Green is the new blue

If you were to drive down our street, you would no longer see a shoddily painted blue house. Instead, you will see a fabulous green house. It is spiffy. We're glad to have it done. It just took 2 1/2 days. We hired Cloud 9 and they did a fabulous job.

5 Months

My Schmoo-Bear is 5 months old today.
We celebrated by swimming and dunking his head in the pool (on purpose).
I can't believe the little guy is getting so big!

Heartless

So, I'm reading another baby sleep book... what else is new. This one tells me to put Simon to bed earlier. We're doing that and it's fabulous! This one also suggests "cry it out". That seems to work for Simon at 5:37 AM. Last night, when he woke up to eat at midnight, I put him back down seemingly asleep. Well, my little man woke up and started his fussing. Instead of picking him up and cuddling him for another 10 minutes, I took a risk and let him "cry it out". I stood in his room, closed his door so as not to disturb Trevor and listened to 20 minutes of nightmarish sobbing before I too started sobbing. I picked my wet, blubbering little mess up and held him as he shuddered in my arms. We cried together and Trevor put him back to sleep.
Unfortunately, I went back to bed to lay there for 3 solid hours of awake time. Insomnia was my punishment for "cry it out".
Today, I need a nap.

Not a social butterfly...

Today, I took Simon back to my school for a visit. We needed an outing and I knew it would be good to walk the halls of high school again. However, I forgot that I can be pretty shy. On my Myer's-Briggs test, I always end up borderline extrovert/introvert. Well I'm teaching, I play up the extrovert side. Now that I'm on mat. leave, the introvert side has taken over.
Simon and I were "guests" so we were the center of attention and I kept freezing. I didn't know what to say. I kept trying re-directs to other people get the attention off of us. It was hard because it was such a large group of people. I'm at the point now that I prefer a good conversation with 3 or 4 other people and that's it. Yeesh... I'm turning into a hermit.

Splish, splash

Simon's becoming my little water baby.
He likes his baths (finally).
He likes the pool.
He likes to sip water from my cup.

Glorious sleep

I love sleep!
If I could, I'd sleep 10 hours a night and have a nap in the afternoon.
Instead, I am celebrating that my son
has recently re-discovered the perfect night sleep.
He goes down before 8 pm.
He has a meal around 3-4 am.
He fusses and is ignored around 5:30 am.
He wakes up and starts his day around 7 am.
We're all happier.
We all smile more.

To many moms of little ones, this sounds completely normal.
After the month and a half we've had post surgery, I call this heaven.
I've been having dreams again.
I have missed those.
Thank-you Simon, my castless wonder!

M.I.A.

5 nights
5 days
Winnipeg has stolen my husband
it's a work conference
still,
I miss him

(good thing Simon started sleeping better
sans casts)

Happy feet!

Little casts,
perfect little feet.
We're happy to be done this part Simon's life.
Just imagine... only 4 1/2 months to
correct his club feet.
Watch this clip in order to understand
just how fortunate we are to live
in Canada during this time period!

YEAH!!!

My boy is cast-free!
His little feet are swollen and tender but straight!
We couldn't be happier.
(He's already had a shower with Daddy... we're excited for a whole lot of
cool new experiences for our little man!)

The countdown is on!!!!

We're so excited for you, Simon!

Ode to Abbey

My family had to put Abbey the cat down yesterday.
She was 16 years old.
When she was a kitten, she'd sleep in my bed if my parents didn't know.
She'd curl up on my lap while I studied and wrote essays in French.
She loved having her tail pulled.
She was the best mouser.
In her later years, my Dad was her person.
I can't imagine the farm without her scratchy meow.
We'll miss you Miss Abbey-Cat.

Hiatus

For 26 years, I have spent at least one fall night in the throes of first day of school fears. Seven years teaching and I still couldn't shake stage fright. I would be up all night, mind racing, going over every little detail.
Last night, I didn't have stage fright. (Instead I had a baby who managed two 4 hour stretches). Last night, the only thing I worried about was my one little sweetie.
This year, my curriculum will involve Language Arts (LOTS of Eric Carle and Sandra Boyton as well as some Baby signing), Phys. Ed. (Jolly Jumpering, walks, carrying my little sack of potatoes), Social (this baby's going to get regular History and Psych lessons), Home Ec, etc. I just have one pretty awesome student and he's definitely Teacher's Pet.

Best of luck to all my teacher friends out there. Today's a rough one but, you'll do fine!

Labour Day Classic

Go Riders Go!

Running on Empty

What's the best way to clean your fridge?
Have it die... then get a new one.

Nothing like a shiny new appliance to make me smile.

Simon's still having bad nights. We're beginning to run out of steam. Some nights, he gets up just 3 or 4 times and Trevor and I do a little dance in the morning. We think we're getting somewhere and then, there are nights like last night where I spent more time in Simon's room then mine.
We went to the pediatrician. He advised us to drug Simon. We gave him his allotted dose of Baby Advil and he went down without a fight... only to fuss an hour later... and the hour after that and so on and so forth. Not only did we lack sleep, we also felt guilty about drugging our kid.
It's like he has a faulty transmission and can't shift sleep cycles without us. We've tried all the tricks.
Can we hire the supernanny to come and fix our baby?