Volunteering at the Hospital Tonight

This evening, around 8pm, Robin, Abigail and I decided to go volunteer at the hospital for an hour. Yes, we sat in the ER waiting room while Abigail entertained the people there. We were a little concerned by THIS:

Being our first real encounter with something so hideous/frightening on our child, we sought a professional opinion. However, it was going to be a 4 hour wait (until midnight), the goose egg calmed down as we sat there for an hour, Abi was not in the least bit upset or seemingly affected by her injury in any way, and my major concern was whether she should go to sleep with a head injury... however, she would have to go to sleep before midnight and thus before any doctor would see her... so we opted to watch her at home and return if necessary.
How did she get this goose egg you may ask. She was playing, walking, and hit her head on the vacuum. Not a very interesting story; sorry.

Now that we are done with that scare...

How about some evil laughter from Abigail for you?

Or maybe grandma would like to see her wearing her new outfit?


And who doesn't love a good squishy face / sunny day photo?

Like the hat? I made it.

That's all for now folks.

Anticipating New Neighbours

I just learned (although I recently suspected) that my neighbour has passed away. She had been sick for a long while. She was a wonderful lady, and although I did not know her well, she was a nice neighbour to have. Nice and quiet.
Experience has taught me to be a little nervous when it comes to new neighbours. You never know what you will get and this neighbour will share a wall with use and our back decks blend together with a gate between. I imagine once upon a time the people on both sides of this house were close friends. Why else would they have put a gate in the wall between the decks?
I hope for the best. You never know - they could be wonderful neighbours and we might even want to use the gate.

Chicken Pox

You wouldn't know it to look at her, but Abigail has the chicken pox. She has a couple mini spots, but she doesn't seem too bothered by any of it. She is warm and sleeping half the day. Plenty of rest for my baby. When she is awake, she needs a lot of hugs. This is much better than when I had chicken pox. I was covered head to toe - with a particularly bad case on my big toe that had been infected previously. Oh, it was gross. My parents actually took photographs of us in the bathtub, covered in spots. And it was Christmas time, what a horrible time for a kid to have chicken pox.

Needless to say, I'm happy Abi got them now and in this way. Granted, I purposefully exposed her to a friend's kid who had just shown signs. We weren't sure Abi would catch them because she is still nursing. Now I don't have to worry about her catching them later.

(No pictures posted here, but there are new ones at flickr - which you can access from the left navigation bar at the blogger site)

Walkin Around

It is with great pride that I can finally share a video of Abigail walking with you. As I had previously mentioned, she's a sly little one and, as even my friends have witnessed, she prefers to walk when we are not looking. She will have walked half-way across the room, but as soon as she knows we are watching she will drop to her knees. She has always refused any offers of help to walk. She's certainly independent.
Anyhow, here it is, fresh from this evening's events.

Enjoy.

First Steps

Oh crap. It has begun. One day Abigail is refusing to walk, the next she's sneaking across the room when I'm not looking. Makes me wonder how long she's been doing this for ;)
In the last week or so she has finally decided to take a few steps as she moves between supports to hold on to. Apparently she's decided it's not worth her effort to drop down to her knees, crawl a few steps, and then stand up. I phrase it that way because for a long time now she has preferred to crawl because it is faster and it gets her to where she wants to be. Why try walking when she can get there efficiently on her knees?
However, we have watched a friend's two year old for two full days in the last couple of weekends and I wonder if he has modeled the efficiency of walking for Abi. One day last week she took a couple steps from the gate to me and would repeat this action if I made her. On the weekend she took about 3 steps all by herself while playing at a birthday party. Today I was able to capture her taking a few steps to me on video. A few hours later I was making lunch in the kitchen and from the corner of my eye I noticed Abi moving across the living room from the coffee table to her highchair. At first it seemed normal. Then, it hit me, just as when I watched her first crawl on all fours, that this was NOT normal for her. The table and chair are a few feet apart and she was walking between them as if this was normal for her. Now my little video of her taking a couple steps into my arms seems insignificant. (I'll edit and post it anyhow).

In the meantime, some recent photos:

Abi at a birthday party. She got that little scratch on her cheek when she fell down trying to walk. Perhaps you can also see the mark above her right eyebrow where Darla thwacked her snout into Abi accidentally.


Last Friday I pretended it was summer and dressed her up in several summery outfits (she peed on most of them while playing diaper-free. It will be nice when she can play outside.)



She has been teething hard again lately and is very clingy.


That's about all for now. I'll try to get some videos up soon. First I need to finish grading papers.

April videos

I apologize for not sharing more videos lately. I do have some, but not the time to edit them. I made an exception for this brief pair of clips featuring Abi's three-limbed crawl and saying "Darla". Enjoy.

Special Days

A most sacred holy day has recently passed. One of many days in which we honour a very special birth. This time it was mine.

On the holy day of April the 10th I celebrated my 29 years of life by enjoying it! I had requested a special homemade breakfast of french toast, real maple syrup, peameal bacon, and fresh coffee. It was a good start to the day.
Later we took Darla for a walk with Abi in her Croozer 737 (bike trailer/stroller courtesy of Abi's grandpa) to test out the new wheels.

[Abi and Robin were wearing their matching Bomber hats.]

Otherwise I spent the day knitting and reading the new Charles de Lint book. We dined at Boston Pizza that night where I was sung a very hearty (loud) birthday song. Celebrations continue this evening and tomorrow with some friends.
Robin and Abi gave me time at a local spa. I look forward to that! I could definitely use more of that. I also look forward to my other gifts arriving. Mom. *Ahem* ;) I did get a fun book of knitting meditations from one friend. You know, so when I'm knitting and I have a few moments, I can reflect upon knitting. (Well, assuming thesis thoughts don't rudely intrude as they so often do.)

Earlier that week, on Wednesday, Abi and I attended a book launch in Toronto for the Charles de Lint book The Mystery of Grace. Mr. de Lint and his wife opened the launch with a musical set, and then as another band came on stage, de Lint signed books. I picked up the 2008 chapbook Yellow Dog while there and had it signed to Abigail. It was a rather spur of the moment outing as I had only finally read the announcement for the event at 1am that same day. I had hoped we could meet up with some friends in Toronto, but alas my trip was not planned early enough and everyone had plans for the evening.


The previous weekend, friends and I hit the local yarn shops on our first Yarn Crawl. We travelled to three shops: Yarn Bird in Elora, Wellington Fibres just outside Elora, and the new All Strung Out in Guelph. Wellington Fibres was my favourite as they raise their own angora goats (babies were expected while we were there), process the yarn, spin it and dye it on site. A girlfriend had gifted me with some of their yarn for a previous birthday and I made my purple lace scarf from that (my first lace and first continental-knit project), so I was excited to visit the shop. I got some lovely yarn that day for an assortment of projects (I had a list on hand). If you are on Ravelry you can check my stash - and if you're not on Ravelry I assume you aren't very interested in yarn. If you ARE interested in yarn and all things knit/crochet, then you SHOULD be on Ravelry.

Easter weekend was fun. It started with my birthday. Then we looked after a friend's son and went to market on Saturday, followed by dinner with Robin's cousins. Sunday we... what did we do yesterday? Clearly not very eventful. I spent most of it grading papers.

Recent Abi news:

• While she is still stubbornly set against walking - that is, if you try to help her walk she will drop to her knees and crawl away - Abi has learned a three-limbed crawl to accommodate carrying things while moving. With an item in her right hand, her left side is in the usual crawl position, while her right leg is extended in front of her.
• Abi clearly knows who her pets are. If you ask her where Monkey, Darla, or Fenwick is she will scan the room and point to her. Of course she can do the same with Robin or I.
• We have recently noticed that she tries to say Darla and she will try and mimic other words. Uh oh :D I'm sure once she gets started we'll never have a quiet moment again.
• Except when she sleeps. She is currently going down for regular midday naps (sleeping now while I eat lunch) and falling asleep around 9pm. Hooray for bedtimes.

It's not snow

If I can't see it (don't look!) it isn't there. There is not a thin layer of snow outside. And even if there was, it would melt by the afternoon I'm sure. So I don't have to worry about it.

Instead, I am focused on today's YARN CRAWL. Awesomeness!!! We're hitting up three LYS full of delicious wool that will tempt me. Good thing I have been squirreling money away for months :) Robin will never know... d'oh! Socks and soakers. Baby sweaters and shawls... so many projects in mind. And then there are the toys! Oh boy oh boy.

Classes ended this week for me. A long week of excellent student presentations. Excellent, but long none the less. Now I just wait for the papers to come in next week and grade a few late submissions in the meantime. But not this morning.

Newsworthy Day

Wow,
so many friends announced new engagements and pregnancies today!
And so many others shared their congratulations! The threads of comments are all very long.
Fools.
And just for the record, we are not expecting any brothers or sisters for Abi in the near future.
Happy April Fools Day

Things in a Box

Things in a Box is a great game. I am borrowing the title to describe Abigail's "art" scattered around the living room. I believe I have previously mentioned her penchant for putting things in boxes/containers and taking things out of boxes/containers. This afternoon I noticed she had quite the collection of boxes with things in them.

Animals in a box.


Block in a box


1 Block in a Box


Blocks in a Box


Variation on Things in a Box: Tree in a Dish


Variation on Things in a Box: Animals in a Flower Pot


Variation on Things in a Box: Pig outside a Box

Abi is quite the abstract artist. What do you think? Could she make a living as an artist? She is a Pisces...