Canada Day weekend with my favourite little guy

Photo by Greggy at Crystal Crescent

Caleb is feeling much, much better which is good news for me because I have him all to myself this weekend. Alan is playing a couple of gigs and will be home late Saturday night, but until then, Caleb and I are enjoying a fabulous long weekend in the Cove. It is fun to have nowhere to go and nothing pressing to do. We took a couple of extra long walks on this beautiful sunny day and I love seeing what grabs Cale's attention along the way. Today I was slightly ahead of him when I heard him burst out laughing, start clapping and say 'grass, grass'. He was pointing at a field of tall grass that was swaying and moving in the strong wind. I wouldn't have even noticed and he wanted to stay and watch for 20 minutes. I was more than happy to join him and watch the grass 'dancing'. We finished off our long walks with some ice cream. I'm really glad I knew enough to take off his shirt before giving him the bowl!

Signing for more ice cream

Much needed post ice cream bath

At 17 months (maybe it is time to start saying one and a half ??!!) Caleb has lots of new skills. Some we strongly encourage, several we do not. Flushing the toilet, opening the fridge door and pouring milk into dada's shoes are in the latter category! Winking, laughing, sneezing and coughing on cue and stringing two words together are developments we are much happier about. A couple of his favorite expressions at the moment are 'whatsthis' when he wants to know the name of something and 'did it' when he is proud of himself for accomplishing something like climbing a set of stairs. He also really likes us to clap and provide lots of positive feedback for whatever it is he has just done. It is hard, however, when you hear 'did it' and he has climbed up to the back of the couch or onto a super narrow window sill! Oh yes, things are getting much busier around here all the time, but I'd rather have a super active little boy than a sick little boy any day. I'm looking forward to another day in the sun tomorrow, although I may not bring out the ice cream this time!

It's no myth

Sick little guy being comforted by Grammie at our family brunch

I had been warned by several people that once your child starts daycare they are constantly sick. I didn't really believe them, but now I know that it's no myth. Caleb is finally recovering after a week-long illness. He has been vomiting since being sent home from daycare last Thursday, unable to keep any food down. A few nights he woke up at 3 am asking for 'crackers' 'cheese' and 'pastas' but as soon as the food entered his mouth he would be sick. I am sure I set a new mommy record for both the number of times being directly puked on AND the most laundry loads done in a 48 hour period. I honestly got to a point where it didn't even make me blink. The most concerning thing about this particular bought of illness is that he seemed to be in a lot of pain when he peed. Not good at all. After two trips to the doctor's office we were told to collect a pee sample. This is much easier said than done. While I was at a conference, Alan spent 5 hours chasing a bare-bummed little boy around the house with a tiny bottle! He had no success until after 5 pm when it was too late to take the sample to the IWK lab. So this morning, my parents who are here visiting, were chasing a bare-bummed little boy around the house hoping to collect the precious sample! Finally Alan stuck him in a warm bath and we had our sample in less than 30 seconds!! Thankfully the results were clear, so it must have been just a bad flu virus. Now he is down to just a runny nose which I can handle and he seems good enough to return to daycare tomorrow.

Starting to come around with Grampie

We were really hoping that he would be in top shape this weekend because we were in Fredericton for John and Maureen's 40th wedding anniversary and the entire family was in town to celebrate. Several of Alan's family hadn't seen Caleb since last summer, so we wanted everyone to see his great personality, but alas, everyone met a sick little man instead. He did try to be in good spirits, and glimpses of his happy self did pop through at times, although he did throw up on a second cousin at our family brunch. It was the first time that all 4 of the Jeffries cousins were together and Caleb enjoyed their company as much as he could. He also managed to get in a few nice hugs and kisses to his many aunts and uncles. I just hope that we left only good memories behind, and not a trail of sick family members!

Cale, Lauren, Monica and Malcolm together at last!

Dada's Day

First things first, Caleb used the potty this week! We have been introducing the idea to him for the past few weeks and each night we spend some 'no diaper' time as he gets on and off of the potty while saying 'psssss'. One night this week he was in his pjs, ready for bed when he starting saying 'potty, potty', so I let him get undressed and sure enough he ran to the potty and peed!! All three of us cheered and clapped and Cale was beaming with pride. He hasn't repeated the performance, although there have been a couple of peeing on the floor right beside the potty episodes, but I think we are making progress. On the weaning side of things, not so much, but more to come on that later.

Hanging on the potty

So today is father's day, and Alan is away playing with his bluegrass band in NB. My parents were here visiting for the weekend and they were impressed with all Caleb's new words and tricks. A favorite is asking him to make a 'funny face'. As Alan says, his Jeffries funny bone is starting to come out!

Funny face

Although Caleb won't see his dada today, I did get a new book called Daddy's Big Helper that we will read tonight. Caleb favorite things are listening and dancing while his dad plays guitar, touching his dad's beard and trying to help his dad with little household chores. He couldn't contain himself watching Alan mow the lawn the other night so I had to let him loose to go help his dad. Caleb is so lucky to have such a wonderful father. They still get to spend one day a week together for 'daddy daycare' and I think it is a day they both really love. Alan, we'll have a nice pancake breakfast for you tomorrow morning, after we let you 'sleep in' until 8:00! Times have changed, but in many, many ways times have never been so good.

No time to get dressed when there is work to be done!

Lifelong fan celebrates Stanley Cup win!

3 day old Caleb pledges allegiance to the Bruins

Healthy living

Cale helps us unpack our load

Today our first ever delivery from a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) arrived! CSAs work by community members paying a farmer in advance for a weekly delivery of local, organic fruits and veggies. I've been wanting to join a CSA for a couple of years, so when I found out that Ironwood Farms would be doing a drop off at my work, I jumped on the chance to join. The growing conditions haven't been the best, so there isn't too much diversity in the first delivery, but in weeks to come we can expect carrots, tomatoes, berries, tons of greens, peppers, root vegetables and much more. I can't wait! I realized how much I have to learn about local produce. Since getting home I have already googled 'how to eat a turnip' and 'can you eat the green tops of radishes'. I think we will be cooking a lot of soups and stews this summer! Maureen - I'll be emailing you tonight for your rhubarb muffin recipe!!

Wooden toy assortment

Eating local and organic is one step we are taking to try and live an all around healthier lifestyle with less of an impact on the earth. We are already quite environmentally conscious, but there are a few things that I have been wanted to change. I'm concerned about the amount of toxins in our environment - both because everything ultimately ends up in the water and living right on the shore you can't help but picture everything directly draining to the sea, but I also want to limit Caleb's exposure to toxins and chemicals. We try to keep less plastic toys in the house and go for wooden ones instead. I know that the standards are higher for children's toys nowadays, but we still hear of high lead levels and BPA, and since everything still goes into Caleb's mouth, I feel much better about avoiding plastics when I can. We are also trying to use more natural cleaning products, like baking soda and vinegar. I'm going to buy some borax this week to give that a try on the hard water stains in our tub. I'll post a before and after if it works! We are about to do a quick clean tonight before the big hockey game starts. GO BRUINS GO!!

Chatterbox

Caleb is truly feeling better the past couple of days. Once again he is all smiles, full of energy and talking up a storm. I followed him around with a camera for a few hours this past weekend to try and capture some of his words. I missed some key ones like 'hug please', 'hockey stick' and 'upside down', but did manage to capture a couple of goodies, and you may notice that 'no' has become a recent favorite. I realized, however, when I had to add subtitles to some of the footage, that he may not be quite a clear as I thought! He can say the ends of words really well, but 'ock' could be sock, rock or walk. He is great at names, if I do say so myself. Greggy, Linda, Grampie, Grammie, Nina, David, Lydie and Aly all come out on a regular basis. We often look through family pictures so he can say Mary and tonight he said Adam about 200 times. Saying Sarah seems to have really stumped him, though! A few words like fish, cheese and orange are pronounced as specific grunts which took us awhile to figure out. I love that he tries to say everything and seems to remember all the words he is learning. I gave him a bite of ice cream over the weekend and this morning I asked him what he wanted for breakfast and of course he piped up with 'ice cream'!!

How Caleb emerged from his room this morning

Recovery mode

My ear still hurts, mama

After 10 days on antibiotics, Caleb is still not quite back to his old self. He has been a bit grumpy, has low energy, wants to nurse often, has a bad diaper rash, is not sleeping well and is tugging on his ear a lot. We went to see our doctor today to see how his ear is healing, and unfortunately, it is still very red and infected. So, we are now on round 2 of a different antibiotic. I feel so mixed about this. I was really hoping that we wouldn't have to use any antibiotics until he was much older, let alone using 2 different antibiotics in 2 weeks, but I know he is in pain more than anything I just want him to get better. What is a mom to do? I don't think there are many alternatives and I just don't want to risk the infection getting worse or spreading, so we'll be doing drops twice a day for another 10 days.

Caleb has had his moments of being in great spirits, and thankfully, he was in a super positive mood when I brought him to my work party. The Ecology Action Centre is celebrating it's 40th anniversary with 40 Days of Action. Yesterday was the 40th and final day and we celebrated with a street party. Music, food, and the unveiling of an art installation on the outside of our office. Caleb was the hit of the party. Dancing, laughing, drawing with sidewalk chalk and throwing his hands in the air and yelling 'party!!' several times.

'Party!'

We also had a fun play date with our friends Rae and Gus this morning, where we spent an hour chasing each other and rolling in the grass at the Commons.

Caleb and Gus taking a break from the games

I'm really happy to say that the film I've been working on for the past few months is complete! Voices for our Coast is the final product. A 10 minute call to action from the people of Nova Scotia! It has over 400 hits on youtube so far and we held 2 screenings which went really well, so I'm happy people are enjoying it. I hope that this will help move our campaign of protecting Nova Scotia's coasts forward. You can watch the video here. Enjoy!

Real life wildlife

To celebrate Alan's homecoming and Caleb's return to good health, we spent a family day at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park. I've been waiting for months to show Caleb real animals so that he knows they exist outside of youtube, so I was really excited when I found out about this park which is near Stewiacke. It is run by the Dept of Natural Resources and most of the animals were raised in captivity at other facilities, some were rescued from homes where they were kept as pets, and many were found injured and cannot be released back into the wild. They have large enclosures with lots of natural habitat. We spent the afternoon looking at fox, wolves, bears, skunks, birds of prey, owls, waterfowl and many, many more animals. We all had a great day and I'm sure we'll be going back sometime soon.

Baa baa white sheep

Lots of 'Roarrrrs' for the cougar

First time blowing dandelion seeds, and yes, he did eat a few

Way home after a great day

Sick boy

Waving to the ducks with Sarah

Caleb and I are back in Fredericton for the long weekend and our trip started out wonderfully well. We left Thursday after work and stopped in Truro for a wonderful picnic in the with Sarah. Caleb fell completely in love with the ducks - waving, saying hello and quacking at top volume. I thought he would sleep soundly for the rest of the drive home. Instead, he was whiny and unable to settle. I drove through the tears, determined to make it home at a good time.

Thursday night Caleb came down with a fever. His little body was burning up and he was having trouble sleeping. I knew he was sick when in the morning he could barely manage a smile when he saw Greggy and Linda. He spent Friday and Saturday wanting to cuddle and rest while refusing food (but wanting to nurse lots). We gave him tylenol which would bring his fever down for a few hours and he would perk up and start acting a bit more like himself, but as soon as the medication wore off, he was hot, sick and in tears again.

Sunday morning we tried to take him out for a family breakfast, thinking he must be on the mend, but he couldn't stop crying was clearly not better yet. By the time he got home, his temperature was 104 (39.9) and I had never felt a person so hot in my life. My mom and I decided we needed to take him to the emergency room right away.


We stayed for 7 hours - blood tests, urine tests, a chest xray and lots of tears later, we were told he had an undetermined viral infection and a high white blood cell count. His temperature had dropped so after meeting with the pediatrician, we decided to take him home. It was truly the longest day of my short life as a parent. I was really concerned that we still didn't know what the virus was. Thankfully we met with a great pediatrician who said to call her immediately if we saw any change.

Today Caleb was still not 100%. He had a fever again through the night and most of the day. Instead of driving home, I decided to stay in Fredericton for one more day to let Caleb rest. We have the pediatrician on call if anything changes, so I feel much better staying here instead of heading home by myself. At about 3:00 today I noticed some fluid in Caleb's ear. Even though they had checked his ears out yesterday, I still thought I should call the pediatrician to let her know. She said to bring him to the hospital immediately. Once there, she took one look at his ear and said that his eardrum had ruptured. Apparently it will heal on its own and he would have immediately started to feel relief.

Sure enough, it is now bedtime and he is once again smiling and sitting beside me eating a cracker. He isn't completely better, but just knowing what the problem was makes me feel a much better. He has to take antibiotics for 10 days to deal with the infection and go to see his doctor in Halifax in a week to make sure the eardrum is starting to heal.

I sure wish Alan was here, but he still has a few more days on tour. He'll be getting some big hugs as soon as I see him. I'm sure lucky to have such a great support system here. There were lots of phone calls to check in on Caleb and lots of offers to help out. Today he just needs to be near his mommy and the 'nu-nus'. Although I've been wishing he would start weaning soon, I was really glad that he was still nursing this weekend. It was the only thing that could comfort him at times and is kept him from getting dehydrated. I am a bit scared that I will lose my superpower once he is weaned, but I'm sure I will find other ways to comfort him when the time comes.

Lessons learned - symptoms can change quickly, so call your doctor if you notice something seems to be wrong, even if they just checked him the day before. Rely on family and friends to help when you need it. As hard as it was to watch Caleb having blood squeezed out of his finger and to hold his hand while he was being x-rayed, I felt lucky so, so lucky to have a healthy child. I can't imagine how heart breaking it must be for parents with kids who have serious illnesses and are frequently in the hospital. Knowing your child is hurting and feeling helpless to help is truly heartbreaking so be grateful and appreciative for your healthy child and give them all the love you can when they do get sick.

Saturday morning

Our morning started at 6:00. Caleb still comes in to bed with us when he wakes up at 6, and we cuddle for awhile until I feel ready to start my day. Alan had to work early today, so we ended up having a nice family pancake breakfast at 6:15. I still can't quite believe that this is my new schedule. Even though Caleb is still at home with us 5 days a week, something feels special about a weekend morning. More relaxed, no pressure to check emails, no calls to make...just time to sit on the floor and play.


This morning we built and knocked over several towers, each one taller than the last. We raced cars, sang songs, played with our hockey sticks and then headed outside for a leisurely walk. We found lots of puddles to throw rocks and splash in, smelled flowers, threw sticks, saw a rabbit AND a fox and were home in time for a snack and nap at 11. And now, both rested and happy, we are ready to do it all again this afternoon.

Extended Mother's Day

Alan is heading to N.B. this weekend, so we've been celebrating Mother's Day early. A dinner out on the town on Thursday followed a sleep in until 8:00. I'm sure Alan would have let me sleep longer, but that was the time that Caleb came bursting through the bedroom doors. We had a Mother's Day BBQ last night complete with my favorite coconut shrimp appetizer. Delicious. Either I have the best husband in the world, or I'm milking this for all it is worth. Probably a bit of both, but what can I say, it's fun to celebrate a new holiday!

I'm feeling a lot of pride, amazement, joy and hope this Mother's Day. I'm so proud of the wonderful little boy we've created, amazed by how much he has learned, his super sweet and kind personality and how unbelievably adorable he is, overjoyed with being a mom and a family, and hopeful that I might squeeze one more nice dinner out of this on Sunday night when Alan returns home!

One quick nature note - the latest species added to my Duncans Cove list is the brown-headed cowbird. These guys have an interesting strategy for raising their young. They are nest parasites so they don't build a nest of their own, but instead lay eggs in the nests of other birds and hope that the mother of that nest will look after the egg and raise the young once it has hatched. So there is no parenting required on the part of the cowbird, but a lot of extra work on the parents of nest they take advantage of. This was a fun bird to see and the best part is that it was Alan who noticed that it was a different species in the yard!

Best discovery of the Spring - the joy of puddles!