One of these days I will stop deleting all the photos with me in them...

"Women are innately self-conscious. This is not a choice; it's a genderwide condition. On a bad day, I look in the mirror and see my ten-pound-heavier alter ego. Her name is Bertha. On a really bad day, Bertha sees her two-hundred-pound-heavier alter ego. Her name is Brian Dennehy." -- Alyssa Milano

Just look at that hair!!

Karin's hair has really grown and now we can do all kinds of fun hairstyles on her. I discovered a great website called Sarah's Bowtique, it is a little business out in BC and I just received my first order from them - one yellow and one lavender bow, similar to the pink one that I bought for Karin at the Calgary Farmer's Market when Karin was only 4 days old. I think I could get addicted...

And so it begins...

When I was a kid, I remember my mom and I spending what seemed like HOURS and HOURS cleaning my room, sorting out toys, etc. I never understood why she would bother. And then I became a mom with a 3 year old.

Height & Weight Update

We had Karin's shots today and she did quite well. Chance accompanied us and he was also very brave and reassuring for Karin. She fell asleep within a few moments of getting her shots, all three of them.

They weighed her and she is now 11 lbs 10 oz (5275 g) and an amazing 60 cm long (23.5 inches)!! She is progressing very well on her growth chart and I'm so proud of my growing babe!

While we were at the public health office I got Chance to step on the scale -- he is weighing in at 36.5 lbs (but he was wearing his new transformers shoes, good luck trying to get them off his feet!).

Chance has had a fever the last 2 days and a runny nose but is dealing well with it. He was not feverish today until bedtime, it is low though, I didn't even dose him with Tylenol as I figure his body is just fighting a bug.

March 18th rolled around quickly...

Karin has really grown!! There is no newborn photo in the chair as I had not thought to do it, but wow, just look how she's filled out!! Her hair is (somewhat) tamer too (on one side, anyways)...

Little Miss Rashy and Flaky

Karin's really broken out in a head-to-toe rash...it's actually just dry chapped skin, Chance developed something similar around the same age. It is worse in her elbows and backs of her knees, as well as under her chin, where the skin rubs. She loves being in her bath, it must feel good on her skin but when we take her out we put a fragrance free kids' formula lotion specifically designed for skin prone to eczema and she just howls, it must sting. We'll try something else, as it obviously causes her pain -- I know that stingy feeling when my hands are dry, I can't imagine what it would feel like if it was my whole body. I am going to wash all her clothes in fragrance free soap, etc. and see if that helps. She is already using gentle baby wash, not even shampoo. We cut out using the lovely baby lotion given to her by her Auntie Rennal...Cam started using it as hand cream for himself and I told him to stop as I was leaking milk every time I caught a whiff of it!

On top of being rashy, she is flaky -- dandruff. I spend the good part of most nursings with a fine tooth comb picking out flakes from her hair, it makes me feel like a mama ape.


Chance also has a rash....but it's self-induced. Carpet burn above his left eyebrow, from tumbling down the last 2 steps as he as heading downstairs to look for a toy car. I half-suspect that he actually fell down on purpose, as he had been scolded for pestering me to find it for him. I ordered him to go downstairs, as I knew he had been playing with his cars down there, and said to go look for himself, I wasn't his slave. Now when he is going down the stairs he always gets a stern reminder to hang on to the railing, unless he wants another face rash.

Condo Fire

A condominium complex in our neighbourhood caught on fire today around noon. Chance's dayhome is about 1 1/2 blocks from the blaze. He is safe, and apparently along with the other children, being entertained by the fire trucks, police cars, helicopters and news vans.

It is a strange feeling to have driven past these condos this morning with Karin, returning from our grocery trip. Half an hour later they were on fire. A neighbour working downtown heard about it and phoned me to let me know she had been in touch with our dayhome (her son goes there too) and that the kids were fine. I hadn't noticed anything, but as soon as I opened the windows the smell of smoke hit me and I could hear several helicopters hovering.

I really feel for the people who have lost their homes today.

Not bad, considering how long we've been parents...

So, for the first time ever, I washed a pamper today in the laundry. Except it wasn't just a pamper....it was a super high absorbancy 34 to 40 lb toddler size night time Pull Up. Stuffed into one leg of Lightning McQueen jammie pants. The thing was the size of an underinflated volleyball and weighed 3 lbs 5 oz (I'm sure this is not the application my mom had in mind when she gave me a food scale for my birthday). I was chatting on the phone with my friend Lynne, listening to her tell me about her newborn baby son, mechanically moving wet laundry into the dryer and the next thing that came out of my mouth was "oh frick!" as I hauled out an unusually hefty bundle of clothes oozing blue-tinged pamper goo. So on top of checking Chance's pockets for treasures before washing (kleenex, little cars, paperclips), I'll now have to make sure that his diapers END UP IN THE TRASH LIKE THEY BELONG.

Stuck in Traffic

Yesterday Cam phoned to let me know he'd be late due to an accident on Crowchild Trail, and asked if I could pick Chance up from Mrs. G's house. When I got there I explained that Daddy was stuck in traffic -- Chance's response was "Oh. Because of all the gluey roads?" Smarty pants!

Calgary International Auto & Truck Show

We visited the Calgary International Auto & Truck Show and bought this! OK, no one get excited, we didn't buy the car...we bought a picture of us sitting in the car. The money went to Alzheimer's research. To buy the car it would cost $541,000. Before we got in we had to leave the diaper bag and Karin's Snugli in a pile 10 feet away and be checked over for zippers, keys, buttons, etc. that might accidentally scratch the car. We were warned: "YOU SCRATCH IT, YOU BUY IT".

Chance was very excited to go this morning, and was completely dressed, breakfasted, bathroomed AND made his own bed within an hour of waking up. He really enjoyed climbing up to peek in the windows of the huge and very shiny semi trucks. Cam carried Karin in her Snugli, where she mostly dozed, I guess cars are not really her thing. My favorite car was a Lincoln SUV and I just loved it for its colour: metallic chocolate brown -- it looked so delicious! It was also amazing to see our own brand new car (same colour and everything) and see how great it looked when not covered in dust, muddy footprints and sticky fingerprints!

Looking So Pretty

Karin got all dressed up on Friday and went downtown to meet her Mommy's and Daddy's coworkers. She was charming and only got fussy once, when she was hungry. It was a big day, we left the house at 9 AM and did not get home until 3 PM, then chatted with Grandma Jo on the phone (speakerphone is a great invention). She fed in two separate office buildings, had a bottle at a food court and nursed in the car, which was very sunny and warm. Busy day!

Going to the zoo today...

I just put Karin down after nursing in the middle of the night...it always takes her a few minutes to settle down. We are going to the zoo this AM with Landen and his mom, who we knew from the RGH Mommies tour in 2006-2007. It will be great seeing them as I think it has been a bit more than 2 years!



**LATER**... well I would call it a successful day. The new animatronic dinosaur exhibit scared the crap out of Chance. It was pretty realistic! Very Jurassic Park. The allosaurus looked like it wanted to reach right down and eat us.

I only managed to take a few photos. Visiting the zoo with two kids was definitely more hectic than usual!!

Yum

Supper tonight was what Cam and I call "date night" - put the kids to bed and eat dinner. No complaints of "I don't like onions" or spilled milk, no blowouts and meltdowns. The first time we ever did it, Chance was 3 or 4 months old -- we started last weekend (Karin just about 6 weeks) with a quick plate of leftovers - blackened halibut with Spanish rice and carrots. But tonight we (I) cooked a real meal for us. (Cam cleaned).

The menu was Madras Chicken Skewers with Coconut Cilantro Rice with Mango Chutney and Naan Bread. :) And half a Bud Light Lime. :P Cam made no bones about claiming the leftovers for lunch on Monday, haha.

I will have to scan these recipes to share, the food was awesome, tasted just like we were at an Indian restaurant. They came from the recipe book I received from Cam's sister for my birthday, The Best of Bridge. I've made at least a dozen recipes out of the book so far, and they've all been awesome, although there are quite a few typos and omissions, but the website is great for double checking the recipes when something doesn't seem right (ie. 4 tablespoons of baking soda seemed like a lot for scones....it was supposed to be 4 teaspoons).

Smile!

Here's what she looks like when she's smiling!!


On the weekend our friends came over with their girls Ayla and Ivy. The big kids enjoyed showing off their respective babies.

There's video versions too: Chance and Ayla showing off their babies and Karin showing us her newfound ability to smile and coo.

6 weeks old and second cold!

Poor Karin has another cold. We've all got it. She's holding up well, despite a pluggy nose. She's tired, and keeps falling asleep while nursing. So I'm up more frequently, as she has not really filled up and / or she is thirstier than usual. It'll be better soon!

In other news, Karin broke out the pink sunglasses that Chance started out with many years ago. She manages to pull off the look.

Olympic Nerds

Well, our household certainly caught the Olympic Fever. We had a family project hanging up on the fridge for weeks. It all started with a shopping trip to a craft store for posterboard and medal stickers. Except they didn't have plain, round stickers. No gold, no silver, no bronze. No white. No dots, no circles. Nada. They had everything else under the sun, including race cars, trees, rockets, hearts, shamrocks, ocean waves, letters of the alphabet in every font imaginable. So we went next door to an office supply store, bought some glitter pens and poster board there. $5.27.

Then we started by penciling in our words "VANCOUVER 2010" "GO CANADA". We did it freehand. Afterwards I lamented about the "G" - it looks nothing like a "G".

Cam printed off a skiier and hockey player and maple leaf and Olympic rings from the internet. The colouring was done by grown ups but Chance picked the colours. This is something I've noticed about him - he wants to colour, draw, etc., but gets frustrated when he goes out of the line. We tried to encourage him to colour on the poster but he refused. Something to work on, practice practice!

Each time Canada got a medal it was added to the chart. Even though we did it for Chance's benefit, initially, both Cam and I really had a lot of fun, and found ourselves doodling and enhancing the poster after Chance had gone to bed!

We really are Olympic Nerds.