Our Canadian Family

The people who send Fiona great books, all those cool outfits, and the cutest hats! They support us from afar. We won’t see them until Fiona is over a year old :( All photos are from last weekend, taken with John’s phone.

John’s dad, Grandpa Don:

John’s brother, Uncle Bruce:

 

John’s sister, Aunt Cathy:

 

All three, with Cousin Craig, Bruce’s son:

A photo of Grandma Pat, John’s mom, who passed away before Fiona was born. Her birthday is coming up, I believe:

With a photo of Fiona:

 

Mr. and Mrs. Duck:

We can’t wait to see all of you in June or July of this year! Thank you for reading this blog and keeping up with our little adventures. And thank you for all the little gifts for Fiona. They are all well loved and well used.

We love you!

PS I notice there is no snow on the ground. The permafrost must have melted finally after all the polar bears that hang out on the ice floes in Victoria’s Inner Harbor finished making their snow men and went home ;)

First Post Baby Race

Today John and I ran in my first post-baby race. It was a 5k. We didn’t train as much as we should have; I ran once or twice a week and John didn’t really run at all, but I’m proud to say that I did not walk at all and my pace was about 10 minutes per mile. We ran with my friend Nicole and her husband Chris, who had a baby a week before Fiona was born. I realize my pace was much slower than pre-baby, but I don’t care. It’s a good starting point and it was a longer distance than I’ve run in the last year and a half.

The morning started very cold and I was wearing two jackets at the start of the race. By the time I finished, both were around my waist. When we came home, it was nice a warm, so I took Fiona out to the back yard while John took a shower:

And look who was sitting up on her own?

 

 

Eating her hat:

Trying to eat my face:

Hanging out in the sun, considering what toys to play with and which way to turn:

   

“Why are you making me pose for yet another photo? How many do you need?”

Another cute hat she has:

I’ve been going through her closet and dresser drawers because she is starting to outgrow clothing again. Sometimes I find things, like the hats in the photos above (given by John’s family in Canada) that I put away thinking they would be too big forever. Now, the floppy hat fits really well and the knit hat is still too big, but not ridiculously so.

I’d say she’s grown:

That outfit used to reach to her feet. Now it’s capri length at best, if not short.

Here we are on Friday at moms’s group meet-up. What a gorgeous day. Sunny, warm with a slight breeze, clear views all the way out to the islands. This park was right next to the ocean and it was not foggy or freezing:

Here is Fiona’s friend Ryder. She definitely started a trend with the hat and sunglasses:

(photo from previous weekend, but you get the idea)

And finally, she is sitting up in the bath, but I do not want to post the cutest photos I took tonight in case a random pedophile winds up reading my blog. I know the chances are remote, but nonetheless.

Suffice it to say, in the case of Fiona versus the turtle, we can now conclude that Fiona won:

PS these are highly cropped.

NICU Follow Up

Today we had Fiona’s first NICU follow up. The state likes to track the development of all preemies, and if there are any issues, offer services to help overcome them. For example, if a child becomes delayed in speech, they can have speech therapy to help them catch up.

The good news is that Fiona is doing really well. She is developing according to her adjusted age (6 months) and maybe a little more than that, but is not yet at her actual age. No one was worried. She sat up, followed objects, chewed on everything, played with her toes, rolled all over the place, including from her back to her stomach over her left arm, something she’s never done before. She can take objects from people, reach for stuff, and pass objects back and forth between her hands.

We don’t have to go back until she is 18 months old. We saw the occupational therapist and one of the neonatologists that I used to see every day when I visited Fiona in the hospital. Both agreed that Fiona is extremely cute and kept saying it over and over gain.

Fiona has grown lately. She is now well over 15 pounds and is 26 1/2 inches long (over 66 cm)! That makes her an almost regular sized 8 months old and a long 6 months old!

This has been a wonderful happy day. Plus, Fiona has been very happy for the last week, during the day anyway. At night, she’s been waking many times, eating a lot, and generally not sleeping. This means that neither John nor I are getting any sleep either. Today I was so tired my face hurt, and then I got lost in Target because it’s being remodeled and everything has been moved around. I realized at one point that I was muttering to myself out loud while pushing a cart. Yet, everyone I looked at smiled at me. Go figure.

I’m looking forward to this weekend and my first post-pregnancy race. It’s a 5k on Sunday. John is running it too. Hopefully I won’t have to walk too much of it. I’ve been running once or twice a week with Fiona in the BOB, so running without it should be a little easier. My only worry is lack of sleep making me miss the race altogether.

The only photos I have of Fiona are from my phone. She has a tooth now, but I can’t get a good picture because her tongue keeps getting in the way. Oh, and John finally heard her giggle when I was blowing zerberts on her tummy.

Here she is, sleeping in her car seat, after the NICU follow up. John and I went to lunch and Fiona slept through the entire meal.

Sitting in the morning:

Lying on the floor:

Getting her foot stuck in a sorter:

A Very Pleasant Day

In the last post I said that John is away. Today my dad had the day off, so my mom suggested we have brunch. We went to Two Trees Cafe, but they were busy (I won’t take Fiona into busy and crowded restaurants or shops) so we went to Le Petit Cafe in the harbor instead. What a fortuitous decision. The brunch was delicious as always, as were the desserts we brought home later (chocolate mousse and tiramisu). Fiona daintily ate her apple sauce at the table and didn’t make a mess at all. I even took out a towel that I did not need to use. The weather was beautiful so we went for a walk after meal, looking at boats and taking touristy photos:

A boat with tuna was docked in the harbor and we went to have a look. We purchased Fresh off the Boat Ahi Tuna and Hawaiian Opah! What good luck! We will be eating it for dinner when John gets home. I can’t wait. It is really hard to find Ahi Tuna. The lines were long (or more precisely, short but very slow moving, they may as well have been long), but it was worth it.

Fiona slept through a lot of it, even though it was really noisy.

We ran into my co-worker Candice and her family, and Candice got to see Fiona’s emerging dimple (on her left cheek).

Here we are later, after a wonderful nap. Fiona slept on my mom and I slept on my bed. It was the best nap I’ve had in a long time. A full tummy, a nice day, wonderful and loving parents that make good company, what more can I ask for?

OH, yes, I know! John, come home soon! I miss you!

All Alone

Guess what was first felt on the 2nd and spotted on the 3rd? That’s right! Fiona’s first tooth has made an appearance. Right now it looks (and feels) like a little shard of glass in her gum, but it is definitely a tooth. She’s chewing on her hands A LOT more, so I’m thinking there will be more teeth spotting in the near future. She’s definitely less cranky lately. Thank God!

On a sadder note, this weekend I am alone with Fiona. John is in Canada visiting his family. He left very early on Friday morning, so I had to give Fiona her Prevacid, something I haven’t done in a long, long time. We spent the day as usual, a nap after breakfast, a walk to the park to meet up with my mom’s group friends. I met more new mommies and had a great time, and Fiona took a nap in the ERGO. Then I walked home and my mom came over. I made crab cakes (some of the best I’ve made so far) and acorn squash with maple syrup for dinner. It was yummy. Fiona ate yam with breast milk and peas. She is becoming quite the dainty eater, not making much of a mess at all. My mom helped me get Fiona into and out of the bath and went home. Fiona went to bed without any problems.

Except when she woke up an hour later and wanted to eat again. Then she slept until 1:45! I went to bed shortly after she did and even managed to get a shower in before going to sleep! Then she woke up again at a quarter to 5 and ate, but didn’t really go back to sleep. I had to get up every 20 minutes to give her a pacifier. At 5:30 or 5:45 I finally gave in and brought her in bed with me, where she played with my shirt while I tried to go back to sleep. I gave her a teddy bear and that occupied her for a few minutes, but let’s face, what is more fun than playing with mommy’s face when she is really tired? I sat up a little, put her on my chest like I used it when she was a lot smaller and slept more, and fell asleep. I’m guessing she slept as well, because I even had dreams and she’s very squirmy so if she was awake, I would not have been able to sleep.

I was excited and nervous to spend an entire weekend alone without John. For one thing, he gets up in the middle of the night when we know she is not hungry, so I get a little bit of rest. When she sees me in the room, she thinks it’s time to eat. He gives her the morning medicine, allowing me extra rest (hmm, a theme is emerging…) but also she is less whiney because again, she associates me with food. I’m proud to say I have survived almost two days without him. I feel more bonded to Fiona than ever, but I miss him so much and can’t wait for him to get home. My mother has been a big help, holding her while I make dinner and helping me with the bath.

Here are some photos of Fiona and me from a couple of weeks ago. We are both eating our apple sauce:

It’s hard to tell, but we are both holding our spoons in the third picture.

Speaking of eating, we can add green peas and corn to the list of foods Fiona will eat. She really likes her solids and gets very insistent when we are too slow to feed her.

Here is my mom feeding her yams and milk last night:

And here is John feeding her last week:

I think she was eating sweet potato with peas.

When I feed her, I put her in her high chair, but everyone else likes to have her sitting on their lap. I can’t really blame them.

Here are some photos of her in the Bumbo on the table:

She seems so big to me sometimes, but then I see her like this and realize that she is still so small.

Here are some last photos of her napping with my mom. Basically, my mom comes to visit right around the time that Fiona needs to take her afternoon nap, she lies down on the couch, and goes to sleep with her. This is because Fiona is like a sleeping pill, even if doesn’t keep you up at night, she just makes you sleepy when you hold her. She’s becoming quite the cuddler.