Asta la vista bottle

Well I think the biggest thing is that we've eliminated bottles AND the sound machine for bed time! It's a little hard for me at nights because ever little moan I hear as clear as a bell through the sound machine. I'm really happy that this transition has been effortless, it's like he's never needed either the bottle or sound machine to get him to sleep.

He's picked up some new words too! He says:
puppy
woof
mommy (which I'm THRILLED with)
beep beep beep

If you ask him where his belly is he'll lift up his shirt and will pat his belly! It's so adorable!!! We've got a Raffi's "the wheels on the bus" book, Colin was singing that to him and when he got to the sound the horn makes he pushed Robbie's belly making the "beep beep" sound.... Now Robbie will push his belly while saying "beep beep"!

He's been sleeping so well, he's in bed around 8pm and usually wakes up closed to 8am! Unfortunately I've been having a hard time adjusting to this schedule, I wish I could sleep in like he does. Just you watch, I'll finally get adjusted and use to waking up around 8 and he'll start teething again and will be up at 6!

This afternoon Robbie and I went for a walk around the block. He was such a good boy and held onto my finger the entire time. We walked by a house that had 2 dogs that were barking at the window and Robbie kept on repeating "puppy", it was so adorable.

Everything else has been great, Robbie's such a happy little monkey and such a treat to have.

PS. I've been meaning to blog about this for a while, Robbie's now sleeping with a pillow! We're/I am trying to slowly transition him into a bed and I think he likes the comfort of a pillow. He's been trying to climb over his crib and he's gotten his leg wedged through the bars to the point he's screaming in pain for me to come and get him.

I've also uploaded a video from my phone... hence the poor quality. But it gives you an idea of what Robbie's like in the evenings :) I was trying to capture him doing the cha-cha but he decided to be a twirling dervis at the time

http://s236.photobucket.com/albums/ff168/RWSpictures/Videos/?action=view&current=2.flv

Pictures & Rockin Robbie

Mommy & Robbie snuggling before bed time.

I'm in heaven!

Robbie was such a good boy today. We've been having a bit of a power struggle with him in regards to eating and a couple of other minor issues (standing on the sofa/La-z-boy) and we thought that there was no end in sight, but today he worked really well with us and didn't have any issues! We even went the whole day without a bottle (didn't even need it before bed!)!!

I really wish we had a video camera to capture our little monkey in his element; instead, I'll try to describe it to the best of my ability. It's 7:30pm (should be winding down for bed) Robbie brings his musical dancing turtle that sings "Won't you take me to funky town". He hits play on the turtles foot and the music starts singing and the turtle starts doing the robot, I try to imitate the turtle and then realize that I'm not doing a good job so I try to do my interpretation of an Irish jig. Robbie thinks that my dancing his hillarious and starts to do his own moves. He's giving it his all, he's flexing every muscle from the waist up and doing the fastest cha-cha I've ever seen. His eyes are clenched closed and his tripping over his feet and falls on his bum and laughs uncontrollably, then picks himself up and proceeds to do it all over again.

What a great night! After he cuddled with me for a little bit we got him changed into his PJ's and read him a C. George story while he cuddled with his Pooh Bear in the rocking chair. He said "All Gone" when the story was done, I put him down in his crib and wished him a good night.... he's trying sooooo hard to say good night back, he gets the "g" sound then improvises and ends up saying "bye bye". Hahaha, I love him so much!

Doctor's Appointment

I feel SO much better after having seen the doctor. As soon as she asked me if I had any questions I brought up my experience with the health clinic yesterday, she was quick to squash the idea that Robbie is overweight. According to her chart he's in the 75th percentile for weight (the Dr's office had Robbie strip down naked whereas he was wearing all of his clothes at the health clinic... and had a fully tummy) The Dr told me that the nurses said the same thing about her kids!

She recommended that we try to get rid of the bottles and switch to a sippy cup because the older they get the harder it is for them to part with. I'm not sure if we'll try using a sippy cup or try cutting the bottle out cold turkey. Robbie seems to really enjoy this C. George book and it may be able to replace the bottle... the only thing is that when Robbie gets himself so worked up and so upset his bottle always calms him down.

So this has been a great day & I'm so happy that I booked the doctors appointment after his appointment for his shots!

Robbie's 1.5 years old!

6 more months until he's 2!!!! Where has the time gone?! Time for a little update.

This afternoon I took Robbie for his 18 month shots. The good news is that he doesn't have to go again until he's 4.5yrs old! WOOHOO. So we got him weighed and the nurse gave me his growth chart to keep, which will be really cool to keep. Robbie's around the 90th percentile for weight and just over the 50th percentile for height... so then the nurse fliped over the sheet to show me that he's overweight. So she says it's routine for her to fax the graph to the doctor to inform them of the babies weight status as well she gave me a lovely little flyer about what I should and shouldn't feed my baby and tells me all about how exercise is good for my child.... get out of here, really? (Please note my sarcasm) Am I completely oblivious? I thought all babies had a little belly on them. I'm really taking this personally, I know I shouldn't... but it hurts my feelings when she handed me that yellow pamphlet to teach me on how to be a better parent. *sigh* Tomorrow we're off to see the Dr for his 1.5 year visit; I'll talk to her about it then. He was a brave boy while he got his shots, she gave 2 shots... one in each arm. Once she was done with the first shot he was crying and kept saying "all gone" over and over, poor thing. The nurse gave him colourful band-aids on each arm and a sticker too. As soon as we let the nurses office and he was back playing with the toys he forgot all about the pain he just went through.



On to the developments:

Robbie's become quite the climber, he can climb onto any chair/couch that we have. He fusses if he doesn't get it on his first try but after a couple of attempts his up there and so proud to be sitting in his own chair like a big boy. At the end of the night when he's winding down he likes to sit on the couch with me and watch some Treehouse... which leads me to my next update. Monkey has become VERY attached to me. At first I thought it was cute that he would walk right by Daddy and come to grab my hand and lead me off to Robbieworld but it's becoming so tiresome. He's gotten to the point where he grabs my hand and leads me to the middle of the hallway and stops to just stare at me! When I go to walk away he starts to cry :( He throws little temper tantrums when I say "no" which, in turn, puts him into a time out.

I LOVE doing his new night time routine with him! We get his PJ's on and we read a book/story while he drinks his new bottles. Right now we're reading the Curious George book that Nan got Robbie... he loves it! There's about 10 different stories within the book and even if Robbie finishes his bottle before the story's over he'll sit quietly on my lap and will listen to the rest of it. OH! I also bought him new bottles. I was tossing between glass and plastic, I ended up buying 2 expensive plastic bottles (Bisphenol-A free). They've been working out really well, Robbie had no problem taking them & he guzzles his bottle down in record time. 2 bottles is all we need now... if that, Robbie's big bottle is still right before bed & he seldom gets a bottle during his one nap.

Just recently he's started talking to himself when he wakes up; it's so cute to listen to... I wonder what he's doing. These are the days I wish I had a camera set up in there to see who/what he's talking to and what he's doing.

Picture of the Day

A picture says a thousand words.

Isn't that picture great?! Auntie Alison gave us a waffle maker as part of her wedding gift to us and we're just using it now! Colin put it on our registry not realizing that it makes barn yard animals so it's been sitting in a box... until now! Robbie LOVES the waffles and they're so versatile. He's had blueberry waffles as well as raspberry waffles and he keeps asking for "more"!

Monkey's been doing really well... he's slowly starting to mimic us more and more. He's also picking up some new words "no way" is the word of the week. He says it screaming at the top of his lungs and he says it in the quietest whisper (which always cracks us up). He's also saying "ok", "yes", "push", "thank you", "pooh bear"... I know there's more but those are the more common ones.

He was at the front door this morning when I asked him to get his shoes on so that he can go see Patty (the dayhome lady) so he goes into the closet where all our shoes are and proceeds to put his little feet into daddy's big shoes. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen, he kept on saying "shoe" while he was trying to step into the shoes. God love him!

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.