Monday 31 December 2007

Still no teeth, but MAN is he a suck!!

Zachary is fully into the teething now. His little cheeks were red yesterday and he's drooling like CRAZY! He's also crankier than normal (still not too bad, though). He's not sleeping through the night anymore and he's harder to get down. Last night, after his 3am (or so) feeding he wouldn't settle, so I took him downstairs to try the swing. No go. So, I had to sleep with him on my chest on the couch so we could get some rest. Why are men so sucky when they're not feeling well?!

Saturday 29 December 2007

Zach was very glad to see the boobs!

And by that I don't mean Jean-Paul and I!

Jean-Paul and I got to have date night last night! Yay! We went out to dinner, saw "I Am Legend" then (courtesy of Uncle Darry - thanks for the voucher!) stayed at the Best Western near the city (pictured below). It was so nice to eat a couple meals (dinner and breakfast the next morning) uninterrupted by kids. And we got to sleep!! Without having to get up at all!! And we got to "sleep in" (a bit) - we had to make it down to breakfast by about 9:30 or we'd miss it. Then after we ate we crawled back in bed for a bit again and chilled (Jean-Paul slept again). We left just before noon ('cuz we had to) and went back home. The kids were very glad to see us. Especially Zach!! He gave a great big smile when he saw us. When I held him, he climbed up me and started gnawing at my shirt! I'm not sure it was me he missed!! He was looking at me like he thought we would never return, gone forever. He looked so relieved! Alexandria gave us big hugs and was very happy with the little box of "Fruit Loops" and mini jams/peanut butter/cream cheese that we stole, I mean, brought her.

And a big thanks to Nana and Grandpa for babysitting the kids all night - especially since Zachary didn't go to sleep until 12:45!!!There's the whirlpool we didn't get to use because they were having "quality issues". I'm not sure I want to know exactly what that means...

Friday 28 December 2007

Soon, I promise!

I'll get around to updating this blog soon. Really I will! There's so much to put on here I don't know where to start - Christmases (FIVE of them), Zachary's new tricks, and so on....

Stay tuned!

Saturday 15 December 2007

What a great day!

Thanks to everyone who came to our Christmas dinner today. I think it went off really well. (Sorry it was a bit late! Blame the damn big turkey. The roaster lid was open a crack....) Jean-Paul did a really good job cooking up ALL THAT FOOD! It was yummy. I hope everyone got home ok with the impending storm. The kids love their presents. And they were both pooped! (For Alex that was both figuratively and literally, unfortunately.....)

Thursday 13 December 2007

Alex's answer...

... to Zach getting into her toys!


As you can see, it didn't bother him much!

Another milestone


Zachary got into sitting on his own last night - and he was pretty proud of himself! (And Jean-Paul was actually home to see it! Rare these days......)

Friday 7 December 2007

I can't believe how caught up on gender the world still is...

From stores, to clothes, to McDonald's and even Santa!
It really becomes apparent when you have kids just how thick that gender line still is. After all we've been through and after all the "treat kids equally" and "don't treat girls any different than boys", it's still amazes me how much difference there is between "girls" things and "boys" things.

Go into any clothing store. Boys things are rough and tumble and girl clothes are frilly or cutesy - and usually pink or purple. Even the little infant diaper shirts or onesies have to have a bow on them! Toy stores are no better. The promo pictures are very biased (these are from the Fisher-Price website). Of course it's the boys that play with cars and dinosaurs and trains, while girls play with the kitchens and houses...
McDonald's still asks "Would you like the boy's toy or the girl's toy?" I try hard not to feed into it and respond with "The car, please." Then I get, "So, the boy's toy." It bothers me when they assume. One of their promos with either cars or dolls/bracelets. We were at the counter and the employee went to get the toys to show Alexandria so she could choose. The lady came back with only girls choices. Alex looked at them and didn't say anything. (She'd seen the toys in the display and knew there were cars.) I had to say to the employee, "I think she'd like to see the cars." At this point Alex isn't really affected by the labels. She just picks what she wants and doesn't know any different. Soon, though, she may feel like she shouldn't want the "boys" stuff, even though she may prefer it. It will be worse with Zach. What if he likes the "girl" toy better? Maybe he'd rather have a unicorn than a race car. I don't want him to feel as if that's not ok, because it is!

And Santa! Yes, even Santa... Alex sat on his lap and Santa said, "What would you like for Christmas? Dolls?" I just thought, oh man, et tu, Santa? Alex replied back, "I like dinosaurs."

I love Alex's mix of "girl" and "boy" preferences. She wants My Little Pony and dinosaurs. She loves her kitchen and her race cars. I hope will instill the confidence in her to continue following her personal preferences, no matter what society may put on her.

Wednesday 5 December 2007

Alex doing her best Clark W. Griswold impression

We're home!

A couple days later than planned, but we're home!

Tuesday 4 December 2007

Ditto

Same as yesterday's post.

Still at Grandma and Grandpa's.
Still at the mercy of Mother Nature.
Still had to have Zach sleep on/with me for the last half of the night.

I am starting to miss Zach's exersaucers and swing! Oh, and Daddy, too!!

Monday 3 December 2007

It's December?!

To quote the late, great Dr. Seuss:

How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?

Stranded, but it's not so bad

Our stay with Grandma and Grandpa has been extended - by Mother Nature. High winds, snow squalls. Welcome to winter in Southwestern Ontario. We were to head back today. Nope. Not a chance. Not with two small kids. The buses are cancelled and TWO of the schools in town are closed (but not Grandma's - she's quite ecstatic about that as you can imagine).

Zachary is doing better. He's still got a bad cough, but he's not hacking all the time. It sounds pretty productive, so I'm hoping we're near the end of it.

So, Friday was the fever/emergency room night.
Saturday he wouldn't do anything but nurse. He didn't want to eat, but at least he was taking milk. Saturday night he wouldn't settle. He was fine only IF I was holding him chest to chest and STANDING. Not sitting and certainly not lying down. After two hours of trying to get him to settle - and starting to lose my mind - I got out the carrier and put him in it. At least my arms were free. They were starting to get really, really tired. He finally fell asleep and I was able to get some sleep (sitting up) for about three hours. He woke up and nursed again. Still wouldn't go into the crib, but at least he would settle on me in the bed. We both got (some) sleep.
Last night (Sunday - and still at Grandma and Grandpa's) was a bit better. He went into his crib around 8:30, but that only lasted a half hour. I fed him again, he settled down (on me) and finally slept (on me) for half the night. He nursed again and fell asleep on me. I was able to put him next to me and he slept that way for the rest of the night. He snuggled in and we ended up "spooning" for a bit, too. (Do you call it spooning when it's with your child????) So, got a bit more sleep than the last two nights. I'm still a bit fuzzy from lack of real sleep. I can't sleep well with the babe in bed with me (especially on me) because I wake with his every move.

We'll see what tonight brings.

Oh, and on another note, Alexandria is doing really well with the potty. She doesn't want anything to do with my telling her when she should go, but she's been making it there on her own. Only one accident here at Grandma and Grandpa's place - and that was within the first hour of arriving here. And she's wanting to go "commando" all the time now, too! (I think the bare bum is helping with the going potty, though, so I'm allowing it!)

Saturday 1 December 2007

A bloody lip and the emergency room

And, those two things were not related. We had a great first night at Grandma and Grandpa's! Alexandria was having fun spinning around on the floor until...... BAM! Face first into the hardwood. Bit her top lip and has a bruise on her nose that showed up this morning. Yes. There was blood. I think we've actually done remarkably well to make it to 3 years, 3 months and 9 days with no blood from our daughter. She's ok, though. Mommies and popsicles make things better.

Now. The emergency room. Zach's wasn't feeling great yesterday. Stuffy nose. Little cough. Nothing much. Around 7pm he had a fever of around 100F. We let him go in just his diaper for a bit and that seemed to help. We went to bed. He wouldn't sleep for more than about 45 minutes before waking up. I had him in bed with me for a bit to try to help BOTH of us get some sleep. Around 1am I took his temp again. He was up to about 102F. He wasn't settling anymore and he was just moaning. (A cute moan, but a moan nonetheless). Also, his coughing had started getting barky. I called the hospital emerg and, of course, they said to bring him in because they couldn't say much without seeing him. It was actually probably a good thing we were at the grandparents since there was no one in the emergency room and it was a fairly quick visit. He got a dose of something that starts with a D and we headed home with the advice to follow up with our family doc this week.

He slept in his car seat for the rest of the night (waking about every hour or so, but would go back down fairly easily). He's pretty tired and sad today. He's sleeping a lot (wish I was, too!!) Alex still has a bit of a fat lip, but she's doing ok, too.