Finally got around to uploading photos from “Hats off day” “Grandpa’s b-day” and some additional baby photos in “Erica”
Let me know if the upload time is acceptable, or if I need to change the filesizes. I have the originals, so if you see something you want to print, I can email it off to you.
Q3 came to a close a few days ago, and it’s hard to imagine that we’re 3/4 of the way through the first year already!
Yesterday we finished our swim lessons. I’m still amazed at how much these infants take to, and enjoy the water. I don’t think I learned to swim until I was at least 5 or 6, and I remember some trepidation at the first few times I went into the deep end. But infants this young don’t really have any fear, and sure they get annoyed when they get water up their noses, down the wrong pipe, or in their ears, but a quick timeout to recover and they’re right back in it. And the little buggers learn fast- when we count to 3, e will close her eyes and mouth in preparation for the dunk…
Mind you she still sticks out her tongue to taste the pool water, so maybe she still has a few more things to learn. In the end, she clearly enjoys it, and we don’t mind getting up on Saturday AM to do this. We’ll enrol her into the same class, even though we know the routine. The kids don’t go to “Duck” level until 18 mos.
Another change or development in e’s behaviour is when we put her down to play, then walk away, she puts up a verbal fuss/whine… as if to say, come back here, don’t leave me. We then give a quick verbal response that we’re still nearby, and to not fuss. The thing we want to avoid is to run back to her as she’ll quickly figure out that this is the way to get what she wants.
Raspberries are still going strong, as is the baby talk- baa baa baa, maaap, maaap, etc. She has much better control of her hands- clenching and unclenching both of her hands, clapping her hands, and grasping at items… and it seems she’s starting to prefer solids to her formula, and drinking water from a sippy cup or straw.
She’s interacting with her enviroment a lot more- whether it be staring outside at trees, watching and grasping at the cats, or listening to her story CD. It doesn’t take much to make her giggle- E and I both agree that she’s a lot of fun at this age!
A couple of weeks back, Peter, our friend who is living and working in Japan came for a visit! He was in town for a wild and too brief visit, but we managed to get together for a nice dinner. Here’s a photo of Uncle Peter and little e, and we asked him to take, what I believe is our first, family photo together. If you notice that I’m a bit red, no I did not get sunburned and I am fully sober…
So Jennifer introduced E and I to facebook. Now E has probably doubled her time in front of the computer. 😉
I have to say that facebook came as a bit of a surprise to me in terms of how quickly it’s grown in popularity. They say that communities are being created by these services- LinkedIN, Blogs, MSN Messenger, YouTube… and this one seems here to stay. I almost use E as a litmus test, if she’s into it, then it’s easy to use and will have a high adoption rate. I think she’s posting all her pictures on it.
I still prefer to blog- and will continue to post photos here… as long as I don’t use up Lester’s bandwidth. 🙂
So my niece, Erica’s 1st cousin arrived on Mother’s day!
Going to visit Elaine and Gord in the birthing suite brought back a lot of memories, and a reminder of how difficult, yet rewarding it is to bring a baby into this world. It also reminded us of the first few days and weeks… those were certainly some challenging days, hard to imagine that anyone can survive them… but everyone gets through it.
It also reminded us that as new parents there are a couple of requests- keep the hospital visits very short, and for the first few weeks/month at home, call before you visit, keep the visits short, and bring a home cooked meal 🙂
So who does Lauren look like? Hard to tell at this stage, but Gord says she’s more like Ernie than Bert. 😐 Anyways, congratulations! It was a tough delivery, but everyone is healthy and safe!
Erica is 9 months tomorrow, and is about 18lbs, 5oz. That’s triple her birth weight. We have one more swim lesson to go. Last lesson, we dunked her head under about 10 times, and each time she closed her eyes and mouth. Good girl! However she still stuck her tongue out to taste the pool water. 🙁
We’re thinking of signing up for another set of lessons, not that we’ll learn anything new as it’s fairly repetitious, but because it’s nice to get out on a Saturday AM, and she really likes to kick and swim. The side effect is when we give her a bath- we really get a splashfest!
Erica’s now 8 months old, and has 6 swim lessons under her diaper. There’s a game similar to “Ring around the rosie” where you pick an animal or fish, and you go with your baby into the middle of the circle. The others then swim around you singing “there’s a (duck, marlin, shark, etc) in the middle and she can’t get out… what is she going to do?” At that point you say “bubbles!” and submerge your baby under to escape the ring. Clever.
When it was Erica’s turn, Evonne said “she’s a Tilapia!” Teresa looked puzzled… obviously it was a new one for her. 🙂
So life at 8 months… wow, 2/3 of the way to a year. She’s still doing raspberries, more complex babbling “mah-mah, bah-bah”, and her manual dexterity is really improving- grabbing and reaching for objects with accuracy. She can pretty much sit up and stay stable without too much worry, although we bought some foam pieces to lay on our rug from Toy’s R us. It’s like 4 giant puzzle pieces that fit together. It’s great because she can spit up, and it’s easy to wipe up.
As for culinary exposure- yams, chicken, potato, peas, spinach, applies, pears, blueberries, and congee.
I’m hungry now…
When E told me she had signed e for swim lessons, my first thought was cool! Erica can learn to swim like the baby on Nirvana’s Nevermind CD cover http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NirvanaNevermindalbumcover.jpg… except for the dingly dangly.
My next thought was- swimming pool full of infants… what happens if there’s an “accident”… and believe me, they will happen.
Enter- swim diapers. Yes, swim diapers. Who comes up with these ideas? Aren’t diapers supposed to absorb liquid? What happens when you immerse one in a swimming pool? Anyways, they seemed to do the job. One swim diaper website advertised that “products are proven to significantly reduce the chances of the deadly E. coli bacteria from being released into water by infants and toddlers.” Lovely.
The next surprise was when E told me that the swim lessons last 30 min, and occur over the next 9 Saturday AMs. So much for sleeping in. 🙁
So how do you teach an infant how to swim, what do you do for an entire 30 min lesson, and can I bring my mask/snorkel? I had no idea.
E then tells me that I’m going into the pool alone… and that she didn’t want to go in. Alone? Me and e, with a bunch of other mom and tots?? sigh…
Saturday morning comes, it’s pouring rain out, and we pack up for the pool. When we get there, we notice that there’s a Male change room, Female change room, and a Family change room. Family change room? I don’t get it. We haul our stuff there, and yes, the room was packed with kids of all ages plus their parents trying to change, shower, etc. There are big stalls that the entire family can go in to change and shower. Still, after years of understanding that “boys go in there; girls go over there” I feel a bit uncomfortable at the setup.
Luckily we changed e into her swimsuit and swimdiaper beforehand, so she’s set to go. I had to hunt around for an open locker/stall while dodging kids and strollers and other parents.
Enter the chaos. When we get to the pool area, it was crowded like Superstore on a Sunday afternoon. The pool was packed with lessons of all sorts. Chairs were setup all around the pool, 2 or 3 rows deep so fully clothed parents could sit, watch, and take pics of their kids. And every chair was taken up.
I asked a lifeguard where to go, and he pointed to the Starfish sign where 7 other babies/parents were gathered. Our instructor, Teresa, is an asian girl in her 20s. E says she’s cute. Hmm, maybe this won’t be so bad after all. 🙂
So, lots of other babies… from 6 mos to about 14 months in age. All wearing swim diapers and looking a bit bewildered. I couldn’t blame e for looking all around as there was so much to take in. We all wade into the shallow area, and have a seat. The water is nice and warm. I’m thinking, ok so we now take turns diving to the bottom to retrieve a weighted soother or something like that… Nope. As Teresa explains, we’ll pretty much do the same thing every week and do lots of repitition cuz babies don’t really remember that much, especially since lessons are once a week. The first thing we start off is with a song. Song?? Singing?? What about the front crawl or breast stroke? 😐
First song is “The wheels on the bus go round and round.” Of course I don’t know all the words, I though it was “wheels on the bus go round and round…. all day long” In fact it’s “all through the town.” And of course I don’t know all the other verses… like the “wipers on the bus go swish swish swish” and “the babies on the bus go wah wah wah!” Yes I felt like going “wah wah wah”… incidently I had a chuckle as I remember Jim Dickson saying, after riding BC Transit on a hot day “the people on the bus stink like sweat….”
Erica seemed really happy/smiley when she saw everyone around her singing and having a good time. We tried “bubbles” exercise… where we’re trying to get them to blow in the water. e stuck her mouth in the water and tried to drink it. Then she stuck her tongue out and tried to taste it. 😐
After that, we went over to the deeper end, and sang “Motorboat, motorboat” “Ring around the Rosie” and “Humpty dumpty.” We put them on the edge of the pool and got them used to jumping in. Other exercises had them float on their tummy or float on their backs. It seemed that each infant took turns crying because they got water in their eyes or too much in their mouths. I had e too close the water on her front, and i think she took in a good mouthful. Then I had an upset baby to deal with. All in all, I think she had a lot of fun. She did lots of kicking and splashing with her arms.
I was surprised at how much these babies liked and could adapt to the water. I suppose it’s natural, as they spent 9 months in a watery environment, and there’s absolutely no fear for them.
On another note, it seems like my Winter conditioning and muscle building program is paying off… it’s only March and I’m ready for the beaches. 😉
Holy Toledo.
I think the recent month really opened my eyes as to how much development goes on after 4 months. The past month we’ve noticed a lot more experimentation with vocalizations. Before it was “How loud and how much range does my voice have!” Now we notice her being more subtle in trying to make different sounds with a lot more control and a much softer sound.
Earlier this month she started nodding- usually when she’s excited, like when her diaper is about to be changed or we greet her first thing in the morning.
We also started her on solids- mushy carrots, followed by mushy yams, and then mushy peas. The first few feeds were… well… messy, with more on her face than in her mouth, but then she started getting the hang of it. She’ll now open her mouth when she’s hungry and most of it gets in.
Here’s a couple of pics of Erica and her buddies. Enjoy!
In 2004, I got to spend 2 weeks in Virginia for work. The hotel I stayed in was about a block and a half away from the Arlington National Cemetary, and specifically near the “Iwo Jima Memorial.” At the time, I was aware that it was a statue created from the famous Rosenthal photo, and I admired it for its size and composition. I was also aware that this statue was about the marines who fought in the Pacific theatre, as they hopped from Island to Island towards Japan.
Naturally when the movie came out last year, I was very interested in seeing it. We haven’t been seeing a lot of movies lately, so when I saw the novel, I bought it to read on the airplane, at the beach, etc.
I couldn’t put the book down. The author is the son of ‘Doc Bradley’- the Corpsman who is just behind the Marine at the base of the flag. He writes from a son’s point of view- wondering about what his young father was like during WWII, and this starts an investigation into the conflict, the enemy, Iwo Jima, and the lives and deaths of the 6 Marines in the photo.
Impressions
History is one of my interests, and I thought I knew something about WWII. Most of us who have seen ‘Saving Private Ryan’ remember the shocking opening minutes. As brutal as the Normandy landing was, the Iwo Jima landing, if possible, was worse. The Island, seen as the gateway to Japan, was defended by 200,000 soldiers who had months to dig in and prepare a devastating defense. The Normandy assault was over in a day; it took 800,000 troops over a month to “win” Iwo Jima. 800,000 with a casualty rate of 60%.
To give some background perspective, it was battles like Iwo Jima that hastened the use of the A-Bomb. I’m sure there were other factors involved in the decision, but there was an estimate of 1 million American casualties if they wanted to invade and conquer Japan. Probably the most telling statistic was from Ira Hayes, where a full company of 250 Marines, each an expert marksman, highly trained, went in… and 26 walk out.
What I liked the most about the book was how the author devoted a lot of time writing about each of the 6 soldiers pictured in the photo. Mike Strank, Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley, Ira Hayes, John Bradley, and Rene Gagnon. It tells the story of each man… where they came from, what their family was like, how they grew up, why they joined their service, and if they survived Iwo Jima, what life was like afterwards. By the end, you feel as if you knew each man.
The book also tells the story behind the flag raising, and how the “photo” and the men pictured in it were used by the Propaganda machine to raise funds for the war.
I have since bought the movie… haven’t watched it yet, but look forward to. Plus I’m also eagerly awaiting ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ just to see the story from the other side. The book details an enemy that was utterly ruthless- able to carry out the most barbaric acts and brutal tactics, but not all of the Japanese soldiers were souless individuals that committed all the atrocities, and I think this movie will give balance to ‘Flags.’
I think the two movies show that the only tragedy was that there had to be a war in the first place.
So today is the 17th, and that marks 6 months. It has gone by so fast. We brought her into the docs on Thurs for her shots- 3 of them. Same drill, but did she ever let us know it hurt.
Like before, we have her Tylenol before, and brought her with us to finish our errands. With the other shots before, she didn’t seem to have any lasting issues with them. We noticed she looked a bit tired more tired than usual, but still gave us big smiles every morning, and was eating fine.
Same thing this morning- about 36 hours after the shots. I got up, changed and fed her at about 8am. She woke up again around 10am, and was fussing a bit… E felt that she was on the warm side. When I touched her forehead, I knew it was way too hot. We quickly got out the thermometer and it came back 102.7!!
As soon as she was fully awake, we could tell she was feeling crappy- you could just hear it in her voice. Right away we gave her the Tylenol and gave her a cold compress. Within an hour, it was back down to under 100.
Not too many things are scarier than when your kid runs an unexpected high fever, and is crying because of it. This really was our first experience with her being sick, so e and I were both concerned and stressed. We called the BC Nurse line to get some information, and it turns out that a “mild” fever is common with the immunizations. However if the fever is above 103, go see a Doc. If the fever doesn’t come down with Tylenol, and hangs around the 102-103 mark for more than 4 hours, go see a Doc. If your kid has convulsions, or has trouble breathing…. well, no kidding.
Having the fever at 102.7 was of obvious concern to us.
Later on, her temp dropped to 99, so we figured she was ok. Around 10pm, we went up to get her, and it was the same thing- hot forehead, red cheeks, and a constant cry. We checked the temp, and it was back up to 102.7- in goes the Tylenol and out comes the cold compress. I have her in my lap while she is crying and I can just feel the heat coming off her forehead. Again, it’s a bit of a fire drill as we anxiously wait for the temp to come down. Thankfully, within the hour it drops to 100.9.
We made another call to the nurseline, and they advised us to keep her hydrated and keep the Tylenol going every 4 hours.
This is her 10th immunization shot in 6 months. It seems like a lot of shots, and even though we understand it’s for her own good, it’s still not easy, especially when she’s in obvious discomfort. But we learned that a fever can happen 48 hours from the shots. We’ll just have to watch her closely… unfortunately E is also coming down with a cold at the same time. 🙁
Finally got around to selecting the better shots and uploading them with some commentary. With the weather we’ve been having, we’re looking longingly at the beach photos. Warning- lots of baby photos included!
