vegas, baby!

we survived our first family vacation! in between the poo explosion and the volcanic explosion, we had a great time. PLUS i finally have decent pix of me and gabe together!


something must happen to babies (or at least gabe) when travelling 400 mph @ 40,000 feet, because man alive, gabe did the motherload of all poos mid-flight to vegas (10 wipes and a wardrobe change!). the encore came mid-flight to vancouver when he did a repeat performance :P other than the explosion, the flight to vegas was uneventful and gabe was a model baby and didn't fuss at all :-) phew!







being in a new environment with so much to see was a bit overwhelming for gabe, so he fell asleep while chris and i had a midnight meal. unfortunately the rest of the night seemed never-ending. he couldn't settle down in the crib the hotel provided, so i built a fortress on the bed for him to sleep in. still didn't work. eventually chris had to sleep beside him and sing him to sleep. phew! on the 2nd night, i devised a new plan and let him watch baby einstein...worked like a charm! very smart to bring the portable dvd player :-)


even though we were travelling with a baby, it didn't stop us from doing everything we wanted to do. we shopped, we dined, we gambled...but it just had a different vibe. for me, the foodie highlight of the trip was dinner at nobu! unfortunately gabe was fussy that night, so i didn`t get pictures of everything we ate :(











pic 1: spicy tuna roll w/avocado, soft shell crab roll, black cod w/miso
pic 2: strawberry shortcake with tofu ice cream, mochi ice cream - peanut butter, green tea, flower blossom, mango)


since chris and i have been to vegas umpteen times, we didn't do anything touristy, except to check out palazzo. i had all these plans to walk along the strip and show gabe all the different sites...the mirage volano, the canals at venetian, the lions at mgm...but alas, sleeping was a priority for him, so we don't have as many pix to share :( i've added a link to my picasa site on the sidebar - check'em out!



























as a family, the biggest highlight was taking gabe to the mgm pool! unfortunately the water was cold, so we didn't "swim" for as long as i had hoped. oh well, we'll just have to wait for our swimming lessons to start in may!














and as all good things must come to an end, so did gabe's patience. our flight home was scheduled to leave at 10:50 p.m. and arrive home at 1:30 a.m. i had timed things perfectly throughout the day, and it would've been spot on except our flight got delayed. we were told it was weather related, and that it was due to a volcanic eruption. excuse me? we don't have active volcanos in vancouver! it turned out that an eruption in alaska was to blame. huh?! well, our plane was en route from edmonton and was grounded in vancouver due to potential damage from the ash that blew 50,000 feet into the air. therefore we had to wait for a flight to arrive from montreal and thus were delayed by 2 hours :P we finally left vegas at 1 a.m., and gabe promptly had an hour-long meltdown on the flight :( poor little dude was so tired that even baby einstein couldn't help.


overall it was a great trip and i'm glad we went! thank goodness my parents will be with us on our next trip :-)

mindful eating (part 2)

ok, the vegas blog is coming. i'm just too tired to write about our experience.

in the meantime, here's part 2 of my eating rant. i wasn't sure about starting rice cereal since gabe's got a bit of a lingering cough from vegas, plus the fact that his sleep is totally messed up right now. but, our day got totally screwed up and chris ended up staying home from work and my parents were over for an early dinner. so 9 days shy of his 6 month bday, i figured what the heck...i've got ppl to take pix and videoclips, so off we went :-) in the end it was great to see gabe eating food!




















i did learn a few things from this first experience:

- gabe is a good eater, just like i thought he would be :-)
- i might have added too much breastmilk to the rice cereal...it ended up a bit runny
- just like the nutritionist said, babies will tell you when they're full, and sure enough gabe closed his mouth and turned his head away :-)
- he might be a good eater, but our first experience was definitely not a clean one. yup, that's food on his forehead!
- the bibbity and placemat were both new to him, so he treated them like toys :P

mindful eating

as gabe approaches 6 months, i've become very anxious about starting him on real food. everyone starts with baby rice cereal, but even that's confusing. just rice cereal? what about barley cereal? or wheat cereal? organic or regular? white rice or brown rice? which brand? oy! i got myself totally worked up over this damn rice cereal, that i finally took the plunge and bought good times organic brown rice cereal. finally...decision made!

also, my mom has her own ideas of what babies should be fed and how much/often. apparently i was such a good eater as a baby that i got a little too chubby and the nutritionist put me on a restrictive diet :P then my mom got me super paranoid about gabe's future, so in addition to the nutrition discussion from the phn at our drop-in session, i've been researching food on the internet, and i attended "mindful eating" at the west end community centre & capers on robson. i am now armed with so much information about babies and food, it's ridonkulous. the great thing about the mindful eating session is that we got to taste samples of food we could be giving our babies: baked yams cooked with olive oil, bananas with geram masala, cheese curds, poached pears w/fennel seeds. personally, i could've done without the fennel seeds :P

man alive, once we get back from vegas i've got a whole new adventure to look forward to with gabe. rice cereal, nutrio's, farley biscuits, and water in a sippy cup! yikes! my boy is growing up so fast :-(

aw, shucks!

holy crap, i'm so full. chris is so full, he's passed out on the couch :P

after discovering that my sis-in-law and her bf love raw oysters, we just had to take them to rodney's oyster house for dinner. i'd say we overindulged in food: 4 dozen raw oysters (fanny bay, summer breeze, chef creek and marinaside), oysters rockerfeller, pasta w/scallops, mussels, potato crusted halibut, and clam chowder. now, i'm not a big fan of raw oysters, but at rodney's they give you so many sauces to add, that it's hard to resist eating 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 oysters :-) despite the variety, i still stuck with the tobasco sauce.

1/2-way through the oysters!

and speaking of food, my little dude is definitely showing interest in it...

"clean up in aisle poo!"

gabe isn't a skinny baby, nor is he a chubby baby. unfortunately the fuzzi bunz are too loose in the leg area, so we`ve had a few poo explosions this week. usually i`ve had pants on him to catch some of the mess, but last night i didn`t even see it coming. it was a very quiet and slow poop, very unusual for gabe. i felt a warmth spread over my tummy. at first i thought he had pee`d on me, but nope, there it was...poop, and lots of it :P and not only was it on me, it was on the peanut nursing pillow (he`d pooped on my brest friend earlier in the week and was in the laundry), the burp towel, and my glider chair. major clean-up required!

well, after i gave gabe a major hose-down, i went to rinse the washcloth and chris was going to put a diaper back on, when chris shrieked and a torrent of pee went into the air! fortunately it went straight up onto gabe`s belly and the change pad, and missed the wall for once :P

now i have to admit that we`ve had just as many poo explosions with disposable diapers, and they`re way more size specific than the cloth diapers we`ve used. so for now we`re just going to muddle our way through this awkward size gabe is at. in a few weeks gabe`s gonna be on solids and his poo will change again, so hopefully things will get under control.

wax on...hair off

boy oh boy. my "virgin" eyebrows took the plunge. on the weekend, i visited my cousin-in-law to pick up her bumbo for gabe. whilst i was at her house, i got my eyebrows waxed :P my cousin plucked my brows years and years ago, but i was too petrified to maintain the shape. then i decided to try threading a couple years ago. never again! my hands were sweating so bad i couldn't hold my eyebrows apart for the job, so it hurt even more.

i wasn't really sure what to expect with waxing, but once i hopped onto the bed, i had no choice. and the end result was totally worth it. i really like my brows, and to be honest the pain wasn't too bad. and now all i have to do is maintain the shape. believe me, i still won`t be plucking my own brows...i`ll leave it up to the professionals :-) thanks yosh!

and speaking of no more hair...i can`t believe my hair is still falling out post-pregnancy. literally, clumps come out when i shower, and the floor is littered with hair. ugh...i`ve never hated hair so much; i just want it to stop falling out! luckily i have thick hair so i have plenty to spare :-)

5 months old!

oy! this has been an interesting week (again!) it's the first time the "red alert" baby monitor alarm went off (twice!). now that gabe's gotten a bit mobile, he squishes himself into one corner of the crib. the angel care monitor couldn't detect his breathing movements so the red lights were flashing! lucky for us, gabe was in a deep sleep and didn't hear a thing, and we maneuvered him back towards the sensor grid pad :-)

gabe is 5 months old today, and just over 15 lbs! and to celebrate, he decided to roll from his back to his front. he had done it yesterday, but got stuck on his lower arm. i guess being a day older made him that much stronger, cuz he rolled over pulled his arm out and was doing some tummy time! my mom witnessed it the first time, so we put him to the test and he rolled again :-)

another new development i stumbled upon was his core strength. he can actually sit on his own for a couple minutes before he leans forward too far and lands on his face. i'm looking forward to trying him in the bumbo seat! gabe has finally outgrown the infant insert for the ergo baby carrier, and it's soooo much easier to use now :-) i also really like using the cuddly wrap, except it doesn't have handy pockets like the ergo. and speaking of outgrowing things, i've had to retire some of his cloth diapers, and upgrade him to medium-size fuzzi bunz.

what else can i report? gabe's been growling at my boobs while he's feeding...not too sure what that's about. i've been bitten a few times in the past week...i now (gently) flick his cheek when he does that and it's stopped...thank god, cuz even though he's toothless it still hurts :P gabe gets excited during a feed and will grab my bra straps, pull them as far as he can and then let go...darn bugger! his tongue has been an endless source of entertainment...most of his smiles involve his tongue sticking out, sometimes he looks like a panting dog :P