Happy Birthday Daddy!

Colin is officially 29! Happy Birthday babes! xoxox

Him and I often talk about our different "love languages" (something we learned from our marriage prep course), his language is quality time. So I was trying to think of something he'd appreciate. So on Sunday morning we dropped Robbie off with Grammie and Grampie and off we drove into the mountains! We made our way up to Chateau Lake Louise, Colin's never been in that neck of the woods and I thought it would be a perfect way to spend some quality time together. We had reservations at the hotel for Sunday brunch, it was amazing! The meal started off with a protein smoothie in a shot glass after which was followed by a 3 tiered platter; the top plate had cheeses, humus and crackers. The second tier was fresh fruit and the bottom tier was all pastries.... yummmm. For an additional $5 we got a platter of chilled fresh seafood, I figured because it was Colin's birthday I'd suck it up and give it a try (for those of you who don't know, I'm pretty stubborn in my ways and have never had seafood before) I tried a crab leg and some glazed salmon. I wasn't a fan of the crab, I found it fairly salty.... the salmon on the other hand... yummy! After we had brunch we walk around outside, they were having an ice carving competition so we stood and watched these amazing artists at work. After roaming around for a little bit Colin asked if we could go check out the ski slopes to see what all the fuss is about (I've been trying to convince him to try skiing/snowboarding this season) so off we headed for a quick 5 minute drive up the mountain to the Lake Louise ski resort. We walked outside to where the chairlifts were and the bunny hill to the left, I was getting all excited... it's been years since I last hit the slopes and I'm itching to get back on the hill. "I can do this" he says, he saw a bunch of moms/dads teaching their little ones how to snowplough on the bunny hill and I think that inspired him (it did for me at least!). We checked out prices for ski rentals, classes and daycare (yep, they even have that!!) and then decided to head back home as the wind was starting to pick up. We got home early enough that we were able to catch a matinee before going to pick up the monkey.


On Tuesday Colin caught a wicked cold. His body was going from one extreme to another... first he was freezing and then roasting. He spent the entire day in bed and couldn't seem to get enough sleep! Also, Robbie got up several times that night... I noticed that his room was a little chilly so I kept on hiking up the thermostat but it didn't seem to get warmer.


Wednesday morning we noticed that our pilot light was off for boiler and after several attempts to re-ignite it we came to conclusion that it was broken. So we called Atco Gas and they told us they would be by within the next 24hrs.... I was blown away, that's a LONG time to go without heat/hot water, especially with the extreme deep freeze that the city was in (-49 with wind chill). Thankfully Robbie was at the day home for the entire day, so he didn't have to bear with the frigid temperatures in the house! It was also apparent that Colin wasn't getting any better; he ached and was always fatigued. He had a hard time regulating his body temperature and the fact that we didn't have any heat in the house didn't help his situation. He had such a hard time moving from the bed to the couch and spent the majority of the day sleeping... what a horrible way to celebrate his birthday! I took the day off to catch up on some sleep from the day before & to be here when the Atco Gas man finally showed up (~3:30pm) After the gas man left I ran out to pick up our monkey, I love hearing about his day. I guess there's a little girl that's just shy of 2 years old, named Cassandra, that he's taking a liking to. He calls her "Cassi" and she teaches him everything that she knows "up" she says as she reaches the ceiling and "down" as she touches her toes, I guess Robbie mimics her by reaching up high then touching his toes. Patty (the day home provider) said it looked like there was an aerobics class in her living room from all the stretching they were doing together. I brought him home and he started saying a new phrase!! "No way" it's so cute! He's figuring out when it's appropriate to use the sentence (ie. pretend phone convo's)

Thursday Colin finally caved in and asked me to take him to the hospital, he just was exhausted with trying to beat this sickness on his own. Thankfully neither of my parents were working and my mom was able to come and watch Robbie right away. We spent close to a total of 2hrs at Foothills (we were expecting a lot longer of a wait) and the Dr just had to hear his symptoms and look at his tonsils to diagnose that he had strep throat. The Dr was really nice, he said there's 4 main symptoms that they look for and if all 4 are apparent then they don't have to do a swab and they go straight to the Rx meds (penicillin). Colin had all 4 symptoms so he gave us the Rx and we were on our way to the pharmacy! My mom was so sweet enough to stay with Robbie once we got back so that I could do some grocery shopping (we desperately need more food but it's hard to do when you're running the house by yourself & taking care of a toddler). This was the night that I made the decision to cut the bath out of Robbie's bed time routine... for the past 2-3 days all he does is sits in the tub crying. There's no fun in bath time for him right now so why make him do something he hates? So last night I sat in the rocker and read some books to him while he had his bottle and that worked just as well! :)

Here we are at Friday and Colin seems to be 100% better. He's cracking jokes, he's able to sit up without any pain and he doesn't look like he's suffering any more :) I took Robbie to Ikea today and we had a blast! There are so many toddler beds that are so functional (they expand as the child grows), I can't wait to take Colin there to show him how cute Robbie looks when he's able to climb into a big boy bed. Robbie knew exactly what to do, he laid down and smothered his head into the pillow.

Well, that's my attempt at a re-cap. We've been crazy busy and hopefully it'll calm down now that Colin's on the mend.

"doo doo"

"Like my new hairdo?"

For the past couple of days he's been grabbing my hand and leads me into his room for a diaper change while he continuously says "doo doo" (no idea where he got that word from) and lone behold he has a full diaper!

He's also mastered climbing and dismounting our kitchen chairs. I was putting away some groceries and had my back turned to him for a quick second and when I went to check on him he was sitting in the chair & playing with the canned foods that were on the table! I was really worried about how he was going to get down but he was very cautious in sliding off of the chair. Some of these pictures show his new trick.

Teething Update

I've been waiting to blog with an update because his progress has been all over the maps. During the day time he's usually pretty happy.... it's only at nights that it seems to bother him. On Monday night he slept all through the night last night he was up at 3 and couldn't settle him back down. The one complaint that I have is that he ends up going for a 2nd nap around 5ish and doesn't wake up for the rest of the night!! Which in turn means he's waking up close to 5 in the morning thinking it's time to play :( Hopefully we can get him back into his old routine.


I've been working a lot of extra hours lately and got yesterday off, Robbie helped me do some cleaning around the house.
















He grabbed a piece of paper towel and started wiping the windows with me.

Washing the floors.












And sweeping the floors.

Morning Trip to the Childrens Hospital

(Dad here)

This is my first blog and I wished it was under better circumstances. Our little guy was up from about 3 am on this morning with a fever and general unhappiness so we decided to go to the Children's Hospital this morning to make sure that it wasn't anything too bad. We'd chalk it up to teething but the usual signs for Robbie (bad rash, etc) were not there so we wanted to get him checked out. Lucky us when we got there there was no one else in the waiting room so Robbie had quick service and all the attention he could get. After being looked at they couldn't really determine/diagnose anything so they gave him some Motrin (as opposed to Tylenol... I guess it has some anti-inflammatory drugs in it).

If it is a bug the doctor said we should know in the next day or so but for now we're just keeping him as content as we can with lots of fluids and distraction. It sucks when he can't talk and tell us what hurts and that we can't really do anything to help the little guy. I can see why Heather likes writing blogs, it's therapeutic.

Anyways it's Robbie and I here at the laptop we'll give him a chance to blog as well....

gvldgj fldefl3e9itf4rj

gvrbbnvrbn r

I think that's his way of saying "Hi and that he misses everyone"

Anyways Dad here... signing off.

Night time Party

Well I was the sole guest invited to Robbie's night time party. I feel SO bad for this little man, these teeth are the worst... he's actually breaking out in fevers during his sleep :( He's never done that before. Other than the heat radiating from his body you'd never know there was something wrong (other than the odd fuss here and there). He spent the morning with Grammie today because I had to do some modeling for the store and I was able to pick him up right before his nap... after he woke up from his nap he was roasting. So we're giving him teething tablets as well as Tylenol to keep the fever under control.

I wish I could take the pain away.

All Aboard!

The teething train has graced us once again... and even though it's only been a couple of days, it feels like a lifetime. Last night (Monday) had me feeling exactly the way I felt when he was just a couple of weeks old and I was getting up constantly throughout the night for feedings. Last night I got up 5 times! I felt so bad for him, he woke up screaming in pain (did the same thing for his nap today) all I could do was hold him :( He hasn't been napping at the dayhome, it's probably a combo of his teething situation and all the action that's going on outside of the bedroom. It's HORRIBLE timing, I've got such a crazy schedule this week due to the wedding fair. I'm helping out with a bunch of promo and I'm working an extra day which, unfortunately, puts a lot of pressure on Colin to have to deal with a sometimes cranky/teething toddler.

His appetite has changed... which is very disappointing. He doesn't eat 1/2 as much as he use to (could be due to the teething). He still refuses to even touch chicken and turkey... we've tried different cooking methods and different sauces in hopes that he'll eat it.. dream on mom! He'll play with his food and will end up pointing at it and saying "nonononono" (grrrr)

Picture of the Day

(click to enlarge)

"meeeeeeee"

Robbie's new trick is mimicking the moo'ing of a cow... except it ends up sounding more like "meeeeee". Nan got him a Mega Blocks farm for Christmas and that's all he seems to be playing with lately (he's big into building!) it sings songs and makes a bunch of animal noises. He keeps on pushing the cow button and tries to mimic the sound, after 3 or 4 times of correcting him he is able to make more of a "ooo" sound than an "eee".

Robbie's eating habits are slowly getting better. He still refuses to eat any chicken or turkey (grrr!), Col & I aren't going to change the menu just because Mr. monkey doesn't like what's on the menu... he can sit there and look at his food until we're done eating before we try and offer something else.

Robbie's slowly pushing more teeth up, not sure which ones yet. But we've had a couple of nights where he's woken up shrieking and he's also had a couple of days where he had some open sores on his bum... thankfully they didn't seem to bother him at all!

His hair keeps growing!! I'm cutting it every week or two (much to Colin's dismay). Robbie's getting better with me cutting it, we sit in the tub while he plays with his bath toys (with no water) and that seems to entertain him enough so that I can do what needs to be done. Robbie doesn't like me trying to trim the hair around his ears.... I think the more it gets done the more he'll accept it.

My attempt at a Holiday recap

I apologize if I don't get to touch on everything that has happened over the past couple of weeks. We have a very special little boy who is loved by so many people, we really are blessed to have so many people who care so much for our little man. Thank you to everyone for making it such a memorable holiday!

Hmmm so where do I start?! Well, Stuncle (we think he was adopted at birth... so we're officially calling him step-uncle aka stuncle) arrived safe & sound and we were able to celebrate his birthday with him (he's one year away from 60!) Unfortunately Robbie wasn't keen on the roast that was being served that night.

On Christmas Eve we spent the evening over at my parents. Robbie got spoiled with pizza and chocolate ice cream! Needless to say he was wired and was chasing me around the house, he would growl at me, I'd scream, he'd run after me and I'd run away. We did this process at least 20 times and every time I screamed he would start laughing hysterically.

Christmas was a great success, Robbie was up around 6:30 but by the time we fed him & got all our gear we didn't get there until around 7:30ish. Robbie was in a great mood and put smiles on all of our faces. He was into unwrapping the first couple of presents and then he couldn't be bothered, he was quite happy with someone unwrapping and then he would assess if it was worthy of some Robbie attention. He got so many cool books and toys! He went down for a nap and slept for a little over 1.5 hrs. Grammie made an amazing meal, unfortunately Robbie didn't take a liking for the turkey... he put it in his mouth and spit it right out, maybe it was the texture?

Boxing Day was a 2 nap day, our little man was so over stimulated for so long that he needed some grandparent detox. I was lucky enough to go and brave the mall for some boxing day deals while daddy spent some quality time with the monkey.

The following day we had an amazing visit with Colins family. Nana, Nan, Grandpa, Shari and Cousin Julie made the drive down to see us! They were originally going to be here for around 10 am, but due to weather it got pushed back by an hour. We were worried that they would get here just as our monkey was going down for his nap. Colin suggested that we try to put him down for a nap... I was a little weary, he's never slept unless he's asked/showed signs that he was ready to sleep. Thankfully the monkey slept for a little over 2 hours! He woke up and was such a big flirt, snuggling with everyone that held him and was giving big smiles to everyone. He unwrapped all the presents and was so excited with all the new toys! We all had spaghetti for lunch and we spent some more quality time together. Robbie kept showing them how much of a monkey he was, he was climbing his crib (from the outside) and got half way up (time to start thinking about a big boy bed!) Unfortunately they had to hit the road come 4pm... right before I had to go to work! Thank you guys for driving down here... we realize it's an insanely long drive and to do it all in one day shows the amount of love you have for us!

Due to the crazy couple of weeks we've had I haven't had much time to make any meals & therefore Robbie's become quite a picky eater. He use to love peas and now refuses to eat them, he had no problem eating chicken before but he refuses to eat them too! Thankfully he still likes broccoli and tomatoes. We're limiting him to one fruit in the morning and one at night... much to his dismay. We had to hide the fuit bowl because every time he'd see it he'd ask for a "mana" or a "gaga"(orange) every time we say no he'd start throwing a hissy fit, so off to a time out he goes! The more he's able to communicate what he wants the more stubborn and picky he's becoming. Colin & I are trying to nip this in the butt, if he's hungry and asking for fruit, muffin, etc he gets carrots and peas. If he's hungry enough, he'll eat them. Now that the holidays are done we can go back to making meals and hopefully he'll be more inclined to eat what's on his plate.