One year ago today, Kale was placed into my arms after being unceremoniously removed from my womb-region. There was a pause after the removal and before the placement as he and I were separated, but Ross got to take Kale up to our room and have some time alone. I often wonder what happened in that hour – what Kale and Ross thought of each other, how long Kale was awake. I know what I was doing (see also: puking from IV drugs for 17 hours), but I often wonder how tentative and tender that hour must have been for Ross.
I’m amazed at all that has happened this past year, and I’m refraining from writing some sort of nostalgic summary entry because I’m so stupidly busy these days and hey – you can read all about it in the archives. But here’s where we are: Kale’s walking like a pro. He’s making wordy sounds but no words yet. He has 6 teeth and more on the way – seemingly constantly these days, which is my only real grumble. He has figured out what hugging is, a fact that makes my heart sing. I love watching him learn and figure things out. Here’s where we will be soon and I can’t wait: talking. Forming opinions. Hearing him say he loves me. I can’t WAIT for that one.
We had a photo shoot with a blossoming photographer recently, and I was hoping to post some pictures in this entry from that shoot, but unfortunately they aren’t ready yet. So here’s some pictures from the party we had Sunday for him where he got ridiculously spoiled and ate cupcakes and partypartypartied, and also bailed hard enough to draw blood for the first time. Only fitting, right?
I’ll post the other photos when I get them, and I’ll also be posting our 1 year family photo as soon as Kale lies still long enough for Ross and I to get a good picture of him, which is apparently never these days.
We survived! We did it! Seriously, I cannot believe how much I love being a mom. Anything I can do to make sure I get to stay at home with him… I’m doing it. Kale Pants, you’ve made me complete.
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.
Kale says ” Hey folks, what up? Check out the latest in spa facials. Tomato sauce – and you rub it all over your face and head. It’s the best, especially when you are wearing a white shirt.”
A week ago, I made the comment to Mom that I was trying to blog three times a week. Gone are the days when I could post long diatribes on a daily basis, and quite honestly, I do miss those days. Now, I’m lucky if I can get my three entries for the week sorted out. You may have noticed my last entry was six days ago, so by the power of Math, I think we can safely say that I was unsuccessful in three entries a week. Boo hiss. Also, my friend Melanie recently posted about the idea of Mommy Blogging versus Blogging. Because, well, now that’s what I do – I’m a mom, and I blog, and my life more or less revolves around my kid, so uh.. it makes sense. I knew that I would be a Mommy Blogger when I was pregnant, and when Kale was born, we registered this new domain name and I closed and deleted my old haunts and while there are a few moments of nostalgia here and there (usually for the days when I swore freely on the old blog because I am trying to teach myself not to swear so much), I can’t say I miss those parts of my past.
I find it’s a little bit feast or famine – some days I can sit down at the computer and churn out tonnes of content for both this and the other blog I write at, so much content that I can schedule it’s posting throughout the week and then forget all about it. Other days, I’m lucky if the thought crosses my mind “ooh this would make a good blog entry.”
So what has been goin’ on here at Chez Arbo?
I guess the biggest news is that Kale is standing all by himself. When he is focussed on something (like, for example, holding as many pieces of food in his hands as possible) he forgets that he is supposed to hold onto something and can free-stand! Then he realizes he is supposed to be holding on and onto his butt he falls. But he’s standing!
Today I booked our flights to Calgary for Christmas to visit my brother Jim and his wife Loralie. It’s a good time for us to go – at 18 months, Kale will still be free to fly, and it’s a short enough flight that we deal with whatever his reaction is. Plus, the weather will be awesome – dry and cold and snowy, hopefully, instead of typical Vancouver rainy blah yucky. Jim and Loralie and I talked about booking a night at a rustic cabin (maybe Christmas Eve?) at a nearby ranch for a real “country Christmas”. I’m also going to be able to visit Melanie and meet her A. Door. A. Bull. daughter, Moira, and Ross and I can see our friends Mike and Helen, who were the couple whose wedding we all attended last month. I’d also like to try and see my friend Jennifer and her daughter Jade, as well as a visit up to Carstairs to see Pam, a friend from high school. For 7 days, we will likely be busy with many friends and lots of visiting and I am really looking forward to it.
This past May long weekend, we went to the Island for a planned surprise 60th birthday party for my stepdad, Rick. He was genuinely surprised, and it’s a testament to both my mom and my mother in law that this party happened hitch free. I started planning in back in September, people, but without the Moms, it never would have happened. They were the hostesses with the mostesses and it was all their effort that made me look good. The weather co-operated nicely, Kale was a superstar traveller (which we paid for tenfold last night when there was the TWO DANG HOURS OF SCREECHING AT 1AM – Ugh!), Mooki got a respite weekend at my folks’ place away from Kale, and I got a sunburn. Some pictures:
Mooki “guarding” the picnic table at Mom and Rick’s:
Mooki is not dead, nor is she hunting. She was asleep in the grass with no leash on – a novelty for her since we only have a paved patio for her to sleep on.
What did you guys do this weekend? We planned to go to the Chinese New year parade, but it was snowing lightly Sunday morning. We had some family over for dinner last night, and I had a girlfriend over for tea Sunday afternoon. Saturday, I volunteered at the Festival of Volunteers and Ross and Kale went to Waterbabies, and then we ran a bunch of errands and stopped off at Baby’s World and picked up a few little things like a new sippy cup, some window shade stuff for the car, and OH YEAH KALE GOT A TOOTH AND SAT UP ALL IN ONE WEEKEND.
Seriously. Wow. He’s also really trying out his crawling legs and keeps launching himself forward or sliding himself backwards while he rocks back and forth on his hands and knees.
Someone told us that the period from 6-9 months is one of the most exciting because of all of the huge developments that occur. They were totally right.
Posted by Jen | Under Daily, Jen, Kale
Wednesday Oct 22, 2008
So, Kale is teething. Or, at least I think he is. According to my mom and Ross’ mom, both of us had our teeth fairly early. My mom tells me my teeth were HUGE and as a result, I was pretty miserable about it. Apparently I used to take a nipple from my bottle, shove my finger in it, and chew.
My son, however, much prefers to whine and snivel and chew on my fingers rather than his own. He goes through moments of total happiness that are matched equally by moments of sheer misery. Oh, woe is the life of Kale, for he is so hard done by. I can see little white spots (not the teeth yet) on his lower gums, and so I suspect the teeth, they are coming.
But in those shining moments of happy happy joy joy, we have hit a milestone! Kale today, during tummy time, elected to flip himself over onto his back. He’s also been way easier to put to sleep lately – provided I catch him when he’s tired and not tired-and-totally-miserable. It takes mere minutes now rather than the 20-30 minutes of shushing, patting, etc that we did have to go through when he was a newborn.
Of course, all bets are off if he is over tired or over stimulated, because that’s still a bit like herding cats.
I don’t want the previous post to go unnoticed as its way more interesting that this one, so make sure you watch our latest movie.
Kale has discovered both his voice and his tongue this week and so we get a lot of gurgled noises interspersed with lots of grunting and moaning and this sort of conversational turn-taking like you really are talking about something good. The noises he makes absolutely crack me up and even when he is making noises of frustration as he learns what his fingers are capable of doing I have a hard time not laughing directly in his face I am simply that much of a MEAN MOMMY.
Ross and I went to A Baby’s World this weekend and I was searching for threeparticulartoys that I wanted to spend some of our gift certificates on and of course, they didn’t have any. Seriously, I am getting kinda annoyed with A Baby’s World because every single time I want to spend my gift certificates there, they don’t have what I want and I only find this out when I go there because their online presence SUX DONKEY BUTT, as in, they don’t have a website worth a can of beans.
Anyway, what they do have and what they are good at having is Robeez and tonnes of overpriced infant’s clothing. Mostly girls’ clothing but some cute boys’ stuff. Anyway. So they have lots of Robeez and I have to say I am a fan of the Robeez simply because they are freakin’ cute and because they were invented by a local mom (who has since sold the company for a gabillion (ZOMFG!) but remains on as a consultant) and because they are perfect for little babies who are not yet walking but need a little assistance in the “keeping socks on” department.
One of the patterns I spied at the store was this one. Go look at that link. I’ll wait.
Dude. I TOTALLY want to buy those! Those are beyond awesome in sort of a completely over the top sort of way. We so do not need another pair of Robeez because Kale was given a pair of Shark Robeez as a gift from a very good friend of mine when he was in utero and as a bonus, a pair of shark themed socks also came in the package and I gotta tell you guys that the socks are totally kickass in the stay-on-the-feets department. But seriously, if I was like, a celebrity mom, with a huge fat Visa, I would so buy those Monster ones because man! Hella freakin adorable. And you know what sucks? The fact that they also make little Tredz in the same matching pattern of monsters. I can ALMOST justify buying those now and stashing them for when he’s walking. Almost. Not quite, but almost.
Kale’s normal outfit these days as the weather is getting more and more blustery (see also: best part of the year, thankyouverymuch) is a long sleeved onesie with some pants and socks. I’ve made a point of actually changing Kale into “daywear” when we get out of bed every day, if only to encourage the habit of getting dressed so that maybe it isn’t a fight when he’s more independant and capable and wants to argue about the fact that he wants to stay in his feetie jammies all freakin day. One of my beefs with all of Kale’s clothes is that they hardly fit Mr. LongandLean with cloth diapers on and so we did a huge clothing purge a few days ago and now have an enormous Rubbermaid tote full of clothing that no longer fits. Kale is a “big boy” now and has officially graduated to size 3-6 months.
Speaking of, Kale is three months old “officially” tomorrow and this past three months have screamed by with a ferocious speed I honestly didn’t think was possible. Its like some sort of time warp worm hole thingie. Last night Ross and I watched a video I took of him holding Kale like, I dunno, day four or something, and Kale was wearing this outfit:
…which is actually my very favorite outfit so far and in the video, Kale was positively SWIMMING in that sleeper. That very sleeper is now in the “clothing that no longer fits” box because the last time I put it on him it was stretched to the very farthest constraints of the fabric and so, seriously - Time, could you go faster? I think not.
He is so much his own little person already I am flabbergasted. He has so much personality and so much individual character I am stunned. I love being a mom, more than I thought I could and even the Very Bad Times are still pretty darn good and way better than any day at the office ever could have been. Although, I would be okay with it if the Poop-Splosions were a bit less frequent and today, when he turned into the ultra ogre and nothing I could do would make the quivery fat lower lip go away? Well, that wasn’t so cool either. But that’s okay.
Kale still resists the stroller, and still argues inconsolably with us about being in the car seat (which is super awesome when you are by yourself and navigating the highway at 100 km / hr) although if you are in the car in constant motion at at least 50 km / hr (hey it’s like that Keanu Reeves movie, Speed!) then he will eventually die down to minor irritated grousing and eventually conk out. He also still resists sleep a lot but he also has longer more definitive naps and sleeps well at night. (Thank freakin’ God)
The robo-regurgitation of the newborn days are (knock wood) seemingly over, although the drooling and the spitting up with New! and Improved! Pukey Odour!, well, they seem to have taken over. He loves bathtime now, and has discovered that kicking in the water is good times. He does this thing with his right foot where it waves around out of the water like a little flag and if you pour water on his foot he will move his foot to be in the stream of water.
Kale has made other discoveries. He discovered his hands this past few weeks and frequently I find him staring at them in that cool stoner way that babies do and you can see the wheels and cogs turning as he experiments with moving his fingers. He also figured out this past week that one of his best buddies of all time is his thumb. He sucks his left thumb, but his right hand creeps up in there and fiddles with his nose or lips, and as a result, he gets kind of irate once in a while when the suction on his thumb isn’t as good as he is liking it to be. Also, as a result, he has a few scratches all over his face because I am too chicken to trim his nails because I nipped his finger once (oh! The pitious wailing!) and so Ross has to do it. I’m not sure if I care about the thumbsucking. He still uses the dreaded suckie, but only when he’s trying to go to sleep or when he’s kinda spun out. Now, when he’s bored, the thumb does just fine as entertainment. I often weigh the non-dependance on the suckie against the dependance on the thumb and I can’t decide which is the lesser evil. So for now, I don’t worry about it.
Kale loves other children – anything small and high pitched is pretty good in his books and he happily grins at almost everyone who pays attention to him, especially if he is safe within the confines of the carrier. This week he also discovered Mooki when she sat beside him while he was in his bouncy chair while I ate a cheese sandwich and Mooki was mooching. It was like he all of a sudden realized that a) she’s not a furrier human and b) holy crap! She moves!
Its like someone turned a switch and suddenly the learning and processing is visible. I keep trying to immortalize certain expressions and certain things he does so that I never forget them but already I forget some of the early days and all their roller coaster of emotions they had. And its only three months. Jesus – what’s it going to be like when he’s a teenager?
Kale reached a milestone today… he graduated to the next size of (disposable) diaper. WOO. He and I went for a walk (okay, I walked, he rode/slept in the Happy Sack) uptown today. I had a little list of errands to run:
Diapers and wipes
Bank
Starbucks for Mommy
Tea Tree Oil
Library
Because I am an airhead, I forgot the cheque I was going to deposit in the bank at home. Duh. We did pick up diapers and wipes and tea tree oil, and we did stop at Starbucks for an Iced Chai for me so at least we accomplished most of the list. I’m still using disposable diapers and wipes until my cloth order comes in (which should be soon) and am looking forward to not having those items on future lists. Right now, though, they work.
We also dropped off two books at the library. I’ve been really careful to stick to a resolution I made last year to not buy books anymore and to only read what I can get at my local library. I live in New Westminster, which is a small part of the Metro Vancouver Area, but New Westminster is a bit of an island in the stream because the city likes to be rather self-encapsulated. Among other things, our public library (brag: the oldest library in BC) is not connected to the other municipalities, so I am limited to the collection held locally. Howver, I do have to say that its an excellent collection with really nice staff and its still only 20 cents a day if you are overdue.
I wanted to get a copy of The Wonder Weeks, as recommended by my friend Melanie, but for whatever reason, the library does not hold a copy. So I put it on the “suggest” list for them to buy one. Who knows. I did pick up a book calledIt’s a Boy! on child development - specifically boys and how they differ from girls. I also grabbed a book called Bright From The Start which is a book that advocates science-based nurturing of children’s mind using their version of the ABCs – Attention, Bonding and Communication - rather than toys that light up and offer your child a cheese sandwich, or any special “breakthrough” “new and improved” type of learning toy that doesn’t actually allow your child to learn.
One of the last remaining non-eco things I do, reading wise, is that I have a magazine subscription to Real Simple magazine. It expires in three months. Despite their near constant spamming of my mailbox, I have decided not to resubscribe. Not only is it a total waste of money, but there is almost nothing in the actual magazine I can’t get off their website. I will, however, admit I am glad to have received this most recent issue as it includes a huge amount of book recommendations and because I am trying to read more and TV less, I am cutting out that article and taking it with me to the library. I find the only downfall to the library is the method of display (ie: none) because I often get there and get sidetracked as to what I want to read and end up just getting non-fiction because that’s at least organized topically rather than alphabetically by author’s last name like the fiction section.
I have been pining away for a standalone e-book reader to truly go one more step. Amazon makes one that is supposedly the shizzle, but of course, like so many awesome products, it doesn’t work in Canada because our backwater CRTC doesn’t allow the use of the technology it uses as of yet. Sony does make one, and I actually like Sony products and can get a discount through my employer, but it doesn’t carry nearly as many fo-shizzle reviews as the Amazon one. Admittedly, however, Sony’s digital book reader has some special screen technology so the screen isn’t backlit – it actually looks like a book when you are reading it and also supports PDFs and Word docs, so you aren’t limited to the stuff you can get from the Sony e book library – in fact, the New Westminster Public Library now offers e-books. Any of my techno-dork friends or relatives out there have an opinion?
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