Parenthood
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a month of kaitlin marie.
By Karen | Monday, February 15th, 2010 | No Comments »
Our daughter, Kaitlin Marie Hamilton, was born at 5:32pm one month ago.
It’s amazing to watch her grow over the past 31 days. She’s gone from being awake just long enough to eat, burp, and poop to spending her mornings and late afternoons tracking our faces and realizing she has hands. Kate’s vocabulary is no longer limited to crying; she talks and sighs while she eats, as if she’s giving a running commentary of her meal or trying to share tasting notes. In the past few days, we’ve noticed tears running down her cheeks when she cries, and have even caught her fake crying when she just wants to get our attention.
And we’re growing just as rapidly as new parents. She’s made us learn the true meanings of sleeplessness and multitasking. Tasks that were once theoretically repugnant, such as changing a baby that has soaked her clothes through with an exploding poopy diaper, have become a reality to deal with and get desensitized to. We’ve started to differentiate between her various sounds and expressions. The endless cycle of feed-burp-change-nap is getting handled more efficiently (despite looking out our window at the Olympic celebrations and wishing we could have timed her birth a little differently). I’m sure there is more to learn and that she will continue to wrap us around her little finger as her first year progresses.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us thus far with gifts, food, advice, and assistance. We welcome your help and experience…and most definitely your babysitting skills!
Another update next month. For now, look at the 365-day photo project we have on Flickr (month 1 below). Each photo describes any milestones in its caption.
T-minus 1 month.
By Karen | Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Hard to believe that Kurt and I will be parents in the next month! We’ve done a pretty decent job of preparing for the upheaval…reading the baby books, taking prenatal courses, eating well and keeping active. My side of the family has thrown a couple of baby showers and all sets of parents have helped us secure the big ticket items, so we are comfortably set up with a car seat, bassinet, stroller, and newborn diapers to last us the first few weeks.
The next few weeks will be busy with wrapping up work before I go on maternity (well, as much as a small business owner with a client base can go on maternity) till the end of May. We also started the process of painting the nursery. Although we originally wanted to paint the room yellow, we’re now thinking green would better complement the size of the room, the decor within it, and the Classic Pooh wallpaper stripe that I fell in love with at Home Depot. Hopefully by this weekend we’ll have narrowed it down to 2-3 shades so that we can paint samples onto the wall and have ‘er done by New Year’s.
Our hospital duffel bag is partially packed thanks to my paranoia that the little one wants to get out early. Based on the checklists that parenting resources have suggested, I’ve attempted a custom list that Kurt can go over while I’m in the throes of early labour:
- Pen and paper for taking notes
- Birth plan (several copies for doctor, Kurt, nurses)
- iPhone and charger
- Stopwatch for contractions (yes, there’s an App for that!)
- Baby oil
- Extra pillows
- Hair ties
- Sugarless candies or lollipops
- Back massager
- Snacks and drinks for Kurt
- Swim trunks for Kurt (if I decide to use water therapies)
- Diversions for a long labor: music, puzzles, magazines, books, a deck of cards, laptop, handheld electronic games
- Who to Call list
- Camera and charger
- Video camera and charger
- Thank-you goodies for hospital staff
- Baby books and labour / delivery notes
- Toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash
- Hairbrush and comb
- Toiletries (soap, shampoo, makeup)
- Maxi-pads
- Snacks for after delivery
- Bottle of bubble to celebrate with
- 1-2 days’ worth of postpartum clothing
- Underwear and nursing bra
- Nightgown
- Bathrobe
- Wool socks and slippers
- Going-home outfits for baby
- Cap, mitts and socks for baby
- Receiving blanket(s) for baby
- Newborn diapers and change pad
- Baby sling
It’s a ton of stuff, but from what we’ve heard, lots of stays are 1-2 days long.
Wish us luck!
Our baby registry round-up.
By Karen | Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
With all the stuff we’ve been bombarded with as expecting parents, it sometimes feels like we have to spend a fortune on stuff that is being marketed to us as baby necessities. We’re doing our best to wade through the BS and locate the key pieces that would last us through two kids. Unfortunately, no one retailer has all the products that we have settled on, so here’s a blog post to link together the items that we’ve got our eyes on.
Thanks to a tip from Luciana, we discovered myregistry.com and placed all the items described below into it. You can now see whether people have told us that they purchased something from the registry. This is a LOT easier to update!
Click here to visit our page on myregistry.com >
We’ll still use this post to add notes for stuff we might add in future and to tell you when we hear about sale pricing.
What we already have
Pink clothing. To date, we’ve been gifted with more than 50 pieces of clothing in pink. Please try to pick another colour for our baby’s wardrobe! We like gender-neutral colours best, like green or yellow or white, and newborn-6m clothing that Child #2 can use again.
If you’d like to get us girly-girl stuff, how about choosing purple or red as a girls’ colour or getting girl styles (ie, dresses, frills, flowers / feminine patterns) in colours other than pink?
Bassinet / mobile crib. My dad and Lorraine bought us the Arm’s Reach Mini-Convertible Co-sleeper.
Stroller. Kurt’s parents bought us the BOB Revolution stroller in Blue Chocolate.
Infant car seat. My mother bought us the Peg Perego SIP infant carrier.
BOB stroller car adapter. We have the BOB stroller and the Peg Perego car seat already, but to use them together, we needed this car seat adapter that is placed on the stroller for when the baby is too small for the stroller. It converts to a cup holder and food tray for when the baby is big enough to sit up in the stroller.
Baby carrier. Kurt’s office got us a Baby Bjorn Classic. Could use accessories for it like a weather shield or some sort of pouch to hold a facecloth / soother / wipes.
Camcorder. My mom bought us a Sony Handycam DCR-SX41 for Christmas.
Bouncer and swing. Dave and Michelle loaned us their bouncing chair and musical swing now that Alden has outgrown them.
Bath supplies. We got a tub as a giveaway at one of the baby events we got invited to.
Essentials
These are the things that would definitely be lifesavers now that we don’t have time to do anything but cater to Kaitlin.
Meal service or made-ahead meals
Kaitlin feeds so often that I don’t have time to fix myself anything to eat, let alone cook or go grocery shopping. Our family has been helping us by bringing food whenever they visit, but it would also be lovely to have a stash of single-serving, simply-microwave meals to have in the fridge or freezer without resorting to processed foods or junk. Best foods are things I can prep and/or eat with one hand – finger foods, forkable bits, or pasta.
A lot of the meal services have closed their doors in 2009 but Indishpensable on Arbutus is still alive and well.
Cloth Diapers: New and Green Baby
After consulting with New and Green Baby, we’ve specified the type, size, colour, and quantity of the items we’d like knowing that we’ll re-use them for Child #2 (and who knows whether that one will be a boy or a girl). We’ve already purchased the sizes we’ll need for the first 6 months but we still don’t have the hose that attaches to the toilet so that we can (ugh) rinse poop off of the diapers before throwing them in the wash.
Sleep Bags
The most indispensable items in Kate’s wardrobe are her microfleece SleepSack and her cotton SwaddleMe. We only have one of each. Because she is such as spit-up machine, we wind up having to clean them on a daily basis. It would be lovely to have a few more of each kind so that we can be less crazy with the laundry loads.
Baby Incidentals
All the little things add up, and we are shocked how much of our budget is drained by these seemingly innocuous household needs:
- Baby wet wipes (we like Seventh Generation or other hypoallergenic, non-alcohol options)
- Formula (currently using powdered Good Start with Omega 3s)
- Playtex bottles (the hockey stick shaped kind designed to minimize burps, gas, and spit-ups)
Crib: Gluckstein Crib in White
We’ll be using the co-sleeper for the first 6 months but eventually the baby will get too big for it. We already have partial Bay credit that we can use towards this Gluckstein crib. The white colour will better match the nursery’s colours but espresso is okay too.
Nice to Haves
These are things that we’d appreciate getting, but if we never get them, it’s probably not that big a deal.
Baby Bjorn Accessories
Kate loves hanging out in her carrier but she is still susceptible to rain. Would appreciate a weather / warmth shield, as well as something that attaches as a spit-up cloth or bib, and perhaps a pouch or attachment that can be used to store a soother and facecloth.
Our baby as produce.
By Karen | Monday, August 17th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
19 weeks into this pregnancy and my torso has become a foreign landscape. Despite looking as if I have swallowed a melon, I still find the mommy industry’s practice of comparing one’s developing child to a piece of produce to be disconcerting. Each fruit or vegetable that our baby can be likened to in any given week gives me cause to boycott said foodstuff until our baby can no longer be compared to it. Here’s an example of the analogies that crop up in every newsletter, website, and iPod application that targets moms-to-be.
Pregnancy Tracker’s weekly size chart:
- No size comparison in Week 1: ovulation
- No size comparison in Week 2: implantation
- Poppyseed: 0.02″
- Poppyseed: 0.10″
- Sesame seed: 0.18″
- Grain of rice: 0.25″, 0.05 oz
- Blueberry: 0.53″, 0.07 oz
- Raspberry: 0.68″, 0.11 oz
- Grape: 0.93″, 0.35 oz
- Prune: 1.2″, 0.71 oz
- Fig: 1.7″, 1.06 oz
- Plum: 2.3″, 1.6 oz
- Peach: 3″, 2.3 oz
- Lemon: 3.5″, 3.9 oz
- Apple: 4.1″, 4.8 oz
- Avocado: 4.7″, 5.6 oz
- Turnip: 5.2″, 7.1 oz
- Sweet potato: 5.8″, 8.8 oz
- Mango: 6.2″, 9.5 oz
- Grapefruit: 6.8″, 13.4 oz
- Cantaloupe: 8.9″, 15.9 oz
- Spaghetti squash: 10.2″, 1.1 lbs
- Papaya: 11″, 1.2 lbs
- Ear of corn: 11.8″, 1.4 lbs
- Rutabaga: 12.6″, 1.7 lbs
- Eggplant: 13″, 1.9 lbs
- Head of cauliflower: 13.4″, 2.2 lbs
- Chinese cabbage: 13.8″, 2.5 lbs
- Butternut squash: 14.2″, 2.9 lbs
- Head of lettuce: 14.6″, 3.3 lbs
- Head of lettuce: 15.4″, 3.7 lbs
- Head of lettuce: 15.9″, 4.2 lbs
- Pineapple: 16.5″, 4.6 lbs
- Pineapple: 16.9″, 5.1 lbs
- Honeydew: 17.7″, 5.5 lbs
- Honeydew: 18.3″, 6 lbs
- Watermelon: 18.9″, 6.4 lbs
- Watermelon: 19.7″, 6.6 lbs
- Watermelon: 19.7″, 6.7 lbs
- Pumpkin: 19.7″, 6.8 lbs
Brahms’ Lullaby
By Karen | Friday, August 14th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I once owned a pink and red Sanrio jewellry box (something like this). It was my most cherished possession for the magic that it possessed inside: a chime that spun a lullaby whenever it opened.
Later, I learned that the melody was Brahms’ Lullaby, and that English lyrics existed for me to learn and sing to our highly anticipated family addition. Did your parents ever sing this song to you?
Brahms’ Lullaby
Lullaby, and good night,
With pink roses bedight,
With lilies o’erspread,
Is my baby’s sweet head.
Lay you down now, and rest,
May your slumber be blessed!
Lay you down now, and rest,
May thy slumber be blessed!
Lullaby, and good night,
You’re your mother’s delight,
Shining angels beside
My darling abide.
Soft and warm is your bed,
Close your eyes and rest your head.
Soft and warm is your bed,
Close your eyes and rest your head.
Sleepyhead, close your eyes.
Mother’s right here beside you.
I’ll protect you from harm,
You will wake in my arms.
Guardian angels are near,
So sleep on, with no fear.
Guardian angels are near,
So sleep on, with no fear.
Lullaby, and sleep tight.
Hush! My darling is sleeping,
On his sheets white as cream,
With his head full of dreams.
When the sky’s bright with dawn,
He will wake in the morning.
When noontide warms the world,
He will frolic in the sun.
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