Posted by Ross | Under Kale, Movie, Ross
Friday Jun 19, 2009
This is Ross posting.
Over the last 2 weeks or so Kale has gone from letting go of whatever he’s holding onto for a couple of seconds to full-on taking 10 or more steps in a row. There’s usually some shaky steps, and he often has to stop in the middle to confirm his balence, but when he get’s going he is GOING. He’s also gone from sitting/crawling 80% of the time to standing/walking 80% of the time. It is especially interesting to watch him become fascinated with some toy of his, while he’s standing up, and he forgets that he’s standing at all! Then WHOMP; onto his butt (which he’d long ago mastered).
I was home last night alone with him and enticing him to come to me.
He really just wants to walk all over the place. If you pick him up while he’s stomping along, he’ll squirm until you put him down again or he’ll play ‘dead-cat’ by throwing his arms up and sliding out of grasp.
It’s pretty awesome to see how quickly he’s learning.
Things are all clicking into place for me these days. As some of you know, I will be taking on the childcare for Bonnie, my friend Shauna’s daughter, upon Shauna’s return to work. Bonnie will be here three days a week, and I think having her here will be incredibly beneficial for Kale to have his friend with him some days of the week. It’s mutally beneficial both both Shauna and I that I will take on Bonnie, financially speaking. Shauna is slated to return to work at the end of August and her and I have agreed to this on a trial basis with a re-evaluation date in the future. I’m really looking forward to it.
I’m also going to be at the Farmer’s Market most Thursdays starting June 25th and running till October 8th with my tiny booth for Chai By Night. Although necessity is dictating that I haul all my gear (and Kale) to the market place in a wagon since Ross and I share our car and the market starts before Ross is generally off work, I’ve decided to make this a “thing” – a challenge for Chai By Night to be a low ecological footprint booth at the market. So even if Ross is able to work from home some Thursday afternoons, I will still use my wagon and haul my gear to the market and simply take advantage of Ross being home to perhaps leave Kale behind so I can work the market baby-free. I did a dry run of all the gear in the wagon this weekend and it’s going to work great. I have a few final details to complete for Chai By Night’s participation (along with more chai making!) and one of them is a banner. Originally, I had planned to order a vinyl banner off some internet company for about $50, but since I’ve decided to make this a eco-challenge for me, I’ve also decided I am going to make a fabric banner because vinyl is so icky. I need to find some recycled material that has red stars on it and intend to get to work sewing on that this week.
I’m in the last few details of going back to my former employer on a part time basis when my maternity leave runs out June 13th. About a month after I left, my boss semi-retired and took on another position within the company. A peer was promoted from within the company to his spot, and so now he’s officially my boss. I like him as he’s very professional, and he and I have been negotiated a part time position that will benefit both my employer and myself, allowing me a fairly flexible schedule a few evenings a week and one weekend day. Working a little bit for my former employer will ensure that Ross and I can afford for me to stay home, plus I don’t feel quite so pressured for Chai By Night and Usb0rne Books to take off in any particular way.
So things feel good.
As for Kale (sidenote: I booked our tickets to Calgary, and the ticket reservation agent repeated it all back to me, and she referred to Kale as Master Kale Arbo, and holy cow did that crack me up for some reason – I mean, he’s 10 months old! He doesn’t need a title yet!). Anyway, as for Kale, he just popped another tooth, bringing our total to 5, although I think tomorrow I will be able to post that there are 6 because I can see it RIGHT THERE. He’s become a bit of a vampire lately:
I also think – although who knows sometimes – that he’s trying to change to one nap a day so it’s been a bit well…. whiny here lately while we ride this out. But here is a happy moment (although slightly blurry):
I’ve got a couple of blog posts on the back burner, but the weather has been so nice I haven’t yet gotten around to adding photos, editing, etc. And as some of you pointed out, I need to do some template tweaking as more than one of you thought that previous post about mountain biking was written by me for the first few sentences until you realized it was actually Ross.
Also, last night, I thought I’d be HILARIOUS and Kale had an Orange Dinner:
His shirt says “Cancer: June 22 to July 23. I’m a creature of habit, I will be a homebody, love consistency, kind, protective, romantic.”
That was a thrift shop score – $1 – and it was brand new with the tags and stickers from the Gap. its too bad I only found it this weekend, as I suspect it will only fit for a few weeks. But how could I not?
When Kale was a few hours old, and I had just come back from recovery to our room, the nurse came in to “show” us how to bathe him. My mom and stepdad were there and captured a few pictures. The bath was quick and efficient and didn’t really look particularly relaxing, if you catch my drift. It was likely scary as it was the first time he had ever experienced anything that jarring. Plus, what’s with the gloves? Seriously? What disease are you going to catch from a newborn? Those are Ross’ giant man hands cradling Kale’s wee squished tomato face. (ZOMG was he ever little. WTF)
When we brought Kale home, we decided to try the suggestion of our midwife and have Kale shower with one of us. We picked Ross because this was something that Daddy and Kale could do together, just like how I breastfeed Kale, Ross can be the source of the bathing and have special bonding time with his son. We don’t bathe him often – if he has my skin he will struggle with sensitive skin his whole life, plus, in the beginning when his skin was so fragile and delicate I just didn’t think it was necessary every day.
Now that he’s a bit older and is actively munching on his fingers and taste-testing things like receiving blankets, it makes more sense. Plus, remainders of breastmilk have found secret hiding places in his neck and so now he actually starts stinking every couple days.
Kale liked showering with Daddy in the beginning, but it seems as each time passes, he likes it less and less, so last night, I decided to introduce a bath. I figured a bath would not only be calmer, but could also become a nighttime ritual that will help him signal that his day is coming to an end and it’s perfectly okay to decompress and relax. Now that Kale is becoming more and more aware of well, everything (and apparently has definitive tolerance levels for stimulating things), I’m trying to slowly introduce things to him so that he inherently understands expectations we will eventually have for him when he is significantly older. Sort of like “if its always been that way, there is no need to argue”. Things like soothing himself, going to bed (and yes, I realize this may one day be a battle as he gains independence), eating his dinner, etc. It certainly can’t hurt to start to lay a foundation now.
One of our shower gifts was a Thermobaby Bath Seat, something I had put on our registry because I wanted a bath product that wasn’t a huge tub that I had to find somewhere to store and it looked like a good space saver. So far we’ve never used it. (okay and just as a sidenote, go and visit that link. Could they not have chosen a more attractive baby to demonstrate their product? Man, seriously, can I offer you my kid? ) Ours is mostly the same as the one pictured, but sans the stupid looking frog thing. So last night I pulled it out and ran a bit of warm bath water and hopped in. Ross brought me the “nekkid bebe” (which we say whenever Kale has “nekkid” time and of course we say it in the most annoyingly high pitched voice ever but I cannot help myself because when he’s nekkid I just want to nom nom nom on his adorable nekkid butt). I dangled his feet in the water first to let him test out the bath water before placing him on the bath seat. He was a bit apprehensive at first, but there were no tears at all and even better, The Screw Face™ didn’t even appear, and after a minute or two of gently dripping and pouring water over him while he faced me, there was even some shit-eating grins. I think he thoroughly enjoyed himself.
It’s like he is saying “Please mum, may I have some more?”
Anyway, so the Thermombaby Bath Seat is a hit, as far as I am concerned. I have two minor beefs with it:
its only good to 17.5 lbs, 2.3 feet, or 8 months – whichever comes first. This cracks me up because who is not 17.5 pounds by 8 months?) and when you have a moosey giraffe like I do, that means this will not be long lived product in our house.
It has a “max level” line that you are supposed to keep the water below in order to ensure your baby doesn’t drown. (You know, since you are going to leave him there to bath himself and all – sheesh). As a result, he ends up being mostly out of the warm, happy bath water so the bath doesn’t last long because he starts getting chilly in the air. I used a facecloth to cover his uppers and that helped for a while, but once that cooled off, it was no good either.
Otherwise, I am pretty happy with it. I believe the retail price at the chi-chi-poo-poo baby store it was purchased at was about $25 and I would think you can get it much cheaper elsewhere, so dollar value is pretty reasonable.
As a final thought, that’s sort of totally unrelated, those of you who are mothers out there, what do your children call you? Are you a Mommy, Mummy, Mama, etc? I’m just curious.
People Are Talkin’