A new year brings new beginnings

Christmas #2 with cousin Monica

A new year has arrived and I find I'm feeling a bit nostalgic about saying goodbye to 2010 since it was such an incredible year. I've learned and loved more than I thought was possible this past year and 2010 will always be in my mind, the year of the baby. Hopefully 2011 will be the year of the baby who sleeps!

Today is my last day of maternity leave. How did that ever happen? Part of me feels ready to re-enter the real world, but part of me wants my life and little family to stay just like this forever! Luckily I will only be working on a really exciting contract part time for the next few months, which means I only need to be at the office 1.5 days a week which is a great way to transition into life as a working mom. Alan is able to look after Cale on the days when I'm working, so we are also very lucky not to need child care immediately.

Caleb is incredibly fun to be around right now. He is learning so much - mimicking speech, saying a few words (mama, dada, uh-oh and a big favorite is hat which means both hat and light and maybe a few other things) and he finally learned to clap! According to my What to Expect the First Year book, clapping should have happened a few months ago, so we've really been trying to encourage him (not that I compare him to the book often, but it was still a skill I wanted him to master). Finally over Christmas he decided it was time and he's been clapping non stop ever since! He has also taken his first steps!! Not a full on walk yet, but definite steps to get between people. I'm so glad that Alan and I can continue to enjoy these changes and milestones for a few more months.

Since I'll be returning to work, the time has come to really get serious about Caleb's sleeping habits. Of course, we completely regressed back into co-sleeping all the time over the holidays, but now it is back to the crib and no more night feedings. Last night went better than I would have thought, so here's to hoping that by Cale's first birthday he'll be sleeping consistently through the night. I'll write another sleep update in a few days to let you know how things are progressing.

Happy New Year everyone!

Caleb's first Christmas

First family Christmas

Outside the snow is falling and it finally looks a lot like Christmas! It is a great day for sitting by the fire, drinking hot chocolate, playing with our new crocinole board and having lots of laughs while watching Caleb learn to walk on his new zebra push toy (see video below!).

Stocking fun

Caleb's first Christmas was a huge success. It began with a great dinner on the 24th where Grampie Greg, Alan and Caleb all debuted their festive matching Hawaiian shirts from Barbados! It was a very, very special moment for all in attendance! On Christmas morning, Cale helped unwrap all the gifts and has spent the past couple of days playing nonstop with his new toys. He particularly loved his vintage Family Camper, new books and his new toothbrush which was also a surprise winner! It was really fun to fill his stocking and play Santa on Christmas Eve, and I love knowing each year will only get better. It is fun to think about how the holiday season will bring him so much excitement and joy in the years to come.

Wow!

We braved the weather and took Cale outside on his new toboggan today. He looks just like he little brother Randy from The Christmas Story all bundled up in his blue snowsuit. He loved sliding and playing in the snow and now he's ready for a nice long nap. What a great storm day!

Winter wonderland

Christmas Eve eve

I'm finally feeling the Christmas cheer. After being down south then coming home to no snow on the ground in Fredericton, Christmas has been the furthest thing from my mind. But tonight we went to my Aunt and Uncle's (Jay and Gale) house, sat around their beautifully decorated tree, ate holiday snacks, sang some Christmas carols and now I'm feeling filled with holiday spirit, just in time! It will be a very relaxed holiday for us. Alan's parents are in New Hampshire with Kim and Jim, Sarah and Mary aren't coming to Fredericton, so it is just my family and Kathy's family in town this year.

Tomorrow the festivities will begin with turkey dinner at my parents house. My mom is ecstatic to be ordering in the entire meal from the Delta! Christmas day will be filled with opening gifts, taking naps, dog walks in O'Dell and eating Delta leftovers. It will be our first Christmas as parents/Santa so I'll be taking lots of photos to share. I hope Caleb leaves some good cookies for us!

Right now I have to share a very special video - a commercial for New Brunswick tourism that David Myles put together featuring Alan and Kyle. David asked his fans to submit photos of NB and if you look closely you might just see a special little guy and his mama in their first music video debut! There are also lots of great shots from my dad of Moosecall. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Barbados

Playing in the sand with Grampy Greg

We are home after spending a wonderful week in paradise! The trip was everything we had hoped it would be. Lots of time to relax at the resort and swim in the warm, clear water, lots of time with family and friends, snorkeling with turtles and over shipwrecks, good food, great pina coladas and a wonderful baby who had an even better time than we did!

Passed out on the plane

Cale was a champ from the very beginning. He had no trouble with the long travel days and spent the majority of the flights curled up asleep in my arms. He loved the water and laughed as the waves would splash over his feet. He had absolutely no fear and would have happily stayed in the ocean or the pool all day long. He even added a few new sounds to his growing repertoire. A kissing sound when he sees birds or animals to call them in (just like his mama) and a bbrrroooommm sound when he sees cars, trucks or airplanes (just like his dad)! It was so great to have my parents there, too. They were such a great help with Caleb and didn't mind having him over night a couple of times, even though he still curls up in bed between them!


Seeing Lydia and Nick get married was definitely the highlight. The beach ceremony and reception were beautiful and yes, a few tears were shed! We were so glad to be there to celebrate with everyone.

Wedding night close up!

Southbound

There will be no need for all this winter wear soon!

At 5:45 on Saturday morning we take off for our weeklong vacation to Barbados. Sunshine, beaches, scuba diving, surfing, a great group of friends and family AND my best friend's wedding! There is no way this trip will be anything but amazing! I just hope I can make it through my speech at the wedding. I can hardly hold it together while watching a wedding show on tv, so I can hardly imagine how I'll be watching two people I love so much get married on the beach in an intimate ceremony. My mom is worse. She already burst into tears when Alan told her what song he was going to play (45 Years, by Stan Rogers). It will be a tear-jerker, there's no way around it.

I'm really, really excited to be able to go outside without having to bundle up. Winter is a whole different story when you have a baby. Especially one who is ridiculously squirmy and loves to pull off his hat and bite off his mittens. We've also both had colds for the past few weeks, so I'm hoping the nice weather and lots of time outdoors will get us feeling better.

Since I won't be writing for a week while we are away, I'll leave you with a few bonus photos!

Learning to drink from a cup

It's waaayyy more fun to do it this way

This is what happens if I leave Cale unattended for a few seconds. Maybe Santa reads my blog and will bring us a new deck of cards!

Christmas craft fair

A beautiful pop-up card made by Fredericton's Angela Black. Check out her website here.

I try to support local artists as often as I can, so I love going Christmas shopping at the Halifax Crafter's Market as I did today with Caleb and my friend Nina. Cale was so amused by all the action. I just love how easily he makes connections with people through eye contact and big smiles. Of course, he tugged on the coat sleeves of several strangers and tore down a few paper snowflake ornaments, but mostly he was content to hang out in our arms and take everything in.

Not the world's most elaborate fort, but it does the trick

I am really starting to feel like Cale is becoming more of a toddler and less of a baby everyday. He loves taking things off of shelves, scattering books, cds and coasters all over the floor, so we now can legitimately blame our messy house on someone else! Our bath tub is now filled with toys. He is becoming much more interactive with his play and loves to make little blanket forts, ramps for his cars and big block towers which he quickly proceeds to knock down. Alan and I sometimes play a game trying to see who can build the biggest tower before The Hurricane plows it over. We can't usually get past 4-5 blocks. Sometimes I can hardly believe that things are just going to continue to become more and more fun the older he gets. Our little guy is growing up and I'm loving every minute of it!

Double Digits!

Another sharp outfit. This one is a gift from Aunt Angela. So sweet!

Our little boy is 10 months old!! People always say that the first few years go by too quickly, and they are so right. I can't believe our tiny baby is going to be 1 soon! Thankfully I have two more months of maternity leave and I plan to fully enjoy every minute of it. Especially the minutes under the sun in Barbados!!

Last night my dad and Eric Leblanc were in town to see Alan and Kyle play with David at the Carleton. This is a great venue for musicians because no one is allowed to talk while the band is playing, which is basically my dad's dream show. It was a really great time. Lydia and Nick and a few other friends joined us and the band was amazing, as always.

I was so happy that Katrina had offered to babysit for us, but I admit I was a bit worried about how it would go. I definitely spoke to soon on the sleep improvement front in my last couple of blog postings. After catching a cold and spending a week in Fredericton, Cale is back to waking frequently and has basically reverted to sleeping with me for most of the night. This is going to change starting tonight, but in the meantime I was really worried that he would be a bit of a nightmare for Katrina and her roommates. I dropped him off with lots of warning that he may not sleep at all and headed for the show. I was very happy when I called to check in during set break that although he wasn't sleeping, he had been very happy and having a great time. So far, so good. Then during the encore (my favorite song Pair of Shoes which you can see here) I heard my phone vibrate. My stomach dropped. I was sure they had been going through an hour of crying and finally broke down and called me. I glanced down at the text and read 'he's been sound asleep for awhile, so take your time'!! Whooooohooo...what a relief! When I went to pick Cale up he was sound asleep, in Katrina's arms on the couch!! I should have taken a picture! Apparently he was great all night and then just wore himself out and slept happily with her while the girls watched a Christmas movie! When I left they said the best thing I could have heard 'We can't wait to babysit him again!' Thanks Katrina!!!

Here are a few pics of Cale's latest trick - trying to stand on his own.

So proud of himself!

This takes concentration

Going down (aka Elvis legs)

Daddy's gift from Scotland

Best dressed in the family, hands down. Thanks, dad!

Home, home again

Someday these will all be mine!!

So good to be here when I can. Alan is on tour in the UK for a week, opening for Jools Holland and playing to crowds of several thousand in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Leeds. That means Cale and I are back in Fredericton for a week. We've been havnig lots of fun times with the grandparents, cousins and other baby friends. As you will see below, he has learned a few new tricks over the past couple of days. Tomorrow I'm off to Cocagne with 14 ladies for Lydia's stagette party! Should be a blast.

Enjoying Linda's new glass tables

Thankfully, we don't have stairs at home

Sneakers and sleepers

Well, Alan and I decided it was time to take the final step in our relationship - matching shoes! If only they had kids sizes, all three of us would be sporting new kicks!! No one has commented on our matching foot wear yet, but we've definitely received a few approving glances (at least we interpreted them that way) so we are feeling like hip, young parents again!

I didn't know if I would ever write this - but Caleb slept through the night! From 8-6. This is a hugely significant event in our lives and has taken weeks of hard work to finally get to this point. I think just being at home for a month helped us get into a good, consistent routine, but we also held firm to our no night time feeding and no picking up rules. The successes have been gradual to get us to this point. For the first several nights if Cale woke up, we'd go to his room and rub his back until he fell back asleep. Then we began letting him try to fall back to sleep on his own, which he seemed quite ready to do and never cried for more than a 5 minute period. Now if he wakes up at night he is able to settle himself back to sleep quickly and we don't have to go into his room at all. Yay for sleep!!!

It feels so good to know that once he is down, he will stay down instead of just waiting for him to wake back up in an hours time. It gives Alan and I our evenings to ourselves and already I'm sleeping more soundly and feeling much more rested than I have for well over a year. Now, let's hope we can keep this up when I head back to Fredericton for a week.

Bedtimes are no trouble for this grown up boy!

Rain, rain, go away

I want to go outside and play!

Grampy Greg and Grandmama Linda were in town during this wet weekend. It was their first experience with stormy weather in the Cove and although they enjoyed looking out at the breaking waves, my dad admitted to feeling a bit seasick watching the rough water! The highlight of the weekend was taking Tyvonn to watch the St. Thomas hockey team play against DAL on Friday night. My dad knows the STU coaches so he was able to get the players to sign a stick for Tyvonn and we also arranged to meet the entire team at Tim Horton's before the game. STU ended up losing in overtime, but it was a pretty special evening for Ty.

Caleb is now 9 months and one week old. He weighs 24 lbs and is in the 90th percentile for height and weight. He loves exploring everything around him, although he has unfortunately picked up the world's most annoying habit - grinding his teeth! He seems quite pleased to have a new sound in his growing repertoire, but it is incredibly difficult to listen to!

How can I be 9 months old already??

I'm still not ready for a full sleep update. We had been doing really well, but things have once again regressed into frequent night wakings. We have completely stopped feeding him or picking him up when he wakes at nights, which led to 3-4 nights of long stretches of sleep, but he is now waking every 2 hours again. Booo. Even though a quick back rub puts him right back to sleep I was hoping we'd be much further along after 12 nights of trying. It is a bit frustrating, but hopefully we will see improvements again soon.

Reading a book before bedtime. If he's tired enough, he'll even sit still for a few minutes!

Halloween

Our 8 tooth Caleb pumpkin

Cale had a great first Halloween. We spent the evening in town to pass out candy and have a nice dinner with our friends Cate and Jordan. Cale happily munched on tofu, roasted red peppers, noodles but no candy! We were laughing at some parents who were trick or treating with babies even younger than Cale. There is no way the baby is eating all the candy...maybe Alan and I should've taken him out to stock up on treats for ourselves! We didn't have a clever costume for Cale this year, but we couldn't resist using some things from around the house to do a little photo shoot.

Elmer Fudd

Our good friend and bassist Kyle Cunjak