neglecting the blog…

I have been neglecting the blog lately… not much to say… just life as usual…

Over the weekend we had friends over, played in the snow and made sushi… and then on Sunday we went To Simon’s work party for the kids… In the past years it was held at a School but this year it was at the “Just for Laughs” Museum… Which had the potential of being cool but the entrance was bottle necked so it was about a 30-40 min wait just to go upstairs… and then finally when we got up it was really unorganized and where we sat to eat lunch had a bar feel… dark and a bit dingy… really not what we expected…

The boys did seem to have fun though… I think Colin has a bit of the same anxiety as me when it comes to crowds though…

Being a X-mas party of course there was Santa Clause… as I have said before in the past, I don’t agree with trying to get the kids to believe in Santa… it doesn’t seem right to me…

The boys however, do believe in Santa… no matter what I say… and believe me, they know that I don’t believe that Santa exists…

Anyway… they were both excited to see him and sit on his lap…

After seeing Santa we headed home and put up the X-mas tree and had a great evening…

more pics on Flickr

Happy Birthday Khéna!

So a year has passed that Khéna was born… it is amazing each time I think about it…

Khéna is an amazingly happy baby. He is always smiling, laughing or trying to make others laugh. He is walking but can’t get up without holding onto something yet. So often if he falls he just crawls right over to somewhere he can get up and then he walks again…

He says mama, dada and “thank you”… what cool first words… he also calls the cat “do do” because we always say “doux doux” (gentle gentle) when he pins the cat down.

Though we haven’t weighed him in 2-3 weeks, I think that his weight gain has stopped… hopefully he might even lose a few pounds… he wears size 2 or 3 but can only wear pyjama pants or jogging pants because his waist is just too big so he needs the stretch…

As far as teeth.. he had 6 for a few months now and just last week a seventh came out, so the other should not be in too long.

And eating… well, about 3 weeks ago he was just eating a few bites of puffed rice and would even gag on them… I would put things on his tray but he would just play with it and not put any in his mouth… then about 2 weeks ago something clicked and now he eats pretty much everything that we put infront of him… veggies, fruits, meats, crackers etc… and he loves to eat…

I was surprised by what the allergist said… to try any food, an allergy should present itself almost instantly if there is one… She also said that studies show that after 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding their bodies won’t change. So trying peanuts, egg whites etc is the same whether the child is 7 months of 4 years old.

Anyway, like I said… he loves to eat… and is probably eating as well as any child that started months before and we love that again we didn’t have to deal with the hassle of purees and spoon feeding…

He nursed quite a bit but won’t drink anything out of a cup, straw or sippy… but he does reach the water machine buttons and pours some and then sips it out of the tray…

he also gets into everything also… opens the fridge, drawers, cabinets, doors and everthing else he can… he pulls things out, bangs on pots and pans, puts things in drawers, pulls more stuff out… he pulled down my computer desk a few weeks ago and my laptop crashed down and it broke two USB ports….

the other two were not as much like this… he is so strong too and his hands are really big and when he grabs something it is really hard to get it away from him…

So, yes.. a year has passed… What an amazing little kid we got…

Looking back on Freebirth…

I can’t believe that it has already been a year already.

A year has passed from the day that my baby was born, into our hands, in a pool in the living room of our house. A birth attended only by his father and his brothers.

An experience that was not only exhilarating, empowering but also healing for myself.

My choice to have an unassisted pregnancy and an unassisted birth was first due to the lack of midwifery access. There are no birthing centres in my region and midwifes are not allowed to practise out side of them. The birthing centres that are out of region do not take women out of region because they are too much in demand. It was a decision that was first made for me since there was no way that I would ever go see a doctor for a pregnancy or a birth. The decision did not scare me…. instead I felt relief.

I knew that having a UP/UC was the best choice.

Now… I look back at the pregnancy. There was so much less stress being unassisted. No appointments, no refusing tests and being made to feel guilty when I knew that the tests are not necessary. I was able to experience pregnancy for what it is. I was able to listen to my body and find the answers to my questions. I was able to gain control, something that I lost when I relied on a midwife for advice or answers.

I look back at the birth and realize that it was exactly what I would have hoped that birth could be.
With my other two, I had to deal with posterior babies, with long labours, with back labour, with “failure to progress” beyond 3cm. I truly believe that most of the problems were due to the presense of a midwife, to the presense of other people. The stress of deadlines, of numbers, of the rules that the midwifes have to follow all hindered in birthing process. However, It was a midwife in my second birth that gave me the confidence I needed to give birth.

After she spoke to me I was able to lose myself in my “la-la land”, She gave my the confidence to ignore everyone, to ignore their advice, to ignore their presence, to listen to my body. She gave me the confidence to know that I could birth my baby, that I as a woman I was made to give birth. I was able to do that all well enough that I was able to relax enough to sleep between contractions and essentially sleep through transition and soon after I gave birth to my second son.

I was unimpressed however with the way that the third stage was over managed and mismanaged in my opinion.

This midwife gave me confidence in myself. The others took my confidence away. I knew in my heart that I needed solitude to birth after that. It was that reason that I felt a sense of relief when I choose to go unassisted.

I find it ironic that my confidence to birth alone stemmed from a pep talk from a midwife, but I thank her for that.

So, when I read Khéna’s birth story, when I look back at my freebirth, I feel peace with the way things happened. It is something that I don’t feel reading my other births. I am proud with the way that my children were able to experience birth as being normal. I am proud that they will remember birth as being positive and natural. I feel proud that they were able to see the birth and that their new brother fit into the family so seamlessly in many ways because of the way he made his entrance into the family.

I am proud that I was able to take control of my body and do what I needed to do to have the easiest and healthiest birth that I could have had.

If I have another child there is no hesitation in what choices that I will make.

A year ago…

now…

Not the same street…

Here is an article that appeared recently in the NY times

There is a new DVD out… Sesame Street: Old School… I really have to get my hands on that one!!!

However, the DVD comes with a warning… Adults only…

here is a bit of the article..

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia.

Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. “What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times. Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

and the article continues with other scenarios “that just wouldn’t slide with the kids of today”…

This really disturbs me…

What is so different with the kids of today that they can’t or shouldn’t be able to handle innocent situations at face value. Why would a child of today even have those ideas, those fears? Why are children being taught to fear so young that they could not watch the same shows without being traumatized?

I don’t believe that there is more crime than 30 years ago. I do think that it is more publicized and more heard… but I don’t believe that there is more.

I am tired of all of the “happy-happy-joy-joy”, over protect, always be politically correct, don’t talk to kids about death or anything dark, make them scared of strangers etc… that people seem to be teaching their kids.

We show the kids cartoons from our “Disney Treasures” and “Silly Symphonies” DVD’s and no, they are not always politically correct and one day I will talk about the themes to the kids, but for now they don’t see those themes, they just see the cartoon. … The boys like Charlie Brown, Garfield and other older cartoons and to be honest… Xavier enjoys shows that are older and have darker themes and loves Tim Burton etc…

Coming back to Sesame Street, I would really love to get my hands on those DVD’s and I would rather my children see them than the new ones that are so dumbed down, politically correct and cheery that make them a bit scary…

Do I really think that my kids will be traumatized by Cookie Monster eating cookies and smoking a pipe and eating it? Bert and Ernie living together? The count living in a really Cool old Castle…. (ok… I admit… the count scared me a bit as a kid because I used to be scared of thunder)…

but No, I don’t think they will be traumatized…

Oh… and Elmo makes me nauseous.

Eczema…

Colin has been battling with eczema for a while now… last year his fingers were so dry and cracked he was often crying because of the pain… so we cut a lot of his dairy intake to see if his fingers would get better and they did… however, I didn’t know if was due to the dairy or the season… over the summer he started having more dairy again… he also started to get eczema around his mouth and on his face and his fingers became cracked again and he was again in pain…

So again, we decided to cut down on dairy… this time we are doing it as a family though, cutting out as much as we can and maybe only keeping it for treats… in the 2 weeks that we have cut “most” dairy out of Colin’s diet his rash has started to fade and his fingers are now getting better… we are now finishing up the stuff in the house and I will not be buying anymore for a while… It will probably show quite a bit in our monthly spending also…

more steps…

It is amazing how fast kids catch on… in just a day he has gotten so much better!

First steps!

Khéna has been pushing objects around for a while now but today he gained the confidence to make those first steps…

I love these moments…

Cute Colin…

“Xavier, you’re the greatest Xavier…

Khéna, you’re the greatest baby…

Daddy, you’re the greatest Daddy…

Mommy, you’re the greatest Family”

Car seat update…

I just thought I should update this issue…

Khéna is now 36 pounds and there is no seat that has been tested for his weight.. I went on the Car-seat forums… the place that will make you feel like dirt if you don’t keep your child RF until they are past the limits and will help you find any solution that will keep a child RF for the longest possible and really there is nothing to be done for now… so 2 weeks ago, with a very heavy heart I switched Khéna from RF in the Sunshine kids Radian (which is one of the strongest seats out there at the moment) to FF in the Evenflo Triumph which is just more comfortable and will be good for FF until he hits 40 pounds or outgrows it height wise.

So here is what they all look like now… (Colin and Xavier are in 5 point harnesses in the Radians)

Hallow’een and haircut…

Hallow’een was great this year…

Simon took the day off and we did stuff around the house and got the kids ready slowly… around lunch time I asked Colin if he would like me to cut his hair… he said yes so I ran with it… and I am pretty happy at the way that it turned out…

After lunch we got ready and left here at about 3:30 and headed to my friend’s house in Montreal… Traffic was crazy and we got to her house at about 5:30 instead of the planned 4:30… it started getting dark soon after the boys were antsy to get out and ToT… So we got them ready and put Khéna on Simon’s back and they headed out the door….

So the boys all went out and I stayed with Gen and a friend of hers and we answered the doorbell and ate a great supper that Gen made (black bean soup, stuffed squash and apple-plum crisp) and just talked… the boys came back with their load, ate a bit and then Xavier wanted to go out again with Eric (Gen’s boyfriend) So hey went out and then came back about 20 min later and then we headed home…

I had brought Gen her skirt which she tried on and fit great! and she gave me the things that I ordered from the co-op and scholastic… so we came back with a few boxes.. I love the books that we got!!