i have to say that i'm really not a big fan of christmas. this year, i'm actually bordering on "hatred". and there's only one reason for it...chris works every single day in december and this year he only gets christmas day off. it's incredibly frustrating because i want to do all sorts of christmas-y things (bright nights @ stanley park, pictures w/santa, christmas party @ the aquarium), but because chris wants to be involved, it's almost impossible to find time before gabe has to be in bed. we did make it to the PADS volunteer christmas party a couple weeks ago, but we didn't get home until 9:30 p.m.!
since i still have my xmas shopping to do, i've had to drag gabe around with me, and forego his morning naps...which really messes us up because then he'll fall asleep in the car and i'll have to wait till he wakes up. thankfully he doesn't sleep more than 30 minutes in his carseat.
things were so different last year...gabe was only 2 months old so it was easier to take him out later in the evenings since there was no such thing as bedtime or a routine. last year was our first christmas as a new family, so it had a different excitement to it. that's not to say that just cuz gabe is a year older that it's less fun...it's just a less-daddy/more-mommy, different vibe.
adding to my doom and gloom, the olympics aren't going to make life any better. since the shop has to make deliveries into downtown vancouver, and they can only be done between 12-6 a.m., someone has to be at the shop to load up the trucks and close up after deliveries are finished. @#$%^&*!!!!!!
as if xmas wasn't chaotic enough, , we're bringing home a dog for the holidays! after we had beau for 2 weeks over the summer, i swore never to dogsit for more than 3-4 days MAX! funny how quickly i can flip-flop around when certain dogs are mentioned. so next week, we'll be celebrating xmas with caber, a 2 year old yellow labrador retriever. i actually had gabe's happiness in mind when i agreed to dogsit...anytime he sees a dog (in person or on tv, big or small) he goes insane with exitement. at least there'll be one happy person in our family at christmas!
wow, gabe is 14 months old today! it's been a challenge the past couple of days. gabe's developed some dry skin along with nasty rashes on his body and we're not sure why. he's also got a diaper rash and the cream that used to work doesn't seem to be working for him. we're going to cut out the "junkier" food he's been eating and get back to basics for a few days and see if that helps. we've definitely gotten more relaxed with feeding him and let him eat almost anything without adhering to the 3 day rule. at the very least we have a doctor's appointment for his 2nd h1n1 vaccine, so he can get checked out then.
on top of the skin problems, gabe's cutting 3 teeth which has made our life miserable. at time he's in terrible pain and has trouble soothing himself to sleep (we've temporarily reverted back to baby einstein - at 3 a.m., i'll do anything to get back into bed!), and he's also having meltdowns at the drop of hat! anyone who knows gabe, knows he loves to eat! i have to tell you, it's mind-boggling to see him refuse food!
asides from those issues, gabe's doing great! his walking has progressed into faster walking and now trotting/running. when we're out-and-about, and he's had a taste of "walking freedom", he hates being carried or strapped into his stroller. it's hard being out alone with him now, because it's a hassle chasing him while keeping an eye on the stroller and our belongings :P
speaking of our stroller, the hinge covers for our maclaren arrived today. and being a responsible parent, i promptly put the "warning" label on and zipped on the covers (the only reason i've done this is if we decide to re-sell it in the future). i'm done ranting about the stroller, so here's what it looks like now:
gabe still hasn't said his first word yet, but he continues to babble and vocalize. his sign language skills are ridiculous! he will say "please", "thank you", "more", "poop", "bye-bye", and "milk". he doesn't associate waving bye-bye and hello as the same thing...instead, if someone says hi to him, he'll tilt his head and pretend to hold a phone. he's also learned to shrug his shoulders and extend his arms out to say "i don't know!". and his openmouth kisses are a real hoot! fortunately he's kept his tongue to himself :-)
he also responds really well to instructions:
"gabriel, please sit down to eat" - he truly is chinese...he`ll actually squat to eat :P
"gabriel, do you have to go to the potty?" - he'll walk over to the potty area (at our home or at my parents house)
"gabriel, it's time to eat!" - he'll walk over to his hairchair and wait with his arms up.
"gabriel, go give grandma/grandpa a hug/kiss and say goodbye" - this gets my mom in stitches, cuz gabe will get confused after doing it to one person and he`ll hug and kiss his reflection in the mirror :-)
well, i did it...i had my first weekend away from gabe! as i was packing on thursday night waiting for my ride, i got anxious and couldn't really eat dinner...just the thought of leaving my little man behind was terrifying. but once i was in the car and we were headed for the border, all worries were left behind :-) it was thrilling to be away from him for 48 hours...no diapers to change, no routine/scheduling to think about, no temper tantrums...just me, my girls, and a credit card!
it was a jam-packed trip to the seattle-area with lots of shopping: wal-mart, target, costco, seattle premium outlets, alderwood mall, university village, the outlets @ burlington, and cascade mall. this trip was definitely different than 2 years ago...last time it was all about me and shopping for xmas gifts for my parents. this year i spent most of my money on clothes and toys for gabe's christmas. well, i did spend a "bit" on myself...i deserve it after all :-)
i got some great deals for 40-50% off which totally made the trip worthwhile. i think the best deals were at banana republic in u.village...tops for less than $10! my best "deal" was a $70 blouse for $18 and the $10 gap fleece pullover for chris. well, the kate spade purse for 40% off wasn't too shabby either!
since we got home late saturday night, i had to settle for a peak into gabe's room. but the arms-open-happy-face reaction in the morning was fantastic! sadly life got back to normal pretty quickly and i was dealing with a typical toddler...how quickly my two-day getaway went by... ah well, there's always next year to look forward to :-)
p.s. on a VERY HAPPY NOTE...gabe is fully weaned now! it was a 9 day (somewhat painful) process, but i've finally stopped producing gallons of milk and am (sort of) back to my old self! well, at least enough to stock up on some victoria's secret bras on the trip! haha!
after much deliberation and discussions w/colleagues and reading articles, we decided to get the h1n1 vaccine for gabe. his first dose was last friday, and i have to say it traumatized me. it was the first time i'd taken gabe alone to the doctor, and the memory of his 12 month vaccinations was obviously still fresh in his mind. as soon as we got into our little room, he decided to walk off. once i had him on the table to get his shoes and pants off, he went beserk! fortunately it was only one shot so the doctor was really quick. once we left the office with a mum-mum in hand, all was forgiven.
then he spent the entire weekend with an on/off fever and was just plain old miserable and decided he wouldn't sleep...AT ALL! i felt so bad for the little guy knowing that my decision to vaccinate him caused so much discomfort (and a lack of sleep for me!). (side-bar...all of gabe's previous vaccinations went off without a hitch...no reactions, no side effects.) i've been told that kids who have stronger reactions to the injections *could* be the ones who suffer worse from the h1n1 flu if they weren't vaccinated (true or not...it's only a small consolation for me, but still i'm not convinced this was the best decision i've made). i also question my decision because (currently) chris and i have opted to not get the vaccine (we never get the regular flu shot either). so why would i force it upon my child? because it seemed like the *right* thing to do. because everyone else was doing it. because i would look like a bad mother if my child got h1n1 and hadn't been vaccinated. but the thought i can't get out of my head is that i didn't want the vaccine in the first place and i've just gone against what my doctor advised (even if he is in the minority of all other physicians).
i know it's *just* a vaccination, and a lot of ppl have been lining up for it but i'm really upset over this whole thing. i'm trying to get over it and accept what i've done, but because gabe's due for a 2nd vaccine in 2 weeks, i'm obssessing over it. part of me wants to cancel the appointment and let him be 1/2 protected (after all...healthy kids over 3 only need one dose, and they just made that announcement recently - having said that, the rumour is they changed this rule so there would be more vaccine to go around to other ppl), so who's to say that in another month or two the same won't apply to ALL kids? why would i put us through the pain of another needle and potential side effects? i hate that health canada is still conducting tests on the vaccine and changing the rules on-the-fly.
i know parenting isn't easy, but if i'm this upset over a vaccination, how in hells bells am i gonna get through the next 17 years?!
p.s. gabe's fever was finally under control on monday, but the next day he caught a cold...i don't think anything else could possibly go wrong at this point.
so there's a recall on 1 million maclaren strollers sold in the US (national post story). the reason for the recall is that 12 children had their fingers amputated because they got caught in the hinges. and this happened when the strollers were being closed with the kids still in the stroller. WTF?! honestly, i don't even know how to close ANY stroller with a kid in it, let alone their hands flying around getting caught in the hinges behind them!
for now, the recall is maclaren-specific, but health canada hasn't taken the drastic step of issuing a recall (yet). however, all strollers have hinges and moving parts because they all open and collapse so what's not to prevent a child from getting caught in other strollers?
seriously ppl...common sense must prevail! in the meantime, i'm very interested in seeing what band-aid remedy maclaren has created, so i will be calling for the repair kit.
it's been awhile since my last post...btwn working, cooking, spending time w/gabe, and catching up on all my tv shows, my blog's taken a backseat to everything else. so i'll just sum up everything right now!
over thanksgiving weekend we took gabe to laity pumpkin patch. for $3 we really enjoyed the corn maze, petting the farm animals, and wandering through the patch in search of the perfect pumpkin. we ended up leaving with 5 of them so gabe could carve w/my parents also. (turns out we never got to carve ours...we didn't have enough time to carve them before they started to rot. next year we'll go to the patch a little later in october.
gabe's 12 month check-up was great...he weighed in at 24.5 pounds (a few pounds lighter than we thought!), and is a healthy little monkey. we did talk to our doctor about the h1n1 vaccine, and his opinion was that we don't need it...because the vaccine was created in a rush, there are just too many unknowns about the long-term effects of it. also, because gabe doesn't attend daycare he isn't exposed to as many germs as other kids. i'm re-thinking my decision our organizational health consultant has been working on h1n1 stuff for some of our clients, and she's advising me to at least get gabe taken care of. the good news is that kids are now only getting one dose of the vaccine, as opposed to the two half doses originally prescribed. hearing the stories on the news is just down-right scary...do i take a chance and not vaccinate any of us and risk me dropping dead in the bathroom one day, or do i take a chance and worry about long-term consequences later? in the meantime, i've been doing my part and i always wash my hands when i get home from work before i give/receive my hugs and kisses to/from gabe.
the most exciting part of the past 3 weeks has been gabe's development. after my first day of work, we discovered that gabe was able to stand up without any assistance. then on october 18, i was closing the mirror closet and gabe took 2 steps towards his reflection! man, once he did that he never turned back...the walking progressed from 2 steps to 8 steps and now he walks everywhere! he's pretty good and can walk barefoot, in socks, and with his shoes on. he still has the occasional stumble (he's got the bruises on his face to prove it :P), but he is so proud of himself. his new favourite game is to chase dad around the condo!
i dressed gabe up for halloween as a monkey. because of the tantrums (see below) i wasn't able to take him to the mall for the train ride or to see other kids in costumes. but he got goodies from my parents so that kept him a little happier.
we're seeing some possible side effects of my return-to-work. gabe's been great during the day with my parents and he's indifferent when i come home. but once it's dinnertime, all hell breaks loose and gabe becomes a little monster. he'll sit in his highchair and flop around side-to-side, back-and-forth, and bang his head on the chair-back or on the kitchen table. the 1st time it happened i thought he just wanted to eat my spareribs instead of his beef & broccoli; the 2nd time he just wanted to walk around the restaurant (he discovered freedom!); the 3rd time i thought maybe he was having stomach pains; and finally the 4th time i just let him roll around on the floor screaming his head off and eventually i had to feed him while he was standing up. today's the first day we've been relatively tantrum-free...he only lost it at the end of his dinner, and was fine once he was walking around. my mom's diagnosis is that gabe is testing his boundaries to see who'll cater better to him...me and chris or my parents. my dad's the big softie of the 3 of us, but my mom tries to keep him in check and follow all of the "rules" chris and i have in place for gabe.
but really, a few days of misery is nothing we can't handle...afterall, we've always had it pretty easy with gabe...we're bound to have some (lots?) of bad days ahead of us :-)
had to share this...it was at his "first" birthday celebration w/the lok's. the song was actually for another table, but gabe thoroughly enjoyed it :-) (careful, the song is kind of loud)
my first week of work was...great! it's really nice to be at the office surrounded by grown-ups who can verbalize their expectations of me, tell me how much they missed me and are glad to have me back! it's been kind of hectic this week, getting caught up on the past year and trying to refresh my mommy-brain with work procedures.
it's also been nice having my parents looking after gabe while i'm at work. i know he's in a safe environment with ppl who love him to bits, and most importantly, can accommodate his nap schedule, prepare home-cooked meals for him, and are comfortable with cloth diapering and potty-training. and my mom's been really great...she's keeping notes in a journal so i know what they've been up to during the day!
leading up to my return-to-work, i was pretty sad...i didn't want to miss any major milestone's in gabe's life, like taking his first steps or saying his first word. but at the same time, it's good to be away from him and i LOVE the reaction i get when he sees me...a double-take, just making sure i'm really back, and then the slow creeping smile with his arms stretched out for me. ahhhh, just melts my heart :-)
i have to admit, it's been a juggling act this week...after a year of "minimal planning ahead", i have to re-train myself to meal-plan on the weekends so after work, i can re-heat or quickly prepare dinner. with gabe's earlier bedtime, we really need to take advantage of our short time together in the evenings. but at least i have my wednesdays with him! yippee for part-timers!
gabriel's 1st birthday has come and gone. it's really hard to believe that a year's past...somehow time has passed me by and i'm returning to work tomorrow. gabe's a very special boy and had 3 birthday celebrations this weekend, and one more for next weekend!
on friday we celebrated gabe's bday (oct. 4), my sis-in-law's bday (clarisse oct. 3) and my father-in-law's bday (oct. 10). we had a delicious meal, and gabe sure ate a lot! we think he might be hitting a growth spurt because he had 3 servings of fish, a bowl of fried rice, a piece of chicken, mum-mum's and his toddler puffs!
saturday was the big party with gabe's friends. i got frazzled planning his bday party, because we needed to find a location for approx. 12 babies w/parents (my parents' common room). now that most babies are actually toddlers, i needed a baby-friendly meal (annie's mac & cheese for the kids, hotdogs/burgers for the adults) and birthday cake (applesauce spice cake w/vanilla ice cream); and we needed toys for the kids to play with. because i was prepping ahead of time at home, it was a challenge having to transport all the food (and toys) to my parents house and then down to the common room.
it was great to hang out with our friends and see how much all of our kids have grown up. everyone played well together and seemed to have a good time. gabe got overwhelmed a few times and needed mama to comfort him, but he enjoyed having sharon feed him mac & cheese and amy was supplying the goldfish treats! chris and i were absolutely exhausted after 2 bday events and fell asleep at 10:30 :-)
(the full complement of pictures is posted in my picasa album!)
our final bday activity was dinner at the keg with my family to celebrate gabe and my dad's bday (sept. 29). gabe really likes blonde-haired ladies...at music class, he kept gravitating towards 2 blonde moms and reaching out for them; then at dinner, he was holding our server's hand and wouldn't let go, and later on he touched her derriere while she was taking orders. how fresh!
so what's gabe been up to this month?
he continues to cruise, and he's progressed to using only one hand to hold onto something. he's not quite ready to walk on his own yet, but he is able to push up to standing unassisted! his favourite thing now is to push our kitchen chairs around :P
he regressed a bit with sleeping - now that it's colder i put him back into a sleepsack (after taking a break over the summer), but he would get frustrated in the middle of the night because he couldn't walk around. after several nights in a row of being woken up, i've now given up on it and he's in a sleeper with the heat cranked up in his room instead.
he continues to eat everything in sight! gabe's got a healthy appetite for all foods and doesn't discriminate. we try to limit his in-between snacks to fresh fruits, and give him treats (goldfish, mum-mums, etc. etc.) only when we're out and there's no other option.
he can be very vocal at home or once he's warmed up to his surroundings. i've caught him trying to say mamamamama, but it's still a work in progress. i'm so pleased that sign language has come in very handy. gabe can now sign "please" and he's started to figure out the sign for poop. he also responds to "hungry" and "eat" with a great big smile :-) yup, he's definitely our son!
and now it's back to reality and becoming a working mom! i am sad to be leaving gabe and hope that i don't miss out on any major milestone's (i.e., his 1st steps or saying mama!), but at the same time i look forward to the new challenges that lie ahead and can rest assured knowing that gabe's in good hands with my parents :-)
it wasn't a crazy weekend, just a crazy sunday! but first, a first! after much anticipation, we took gabe for his first haircut :-) armed with our digicam, we headed to sparkyz kutz for kidz, and got gabe a new do! i thought sitting in the airplane and having the cartoons on was a good enough distraction, but nope, gabe was miserable. i had to hold his arms down while the hairdresser put him in a headlock...after all, once you start there's no halfway!
skip forward to sunday...after taking the summer off, we resumed our music together classes @ staccato studios. most of our previous classmates have graduated out of music together so we were learning a bunch of new names for our hello song. it's great seeing the progress gabe made from the young age of 3 months when he started. now we can plop him down and he'll crawl to the other kids or just sit and watch what's happening. he loves playing the egg shakers and different percussion instruments, and he actually claps or slaps his legs along with the music now. he's still the youngest one in the class (the other kids are all toddlers who can walk/run), so during the "up" times, one of us still has to carry him. the only difference is that he weighs a ton and i don't have the stamina to hold him long :P
in the afternoon we headed to the PADS 2009 graduation ceremony. because we took a step away from puppyraising, we haven't seen fellow volunteers as much so it was great for them to meet gabriel. and i was especially happy to witness many of "my babies" crossing the stage this year: cary (picture), frankie, silky, fraser, and spirit. sadly, icon was released from the program over the summer and adopted by friends of laser's (icon's brother) raiser.
and to finish off our day, we had an end of summer bbq w/the lok's...on the menu - kobe steaks and lamb chops. now THAT's the way to bbq :-)
