Sneaking some "me time"

Emily is just about over her jet lag, but I have had no "me time" in the past few days since she has not been sleeping long at all. Alas, I hope we are in for a longer sleep tonight.

We are in Ontario! That is, Emily and I are in Ontario. Poor Daddy has to go without his ladies for another few weeks until we all reconnect for Robyn's wedding.
Emily and I skyped Bryce the other night and she absolutely recognized him which was very cute. She squealed with delight and gave huge grins to Bryce on the computer screen! She doesn't really do that at all so it was awesome to see that she knows who her Daddy is.
Em slept really well on the flight from Auckland to Vancouver, including sleeping about 10 hours, on a 12 1/2hr flight! Air NZ has bassinets that you can sleep your babies in so that was very helpful. I got a bit ancy and kept checking that she was asleep but need not have worried! There were some nice Grandma's sitting beside me who were very lovely and kind and held Emily very quickly when the offer was given, and when I needed a hand.
It was great to see my Aunt Lynette, Uncle Bob and Grandpa and GrandJoan in BC. We also got to visit with cousin Krista and her daughter Phoebe (3 months old) and cousins Janet, Mike and their kids Zach, Rachel and Nathan, along with Mike and Kate. We had dinner with 13 of us at the table on Thursday night. It was lovely, as Emily, who often plays shy with strangers in NZ, just gave smiles to everyone she was passed around to!
Unfortunately, Emily and I had some sleeping issues our first night in BC. She went to sleep at 9:30 and then woke at 10:15. I tried to feed her and put her back to sleep but she was not interested in sleeping, but only eating. I had no more milk for her and since we had not used formula ever, I had nothing to give her. My aunt and uncle were already fast asleep and when I called out to them to try to wake them, all I heard was snoring. So I pushed on and thought I could fill up her tummy with water. So I boiled some water and as I began to give her some water I remembered reading something about it being unsafe to give babies too much water so as not to give them a water imbalance in their system. I was not sure how much water was too much so I stopped feeding her the water and texted some friends in NZ to try to get some help. I was overtired and frantic from all the crying at this stage, so I called Bryce. He did not know how to help me, except to try to get me to tell him about the flight. I was not in the mood to chat really, just to get Emily to sleep so I got more upset. I received a text that said try some mashed banana. I went to the fruit bowl which was full but had no bananas. As I searched through the bowl, I then found a banana and for the moment, I had this feeling like "yes, we have a BANANA! I can feed her!! She will sleep! I will sleep!" and then.....I realized it was just a piece of wooden fruit! I cried out loud in a childhood whiny voice, "oh no...its just a wood banana!" I was broken! I then proceeded to try to puree some apples, which I cooked in the microwave and then pushed through a sieve. I got about 1/2 tsp of apple and fed it to her. She liked it; the little bit she actually got in her mouth and stopped crying. I put her in her portacot and walked away. 2 minutes later, she started crying again....and so did I.

So I realized I needed help and went in and tried to wake my aunt and uncle, who I couldnt differentiate (as I stood at the foot of their bed) which snoring person was my aunt. I finally picked a side of the bed and went to wake her up. She got up and helped me by taking Emily and then waking up my uncle and telling him he needed to go to the store with me to get some formula. You can imagine he was a bit surprised at the request at 12:30am! Lynette, in her wisdom knew that the formula would help, but it was more important to get EMily and I seperated so that I could calm down and not upset Emily further. By the time Bob and I got back from the store, Emily was asleep! What a mission!
Sidenote: we tried the formula the next day just to be sure EMily would take it if the same thing happened the next night and just as my mom finished pouring it in the bottle, she knocked over the rest of it and the rest of the formula was gone. So, Aunt Lynette looked at Bob and sent him back to the store to get some more....just in case. I think he was okay with that though, as the alternative would be another late night store outing!
So we thanked the BC crew immensely for helping us get through our first nighttime travel disaster and so far we have had no repeats here in Ontario. Mom and I had a great flight with Emily from Vancouver to Toronto. Although Emily was responsible for slowing down the de-planing line as people stopped to look at her and smile and she gave everyone a big grin. What a cutie!
We have really enjoyed being with Poppa and Nana, who are getting lots of cuddles from Emily. Em will ALWAYS give Poppa a big smile, even when she has been upset prior to his attempts to make her smile. My Dad's just got something that all babies just love about him!
Today Emily went in a pool for the first time. She was tentative at first, in action only; she didn't cry at all. Then she just wanted to get back in, so I got in the pool too and she loved being on her tummy and kickin her legs. She has changed from hating her baths in NZ to loving baths and the pool here. Maybe our nights of screaming baths are over.....for now at least!
Amy's wedding is this weekend, so that will be a big test for mother and daughter, as I will be away from her most of the day. Poppa and Nana are babysitting all day and will attempt to bring her over to me amidst the wedding day plans to give Emily some Mommy time (and milk!). So excited for Amy and Jeff's wedding though. It is going to be fantastic!
More stories to come.

4 months old!

Here is Emily's 4 month picture with George the bear. She is definitely outgrown his height now and getting lil chubby legs now that are very cute. Even though she has gotten bigger, she still is a light weight and we are trying to give her a bit more food. A bit hard when all she drinks is milk. We are beginning the whole "when to start solids" debate with her. I am not in any rush to start her eating "real food" as she is messy enough with her milk; I can just imagine how overly excited she will be when she gets her hands all through her food!
We met up with some of the coffee group (antenatal class) on Thursday and took the "baby lineup photo". The babies are getting bigger and we will need to change the way we do the photo soon to fit them all in! It sure is cool to watch the other babies grow and how much they all change between our get togethers. The ladies in the group are wonderful and I find them very supportive and good fun to hang out with. It is great to have other people to confide your worries in and to get tips and tricks to use with the "drama of the week" with your own baby, because someone is the group has usually just gone through the same drama......and survived!

We went to Napier last weekend to visit Carl and Denise and catch up with lil Liam. He is growing so fast and is so intelligent! It is great to hear him say several words and identify things. He's got the greatest little stride when he is on a mission. We have really seen how quick Emily will go from being pretty stationary now to moving fast all over the place. She'll keep us on our toes, that's for sure.
On Saturday, we walked over to the local netball courts to watch Sammy play in her school netball final. Sammy played really well and they won their game, so she was pretty excited! Way to go girl!
On the Sunday we went over to Jess and Marty's place to have coffee and see their little guy Reuben. His eyes are a dreamy bright blue and so beautiful. It was nice to see them again, and we were sure to take the Daddy photo with all the new Dads and their kids. Emily and I will be in Canada for New Zealand Father's Day this year so we are going to celebrate it early with Bryce this weekend. I know Bryce is ecstatic about being a Dad and he is doing such a great job; I wouldn't want him to miss his "special day". Lucky for him, the day we chose to celebrate it on, he is riding in a Cyclocross race in the morning so it bolds well for one of his favourite days already!


This last photo is of Emily with a summer hat on, in honor of our impending trip to the North American summer. It will be fun to see how she likes the sun, and beaches and warmer weather!

I'm 113 days old.