From youngest to oldest:
Our sweet Alana is one month old! And when I try to remember what Hendrik was like at this young age - how he slept, how he ate, how he spent his days - the details are fuzzy. So, at one month our girl is sleeping... as much as a typical newborn sleeps, I think. She usually goes three hours between feeds in the day, sleeping for a pocket of one, or one and a half hours at a time; at night she has had a few near five hour stretches, but as of late, the norm is three, max four hours (if I'm lucky). And this translates to two or three hours (max) of sleep for me, caught here and there... ugh. But really, it's not so bad if I can get back to sleep right away (or so I tell myself). Regardless, I oh so so so look forward to a full, continuous night sleep... when does that happen again? I don't remember. She's eating well and gaining weight (11 pounds) and growing through her newborn stuff and right through her three-month sleepers; I'm wondering if she'll be out of them before we head to China in three-ish weeks. She spends her awake time bobbing her head and eyeing us up; gazing at blinds, spending time on her tummy, and in general, just being cute - these are her main stays I'd say. She likes sticking out her tongue and makes little grunty pig sounds when she starts getting frantic hungry (or when she thinks she's frantic hungry - two hours between meal feasts? How hungry can you be?!), and is strong with her neck and little leg kicks. Is that it? Perhaps.
Hendrik, 22 months (plus 1 week by the time this is posted...)
His favourite thing by far is to ask one of us to "do" an animal; "mommy do t-rex" or "mommy do charlie" (the chicken puppet), or "gramma do the tiger"; this means we put on the almost always same sounding voice and pretend to be said animal. He loves it - lovvvves it - and I mmmm find it cute, and then tedious, because you can't just decide to stop playing. (Instead I will hide the animal and then tell Hendrik that um maybe Charlie went grocery shopping... or down the hall to the kitchen to have a snack - ?) Hendrik usually accepts these reasons as legitimate excuses.) He's back to running around full steam, and, in the last few days anyways, seems to have lost all listening power. He likes riding his tricycle (or being pushed on it), likes blowing bubbles and making up words. He is also a major copycat - we have to seriously watch what we say, because there's a near guarantee that he'll parrot our latest words and try them out himself.
Food: A typical day might look something like this: combo flakes or oatmeal + fruit for breakfast; grilled cheese or peanut butter toast plus veggies and cheese for lunch (and/or chick peas or black beans) and for dinner he eats almost everything that we eat. He passed on the delicious enchilada bake we had the other night, and wasn't internested in butternut squash soup or asparagus or brussel sprouts (I don't blame him on that last one). Corn on the cob is a fave and he loves pizza and burgers - what cultured tastes, no?
Books:
Awake to Nap, a Nikki McClure book might be his current favourite. Goodnight Construction Site is up there once more, and an H.A. Rey book almost always sneaks in there.
First thing he does in the morning? We're in the same room at Marg and Bob's house, so unless I'm out here in the main room feeding Alana, I hear him right right away say, "mommy, get down" in his sweet, just-woke-up quiet voice (7:00ish). We might hang out on our bed for a few minutes, and then it's upstairs for stories with Grams and Gramps - they've got the Anthology up there, so there is ample choice each morning. I almost always ask him if he had any dreams last night, and he usually says yes, he did; what? says I. "Trains, again" he'll say. And sometimes he'll add that there are trains in China. And too, that daddy saw one. (True story.)
Me
My updates? Hmmm. I feel like my life revolves around kiddie-care, and that's probably because it does. I do find time here and there to do other things - shower, blog, run an errand here and there, but oh it would be nice to have one more hour in the day for me. To sleep or exercise, or read. I'm looking forward to having the feeding run smoothly; I want it to be comfortable and easy, and to heal. I know it will get there but... can it be there soon? Say, now? I went to a breastfeeding group on Wednesday (Oct 1-5 is Breastfeeding Week in Canada) and - well I want to say that it was a bit ho-hum okay BUT - I won a gift certificate in a prize draw - ! $25 to Chapters, yay. Tomorrow I'm heading into the city to meet up with my sister and her hubby and their little one, Erik and I'm pretty pumped. I hope tonight is a good sleeping night - it could add up to one exhausting day, battling traffic in and out of the city at the start of Thanksgiving weekend. Oooh! And ... I have an iphone - !! Steve, for no reason whatsoever, sent me a gift, and that gift was a fancy new phone, yay yay yay. I've been using a very cheapo been-run-over phone that works... but won't work in China. So I'm all set up for a device there and when we come home in the spring.
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| getting interviewed upon arrival - link to the video HERE! (and another article something here) |
Steve
Is in China, eating Dairy Queen, drinking Starbucks coffee, going to weddings (okay, just one) and training playing training playing. They had a press conference this morning (or yesterday?) to introduce the foreign players, with a jersey ceremony and all. The team has their first games on Monday, and then heads to some unknown location for a week-long training camp, where prep for the season will begin in earnest. We catch up with Steve briefly every morning over (or before or after) breakfast, and it's hard to get all of the details of his day - between food flying and Hendrik asking for more bacon and then running here to get Corduroy and there to get his ambulance and me getting my breakfast and Alana needing hers... the small things that add up to big things get a bit lost in the mix. Here's a video of Team Canada's arrival at the Beijing airport (they were greeted by the media) - more pictures and Steve and Team Beijing info to come soon. Now, it's time to get back to Babyville...
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