kim through
   the looking glass

**Edited to add a link to the TIPS Open Mouth Cups Awards that I checked out during my research. Also, take a look at the comment from midwife and TIPS founder, Sharon!**

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a Midirs podcast about cup feeding and they were recommending the use of Bickiepegs’ The Doidy Cup for early supplementation, introduction of a cup, and weaning baby to a cup from a bottle. They were cautioning against the use of spouted cups, citing research that may indicate that the use (and prolonged use) of such cups may lead to poor nutritional habits. They encouraged the use of an open cup for drinking at mealtimes.

After doing a bit of poking around at the different open-mouthed cup options, I thought I’d give The Doidy Cup a try. I ordered from the online store (located in the UK) on May 20th, and the cups arrived in the mail today (only 8 days!). I was eager to try them out and see what Gwen would think of them, so I brought it out at dinner. Read the rest of this entry »

Seriously. How cute is this kid?

Dancing Gwen! from Kim Schell on Vimeo.

On Sunday, I was lucky enough to meet two of my online friends in real life! In my town! Yay!

Kara was making a trip to Ikea (Burlington) and was therefore happy to stop in Hamilton at Tim Horton’s on the way home. Steph was crazy enough to make the trek from the other side of Toronto.

This was the first time I’ve met anyone from online in person. It was lots of fun. Really weird, but lots of fun! It’s so interesting to know so much about people you’ve never *really* met.

I think Gwen and Zaphyn enjoyed meeting each other and playing with each other’s toys.

Babies! Break rank and attack!

My only regret is that we neglected to get a picture with the three of us together. GAH!

I read about kids starting to use items for their intended use around Gwen’s age and thought “Aw, how cute!”

Awwww, how cute!

Um yeah. Ridiculously cute! This is Gwen yesterday using the TV remote as a phone. We gave her the real cordless phone and she threw it on the ground. Apparently she doesn’t think it’s a real phone like the remote is!

Gwen started grabbing the comb out of my hand and rubbing it on her own head a couple of weeks ago and I realized just how crazy important that milestone really is. My kid now understands that a comb is for brushing hair! Wow! That’s a pretty big leap from the ‘what’s that spiky black thing and why are you rubbing it on my head?’ look she’s been giving me since birth …

The cutest yet? This morning while I was brushing my teeth, Gwen was holding her foot in one hand and a shoe in the other, trying to get her foot in the shoe.

(Is it bad that the thought after ‘Heehee - she’s trying to put her shoe on!’ was ‘oh crap, now she’s going to want to do it herself and the TANTRUMS, OH THE TANTRUMS!’)

We’ve been entertaining the notion of painting lately. It’s getting nice out - nice enough to leave the windows and doors open for the day to air out a room and let paint dry. It’s high time, people - my house is beautiful and old but bears the scars of decorators who had … ugly interesting tastes. Here’s what we’re planning!

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Well, I took the plunge shortly after my birthday, March 7, and I updated a few weeks later.

I think it’s high time I updated again!

It’s now been 2.5 months since I’ve used shampoo on my hair. Wow. When I say it like that it seems pretty incredible, eh? Read the rest of this entry »

I ran into the student midwife, K, who caught Gwen this morning. Turns out she’s going to be working at the clinic where I go for midwifery care. Yay!!

I was just telling Brad that with the next baby, I’d like to have her, if possible, since our other midwives are established in their careers and have lots of repeat clients, whereas when you’re just starting out in practice, you don’t have many repeats at first and it would be nice for her, I think.

I guess only time will tell!

(And no, not an announcement. Stop it, people. We’re not even close to thinking about that yet!)

Tammy (from Tammy is Blessed) is hosting her first ever blog giveaway! Get your butt over to her blog and enter the giveaway she’s hosting in honour of Georgia, who died of SMA just last month.

This summer, we’ve done a lot of planning for ways to grow our own fruits and veggies and taken many steps toward becoming much more self-sustaining. Our housemates have a large vegetable garden in the back and although they have offered for us to partake of the veggies/fruits grown therein, I didn’t feel up to doing that much gardening just yet … I don’t really know much about it and when the planning was happening, I didn’t feel up to helping even with that, since it was at a rough Gwen-time.

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Hey all you toy junkies! I’m so excited for this store it’s a bit ridiculous. Check out their blog for more info! Me? I’m hoping to get in for a sneak peek today!