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.