Take Two

First things first ... clearly I'm a terrible blogger. Let's try this again ...

Update:

Wesley is still not eating solids. I haven't given it much attention until now. He's 9 months old. His gag reflex is sooo sensitive ... anything textured that goes in there triggers big time gags. Any pureed bite that is too large as well. Most days he eats maybe a tsp or two of something, some days I don't even bother trying. I'm going to get him set up for a 'feeding assessment' through the Speech Language Pathology dept at RUH. Apparently they may have some tips for me to help Wesley with his texture issues.

I'm proud to say that I have reached my 'long term' goal of pumping my milk until Wesley was 9 months old. However, now my picky little guy won't drink anything else. Previously frozen milk? Nope. Formula? No way. I would like to slow down on the pumping and get my life back ... but I feel like I don't have the energy for the effort required to get him to drink something else. And the fact that he's not eating anything makes me feel like I should pump a little longer.

We have a crawler! Mixed emotions about this milestone :) Gone are the days of playing nicely in one spot. By no means is he an Usain Bolt, but he gets to where he wants to be. Which sometimes ends up being sandwiched under the coffee table, and then mom ignores his cries for help because she's busy doing something else in the kitchen and thinks that he's just being whiney. Whoopsies.

He's a pretty good sleeper at night. Much better than his older sister who has been frequenting our bed in the wee hours of the morning fairly regularly these days. However, I am reliving the rather-than-sleep-I'm-going-to-stand-up-in-my-crib-and-think-I'm-awesome technique that he is starting to display at naptime. That's fun.

Julie is full of spunk, as per usual. I am amazed at the giant spectrum of emotions that this kid (well, both kids) can trigger. Every day I experience any combination of amazement, laughter, impatience, and frustration. What a learning experience this whole parenting thing is!

Julie is an ipad addict. I'm trying to break her addiction. The first thing she asks for in the morning, besides her mini wheats, is the ipad so she can watch 'cartoons'. She mostly surfs YouTube and watches Caillou videos, sometimes in random non-english languages. It's ok in the morning, because I'm busy pumping and feeding Wesley, but I like for it to be put away for most of the rest of the day so we can do other things and she's not staring at a computer screen all day. I try to hide it, but she'll ask for it periodically throughout the day. Gah!

I'm amazed and humoured with her imagination and the things she does. The other day I was looking for our cheese grater and couldn't find it. Lo and behold, I finally found it in her play stroller. She had taken it from the dishwasher and tucked it into the seat belt of her stroller and was pushing it around like a baby. Interesting. Other passions include putting on my shoes and announcing that she's off to 'school', finding 'scary monsters' around the house, and dancing. She's got mad skills. Auntie Robbyn should be proud!

Things around the house have been settling down a bit since summer. I'm looking forward to snuggling in for the winter and enjoying the last 3 months of my mat leave. I'm also mentally preparing myself for the first snowfall. Can't believe Christmas is only 2 months away!!

Polygamy

Do you, Amie, take Medela to be your lawfully wedded spouse ... to have and to hold, for better or for worse, from this day forward? I do ...

It's official. I have a second spouse. In the form of a big yellow breast pump. Good times.

Where have I been? Well, Wesley and I struggled with breastfeeding from day 1. It was obvious to me from the very beginning that it wasn't a comfortable thing for him. Very squirmy and agitated every time it came time to feed. We made many, many trips to the breastfeeding centre and saw lots of different lactation consultants, a speech therapist, etc. etc. Long story short, Wesley has a high palate, which makes latching difficult, and he also has a very poor sucking ability. I have a low milk supply because of my own hormonal issues and lack of proper stimulation. So ... trouble on both of our ends. Now to each their own, but I feel strongly about the benefits of breastmilk, so I was willing to do whatever it took to make things work out. But after 3 months of Wesley and I fighting each other, both of us in tears at each nursing session, I knew something needed to change. I toyed with the idea of 'exclusive pumping' which basically means pumping your milk all the time and feeding it to your baby in a bottle. A LOT of work, but it still allows your baby to get your milk if nursing is just not working out.

So, I decided the right thing to do was dive right in to this pumping world. Am I crazy? Maybe. BUT, there are many reasons why I am doing this ... and one of the major reasons is that it is proven that babies fed breastmilk have a lower incidence of developing type 1 diabetes. Most of you know that hubby is in fact a type 1 diabetic, so both of our children are at risk of inheriting this condition. I know that Graham (and I) would be completely heartbroken if this happened, and I feel obliged to give my kids the best start possible. Bring on the pump. F you diabetes.

The past month and a half have been busy. I pump 6 times a day, and Wesley gets my milk in a bottle. It's no simple task, but I've developed a bit of a routine, so it's going ok. My short term goal - to make it to Wesley's 6 month b-day. Long term goal - to 9+ months. We'll see.

Wesley is SOOOO much happier. We both are. No more anxiety. But, It's hard to do anything. And it does take time away from my kids. I bought this handy dandy pumping bra (it was on Dragon's Den at some point) and I can hook myself up to the pump and then have my hands free to tickle, play, etc, so it's not too bad. Tough to leave the house though. Trying to work around my pumping schedule and naps & feeds isn't easy. But we're working on it.

It's all worth it when I look at Wesley's cute little smiling face and I know that I'm doing my best for him. It's amazing what you'll do for your own children. ♥

The story of how 2 became 4 ...

I am realizing that my blog will not be very interesting to men ... menh ...

I have always been fascinated by how people have come about having their families. Easy road, hard road, long road, complicated road, etc. Maybe it is because our story is a bit more complicated than most, and I like to hear success stories of other people in similar situations.

I was never 'regular' as a teen, and I always had a nagging suspicion that having children may not come easily to me. When Graham and I decided to start a family, I was very proactive and got referred to a specialist right away because I knew we needed some extra help. Thus began our journey of charting, timing, medication, injections, blah blah blah. Long story short ... it was well over a year and 4 cycles of fertility meds later that Julie was created. One fateful Father's Day in 2008 changed our lives forever!! We had a procedure done that day called IUI (you can look it up yourself ... I don't need to get into it here :) and it WORKED!!

Prior to becoming pregnant, it was very difficult to see everyone around me fall pregnant so easily. It seemed that most women I knew became pregnant just by sniffing their partners. Not fair! There are people who have endured MUCH more difficult times than us ... and I am SO thrilled to hear when they get happy endings!

When Julie was just over 1, Graham and I had 'the talk'. What were we going to do? We knew we wanted another child. Do we get referred to a specialist right away again, just in case it takes many months before things happen again? Yep, let's do that. So, while waiting for my specialist appointment (it takes weeks!) I decided to pay really close attention to my body, to see if it would give me any clues as to what was happening. A great book - Taking Charge of your Fertility - is a super read for any woman to better understand her body and all the little clues it gives you throughout each part of a normal cycle. You should check it out! Well, I picked up on a few indications that something was 'happening' and didn't want any possible missed opportunities ...

Slap me sideways, it was a SUCCESS!! I was flabbergasted, astonished, amazed ... that I was now one of those women that became pregnant on the FIRST try!! I was so proud of my body for working properly :) I was filled with disbelief until our first ultrasound at 6 weeks confirmed that there was indeed a little person in there. You often hear that people who have trouble with their first baby sometimes have an easier time the second time around, like your body works out it's kinks or something.

Then reality set in. Ummm, Graham, do you realize we will have 2 children under the age of 2? Lord help us!! Then along came little Wesley, and yes, our lives became crazy, but a good crazy, and we wouldn't change a thing! (Well, I might tame Julie's temperament a bit, but that's another story ...) Graham is very content with 2 kids. I (think) I am too ...

Apparently people think that having one girl and one boy defines the 'perfect' family. A rather weird concept if you ask me. I don't know how to respond to that. I'm pretty sure our family would've been just as perfect had we been given another girl. And I know other perfect families that have all boys. Whatever you're given, you make perfect. It's as simple as that. And be grateful!! Even though sometimes you think you're insane for whatever you've gotten yourself into :)

That's our story ... tell me yours!

ETA: To comment, choose name/url in the 'comment as' drop-down menu. Just type in your name and leave the url blank :)

I'm a blogger!

Am I really doing this? Blogging?? Never would I have imagined this as something I would attempt. But, lately, my good friend Amber (look ... I even linked to your blog!!) has been changing my mind. Most of you know I'm generally a shy person, so sharing my feelings/experiences with the world seems a little odd and embarassing, but I have realized from Amber that this is a great way of preserving memories ... seems that everyone's lives are so crazy busy these days, that the little special moments get lost in the shuffle. So, here I am, starting a family journal I guess, and I will be able to look back on it in the future and smile.

Where do I start? In the present. It seems way too overwhelming to blog the past. Maybe I'll throw in memories here and there, but for now, we'll start with today. Who knows, maybe this whole thing will only last a week. We'll see.

What's happening these days?

Wesley. He's almost 3 months old. 3 MONTHS! Time is flying by. It hasn't been without it's fair amount of challenges, but still I am shocked at the speed this mat leave is racing. He was fussy in the beginning. I'm pretty sure he was hungry. Our whole feeding situation has been stressful and VERY time consuming, but I'm hoping it's finally getting sorted out. He's happier now (obviously by his pic :) It's amazing to have a son. It was weird in the beginning, after being used to raising a daughter, but he's pretty easy to love, and a wonderful addition to our little family.

Julie. She's 2! She's beautiful :) She gives me at least 30 mini heart attacks each day. Fearless. I often wonder WWSD? (What would supernanny do? ... obviously) Discipline has been a struggle for me, partly because Julie doesn't listen, and I'm having a tough time deciding the 'right' way to go about doing things. Right now, we seem to be flying by the seat of our pants, but I think we need to lay down more established guidelines. She makes us laugh so often, kids do hilarious things. Today she had her baby with her at dinner, and was feeding her baby peas and letting her have sips of chocolate milk. The other day we were over at our neighbours house getting a tour, and Julie walked into the room I was in, dragging their (declawed) cat in a tight headlock behind her. Whoops!

Our life is crazy. Busy. We definitely didn't think we would end up having children this close in age ... it certainly has its challenges, but it's also great. Being a parent is so much fun (most of the time...). So looking forward to watching our kids grow.

This hasn't been so bad, didn't take me long to write all this. Now I feel like I have lots of things to talk about, but I will save them for little posts here and there. If I last, that is. Still feels weird to have a journal that everyone can look at. Maybe Amber will be the only one to read it, maybe Robbyn too, while she's procrastinating from school stuff.

Etsy Inspired Challenge

Life with a newborn and a toddler is crazy!!! I'm trying really hard to squeeze in some 'me' time to help me unwind and relax ... when I find myself needing a break. I found the perfect opportunity to play with some paper and ribbon today when I read my friend Virginia's blog post about her design team project for the Etsy Inspired Challenge website. I LOVE Etsy!!! The shop to choose inspiration from is FreshMetal. I perused around and really liked quite a few necklaces that were for sale ... love the fabric flowers that were used! I decided to take part in the challenge, and here is what I came up with:

I made my own fabric flowers using some sating ribbon, and adhered them to a card I created using Hero Arts stamps and various cardstock. Was nice to play a bit today!

Christmas cards!

My favourite time of year for cardmaking! Time for Christmas cards! Yayy! These are for the current challenge happening at Hero Arts. The theme is glitter.

Simon Says Challenge

Here is a card I made for the current Simon Says Stamp challenge. It is (loosely) based on a sketch which we were given to follow. I will be sending this card to Jennifer McGuire who is organizing a card drive for a family going through a tough time with their daughter recently being diagnosed with brain cancer.