Ack!
Ben's been feverish since Friday night - probably because of his latest round of shots. Must not panic. Tempra's great!

It's a beautiful sunny day and with any luck Ben and I will be going out for a walk when he gets up from his nap. We celebrated our friend Terences' 40 birthday on Saturday and Ben was an excellent party guest, although he did conk out on his daddy, at least he wasn't wearing the lampshade this time. On Sunday, Guislaine came over for a belated birthday supper. Normally, we join her and other friends for a delicious meal at a French restaurant,but this year we couldn't make it. Steve made beef bourginon and I made a chocolate layer cake that was very yummy.
I'm starting to really think about paint colours for the new place. I have to decide soon, we must start painting at the beginning of December. I'm not sure if I'll be using the same colours as I have now, it's probably time for a change. Maybe I'll use some of the colours, but in different rooms. I keep having dreams that I'm walking through the place and it's huge, wishful thinking! It's going to be a whirlwind this Christmas with so much going on. There's a transit strike going on here, so Steve drove himself to work today. It kinda sucks because he bought his bus pass and now has to shell out for gas and parking. Ben's going to the doctor for his next set of shots on Thursday. The first time we went I was so anxious for him - I hate needles. He took it like a champ and only cried for a few seconds, then slept for most of the day. I almost forgot! He tried cereal for the first time on Sunday and seemed delighted with the texture and taste. It must be bland as cardboard, but I'm sure that just to try eating something off a spoon is fun. Most of it gets pushed back out and then shoved back in with his hands. We videotaped the event for posterity. Sigh, he's so super!

Another weekend has zoomed by! On Saturday we drove out to the townies and changed my tires and picked up a spare car. My folks bought a used Oldsmobile stationwagon because their older car gave out on them. After they bought it, they found out that the other car was fixable, so they offered the old Ford to Steve so he can get some practice driving around. Because of complications, he drove the Oldsmobile home. It was cold on Saturday, there was some snow and a really biting wind - hello winter!
Sunday we had many visitors and we watched Finding Nemo. We went to see it in the theatre when I was still pregnant, and I cried a lot. This time I only cried a little, but there was a lot of blinking. Why do animators always kill off the mother?
Ben's been in a very good mood lately, he seems to be smiling at everything and everyone. This morning he woke up in his co-sleeper and babbled for quite a while, he's generally very happy in the morning, but not so talkative. Eventually he's going to have to sleep in his crib in his room and I'll miss watching him wake up and stretch and squeak.
I have a lot of errands to run today, so naturally Ben has decided to have a long nap instead of his short little catnaps. Maybe I'll go have a nap too.....

Gone Fishing
Steve discovered that Ben loves watching fish. The Finding Nemo DVD has a virtual aquarium. The fish from the movie aquarium swim by and every now and then do something cute. He was entranced for at least 15 minutes!

Say Cheese
When you have a baby, you get on all sorts of new mailing lists. So far, I've received samples of and coupons for diapers, baby wipes, baby soap, lotion, formula, baby magazines, books, toys, you name it. The most recent was a free photo session. They called, and when I said I wasn't that interested, the lady on the phone said "It's free, the photographer will be at your home between 10 and 11 on Monday". Yesterday, the photographer showed up on time with all his photography stuff. He turned out to be a very nice young guy, two years out of photography school and great with babies. He managed to set up in the livingroom and we began. Ben was a real pro, of course he's had a camera in his face since he was born. First he took shots of Ben on his tummy in clothes, which went much better than I thought it would. After this, I stripped him to his diaper and the cheese began. Within the blink of an eye, the photographer whipped out a tarzan getup, complete with a stuffed monkey. I have to admit that I thought it was pretty funny. After this came the basket of fruit which Ben was added to with a lettuce leaf on his head. Seems that there's no escape from the dreaded Anne Geddes. The last photos were taken of Ben in his diaper posing again on his tummy. The sitting up shots were exciting, mostly because after the photographer got him into position, he let go of Ben for a split second while he took the photos. For this reason, I think that it was better to have a young guy, I'm sure his reflexes are much better than some middle-aged guy. We should get the proofs in a few weeks, so we'll see what we get. The really great part was that about five minutes after the photographer left, Ben was fast asleep. Apparently being beautiful takes a lot out of him :-)

Spongebob's pants are on fire
Note to self: when disinfecting sponges in the microwave, do not accidently hit ten minutes instead of ten seconds and then walk to the other end of the house. Burning sponge in the microwave is about the nastiest smell ever - but at least we know that the smoke detectors work.

Wow, it's the end of October already! I keep looking at the blog and wanting to post, but somebody's been taking up a lot more of my time than I previously anticipated. It's funny, you have an idea of what it's going to be like to have a baby and stay home with him, but you never really know what you're getting yourself into. For the most part, I've really been digging the mom thing, Ben's an amazing baby. He's sleeping about 6 hours a night now, which is pretty good. People tell you that you learn to live with less sleep, and they're right! Steve can fall asleep in seconds now to take advantage of any quiet moment. I tend to be more alert to Ben's fussing, so it takes me a while to get back to sleep after night time feedings and cuddling. Did I mention that Ben's a cuddler? He's about the cutest thing ever when he falls asleep in your arms.
I'm also getting pretty good transporting baby in the car seat and stroller to run errands. When I started, I had no clue. I'm sure that more than one mom has rolled her eyes at me and muttered "rookie" under her breath as I've tried to attach the infant seat to a grocery cart or tried to get him into his stroller in the parking lot of the mall. A few tips:

• At the grocery store, park near where you return the carts, that way you can get a cart and attach the infant seat and then roll across the parking lot to the store (this becomes important when your baby starts packing on the pounds), and you can put the baby in the car and return the cart without taking your eyes of him. I was sprinting across the parking lot a few times before I figured this out.
  
• Keep your stoller in the trunk of the car, you never know when you'll need it, and if you live upstairs, like me, you don't have to drag it up and down.
  
• Get yourself a nice, light, small-ish stroller. You can't get those SUV strollers up and down stairs easily if there are no ramps, and let's not talk about narrow aisles! I have a small stroller, and I can barely manage some store aisles.

Stepping Into the Void...

Thought I'd put something up here. I'd almost forgotten that this is a group blog, actually.

Well, Dina is fully into the baby-bliss, and it makes me all weepy (happy-weepy)just to think about it. People keep asking me whether I want another child and all I can say is "Yes! But when?" With the husband back in University it doesn't seem like the time will be right 'til at least next summer. And we don't even need contraceptives, cuz we never see each other...

Actually we do manage to spend time together. We just went up to my sister's in the Laurentians this past weekend. What a treat that was. My sister and her husband are the caretakers of the Molson family's estate up there. They live in a beautiful house with a guest apartment attached (just right for li'l ol' us), and the estate is 1500 acres on pristine lakes (3) and forest. It's like going to a resort, particularly because my sister loves to make beautiful meals that we linger over for hours in between swimming, boating, fishing and walking adventures. And her two boys take care of my kids all day. The good life.

This has been the best summer in recent memory for me. It was full of fun and yet it was very peaceful and relaxed at the same time. I feel refreshed and invigorated after it. I didn't get married and go to Paris (like Elizabeth), but I think I will remember this summer. My kids are at a good age to enjoy it, I guess (6 and 4), so we enjoy it as well.

I don't have anything particularly scintillating to say, here, in case you haven't already made that assessment. But I will mention one more thing: My cat has cancer. She has a tumour in her face that has eaten away some of her bone and is starting to eat away her sinuses. She is behaving pretty normally, so it is very difficult to make the decision to euthanize her. We only found out it was cancer on thursday, and we're watching her closely to see if it is interfering with her breathing. I figure when she can't breathe comfortably is when we'll do it. But so far her behaviour is normal. I'm so sad, because we got her 2 years ago, when she was already 10 years old, and I don't think she'd had a very happy life until she came to us. I am glad, however, that she has been happy with us. She cuddles with my daughter in bed, and she appears to be in the throes of ecstasy every time. My daughter squishes her like a teddy bear, and she couldn't be happier. I will be very sad to see her go, but I don't want her to suffer. I've explained things to the kids, but it's hard. What a weird thing to have to make the decision when another living creature will die. It seems wrong, but I guess humans have had to take that responsibility since we started domesticating animals. It's a responsibility I'd rather not have, but I accept it as the inevitable end of our animal/human relationship.

So, anyone else up for blogging? Tell us how your summer was. Let's not let Dina down!

I'm back!
Well, I'm kinda back. Ben is a wonderful baby, but he has this problem with sleeping alone, so all too often I am under a baby which makes typing a bit impossible. I will try to post whenever I have two free hands! Thanks to everyone for their well wishes, I will get those thank you cards out soon. Someone just started squawking- gotta go!

As promised, shower pics and the baby's room here. A million thanks again to Maggie for throwing a great shower!!!

Showered and ready to go
Saturday was the baby shower and it was a blast! Friday night, we went out and my mother-in-law got a mess of fruit. On Saturday morning, we chopped and washed and peeled and then threw it all in a box and headed over to Maggie's place. We decorated a bit and set up the food table and then people started to arrive. People carrying gifts and food! I decided that Saturday was going to be a black-out day for the gestational diabetes thing-I didn't check my sugar, and I didn't care. We all hit the food table and there was much chatting and laughing, nobody told me any birth horror stories which was appreciated. The gifts were piled high atop the table-people were very generous and there was much oooing and awwing at all the little clothes and stuffed creatures. Thank you everyone! I have pictures and they will be posted soon! We managed to get the loot home and Steve and I got to assemble and play with it. Steve and dad got the carpeting installed, after encountering many problems. By Sunday night, we had the crib up with the bedding and suddenly it's starting to look like a room!
On Monday morning, Steve's mom left and we went off to the hospital for the attempted baby turning. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. The doctor strongly advised against it because the chances of the baby turning were about the same as it turning on its own and the risk of having an emergency cesarean were looming. The baby appears to be moving well and seems very healthy despite the fact that it's small, that's good news. There's always the chance that it will flip over before the 28th, so I'm trying to stay positive. It's getting harder and harder to work, my brain's having a difficult time focusing on anything. Today, I'm pretty happy to be in an air conditioned office though, because it's going up to 31C + high humidity.

What else?
We finished painting the squares in the baby's room on Monday, it looks really neat! We also finally got around to taking the stroller out of the box. It took us 30 minutes to figure out how to unfold it! It looked easy enough when the guy was doing it in the store. I think that I even did it myself at the store. Good thing that we decided to try it out before actually needing to put a baby in it and go somewhere, two idiots and a baby out on the sidewalk manhandling a folded stroller. The instructions were really more diagrams without much detail which didn't help. The baby shower is this weekend and my mother-in-law is arriving today, with more presents. The doctor is going to try to turn the baby around on the 14. I've been told that this hurts quite a bit by the doctor, and generally when doctors tell you that something hurts, they're not making it up. Until Monday, I'm still going to try all of the stuff I've heard about to get it to turn by itself. Perhaps when we get to the hospital, the doctor will have a look and discover that we're heads down and feeling fine!

thhhhhppppttttlllll
Last Thursday we received a call from the hospital confirming my scheduled c-section on July 28. This scared the hell out of us because we didn't schedule anything with the hospital. Turns out that my doctor decided to book it because he's 99.9% sure that I'm having a c-section. You have to love a doctor who gives you so little hope of avoiding having your midsection sliced open. He logically explained why he thought this, but that's not what I wanted to hear. I wanted some compassion from him, perhaps any sign that he actually realised how big a disappointment this was to me and how scared I am of the surgery. I didn't get it, which of course just made me mad, and stubborn. I talked him into trying to turn the baby, which will be attempted either the 14 or the 24. I got some advice from an experienced midwife, she made me feel hopeful. I talked to a female doctor and a nurse at the hospital who sympathised and told me there's still a good chance that the baby will turn of its own. The nurse did tell me that my doctor is one of the best at the hospital, even if he's not the most compassionate. This made me feel better, because I was starting to worry that I had chosen a c-section crazy man.
Needless to say that I'm still very down in the dumps about the whole thing, I'm trying to stay positive and relaxed, but it's difficult.

Busy weekend!
So, as of Thursday I have to check my blood at least three times per day and watch what I eat and worry about the fact that baby continues to enjoy hanging around the uterus with its head up, instead of down which should be its preferred orientation. We also discovered that it's something called a "frank breech", which means that its feet are up by the head. Essentially, we have a Cirque de Soleil baby. We had our birthing courses this weekend. The Saturday session was very good, the teacher was animated and organized and taught us many breathing and relaxation exercises. The teacher on Sunday was not very good and was more of a natural childbirth/breastfeeding nazi. She did take us on a tour of the birthing centre and recovery floor though, so it wasn't a complete waste. The funniest bits were the videos we had to watch, most of which were filmed in the late 70s. The hair was great! Of course, none of the mothers screamed, or cursed at their husbands, or took the drugs, so you had to assume they were insane. We also enjoyed bbq with Terence and Irene Saturday night, and Ramsay and Mirella Sunday, so today I'm a bit loopy. I'm looking forward to the holiday tomorrow to rest up.
I got the new Harry Potter last week and have been reading it in short intervals, don't want it to end too fast. It's quite different from the first four, there's a complete change in tone which I was disappointed with, but it really was inevitable considering that the character is growing up and the plot is getting progressively darker.

I was going to talk about the weekend, but it was pretty uneventful. We put Scott on the train Saturday morning which was sad, and Kathy came over Sunday, which was a perfect way to spend an afternoon. After weeks of eating everything that moves (doctor's orders), I am now 6 pounds heavier than before I got pregnant, which should make my doctor very happy. Of course, now I fear that when I go in at the end of March he's going to say, "hey, whoa there tubby", but the butter really was worth it :-)
I think that I can kinda feel something moving around down there, and I definitely have started to look pregnant, at least to me. One day last week I looked down and there it was, not just my regular belly, but a rounder, harder belly. Freaky! My next ultrasound is March 17 (should I paint a shamrock on my tummy?). They should be able to tell us the sex of the baby, but we don't want to know. My friend Kuan wants to know what she's having, but her baby is apparently being very shy about the whole thing. I want a surprise at the end, we know so much more than our mothers did when they were having kids; I know how healthy the baby is, I can hear the heartbeat and see what it looks like, why wreck the ultimate surprise? Besides, this way if I'm having a girl I don't get pink stuff, not really crazy about pink.

Woo hoo! Sofa!
The sofa and chair arrive sometime this afternoon! Yay! I'm in training today, so Steve will be heading home to wait for sofa men. In other news, it looks like I'm heading back to NY next week for business... oh joy, that's about a week of x-mas shopping time wasted.

The Latest James Bond Movie

Yes, I confess, I saw "Another Day to Die" and frankly it's too violent, long and seemingly pointless car chases that somehow make for a very flat and tired forumla. However Brosnan makes a good Bond and the Bond girl in the movie, Halle isn't bad either. The song, by Madonna is okay too and if you catch the music video by the same name as the movie, it's also good (and in my opinion better than the movie, it's not as long). As you would expect, Madonna does make a cameo appearance in the movie and if you have seen the video, you'll recognize the setting.

As you probably heard the movie does a shameless job of product promotion. I felt that this was one of it's strengths, it gave me something else to think about while someone else was being brutally beaten and killed.

The special effects ranged from okay to absolutely terrible. The worst scene is one that allegedly takes place in Iceland where Bond is driving across some ice that is being cracked by a device from outer space and as you would expect he drives over any icy precipice and drops a 100 feet or so straight into the ocean. What makes the whole thing totally unbelievable is a) the way the setting looked, totally fake, something out of a 1950s el cheapo Sci-fi movie, b) you can't suspend you disbelief when he somehow manages to yank a piece of the car off and turn it into a surfboard and ride the surf to safety. (I think he managed to grab the car's parachute too before the car fell straight into the ocean.)

I am glad I saw this at Guzzo cinema as a Sunday matinee as opposed to lining up for it on a Friday or Saturday night and paying full fare for it. Don't bother with the video when it comes out unless you really want to see the scene where Halle comes out of the water in her spectacular orange bikini and her equally spectacular body...


I rarely go to movies, especially ones my husband wants to see and this is one he had been champing at the bit to see. (I didn't know he liked orange bikinis). I think the next time he goes to a movie, I will stay home and rent The Shipping News or The End of the Affair. I am bound to see some plot, drama, and some good acting.

Quiet Monday
Many people have taken today off because tomorrow's a holiday here, so it's vewy quiet. I like days like these because there's no traffic and almost no one bugs me so I can get some work done. This weekend we didn't get as much done as we'd hoped. The heat wave has started, so we were a bit dazed by the return of summer heat. We did get out to a friend's housewarming which was lots of fun. Everybody feels obliged to talk about baby stuff when I'm around. I guess it's an obvious conversation choice, and I do love to hear everyone's cute baby stories and how happy they are about being moms and dads, but I'd like some variety. Tell me something horribly embarassing about your first parenting experience that makes me feel completely normal about feeling so totally unprepared for this. I'm serious, I'm freakin' out here people!

Dang!
Fixed my blogback and lost some of my comments. Sorry!

This sucks
Doctor made a mistake, I have gestational diabetes after all, which means that now I have to go the the hospital from 7:30-3:30 next week. The hospital doesn't seem to care that I have to make that time up somewhere.... I'll probably end up waiting for hours in uncomfortable chairs. Oh! and just to make my day a bit brighter, my doctor has completely freaked me out by telling me that the baby hasn't turned yet, so I should be mentally preparing myself for the possibility of a cesarean. I've been frantically searching the internet for exercises that I can do at home. So far I have found lots of advice involving tilting yourself up on an ironing board and using frozen peas, music, and flashlights to coax the head down. I'm thinking a full sound and lights show between my legs ought to do the trick. I'm very unhappy at the moment.