How's she doing? 9 months old!

You would be forgiven for thinking life revolves around little t around here. However, baby A certainly directs her share of traffic. Being a baby is pretty involved and although she is far more even tempered than her older brother she certainly expresses herself and ensures her needs are met. In fact, our days are structured around her needs as much as possible with interuptions for big brother's school and swimming lessons.

So for everyone who asks, "How's she doing?", here's a summary.

Food: She's loving it. We're adding more texture now. She still favours zucchini and other squashes. She also loves swiss chard of all things. She likes carrots, turnips, lentils, green beans, peas and most other veggies. When offered apple or pear, she screws up her face and looks completely disgusted. It's quite funny. She does like sweet potato so I don't think it's an aversion to sweetness. Not sure what's up there. We are offering finger food too. She still grasps with her whole hand so it's more of an exercise than an actual nutrition input.

Sleep: This area has been quite a struggle but things are improving. I'm a believer in attachment parenting. I like to keep the babies close. A was in a co-sleeper in our room until recently but I noticed that she seemed to sleep more soundly when I wasn't there. It's almost as if she senses my presence and thinks it's party time. So with some reluctance, we moved her bed into the office. After a lousy week of adjustment, she is down to one waking per night which is much more manageable than the 3 or 4 that had been happening.

Elimination: No problems. She's very regular. We have started elimination communication (EC) which means we pay attention to when she's eliminating and we learn the signals and acknowledge it. Thanks to my sister for inspiring us on this project. When she's passing solids we bring her to the toilet right away and most of the time she finishes the job there. When she's peeing we make a sound and change her right away. Sometimes we catch the pee but that's pretty advanced and the goal is more to make her aware that we are aware and to get her used to the toilet early. We're using cloth diapers so that also helps her awareness.

Communication: Here is where she has surprised me. We've been using signs for awhile. Around two months ago, she started signing for milk! She is not consistent about it and sometimes when she does it, she really means she's tired but she is unmistakably following our lead and trying to communicate with her hands. The surprise is that she had made this connection earlier than her brother who is no slouch in the communication department. I'm trying not to get too excited because she doesn't do it all the time and she hasn't picked up any other signs but I still think it's pretty cool. She's pretty clear with vocals too when she's hungry.

Movement: This is probably where we see the most delay. She is certainly not as strong as her brother was or her cousin is but we do see good progress. She sits well. We are working on getting her to move from tummy to sitting and from tummy to hands and knees. She has started to scooch backwards on her tummy and sometimes gets some good distance if she's got a rug under her.

Overall, we aren't as concerned about each milestone as I thought we would be. We're seeing progress and a huge curiosity. She wants to grab everything (especially my glasses) and she's really interested in books. She knows who we are. I think she knows her name, her brother's name but not her parents' names yet. She hasn't had too many babysitters but when she does, she misses us.

We're all in love with this kid and super grateful that she eats well and has no health issues. We're just enjoying this age and this time and learning to trust that all will be well.

Here's A attempting to use the sippy cup. Still a work in progress but pretty cute.

Eva

Eva Maria Hermann died last Monday. She was a great friend. I met her about 13 years ago when we lived downtown and we both regularly attended a United Church. I heard her speaking one day and her accent sounded Hungarian so I asked her about it. Sure enough, she told me she was a refugee from Hungary but her real escape was from Toronto. She was the only woman I know who lied about her age by increasing it. When we met she said she was 85 which would put her about 98 when she died but I suspect she was about 10 years younger than that. Her sharp wit and resistance to being visited by church do-gooders sparked a long friendship. For quite a few years, she hosted a sort of home church book club where we read and discussed spiritual matters and enjoyed her excellent soup. Her long life was full of pain and disappointment but also amazing travel and joyful friendships. She did not have any family. Her Dad died when she was a baby. Her brother died in the old country. Her Mom followed her here but passed away over 20 years ago. She and her estranged late husband did not have any children. She lived alone in a small apartment in the west end. She swam regularly, volunteered with the senior's counseling society, attended academic lectures and traveled frequently. She was also involved with the Thomas Merton Society. She was about my grandmothers' age but I think our relationship was more like sisters. Once T and I became parents and moved east to our current location, our contact was less frequent but still very regular.

This year unfortunately I hardly saw her at all. Luckily, I went to visit her and brought t last Sunday, one week ago. She was feeling quite down. This time of year is always hard for her. She was also upset because her building management was raising maintenance fees indiscriminately and she and the other residents were feeling like they were being pushed out. Perhaps the stress was too much. Little t and I were the last to see her alive. When we left she was smiling with her beautiful kind eyes.

Eva credited me with diagnosing her as dyslexic. She confused letters and mixed up right and left all the time. The day after she died, I was stumbling through a yoga class mixing up my left and right which I don't generally do. I think God let her get a little message through. She's ok up there. May she soar into eternal grace.

4 is the new 13

I take little t to swimming lessons a couple of times per week. I've been determined to get him past the fear of getting his head wet. He's doing well and now he can stay with the instructor without me. I get a swim in and then we play afterward. A stays in the playcare during this time unless T is home.

The women's change room has an open shower. I usually wash his hair which he hates. Yesterday, I was proceeding with the dreaded hair wash when a little girl about t's age came in with her mom. Little t stopped his fussing and went completely quiet. I didn't have my glasses on but I could tell he was fascinated with the young lady. He started to pull away from me and then push me away. Finally he said, "Mom, move away from me!" I was biting back shock and laughter. The little girl rinsed her own hair with no fuss and moved on. I asked Tor if he wanted me to move away so he seemed like a big boy. He nodded.

We agreed to use hand signals next time.

...and since it's remembrance day, I hope you all had a chance to observe your moment of silence. We made it to the local cenotaph, late but in time to see the wreathes being laid.

Hallowe'en

It was cold and rainy the week before Hallowe'en so we were bracing for a showdown about wearing a raincoat over a costume but luckily the day was clear and brisk and the evening was beautiful with a spooky, cloudy moon.

Little t had two costumes. For months he had planned to be Spiderman but when he found out there was a no mask policy for his school party there was mayhem. He is very particular about his outfits. As you may know, everyday is Hallowe'en for t. He rotates between being a knight, pirate, cowboy or superhero. Most of these ensembles can pass for street clothes to the untrained eye but those in the know can see that his sweat pants with the special stitching at the knee are clearly for knights or ninjas. Anyway, we trudged up to the local charity shop and found a Superman costume for the school party. This worked well until his father brought him to school. He wanted to take his boots off but for safety reasons the kids need to keep them on throughout the program. He got quite upset that his 'look' wasn't right when T whipped out his handy new iphone and pulled up some pictures of superman with boots. Crisis averted. Whew.

Baby A calmly and happily consented to wearing the bunny hat. She's so great.

The evenings festivities consisted of a trip to the local kiddie train which was set up for a spooky ride. A and I went home after that. T & t went trick or treating with t's friend L. After only a few blocks they had more candy than they could carry. They went to L's house where the tradition is to dump the candy on the floor and eat as much as they can. This would normally horrify us as we have been careful to keep candy almost completely out of t's diet. However it turned out to be a stroke of genius. When he came home excited, hyper and happy he also had a stomach ache and hasn't really been too interested in the rest of the bag. Yay!

There's no party that can't be improved by a wig. Here's the family trying out some looks. T actually did wear that ensemble out and scared a few kids.

Polly

Who is Polly? She is a little girl and she's sick. She has a condition that narrows the vessels in her brain which causes seizures and possibly strokes. She is the first little sparkly wonder love child I encountered while searching for information about DS. I read about her birth and her early struggles. I read about her family's journey from diagnosis to thriving sweetie in pre-school. Her pictures and her story gave me hope and reassurance about A's future. She's one of my heroes and an inspiration. Please put her high on your prayer list.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favourite holidays. You get to feast and celebrate with your loved ones but there's no pressure to buy everyone their dream come true. You just show up (or host) and have a great time. If you're paying attention to the season, you also reflect on your many blessings. I am grateful for so much this year. For little A who is a sparkly sparkle, for her health and for all the people, old friends and new, who stepped in and helped us out when she was born. That was only 7 months ago and it was without a doubt the craziest, most intense time of my life so far. I'm grateful for little t who is also a sparkly sparkle star. He has embraced A with so much love and acceptance and it's inspiring. For big T being a good man in a storm. For my family who also embraced us all and some of whom camped out here until we were ok. I'm grateful for my friend S who has opened many doors of inquiry, curiousity, healing and self-knowledge. I'm grateful for every scrap of sleep. I'm grateful for the amazing trip to the big lake this summer. I'm grateful for the harvest. That's where this seasonal feasting all originated, the harvest, and I'm glad to 'subscribe' to a real harvest and feed my family with it.

We went to visit Farfar and Farmor this Thanksgiving. It was too short but still a wonderful trip. We are all grateful to them for the many many times they have hosted holidays and the huge effort they put into making it all very special. Thank you, thank you.

Here are some highlights; The picture at the top is the beautiful holiday table.

Blowing off some steam on the ferry. There was a looooonnnnnng wait to get on.


Here's t doing a dance of excitement after the long journey.



Here is a shot of FF & FM with the kids. Everyone is wearing bandanas that Tor picked out for them so they could all be cowboys.



Here are FM with A. They got along famously. A never missed a chance to smile at her FM.


It turns out the ergo carrier really can handle up to 40 lbs! Tor sometimes wants to be the baby so here he is in the carrier on the way home. We're practicing our 'Blue Steel' look for the camera.

It's been about a month since A started eating solid food. Her first meal was mashed up organic carrots from our CSA farm. I used the hand blender to mash them and they were still a little lumpy so it was a hesitant start. Since then she has tried the commercially prepared carrots and other vegetables which she likes much better. Still we persevere making our own stuff. She has also tried squash, beets, zucchini and sweet potato as well as apple, pear and both rice and oatmeal cereals. Of all these fine offerings I was expecting her to gravitate to the fruit or beets because of the sweetness but no. Her absolute gobble- it- up favourite is............. zucchini. What???!!!! Yes it's true. She can't get enough of it and luckily the harvest is just full of the stuff and it's really easy to make it smooth. So we've had lot's of fun and surprises trying new things and we continue to introduce more each week. She likes grabbing the spoon and trying to feed herself although she often wacks herself in the face. Here are a couple shots of her first meal.