She Crawled!

Abigail and I attended a workshop on university lecturing today. She was not the most attentive listener, although the workshop leader was quite engaging. Quite coincidentally I found us sitting next to our former neighbour, Megan, from CLV. When Robin and I first moved to Waterloo we were pleased to have a neighbour who was also from Winnipeg. I haven't seen her since we moved out of CLV over 3 years ago. She recognized me too. As we were talking after the workshop Abigail was playing on the (clean-looking) floor. She'd had enough of being carried! She'd been playing under a table, so to entice her out for easier picking-up Megan put some blue paper on the floor. She crawled straight to it. At first I started to comment how funny it is that she will (tummy) crawl to paper and animals and toys, but not to mommy or daddy. Then I stopped and said "holy 'poop'!" She was actually crawling. I had almost taken it for granted, thinking what I was watching was her usual tummy crawl. No, this was on all fours! A real crawl!!! It was forward motion, coordinated movements of hands and knees.
Now, to catch it on camera to share.

Abigail crawls:



Abigail prepares to crawl:

Mabon and Renovations

Happy Harvest!
Last evening we celebrated Mabon, a harvest celebration, with friends in our newly renovated living and dining room.
The feast was fantastic! Robin made a pot roast with yorkshire puddings and a sweet potatoe and apple dish. I made a kale, zucchini, avocado salad. Friends brought more harvest foods including squash, a peach cobbler, and ginger pear pie. So very yummy.

Are you hungry now too?
On to renovation photos:




It is very open now. Abigail and I are loving the space. As every new wood floor owner with pets discovers, there is a lot of hair on the floor. Of course, it has always been there, it was just better hidden by the carpet. Now I see each strand. Fortunately we have a Magic Blue sweeper (like a swiffer but with reusable microfiber rather than wasteful disposable cloths) and clean up is a breeze.

Abigail is teething again. Maybe she will finally get a tooth! I know, I've been saying that for quite some time now. Months even. More on Abigail later this week. I have some lovely photos to share. Or you can just pop over to Flickr to see them.

Running for the Cure

Robin here, I know its been a while since I posted but I figure Mandy does a pretty good job at keeping people up to date. I just want to leave a quick post that Abigail and me will be participating in this year's Run for the Cure on Oct 5th in honour of her Grandmother Marion. In you wish to support the cause against breast cancer and sponsor us then please visit the following link where you can donate online: https://www.cibcrunforthecure.com/html/personal_page.asp?track=3011996&languageid=1

Until next time....

Climbing out of bed

It's official. Abigail can climb out of her cosleeper onto our bed. I just watched her crawl over the edge so that she could get to the sewing pattern I was reading at the far edge of the bed. It took her a while, but she eventually managed to wiggle her way over by pushing from her feet and dragging herself forward grabbing onto the bedsheet.
Sheesh, can't leave her anywhere now!

First Food Aftermath

Baths are a necessity after eating. Dark greens stain clothing. Poops are STINKY.
This is what I have learned.

In other news, I am busy putting together outfits for us for a "medievalesque" wedding in two weekends. I cut my fabric today and cut out the pattern pieces for Robin's garb. I'm going simple with Abbie's outfit. I don't want to reveal more until all is done.

In yet other news, Robin picked up the trim today and will cut it tomorrow. Then paint, then install it, probably on Saturday. Just in time for our Mabon dinner on Sunday.

First Food

Abigail had her first official green food today. Yummy green swiss chard. Breastfeeding is so much easier and less messy!!! It is time for Abigail to start eating some other foods, however, because I have a conference to attend in November. Since she's not a big fan of the bottle it will be useful to be able to feed her solids in my absence, as well as breastmilk.

Let us share this first* food experience with you. I think it went well.


Waiting for dinner.


First spoonfuls.


Helping mommy.


Yummy Greens.


Admiring her spoon.

Live footage:


* Okay, so it it not her very first taste of something other than breastmilk and chew toys. She did savour a piece of watermelon this summer.

Book Launch

Abigail and I just returned home from a book launch for 3 great books by 3 amazing women in the Religion and Culture department at Wilfrid Laurier University. We were primarily there to support our good friend Chris Klassen whose book Storied Selves: Shaping Identity in Feminist Witchcraft was being launched. Also featured was Carol B. Duncan's This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto and Meena Sharify-Funk's Encountering the Transnational: Women, Islam and the Politics of Interpretation.
They throw a great book launch! The cakes were amazing. I tried 2 out of 3 ;) Entirely not on my list of foods to eat, but given that there was still a lot of cake left I felt I had to do my part in consuming it. You know, to make the organizers feel good. We're talking tiramisu and a chocolate mousse cake, not some generic white cake with too much frosting.

Attending events with Abigail is such a joy. She is usually well behaved. She loves people and enjoys watching them. She was feeling particularly social today and loved cuddling with one of my favourite UWaterloo profs Doris Jakobsh. It will be such fun to tell Abigail about all the academic events she attended with me as a baby. I hope I'm not setting the bar too high for her ;) I also got to see one of the wonderful women who started the PhD program with me. I hadn't seen her in several years. It was a good start to my weekend. Tomorrow I'm co-hosting a baby shower for our friends Tay and Mike. I'm excited. Another baby soon! Yes, soon I too can be one of those moms who says to my friend "I remember when Abigail was that small... and did that... it seems so long ago/it seems like only yesterday."

New Floors

The flooring is going down. There is still about a 1/4 remaining to be done, but damn it looks good! In my not-so-humble opinion.

Let us pretend it is done... see how the carpet, wall and flooring come together. There will be trim before Autumn Equinox. That's the date I have set for Robin.

Wood meets tile, laminate meets ceramic. The flooring we chose is quite thick at 15mm, so it is almost the exact same height as the tiles. We have yet to figure out how to bridge the two surfaces. Apparently nobody makes pieces for this depth of flooring, but there is a place in Waterloo that will custom make pieces.

So, what do you think?

New Photo September 14 after the flooring was finished:

6 Months Today. Honest

I jumped the gun a little in announcing that Abigail was 6 months old on Friday. I knew it was coming up and for some reason I had it in my head that Friday was the day.


Trivia: Today also marks the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875.
Some photos from yesterday while Robin was flooring.

Abigail chooses her favourite music.Abigail teeters on crawling, although my sister warns me it could be a long while yet.

A birds-eye view of Abigail. And here is a picture just for Alisha. I call it Euro Abbie. I think she's ready to travel overseas. Alisha bought her outfits in the UK.

Oh, the hair? I was tired with Abigail always grabbing and trying to pull it out, so Robin took the clippers to my head...

renovations continue

Bye Bye Carpet!!! CYA!!!!

That feels good.
Tomorrow - new floors!!! You can see a sample in the top photo.

26 Weeks (title edited)

wow
hard to believe Abigail is ALMOST 6 months old already. today. [EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that Abigail is 6 months old TODAY on Sunday Sept 7. For some reason I had it in my head that she would be 6 months on Friday because she was born on a Friday. Yes, that was foolish of me.]

it's been a while since i wrote a monthly reflection on life with Abigail, so let me attempt to do so now with Abigail in arms.
she has her moments, entire days even, when she is fussy, but by and large Abbie is the same happy, smiley baby I've been bragging about for the last 6 months (longer if you count the easy pregnancy). I foresee battles ahead between us, but for now I am bigger and stronger. ;)
she'd love to get her hands on everything, and everything into her mouth. right now she wants to type, or rip the keys off. I'm not willing to find out which. she's settling for chewing my chin. she loves to roll around on the floor and play by herself, which is great for me. gone are the days, however, when i could leave her on the bed or futon. on the right floor space I can leave her for a few minutes, but not for long. soon enough she will be crawling on all fours, and then I'm in trouble! she is already teetering on the edge of such crawling. so long as she can wait until after the living room renovations are done I will be happy.
september 1 marked my return to academia after 2 school terms of maternity and parental leave (Jan-Sept). the return is challenging, but I welcome the opportunity to return to my studies and interact with my colleagues. balancing my time with Abigail and my studies is a challenge. given the choice, I'd rather be playing with Abbie than reading a stuffy book. fortunately for me, I don't find the books I have to read stuffy. usually. sometimes I can do both - spend time with Abigail and read, particularly as I lay beside her nursing and waiting for her to fall asleep for her nap. having a book nearby enables me to make this time more productive. and, you know me, I always have to be productive. I can rarely simply sit and watch TV or a movie. Robin laughs, but I have to knit (or crochet). then I feel productive (and relaxed and entertained).
I am still managing to find time to knit - while relaxing; while travelling; while waiting for webpages to load; while watching Abigail roll around on the bed diaper free, pulling all the clean diapers out of the basket and waiting for me to not be watching as she rolls off the change pad to pee on the bed... Knitting helps me to relax. It also puts wool soakers on Abbie's bum and provides gifts of socks for family feet, among other projects.

And now a few letters from Abigail:

n,[ju juyu ulpi

She managed to delete an entire paragraph about today. She is aiming for the power button. I'd better save and post this before more damage is done. In short I talked about being on campus, enjoying time with colleagues, Abigail's good behaviour, Abigail being en route to being an academic herself with plenty of time at University already including one conference...

Painting Finished

The walls are painted. Robin did an excellent job, as usual. It's difficult painting our rooms because of the horrid stucco ceilings (who ever thought that was a good idea?? Apparently some people do. I don't. Very difficult to paint near the ceiling.) It doesn't help that previous owners got paint on the ceiling when they painted. So now we have to try and cover that when we paint since it no longer matches the new paint.


This is our most neutral colour. Okay, our only neutral colour in the house. See ugly carpet.


We ended up buying too much paint - a whole extra can. But Robin plans to use it to repaint my office when we move. Apparently he doesn't think that orange will sell...

Personally, I think the orange room is better than the dark purple (chipped) spare/Abigail room and the dark maroon bathroom. Both of which were painted those colours when we bought the house.

Robin is picking up our new wood laminate flooring tonight after work. It has to acclimatize in our house for a few days before installing. By next Monday we'll have a new living room and room for Abigail to play!!!!

Renovating the Living Room

Renovations in the living room are well under way. Robin is hard at work painting this weekend. Patching and priming is all done now. The new paint goes up today. I am very excited. Already, just with the primer on the walls, the room is wonderfully lighter and roomier. The new paint is similar in colour to the old paint, but lighter.
After the paint is up, it will be time for the new floors. We just found the wood laminate we want on sale. That will go in next weekend.
The living room will be much roomier when we are done. The computer desk has been moved to Robin's basement den and we sold one of our two full-sized couches. Now Abigail will have more room to play.
And boy oh boy, we have a lot of baby proofing to do when we put the living room back together. You can't look away for more than 10 seconds before she's into something. Even with toys around, she bee-lines straight (is that an oxymoron?) for the contraband - remote controllers, paper, CDs, water spray bottle... You can even play fetch with her. :) Well, sort of. We don't actually want her to get the item. But if we move the remote around on the futon, she'll keep turning and crawling to it. It keeps her busy ;)
[photo pending]