Three Randoms...

1. After thinking my poor child would be swaddled for life we finally pulled the plug and let her loose. About 2 weeks ago when she was sick I didn't want her to overheat with the swaddle since she was already feverish, so I thought it a perfect time to get out of the swaddle for good. I also figured she wasn't sleeping well anyways because of being sick so it was going to make that any worse. I went out and bought an Aden and Anis thin sleep sack (they have winter ones too and I will definitely be picking one of those up in the fall!) I put her in the sack and she slept amazing! In fact, she is sleeping much better than she was with the swaddle! The wonderful thing is that now that she is hands free she can retrieve her own soother in the middle of the night. I toss her in the crib with 3 soothers and it is fantastic! She is also now a side-sleeper. So cute! It's so crazy how much she moves around in that crib now! I put her in with her head facing north and by morning she always has her head at the south end of the crib!?!

2. Baby girl loves swimming! I started taking her to "lessons" and also take her to the community pool almost everyday! It is so fun to watch her splash and kick around in the water. I am loving this age (where she can fully sit up on her own and not so fragile)! It is so fun to actually play with her!





3. I'm thinking of training to run a 5 or 10k. I do alot of cardio but almost never run. I stick to the elliptical or stairmaster usually. I decided to try running last week and I ran 3 miles (5k) on the treadmill in 25 minutes...i'm not sure if that is terrible or decent. Anyone with running experience want to tell me what a good time to strive for would be? I don't want to over-do it with the running since I'm worried about my milk supply (anyone have experience with this? does running lower your milk supply?) so I think I will just strive for running a good 5k now and then maybe a 10k when I am nursing less in the winter time. I would love any tips about running from other running mamas!

Well, those are my 3 randoms for the day! I'll leave you with a quick pic of my baby working hard:

Baby Food

We started Alexandra on solids around 5.5 months. At first it was nothing more than an exercise in body painting. She would literally purse her mouth shut and grab at the spoon full of rice cereal and smear it all over her body. Cute, but nerve wracking! I made multiple attempts to feed her oatmeal or rice cereal. I was always unsuccessful. My husband found a bit more success so he became the feeder. Alexandra became comfortable eating cereal after about 3 weeks of trying it. However, she rejected any new flavours I would introduce. Hated bananas (what baby hates bananas!), hated pear sauce, hated sweet potato. I was starting to get devastated that I wouldn't get to put my Baby Bullet to good use! Then i started to realize that what Alexandra seemed to hate the most was eating off the spoon. I started giving her chunks of watermelon or apricots and she seemed to do a bit better sucking/gnawing on those than eating them in pureed form. I just wasn't really all that comfortable with giving her "chunks" of food. I contemplated maybe just doing baby-led weaning but I was a bit nervous about it. Then I saw some other bloggers talking about Baby Gourmet organic baby food pouches. I bought a couple and Alexandra would suck the food right out of the pouch. Suddenly, without the spoon in the way, my baby girl was loving these new flavours! I was so happy, but very disappointed that maybe I wouldn't get to make all of my daughters food because I would have to resort to buying these "pouches" in order to get her to eat! Then I was struck by some mommy-genius (ok...not really but I am proud of my "invention"!) I put some pureed sweet potato in a ziploc bag, snipped off on corner and squeezed the food into baby A's mouth. She loved it just as much as the Baby Gourmet! I have now found a wonderful (non-messy! very portable!) way to feed my baby without the spoon that she for some strange reason hates! So far some homemade combo favorites include:

Mango Chicken
Banana, blueberry, avocado
Squash and green bean
Chicken and pear
Chicken, blueberry, apple

And let me tell you...my child loves to eat! At 7 months she finally "gets it!" and she loves it! And I love it...because ever since she really started eating she is SLEEPING much better! And we all know that is what really counts! She is sleeping pretty regularily from 7:30 or 8pm until 4 am, up for a quick 5 min feed and down again until 8 am. Of course there are still some terrible days but she has officially weaned herself down from 2 night feeds to one. I'm sure I could pop the soother in her mouth at 4 am and she would go a few more hours without a feed, but right now (since I don't have to get up for work) I would rather feed her at 4am, and then get another good stretch out of her until 8 than not feeding her and have her wake up for the day at 6:30 or 7.

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! We are going to a friend's pool tomorrow and I can't wait to get A into the pool in her new floatation device (its like an inner tube that she sits in)!

:)LTB

Bad Weekend :(

This weekend promised to be glorious! 3 days long, a trip to visit my parents and siblings, BBQ with friends and gorgeous weather.

This all went out the window on Friday when Alexandra started acting funny. I could tell she wasn't feeling good. The cries weren't the normal fussy/pick-me-up-Mommy! cries, but serious achy cries. I thought she seemed constipated since she was straining but not pooping. We gave her some baby Tylenol and hoped for the best. She woke up every single hour (or less) that night. We were at my parents so I know she was in unusual surroundings but this was just god awful! I was exhausted. Saturday morning she had a fever. So, we gave her tylenol again and went to our friends for a BBQ. She seemed to cheer up and we thought she was on the mend. Unfortunately on Sunday morning she woke up and was BURNING up. She was soooo hot and sad and it was breaking my heart! We took her to Sick Kids hospital here in Toronto (amazing place!!!) and they checked her ears (fine) and then decided to check her urine...by giving her a catheter! That had to be the worst thing ever to witness. Poor little thing! Urine came back fine. So, we were left with a fever and no known cause. Went home and took it easy (she was soooo sleepy!) and Monday she seemed a bit better, but still sleepy. By nighttime her fever was back. I was starting to panic and my mind was going to terrible places thinking that she was seriously ill with some freak virus or worse..like cancer. I of course resorted to Dr. Google and that only freaked me out more. I know it had only been 3 days with a fever but to me that was a looooonnng time to have a fever for no known reason! Well, today she finally seemed better. No fever. Still a bit sleepy but hopefully on the mend! phew! oh...and to make this weekend even more crappy....my husband punched me in the face on Friday night! Now before you get crazy thinking i'm a battered wife, here's the story: Hubs was trying to cheer up sick Alexandra by doing a funny "dance" that involved flailing of the arms. I happened to approach as he flung his fist out to the right...and right into my eye. I am now sporting my first "shiner"! We definitely were a sad pair all weekend:




Here's to a happy and healthy week ahead!

LTB