kim through
   the looking glass

MISSING:

Infant. Named Gwen. All I have is this toddler …

And I’m not sure where she came from …

I know, I know. It’s been a LOOOOOONG time since I’ve gotten to update you all on Gwen via pictures. Since the beginning of July, actually! I totally lost my camera cord and couldn’t even find the memory card/USB reader we bought a couple of years ago so I could NOT get my pictures off my camera! But, thankfully, I found both the card reader AND the camera cord and now we’re up and running again. I figured I’d shoot some pics up here and show you how much she’s grown in the past month! Read the rest of this entry »

My laptop is … not cooperating? That’s my polite way of saying that the darn thing won’t turn on.

Yeah, I know. That’s what I think of it, too.

So anyways, I had some cute videos I was planning to upload and share today but here we are, without cute photos OR videos, but text’ll just have to do!

Gwen has started a very cute cruising behaviour - pacing back and forth along the couch, end table, exersaucer, chairs, etc. Go to one end … stop … go to other end … repeat. I love it!

Gwen can now “climb” the stairs. She can’t do it on her own (yet), but she rather enjoys climbing up the stairs while you hold her hands. She uses her right knee to get up the stair - it’s rather entertaining to watch!

Gwen wants to walk EVERYWHERE now. She will grab my fingers and then hurl herself off my lap and expect that I will indulge her and help her walk around the house. If I refuse or if I stop at any point, a full on screaming, head-thrown-back, gasping-for-air temper tantrum ensues. Charming.

I’ve been wondering why Gwen’s so … fussy … lately, as I hadn’t been able to see anything going on in her mouth. I snuck a look in there today and sure enough, her right eye tooth (which had been looking white but then gone away) is now white and a bit bulgy. Poor girl’s going to have completely lopsided teeth! She’s got the two middle bottoms, the right middle top, and the one to the right of that poked through late last week. If she gets her eye tooth it’ll be completely unbalanced. But cute

We ordered some more board books for little miss so that we don’t go crazy reading the same ones again and again. We got Yes Yes (includes No No Yes Yes, Big Little, and Yummy Yucky), Pat the Bunny, Eco Babies Wear Green, and Urban Babies Wear Black. They’re all great books - the only thing I don’t like about any of them is that in Urban Babies Wear Black there’s a lot of pacifiers and bottles - no slings, no breastfeeding … but that’s the lactivist in me coming out!

I had to get these things into the blog for record purposes, but I’ve been busy and haven’t been able to.

On April 4, Gwen’s top right front tooth popped through the gums! Surprisingly, that tooth came with very little sleep disturbance. The one beside it though? It’s really close to coming through now and is giving her lots of troubles. She’s still sleeping better than she was a month ago though!!

On Friday night at our weekly potluck, Gwen ate spaghetti! You have no idea how amazing that is, since Gwen hasn’t really even eaten whatever we eat for dinner. She loved picking up pieces of spaghetti and enjoyed quite a few bites off my fork with sauce and meat on it. Yay, Gwen!!

Yesterday, she ate wild blueberries (loved them!! What a fun, messy finger food!) and some grapes. I love having more fruits that I can give her, especially due to her low veggie consumption … I’m hoping to rectify that by buying some frozen peas … I think she might eat those. She’s been eating more and more at mealtimes … now we just have to get a good mix of food in those meals instead of the exact same things every day ro every meal

Oh my goodness. Her eyes. Sigh.

Today, I think Gwen made her first attempt at saying “Hi”. We always say Hi/Bye (depending on which is more appropriate) when she waves and today when we were saying Hi to daddy, she actually made a noise that sounded like the cutest “H-iiiiii”. A couple minutes later, when we were saying Bye to daddy, she kinda made a “buh” sound. I’m wondering if this is the beginning of first words! Such a cute little voice. Oh. And those giggles we’ve been waiting so long for? Very worth the wait I’m trying to get a video with her giggling on it.

Alright, I’m off to Goodness Me! to pick up the avocados I forget to get yesterday … it wouldn’t be such a big deal if I didn’t have them, ya know, if Gwen ate a different veggie, but I don’t like to skip the avocados because it’s the only one she gets!

I have totally been slacking at taking the pictures off my camera and updating le blog and le Facebook with pictures of my beautiful little girl. Maybe it’s because every moment she’s awake I’m ripping my laptop cord out of her mouth if I dare to open it up regardless of HOW FAR AWAY FROM IT I put her, or maybe it’s that I’ve been really tired lately and I just haven’t wanted to take the effort.

Either option is sad. Read the rest of this entry »

Pardon my lack of blogging. It’s been a crazy week! Mostly it’s been a difficult week.

Gwen has been teething and sick since Monday (well, teething for two weeks, sick since Monday). Runny nose, cough, fever … yesterday she was pretty lethargic, so we decided to take her in to the walk-in clinic. Turns out it’s a viral infection, so there’s nothing anyone can do. I’ve been holding her for naps and giving lots of extra cuddles, not that she’ll let me do any less And her second tooth is *just* popping through now. Poor girl.

Last night I went out fr my first official ‘night out’. A bunch of moms from my church got together at Kelsey’s! I enjoyed a margarita and a burger. It was great to go out with some people in the same stage of life … we talked a lot about our labours and births, cloth diapering, babies, pregnancy, and parenting and we talked a little bit about work, school, and other miscellaneous subjects.

Mmmm, margarita.

We had a rough night last night. Gwen didn’t go down for the night until 8:30pm, and was awake at 11:30, 2:30 (that part was normal!) but then 4:30, 5:30, 6:30, and then 7 for the day. Brad took her for a bit while I slept for some more (thanks, dear!!!) and when he brought Gwen back in, she chomped on my finger.

So I pried her little mouth open and her lower right gum is quite swollen and red, and I’m 99.8% sure I see a slit of white. C’mon, tooth!

Gwen seems to be having a developmental explosion. She claps, she moves, she can turn the pages on books (so.cute.) … things are just changing so fast!!

For those of you waiting eagerly for an update on Gwen’s health, here it is! She slept pretty well last night until almost 9 this morning! (She seems to wake up about 12 hours after you put her down, regardless of the time she goes to bed). She woke up in good spirits and nursed well (relief for my engorged breasts!) and smiled and played most of the morning. She went down at 11 for a nap until around 1 pm. In her crib. It was a miracle! She didn’t have very good afternoon naps, since we were out an about, and she fell asleep nursing at around 6:20. It’s now about 7:15, so I’m assuming she’s done for the night … I just hope she doens’t wake up at 6:30 tomorrow morning!!!

All in all, she seems a bit better today - in better spirits, eating decently, not so whiny - and we think it’s mostly her teeth bothering her right now. I’m pretty sure it’s not strep, anyways! She’s chewing on everything in sight and biting HARD. She was also trying to massage her gums on me before a feeding earlier. Poor thing. We’re thinking they’re going to break through in the next couple of days!

As for me, my throat is a bit sore, I’m a bit congested, and I’m planning to go to bed EARLY tonight

is miserable. We’re thinking now that the runny nose and crankiness is teething related instead of being a cold! She is just have the roughest time getting those teeth in! She’s working on both bottom front teeth at the same time - poor thing. I just want them to cut through so she’ll feel better.

But, on a good note, she’s rockin’ the transition to sleeping in her crib! I had wanted to just transition her to beginning the night there, but we’ve tried two nights running to bring her into bed with us in the wee hours, and it’s either too stimulating to walk down the hall and get all situated, or she’s decided the crib’s cooler. I don’t know which - all I know is she’s spending all night in the crib.

Tonight my goal is to *not* have an awake baby for an extended period of time in the middle of the night. The first night was 2 hours awake, and last night was 1 hour. But it’s whenever we bring her to bed - the 10:30/11:00 feed she goes right back to sleep, as she did this morning at 6:30, so I’m thinking tonight I’ll just be going in to feed her and put her right back down.

It’s still bittersweet. I miss waking up to my sweet baby in the morning. Maybe when she feels better she’ll want to hang out with us after her last feed?