Various goings on

Sometimes days and days go by and there's just no time to sit down and write. We are trying to purge our place of unused clothes, toys, papers and junk. In between we have doctor's appointments for A, kids' birthday parties and beach days. A is 13.5 pounds and 60 cm. Her pediatrician is very happy with her progress. Her eyes are ok too. They were checked last week and although she is more far-sighted than normal for this age, it's not worth correcting with glasses at this point. I suspect someday she will join most of the rest of her family in sporting some sassy eyewear but I'm glad it's not this soon.

I'm trying to fit in some reading. A friend gave me a book called 'the MemoryKeeper's Daughter'. It's a fictional story about a family who had twins in the 60's, a girl and a boy. The girl had DS and the father who was a doctor sent the girl to an institution. The nurse can't leave her there and decides to bring her up as her own. The book runs parallel narratives of what happens to both families. It's very well written and pretty emotional. I don't read much at a time but I do love this book.

Here is a picture of us at a recent patio party that got rained out. We're dressed up because the theme was come in your favourite wedding party outfit. I'm wearing the bridesmaid dress I wore for Sue's wedding (with a crazy boa just for kicks). Tor asked me what kind of animal it was. Polyester my son, polyester. A is wearing her new dress from Auntie A. Tor's outfit speaks for itself. He is all cowboy these days.

Well Covered

Last week or maybe it was the week before... I was presented with a most beautiful creation. A quilt built of many lovely squares. Thank you to all who contributed to this lovely gift. Little A is certainly well provided for in terms of clothes and blankets. This quilt joins two handknit handcrocheted blankets from Grandma R and Auntie S and loads of clothes including the cute red number from FarMor. Check her out! She's 15 weeks now and a pretty happy kid.

Let us eat cake

Well, we've had quite a weekend. Our friends Gary and Valeria got married on Friday. The day was amazingly beautiful and best of all we were right on time for the ceremony! Those of you who have waited for us to show up somewhere know that that is quite an accomplishment. The reception was held at a manor at the university which had indoor and outdoor space. G&V staffed it with nannies to handle babies and kids so everybody had a great time.

Party Dress


Party shirts


On Saturday, we had dinner with our friends from Seattle. It was their youngest son's birthday so we had a barbeque and cake to celebrate.

Today, we headed to the beach in the morning and then to a 4 year old friend's birthday party for pool and sprinkler fun and of course more cake. It was great but we're looking forward to a quiet week coming up. We have more summer fun to plan and lots of household tasks to tackle.

Awesome new (to us) local beach. We're not sure if those seats are always there but don't they look great?


How much more cake can one kid eat?

End of an Era

We are finally ready to say good-bye to the electric double breast pump. I really had a love-hate relationship with this thing. I resented it because I had to spend so much time with it in the first weeks of A's life. I felt like I was getting to know it better than my daughter. On the other hand it helped me build up a mighty supply to keep her growing and well-nourished with all the great health benefits of breast milk. We've continued to use it even after she was able to feed well because it took awhile to get the supply and demand in balance. I have a theory that my recent insomnia attacks are related to the hormone fluctuations involved in balancing this whole system. Anyway, I'm happy to see it go but I'm grateful for all that it did for us.

IDP Visit #1

IDP visit yesterday was good. Our IDP representative, Christine, gave us lots of ideas to help A's strength. Most of them are based around tummy time. She will be back this upcoming week to show me some techniques in infant massage. She was generally upbeat and encouraging. I also met another family this week who have a 3 year old son and a 1 year old daughter. The little girl has DS or T21. They are doing really well and are quite happy. It's helpful to meet thriving families.

Tummy Time

The kids were hanging out together today. Tomorrow we have A's first IDP session (Infant Development Program) but it seems that t may be A's best therapist. This was great. I could actually get a couple of things done while he amused her. This is a new phenomenon and a lasting one I hope.

About the Name

I mean Ariel's name. As you can imagine when we introduce here to little girls they just go mental because she's got the same name as the little mermaid as popularized by Disney. That is a lovely side effect but we weren't thinking of that at all when we named her. Of course that character is from the Danish Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Little Mermaid so there is a tie-in to her Danish heritage.

Her Aunt Suzie suggested it based on some biblical meanings. It means "Lion of God" and it also refers to Jerusalem. The clincher was this scene from the movie Ariel by Aki Kaurismaki. The protagonists are leaving for a better life on a freighter named Ariel. T and I saw this movie together when we were so so young. For us it means HOPE.