Bluestocking Biddy: 2016

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Sunday, December 18, 2016

On Friday we had an appointment with the paediatrician to check up on Maren. She had gained almost a pound over three weeks, which is great news. She is catching up to where she ought to be.

The paediatrician asked about developmental milestones, and we mentioned that she is talking a lot. Last weekend we were in Toronto visiting Jeff's family for an early Christmas, and Maren has not stopped talking about it – she says "Ella" (her three-year-old cousin), "Lola" (the dog), and "Ah-ah" (auntie Allison) several times a day. She mentions others as well, but their names are harder to say :-) She also says "ha-pah" (airplane) and points to the sky.

The paediatrician said that she must be very smart because she is "not supposed to be doing that yet." Out of curiosity, we tried to make a list of the words that Maren can say. We started the list on Friday and came up with what we could, but somethings were left off, and then it seems like she learns new words every day. Since making the list she has started saying "Santa" all the time, and keeps asking for her "cah" (cards), which were part of a Christmas gift from her uncle Ray and auntie Shuo and cousin Elliot. Here is the list we came up with:

Words Maren says Dec 16 2016

Noodles
Oatmeal
Banana
Apple
Pear
Milk
Cracker
Yogurt
Cottage cheese
All done
Ball
Boot
Book
Cat
Paper
Hippo
Owl
Hat
people
Man
Mama
Dada
Peanut butter ball
Hot air balloon
Car
Airplane
Truck
Duck
Bear
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Carrot
Pants
Baby
Goat
Pig
Eye
Chin
Cheek
Arm
Elbow
Bee
Bib
High chair
Water
Bird
Bug
Nose
Mouth
Teeth
Diaper
Block
Turtle
Chair
Egg
Hi
Bye bye
Yeah
No
High five
Backpack
Daycare
Veggies

Jeff tells me that after toddlers reach 50 words, they have a word explosion. I think we have reached that stage. It is hilarious and tons of fun :)

Sunday, December 04, 2016

Less worry

We are starting to feel better about Maren's eating. She has been on the appetite stimulant at the lowest dose for about ten days, and so far it seems to really be working. She is still a toddler, and therefore her behavior is at times completely unpredictable and inexplicable, but overall she is eating much more. She is regularly asking for food, which she really never did before, and having three regular meals and at least two snacks every day. It is a huge relief. After about five days, Jeff and I both noticed that her cheeks seemed a bit chubbier already. We met with the dietitian last Monday, and she looked over our three day food log (started the day that we had started the appetite stimulant), and said that Maren was eating all the right things. We don't go back to the pediatrician until December 16, so we won't get her weight again until then, but I am certain that she will have gained weight by then.

Yesterday I took several videos of Maren, just because. Here is one that I took without her knowing, showing her improved walking skills:

She is a pretty cautious baby. The other day she noticed that the gate at the top of the stairs was open, so she said "uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh," and tried to close the gate. She is not a big risk taker, so she might be slower than some to start running around, but that makes life easier for us :-)

Meanwhile, her language is exploding. Many of her words don't sound much like the words she is trying to say, but some of them are close to perfect. Today she started saying "tur-tle," and it is really funny to hear a very intelligible word when most words are only understandable based on context. One of these days we are going to have to make a list of all the things she says, and how she says them. Right now she is a lot of fun :-)

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Lightweight monkey

This morning we caught a few photos from Maren's bath. Just seconds earlier she had been smiling at the monkey in the mirror, but it is nearly impossible to catch that on camera :-)

This past week we went to see a paediatrician for the second time. I have been worried about Maren's weight gain for quite some time. When she went for her nine month check up in June, she hadn't gained any weight since I last weighed her a month prior. In early July, I convinced a doctor in our family doctor's office to refer Maren to a pediatrician. Here in Saskatchewan babies don't go to the paediatrician unless there is a problem – everything is generally taken care of by the family doctor. Since it was considered a low priority case, we did not get an appointment with the paediatrician until November 2.

We saw the family doctor a couple of times before going to the paediatrician, and even had blood work done twice. Maren continued to not gain weight, but the blood work came back totally fine, so we were told not to worry. When we finally had our appointment, we were told to try feeding her higher calorie foods, and come back in three weeks. We have tried over and over again to feed her high calorie foods, but she just doesn't eat that much.

By the time we came back for our follow-up last week, Maren had not gained weight for six months. She has continued to get taller, and is meeting all of her developmental milestones, so all that is good, and her blood work is good. However, at this point the paediatrician let us know that she is worried about Maren's lack of weight gain. I was actually relieved to hear her say this, because I have been worried for a long time and have felt like no one else seemed to think there was a problem. So at least now there is someone else paying attention.

The doctor prescribed an appetite stimulant, which is actually just an over the counter antihistamine that has a side effect of increased appetite. The prescribed dose is lower than is generally used for antihistamine use of the drug. We have the drug for three days, and so far it actually seems to be helping. Maren is eating quite a bit more, and more high fat foods.

At this point we are hopeful. We are seeing a dietician tomorrow, and will have a follow-up appointment on December 16 with the pediatrician. Fingers crossed that this solves the problem, and that there is no new problem discovered!

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Exercise and a little bit more

First, I have re-uploaded the video of Maren walking, because apparently it did not work. You are all too polite – liking the blog post without being able to watch the video, and not saying anything about it :-)

I have been doing my best to get outside most days. In the past, that was quite tricky – walking is too much of a challenge for me to go out for a walk most days, and it has been hard to find an alternative that works for me and is also convenient enough to go out for a quick twenty minutes or half hour when that is all the time there is. But my new tricycle has been working really well. It really feels like the equivalent of going for a walk, and is easy enough to go out on that we are able to go for a tricycle ride as easily as for a walk. When I say we, I mean either me, Jeff, and Maren, or just me and Maren. When it is just the two of us, I put Maren forward facing in the carrier, and wear her like a front facing backpack. It works well.

One slight downside to going out on the tricycle is that it does attract some attention. A lot of men men, a few women, and actually most children, think the tricycle is very cool, and ask me where I got it, etc. However, unlike with some things, like my scooter, I don't feel the need to explain that I have a disability, and that that is why I am riding a trike. Sometimes I do, and I did feel the need to explain at first, but I am getting better about just saying "thanks" when people say "that thing is awesome!," or something similar.

Not too long ago, I was riding the trike with Maren. There was a family out in front of their house raking leaves – a mom, a dad, and two kids who were probably about six and three. The dad said in a thick Indian accent "Oh I like this! We should get this! It is exercise and a little bit more!" There are times when I feel down about the fact that I can't go for long walks. But riding the trike is fun. There are lots of people that I pass who are walking, who wish they were riding my trike. And when I wish I was walking, it is good to remember that the trike is "exercise and a little bit more" :-)

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Walking

Maren took her first steps this week!

Things have been quite busy around here, so blogging hasn't been so consistent, and hasn't been top priority. But the last day of classes for the semester is less than a month away, so hopefully things will settle down soon!

In the meantime, I am enjoying Maren as much as possible, and am so excited to see her starting to walk :)

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Jeff Birthday

Things have been a little crazy around here, with the middle of the semester, and being right in the thick of teaching and other commitments. But this week was Jeff's birthday, and Halloween is tomorrow, and those are important events in our household.

In the lead up, Jeff got a couple of pumpkins to carve, and Maren has liked them a lot.

Jeff didn't want any presents this year, just cake and ice cream, and we had some friends over today to celebrate. We tried using the castle shaped bundt pan that we got as a wedding gift, but it has been a while since we used it. The results were less than stunning.

We tried again, with some advice from the Internet, and the results were a bit better.

I made a chocolate orange flavoured ice cream, and it was a big hit. The party was a bit crazy, with two 3-year-olds and one almost 3-year-old, as well as Maren and another almost 1-year-old. Add eight adults, and our small house was quite full. It was lots of fun, but Maren was clingy and subdued. I thought it was because of the general craziness in the house, but then she refused to eat any dinner. It turns out she has a fever 😕 It seems that she has been constantly sick for a while. She has actually been OK the last couple of weeks, but now being sick again, I feel really bad for her. Poor kiddo. I hope that all of these daycare colds and other illnesses run through her system and then she stays healthy for a while!

Sunday, October 16, 2016

One photo

Sunday, October 09, 2016

Maren is One Year Old!

Once again I have too little time, so I am going to be concise.

Up until this week, the weather was beautiful. We got in some good outside time. I was reminded that it felt like summer up until the day Maren was born last year, then quickly got cold.

And now it's getting cold again, and Maren is a year old! On her birthday, she opened presents throughout the day so she wouldn't be overwhelmed. Some highlights:

We had her last monthly photo shoot:

Then last weekend, my mom came for a visit, and we had a little birthday party. Maren ate "cake" for the first time (apple spice cupcakes sweetened with applesauce and prunes, and cream cheese prune paste frosting - no sugar).

The day of her party she was starting to get sick. She was pretty subdued and needed lots of cuddles for a few days. I stayed home from work and had my TA cover one of my classes.

Then she seemed to be getting sicker and sicker. We took her to the doctor for the second time on Wednesday, and at that point she was sent for a chest x-ray, blood work, a urine sample, and put on antibiotics and a special diaper cream. By that time she had a double eye infection (which we had been giving her antibiotic drops for since Saturday), infected diaper rash, and a chest infection. Poor kiddo! Also might have been having some side effects from immunizations the previous Wednesday. She is still not 100%, but is doing much better after starting antibiotics. Now Jeff and I both have colds and I have lost my voice. Hoping we will all be healthy again soon!

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Moving and shaking

I don't have much time tonight, so I will just leave you with this video that I took yesterday. It is not particularly exciting, but note that Maren has moved from small bucket to upside down garbage can to cat food container as her walker of choice :)

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Play date

Yesterday we had a play date with some babies - and their moms - from the moms group I was going to before starting back at work. It was super fun to see these moms and babies in an unstructured social setting.

We also started back up with the library program that we did in the spring, and there were lots of babies there really close in age to Maren. I am hoping that maybe we will end up making some friends there this fall.

Having a baby really changed our social life, and for me I feel like it has been for the better. I have been meeting lots of moms, and it is helping me to feel much more connected to Regina. We have some friends who also have babies and toddlers, and the kinds of things we do with them has changed with the addition of kids, but we now have one more thing in common. It may be a while before we have a games night again, but until then, breakfast/brunch/lunch together is great.

And just for fun, a video of Maren this afternoon:

Sunday, September 11, 2016

The latest on sleep

We have been working on sleep for quite some time. At times it has been frustrating, and even agonizing. We opted for "gentle sleep coaching," but there was quite a bit more crying than I was happy with. We stuck with our plan, but had to get some reassurance from our sleep consultant couple of times. After describing how things were going, she suggested we read their article on temperament. As if we didn't know what temperament was. Apparently Maren has a slightly more difficult temperament when it comes to sleep coaching, even though she is an easy baby. So where some people see results in a couple of weeks, we have been doing this for basically a couple of months. However, all this hard work is starting to pay off. We are seeing some serious improvements in sleep!

For the last several nights, we have had pretty incredible sleep. Maren has woken up a couple of times in the night, but quickly put herself back to sleep (within a couple of minutes). And, for the last couple of days, we have had incredible naps. Maren's morning naps are starting to be more like what we have been told they "should" be like: she has been sleeping for ninety minutes or more. Her afternoon naps are a bit shorter, but still around maybe forty-five minutes. All of her sleeping is now in the crib. We do our routine, put her down, and within a couple of minutes she goes to sleep. Last night it took a bit longer for her to go down, because she was wrestling with her stuffed bunny, but she seems to actually really enjoy bedtime these days.

And, for the first time in a very, very long time, I am getting decent sleep. It is blissful :-)

Monday, September 05, 2016

Bucket

Jeff had a bucket in his lab that he was going to get rid of (toys for child research participants came in it, and it had no use). I thought it was a nice bucket, and Maren might enjoy putting things into it and dumping them out. She loves the bucket, but found an entirely different purpose for it.

She used it for the first time on Saturday:

This was her first time using anything as a walker.

Now by today she has become proficient:

She and her bucket are now pretty much inseparable!

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Eleven-month-old Maren

Friday was Maren's eleven month birthday. I can't believe that she is almost a year old! At eleven months, she is more expressive than ever. She is able to communicate a lot with pointing and sounds, and has even started saying a few words. She is not super consistent, but she says all sorts of things, like ball, hat, duck, baby, mama, dada, apple, bubbles, bear, and I'm not sure what else. Of course most of these sound nothing like the actual words, with the exception of mama and dada. She is crawling faster and faster, and standing up with just a little support. She had four teeth come in in the past month, and can now bite things like apples and peaches. She is acting more and more like a kid and less like a baby.

We are continuing to work on sleep, and although we are having ups and downs still, it seems like things are starting to improve. It seems like it is a little harder to make changes to sleep for Maren compared with how it seems to go for other babies. We are not doing a quick cry-it-out approach, so we knew it would take longer, but Maren is expressive of her opinions about things. She is quite expressive about her displeasure with some of the changes we have been making to sleep. However, we have been very consistent, and have been working with some of the changes for a long time now, and as she is getting more used to the routine she is liking it better. This morning we had a huge triumph where she went to sleep for a nap in her crib with about ten seconds of fussing, and stayed asleep for over an hour. She has never napped in her crib for that long. The magic was not repeated for her afternoon nap, but I think we are making slow steady progress.

She is a joyful little baby, and we love every minute that we spend with her :-)

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Big red tricycle

I have many things to talk about today, so I will list them by number:

1. I bought a tricycle. It is just like a kids tricycle, only bigger. The purpose of buying this tricycle was to have some way of doing the equivalent of going for a walk. Right now I have a recumbent bike and my scooter, and neither one is really like going for a walk. The tricycle requires about the same amount of effort as walking to go at walking speed, and I sit higher up on it so going for a walk with someone else is better – it is easier to walk and talk. This thing is quite heavy, and wide, so it's not perfect, but it is a way for me to feel stable and comfortable and get a bit of exercise. The biggest draw is that supposedly it works in the snow. The wheels are pretty heavy duty, so I think it probably will work. This is my attempt at finding a way to get outside in the winter :-)

2. Daycare is starting to go better. The first few days were amazing, and Maren had a super fun time. She wasn't upset and all after we left, and she just played. Then something happened, maybe she caught on to the fact that we were going to keep leaving her there, and she started to be very upset. She cried the entire time she was there (about two hours) twice. We were told by a couple of people at the daycare that we were not bringing her at a particularly good time, since people were going on break, it was right around lunch so everyone was busy feeding the kids, and we were told that breaking her in the morning early would be better. But we were concerned about naps, so we were bringing her between naps. But after a couple of days of having her cry the whole time, we decided that it was better for her to not nap and perhaps have more time to get to know the staff. So last week on Thursday and Friday we brought her in for the whole morning, from about eight fifteen until twelve fifteen or so. It went much better. The first day we did this she cried for the first ten minutes, and then was okay, and the second day she cried as we were leaving, but then didn't cry the rest of the time. On the second day she even had a half hour nap! So now we are going to start bringing her every morning, as having a consistent routine seems to help with these changes. This means that even though I did not really plan on going back to work until about two weeks from now, I am back at work. I thought I would be pretty sad about it, but being back at work is kind of fun and stimulating. The only thing I am sad about is being away from Maren for hours at a time, but knowing that she is in good hands and that she is doing okay makes it easier :-)

3. I think Maren may be starting to use her first words. It is confusing, because she has been babbling for a long time with the same sounds, and she isn't super consistent yet, but it seems like she is saying mama, dada, duck, ball, and hat. This video is not perfect, but gives you an idea:

4. Sleep. I am feeling very ambivalent about our sleep coaching plan. It has taken us a huge amount of time, and we are starting to see some results. Maren is now able to go to sleep in her crib within about five minutes at night, with little to no crying. Last night, amazingly, she slept the entire night without waking up ( this is not necessarily expected – as part of the plan, she is still expected to potentially wake up for a feed one time after I go to bed). I did a "dream feed" where I fed her just before I went to bed without waking her up, and then she didn't wake up again until just before 7 AM. So that part is going extremely well. The part I am feeling ambivalent about right now is naps. Right now she is crying for 20 to 30 minutes before each nap. I feel horrible about it! I understand that maybe it doesn't sound that bad, but she really doesn't cry that much or for that long, except occasionally in the car. It upsets me quite a bit to see her so upset. I am hoping that naps get better pretty quickly, because it seems so stressful for her, and it is definitely stressful for me!

Sunday, August 14, 2016

More about sleep

First, I need to acknowledge that Jeff and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary on August 4. It is hard to believe that it has been ten years already! Maren has started easing into daycare, and she had her second day on our anniversary, so we went out to lunch (she was only there for about an hour and a half or two hours). Later that night, we opened up our "wedding predictionary," in which Jeff and I and our wedding guests all made predictions about what would transpire over the ten years following our wedding. It was fun to read what people had written, and what we had written. Some people were right on in their predictions, which was interesting, and some people just had fun with it :-) In many ways it was not what we had anticipated for our ten year anniversary, as I think that we thought we would do something more elaborate. But sitting on the couch at home looking at people's predictions for what our life would be like now, while Maren was asleep down the hall, is probably more fitting anyway. We did take our trip to Hawaii (though I don't think we would have made the trek if it was just for anniversary), but in general it might feel not quite genuine to make a big deal out of it :-)

We are still in the midst of our long journey toward better sleep for Maren. The first few nights of our sleep plan went really well – Maren was able to fall asleep fairly quickly and without tears while getting use to falling asleep without nursing. After that, things were rougher for a little while. The next step after falling asleep without nursing was to have Maren fall asleep in her crib, but with us helping in any way we could. So the first night she fell asleep pretty easily with me just rubbing her back. The next night was not so easy – she got upset, and Jeff ended up rocking her to sleep. Same thing the next night.

According to our sleep plan, if Maren was not taking well to this step, we were simply supposed to move on to the next step, which was having her fall asleep in her crib with comfort from us but without us helping her all the way to sleep. This did not go so well at all. There was lots and lots of crying, despite many attempts at comforting her. The crying was intense, and quite distressing to me. Things were supposed to be much better after three nights, but they were not. And then Jeff had to go to a conference in Philadelphia. So I continued with our sleep plan for two nights while he was away, and the first night went pretty well, but the second night not so well. And then Maren got sick and had a fever. So our sleep coaching was put on pause while we waited for her to get better.

Fortunately, she got better very quickly, and we were able to resume. We expected things to be pretty much the same as they were before the pause, but things have turned out to be completely different. At least in terms of crying. For the past two nights she has spent some time playing in her crib before going to sleep, and crying for short bursts (which are intense, but sometimes limited to just a few seconds). She does actually seem to be figuring out how to put herself to sleep. Although it is taking a while so far (almost an hour and a half last night and almost an hour tonight), it seems like we are starting to make progress.

However, I am a little worried because this sleep plan has us continuing to work on going to sleep, then adding in working on night wakings, and only after that starting to work on naps. I am worried because we will need her to be at daycare during nap time in just a few weeks. I am not sure whether we will have gotten naps working well in the crib by then. I will give more details about daycare soon, but for now keep your fingers crossed that sleep improves more quickly so that we can start having Maren try to be at daycare during naptime!

Sunday, August 07, 2016

Some Maren pics from yesterday

Tasty garden peas

Sneaking up on Maddy

"Hey, where are you going?!"

Maddy can get away, but the hose can't

Enjoying the Regina Folk Festival later that afternoon

Monday, August 01, 2016

Sleep

First, let me say that I am not impressed so far with Windows 10. Every time I turn on my computer I run into some kind of problem. Today I was unable to open my web browser (chrome), so I am using "Microsoft edge," and I swear that I am being forced to use Microsoft products against my will. The problems I am having are cutting significantly into my blog time, which is very limited as it is. I may gripe about this a bit more later, but for now I am done.

Last weekend we took a short trip to Columbus for our friend Meredith's wedding. It was a very quick trip, but lots of fun.

As I have mentioned previously, sleep has been up and down, and we really needed to do something to improve it. We decided to hire a sleep consultant (online), and we are working through a sleep plan. The last couple of weeks we have been working on being consistent with a new schedule, and this has improved the length of naps a bit. Tonight was the first night of changing up bed time, and it went fairly well. Normally Maren nurses to sleep, and tonight was the first night of getting her to fall asleep without nursing. We switched up our bedtime routine so that we read some books after nursing, and then used other methods (rocking, bouncing, rubbing her back) to get her to fall asleep. She was unhappy and frustrated at first, but pretty quickly was able to fall asleep. She still fell asleep on me, and I had to transfer her to her crib, but this is the first step in getting her to fall asleep in her crib, and hopefully stay asleep for much of the night. Fingers crossed that things keep working!

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Moving furniture

*Note: I was going to write a more extensive post, but I was recently forced to upgrade to Windows 10, and I had to work out some bugs before I could start this post!

Two days ago we moved Maren's crib into her own room, out of our bedroom. Up until now it had been sidecarred to our bed, with one side removed, so that it opened up onto our bed. However, now that Maren can crawl, it was not really safe – she had crawled into some positions that made us nervous. So, we moved her crib. So far the move has been okay, although sleep has been a little rough. The thing is, that she got a cold exactly when we moved her crib, so it is impossible to tell whether sleep has been difficult because of the move or because of the cold. Either way, I think it will improve soon :-)

Moving the crib has meant moving furniture all over the house. In order for us to make room for her crib, we rearranged our whole bedroom including moving Jeff's dresser temporarily to the basement. In addition, our guest bedroom mattress was firmer and therefore safer for a baby, so we had that mattress up on our bed and our soft comfy mattress in the basement guest room. Both the dresser and the comfy mattress have now been returned to our bedroom. Additionally, we had rearranged the living room to make space for the new rocking chair that we got before Maren was born. Now that her crib is in the nursery, we moved the rocking chair there as well, so that I would be able to nurse her and put her to bed. So the living room has been put back to normal as well, although we are having some trouble remembering exactly what normal was :-)

I was a bit sad to be moving Maren out of our bedroom, but having the house be a bit back to normal, and having my comfortable mattress back, have made me less sad. Jeff keeps reminding me that all of the lasts (last time I nursed her to sleep in our bedroom with her crib there) also lead into firsts (like eventually the first time she will sleep through the night, which I think may still be a long way off). She is growing up, and I am having to get better at dealing with change, because now it is happening constantly!

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Hawaii

Last week we returned from a trip to Hawaii. It was a trip with my family to celebrate my mom's sixtieth birthday. It has also been ten years since Jeff and I were in Hawaii for our honeymoon, so it was a special trip for many reasons. Here are a few pictures from our trip:

Maren's first venture into the ocean

A family picture after having breakfast at the hotel where Jeff and I had our honeymoon

At Akaka falls on the rainy side of the island

One of the most exciting parts of our trip was Maren starting to crawl! We had a long layover in the Seattle airport on the way to Hawaii, and we found an empty gate to hang out at for part of our wait. While Jeff was off getting some food for us, Maren suddenly started to crawl (toward some garbage that was under the chairs). It has been lots of fun watching her explore :-) Here she is at the house we stayed at having a nice crawl under some stools:

Sunday, June 26, 2016

9 months

Today Maren is nine months old.

I know I say this a lot, but I can't believe she is as old as she is. In some ways I still think of her as a newborn, but we visited this past week with some friends who just had a baby, and I was reminded of how different Maren is now from what she was like when she was really a newborn.

She isn't crawling yet, but she is definitely moving! We can no longer set her down and expect her to be in the same place if we leave her for a minute or two. She is a rolling all over the place, pushing herself backwards at a very fast rate sometimes, and sometimes gets from one place to another in ways that I don't fully comprehend. It seems that sometimes she wills herself in a certain direction if I look away :-)

Sleep is a common topic of conversation, has always. She has had ups and downs, but is generally a reasonably good sleeper. We never really have trouble getting her to sleep for the night, and although there will be some interruptions for feeding, she does sleep for about eleven hours at night. Naps have been more challenging, as she is currently only sleeping in the carrier worn by me or Jeff, or sometimes in her car seat. I can take her out for a scooter ride or bike ride and she almost always (or maybe always) falls asleep. Sometimes it takes a while, but it is generally nice for me to get out and go for a ride anyway on the nice path system that we have here, so I don't mind. It is harder for Jeff, as he sometimes has to do deep squats to get her to sleep. He also sometimes has to move kind of erratically in order for her to calm down, and he has joked that he has to move like Elaine from Seinfeld does when she is dancing. We would love it if she would take two hour naps in her crib like some babies do, but she is not that baby.

Maren at nine months is still a joyful little baby. She continues to be strongly aware of her wants and needs, and is becoming more able to express them. She has strong opinions and preferences sometimes, and although it can be a bit tiring, I also love seeing her personality developing :-) She is getting really good at eating, and at different times will have a preference for different foods but generally loves cheese, grain-based foods like crackers and pasta, yogurt (though she is still somewhat ambivalent about spoons – fortunately spoons have been "in" the last couple of days), raisins, prunes, peaches, and Cheerios. She at least tries everything we give her, but these seem to be her consistent favorites for now.

She is starting to understand more, and we are starting to think that she may understand some of the words that we say, though we are not quite sure about this yet. She laughs lots, and on a couple of occasions has given me "kisses" – putting her open mouth on my face – which until now has been reserved for certain stuffed animals. She loves cats, and Maddy in particular. We love our little kiddo, and love that she is becoming more and more interactive :-)

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Happy Father's Day :)

This Father's Day, Maren gave Jeff a dental exam:

We have had a very busy week, with many appointments and lots of stuff that has not felt particularly interesting or fun. On Friday Jeff was commenting that he felt like we hardly saw each other all week. So this weekend we focused on spending lots of family time together. Yesterday we took a scooter ride/bike ride to a local ice cream shop. We have not gone out for ice cream since Maren was born (except when we were in Oregon, and had extra hands), and since she has started eating and become very grabby I was thinking it would not be possible for a while. However, we realized that we could get just a plain cone (no ice cream) for her, which would keep her busy. We tried it and it was a great success – she enjoyed the cone greatly.

June 13 was the four year anniversary of my surgery. It has been interesting to reflect a bit on it with a few years of distance. I have not made any significant gains in physical abilities for the last couple of years, but I have definitely seen functional improvements related to adapting better to my limitations. The trip out for ice cream was a way to mark the anniversary in a positive way – whereas in the past I might have taken a walk to go out for ice cream, now I ride my scooter. I can wear Maren in the carrier, and she has a great time.

I was reminded recently that not everyone who reads this blog knows everything about what has happened in the past four years. So here is the short story: I had something called a cavernous malformation in my brainstem, in the left pons region. It was first discovered in 2010, and in 2012 after leaking blood into my brainstem twice, it was recommended that I have it removed surgically. Going into the surgery I basically had no deficits, but coming out I had extreme deficits. I have worked hard at my rehabilitation, but I am still left with a number of disabilities. The basic rundown is that I have global problems with coordination, which affect my ability to do things like type, speak quickly, and do just about all types of fine motor and gross motor tasks. I also have problems with balance, and these two things in combination make it very difficult for me to walk long distances, and make it impossible for me to do things like go up and down stairs without support. I used to run long distances, and now I really can't run at all (except for awkwardly, with great effort, for a few meters). The entire right side of my body has sensory impairment, meaning that I cannot feel most types of sensation on that side, I have hearing impairment in my right ear, and I have chronic pain throughout the entire right side of my body.

Despite all of this, there are many good things that have happened in the past four years. I have learned, and continue to learn, ways to adapt to these disabilities. The strength of my relationship with Jeff has proven to be immense, as he has had to assist me in so many ways, and continues to take care of most of the things that keep our household functioning. And we have had Maren, which has been the most amazing and wonderful thing to happen in my life so far.

Today we went out for lunch to celebrate Father's Day, but there is no celebration, and no gift, that could adequately thank Jeff for being the wonderful husband and father that he is.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Camping

This past week we went camping. We went to a provincial park called Echo Valley, where we camped a couple of years ago. When we went the first time, it was insanely busy, and very noisy. Despite that, it was a nice park, and we decided to go back on a weekday trip.

The campground was almost completely empty when we arrived, and we were quite pleased knowing that it would be very quiet. However, when we arrived at our site we were greeted by hordes of tent caterpillars, and the ground and picnic table were covered with little black dots which were tent caterpillar poop. I had heard that they had been bad at campgrounds this year, so I was sort of prepared for it, but I find tent caterpillars to be pretty gross. I had to just keep thinking of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and reminding myself that caterpillars are cute.

The major problem for me was that they sometimes fall out of trees and land on you. So you never know when a tent caterpillar might show up on your leg or on the back of your neck. But through all of this I was trying to put on a brave face and suck it up because it is rare that we get away from basically all people and have a chance to enjoy quiet and nature. By the time we were roasting marshmallows by the fire, I was getting into the whole camping thing.

Maren was a great little camper. She loved the tent, enjoyed watching the caterpillars crawling, and generally didn't make camping much harder (other than the fact that one of us had to hold her constantly, because we couldn't set her on the ground for fear of her eating a tent caterpillar).

When we have gone camping here in the past, every single time I have woken up hot. We have sleeping bags that are made for camping in the mountains of Oregon, and here it never really gets that cold overnight. So I thought I was really smart when I suggested that we leave our sleeping bags at home, and just bring a thin blanket. Unfortunately, even though it wasn't very cold, I ended up being freezing and not sleeping well. At some point Maren no longer wanted to be on her own little foam pad, and joined us on the air mattress. Having her sleeping right next to me always makes it hard to sleep, but I was having an extra hard time sleeping because I was cold.

Then, at 5 AM I was awake to nurse Maren, and I found a tick attached to my arm. I was pretty well freaked out, but remained calm, woke Jeff up, and got some help from him in removing the tick. I had a serious case of the heebie-jeebies, so I started inspecting the rest of my body for ticks, and I found another one attached to my leg. At that point, I was done. Even though we were supposed to stay for another night, when Jeff said we could go home early, I said sounds good. I felt like a bit of a wimp for not sticking it out, but when we left that day, we were literally the only people in the entire campground. No one else was camping with the tent caterpillars and ticks either.

Fortunately, the ticks here don't carry Lyme disease, and also fortunately, Maren didn't get bitten (and neither did Jeff). But I didn't particularly care about that, I just wanted to get the heck out of there before things got worse.

We didn't take any photos while camping except one after we decided to leave. Maren was apparently ready to drive home by herself if we didn't take her there:

Actually, she was perfectly happy to keep camping, and would have been fine sticking around. We have another trip planned for August, and by then the tent caterpillars will definitely be gone, and hopefully the ticks will be less prevalent. By then the mosquitoes should be pretty bad, but honestly I would take mosquitoes over tent caterpillars and ticks any day :-)

Sunday, June 05, 2016

A few photos from Oregon

I had hoped to post about our trip to Oregon, but I ran out of time, so here are a few photos of our trip!

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Eight months!

This week Maren turned eight months old. I can't believe how quickly time is going by. In three months, I will be headed back to work. Here is a snapshot of Maren at eight months:

She has really started to get into eating food. She eats everything we give her, though not every time we give it to her. One of her favorites is yogurt, but she is very ambivalent about spoons, so this sometimes makes for very messy times :-) She is sitting up and rolling around and sort of climbing all over, but hasn't started crawling yet, so we are still able to be fairly confident that she will stay more or less within certain boundaries. We have a baby gate installed at the top of the stairs, and are ready to baby proof things when necessary, but so far we haven't had to.

She is busy busy busy all the time, and loves to jump with a little help. When she isn't jumping, she is often babbling, screeching, or shaking a little shaker that is currently her favorite toy. In general, she is full of energy and full of joy.

Here is a video taken the other day in the morning not too long after we got up. What you don't see is Jeff dancing around in his pajamas, so you will have to imagine it:

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Much to say, little time

It seems that as Maren gets older, I am less able to find time to do things like blog. She is busy busy busy, always doing something. Also, she has started to stay up a bit later, but this has only translated into a slight change in her wake up time. She is going to bed more like 8 PM, and waking up around 5:30 AM or so. This means that I have less time in the evening to do things, but I am waking up at the same time (because Jeff is still getting up with her early in the morning and I am sleeping in for another hour or so).

I have been almost exclusively talking about Maren on this blog, but there have been a few other things going on in our lives :-) We took a trip to Oregon last week, and saw many wonderful friends, and spend time with family. I will post some pictures from our trip when I get a chance.

But the big news here all relates to security and permanence: both Jeff and I have been awarded tenure (meaning that our positions are truly permanent, unless we really mess up), and have been promoted to the rank of associate professor. It is early in our careers to get tenure and promotion, and it feels like we have really "made it."

The second piece of news is that when I re-entered Canada after our trip to Oregon, I "landed" as a permanent resident. It took what felt like an eternity to get this status, and then the actual process was fairly anti-climactic – it involved having an immigration officer ask me whether I had ever been arrested and whether I had any additional dependents that I had not declared, and both of us signing a piece of paper. That was it, and suddenly I was entering Canada with a new status. So at some point soon, Jeff and I will have to have a big party to celebrate!

Sunday, May 08, 2016

Happy Mother's Day!

Sunday, May 01, 2016

Outdoor fun

It is finally spring/summer in Saskatchewan. The weather has been warm and sunny, and it is projected that we will have more of the same - even getting hot - in the week to come. We have been doing lots of outdoor activity. This is partly just related to the weather, and partly related to a new sleep strategy we are trying.

It has been difficult (especially for Jeff) having Maren go to bed so early and get up so early. Jeff has been getting up with her at 4:30 or 5:00 am everyday. So we are trying to keep her up a bit later in hopes that she will start sleeping a bit later. Instead of letting her determine bedtime, which has lately been around 5:00 pm, we are trying to keep her up until at least 6:00 pm. In order to accomplish this, we are spending time with her outside close to bedtime. She has also started getting really into music, and will "dance" along to anything that has a good beat. So after outside time, we have been having a pre-bedtime dance party every night. It's hard to say whether it is working, but we did have two days in a row where she slept in until 5:40 am, and that was a sign of possible success. We are going to keep trying, and hopefully there will be some lasting change. Fingers crossed.

One of the outside activities we have been doing is carrier bike rides in the recumbent. I know that all the experts say not to bring a baby on a bike until after age 1, but after thinking about it, as long as I don't go too fast, it's no different than pushing her in a stroller. So while I can't go for long walks in the stroller, I am able to cover that kind of distance by riding with her on my tricycle. We have so far gone to the park and taken a trip to the local library branch. I am looking forward to many more trips in the months to come!

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Library, lab, tooth

Maren has been very much into books for the last little while. Recently she has been grabbing on and not letting go, and sometimes she doesn't totally realize where she is waving them:

However, she lately has been eating books more often than we are actually reading books :-)

A couple of weeks ago we started going to a program at the library for kids under two years old. It is a half hour filled with songs, rhymes, stories, scarves, bubbles, and basically just everything that can hold a baby's attention. It is a lot of fun, and it gets us to the local branch of the library once a week, where I have been checking out new books for Maren each time. I love that there are so many programs like this here, and that this is such a baby friendly place to live.

A few days ago we took a trip to Jeff's lab and participated in a study he is running. I did not know the hypothesis, or what he expected to see, so Maren got to be a real research participant. It was the first time that I actually have gotten to see exactly what Jeff does – I hear a lot about it, but it is different seeing it from the participant side. It was lots of fun and Maren was a good little research participant, observant and active. One of the tasks involved dangling different sized balls in front of her, and she grabbed them eagerly, which was just what they hoped she would do.

The other big news around here is that Maren is getting her first tooth! I had thought that I felt something quite a while back, and it turns out that a tooth is breaking through in exactly that spot. It is only about a millimeter high above her gums at this point, but she is already using it as much as she can. We have been using the "baby-led weaning" approach to solid food introduction since about a week after we started solids. It is much less stressful, and basically just involves giving your baby lots of different kinds of food, in all different forms. She is doing quite well with it, and recently used her tooth to "bite" a little piece off of a pear. So far teething has really not been so bad it seems, and we might end up getting off lucky in that respect. I think she has been experiencing some pain, but she is not crying and crying endlessly like some babies do. She was awfully cute as a toothless baby, but I think we are entering a different phase of cute, and I am looking forward to it.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Visit from grandma

This past week was busy, with a visit from my mom. We had a good time, and Maren loved spending time with her grandma. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I will just leave you with these: