No sleep for the sleep deprived

Paige is NOT sleeping. We had 2 weeks where she only woke up no more than once a night where we had to drag her from the side of the crib... usually around 5:00. Then she had 2 days in a row of sleeping straight through the night, and I thought, "this is IT!". Then after that, crap. She wakes up at least 5 times a night now. Always in the side of the crib, so obviously something is wrong and she is moving around more. God forbid she is teething again.

Paige's First Fear/Always wear a clean diaper, you never know what might happen.

Paige is scared of this whale.

She was sitting in her little bath yesterday (she can now sit up in it with the little seat attachment), and I had put some toys floating in the water for her to play with. I gave her a little starfish toy to hold, and I said look! I picked up this whale and submerged it under the water to suck up the water. She started shaking and was still clutching onto the little starfish with both hands. I thought maybe she was cold since she was sitting up in the water rather than lying down? Anyway, I then sprayed out the water from the whale and she went, "AHHHHHH" like a yell/scream all at the same time. So of course I waited a second and did it again just to see and she screamed and shook again! Poor little thing.

I then remembered that once before she was in the bath and she was freaking out. I wasn't in there the entire time, but Mike had her in there. We weren't sure what the problem was at the time... if she was tired, etc. But now looking back, Mike had taken out the whale! When I told him yesterday that she was scared of the whale he said, "Oh ya, she hates that thing". Hahaha He thinks that he may have sprayed her in the face with it last time.

I forgot to mention that Paige and I got stuck in the snow the other day. Well, I did mention it to some people, but I forgot to mention the details. We had been at Katharine's house for lunch with Christy and Clara also. When we went to leave Paige had a poopy diaper, but since we live 2 minutes away I decided to just wait till we got home. Anyway, as we were driving away, I got stuck in the snow at the end of the street. Christy was behind me and she got out to help with her shovel. We weren't able to get it unstuck, and by this point, Paige was going nuts. A garbage man stopped to help, but he quickly gave up and snuck away when we weren't looking!! Then Christy walked Paige back to Katharine's house. While Christy was walking Paige back, I could hear Clara going nuts in her car. Ahhh what a disaster. Anyway, 2 guys and 1 girl all came separately to help and got us unstuck. I then had to drive around the street back to Katharine's house to pick up Paige, where Katharine had been nice enough to change the poopy diaper. THE END.

A mother's proudest moment..

Can it be possible that I, who can barely sleep anywhere other than my bed, who spent the better part of 2 months in Europe as a sleep deprived wreck, could have a child that would fall asleep while she was being spoon fed in her high chair? I didn't think it possible! How cool and cute.

Latest milestones and little moves

Ah little Paigey, growing up so fast. I orignally thought, for some reason, that 6 months was the magic milestone. Unlike other things I have thought, I was correct on this one. Since she turned 6 months, things have been so easy, almost to the point that you feel it neccessary to lie or really search for the bad things if someone were to ask what having a baby was like. You might say, "oh ya, so hard to watch her all day long, always getting into trouble, gets fussy, blah blah blah". In reality, there are some quite typical days where we get up, she eats her bottle, has a bath, I get ready, she eats her breakfast, we go to Second Cup, sit there for 2 hours, come home, she naps, clean the house, she wakes up, plays with toys on the floor, tries to go to the fireplace (now she is doing this because she likes the marble), I scoop her up, she goes to the TV, I scoop her up, we watch Ellen, there are a couple more bottle and meals in there, mike comes home, and we have dinner. There are definitely other days though where I am bored stiff, only to find that someone else was home bored stiff and we could have gotten together. Or, I am dying to get out, but know that Paige will need to eat soon, and then one thing leads to another and we have watched crappy reality shows that we have taped, along with various talk shows, and then the day is over. At any rate, things are soooo much more easy than they used to be.

Now Paige is eating quite a bit more food. She has eaten (and likes all of these foods):

peas
corn (really likes this even though it smells burned and tastes like it too)
beans
squash
sweet potato
pears
banana
strawberry
blueberry
peaches
apple
pinneaple
mango -i think
orange
Carrots: seemed to upset her stomach, so haven't given them to her since then.

I feel like there are way more things but I guess it is because there are lots of different combos, like applesauce and banana, mixed fruit, strawberry banana, etc.

So basically, the first picture is of her playing the piano in our house. She loves banging on the keys.

This next picture, I think, is so cute. I got her to crawl down the hall and I love how she is at the end peering around the corner. In case anyone doesn't know the layout of our house, we spend 90% of our time upstairs during the day since we have a family room up there. (we call it the loft for some reason, although someone pointed out that they thought I was referring to a "Loft" we had in Toronto or something...like a random second dwelling). So, we have a tv upstairs and all of Paige's toys, along with furniture that is wreck-able. The only reason we ever go downstairs during the day is to eat. Anyway, she is peering around the corner towards the stairs! Yikes! Mike is installing the baby gate today. She has never made it over to the stairs yet though, thank goodness.

This is one little move that I saw her do. She is really good at doing the "downward dog" on the floor, so it was really easy for her to do it while holding onto the bookshelf looking at the DVD's.

She is now trying to go from crawling to sitting as well. You can tell because she will crawl and then go onto one arm and bend one knee. She can't figure out how to shift her weight though without falling over. I think she is attempting to do this because she really seems to enjoy sitting up a lot more than she used to. I think it is because I have let her have her choice of toys. We have a little fabric Ikea box that holds her smaller toys. I put it in front of her and she will hold the box with one hand, and reach into the box with the other. She will then pull out one toys, inspect it for a while, chuck it to the side, and then grab another one. She will do this until all of the toys are out of the box, and then she will play with the box. I have seen her do this multiple times now.

Oh--and about the clapping? After that day she will not do it anymore. So weird. The only thing she will do, is if I say Clap Clap Clap, she will say something that sounds like she is trying to repeat me, but she won't move her hands. She will clap her hands together if she is holding a rattle so it makes more sound, but that is about it.

Anyway, off to start the day....

The Clapper

Today Paige learned how to clap. We had been at "Amy's" house and Paige was playing with Amy's "pat-a-cake" bear that claps when you push its foot. Katharine says that she swears that is how Amy learned how to clap, and now I totally believe her. How spooky. I had barely ever tried to get Paige to clap before and she learned so quickly...

Getting Organized..

Well, the house is painted, we are regularly using our gym, we have a new stereo, stereo cabinet, sofa table, and end table. Things in the house are coming together.

We just have a few photos to frame and hang up, and do a bit of decorating in our bedroom. Unfortunately for our guests, it looks like after all of these purchases, that the futon will remain as our guest bed. Eventually that will change too, into something nicer.

Also, we have activities planned out for every week now. I reached the plateau of utter boredom around 2 weeks ago. Since then we have started Diaper Fit on Mondays, we signed up for Level 2 Gymboree on Wednesdays (much more fun for me), and have submitted an application for Mother Goose on Fridays (it is a lottery though, so not sure if we'll get in). Kind of crappy that things cost $$--Gymboree was $190 for 12 weeks! oh well.

Yesterday we went to Baby Proofing Plus (massive store with regular baby stuff, plus a ton of baby gates and baby proofing things). We got a black baby gate which will blend in with our staircase, and some of those plug covers. We'll start with that until we can see how fast she moves and where she goes. I'm not planning on leaving her alone in order for her to make her way into the bathroom or anything like that, so we'll see what happens when she is walking. I guess we'll have to turn off the pilot light in the fireplace soon, since it is pretty warm normally. She hasn't even looked at the fireplace really. Oh yes, I also got a little fabric insert that I can put in a shopping cart so she can't touch the cart in any way! I think I could start to put her in the cart on her own at any time now. That will be good for places like Zellers where they don't have the proper cart to put the car seat in. Not that she will be in her car seat for much longer, really. If she is bundled up she barely fits in the seat. As long as it gets warm early this year we might be fine until May or June I would think.

Anyway, off to wake up Paige and get ready for Diaper Fit.

Crawling 2.0: Mad Paige version

It's official, Paige has started to crawl. I was unable to get a really good video of her crawling, so instead I have gotten a good one of "mad Paige" sort of crawling. She wasn't doing it as well as we have seen her do it in the past few days, but it is amusing, nevertheless.

*Better with sound* haha

Diaper Fit!!

OH my GOODNESS!

Diaper Fit was so much fun! We had to travel a bit further than our "usual" pool, but at the Aldershot pool they have Diaper fit (Diaper fit is in the water).

It is so hard to describe, so Katharine and I have decided we must bring cameras next time.

Basically, there is this hard foam fish that is about 2.5 feet long. In the middle of it there is a seat like you would find in an excersaucer (fabric with leg holes). So the baby sits in this fish thing with the legs dangling into the water. There is a rope on the one end that you attach to your bathing suit strap. There are links attached to the rope that the baby can play with.

Then, you get to do a regular aqua fit class while the baby is attached to you, but just floating around, playing with toys. SOOOOO hysterical. It was a super good workout too. I was thinking of taking a regular aqua fit class on Saturdays when Mike was home, but this is much more fun.

Paige was really tired though because she woke up early, so she decided to lose it a few times during the class and scream. She passed out as soon as we got in the car, and she is still sleeping in her carseat. Too funny.

We made a home gym yesterday in the basement. --exercise bike, bench, weights, and the exercise ball that we already had. Hopefully this will finally be enough motivation to get in shape.

Starting tomorrow we have painters coming to the house for 3 days, which will probably be a bit strange.

The whole family slept through the night!

YES YES YES! It was over a year in the making, but we all slept through the night! I woke up at 7:30 this morning and thought, "that was a good sleep!" Then I thought, "Wait a minute....!!!"

So, ya, good times...

Amy and Paige play

Don't mind us all talking.

In case you don't catch it..

Mike: The parents are having wine
Craig: For the love of God yes

Here is how they "play" together....