What you never *really* want to hear when the phone rings at 1:30 am...

"Wendy's was robbed about an hour ago, and the thieves took my wallet, phone, and keys, so keep an ear out for the door just in case, and I'll try to be home as soon as possible."

Yeah... that was yesterday at 1:30 am... which was following about a cumulative total of 1.5 hours of sleep. I didn't sleep much after that until last night when Justin and I crashed at 9:30 pm. Instead of sleeping, I picked Rebecca up and sat in the bathroom, which is the only room with a locking door in the house at the moment (soon to change), for the next three or so hours. Oh, and I had my phone, and a knife with me... mostly because Justin failed to mention that the thieves had a gun. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have bothered with the knife.

Justin finally got home at 4:15am to pick up keys to his truck so he could bring it home, and then he was home to "stay" at 4:30am. He was fine, aside from a *very* fat lip. We worked on making a list of everything that had been in his wallet, and then reporting credit cards stolen and placing a hold on his phone number until we could get a new phone for him. We went to bed just to rest at about 6:00, because we had to go to the allergist for 9:00, and I absolutely had to go now, because he didn't have a license! So, we went to the allergist and found out he's allergic to carrots, potatoes, garlic, beef, shrimp, and peanuts (I never even knew you could be allergic to potatoes!!). After the allergist, we went to the DMV to get him a replacement license and voter's registration card. Thankfully the license was only $10. After the license we went home to have lunch... then went back out to get a phone, which actually ended up being mine, and Justin took my old one. Then dropped by Lowe's to see what the cost of rekeying the locks would be. Went home for a bit where Justin called various places to let them know card numbers had changed, while I fed Rebecca, and then after he got all the door knobs and locks off the doors, we headed out to Lowe's again to get them all rekeyed. It took about 1.5 hours at Lowe's to have the locks all rekeyed, and then we went home, got the rekeyed knobs on the house doors, made supper, and got ready for bed.

Poor Rebecca was awake for the most part from about 1:45 am until 5:30am, and then I woke her up again at 7:15 so we could get her all ready to go and be on time for the allergists appointment. Then we were in and out so much all day that she didn't really get her naps... she wasn't too happy yesterday evening! She crashed for the night at about 7:30, and the first time she woke up after that was 2:30 am! then she woke up at 5, and then her typical 7:30 wake up time. She's stopped waking up at 7:30 because she's hungry, she just wants to get up to play/talk now (which is a little annoying when you're missing a night's sleep in there!).

Oh, and a funny thing yesterday... we walked into the allergists office, and they panicked when they saw Justin's lip, thinking it was a reaction to the testing the day before! But, after assuring them that it wasn't, and that he was fine for testing, they did the tests, and then when it was all done, the head allergist came in, panicked over the lip again (hehe), and then gave Justin some sort of antihistamine liquid and nasal spray to help his allergy symptoms, and prednisone to help the swelling from the testing... and said it should also help the lip. :) Oh, and repeated my statement that Justin should be putting ice on his lip for the first 24 hours, and backed me up when I said he should eat lots of freezies.

Anyway... today, Justin's back to work at Canon, and will be working at Wendy's this evening. I'm assuming that since there was a robbery two nights ago, there won't be one tonight... but I've told him that if there ever is another robbery there, he's quitting! :-P

Allergies Galore

I've been asking Justin to get allergy testing done for probably close to two years now... basically, ever since he got decent health insurance. So... finally, yesterday, he started his three day series of testing. They test moulds, hay fever, and animal triggers on one day, the next day is trees and grasses, and then the third day is foods. So, we now know that Justin reacts to pretty much literally every tree and grass out there except for pine (who knew, LOL), the worst being Walnut (tree), Hickory (tree), Birch (tree), Johnson (grass), Bermuda (grass), Timothy (grass), Ragweed, dust, dust mites, and cats. NOT dogs, even though he and his parents were insisting that he was allergic to dogs. He came home this morning having been informed by the allergist that he is the worst case she has had in a LONG time. Now I'm afraid of tomorrow! I'm not sure I really want to know what foods he reacts to considering the long list already! I can just imagine trying to cook around my allergies combined with whatever may be his. *sigh* Oh well... I guess I'll just have to deal with it, considering I asked for it. At least this means that he should end up with a prescription strength medication to help with the constant runny nose/back drainage issues.

In other news, I finally managed to dig out our dining room table yesterday after a few weeks of chaos. Now, that doesn't say much for the living room at the moment, but seeing as that room is much better than the dining room was, I don't think it will take long to take care of the living room. I think it's mostly just going to be a matter of getting rid of a few flyers and rearranging the furniture to where I like the arrangement again... which at the moment, I have no clue where I want the furniture.

Rebecca seems to finally be getting onto a bit of a schedule. My non-sleeping baby has started taking fairly consistent naps!! I'm excited about this! She's been fairly consistently going down between 9 and 9:30 am for an hour, and then normally between 1 and 1:30 for two to three hours for nearly a week. We failed at the 1-1:30 thing today, hitting 2:00 instead, and I think she's waking up again... but then, it's 3:30, so I guess 1 1/2 hours when she went down late isn't too bad. If only I could get her to sleep right through the night we would be doing *really* well, but she's also getting into a bit of a schedule on that one as well. She'll go to sleep around 8, eat around 11:30, eat around 4, and sleep until 7 or 7:30. I can deal with this a lot better than her whole cluster feeding from 3 till 7:30 am thing she had going a few weeks ago. This napping schedule is also making it much easier for me to get things done around the house, even when she is awake, because she is content (and awake) enough to spend time sitting in her rocking chair or lying on the floor. She's also enjoying going for walks a lot more, and it's really fun to watch her eyes as she notices birds or squirrels or whatever overhead. Oh, and she is just full of smiles now. If she is awake (and happy, obviously), she is almost constantly smiling for one reason or another! It's really funny, because sometimes she'll be fussing, or even outright crying, and as soon as you walk over, she'll get a great big grin on her face.

So, in with my digging out the dining room table yesterday, I also got a dress cut out for Amelia for her birthday, a load of diapers washed and dried, two loads of darks dried and/or folded, and a load of baby things run... and I made a menu plan for the month. Now I just have to get the opportunity to bake and cook in relative bulk, and I will have everything we need for the full menu aside from a few fresh things, and probably some meat for the whole month. I haven't had quite as productive a day today as I had yesterday, but that's okay.

Justin's started working a part time job, as we need the extra money at the moment. I'm not sure that I like the hours he'll have to keep, but I'm glad he won't be working every night. He worked last night, will work tonight, and Thursday night, and he starts at 10, and last night didn't get home until after three in the morning, only to have to be up by 7:30 so he could leave at 8:45 for his appointment at 9. He's got to do the same again tonight, and then Thursday shouldn't be quite so bad, as he will need to leave at 10:30 instead, but even so... I think he's going to be completely exhausted, plus the fact that today he is running on about 4 hours of sleep concerns me... and tomorrow will probably be a combined total of 8 hours of sleep in two nights, which really concerns me.

Anyway, that's a bit of an update on things around here... and Rebecca is now awake, so I've got to go! :)

Busy Week!

It's been a very busy week! After the diaper fiasco last Friday, I went over to Irina's house for a while, and Justin joined us there later in the evening. We watched a couple of movies, the first one, Jane Eyre, left us a little confused, so we decided to watch a second one, Sabrina, which is a "romantic comedy" in the interests of not being confused by the end of it. I think we all really enjoyed it, though I'm not sure it was really Justin's "style".


This is Rebecca hanging out with Justin after work. She's been pretty cuddly lately. Normally she wants to be bounced when she's in your arms (I think it's her whole purpose in being in someone's arms, really), but this past week she's been more content just sitting a lot of times, which is a LOT easier on the arm muscles. :)


Justin took this picture of Rebecca and me. It's really funny. In anyone else's arms, even in pictures, I always think she looks so big, but when it's a picture of her with me, I suddenly realize just how small she really is. Speaking of how small, I think she is 4oz short of 10 lbs now, which means she is maintaining the average growth rate of 1 lb 4 oz each month.


This is a picture of the "snow day". Doesn't it look like we needed a snow day for that?? The one or two miniscule flakes that are in that picture (no, I actually don't think there are any in that picture) closed the schools in the entire area. I was floored. We saw a handful (maybe) of snowflakes go drifting down, but nothing like the 1-2 inches they told us to be expecting!


This is my bird feeding station! We've got a pair of cardinals that come and visit every day. I hadn't realized what a pretty song cardinals have before! These ones are quite brave as well, as they will sit and watch me as I put food out for them, and just sit and watch Cinders if she is watching them. We have a flock of juncos which kind of freak me out on occasion now. They've taken to perching evenly spaced around our yard on the top of the fence with their wings just slightly spread, looking for the most part like teeny tiny vultures! We also have a few cardinals, some waterthrushes, sparrows, house wrens, and the occasional mourning dove that happen along.


She's actually smiling, and looking at the camera!! I worked SO hard to get this. I have about a dozen pictures from the same time that were other attempts at getting a picture of her smiling, but you really need a second person to take pictures when you are trying to get smiling pictures of a baby! Anyway, I'm somewhat happy with my success. :)


Here's Cinders going crazy in our back yard. Oh, and that scooter has a story... I think it belongs to the boy next door, but it showed up in our ditch one evening, and stayed there right through to the next late afternoon/evening, so we picked it up with the plan to wait for someone to come asking about it. Well... no one came asking, and the kid next door has a little motorized scooter now (as of Christmas), so I don't think he's too concerned about getting the non-motorized scooter back.

This is my lovely frog bath mat. It actually belongs in the frog, but some sort of connector thing for the tank of the toilet burst in the frog, which meant that water from the toilet filler thing went spraying all over the frog. It flooded the frog, and the garage below! Our poor dryer and deep freeze got drenched. They still work though, which is a good thing.

The next couple of pictures are of Rebecca having a knitting lesson... :) She sat on my lap for nearly 1/2 an hour while I worked on making her a pair of mittens. The mittens my mum made for her are too short for her fingers now! I needed to make her a longer pair, so as to keep them on her hands without her complaining about them restricting movement.


I've got that mitten done, just have to make her the other one, and then she'll have a pair that fit her again.

Rebecca hung out on the floor for a bit, chatting with that bright pink flower again, looking in the mirror on occasion, sucking on the beak of my old duck (she's odd, I know), and occasionally moving that rattle that Granny gave her. She really does seem to enjoy that thing!

And... some pictures of Rebecca in a dress I wore when I was a baby. :) It was actually *almost* warm enough for her to wear it on its own, but I preferred to err on the side of "too warm" and put her in a onesie with the dress over top as a jumper instead of a dress on its own. Really, it's supposed to be a sun dress, but it worked fine as a jumper as well.





And, finally, it's Justin's 26th birthday today! Happy birthday to him!

Rebecca and I made him a cake with icing on it. We didn't have ice cream though. We made him a birthday supper of spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread as well... and just before Justin got home, Rebecca finally decided to *really* fall asleep for the first time since 4:15pm. Thankfully, she's only had about 2.5 hours of sleep today, so hopefully she'll actually sleep most of the night, and not be ready to get up at 5am tomorrow morning like she was this morning. :)

I (REALLY) don't like disposable diapers.

Like... seriously. They've become my least favourite part of babies.

We woke up this morning only to discover that the water pipe had frozen outside. Soooo, while hoping we would have water later in the day as things warmed up, we put Rebecca in disposables until such a time as we could guarantee having said water to wash diapers again (I was down to not even a day's worth of cloth).

So, I was just thinking how I don't like the smell of a wet disposable diaper and that I needed to change the wet diaper, and how even when they are wet or reaaalllly soiled, a cloth diaper doesn't really smell bad (at least with 100% breast fed babies). Then, Rebecca soiled her diaper. and I mean soiled. We're talking about a baby who tends to store it all for one GOOD soiling in a day. I'm thinking we're possibly looking at two today, because normally it's in the late afternoon/early evening that this happens. Anyway, I was relieved when I thought the disposable had actually contained it all... until I heard a little "pop". Then... I looked, and there was a mess on my lap.

Soo... I thought I ought to change her, and low and behold, when I got her dress off her, not only was her shirt soiled at the edges around the legs of the diaper (which I'm used to because occasionally a diaper cover will leak and we get some soiling), but her onesie was literally covered on the interrior. And, when I say covered, I really mean it. She was covered from shoulders to toes! So... she got a wipe down with a cloth... and then another cloth, and then another cloth... I've never gone through so many cloths in a diaper change either! Thankfully we had our water back, and the diapers had been washed by this time, so she's now in a cloth diaper, and I NEVER want to use disposables if I don't have to again!

All that said, we do need to purchase a package of size 1's so that we have them in case of lack of water again, or tornado (those started only about 6 weeks from now last year), or hurricane... which she should have grown into the size 2's by the time hurricane season comes, but anyway... yeah... we're back to cloth unless we're forced into "sposies" by some natural disaster again. Oh, and we now have a little heater for our pipe so that we can keep the pipe warm on cold days/nights. :)

She's Holding her Head Up

Obviously she's doing other things as well, but it was particularly exciting to me that Rebecca is holding her head up to look around now, as it means she can be on her tummy and still look at the camera. Anyway, I think there is a picture for every day since the last time I posted pictures on here. :)

This is Rebecca in the process of examining and manipulating this really cool rattle Granny gave her for Christmas. It is the first toy that has really caught and held her interest for more than just a minute or two, and as you can see, she's very focused on her task! It makes noise, has little bits of rubbery things on it, has ripples of plastic on it, has three moving rings, and every time you move it, it bends one way or another way. Seriously, if I was a baby, I'd like it too! Interestingly, the packaging said 6+ months on it, but my 2 month old likes it a lot, hehe...

This is Rebecca and Justin learning the art of making grilled cheese sandwiches. Yes, my child's home ec. lessons are starting very early.

I made chocolate chip cookies! From scratch. That was after discovering that Rebecca seems to be reacting when I eat coconut... The cookie dough we had sitting in the fridge for chocolate chip cookies (bought *ages* ago) said it may contain nuts on it, and she seemed to have a similar reaction after I had some of said dough, so apparently, assuming it *is* coconut she's reacting to, she's extremely sensitive to the stuff. Anyway... that's the inspiration for my making cookies... because I wanted cookies, and hadn't any in the house I could have.

Our birdies are relaxing after finally getting rid of all their babies! They're also reading our latest flyer pack. They get new interrior decorations weekly.

Proof my child is becoming more alert: she has a bald spot that starts above one ear, and goes all the way across to the other ear. She turns her head back and forth every time we put her down... or hold her, or anything. Basically, she's constantly looking around and at everything her eyes can find to look at! Anyway, aside from that very bald patch where her hair is like... 1/4 inch long, her hair is becoming much longer and fuller looking.

I don't remember what the look was about, but the picture amused me. She was in Justin's arms at the time, so he probably did something that startled her.

I love these next pictures... I'm not sure which of them is my favourite, but I was really impressed when she actually focused on the camera and everything! These are all very typical expressions on her face...

(This is my tentative favourite...)

And, finally, dark buut.... she kept looking all around to see what was on the floor around us, and just happened to glance up at me. :)

Playing?

Just thought I would share a bit of Rebecca exploring one of her toys this afternoon. She really likes to pat everything, as you can probably see here.

Two Months

As of yesterday, Rebecca is two months old. As of Friday, she weighs exactly 9.5lbs. And, for those who remember me as an infant, her current pictures look pretty well identical, aside from the quantity and location of hair on her head to my pictures at her same age (and her size... she's smaller than I was). She's staying awake a lot more most of the time, except this last week her sleep habits seem to have changed again. I'm not too thrilled with them now. She's been falling into a really good, deep sleep, around 5:30 or 6:00, and then by the time it is 3:00 am she is ready to get up. Hmm... maybe I'll have to force her to stay awake in the early evening so as to get her to sleep through the night or something. *sigh* Anyway, basically it's meant that I'm awake every hour from somewhere around 3 until I finally kick her out with Justin because I'm tired of being awake and he's had at least six uninterrupted hours of sleep! I'm being really nice to him at the moment, because it is 6:30 am, and I'm up with her sitting on my lap learning how to blog, rather than making him get up and spend time with her. I'm thinking I might eat breakfast, and make him get up and look after her after giving her another feeding, so as to be able to tell him not to come talk to me for at least an hour and a half to two hours...

I'm really excited to watch and see what sorts of birds we get at the feeders we have outside. We'll have a third one, but at the moment there is a tray (made from the large side of my broken Pampered Chef Stone), and a pinecone rolled in peanutbutter and seeds. I have a "house" shaped one which will get some seed stuck in it as well. The seeds that I have should attract little birds, so we'll have to see! I've never fed the wild birds in this area before.

Well, I haven't really had much going on in the last week, which is good, because I ran a fever on Thursday, and was totally exhausted Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, probably because of said fever. Hopefully this week will be a little better. It already appears that it may be, as we got the tree down, and I've been able to actually do some reading, and accomplish a nap a couple of times. But, other than choir practise, I still haven't got aanything on my schedule this week either. :)

Water out of cloths, instead of rocks...

I mentioned a while back that Rebecca thinks anything made of cloth holds water. Well, here's a picture of where that belief came from. She really does like her time of cloth eating at every bath! This was from Saturday evening. We're starting to create a bed time routine of a bath, massage, story if she is in a good mood, or just eat and then sleep if she isn't in a good mood. If she's in a mood where I can read to her, then she eats after we read a story or two. It's been nice, because it lets me get 6-7 hours of sleep straight instead of 4-5 hours.

Rebecca was studying those elephants. She's recently figured out how to actually "catch" them, though she hasn't figured out how to hold on to them. She can make them swing a lot though!

And, my 365 pictures...

Justin raked the lawn for me on Saturday!! It looks soooooo nice now! I've been trying to get it done for the last few weeks, but it kept raining so much that the lawn was too soggy to even consider raking it. Now it's done, and I have five or so piles of leaves in the yard, just waiting for us to have plastic bags to put them into.

My friend Irina (she's on the far right of this picture) invited us to the baby dedication at her church. They were dedicating their son, Grant, and there were another seven babies/children dedicated at this service as well. This is a picture of the lot of them.

And... my avocado tree! This picture is a part of my highly productive morning/afternoon today! I got the diapers hung out to dry, a load of lights into the wash, the diapers into the dryer, the lights hung out to dry, the lights off the line because it started to rain (argh!), the avocado tree planted in this lovely pot and dirt that I got through freecycle, the front garden watered where the rain doesn't hit most times (because I want my bulbs to grow!!), the dog and baby walked, lunch made and eaten, clothing items that are too big for Rebecca put away, boy baby clothing sorted and put away/into bags to give away, and 49 little planting pots made from old phonebook pages using this cool little pot maker thingy my parents gave me for Christmas. Just looking at that list makes me feel tired, and there's still more that I'm going to do today... such as make supper!!

And... the mail came and the package my parents sent arrived!! Finally. After spending 16 shipping/business days in the mail, it arrived! What a relief that it is here, because we had started initiating a trace on it when it didn't arrive after 14 days in the mail. I guess the moral of that story is, if you're mailing presents to us that need to be here by a certain date, they have to be sent at LEAST a month in advance, or we need to purchase and be reimbursed for them, because 16 days is a rather long time for something to be in the mail, which likely means it got stuck at customs for a while.

My big nose

So, apparently I have a big nose (at least, according to Melissa).

Melissa was winding Rebecca down for the night, so Melissa gave her a bath and was aiming on giving her a massage as it helps Rebecca to sleep better during the night (i.e. like 7 hours vs 4-5). Rebecca wanted to nurse instead. So Melissa allowed Rebecca to nurse for a few minutes, then set her down to give her a massage. Rebecca was of course less than pleased at having her feeding cut short. So I came in and was trying to calm Rebecca while Melissa massaged Rebecca, and put my face right on Rebecca's. She calmed down. So I commented to Melissa and did it again, and again she calmed down. Melissa commented 'see, I told you you have a big nose! She probably thinks it is a nipple.' So I put my face down on Rebecca's again, and watched her try to latch. So, being the good father I am, I washed my nose and let her have it. Rebecca ceased her crying despite Melissa's and my shaking with laughter, and my new challenge at figuring out how to breathe through my mouth while laughing...

-Justin

Christmas pictures, plus a few others.

Okay, Christmas pictures... at least mostly.

This one is on Christmas Eve, I believe. Rebecca had been really fussy, and I finally just put her in her stroller and handed her that little Pooh bear toy that her cousin Amelia gave her, and she started munching on it, but she was pretty happy for about 1/2 an hour, so whatever works!

This is the tree on Christmas Eve... most of those packages were for Rebecca! YIKES!

Rebecca studying said tree on Christmas Eve.

This is the stocking Justin and I designed and I made for Rebecca.

And... apparently Christmas tired her out before we even opened her presents, lol.

Still sleeping...

STILL sleeping! Here's the majority of what she got for Christmas, less some clothing.

Finally she woke up!

Oh, and she noticed the bow on her chair!

Talking with Daddy!

I read something about doing a 365 blog or whatever, and thought it sounded kind of fun. I don't think I can necessarily post every day, but I can definitely take a picture every day, so here are the first two pictures of the year.

practising her flying lessons with Daddy...

All snuggled in, going for a walk on our rainy, windy, chilly (not cold like yesterday!!) day.

Oh, and, Happy Birthday to my Mum! :-)