine! You don't want to be around when she's hungry and mommy and daddy can't get the food to the table fast enough. Our normally sedate little girl turns into a holy terror of whining and screaming. It's actually kind of funny when she sees us reach for the box of cereal (a.k.a. baby crack) she starts kicking her legs and pounding on her tray in anticipation. She can't even wait long enough for us to stir the stuff.

Last month I prepared an entire deep freezer of food for her and we've been plowing our way through it ever since. We're getting to the bottom of the barrel and are looking for some new ideas. What are some of your kids' favorites?

Crafty wrapping

My SIL had a birthday earlier this month. While we did manage to get her card to her on time, the gift itself was a wee bit late (better late than never - right?).

While Abner napped the other morning, I finally had a chance to wrap the book we picked up last weekend (How to Fossilize Your Hamster by Mick O'Hare in case you're curious).

I absolutely love gift wrapping. If I can't find the time to actually make a gift, I try to go all out on the giftwrap. I'm pretty pleased with this simple, yet crafty little number.

Snowshoeing with babies

Never got around to posting about a recent snowshoeing trip with our friends Dan, Kerith and their little girl, Linnea, so here goes.

The conditions at Cypress were nothing to cheer about (snowshoes weren't really necessary due to the completely packed snow) but it was a good opportunity to get out and enjoy the great outdoors with friends. The best part was the daddies carried the girls the entire time leaving the mommies to carry the much lighter backpacks.

Trust mommy...it's a toy...really!

If you haven't discovered the versatility of your laundry basket, you should. Around here lately, it's taken on a whole new role beyond toting laundry as a portable playpen (though technically Abner can escape quite easily - she just hasn't figured that out yet).

She spent a good chunk of the morning yesterday sitting in the hallway watching the building manager repair our bathroom exhaust fan...

chillaxin' with her toys (apparently stuffed soccer balls make excellent pillows!)...

and playing peek-a-boo!

Beautiful weather. Boring walk.

We finally got a spell of good weather over the weekend (Did I really just use the word "spell"? Did I suddenly age 50 years without noticing?) TDSH and I packed up the stroller and headed out to Colony Farms in Coquitlam for a walk.

The walk was actually just a bribe to get TDSH to agree to come to Fabricana with me so that I could browse the fabrics in peace (i.e. sans bebe).

We don't have a good track record at Fabricana. For me, a visit usually involves me leisurely wandering the aisles looking at the tables of lovely fabrics and notions. For TDSH, a visit to Fabricana usually involves dealing with a screaming baby who seems to like to poop in the parking lot -- there are no changetables at Fabricana. You can see why I have to bribe him to come with me.

Anyhow, I've written a lot about Abner's poop lately, so instead I'll tell you about Colony Farms. In fact, I can sum it up in a word: boring.

Enjoy these pictures from our walk.

A less than romantic Valentines

Most women get thoughtful treats from their significant others on this special day of romance. TDSH certainly lived up to his end of the bargain when he presented me with a small heart-shaped peanut butter cup this afternoon. A very simple gift that made my day. Sadly, that's about as romantic as it got around here...

I don't think anyone told Abner that Valentine's is supposed to be a day of love, romance, twittering hearts, chocolate, roses and such, because her gift to us was a poop explosion of epic proportions. I mean EPIC.

The poor girl was such a mess we had to strip her down in the tub and strip her bed (even the mattress cover). She even managed to get some in her socks!

I'm telling ya', nothing says Valentine's like picking bits of poop out of the tub and scrubbing poop stains out of brand new track pants. At least TDSH and I did it together...that makes it romantic doesn't it?

But wait! It gets better!

I also woke up this morning with a throbbing, red, swollen left boob. That's right ladies...you guessed it...it's mastitis!!! Yay! I feel like such a luck girl.

I have Abner to thank for this one too. She used my boob as a chew toy a couple of days ago and voila...just like that...mastitis. Thankfully, the doctor says I caught it nice and early (how you could miss it is beyond me since the pain is incredible and there is a giant red swollen splotch on my boob) so I'll probably avoid the whole fever and chills thing that can accompany a breast infection.

A Valentine's like today makes me long for our traditional Valentine's of years past when we would spend hours driving from restaurant to restaurant looking for a place that would take us without reservations.

UPDATE: Let the quilting begin!

You may remember a few months ago I started working on a quilt for Abner. With the chaos of the holidays and teething and...well...life, I just got back to working on it this weekend.

I'm not working from a pattern, so I started by laying out my strips on the floor to get a better idea of how they'll look in the end. It took a few attempts before I got the arrangement below which has the gradient effect I was going for. After getting a layout I was happy with, I carefully stacked up each piece of fabric so that I could sew them together in the correct order.

Initially, I had been planning to do a twin sized quilt. Then, once I cut out all the strips, I thought I had enough to do a queen sized quilt. Now that I have all the pieces set out, I think I'll have to go back to my original plan. The strips are only about 2.5 inches wide so once you take the seam allowance into account, you're dealing with some pretty thin strips so it'll take a lot of them to make up a quilt.

Today I managed to get all of the strips sewn together into one L-O-N-G strip. I'll unravel the coiled up strip (see below) and cut out even lengths to assemble the quilt over the next few days. I don't really have a good reason for doing it this way, but it'll add to the randomness of the pattern while still keeping the gradient intact.

I'm still debating on the colour for the binding and backing, but I'm leaning toward grey since it appears in many of the fabrics and won't show dirt much (God, I sound like such a mom!)

Obligatory bath shots

Every parent is obliged to snap a few shots of their kid in the bathtub -- it's in the manual you get when you become a parent [What do you mean you didn't get a manual?]

Here's the latest round of naked baby in the tub shots from our house.

Bathtime is always more fun with plastic animal friends. Abner's favorite is the sheep which she carries around in her mouth as she crawls laps of the tub.

Whenever I dump water on her head, she instantly starts scaling the walls of the tub. I don't know why though, she never cries so I don't think she's upset about it.

Don't worry...I put down the camera right after I took this shot and sat her back down on her bum...nice and safe.

The best and worst part of bathtime is afterward -- Best, because...how awesome is that crazy hair? Worst, because...now I have to comb that mop.

Your wish is my command

Abner has started following some basic commands. It all started a couple of weeks ago when I went to put Abner on the ground and as usual, she wanted to stand rather than sit. Whenever she does this, I always say, "On your bum" and put her in a seated position.

Well, the little girl put two and two together and now sits down on her bum whenever I say, "On your bum."

It's so adorable. She'll be playing at the coffee table and just for fun I'll say, "On your bum" and she'll actually sit herself down without a moment's pause. I get a little thrill at the sheer genius of my little girl.

Her latest skill is to "touch mommy's nose" on command. Why I felt this would be a useful skill for her to master, I don't know, but it's pretty cute.

In other Abner news...

• she's mastered the art of pulling herself up to standing and will now entertain herself for 10 whole minutes(!) at a time pulling up to the coffee table and walking around and around.


• she's working on her second tooth...this time an upper front tooth that is taking its sweet time to break through. She loves sucking in her lips and feeling her new teeth.

• one of her favorite activities is to have conversations with mommy and daddy. We can send a volley of "ahhs" back and forth for 15 minutes at a time.


• her preferred crawling technique seems to be on her belly. Most babies progress beyond this to what's known as cross-crawling (i.e. up on all fours), but Abner likes to scoot on her tum tum even though she's plenty strong enough to crawl on her knees. She even manages to crawl up onto low furniture now.

• she's eating like a champ these days. Her favorites are toast and carrot sticks and anything mixed with cereal..seriously, you could mix Limburger cheese with cereal and I bet she'd eat it.


• oh yeah...and she's started drinking...

just kidding.

All good sagas must come to an end

Yes, that's right people...I found a daycare!

All told, I visited seven daycares and eventually wound up going with the first daycare I contacted way back in the fall. Actually, she wound up calling me as she happens to have a space opening up in April.

In addition to the four I told you about previously I also visited:

1. A stay-at-home-mom who actually said she was just trying this out so she could pay her bills. Now, I acknowledge that times are tough and most daycare operators would say that the money is at least part of the reason they do what they do, but it should not be the first answer you come up with when a parent asks why you started your daycare.


2. A lovely Tibetan Buddhist who was looking to take in kids around the same age of her kids so they could play together. She even offered to potty train Abner for me as soon as she started with her. She speaks five languages and had one of the most well-kept two-children homes I've ever seen. To make it even sweeter...she's only a three minute drive away on my way to work.


3. An experienced daycare operator who is conveniently located halfway between my home and work. During the visit, one of the parents offered unprompted praise of the daycare -- in fact, they don't even need daycare anymore, but they keep sending their son -- it's that good. She's licenced to take up to seven kids but believes they should all have one-on-one time so she only takes five (and some are just part time).

So which one did we choose?

The Tibetan Buddhist was my first pick, but she wanted someone to start right away so we went for the last one (who is Catholic for anyone keeping score in this little saga). I've met with her three times and I like her more and more each and every time.

Now I can rest and enjoy my last two months at home with Abner.

You might be a new mom if...part 2

Several months ago I wrote a post called You Might Be A New Mom If... It was geared towards new parents. Now that I've been at this parenting thing a while, I'm updating the list. So, you might be a mom of a nine-month-old if...

...you reach into your pocket to pull out some change and instead pull out a handful of soggy and crumbly Cheerios.

...you can't remember the last time you showered without a menagerie of plastic animals watching.

...all the low surfaces in your home are strangely devoid of objects.

...instead of making plans at specific times, you now meet "after morning nap" or "before afternoon nap".

...you find yourself lingering a little longer at the till when buying your groceries because it means you'll be able to talk with another adult just a little bit longer.

...you select restaurants based on the quality of their highchairs rather than the quality of their food.

...you curse whoever invented the bathtub plug chain.

...you catch yourself bringing a forkful of your dinner to your lip to check for temperature before digging in.

...your server has to come back four times to take your order because you are too busy setting up the high chair, feeding the baby, wiping up spills or picking up toys to read the menu.

...you know the hardest part about parenting is not the lack of sleep or the never-ending worries about your child's development -- it's trying to wipe your baby's snotty nose.

...your change pad is gathering dust because your child prefers to stand for diaper changes.

...you've actually caught yourself licking your finger and wiping up crud on your child's face.

Quote of the day

"Even babies look silly naked with just socks on."

- TDSH