This is a last minute addition! Little E took her first steps unassisted this evening; in the kitchen, holding her cucumber, one and then another. We are so very proud. I wish I caught it on video, but instead I have these...
By now you may have seen this you tube video of the twins “chatting” to each other, so cute.
If there was another Little E, I wonder if we would have any quiet time in our house. She “chats” to the dog, to herself, to us, to other dogs (that is more of a yell actually). I’m so excited to be able to understand her some day soon – when she strings together a sentence in English.
Daddy C has a strange and wonderful friend who sends him bizarre texts that sound more like Jack Handy’s Deep Thoughts.
The other day he sent one that said, “What did babies eat before baby food”? To which I replied, “Probably carpet scraps”.
Little E manages to find all kinds of goodies on our floor – things that even our loyal vacuum cleaner Jake misses. I managed to pull a piece of our dish scrubby out of her mouth before it was ingested the other day. Little E would have made a nice meal out of a spot of lint, thread from her cloth diapers and an unidentifiable hard white substance had I not intercepted in time.
I do declare we parents are merely here to keep our babies alive until they are 8; then I’m pretty sure it starts all over again as they move into their teens.
On a side note, there was an article in the Vancouver Sun today on Lyme Disease…perfect timing.
We had a date on Saturday night, that’s why I didn’t write.
It was pretty spontaneous so we didn’t really dress up, or even know where we were going until we got there.
We ended up eating a late dinner (7:45!!) at Sawasdee Thai on Main street and then since it was only about 8:45 (though long past our bed time) we headed down the street a couple of doors to Sweet Revenge. I have wanted to go there for desert since I moved to this hood a few years ago now.
YUM! We had 2 chocolate deserts and shared a bodem of decaf. Finally, at 11:00pm we slid into bed and I tossed and turned until after midnight. Really nice evening, but I think next time I will make a little more effort. Half the fun is the anticipation and preparation so come on G, step it up!
Here is a photo of one of our best dates. Our 2-year anniversary (coincidentally probably the night Little E moved from a sparkle in our eyes into a cell in my womb) it was a romantic evening of Bard on the Beach during a fireworks night.
This morning was less of an adventure and more of a … battle.
How do you work out your weekends???
Daddy C gets up with Little E between 6 and 7:00am and takes her and Jake for a walk. Although he is very good about habitually following through, there is always a “discussion” about it at the time.
We have both reasoned that since I have to get up at 2, 3 or 4:00am to nurse Little E, he could do the morning rise, especially since he was always an early riser pre-E. But, it seems now that he has to, he really doesn’t want to**.
I have realized that once Little E sleeps consistently through the night, this routine will probably change. And I will probably even enjoy the early morning walks. But for now, I relish my sacred morning sleep that I can count on being relatively uninterrupted.
** I should add a caveat here saying that Daddy C is taking a course requiring a full day most weekends until June – so really I shouldn’t complain – he’s a pretty phenomenal dad.
We went with my friend Nads to visit our friend Esther and her new baby today. Oh so sweet. I remember those days with my little slug and her jerky arm movements and sloppy facial expressions. Esther's little boy sweet as an angel sleeping on her in the sling through lunch, my little cherub playing under the table eating morsels that she'd dropped during her stint at the table and anything else she can find.
It was so nice to be on the receiving end of motherhood questions and to be able to encourage Esther on her maternal skills. I remember how much it meant to me to hear "you're doing a good job".
After our visit, we drove back in to the city to see our Naturopath. Dr. Veeravagu had asked us to come back in and had made time for us after hours. I was pretty sure he must have something important to tell us in order to schedule us in on his Friday night. It turns out he had spoken to his Lyme specialist colleague in Seattle and wanted us to get back on the antibiotics; apparently there are a lot of false negative biopsies and a good chance of having a fungal infection along with Lyme disease. He figured that the side effects from antibiotics (well combated with probiotics) were far less damaging than the long term effects of Lyme Disease.
So I had a weepy night when I picked up a prescription for Amoxicillin that was double what we were taking before and for another 6 weeks!
I will leave you with a couple of cheerful photos from our visit today and from our night out Wednesday.
Hi all
I have the flu.
After such a lovely evening with my girls last night, I woke up feeling like my insides were turning out.
It's like I was waiting for my mommy (GG) to arrive so she could look after me. And that she did!
She played with Little E all afternoon and made a delicious chicken soup for dinner.
Tomorrow I will post a photo of GG and I heading out on the town, but for now, sleep.
I never thought I would be so happy that my daughter has ringworm!
After the threat of Lyme disease, skin fungus is a fortunate diagnosis. A little topical cream and a lot of laundry is just what the doctor ordered.
Since this prognosis pretty much made my day, the other events kind of pale in comparison. Don’t get me wrong; I always love to see my friends and Little E’s too, but I think our play gym date, boot collection and afternoon nap strike don’t warrant the focus.
It’s not Lyme!!! (In the immortal words of Forrest Gump) "That's all I have to say about that".
We went for a swim today with our little friends at Hillcrest Pool.
It was fun, but busy with all the little spring break rug rats splashing and yelling all around us. Little E was a bit clingy – no doubt.
The thoughts that go through my head surprise me sometimes. While I was changing Little E after our swim I was noticing her Lyme rash and wondering what others around were thinking. I don’t usually care (that much) about what people think, but I found myself wanting to explain it. No, it’s not contagious, No, I didn’t neglect her and ruin her perfect body, Yes, it’s ok for us to be at the pool.
It’s funny though, now looking back at what I wrote; it’s probably not what others were thinking, but what I have been struggling with myself.
Little E really knows how to cheer a mom up though. She ate like a little barbarian tonight! She must be on a growth spurt. She polished off all of her usual side dishes, despite having to eat them off a spoon, and managed to eat a substantial chunk of my salmon from it’s lonely burger and some chicken left over from Auntie Soph’s last night. I think if nothing else it means she doesn’t have Daddy C’s flu. It reminded me of a book I used to love when I was little The Tiger Who Came to Tea
Here is a little video from a few months ago now that I never get tired of. Talk about a happy baby.
Over the weekend I have been flying solo, with Daddy C holed up in bed. Flu ewwww.
Not fun for anyone. This is not meant to be a rhyme, I am just a little tapped out right now. This house should really be on quarantine.
Since I have been really lousy at the Foodie Friday thing, and my brain is not functioning at it's full potential today - I'm going to leave you with a recipe that I have been using nearly every week since I found it in WhatsUp magazine: Maple Pecan Granola - subtle flavour, not too sweet, and delicious with yoghurt and a stewed prune and apricot compote.
Makes 5 Cups
- 3 Cups Rolled Oats (I use a organic mix grain from Famous Foods)
- 1 Cup Pecans
- 1 Cup Coconut (or half coconut and half sunflower seeds)
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/8 Cup Canola Oil
- 1/4 Cup Water
- 1/2 Cup Maple Syrup
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper or spray with non-stick.
2. In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients, including cinnamon.
3. In a small saucepan bring the oil, water and maple syrup to a simmer.
4. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and mix well. Spread over prepared cookie sheet.
5. Bake for 25 minutes stirring once. Turn off oven and leave granola in until oven is cool (a few hours or overnight).
Enjoy!
It's so hard not to continually think about Little E's well being.
Not to "what if" the heck out of something like this. Consciously I've decided not to treat the diagnosis like it's the only thing that I should focus on and do the opposite - try not to think about it.
It's just that any time she gets grumpy or gassy or out of sorts it's hard not to worry that the illness is causing it. Yeesh.
Tonight my choir sang at the Hycroft House with 3 other women's choirs. It was musical therapy. Each group was different and it was really nice to have a chance to hear some other singers. It was also a warm up for our main affair - Higher Ground, May 10th at Mulgrave School in West Vancouver (a little plug).
Is it too late to consider a career in musical therapy?
Little E had a fabulous 2-hour nap this morning – no doubt after yesterday! When she woke up we had a quick lunch and I pumped dose #2 of her antibiotics into her. It’s hard for me not to lick up the spill – yummy strawberry flavour.
We headed out to lab #3 to give a blood sample – I should say take a blood sample. It was most definitely not consensual from Little E’s perspective. We had a long wait with the other patients before actually going in, so Little E played patty cake and made her rounds meeting and charming everyone – including a shy little 2-year-old girl. When our number was called and we left the waiting room in the direction of bloody doom, Little E piped up with her newest and most prized trick, “bye-eee” and a wave. I was bursting with pride as the otherwise awkwardly silent room exploded into salutations, waves and smiles.
Too bad they had to listen to the screaming that followed.
Not long though, nothing a little boob can’t handle.
I made it home with just enough time to walk Jake and nap Little E in the stroller before heading off to our next appointment – our Naturopath at Sage Clinic in Yaletown.
AMAZING!!! I feel 100 times better. Dr. Veeravagu is knowledgeable, encouraging, positive, handsome, knowledgeable.
He reassured us that we had caught the disease early, and reasoned that since she had no other symptoms the bacteria hadn’t spread. He supported the antibiotics and said that if we needed to go longer he would prescribe. He has a couple of collegues in the States that are specialists in this field so he will check in with them and check back with us.
I must say, this experience has proven to me that people like babies.
All of the doctors have moved so quickly and with such care.
It started out as a pretty uneventful day of Mother/Daughter quality time.
We joined a couple of our girlfriends for lunch at the local cafe - The Outpost - and Little E filled me with pride by taking her cruising a step further. She pushed a chair around the cafe introducing herself to the diners and the lovely girls behind the counter.
Unfortunately, our afternoon took a rather negative turn.
Our dermatologist appointment lasted from 4:30 to 6:30 and consisted of photos, freezing and cutting. The doctor took 2 biopsies from her little chest to be cultured and tested. She handled it like a champ, it was me that got dizzy, sick and weepy from the procedure. (In case I wasn't clear yesterday - I feel pretty fuzzy right now - Little E had what looked like a little red bite on her chest after returning from Mexico and it has grown into the size of a quarter and shape of a bullseye).
The doc obviously wasn't fluent in Layman because I could hardly understand what he was saying about what his plan of attack would be. It consisted of me driving to VGH and navigating the incredibly confusing halls to find the lab, where I dropped specimen #1. Then I headed to another lab, actually The Centre for Disease Control where I dropped off specimen #2.
Now Daddy C is out picking up antibiotics to treat Lyme's Disease and I am an emotional wreck.
All I kept thinking while going through the process was - it could be worse. Thank goodness I'm not taking her to the hospital for heart surgery or going to the cancer research facility.
It might not even be Lyme Disease.
Please picture Little E in a healing little bubble of light for the next few days.
We had breakfast in our usual haunt and the waitresses were extra doting. Little E’s surrogate Grandparents got up early this morning to see us off with generous invites to lakeside cabins and homes in Sidney to experience home cooking. We felt like celebrities (well groupies riding our babies coattails).
In the airport we arrived to another long line of people waiting to check in, happily the baby friendly Mexican culture permitted a Transat employee to fish us out and pull us to the front of the line to check in. Hooray!
Off we went to buy Tequila from the duty free. In the little shop, before heading through security we had Tequila tasters to be sure we were getting the right stuff. Mmm no need to take the edge off for this security though; once again the babies were our ticket to the VIP treatment.
Long and the short – bring your baby to Mexico.
Fast forward to present day…The only thing that is turning out negative about the experience is the souvenir that Little E has brought home. What started out as a little red bump has turned into an alarming large, red circle on her perfect little chest. After a doctors appointment yesterday we are being referred to a dermatologist tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Friday my girlfriend and I had some free time! Weeeee shopping!!
We cruised the little strip for some silver. It was such a charming little town, full of mostly Mexican tourists it seemed. Everyone friendly and offering an “hola” in return for our excited demonstration of our limited language skills.
We found a great little silver shop called Arnie’s. I bought 2 rings and called it quits (saving for Trinidad after all). I could have easily kept going but I’m proud to say I practiced restraint.
When we got back to our resort, we were relieved to see that Dad’s and babies were thriving. Little E was due for an afternoon nap – what luck; and so was Jude. We had adult time (tequila shots) by the pool and tried to soak up some last minute sun. In the form of a burnt scalp – it’s not dandruff I promise!
Daddy C and I took up the generous offer of our dear friends to watch Little E’s monitor that night while we finally took in the nightly entertainment. After a romantic walk on the beach, we managed to catch comedy night. I’m sure it would have been really funny, except that it was mostly in Spanish. The acts were extremely vaudeville (can that be an advective?) with over the top costumes and movement so we were amused at least.
Then off to bed for one last sleep before our return home, feeling not quite ready to leave!
Thursday we went into La Punita to the market. We got an early start because we were warned that by 10:00am the streets would be swarming with shoppers, ewww.
Our plan was to walk there and then taxi back, but we had been given a varying account of the amount of time it would take us. Once in front of the hotel we asked a porter friend how long he thought it would take – too long! Coincidentally, he was talking with Big John, a fellow who had moved down from Calgary permanently after 12 years of vacationing. Big John offered to take us to the market, so we hopped in his rickety old SUV and off we went.
Unfortunately, just as we were pulling up to our final destination, Big John nailed the back of a local's truck and broke the tail light. We felt a little awkward sitting there debating internally whether we hop out and run or sit through the negotiations. We sat. It was no Canadian settlement that’s for sure – 100 pesos later we were on our way to spending our own money.
We got some fun stuff and chatted with various people. When the morning heat started to intensify we got the heck out of there; back to the pool for a dip.
That night was Mexican night – perfect. We listened to a mariachi band and played some carnival type games outside in the square before heading over for a yummy authentic dinner.
On Wednesday we spent the day at the resort Beach Club about a 5 minute drive on the bus provided, to a little beach with fabulous body surfing waves.
It was just what the doctor ordered after a night of screaming and crying nearly inconsolably from Little E. We woke up rather worried actually, that it was something more than her teeth that was bothering her…
But luckily she had an excellent nap on a beach chair and gave Daddy C and I some play time.
Since these next two days were so picturesque I will keep the dialogue short and the pictures long…
Daddy C’s cousins live in a funky home just outside of the also funky town of Sayulita – about a 15 minute drive south of our little paradise.
Sarah and family live in a house built into the rock on the side of a cliff overlooking a private beach. Pretty much the quintessential move to a Mexico dream spot. We spent the afternoon there eating a fabulous fish meal that the lovely clan assembled and keeping the babies from crawling/running like lemmings to their demise.
When we returned, just as we pulled up to our resort Little E had a huge avocado barf all over me (a la Superbowl). I think on top of her teething struggles she became carsick on the drive home.
My book club is meeting on Saturday and I finally put my hands on the book on Monday. Every spare moment away from Little E and the kitchen, I am reading.
I can't wait to give you a review - it is so relative to the life of raising a woman or being one. It is all about our elusive sexuality! Anyway, I'm already brewing some fabulous ideas for raising my little peach with a high self esteem and a strong mental attitude.
Anyone have a similar experience with a profound book on boys/men?
I’m not sure if I should tell you this, it may make you change your mind about my tales of an idyllic Mexican resort…I wasn’t there for the encounter and after the recounting I still managed to enjoy my stay, so I will pass the horror on to you.
Three words: Venomous Sea Snakes.
Daddy C was valiantly walking Little E early Monday morning (I had a lie in) and with utter revulsion found himself a piggy in the middle of a little boy snake toss. Apparently the snakes don’t “attack” they wash up on shore nearly dead, so despite the venom they are not something to be worried about. Daddy C would beg to differ.
Nevertheless, we managed to put the serpents out of our minds and brave a swim in the otherwise luxurious waves.
[Flash forward to present day…Little E had her first gymnastics class today. It was “in, out and through”. Next week I will bring my camera].
Our first day at Decameron Los Cocos in Rincon de Guayabitos was cloudy. Apparently the first cloudy day since November…hmmm not so sure if I believe that although our Vancouver weather may be clouding my faith.
It was actually kind of a relief since my blue/translucent skin probably couldn’t have taken the blazing sun right off the bat.
The resort itself is simple with not many bells and whistles and only 3 restaurants and a snack bar. But the grounds are beautifully landscaped and incredibly clean.The rooms we had were in the new part of the resort and were large and comfortable, although next time I wouldn’t bother upgrading and would opt for a room close to the beach and the “action”. The food was good with lots of variety, and the staff was happy and friendly. It seemed that the hotel was mostly occupied by Mexican families and retired Canadians back for the 3rd, 4th, 5th time. Great Value!!!
We had a walk on the bustling beach pointing out the fanfare to our wide-eyed babes. (Not sure if I mentioned we went with another couple and their 18-month-old boy, more on that later) The majority of people on the beach were Mexican and on vacation from other parts of the country, all kinds of family activity.
There were a number of fishmongers selling fish right off their boats: red snapper, eel, shrimp and those were just the ones I could identify…many more! And of course the huge pelicans were swooping in – a little too close to my head – jostling for position in order to catch the heads and guts being flung to the side.
The vendors with their colourful blow up toys attached to every square inch of the cart looked like balloons threatening to lift off in a gust of wind. And with all of this activity, Little E managed to pick out the mangy dogs and puppies with a shriek and giggle – something familiar I suppose. Her first official word: doggie, sounding more like “dah-ee”.
We’re back, and I’m glowing!!! Not from a tan – or more likely a burn with my colouring – but from a fabulous holiday at the perfect resort in the best company.
I’ll give you each day one entry at a time since there was no shortage of adventure!
The flight there was a breeze! Luckily we had phoned an Escapes.ca travel agent instead of booking online because there turned out to be a more civilized flight time available than the ones advertised on the website.
Our flight out left at 6:00am, and since Little E was getting up at 3:00 or 4:00am for a nurse I didn’t feel too guilty getting her out of bed to make the voyage. She actually seemed rather chipper at that time of the morning. It also meant that she fell back asleep while nursing during take off. Perfect.
We flew with Air Transat, the crew was great, but the seats are cramped. I would highly recommend paying the extra cash for the bulkhead seats, especially with little ones. Luckily, our cohort had brought a portable DVD player so when Little E got a little squirmy we happily caved to the cartoon tool. I am hoping to have an iPad for the next plane ride (Trinidad?) we’ll need it by that time.
When we arrived in Puerto Vallarta there was a massive line up to clear customs. And in the true stereotypical Mexican style the queue grew horizontally instead of vertically. In other words, people were told to “merge”. There was a lot of groaning, and fist shaking and who knows what I would have done had we not been up at the front at that point…I get a little road rage – I’m working on it. A little tip though, if this happens to you, just move to the front and use the baby as your ticket!
The sights, sounds and attention from enthusiastic travellers (lots of grandparents) wore the babes out and Little E passed out peacefully on my lap on the hour-long bus ride to the resort. We guzzled Corona provided by the bus driver – ahhhh holidays!
