(Yay, I actually posted one on time...only one day late!)

Well, it's getting close to the end, only 1 more monthly update after this one and then the big 1-year update is already here!  It, like everything else this year, is going to sneak up on me I'm sure, but I'm trying to get myself ready for it...hopefully no break downs ensue.

Alright, Victor's 10-month update, let's go!

-Stats: Weight at 9 months (since I didn't post it last time)-18lbs, 6 oz, Height-unsure.  Weight at 10 months-around 19 lbs Height-28 inches or so.  He's in the 12th-14th percentile for weight, not sure about height though. 

-Wearing 6 and 6-12 month pjs, 6-12 month pretty much everything else, and I even pulled out some 12-18 month shirts that fit him!  Still in size small diapers but I'm thinking of switching over to the mediums in the New Year.

-Sleeping pretty much through the night most nights, except for the occasional night when he wakes up because his nose is stuffed up and he can't breathe (which means spitting out his soother and waking up).  I've been putting Vick's Vapo-Rub on the corner of his receiving blanket or on my arm so that he can breathe it in for a few minutes to clear his nose and then he goes back to sleep; it's usually no more than a 10-minute thing.  Lately he's been staying up later than I would like, usually around 9:00pm or later, and waking up a bit later, at around 8:00am.  Napping at least twice a day, and this month he has had some marathon naps, 2 hours or more, unheard of!

-Breastfeeding only once a day (from each side, so I guess two feedings), usually in the morning, and on occasion when comfort (or a distraction) is needed.  My supply feels really low so I imagine that in the next month or so we'll be completely done (which is kind of harder than I thought it would be, I guess that even though I don't enjoy breastfeeding, I like having the option of doing it if it I need to...soon I have won't have the choice.)

-Eating has grown substantially this month, both in quantity and variety.  In the last two weeks or so Victor has doubled, if not more, his intake of food.  Just out of nowhere, he started wanting to eat everything in sight and eating lots of it.  It still catches me off guard sometimes, I'm always thinking 'what, you want MORE?'  It's good though, I think that he's replacing breast milk with food, which is what we want.  Most mornings he'll either eat an entire small jar fruit or a small bowl of baby cereal, plus some Cheerios to munch on, then for dinner he'll have some veggies and meat (a lot of times it's leftovers from supper the night before), or some crackers and yogurt, then for supper he's been eating what we've been having when possible, if not then more veggies and meat (made by me), plus a dessert.  He'll also get some snacks throughout the day, and a 10oz bottle of formula before bed.  It might not seem like a lot compared to some babies, but for him it's a huge improvement!  This month he also seems to have dropped any picky-ness he had towards food, there's not much he won't eat!  I also love that he's eating what we're eating and seems to enjoy stronger flavours.  I had some leftover garlic mashed potatoes (heavy on the minced garlic) one night and gave those to him and he loved it!  He also had some homemade mac and cheese and last night ate meatloaf (made with quinoa) and rice with veggies.  So much easier when they can eat what you eat!  Anyway, it's going really well, the only issue so far is me being consistent in feeding him! 

-Related to the eating and sleeping more mentioned above, we're pretty sure that he's gone through a pretty big growth spurt this month, he definitely feels bigger than before, putting on a bit of heft (though not in his little bum, it's the same size, ha!) 

-Still only has the 2 bottom teeth, which is crazy, he's gone over 2-3 months without getting a tooth, I kind of hope he gets more soon!

-The big milestone this month has been crawling on all fours. At the beginning of December it was like a little switch went off in his mind and he all of a sudden figured out how to crawl properly, and now he's on the move! He's quite a bit quicker than he used to be, we have to watch out because he can be in one spot one minute and a different spot the next! He also pulls up/stands leaning against objects with no problem now, it's his favourite thing to do. He's starting to balance better when standing and is now walking around the coffee table and along the couch, but doesn't seem to want to let go anytime soon. I still don't think he'll walk before he's one, but that's ok, I'm not in a rush. 

His new stunt, climbing into the chair as opposed to out of it!

-One less-than-wonderful thing that Victor has mastered this month is pulling up on our legs and begging to be picked up.  He does this to me every single time he sees me, no matter what.  He still also wants to be in our arms more than I'd like, but I don't think that this is something that can be avoided...he's a mama's boy/clingy child, that's all there is to it. 

-He's got his babbling mastered this month too, stringing along little sounds into I'm sure what he thinks are words and sentences.  He's good at repeating what we ask him to say (dada or baba or bye bye), but he hasn't really learned any new sounds like mama or anything else.  He still likes to squeal/sigh now, it's cute, and when he's with just us he's quite vocal, but is still a bit shy about talking around strangers.

-I'd say that his favourite 'toy' this past month has been anything that makes noise and has buttons.  He loves to push buttons and hear the sounds, over and over again.  He also really loves magnets/playing on the fridge, playing with light switches, pulling things down off the coffee table, and chewing on anything he sees.  This month we also started playing ball with him (below), which he likes and finds quite funny.

-He's getting a lot braver with Shimi, coming right up to her face and 'talking' (yelling) at her, and also 'petting' (smacking) her.  He especially likes to bug her while she's trying to eat.  I'm not sure what she thinks of it, but for the most part she's been good with him.

-He loves to watch the washing machine run, which is pretty cute (and convenient) for me!  Anything to do with water, actually, he likes.  Most nights when Dan gets home from work and hops into the shower, Victor wants to be right in there with him, and will stand on the side of the bathtub, watching him (and getting himself soaked in the process).  He'll do this with me too, which is nice since I can pretty much take a shower whenever now, because I know he'll just stand there and wait.  The only downside is having to change him afterwards into dry clothes, haha.

 

-He's learning to do new things with his body, especially his hands. He now likes to hold them above his head, often reaching for a light or ceiling fan, or just anything in general.  He also really likes to 'bobble' his head, shaking it back and forth.  He especially loves to do it when you do it too, and we play this shaking head game often.  Sometimes he'll do it to music, but he hasn't learned to 'dance' yet, I can't wait for when that happens!

I am the champion!

-Victor loves to laugh, play, and interact with us, and for the most part is still a very happy child.  He can get frustrated, or be stubborn, or have his 'bad boy' moments, but that comes with the territory of growing up.  Any hard moments are far outweighed by the good ones; by the huge smiles, happy squeals, cuddles (yes I still get them), bright eyes, little and big laughs, and by the joy of having him in our lives.  



Happy 10-months bébé, stop growing up so fast.

G.

PS-I'll be attempting to post our Christmas pictures this week, along with my New Year's Goals and Word for 2011 (I've decided that I'm going to have one, can't wait to share!)

Popping in to say...

Just wanted to pop in quick and say a big Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noël to everyone in blog land!  We had a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, spending it with family, eating lots of yummy food, watching our little nephews go crazy and enjoying Victor's first Christmas experience.  We're now back home, amongst the boxes, bags and toys, relaxing.  The dishes, cleaning, and regular life can resume tomorrow; for now, I'm going to get into my new fuzzy pajamas, put the bébé to bed and snuggle with my main man :)

Back soon with Victor's 10-month update.  I hope you all had a safe, wonderful and peaceful holiday season.

G.

PS-These are the photos I sent out with our Christmas cards this year.  

This is what I see.

This is my view most days.  A 10-month old who loves to climb up my pant legs and asks (aka whines) to be picked up.  Dozens of times a day, it's always the same.  And as much as it tires me out to pick him up every time, to stop what I'm doing, to calm him down or make him smile, I'm trying to do it with a happy heart, because soon he won't be pulling at me anymore, and I have a feeling I'll one day miss it.

Happy Sunday (and only-6-days-'til-Christmas-day) to you.

G.

PS-It's almost time to write out our New Year's Goals, yay! Have you thought about yours yet?  I have and can't wait to get them down!

PPS-Check out this super sweet post from one of my fav photographers, Tara Swain.  Watch the video and try not to cry (I couldn't, it hit pretty close to home...)

Vive le Québec!

This past weekend, Dan and I took our long-anticipated trip to Montreal to see UFC 124, and I have to say, it was completely and utterly awesome!  We were really lucky, weather-wise, the roads were good, we got to relax and see a new city, watch some awesome fights, and spend a lot of alone time together.  The only downside? It was way too short.

A few highlights:

*A 10-hour drive that seemed much shorter, partly thanks to Jon Stewart's audio book of Earth (totally hilarious, we listened to it twice!)

*Working on the tassels for Victor's blanket (almost done!)

*Stopping at the Irving Big-Stop for lunch and breakfast (Maritimers will know why this is a good thing)

*Seeing Notre Dame cathedral in Old Montreal (pictures below)  I never, ever, ever get tired of seeing beautiful churches.

*Walking down St-Catherine's Street and seeing all the Christmas displays and holiday shoppers bustling about

*Starbucks

*A heavenly king size bed. Enough said ;)

*Sleeping in (related to super comfy bed mentioned above)

*Eating sushi (yumm!) and having a few drinks for the first time in a looong time.

*Watching Georges St-Pierre kick Koscheck's ass for 5 straight rounds (and seeing lots of other good fights too)  I can totally see Dan and I becoming UFC live event junkies after this (hello Toronto in April!)

*Hearing the Montreal Symphony practice Handel's Messiah in the cathedral as we toured around

*Swimming in the hotel swimming pool (my first time swimming since Croatia in August of 09!)

*Testing out my next lens purchase (oooh man I loved it and want it NOW)

*Not worrying about naps or feedings or tripping over toys

*Wearing bras (non uni-boob sports bras that is), jewelry, a dress, heels, make-up, and generally having some time to put into my appearance

*Dan. Talking with, walking with, laughing with, kissing, and focusing on Dan

We're already excited for our next trip together and have decided that we need to make this happen from time to time, even if it means going without a few things for a little while to be able to afford it.  I HIGHLY recommend that parents get away together whenever they can, whether it be date nights or yearly trips, I know that it's going to be a life saver for us over the next 20 or so years, ha!

Anyway, here are a few pics from the trip (I've realized that I suck at taking vacation pictures, I just don't feel like pulling out my big DSLR for every little thing...again, I need a point and shoot and/or cellphone camera!)

Floor to ceiling windows in our 15th floor hotel room...freaked me out a little, honestly.

This is actually Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, it's a 1/2 scale replica of St Peter's in Rome...

Me with my boyfriend :)

Our computer fritzed out on us earlier this week so I'm surviving on a very lean Internet and computer diet (using the Playstation and TV), so I hope to be back next week, if the Christmas to-do list doesn't crush me first.

Until then,

G.

Taking a break.

(Photos from Anna's i-Phone)

Yesterday afternoon I went to Fredericton to visit my friend Anna, and to get some Christmas shopping done.  Dan was working all day, so I contemplated bringing Victor with me, but decided that trying to shop in the crazy malls with him in my arms or in a bulky cart did not sound like a good time, so I left him with my mom (merci Mama!) and went solo.  And let tell you, it was SO nice to get away and take a little break.  Now I know that I'm really lucky compared to some because I have a lot of support around me and can leave Victor with my mom, my sister or Sara for a few hours whenever I need to, but having this much time to do what I WANTED, to do something FUN (as opposed to running around trying to get my cleaning and to-do list caught up), was such a breath of fresh air.  We went to a few stores, I bought some cool teal/green nail polish, we got Starbucks (caramel brule, yumm!), did some shopping, browsed the pretty gift section of Chapters, took our time, chatted and laughed, then went to the best local pub and had nachos (and drinks!), it was just lovely.

I think it's good as moms to be honest about wanting to get away from your kids from time to time.  It's a job that never ends, and without the occasional break it can really wear you down, which affects how good of a mom you can be (at least it does for me, I came home refreshed and happy to see Victor, as opposed to rushing to get him to bed...)  Even if it's just for a few hours to do something on your own (maybe even just the dishes), we all need it and there's nothing wrong with admiting it.

So thanks Anna for the pre-baby nostalgia and the no-baby activities/fun!

In other news, my granmother is coming today for the week (she's going to help my mom watch Victor while we're in Montreal next weekend), I'm excited to see her and see what she thinks of my now super-wiggly and vocal Victor. She, my mom, my sister and I are going to see a Christmas concert tonight; I've heard really good things about it so I'm sure it will get me into the Christmas mood (I need a little kick start I think, but this week I plan on getting a lot of Christmas related stuff done, so it's perfect timing!) I think that if the weather (and Victor) cooperates, I'm also going to get his Christmas pictures done, gotta send those out soon!

Happy week to you,
G. 

Well, I really did have good intentions on posting this in time, but here I am, a week late...but then again, at this point I should consider myself lucky that I'm recording anything at all!  Sheesh.  Anyway, here we go, Victor's 3/4-to-1-year-old update:

*Stats: Weight and Height will be determined next week at his doctor's appointment for his extra needles.  Wearing 6 month PJs, and 6 month and 6-12 month pretty much everything else (I finally gave in and put away his last few pairs of 3 month pants and 3-6 month shirts, I was in denial I think!)  Still wearing all his small cloth diapers, although they are pretty 'low riders' in some cases.  I adjusted his Fuzzibuns one-size diapers and they now do a much better job than they were doing before.  We switched to Size 3 disposables, even though he could still fit into size 2s easily.  Eyes are still super dark, not sure when/if they will ever turn! 

*The way I want to describe this past month is BETTER.  It has gotten better since last month, which I felt was quite hard on both me and Victor.  All areas seemed to improve at least a little, and there was some really good stuff that happened too, so all in all I felt like we jumped the hurdle and can now move on to the next stage of baby and mama-hood.

We saw this expression a lot! (see above)

*Sleeping has become more regular, with only one waking/feeding at night, and there were plenty of nights where he slept 6-8 hours in a row or more, so overall much better.  The most annoying thing about the nights now are the diaper changes, for some reason we aren't able to get through the nights a lot of times without having soaked pajamas and being woken up by that.  I have pretty much abandoned cloth during the nights and am hoping that the larger size 3 disposables will work better.  He is starting to go to bed earlier and earlier, usually between 7:00-8:00pm, and he wakes up almost every day at around 7:00-7:30am.  He usually always naps in the morning, but only for about 45 mins, and then he will nap again sometimes around or after lunch, and maybe again later in the afternoon around supper time, but we're still not in a good routine for the afternoons, it really depends on the day (he's always so much happier when he naps in the afternoon, but he doesn't seem to realize it!)

*Eating is going ok, we're running into a few little issues but nothing major.  Mostly it just has to do with him being kind of picky about certain foods.  He's not into touching food if it's wet (meaning not cheerios, crackers, really dry foods).  When he does he seems to get grossed out and just drops it. Which means I need to give him most of his veggies and fruit in baby food/spoon form, which is ok I guess. For awhile he really wasn't digging any kind of fruit but he has gotten over that a little bit.  New foods this month included fish (didn't like), low-sodium Ritz crackers (loves them), yogurt (loves), apple cinnamon cereal, 3.25% cow's milk, and others I can't really remember.   We mostly always get breakfast and supper in, and I try to get him to eat lunch most of the time but he's not always hungry around then, not sure why.  Plus a few snacks throughout the day, of course.

Yogurt face

*I'm still breastfeeding, but this past month it has decreased and I think we're on our way to weaning.  He eats once throughout the night (though sometimes not), once when he first wakes up in the morning, once around lunchtime and once around suppertime.  He gets an 8-oz bottle of formula before bed so overall he only eats 3-4 times in a 24 hour period.  He still seems interested in nursing so I will keep doing it as long as my supply is there, but I think that by his 1st birthday we'll pretty much be done.

Eating his not-so-healthy snack, Ritz crackers

*Bath time has become a lot more fun for Victor now that he is big enough to 'play' in the water.  We fill the tub with a couple of inches of water and then lay him down in it on his belly and he commando crawls around, he loves it. He has toys that he likes to chew on and he likes to look around and splash.  We give him a bath probably once every other night, at this point he doesn't need to bathe more than that.

*The biggest milestone this month has been the pulling up/standing.  He has pretty much mastered it and can now pull himself up on pretty much anything, even things without ledges like the fridge door!  He loves to be standing and prefers that over anything else these days.  He's most content when standing up against the coffee table or his 'toy chest' and pulling things down/playing with items while standing.  He can also get down without any sort of issue and even learned how to scoot himself off the couch feet first!  Unfortunately he doesn't always remember to do that and has taken a tumble or two (same with the standing, it hasn't come without a few bumps and bruises).  He's not the best at sitting but I feel like I can mostly trust him to sit now, at least for a little bit (he'll usually go down on his belly to crawl or play from sitting).

Very proud he learned to stand in his crib (and forcing us to lower his mattress)  

 

Morning adventures

*Other things he enjoys doing include playing with doors (opening and shutting them), pulling items down off of anything and everything (or out of drawers/baskets), dropping things from his highchair, playing 'peek a boo', crawling all over the apartment, banging toys, playing in his exi-saucer, and generally getting into things he's not supposed to.  He's definitely at that curious stage where he needs to see and touch (and eat) everything.  Oh, the things he's put in his mouth! (example: cat food.)

 He LOVES the printer and getting under my feet while on the computer!

*He still only has 2 teeth and shows no sign of getting others, which probably isn't helping with the eating thing, but oh well.

*Activities this past month included a trip to the Aquatic Centre (since he was enjoying his baths I was more confident in bringing him, and he had an amazing time, I can't wait to go back!), and Halloween, which turned out to be quite uneventful, but I got some cute photos out of it so that's enough for now.  Next year will be better.

Little lion-Halloween 2010

*He's getting better at making sounds and will try to repeat what we say.  Right now we're trying to get 'bye bye' down, but it mostly comes out like 'baba'.  I didn't mention this in his other updates but he whistles all the time, it's really funny.  He makes his mouth so small and then breathes out of it and it makes a little whistling noise, I don't know he does it, but he's been doing it for a couple of months now, it's cute.  You can also tell he understands how to respond to certain things, like when I say "gros bec" (big kiss) and kiss him on the cheek he knows to turn his head towards me and lays a big open mouth 'kiss' on my face right after.  He's getting better at pressing buttons and figuring things out, it's fun to see when he learns something new and I'm always surprised when he does (I don't know why, I expect babies to be dumber I guess?) 

Playing with Papa

*Personality-wise Victor has gotten much better at being on his own, though that isn't to say that he still doesn't whine and cling to us; he does, it's just much less than before.  In the mornings he's happy to play on his own and he can entertain himself a bit better (as the day progresses though it seems to get worse and worse-see sleeping bullet above).  I don't think he's quite secure yet though because every time he sees me he cries and heads my way, even if he was having a perfectly good time on his own the moment before.  He has his good moods and bad moods, but compared to last month the good moods seem to be much more abundant.  He's always really happy to see Dan when he gets home from work, which is really heart-warming, and  he recognizes other people and enjoys them now, like my parents and my friend Sara.  He's still cuddly with me sometimes but also wants to get out one his own/wiggle away more from me now, which is a nice sign.  I'm sure this clingy-ness phase will be over soon, and like I said, we're on our way out already. 

Seeing his first snow of the winter

He's sweet, excitable, curious, demanding, (a bit) spoiled, happy, precious, and still my little bébé.

Until next month,
G.