Sunday, September 26, 2010

In Memory

Ellie at her 90th birthday party in November 2009

My great aunt Ellie passed away yesterday. She was 90 years old and an incredibly smart, funny, sweet and loving lady. She never had children of her own, but was just like a mother to my mom and a grandmother to me and several of my friends. Spending time with Ellie at her home in Riverside Albert County when I was young is where my lifelong love of the Bay of Fundy was born. I'm so happy that Caleb and I were able to spend lots of time with her while she was in the hospital over the past few months. Although Ellie didn't have the strength to hold Caleb in the end, she always wanted to warm his feet in her hands and Cale never failed to reward her efforts with a giant smile. Ellie lived a long and happy life and will be greatly missed by many.


Ellie with Alan and I on our wedding day

Monday, September 20, 2010

Harvest!

Grampie and Dad playing at the Lunar Rogue

Fredericton's Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival is one of my favourite times of the year. The city comes alive with music - buskers on every street corner, bands playing in bars and tents downtown and people filling the closed off streets. It was a busy weekend for Alan as he played 7 times in 3 days with Petunia and the Loons and with David Myles. For those of you who haven't heard David here is a link to one of his new videos. He recently posted a bunch of new songs on youtube that are really worth checking out.

I had a great time taking Caleb out to enjoy some of the afternoon shows. He loves watching his dad up on stage, and it is especially fun to see both Alan and Grampie Jeffries playing together. Cale earned himself a new nickname 'Hurricane' during the show at the Rogue. For the first 3 songs he sat completely still with his mouth wide open staring at the stage, but after that it literally took a team of 6 to keep ahead of his path of destruction! Placemats and toys were flying off the table, a woman sitting in front of us received a friendly hair pull, dancing on counter tops...he was a wild man!

Hurricane Cale stealing the microphone from dad

I was really grateful that my folks offered to keep Caleb for not one but two nights, so I could go out with Alan and take in some great music. Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi were definitely the highlight for me. Homemade Jamz from New Orleans was also great, especially considering the drummer just turned 12 over the weekend! Another great visit home.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I like to ride my bicycle!



Cale's first bike ride with Grampie Greg! How grown up and adorable does he look?!!!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Parents retreat

Enjoying a quiet moment in Fundy National Park

After 7 1/2 months, Alan and I had our first night away from Caleb. We headed to a beautiful cabin (Vista Ridge Cottages) in Alma and left Cale with Greg and Linda. Driving out of my parents driveway, I felt a mix of excitement for the vacation we'd been looking forward to for so long, nervousness in hoping that Caleb wouldn't be too much of a hand full and would let Greg and Linda get a bit of sleep and a tinge of sadness as I realized I was starting to miss Cale already. But, I soon was able to relax and enjoy a wonderful vacation and remember the way life used to be.

We had a great time in Alma - walking along the shoreline at low tide, eating lots of seafood, visiting the super cheesy souvenir shop on Main St and buying sticky buns from Kelly's bakery. It felt a bit strange to have uninterrupted naps and time to cook a nice meal...no baby waiting to be fed or dog waiting to be walked...just us. Alan did awake after a nice afternoon nap by sitting straight up and asking where Caleb was, but for the most part we were able to relax, enjoy our time together and SLEEP! My first full night's sleep since before Cale was born.

And Cale, of course, made out great with his grandparents. We didn't have time to get him used to sleeping in the playpen before we left, so he happily slept curled up in between Greg and Linda and only woke up twice in the night. He only really cuddles when he is sleeping, so I don't think they minded sharing their bed with him.

On the car ride home, Alan and I tried to sing loudly and make as much noise as we wanted. As nice as it was to have an evening away, in the end, our empty backseat felt, well, empty. It is nice to know that as great as life was before Caleb came along, it is even better now. We will always look forward to taking more overnights away in the future, but we will always be even more happy to come back home.
Cale helping out at the Jeffries family yard sale this weekend

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The art of slumber, part 2


First off, a shout out to our reader of the week, Aunt Mary, who told me that she checks the blog BEFORE she checks facebook!!!

Over the past 10 days we've been making a real effort to begin gradually weaning Caleb off the night feedings. We are starting with no feedings between 12-4 am. Instead of me going to him when he wakes up during those hours, Alan goes in and sings/rocks him back to sleep with no milk while I head to the studio for a few solid hours sleep. This is a big step for us, and we are starting to see some results. Here's what we've learned/accomplished so far.

1. Sleeping in his crib
Before: Co-sleeping for the past 4 months, at night and during naps.
This wasn't as hard as I anticipated. I think Cale was ready to have his own space and not having the milk supply (me) right beside him seems to help him feed less during the night.

2. Falling to sleep on his own
Before: Cale only fell asleep while nursing and I would either just sleep with him, or VERY carefully place him in the crib once he was asleep
Now, Cale will often fall asleep completely on his own in the crib. We have a great routine for night and naps and then place him in the crib to look at his mobile and probably once a day, if not more, we can leave him in there and suddenly the room goes silent. We peek our heads in and, sure enough he is fast asleep!

3. Not needing mama (milk) to get to sleep
Before: I was the only one who could get him to sleep and this was getting frustrating for both of us. Alan wanted to help but couldn't and I was getting worn down.
This is where I feel we've made the most progress. Alan now puts him down by singing/rocking/cuddling more than I do. It has switched from 95-5% to 50-50 or 30-70 (as Alan says)! I'm really, really happy about this because the work load is now shared, Alan can finally help with putting him down and I can be free to go to town or do other things, knowing that he'll be fine without me.

4. Sleeping on his stomach.
Who knew? This is the way Caleb wants to sleep now and we either put him down that way, or he flips himself over. It is especially great, because if he wakes up, often just some back rubs get him to fall right back to sleep. I've read and talked to other parents about this, and apparently it is completely safe once the baby can easily roll over. Good to know.

5. Sleeping longer hours/waking less
Before: You may remember from my last sleep post Cale was waking 8 times a night to feed, and the longest stretch of sleep we were getting was 2 hours.
Now, things have improved, maybe not as drastically as we'd hoped, but it is definitely getting better. He still usually wakes about 3-4 times in the night and he is now being fed twice, instead of 8 times and usually sleeps for at least one 3-4 hour stretch, often 2 longer stretches. I know this is not perfect, but all these little changes add up to us feeling much better about our sleep solution and we feel like things will keep getting better with time. I now feel like we aren't so impossibly far from a full nights sleep.

6. Importance of a great partner! I could never even imagine attempting to do this on my own. I'm so lucky that Alan is incredibly willing to help out at any hour of the day. I think Alan feels like his role is now equally as important as mine and I can't even describe the appreciation, love and gratitude I have for him. I'm one lucky lady to have two such wonderful guys in my life!

Just hanging out in my crib

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Hurricane Earl


The sea was angry today, folks! The winds and swell started to build early this morning and peaked around 1 pm. There were moments when we could feel the whole house shaking, but we knew it had weathered through storms for years, so we felt safe and were able to enjoy the madness taking place outside our windows. We even ventured out to get some video. It is hard to capture the size of the breaking waves, but hopefully this will give you some idea of how the cove looked this afternoon. Enjoy!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Heat wave

Making the best of the heat by hanging out with dad in the shade

Wow, it is HOT! Our neighbours are telling us it has never been this hot in the cove. I can't complain because I know it is a million times worse in Fredericton, but we are not used to these temperatures on the coast! We've been trying to stay cool by hanging out in the shade, using squirt bottles, taking cool showers and for the first time ever, swimming in the cove with no wetsuits! The water is wonderfully refreshing. It is so great to be able to swim in our backyard. I took my mask out this afternoon and couldn't believe how amazing, warm and clear it was...so much kelp drifting with the current, a few seastars and crabs, one small fish, huge rock outcroppings ...I don't know why I waited so long to explore the underwater world here! I guess because I was pregnant last summer and it is usually really, really cold. I can't hardly wait for tomorrow to get back in and explore some more. I've got to do it now before Hurricane Earl hits this weekend and stirs everything up.

Cale has been talking up a storm lately. Babbling, as they call it. A lot of yayayayas, and dadadadas, and the occasional mamamama. He is also able to hold himself up in crawl position, but isn't quite on the move yet. Good thing, because we've still got some baby-proofing to do. We are enjoying our last little while of relative calm before the constant game of 'chase the baby' begins!

I can hardly wait to get going...mom and dad won't know what hit them!