Paulo - 3 years

Dear Paulo,

It is so hard to believe you are a full 3 years old. It has been almost two weeks since your birthday and I haven't had the time i wanted to dedicate to you here, but i may as well get on with it because busyness seems to never go away these days...

You are without a doubt not two anymore. You are definitely a little boy now in everything you do. You are still the cutest little big headed boy. You run around looking diwn at your feet like you cant believe how fast you're going. You still love playing soccer and basketball and pretty much anything that involves a ball, and you are quite good at it.

You are now much more inquisitive and the "why"  questions go on and on. You are very sensitive, not only in that your feelings get hurt if I just raise my voice (and God forbid if you daddy gives you trouble for anything, which you are definitely NOT used to), butalso in that you can always tell if somebody ( that is me, haha) is mad, sad, frustrated or angry, and you always ask: "que paso mama?" " porque estas triste mama?".

Your English has also exploded in the last six months or so. I think your going to playschool has something to do with that, but also the fact that your Nanna now lives with us and talks to you in English all the time, and you cant get away speaking Spanish to her like you do with daddy. I have noticed lately that when you play on your own, you speak English now, which in my eyes is both bad and good. Good, because you're getting more confident in your English skills; and bad, because your English may be starting to dominate your brain, marking the beginning of a language battle.

Your sleep has come a looong way since your second birthday. When you turned two and your brother was born, I remember having a really hard time putting you to sleep if he was awake. I had to sit on the edge of your bed and you would beg me to lie down with you. It would take you so long to fall asleep without me being right there against you. Then when we first moved to Ottawa we had some really ugly battles at nap time, which were totally emotionally draining for both. Now, you cooperate very well, and after reading a couple of books together you lie down on your own and fall asleep if I stay around your room. Sometimes you even ask me to leave the room and shut the door! At night, however it always takes forever to get you to sleep, and you stall, and stall and stall, which makes it really hard on daddy. However once you are asleep you pretty much stay asleep even if we wake you to cover you up, move you or anything else. You still wake up once a night though around midnight and come into our room, where we have put a little bed and blanket next to ours, which we call " la cama de los enanitos" and you are usually pretty happy just staying there.

You are a very determined little guy. You definitely have a very defined personality now. Youare very  inquisitive, super well behaved and obedient as long as you're kept busy and have people's attention. You can be shy but when you warm up you have no problem talking to others. Yu definitely are most comfortable playing with older kids and adults. You are such a sweet little boy, so sensitive and love to cuddle and kiss. You are full of "i love you"'s and " thank you" s and " p,ease"s . you even thanked me for dinner once without anyone telling you to!! Your do battle a lot with your brother....pretty much All.the.time. Which can be very frustrating, but I haven't lost hope that you two will be the best of friends when you grow older.

Your all-time favourite  things for a while now are 1. Balloons, 2. Balls, 3. Rockets and 4. Jellyfish.

Paulo, We love you so much. You are such a huge deal to our family. Our love for you multiplies every single day. Te quiero mucho enanito precioso!!

Emilio - 10 months

Emilio - 10 months



Emi, you are 10 months now! Incredible how little you have left before your first birthday!

It has been an incredible month, filled with a little bit of everything. LOTS of teething!! There is drool everywhere, and unfortunately your sleep hasn't been great at all. That, paired with a lot of sickness being brought home by your big brother, has made nights a living hell for this mama. But now you seem to have passed both the sickness and teething phase ( for now)  and you are sleeping beautifully. I think in the last 2 nights you have only been up once and back to sleep.

Speaking of sleep. I think you are starting to need your own space, because when you wake up and touch me in your sleep you start complaining and kicking and pushing me... It will be interesting to see what our next sleeping arrangement will be, but I keep reminding myself I will not worry about that until you are at least a year old.

Another thing waiting until after a year is to see what will happen to breastfeeding. At the moment you are still nursing about 5 or 6 times during the day and a couple (?) of times at night. You are sooo interested in your brother's bottle, that it almost makes me want to pump just so I can give you your own. You are always distracted and if it is not quiet and still, it is really hard to nurse you. Sometimes I think you wouldn't care much if we dropped some sessions. But then sometimes you do enjoy the cuddles and I can tell sometimes you just need the comfort and security. But like I said, I will divert any related thoughts until after a year. Sofar I am just glad we have made it this far.

Other things you can do now:

- crawl SUPER fast

- say mama more consistently, and you are definitely immitating more sounds. I think you try to say Paulo and papa but you just say "ba!"

- climb the stairs UP and DOWN, the latter being new

- climb off the bed, feet first

- climb shelves :s

- drink from a sippy cup with help

- YOU CAN CLAP!! Which is super cute

- you dance to music and I think you try to sing along

- you can sit, with your feet tucked under your bum

- play alone for long periods

- " walk" while holding on to somebody's hands or furniture

- the cutest thing is when you crawl close to daddy or Paulo and throw yourself on the ground yelling "AAhhh!" because you want to "wrestle" hahaha.

Emilio, you are still the cutest baby and all smiles. We love you chiquitino!

My Baby Book List

What does a mother do when she needs to raise a baby in a new city, away from her mother, her family or any close friends known to her? She reads books. And that is what I did when I had Paulo and with him came all those questions that keep a mother awake at night and eat her alive during the day.

Ideally, I think I should have read these books before I had my babies. Some parents seem to have it together and know what kind of parent they will be or what kind of parenting philosophy will guide them through thick and thin. I didn't. I had no clue there were even parenting philosophies. I thought parenting was parenting and that was it. Oh boy was I ever wrong.

From the list I came up with below, one can see that I found my comfort in Attachment Parenting. These books below are not all the books I've read, but they are those that resonated with me and made a lot of sense. And through those books I sort of navigated my way to all the others. Now I find that these are sort of my rocks, my solid foundations. Have a look:

The Baby Sleep Book - Dr. William Sears - pretty much Im a fan of Dr. sears, just become Attachment Parenting resonates so much with me and who better to learn from that a man with all the professional experience, plus, lots of kids and a wonderful family to back the theory. I loved the Sleep Book though because in a world ( or society?) where there is so much pressure to let baby cary-it-out like its the only way and to become a detached parent, and a world which is filled by books written by quacks with no real research or data to back their advice, this book sounded so non-judgemental to me and at peace with my feelings as a mother and baby. Simply loved it.

The Fussy Baby Book - Dr. William Sears - similar as the above, except this one I found very useful

when I had Paulo, because he seemed to be so high needs.

The No Cry Sleep Solution, Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night - Elizabeth Pantley    - Excellent read, I think self described as a compromise between Dr. sears's " martyr" approach and something different. Not crying it out. At the time it felt like it didn't ally offer me a solution to a baby who never slept through the night, but looking back I think Pantley does offer some good, gently, baby friendly tips.

Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene - Ingrid Bauer - this book was my

BIBLE for Elimination Communication. I cant say how much I loved this book. It is written very clearly, uses examples, describes the process step by step. It is just an excellent book for people interested in EC.

The Happiest Toddler on the Block- Dr. Harvey Karp - i enjoyed this book and definitely gave me

some useful pointers and information. More than anything, i loved the leads I got for other gat books from its resources. It is also a very gently book that really urges you to be patient and understand how a toddler's mind works. It felt to me that a lot of this advice sort of comes from personality- clearly he is very good with kids and I feel like it could be hard to mimic that, but nonetheless a great resource.

Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent- Meredith F. Small - this is by far, THE BEST, AWESOMEST, MOST INTERESTING, FASCINATING book I've ever read. It is not a how-to book, and my husband even called it "obscure" and "ivory tower". And it does talk a lot about the science behind babies behaviour and development, from evolution to biology to anthropology. There is a lot of talk about primates and species and cultures around the world and how they raise their babies and why. But that's what I loved about this book. Even though it is not meant to teach parents how to parent, through scientific facts it becomes very obvious that western parents are for the most part...well... Screwing up big time. If you are considering letting your baby cry it out, feeding him on schedule, putting him to sleep alone in his own room, after reading this book you would have to be either really ignorant, really selfish, or I dont know what to still do it. And although it is all based on science, it is very easy to read and just captivating.

Sleeping with Your Baby: A Parent's Guide to Cosleeping - Dr. James J. McKenna is the world's most knowledgeable sleep guru. He is the head of a mother-and-baby sleep research facility in Montreal, which makes him pretty much an authority in the baby sleep department..ummm quite literally. So, if you are going to read a book about baby sleep, why not read a book that contains the actual truth about what is best for baby?? Don't read something just because it makes you feel better about using a method that makes you feel like you are doing something wrong or you are being mean to your baby. If you feel like you are doing something wrong or bad to your baby, chances are, you are. So, read this and people who work with this man. And forget what the rest of the world (including you mom!) says.

Beyond The Sling - Mayim Bialik PHD - This book just blew my mind. It is centered around Attachment Parenting and portrays what the life of one Attached Parent looks like. Now, I know Mayim has sadly gotten divorced recently, and this kind of puts a huge question mark on this book. That's not to say we should question Attachment Parenting, in my opinion. A parenting philosophy itself does not make people get divorced. And divorce issue aside, I still respect Mayim Bialik immensely for being an amazing example of somebody who "walks the talk" on all aspects of her life. Anyway, I think what she writes in this book of course, like any other book written by someone who's intimate life we don't really know, should be taken with a grain of salt. But I reiterate, in my opinion, this book is good stuff.

Baby-Led Weaning: The Essential Guide to Introducing Solid Foods - and Helping Your Baby to Grow Up a Happy and Confident Eater -  Tracey Murkett, Gill Rapley - This book is about a different feeding method for introducing your baby to solid, alternative to the typical purees that we are all used to. I am just going to say two things: First, this book makes sense because it is what many people in the world do, or used to do when we didn't have any blenders, Nestle rice cereal and baby magic bullet. Second: I tried the traditional method with my first son, and this method with my second son. My Second son at 9 months old is such an amazing independent eater it is not even funny. Having basically the same diet, it is amazing how much Emilio LOVES food with a passion, and how much he enjoys sitting down to eat. And I mean, Paulo was a great eater and still eats pretty well. But the difference is incredible in terms of what a better eater Emilio is.

 

 

And that is all sofar, I still have some great books in my future list, so I hope I will be writing about those soon!

Emilio - 9 months

 

 

Emilio, you are 9 months today! Every month it has felt so surreal that you are whatever age you are, and this month is no exception -- time has flown by!!

 

 

 

This month however, it feels like you have all of a sudden become a super baby over night. You have gained unbelievable speed and confidence in your crawling. You cruise holding on to furniture more and more often. You climbed up one whole flight of stairs at an unreal speed, and then down. You have started to coo in more coordinated syllables, and Im even suspicious you may have started to say " hola" and maybe even " no,no no" ( you say " na, na, na" but always in the same context, when you are annoyed or upset"). There is a very obvious sudden fascination with all things tiny, which leads me to think there might be some visual milestone around this age, because all of a sudden you focus on the tiniest things, and therefore have perfected your pincer grip. This is great when you eat, since now you can eat things such as grapes, rice and cut up carrots and peas on your own. The downside to that though is that you find the littlest pieces of who-knows-what in the carpet and take them right into your mouth. You have also started to sit up completely unassisted with your feet bent under your bum.  And the mother of all milestones of the month, today I saw you stand on your two feet alone, while distracted grabbing a fork from the dishwasher door with your two hands. You stood for maybe about 5 second without even noticing, and then held on to the door again.

We have now mastered the poop in the potty now, and you haven't gone poo in your diaper  except for once in the entire month ( the first morning your Abuis arrived from Mexico and she was looking after you) . I am really pumped not to be washing any poopy diapers anymore!!!

Another great thing this month was that I ordered a Little Frog woven wrap from Poland this month. I still use the Maya ring sling a lot, but you have become pretty heavy and you had really outgrown a

comfortable carry for several months now, and that was destroying my back. I had been looking for an affordable wrap when I read about Little Frog. So since I got the wrap I have been wrapping you in a ruck carry every day, first with the help of your Abuis and now I have definitely gotten better at it. It has been a huge success. You look very comfortable and happy in it, and for me it is a world of difference to carry you on my back. The most amazing thing? You fall asleep within 10 minutes max if it is time for you to nap. I just go about my business while wearing you and bam, you're out!

 

 

Some of your favourite things this month:

- playing/ fighting with your brother

- Eating - you just go NUTS over food

- baths

- Itsy bitsy spider ( you now try to follow with your hands)

- emptying the cutlery from the dishwasher

- getting wrapped

- climbing stairs

- turning the TV on and off

Things you hate:

- the car seat

- getting your diaper changes/ lying on your back

I can't wait to see what awaits us this month!

Emilio - 8 Months

Emi!! Why are you in such a hurry to grow up?? You are 8 months now... Wow, as always, your being one months older comes as such a shock. Also a shock is how tall and heavy you are. As per your checkup this month, you are above the 97th percentile for height and just above the 50th for weight. You do indeed look like a really tall baby!

 

I had talked before about how increasingly mobile you had become and this month wasn't the exception. You are definitely happiest either standing holding on to something, climbing stairs, crawling ( a proper crawl now) or anything BUT lying on your back. Which takes me to the following picture:

 

 

Haha, not a happy camper when you lie on your back, and diaper changes have become a witch!

 

 

Elimination communication is still going strong. Sometimes it surprises me how good you are when I take you pee and we can last a good while without a diaper. However, I still haven't ventured to take you out of the house without a diaper, since your poops can still take me by surprise from time to time.

You have also started to make more coordinated sounds, like maybe the beginnings of syllables. Sometimes I even think you are trying to imitate the word "Hola" . I think maybe you have also started to waive, but that one is still a bit inconsistent.

 

 

You are still nursing a lot during the day and even more so at night, but I'm not really keeping track. You have certainly lost interest a little during the day and most times you just nurse for a minute or two and then get distracted by something else, usually your brother. At night though, you still wake up pretty frequently, about every 2.5 or 3 hours, but since you are sleeping with me I just nurse you in bed and you quickly go back to sleep.

 

Speaking of sleep, in the last month your sleep patterns have been... pretty awful. The last week or two we hit rock bottom when you started waking up super frequently, screaming and unable to be settled back to sleep. I thought it was because you had caught a little cold from your brother, but I just noticed you have two big teeth breaking on the top, so that explains it all.

 

Finally, you and your brother are starting to interact a bit more, although I am afraid not always in the best of ways. Your brother still has a hard time sharing his toys and his parents with you, so every day is full of little battles, but you are pretty good at defending yourself considering you are only 8 months! I am afraid for what is to come!

 

Emi, we love you, my little baby. I am grateful everyday for you, and for watching you grow.

Traveling with kids: Our trip to Montreal

I have been meaning to write about our last exploring adventure about three weeks ago: our trip to Montreal

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We had initially planned to take a way overdue camping trip for a long time now, however Emilio had been teething and waking up way too often and crying in the middle of the night. So, let's say that  that was my line for going on an adventure with an infant, since going to the back of the woods in the dark with bears roaming around with a screaming baby wasn't my ideal of a fun camping trip. When Emilio finally got a bit better we thought we'd finally go camping... And then we all fell sick with a cold... So that was pretty much it for us planning to go camping, and we decided kind of as a spur of the moment thing to pack our stuff and go to Montreal.

As I always say, no planning and zero expectations ALWAYS makes for great adventures in my view. We literally booked our suite at the Marriott Residence Inn the night before, packed our bags with as little as possible, grabbed our kids and Nanna, and off we went.

Usually we like to plan car trip around nap time so that the kids can sleep in the car. However this time we were only going for two days and therefore had to leave as early as possible, so that we could  have as much time as possible there. Montreal is only about 2 hours away from Ottawa by car, so in the end, we left the house at about 9.30 a.m.

The great  thing about our hotel is that is included breakfast and it had a kitchen with a microwave, stove, fridge, etc. so we literally packed a bag with our groceries from the house to make sure we had food for meals and snacks at all times. The kids napped in the car even though it wasn't nap time yet. I didn't factor this into our planning, but it worked out great, because by the time we got to Montreal they were completely rested and ready to go. We unpacked our things, rested a little, and off we went to Old Montreal.

 

 

First, we looked for a place to sit down and have some lunch. Then we just walked and walked and walked. We had Paulo in the stroller or walking and I had Emilio in the sling the whole time. It was great because we we able to cover a large area, give Paulo a chance to walk around but also rest when he got tired.

 

 

Towards 4 or 5 p.m. Paulo was beginning to look tired so we headed back to the hotel. We rested there for a bit. Paulo was too excited to nap in the hotel room, but he at least lied down in bed for a while and was able to wind down a bit. We could have rested some more, but we were all hungry so we head out to a restaurant for dinner.

The restaurant we went to was super stylish and big, the ambiance was great and the best of all: it was family friendly. Nothing like a bunch of crayons and paper to keep a toddler from freaking out while waiting for food. They also had high chairs so Emilio was happily seated while we ate our own food. Honestly, my kids are CHAMPS when we go out to eat. We do not do this often at all, especially since we had kids, but when we do go out our kids just LOVE IT and as long as it is a place where banging noises or the occasional loud scream goes undetected, we do awesome.

The first night we went back to the hotel at about 8.30 and didn't manage to be in bed until about 9.30. I was so worried about how night time was going to go, as we only found a room with a king size bed and a sofa bed for Nanna. I was terrified about how the whole sleeping routine was going to go. Turns out, we were all so exhausted from walking, that as soon as the lights went off , we all switched off as well until the next morning at 6.30 a.m. It was awesome.

The next morning we got up and immediately headed downstairs for breakfast that was served from 6.30 a.m. To give Nanna a chance to sleep in. We we the first ones there so we had plently of seats and food to choose from.  Nanna joined us a while after. It was still early by the time we finished breakfast, so we decided to go to Old Downtown again.

One great thing about having kids is that you get to go to places that are normally crowded at insanely early times, so you get to see beautiful places in their lighting and empty glory. This is what happened to us that morning, when we ended up heading downtown for the second time around 9 a.m. on a Sunday. We had the entire all town for ourselves, parking was not an issue at all, and we walked the old Montreal streets completely empty -- perfect for picture taking. We visited the Notre Dame Cathedral and Emilio napped for a whole hour in this beautiful, quiet, warm and dark place. We then got to have a proper visit, sitting down to admire its beauty and soaking in the peace and quiet, plus send out a prayer to thank God for the blessing of being there with my beautiful family.

 

 

 

We then went and sat down for a hot chocolate and coffee, to let the kids sit down and rest for a bit, and then marched towards the car. It was towards1 p.m. and I knew Paulo was exhausted after running around and all the novelty. Once we got in the car, Paulo was out in 5 minutes.

 

It was our plan to head to the Botanical Gardens for the afternoon. However, the last thing I wanted was to have to wake Paulo up once we got there. So we decided to drive around Mont Royal Park and stop at the lookout there to give him some more time to sleep in the car. So we drove to the Park and once there, I stayed in the car while Rob took Emilio and
Nanna to walk around a bit in the park and to the lookout. Then we drove around the cemetery and finally headed towards the Botanical Gardens.

 

 

 
 

Finally, we spent the rest of the day at the Botanical Gardens. The entry was quite expensive - $30 pp for non Quebec residents, but the gardens are supposed to be second only to London's Kew gardens, so we decided to go for it. The Gardens are HUGE and it took us quite a while to go from one exhibit to another, so we had to think ahead what we wanted to see and just stick with that. We decided we wanted to see the Japanese Pavilion and the Insectarium, which were both awesome. It took us pretty much all afternoon to visit these, and we got practically kicked out of the Insectarium when it closed at 8 p.m. and a thunderstorm began -- perfect timing!!

 

 

 

 

 

Once we got in the car we drove back home, and stopped somewhere along the highway for dinner at a McDonalds. It sure got late and we didn't plan to eat that late, but at least we had packed tons of snacks so we could manage our hunger.

 

Our trip worked out perfectly and I think some of the keys were:

 

- pack lots and lots and lots more snacks (it is aaaall about the snacks whenever you see a meltdown looming in the horizon)

 

- It is hard to plan for nap time when you are on the go and with limited time. But if you just can't work in a nap in to your schedule, plan some low key activity like a sit down snack or just getting in the stroller.

 

- Weather permitting, plan lots of outdoor activities. My kids just handled the whole trip like troopers, and I think it was because most of what we did was outdoors.

 

Now some of my favourites:

 

 

 

 

 

Paulo - 2.75 years

Paulo! you are only 3 months shy of 3 years old! I can't help but look at you in awe of everything you do now, all the new skills, the improvements and the changes. But then of course part of me is incredibly sad to watch that little toddler fade away, as you slowly turn into a little boy.

You are living such an exciting part of life, and we are so lucky to be watching you so closely. You have definitely mastered riding your strider bike. It is insane the turns you take with it, how fast you go with your feet and how well you balance. You definitely turn heads and bring up smiles on people's faces when they watch you go. Your favourite toy all along is definitely your bike, right up there with your ball, although you have developed a strong liking for cars and your newest obsession, rockets (along with the usual balloons and umbrellas).

Little devil on his bike

You never walk, you always RUN everywhere. It is so darn cute. I will be so sad when you start slowing down.

 

Your soccer skills are also up there as well, you can kick, you are improving at catching, and you always work on new soccer moves like the fake falling (haha!) and the long kicks. We have spent so much time this summer outside in the driveway just kicking the ball around.

Your fine motor skills are definitely developing as well. You now have an interest in building blocks and lego towers (you used to only be interested in knocking them down!), but now you seem interested in balancing them on top of each other and see how high they can go. You are sure building some high towers for a little guy!

Your little personality has blossomed so much in the last few months. Your language continues to get out of hand. Our greatest challenge as parents is that you have learned to use the word "Perfect"/ "Perfecto". And with that, our world has become so much more difficult. We have so many battles with you over something because "No esta perfecto!!"/ "It is not perfect!!", be it your pillow, your cape, your toy cars, or whatever you are playing with.

 

This last point brings me to my least favourite trait of yours. I would say that in general you are a very well behaved boy. You are most times obedient, you are sweet, you are generally not aggressive and you have learned to be polite. However, when you don't get your way or we don't do things exactly as you wanted them, hell brakes lose. It is not so much that you get angry, but the fact that you scream in anger so loud and with such a passion that you even shake, and our ears DO NOT appreciate it. We are now working on it though and whenever you through a fit we gently tell you you will have to go to your room for a few minutes to calm down, and that sofar has been enough to stop the madness.

 

In contrast, one of my favourite traits in you and that you are different. I'm sure all moms feel this way, but I really do feel like you appreciate things that are different from the typical. Sure you like cars, and rockets, and dinosaurs, but you also like things that I think most little boys may not like so much. I am not sure how to explain it. But for example, you like things that are scary. You like monsters and thunder and lightening. You like eyes that pop up in the darkness. You like balloons that pop and blenders and vacuum cleaners and things that make a loud noise that startle people. You like watching people fall. You like spicy foods and bugs. I think you may even be a bit curious about vaccine shots! People would probably think you are weird... and I guess you are a little but I think you like all these things with a bit of humour.

Moving on to how you are with your little brother, you are still jealous of Emilio. I think there are some deeper positive feelings growing, and you seem to enjoy it when he laughs at your every move and you ask about him when he is no there, as if you missed him. However you still get angry if he comes near your toys and God forbid him pulling your hair or accidentally scratching your face. You seem to know very well though that if you hurt your little brother there is going to be big trouble, because you have not attempted it yet.

Another new found love in the last few months has been a fascination with your Nanna. You have of course always liked Nanna, but in the last month or two you want to go with her to the basement all.the.time. That has come in very handy for me when I am trying to put your little brother to sleep and you get impatient, as that buys me a few minutes. You sure seem to enjoy talking and playing with her all the time.

You have started Playschool this week and I can't wait to see how you are going to love your new little friends and activities.

Paulo, I love you so much and I am so happy to be your mom. I hope I can bring as much happiness to your life as you bring to mine!

This is what I get when I ask for a smile now

 

 

A Good Eater.

A very wise friend once said to me:  "Children are either good sleepers or good eaters. But they are never both". Her words sounded so true. My sons have always been great eaters.

It sucks that I have finally ended up writing a sleep related post. I have been so reluctant to do it, because I always get to be  the mom that always listens to people complain about their kids who only sleep 11 HOURS at night and have the audacity to wake up TWICE a night and only nap for 2 hours uninterrupted. Everybody is outraged when they listen to things like that. Meanwhile I am hiding in a corner hoping, praying, begging that no one will ask me how my kids sleep. Because that would be embarrassing.... beyond embarrassing, pitiful!... borderline shameful. So, I took it upon myself to never ask somebody how their kids sleep. Partly because I want to spare myself from confirming once more how badly my kids sleep, but mostly because I don't want to be the one who gets to make them feel better about their situation.

The first year of sleep with Paulo was so bad, that  I thought this time around I'd be redeemed. I would have the perfect sleeper who would effortlessly fall asleep in my arms without me even noticing. Ha! yes, I am that naïve.

Actually, sleep wasn't so bad the first months with Emilio, but now that he has reached 7 months, and specifically in the last week or two, something seems to be happening. In the last few days he has been refusing to sleep like it is his job. he goes to sleep for about 10 or 15 minutes while I nurse him when I am putting his older brother to sleep, and when I take him away to lay him down, he wakes up and looks at me with a smile bigger than batman's joker. I try to get him back to sleep, rest, try again, and so the circus continues on and off for up to 5 or 6 hours when I finally give up. And yes, he is pissy the rest of the day because he hasn't had any sleep since the morning.

I have tried rocking him, nursing him, putting him in the stroller, in the sling, leaving him alone in the crib, rubbing his back, you name it. It. doesn't. work. I don't know if he just doesn't want to go to sleep or if there is something deeper going on, like maybe he's teething and in pain or maybe his schedule is changing to one nap a day? although Paulo didn't do this until muco older, and I really don't think he would make it all morning without a nap....

AAARRGGG babyhood.... I seriously do NOT enjoy this part of the 1st year. I thought it was supposed to be easier this time around... oh well, I know he will outgrow this phase eventually...

And then what do you know? he fell asleep in the sling while I typed this while standing up... sigh....

Emilio- 7 months

Emilio - 7 months

 As I type this I am thinking I better get this finished quickly before you wake up from your nap, or else it could be another month until I actually have time to sit in front of the computer uninterrupted.

The last month has definitely been a tough and long one, to say the least... It seemed like you were back to napping for 2 hours straight on your second nap, which was great, but the last couple of days have been very tough, with you not wanting to nap at your regular time and even refusing to go to sleep after being awake for up to 7 hours straight! It gets ugly when I am trying to nurse you or rock you to sleep and you just kick and scream your lungs out... sigh... it has been really tough on me (and my knees...and my feet... and my back...) and daddy because he worries so much about me.

Your first nap has been better these days though, as you can sleep for an hour or 1.5 at a time, while I play with your brother outside waiting for you to wake up so we can go about our day.

Night time, however, has pretty much sucked in the last month, I hate to tell you. You wake up so often and immediately start crawling... I am not sure if this is related to teething pain or you are just eager to try your new moves, but man it is exhausting! So I have just totally given up on trying to have you sleep in the crib and just let you sleep in bed with me and nurse you while lying down so I can get some sort of decent sleep.

Speaking of new moves... you have been extremely mobile in the last month. You are still not quite crawling a "proper" crawl, but you're getting much faster at the army crawl/ inchworm style you have going. You have also started to lift yourself up on stools and steps and anything you can find to lean on standing up. In the last couple of days you have even started going up on the stairs! it is crazy, and you would probably get at least half way up the stairs if we let you, but so far we don't let you go up for more than 3 steps. Needless to say, we will need to get some gates for the stairs this weekend.

Standing!

Sadly, this month has not been all about smiles like all the previous ones. Separation anxiety has definitely kicked in, and you HATE being alone or left behind while I take your brother bathroom or need to leave the room for even a second. That combined with the teething pain, you have been a pretty miserable baby in the last month... however when you do show your smile it is as sweet as ever and you drive strangers, neighbours and family crazy with that sweet little smile.

Speaking of teeth... you have had both upper teeth coming in for about 2 or three weeks now and they have FINALLY broken through. I am sad to see your gummy smile disappear, but am eager to see your new little smile.

You also continue to go potty when I take you, and you have lasted up to a whole morning dry when I take you to pee constantly. However poos are still hit or miss, although we have definitely seem much less poopy diapers in the last month thanks to your schedule being a bit more predictable.

As for your eating solids, you are CRAZY about food and can't control your enthusiasm when we sit you at the table with us. You go absolutely nuts if we don't pass you any food as soon as you sit there, which is both funny and annoying, ha. But I am sure glad to see you so enthusiastic about eating.

Brothers

You still nurse about every 2.5 to 3 hours, and I would say at least 3 times at night, sometimes maybe more (I'm never sure because I always nurse you in bed in my sleep). When you are awake though, nursing is SO DIFFICULT with you. You just won't stop fidgeting and you want to follow your brother around EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME, which is... well, unpleasant. I always wonder if you will even miss nursing when we do stop. I am often tempted to wean just because it is really such a hassle to get you to be still, and going to a quiet place when your brother is around is just not an option. BUT of course that thought only lasts a minute, since I really do hate preparing bottles and I do really believe you are getting so many benefits from nursing (i.e. you have only been kind of sick ONCE since you were born!)

Emilio, I'd love to stay and write more about you in the last month, but I have to wake your brother up before you do too. I am sorry if I have been impatient with you in the last month, but I am trying my best to be the mom you deserve. You are a little angel and I will always love you with all my heart, same as daddy, and your brother.

Love that smile!!

Discovering Ottawa - August 8th: The Rockeries

 

 

Back in a post I wrote before coming to Ottawa, I talked about the some of the reasons for moving to Ottawa, one of which included having one last "adventure" before settling into a city forever. I haven't particularly written about our feelings after moving here, but one prevalent thought has been that this move has been VERY, VERY tough on our family, physically and otherwise. To put it in only a few words, this move has literally made me feel old, kind of like I'm not up for these kinds of challenges anymore, and I think it would be fair to say that we, especially Rob, his mother and myself, feel exhausted about this move. But I won't go into much detail because I think I can't do justice to this topic unless I dedicate a whole post to it.

 

 

Anyway, my point was, that even though this move has been tough on us and life has been incredibly busy (as testified by my lack of posts lately), we are making a constant and conscious effort to keep our eyes on our main goal, which was to have fun, do interesting and new things, and enjoy a new adventure. Sooo, every weekend we are trying to visit a new place, be it a park, museum, or city landmark. And in doing that, I have found that discovering new places and having no expectations, gives me such a sense of satisfaction that at that moment, makes all that effort and exhaustion from our move worthwhile. We have spent some really pleasant evening doing really low key discoveries, but really getting that feeling of satisfaction from seeing something new, simple, and beautiful. Which is why I have decided to wrote a little sort of series of posts on our discovering Ottawa (we'll see how long that lasts!).

 

 

Thursday August 8th we visited The Rockeries, which I think it is technically a part of Rockcliffe Park. This is actually a little park that apparently Rob bikes through regularly on his way back from work. We went here on Thursday after dinner just as a quick sort of outing to do something different from the routine.

Well, breaking away from the routine was definitely worthwhile. This little park is a gem hidden in the treasure neighborhood that is Rockcliffe. The park is such a simple beauty. Just a piece of green grass with little stairways to hidden corners and garden nooks, and tree covered paths that guide you from shade to wide open spaces showered in sun. Little rock statues and columns sprinkling gray in the vast green landscape. Such a simple beauty. I loved it! 

 

 

Discovering Ottawa - August 10th: Rideau Hall

 

Today we visited Rideau Hall- the Governor General's Residence. It is supposed to be Canada's Governor General's house, but it is open to the public for all kinds of activities: you can have a picnic, play cricket, go for a run, or take your kids to the playground or the fountains in there.

 

Main path towards the Residence

 

 

 

Oops, somebody lost a sock!

 

 

Every day there are lots of activities for families, such as watching the guard change every hour on the hour, you can go for a tour of the residence, and there is even things like story time or seasonal activities like skating in the winter.

 

The actual Governor General's Residence

 

 

 

I was pretty impressed with this visit. To start with I think it is great that I basically know nothing about these places, and Rob just comes up with a plan like this because he's either heard about it at work or read something somewhere. So I just kind of follow along with no expectations and what do you know? we end up in some beautiful places like this one, wide open for kids like Paulo to run around, dip their hands in the fountains, collect acorns or play hide and seek in the trees. This place was just beautiful and I can't wait to go back there for a picnic or skating in the winter. Oh, and it's free as well. What else can you ask for on a lazy weekend afternoon?

Lovely old trees to climb on.

As an added bonus, the surrounding neighborhood is just beautiful, with old houses and English style gardens all around. Just lovely!

Ticking off Rideau Hall from our weekend adventure list!

One of the beautiful gardens in the surrounding neighborhood - doesn't this look like a little secret garden?