Nap Time

Something wonderful came out of that headcold we all had. Yes, something truly magnificent. Nap time! Actually, nap times. Abigail now takes two naps a day PLUS sleeps through the night. It is wonderful!!!
Our day looks something like this:
0800h - Robin getting ready for work. Abigail has her last morning sleep-feed. That is, she nurses while sleeping. I sleep too.
0830h - Robin leaves for work. I roll out of bed soonafter, very quietly. Eat breakfast and start working in my office. Yes, I'm back to working in my office and it's great! If Abigail stirs I hear her. If she's still asleep (too early to wake yet!) I lay down, she nurses and falls back to sleep.
1000-1100h - Abigail wakes up, uses the potty. Now it's play time! I do stuff like laundry while she rolls around in the living room.
1200-1300h (depending on when she woke) - Abigail has a long nurse and falls back to sleep for nap number one. I go back to the office, or some such thing.
1400h - Abigail wakes again. More play time, run errands, etc.
1700-1800h - Time to start a nap again, just in time for Robin to return home, make dinner and leaving me time to eat. Yay.
1900-2000h - Wake up for evening fun with Robin. Back to the office for me.
2200-2300h - Bed time.

It has the potential for being productive. Of course, it doesn't always work out so nicely, but it is much better than no naps during the day!

Summertime Fun

What a beautiful day today. Sunny but not too hot. A day one can actually enjoy.

Quiet contemplation.
Mommy's hat is a little too big.
Where is Abbie?
Lavendar
Look up. Look waaaay up.

More photos at flickr if you want.

Squeal

Abigail's new delightful sound is squealling. She squeals when happy.

Lovely isn't it? <-- sarcasm

I think our camera is finally kicking the bucket. At first I thought the problem was in our LED viewer, but this video shows otherwise. Maybe it just needs a new memory card. Do they wear out? I don't know how this things work, but we've been using the same 256 card for 4 years. (That was a huge card at the time! lol)

It's hot here. There was something else I intended to blog about, but I have forgotten... I'm sure it will come to me at 3am or something silly and inconvenient like that.

Real Sick, Real Ick

Robin shared his nasty head cold with me earlier this week. I feel horrid. Inevitably I shared it with Abigail, but she seems to be okay. She hasn't become sick, although it's obvious she is fighting it. She's sleeping extra (but fighting that too in typical Abigail fashion). Today is gardening and fresh-air day. Yesterday was shopping-for-linoleum-and-paint day. A waste of a beautiful day, but well worth it. Yes, you read correctly. At long last we are repainting and reflooring the living room/dining room area.
Still no new photos to share. Sorry. But reno photos will be posted as the chaos develops...

Back to Work

As of this evening I am officially back to work. I just e-mailed a long list of people regarding my research again and have already scheduled interviews with one family. Going back to work is both exciting and daunting. There are good and less good things about working from home. Who wants to work when I could be playing with Abbie? Or more appropriately, who can work with a babe who eats every couple hours, takes only cat-naps during the day, and desires a lot of attention? She's asleep on my lap right now after nursing. It's a good thing I am proficient at typing with one hand.
Another hitch now is that many of the families interested in participating live further away than I would prefer to travel, however it is very difficult to find families that fit my research criteria and are willing to participate. I will have to adjust my interviewing format to accomodate this by decreasing the number of visits I make. Research in the field rarely runs as smoothly as envisioned.

As for Abigail and the rest of the family: pets are well, Robin has a cold, and Abbie is awake again. I won't bother posting photos for a while because there are several pages of new pictures at Flickr. That's more than enough to satisfy any photo-cravings you may have - at least until I capture a new cute thing.

Home Sweet Home

I miss everyone already. But it is good to be home. We couldn't believe our own words as we were driving home from the airport on the 401: "It's good to be back in Ontario". ???? Did we really think that? We quickly qualified our statement because what we really mean is it is good to be back to our own home, even if that is in Ontario ;)

I've yet to start transferring photos, but when I do they'll be on Flickr.

We had a wonderful vacation in Winnipeg. It was great to see so many family and friends. Although we didn't get to see everyone as much as we or they would have liked, I think we made good use of our time and squeezed in as much as we could, with a little bit of rest in between.

Maybe I'll go transfer photos now while Abbie naps and Robin hammers. Yes, these things can happen at the same time.

The Fridge and the Firetruck

Once upon a time there was a really old monster who lived in the dark dungeon of a big castle. One day this dragon decided he no longer wished to perform his castle duty of guarding the food supply from microscopic fiends intent on destroying it. Instead of guarding the castle's food supply he began to release toxic fumes into the castle making it smell incredibly horrible, forcing everyone outside into the fresh air. With a 5 month old princess living in the castle the family decided the old dragon just had to go, so the princess' father, grandfather, and all her uncles began to do battle with the dragon, but after an hour long battle they turned back as they could not force the dragon out. Just then, a team of Knights showed up in their Big Red Steed ready to do battle. The Knights rushed into the castle and, using their minds and brute strength, slayed the mighty beast. They dragged its bleeding corpse out the back gate and into a nearby carriage to be taken away. The family celebrated the Knights' victory by offering a feast in their honour. The family was then able to return to their castle where the princess was able to enjoy her beauty sleep once again.

The End.
by Robin. Based on a True Story.

Kings Park Labyrinth

One of the places we have visited while in Winnipeg is the Carol Shields Memorial Labyrinth in Kings Park (conveniently near the dog park for us). Check the link above for more information on this wonderful site. I just found the website, which has confirmed my assumption that plants are in the plan for the future. There is beautiful soil throughout ready for plants, but only a few places have perrenials while the rest is overgrown with weeds. As I walked the labyrinth I couldn't help but remove weeds from where people have obviously attempted to clean up a small portion and start planting. If I was here longer I would love to visit more often and plant a section. I encourage any of our Winnipeg friends to take a visit and maybe pull a few weeds too.
Marion's dragon boat team Chemo Savvy has purchased bricks for the team and for those team members who have passed away. You'll find her brick as you walk.

I previously mentioned that we went to the Zoo while here. Sadly, the polar bear was not out. We read in the newspaper the next day that the polar bear is dying at the old age of 41 years - the world's oldest polar bear. It will be another 10 to 15 years before our zoo gets another polar bear because, although Assiniboine Zoo previously set the standard for bear enclosures, it now must build a new enclosure to meet the required standards. Because Manitoba (Churchill mostly) is known for our polar bears, the plan is to build a polar bear education center (to educate humans, not polar bears). Needless to say, it is a large project and I imagine there will need to be a lot of fundraising first.

wpg photos up

see flickr for photo fun
that's all for now

Quick Note

Still having fun in the Peg. No photos uploaded yet to share. But Dorion had some icecream cake last night and the results were hilarious! Video footage to b posted later.
Off to play Ultimate tonight, a tea party tomorrow, family BBQ Friday (another one)... a lot to do.

They're HERE

We're here. It is so very good to be with family! Dorion, my nephew, has grown a lot. I wish we lived here so I could see him more often. One day...
We've been to the zoo and the Forks already. Our sightseeing in Winnipeg is nearly complete. Sadly, we have not been to the night hotspot of Winnipeg as recommended by the inflight magazine. Nope, we've not been to the Palomino Club. (hahahaha yes, I'm serious)

Back to fun...