Cereal

Dirty baby

Holden is supplementing his diet with dirt.

Psyche!

Holden has discovered that food is as fun to play with as it is to eat.  Just a few of his favorite games are:

- Hide the food I don't like behind my head game

- Throw the food I don't like on the floor game, which includes his first real context sensitive communication - 'uh oh!'

- Spit food out of my mouth and make face paint game

- Psyche! It's mine! game

Here's a video of Holden playing his psyche game with Mommy

Prunes!

We tried prunes today. More gagging, but he seemed to like it anyway. At least, he didn't complain and opened his mouth. But he still gagged!!

Gagging:


In other news, I'm well on my way to converting many of my playgroup friends from disposable diapers to cloth diaperers. Some were already there, and since hanging out with those of us that do it, most of the others are starting the switch. Yippee!! Cloth is awesome! It's great for the environment AND saves you oodles of money!!

Food Update & Bathtime Fun

We are continuing to try feeding Holden his sweet potatoes. Today we had a bit of a breakthrough and he ate a whole icecube size serving. He didn't love it, but he ate it!! It's the most he's had so far. Usually he only took half a teaspoon before freaking out. We think it may be a texture thing. We bought an avocado to try next and as soon as it's ripe that's what he'll be eating!

Holden finally showed some interest in the bath! Usually when we take a bath, John hops in with Holden and holds him while I wash him. He usually has no reaction to this. Not happy, not upset. Just... bla. Yesterday we put him in the tub on his own and he seemed to have fun! Here are some pics and a video.

Fun with Food. And tears too!

Holden tried something other than breastmilk last night! Sweet potatoes! At first he seemed intrigued by the whole thing, but by the end of it, it was tears. I think he needs some time to get used to it. Most of it ended up on his face and clothes, and not much went down his throat, and there were a couple of gags in there *ha*.

This morning we tried again, and it wasn't much better.

Hopefully he'll get the hang of it and start enjoying it soon.




Here's a video before he started getting upset:

Holden takes a bottle!!! And other news...

On Friday, March 7, 2007, Holden Smith Davis Churchill officially took his first full bottle for the first time (and it's a glass bottle). Do you know what this means for me?!? A little bit of FREEDOM!!!!! *squeeeeeeeeee*!!! We can use those gift certificates to Le Nordik (thanks Lisa!!)! An extended brunch with Theresa! Shopping! A haircut! The possibilities are ENDLESS! Before you all start thinking I can't wait to leave my baby, well, you're right, but just for a couple of hours :)

Here's a photo of the blissful event:

"Look, mom, I'm all done!"

Last weekend was Jason's birthday (close friends of ours). We went over to celebrate. Bo is their totally awesome son who turned 1 year old February 27. Here's a pic of them together.


Later when the babies were asleep, we had cake: Jay & Tee:

Random photo from last week: Tummy time!

Everybody misses John!!

But we still had a great brunch without him. John's parents came over as well as his sister Paula and her main squeeze Jeff. What a feast!! We had my mom's famous tortière (meat pie, for you anglos), homemade baked beans *drool*, baked veggies, Montreal bagels, fresh fruit salad, butter tarts, carrot cake, fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee... it was a true feast!!

And everyone wanted to say hi to John:

More photos!

As well as visiting my dad last weekend, we also visited Nanny and Papa. Danielle was nice enough to make us a fabulous breakfast including her fabulous quiche! Here are some pics from that visit:

Les tantes de la fesse gauche?!

Last weekend was a really nice weekend. My mom came to visit with two of her oldest friends, Pierrette and Ghislaine. I’ve known both of them most of my life and don’t remember a time when they weren’t my mom’s friends. Those are some looong friendships! So, my mom calls them “mes tantes de la fesse gauche”, which literally translated means aunts of my left butt cheek. French people are so weird *haha*. Loosely translated, it means honorary aunts.

Everyone got a kick out of my huge belly, and Pierrette let me know I’m still carrying too high to be going into labor soon. That’s a relief, I want another week off before he comes! As an aside, at my midwife apt on Monday, she let me know that Holden is now fully engaged so I guess he has dropped now and is ready to go. I’ve had no early labor signs though, so I’m taking it easy!

Back to the weekend… John made a FABULOUS dinner and impressed everyone. He’s truly an amazing cook! We started with a nice cream of leek & zucchini soup (which I made) and then John made BBQ steak with a potatoes & sweet potatoes dish, sautéed mushrooms, green beans, and crispy fried onions. It was amazing and his presentation was great. My mom brought desert, homemade apple pie (YUMMM!), cupcakes, and a fruit crisp. We STILL have leftovers!!

It was really fun, and went by much too fast.

It was a great and busy weekend

This past weekend we had Part II of our Bringing Baby Home class. It was a pretty fun class. The owner of Milkface came in with a bunch of different baby carriers that we got to try on with fake babies. John and I liked the same two carriers, so we’ll probably buy them both. One is a Baby Hawk (like a mei-tei) and the other is a ring sling.

Babyhawk:
Ring sling:
We also went over breastfeeding stuff, and got our carseat installation inspected. It passed! So we can transport a baby now, if anyone needs help with that :)

After the class we went to Eggspectation for lunch downtown. I LOVE it there and haven’t been in probably a year, so it was a real treat for me.

Sunday morning my buddy Diane and her family came for brunch. I made fresh squeezed OJ, yoghurt parfaits, from scratch buttermilk blueberry pancakes and sausage. It was delicious, if I do say so myself. Her daughter Sonya especially liked the yoghurt, and had quite the slather on her face to show it!

And then Sunday afternoon I workd *bla*.

My husband, the incredible cook

Some of you already know this, but for those of you who don’t, John is an incredible cook. This has been fantastic for me, since even though I enjoy cooking, I don’t love it. So I’m thrilled that John has become great at it, and has discovered a real passion for it. I’m thinking (hoping!) this will be even handier once the baby comes and I’m too tired/frazzled to cook anything interesting.

We’ve recently received a BBQ as a gift from my mom (merci maman!), and John has been putting it to great use. Last night, he made salmon with terragon on a cedar plank, along with these veggie packs that my mom taught us how to make (aluminum foil wrapped veggies baked in the oven, then on the BBQ for a few minutes. Fancier than it sounds). It was delicious! He has informed me that this weekend he will be attempting ribs on the BBQ as well. Can’t wait!

Ice Cream

I love ice cream. It could be pregnancy related, but I think it’s just a “me” thing in general. I usually eat a Haagen Daaz container in 2 sittings. So bad. Only guilt stops me from eating the whole thing in ONE sitting. Well, that and a numb tongue. John is trying to get me to cut back by saying I can have 1/2 a cup of ice cream per day, and he’ll reciprocate by only having one Rocket per day (red, white and blue striped popsicle). John lies. He’s completely unable to do it!! It was even him who came up with the idea, and then THAT VERY DAY he found an excuse to have a second one! His excuse? Rockets have less calories than ice cream. That’s not the point! It’s the PRINCIPLE!! He SAID one Rocket for 1/2 cup ice cream, and he re-negged. So I had a full cup of ice cream last night. *ha*