Whooo Hoooo!

I just got back from gretting Hannah weighed and she has broken another weight category, she is now weighing in at a heafty...








8lbs 4oz!!!

Go breast milk! That's 6oz in 7 days! 11 in 14! I am so proud of my baby girl!

SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

One of the joys of being a new parent is that you get the see the sun rise everymorning, along with the sunrise this morning came snow! I thought it was just the lack of sleep playing tricks with my eyes but then I looked a little closer. Sure enough those were snowflakes floating through the street light glow, falling ever so quietly to the street, and then melting as if they had never even appeared.

I really hope that the first real snow fall holds off until we move. We have been really lucky with the past two moves and the snow waited until we were in our new dwelling. This being the last move that we will do for many many years, I really hope that mother nature complies with our wishes.

Nothing too new in my world, still waiting for a certain work4bandwidth perpective on the years most interesting events, I guess he does have the better part of a month to comment though..lol

Cheers all!

World Happenings 2005 update

Ok so far this is what we are up to...
1. The Pope Died
2. Rosa Parks Died
3. Katrina and other hurricanes ravage the states.
4. Gas 1.38/l... ouch!
5. Peter Jennings Dies of lung cancer
6. Prince Charles and Camilla
7. Hussein on Trial
8. Martha goes to jail
9. Trump gets married again and wife gets prego!
10. All the star stuff
11. Iraq... ugh
12. Jolly Green Giant guy(Elmer Dresslar) dies of cancer
13. Bought our first house

Anything Canadian?
Anything not American?
Like what happened significant in other countries?

Here are a few of my own:
1. Canada makes same sex marriage legal.
2. Lance Armstrong wins 7th TDF
3. The hockey strike ends, salary cap begins and the shoot out happens!( and the Leafs win the cup... sorry that's me dreaming again!)

Hey Mike and Aimee and Bill and John, I know you 4 will have an up to date perspective on the world... anti up!

Ok fellow members of blog land need your help...

I have been working on Hannah's baby books( in the best procrastinating fashion I know how) and one of the sections is important things that happened the year I was born. Since everyone that pops by here is unique and has different interests I thought this would be the best spot to dig up stuff from the year. So please add your comments as to a few things that you found important or interesting this year, I am gonna print them off and add them to her baby book. She will always them have an insight on all things interesting from 2005!

Thanks

Leanne

Things that make you life easier as a parent

1. Windows Media Player graphics( and the Rolling Stones!)
2. Baby Einstein... everything the books the DVDs the toys
3. Classical Music
4. A really good baby monitor( this allows you to have a shower that is longer than 5 minutes
5. The Jeep!

All of the above things have had a huge impact on my quality of life in the past few days. I never thought that I would be the type of parent to plunk my child in front of the TV, but I have no guilt when I need a few minutes to myself and it is a Baby Einstein Educational Mind stimulating DVD that she is watching. Plus she loves it!

For Auntie Aimee... this is one of the pics Chris took when he was half listening to you.

New Pics from the weekend

So my free flicker space is up for the month so here are a few favs from the weekend with Grandma Joan and Grampy Nat. More can be found on Hannah's flicker page.

Oh and btw the house is officially ours :)

Congrats Meghann and Chris

A beautiful baby girl!

Dakota GeGraw (middle name still undecided)

Saturday October 29th at 7:54 a.m

6 pounds 10 ounces 20 inches

Enjoy every moment of her you will cherish these moments forever.

Quick Update

Sorry it has been a couple days, life has been crazy wrapping up the house stuff and such.
Hannah has officially been discharged from Midwifery care. I say this with mixed emotions. I am glad that I no longer have to go to the office almost weekly, and I am elated that she has had good enough progress to be discharged, but I am sad for as many reasons. I will miss all the ladies at the office and the fabulous care that Hannah and I recieved in the past 9 months. I will miss seeing all the other pregos and babies that are healthy and well, and I will miss all the constant encouragement. Poor little Hannah is now released into the world of Western Medicine and doctors offices full of sickos. Ugh... reality!

So the numbers....
At 6 weeks 3 days old Hannah was 7lbs 9oz ( a 5 oz gain in 7 days) and 21.1 inches long ( almost a 2 inch gain in 6 weeks). Her heart and lungs and tummy are clear and functioning well. Her reflexes and reactions are right on pace for a little girl her age and her head control is awesome. Her head grew too, but I can't remember the numbers for that. How weird is it that at 6 weeks old she is only 1 ounce smaller that her Daddy when he was born and at birth she was 1 ounce bigger than me when I was born. She is our little girl that is for sure.

Well back to reality, Hannah has visitors this weekend, Grandma Joan and Grampy Nat are here this weekend, we also have to do a house inspection and sign the rest of the house papers this weekend.

I will post again soon, till then, who the hell ordered the minus anything weather? It was -2 when I started to post and it's -3 now! I am already hating winter!

how much?

My blog is worth $3,951.78.
How much is your blog worth?

New things...

Well I made the cake from Michelle's blog and it was awesome! I highly recommend it! IT did however take me the better part of 3 hours to make it and that was not including the 47 mins to bake it. Hannah was having no part of Mommy baking yesterday! I would feed her she would fall asleep and I would lay her down, head to the kitchen and get a single ingredient into the bowl and she would wake up and we would repeat the cycle! When Chris came home I finally got to concentrate on it because she slept for almost an hour on his chest!

I posted a bunch of new pics on My Flicker recently!

I am on a baking frenzy right now, all things apple! In the past 2 weeks I have bakes an apple pie, 24 apple tarts, applesaue a couple of times, apple crisp and most recently apple cake. Chris is loving it and my house smells so tasty :)

I am really enjoying being a domestic goddess however the pay sucks. I get to cook and bake and lounge in my jammies till noon if I want to. My house has never been cleaner and I have never been happier. I only wish that it was a little bit warmer so that we could go out for walks everyday. With Hannah being so small she doesn't fit into any of her really warm clothes yet. I think that the stroller has been used maybe 1/2 a dozen times at this point and both carriers have about the same amount of miles on them.

I think that I am going to go back to the gym tomorrow. Chris usually lets me have a couple hours to myself everyday so that he can spend time with Hannah, tomorrow I think I will go back to the gym on my free time. All this baking is not helping me lose the baby weight. Since I am only into 2 of the 14 pairs of jeans I own I think I need to get my butt in gear.

That's it for now.

Li'l Goats

As I am sure I have mentioned before I have found a wonderful line of baby products that work miracles on Hannah's sensitive skin. She was fortunate enough to inherit my fragrance sensitivity which has made bathtime and diaper changes a bit of a crap shoot( no pun intended).

Well the line of products that I have found to be saving grace is Canus Li'l Goats Milk!

The weekend of Hannah's first road trip I didn't their line of zinc cream with me substituting it for a small container of Penatin that I had in the diaper bag... Well that was a HUGE mistake! Hannah's poor little bum became red and raw after only 1 diaper change with Penatin. I had some Sudocreme with me too and the same results occurred. Needless to say I had one cranky passenger on my hands all weekend. As soon as I got home I changed her and slathered on the Li'l Goats Milk Zinc Ointment, by the next diaper change her bum was back to normal!

Now any of you who have kiddies know how ear piercing a sore bum cry is, so this product not only helps her bum it also helps my ears!

So after that weekend I decided to send Canus a quick email stating how I was thrilled with the product and how I have since then recommended it to several friends and even given it as gifts. I received a response from a lovely lady named Ann thanking me for my email and requesting my address so that she could send me a parcel of samples. I so obliged and it arrived today. I am now sitting her with a full size bottle of the Li'l Goats Milk Moisturizing Lotion and a sample size of the Shampoo/Body wash. Due to the excessive handwashing associated with having a baby the lotion was much appreciated and used immediately. It too meets the same product excellence as their Zinc Ointment, not only great for babies but great for Mommys!

I just wanted to give credit where credit is due, it is so rare in today's day and age to find great customer service coupled with great products. Way to go Canus!

The Baker's Rack

The Baker's Rack

For the baker in all of us! I found this site by way of Carmi.

I will let you all know how the apple cake turns out, I intend to bake it today if my darling Hannah will nap for a couple of hours.

Speaking of napping, Hannah has slept 6 consecutive hours in a row 2 nights in a row, from 9ish to 3:25am. Now if only we can get her to move that from say 11pm to 5am then sleep would not be such a novelty for Mommy!

Hannah's First Dress

Today we went out for Sunday breakfast before everyone headed out Jeepin and I made sure that Hannah was dressed appropriatly in her best Sunday dress. It is hard to believe that she will be 6 weeks old tomorrow and she is still comfortably fitting into preemie clothes. She has however graduated into the next size of diapers and is starting to be able to wear a few of her 0-3 months sleepers. She may actually get to wear most of her 6 snowsuits this winter.

Holy Crap

WE got it!
WE have a house!
WE have a yard!
WE have 2 bathrooms and a washer and a dryer and a fridge and a stove and 4 bedrooms and NO LANDLORD!!!!

WOW, amazing what can happen in your life in 24 hours!

So as of December 5th 2005 we take possession of this house!

I am completely dumbfounded!

Huge day in my world

Well it started with a visit to the midwife... Hannah is back on the gaining path and is finally over 7lbs! She is up 7 oz in 7 days and is now 7lbs 4oz! Go boobie moo!

Then the 3 of us went out looking at houses today... (another arson fire in the neighbourhood tonight, just pure coincidence)... and actually put in a conditional offer on one the agent took us by on his hunch that we might like it. The first 2 we looked at were dumps with great lots the second is a gem with a pretty good lot in a better neighbourhood... check it out!

OH AND

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY BIZ!

Whooo Hoooo!

We woke up yesterday morning and Hannah's Red Rash of Baby has cleared up! We are back to beautiful clear baby soft skin. After talking to my midwife about the rash she figured it was a reaction to something that she was around. Since it was only on her face and neck and upper chest the first thing I eliminated was Bounce sheets from mine and Chris's laundry. She is always rubbing up against our clothes so it was worth a try. It seems to be the culprit. So Chris and I will suffer through rough jeans and staticy clothes because we love our daughter. A small price to pay to enjoy her beauty.

Blog , Blah, Blah

Hannah Yesterday in a brief break from feeding.

Thank you to Heather for writing this blog entry and thank you to Carmi for writing about it and sending me down the path to reading it.

For those of you who know what has been going on in my life as a new Mom since my last entry you will understand how important Heather's entry would be to someone like me. For those who don't know the deal I will explain.

On Thursday last Hannah and I ventured to the Midwife for our 1 month appointment. Now Hannah being such a little tyke at birth it is really important that she gains weight well, this unfortunately was not the case. Due to her size they would like her to put on 2/3 oz. or more a day. In 16 days Hannah only put on 8 oz... That breaks down to 1/2 oz per day and clearly below the minimum requirement. After discussing her behaviours over the past 2 weeks, my midwife and I devised a plan. I will spare you the details but lets just say that it has resulted in Hannah cluster feeding for anywhere between 2 and 4 hours at a time. This has resulted in one really tired, sore and stressed out Mommy and one very irritated Daddy. For all the reasons Heather mentioned in her blog and for several of my own ( convenience being the #1) I am determined to breastfeed until Hannah is 6 months old. Well last night in one of her many stints of incessant feeding the thought of formula entered my head. Maybe it was the delirium that is brought on by sleep deprivation, or maybe it was the whole idea of someone else getting to feed her without me having to bruise my breasts with a pump( I have a new one in transit as I type this to solve the bruising issue), or maybe it was just me forgetting all the excellent reasons why breast feeding is a superior method over formula feeding. Needless to say Heather's entry has put me back on the path. Like every other tough moment in life I am sure that this too will pass.
For those of you who are pregnant or are trying to get pregnant, please do not let this sway you from breastfeeding. It can be very difficult to get the hang of it, especially if Mom is a control freak and baby is very tiny. Believe me when I say it will get easier, there is a huge learning curve with having a newborn that no book can prepare you for. Baby's and Mommy's are like snowflakes no two are alike and no two present themselves in the same manner twice. Patience and persistence will get you through this. Your baby deserves it.

So now that I am revitalized and back on the determined breastfeeding path, I again want to thank Heather and Carmi and Tess from Positively BreastFeeding for helping me through this bump in the road.

For those of you following the numbers these are them...
Hannah @ birth 5lbs 13 oz
Day after birth 5lbs 9oz
Day 5 5lbs 12 oz
2 week visit 6lbs 5 oz
4 week visit 6lbs 13 oz
5 week visit ... shooting for 7lbs 2 oz at least!

Stay tuned.

Following mkuiack's lead

mkuiack

Top Ten Reasons I Love My New Job
aka Mom!

10. A year off of my other job.
9. Shopping for little girls is so much fun.
8. The look in her eyes when she looks at me.
7. The look in his eyes when he looks at her.
6. The freedom to nap, repeatedly!
5. The peacefulness of a baby's sleep.
4. The smell of her.
3. Bathtime Smiles.
2. They said I would never be one, but love brought her.

and the number one reason why I love my new job.....

1. Because it is the hardest job I have ever had with the crapiest pay but the biggest rewards, no other job could match unconditional love.

Hannah is 1 month old today

Hannah and Mommy had a chat about hockey and such today, since Hannah is a month old now she understands the importance of being a Leafs fan and this was her response when we discussed the Habs and what she should think of them!

What you mean the Leafs won last night! Well it is about time!

Sleep....

It's A Daddy and Hannah thing!

Hannah's First Thanksgiving

Well there was another roadtrip this weekend, this time east to Grandma and Grandpa Fenton's.
They had an open house for everyone in the family to come and meet Hannah, Grandpa John and Step Grandma Debbie were there too. Hannah got to meet lots of people, Great Aunt Lori and Great Uncle Paul, Cousins Jason and Dawn and their daughter Madi, Great Aunt Janet and Auntie Janet(aka Auntie Toad), Great Grandma Andrus and various other drop ins over the course of the weekend. It was a quick visit, again Hannah was really fussy since pass the baby game was being played and she hates it.

There were some great pics taken though...

4 Generations
Hannah and her
Mommy,
Grandma
and
Great Grandma

Close up of Hannah
and her
Great Grandma Gladys.










More on My Flicker page. Saturday night we all watched the Leafs get squished by the damn Habs. So far Hannah has not seen the Leafs win... 0 and 2, stupid shoot out!
Well that is all for now enjoy the pics.

Bathtime smiles

Hannah is starting to Smile :)

Maybe it's a birthday smile for her Auntie Melissa... Happy 21st Melissa!

These are why

She needs
slippers!

For the Little Leafs Fan

These would be a great gift for Hannah for Christmas or for any other reason someone may have to purchase her a great pair of booties. They can be found here!

Big Weekend

Well Hannah went on her first road trip this weekend. She is not much for the car seat but loves the Jeep once it is moving. We house hopped all weekend, started out at her Great Uncle Peter's, just north of Pickering where we stayed the night. The next afternoon we moved on to Oshawa to her Great Aunt Betty's, then to Whitby to her Great Aunt Lucy's then all the way to Beaverton to visit Grandma Joan and Step Grandpa Nat. Once we got to Beaverton we had an early Thanksgiving celebration complete with Uncle Patrick, Aunt Melissa and Turkey :)

I love Turkey! Probably since I never got it at home when I was growing up. My Mom doesn't like it and would not cook it, I would eat it once a week if I could.
I also got carrot cake :-p Yummy! Joan makes it just right, 2 inches of cake and half an inch of icing, it was awesome, and still is(there is a bit left in my fridge).

Grandma Joan gave Hannah a bath which she loved! She was pretty good all weekend but really fussy, she is really not a big fan of pass the baby, the game that everyone loves to play with a newborn.

Finally got home last night around 7 after making a visit to the Vaughn Mills Mall. Nno really great deals to speak of for me but Hannah got a new denim dress for 8 bucks and Chris got a sweet Quicksilver snowboarding jacket for 91 bucks tax in!

As for today... Hannah is officially 3 weeks old! She is growing like a weed. This weekend she grew out of her first set of preemie outfits and is now wearing some of her 1 month stuff. Only a week ahead of schedule. Actually it is her length that has forced her out of the preemie stuff, she is still skinny enough for them, but she still looks pretty damn cute in her pink jailhouse stripes that she got from her Great Aunt Peggy and Great Uncle Richard.


I celebrated her birth today in 2 ways... First I went for a bike ride! OMG was it awesome! The freedom that I missed so much since about 20 weeks pregnant. That was the point that I had to retire the bike to the basement until I could handle a seat again. Next summer I will be back at it full time with a baby jail in tow! The second thing I did was let Daddy feed Hannah for the first time. I was really afraid of nipple confusion but since she has taken a pacifier without any ill effects on breastfeeding we tried a bottle out today with pumped milk and everything seems to be fine. She ate a whole ounce for her Daddy then came back for more to me. Oh my little piggy. He was such a proud Daddy, she was a bit confused though not quite sure what to think of a hairy shest complete with food. Now that we know that she will eat from a bottle that means that I will actually get to learn how to snowboard this winter. Grandma Joan will get lots of Hannah time since she lives near the ski hills!

Well that's all for today folks.

Hearing Test Results...

She passed :)

For those of you who are expecting you may not know that your little one will get their hearing tested when you are in the hospital if you so choose to stay overnight or for a couple days. It is a simple test, non invasive, but if your little one does not pass(very probably if done under 48 hours) then you get referred to get one done outside the hospital. That is what happened with Hannah.

Hannah's little ears were full of gunk when she got tested at the hospital and only passed on the right ear so we had to go get retested today. After a pretty trying time( she did not like being a test guinea pig and cried and fussed a lot) we finally got a pass.

Advice for those of you who are expecting:
1) Don't be alarmed if your little one gets a referral to have another test done, little babies get more referrals and the test is supposed to be done after 48 hours(post birth) but sometimes they jump the gun, hence the referral.
2) If you have to get a referral test done, try and make sure that your little one is asleep for it, it will make your life a lot easier.
3) If you have to get a referral test done, bring comfort measures in case you need to settle him or her down. Even if you have just fed him or her make sure that you bring a bottle if you are using formula or have a boob ready if you are breast feeding. The only way that we could get Hannah to calm down was to feed her, again, I had just fed her not even an hour before. Once she was being fed she aced the test.

On a non Hannah note:

Congratulations Mr. Kuiack on your escape!!

Maybe it's because...

I have a baby in the car now, or maybe it's because all the students are back in the city, or maybe it's because I am getting older, but damn is there a lot of bad drivers in the City of London. I can't count how many times in the past 2 weeks I have encountered a horrific driver. Why isn't there a website that you can go to that will allow you to post the make model and liscence plate number of all vehicles that contain bad drivers. Then of course a description of the bad driver too since we all know that cars have many drivers. I think that this would be an excellent contribution to society.

So now that I have a child, there is endless amounts of paperwork that needs to be done in order to register your child as a human being ( I should have tried to register her as a puppy to see if it was any easier). I have even made it into City Hall to give them money so that Hannah can be officially born (who would have thought that there is a $30 fee to be born)! Dealing with the city of London has been the least painful portion of the government to deal with so far. I mean I have dealt with the Provincial divisions with the maternity leave (PIA), Federal divisions with child tax credit (bigger PIA) and now municipal for the record of live birth. The lady that I dealt with @ City Hall was pleasent and I even got to use interact( holy crap the government made something convenient!), I would say the whole process took less that 3 minutes. It actually took me longer to ride the elevator up and down, and took me 10 x a long to fill out all the paperwork. Way to Go City Hall for doing something right!

Now can you try and clean up the riff raff that live in my neighbourhood?

As for my neighbourhood, last week there was a shooting about a block from my house, and 2 nights ago Chris was outside working on the Jeep and two grown men, in their 40's, decided that our intersection was the perfect place to start a brawl. Chris in all his manly stature walked over with the handle to his jeep jack and promptly told them to leave the neighbourhood before he ended the fight... LOL, go figure they left! Within minutes half a dozen cruisers showed up (of course the involved men had already bolted). The response time for the cops in this area is impeccable since we are only 2 blocks from the cop shop, and pinched conveniently between a Country Style and a Timmies! As terrible as the neighbourhood sounds, I feel ridiculously safe here due to the fact that I am so close to the cop shop.

Still, I can't wait to move. We really want to buy a house, hopefully in the spring, definatly before I go back to work. At this point I don't even care where we move to as long as we have a yard for Hannah so she can play in the grass and so we can get a puppy for her to grow up with. I also require high speed internet and Chris requires a garage, other than that our requirements are pretty minimal. I look forward to having a home, a place that I can paint or renovate ordo what ever I want without having to worry about a landlord.

Well that is all for now, need to get ready Hannah has a hearing test today.

The Verdict

Hannah is officially 6lbs 5 oz! She has put on 9 oz in 10 days!
Celeste (my midwife) gave her a clean bill of health :)

2 weeks old today

4 days old
5 lbs 12 oz










14 days old
weight ??








Can you see a difference?

We have a 2 week follow up appointment tomorrow with the midwife and I am guessing Hannah is close to 7 lbs now.

What do you think?

Drunk Baby

For those of you who are familiar with the look on a baby's face post breastfeeding session this should look very familiar to you. For those of you who are not familiar I like to coin it as milk drunk. It is a sight that no mother can describe without a picture.