Getting Around

Talk to you soon,

B

Menu Monday

Well, I've fallen off the wagon a little with my menu Mondays thing.. but here's the menu for this week. Maybe this will be the first step at getting back into it. (The concept of Menu Mondays is borrowed from http://www.home-ec101.com)

Monday -- Grilled veggie sandwiches, spinach salad
Tuesday -- Curried chickpeas and rice
Wednesday -- Split pea soup, baked sweet potatoes
Thursday -- Braised ribs and polenta
Friday -- Eating out night
Saturday -- Roasted chicken, potatoes, green beans with sundried tomatoes
Sunday -- Birthday dinner for Rob, menu TBD

Talk to you soon,
B.

Digging in the Toy Box

This video is from yesterday. It's a pretty good example of the level of her physical capabilities these days. Though, it changes fast enough that I'm sure by the end of the day today she'll be ever better at this and trying something else.

Starting at a young age

Clare and a whisk.

Talk to you soon,

B.

Catching Up: Clare at 8 Months

I figured I'd update you all on Clare since, really, that's why you all read this page, right? I do have pictures to add to Picasa but that's still a couple of days away yet. Here's a little snapshot of what's going on with her now that she's 8 months old:

• She's been almost singularly focused on physical development in this last month and is moving around a lot more
• Though not yet crawling really (I think that Clare thinks crawling is for suckers), she pretty comfortably drags herself around on her tummy with her arms and sometimes gets in some pushing with her knees
• She can go from sitting to crawling but not back. She can pull herself to standing using the couch or low chairs (she's still kinda short). Most of the time she tries to sit back down after standing the result is a bit of a bump or bonk. Regardless of whether or not it hurt, the surprise is enough to get her crying. We've been working on cheering her every time she lands on her bum from standing as a way of preventing the tears.
  
• She can stand unassisted for maybe 3 or so seconds at a time.
  
• Clare walks very easily while holding on to the fingers of any adult she can convince to take her. Now that she's walking so comfortably, she's hardly sitting still (sitting is for suckers too). She is a woman on the move!
• Clare has 4 teeth
• Clare has grown very comfortable, almost attached, to her bed. She almost always cuts the bedtime routine short these days. I only get out one or two words of her bedtime song (the last step of the routine) when she starts looking for her bed and tries to get out of my arms to lie down. She immediately snuggles up with Mr. Bun and Binky and that's it. Done. Wild.
• But no, she's not yet sleeping through the night. She eats. A LOT. yes, still.
• Clare's up to about 3 solid meals a day and the food is getting chunkier. She's adept at feeding herself rice pasta and anything else that's soft and about that size. We're still mostly feeding her gluten free grains, veggies, and fruit. We're going to wait until closer to 9 months to introduce proteins. Not sure yet when we'll start dairy and gluten containing grains.
  
• Recently, if she can get away with it, she prefers to play with phones, remote controls, and keyboards.

More pictures and video soon. I just have to clean the house first ;)

Talk to you soon,
B.

Playing Catch-up

I've been on a bit of a hiatus from the blog and now it's time to try and catch-up. There's been a lot going on lately and I've been pretty focused on either getting it all done or spending time with Clare. After the big bachelorette party for Kel, there were PushPull auditions. Yep, it's that time of year again. There have been auditions, casting, and the first few rehearsals already. Then, it was playoffs for our Ultimate team. We won all of our games, but I didn't play the last game, 'cause I somehow injured my calf. The day after that was a party I was catering. My first catering gig and it was a big hit. Then, of course, was Kelly and Greg's wedding (for which I was an honour attendant and the cake baker). It was the most anticipated wedding event of the year and we weren't disappointed! Also, during this time some dear friends of mine added to the growing list of Clare's friends and gave birth to a beautiful daughter. Cecilia, Andrew, and baby Maeve seem to be doing very well. Also, last week was Clare's 8 month birthday. Don't worry - I was busy but I didn't forget! On top of all of that, I've been trying to get a website up and running, register for some Parks and Rec classes, and fulfill my role as Producer for the dance company this year. Now, I'm taking a bit of a break. In fact, I've been on such a break for the past couple of days that I was even 'offline' and out of cell phone contact for most of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

So, that's the overview. Hopefully in the next few days I'll have time to do a more thorough catch-up post (or two).

Hope everyone else is doing well!

Talk to you soon,
B.

Vacation?

I feel like I just got back from a vacation even though I didn't really go anywhere. In fact, everyone came to me instead of me going to see anyone.

The first visitor was Mac, who arrived on Thursday August 21 on the morning train. We spent the day shopping. We hit the Eaton Centre, Queen West, Danforth. We met up with Rob and Vera for a sushi lunch. That night, Christian arrived from Kelowna and all four of us (Clare too!) went to St. Catharines the next morning. I came back to Toronto on the Saturday for a party (The Welcome Back Kernabration). True to their word, Kevin, Su, Karen, and Rob did everything and I had to do nothing and so it really was very relaxing.

The day after Christian left, Cynthia arrived. We ate out, we shopped, we napped, we played board games. It felt a bit like being at a cottage except that it was the city. The highlight though was something entire un-cottage like. We went to see "Avenue Q".

Avenue Q was absolutely fabulous. It was creative and funny and sweet and well executed. The show was just brilliant. The style of comedy is exactly the kind of humour that I find funny. The voice work and puppetry were superb. I just can't say enough about it. We saw it on closing night here in Toronto. Otherwise, I swear, I would have gone again. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Now, we're back home and getting ready to tackle some big projects. It's gonna be action-packed the next few weeks.

Talk to you soon,
B.