Ottawa was fun, scary heavy doll filled with rocks

We had an excellent visit to Ottawa. First we visited with Brandon, Krista, and Eric, then we went to our respective conferences (Canadian Psychological Association for me and Canadian Society for Brain, Behavior, and Behavioral Science for Jeff), and then visited Scott, Amica, and Rowan. We had lots of toddler time,

Reading to Eric

Teaching Rowan about old Nintendo

saw the sites,

At the Ottawa river with Brandon

On Parliament Hill

 and had the chance to visit some of Ottawa's more unusual offerings. We went out to a place called House of Targ where you can play video games, pinball, and get really good pierogies.

Video gaming at House of Targ

Last day in Ottawa with Rowan and Scott

 Since returning, we have been organizing our selves out work for the summer and organizing our plans for getting ready for the baby. There is a lot to do at work to get ready to be gone for an extended period of time, and trying to figure out how to get all that done can be a bit overwhelming but I'm sure it will all work out. We made a list of all the things we need to have ready before the baby comes, including things we need to buy, and we essentially filled each weekend for the next ten or so weeks with one or more of the most important things from the list. I think that this will mostly be fun, but it is also a lot of work. Yesterday we moved my desk and office things into the room that has been Jeff's office in order to start turning my office into a baby room. That was mostly work and not so much fun, but doing things like going to baby stores and garage sales should be better.

I think I may have mentioned that I have had a couple of sessions with an occupational therapist, specifically related to figuring out what kinds of adaptations I may need in order to be as independent as possible in taking care of the baby. One of the things that she mentioned was possibly trying certain things out with a weighted doll, which of course is nothing like a real baby that wriggles and such, but for certain things might be better than no preparation. For example, figuring out how I need to distribute weight for safe carrying – whether I can carry the baby in a car seat, whether I can wear the baby in a carrier, whether I can lift the baby out of the crib, etc. The problem was that we could not find a doll that was realistically weighted.

But on Friday I went to a baby store in search of a wedge pillow to help with positioning while sleeping (an ongoing issue which I will surely blog about again soon), and although they didn't have the pillow the woman at the store mentioned that they have weighted dolls that they use for letting people try out different baby carriers. I asked where they got them, and the woman explained that they make them from dolls they buy at Walmart which they fill with aquarium rocks. I was super excited by this, and armed with the knowledge that there are instructions online for how to do this, this morning I went to Walmart and bought a doll and some aquarium rocks. It took the better part of an afternoon, but now I have a doll that weighs a little over 9 pounds, which I can use for the purposes of occupational therapy. The doll is not perfectly realistic in terms of shape or distribution of weight, but it will absolutely serve my purposes.

Koshka is concerned about the doll

Both Jeff and I initially thought that it felt much heavier than 9 pounds, and looks a little scary, and Koshka seems to agree. But if she doesn't like this, she's in for quite a shock come September!