... perfection!

I'm sure most Mommas think that their Baby is perfect.  I know most of the time, I do.  But to be clear, just because I only ever share photos of her being adorably smiley and stories of her being amazing and sleeping through the night at 2 months, it doesn't mean that everything is always dandy.  Although... 98% of the time, things are pretty dandy!

I suppose it is because we're so used to such a well behaved Baby, the "bad" days and/or nights seem magnified. Nights like last night where she woke up every hour and a half to two hours (or less...eep) and days like today where was clingy and fussy and refused to let me leave her sight like, ALL DAY are hard.  My neck and shoulders are aching from wearing Miss Baby in the Ergo for at least 5 hours total while she napped or snuggled and I did attempted to do housework.  I don't think I anticipated just how mentally taxing it is to spend the entire day alone with Baby...the older she gets, the more attention she demands with singing and reading and talking.  Sometimes on her fussy days where she wants to nurse for hours and be held constantly, I find myself whining or wishing that she'd  just let me put her down so I could just have some space!  But then I step back and remind myself that she won't always be this little and snuggly and fit in my arms and infatuated by EVERYTHING I say and do... and everything is okay- the exhaustion and sore muscles and frustration disappears.  I love hugging her little body and singing ridiculous songs to get a smile.  I love her new thing of attempting to give kisses by gently cupping my cheeks in her little hands and open-mouth slurping my lips.  I think there is no such thing as a "perfect" Baby, but there certainly are perfect moments....

Photos: Rowen meets Momma's old pals... a rambly entry!

I've completely lost track of what day of the week I usually post these on!

Rowen has been eating solid foods for a week and a half or so.  Remember when I overshared to everyone about baby poop?  Well, Rowen is still holding her poops for a few days at a time as she transitions from being exclusively mild fed.

Yesterday, the first substantial semi-solid poop arrived and it was, well, traumatizing for both of us.  No more nacho cheese poop, this stuff was almost the real thing.   I never thought that so much poop could some out of this little Baby.  SO MUCH POO.  After I took her initial poopy diaper off,  she pushed and pooped for almost another 20 minutes while I cleaned up in horror.  When it was all over, poor little Miss Baby was flushed, exhausted and wanting snuggles.  We both took a nap afterwards.  Then she pooped herself during the nap, which has never happened before.  Poor Baby.  She's going to be really happy about this post if she ever reads this when she grows up.

How can a Baby THIS cute make....so much poop?

Last Saturday, Rowen and I tagged along with The Heavyweights to the Markham Jazz Festival!  I had not hung out in Markham (where I went to High School) in many, many years!

We met up with Shannon, who I had not seen in quite a few years.  Shannon pointed out that we look very grown up in this picture.  Something about Babies and  "Mama hands" will do that, I suppose!  :)

Shannon and I used to be super close to the point that her house was literally my second home the summer that we were 16.  Oh if only we could show this photo to our teenaged, Taco Bell sharing,  Gurlpages website making selves!

We also met up with Annie's Family!  Little Benny kept trying to pick Rowen's hairclip off her head.  

It was really cute.

Rowen gave Paul a stare down for the first 10 minutes after he got in the car.  It's amusing because she's normally so smiley.  After the stare down was over though, she resumed smiling at him.

A weekend for childhood friends!!  That following Sunday, Rowen met her Uncle Jason and Auntie Lindsay for the first time!  Jason is another friend of mine from High School who had not met Rowen yet.   I had not seen them since just before Rowen was born.   Jason and Lindsay are getting married this weekend in Halifax.... Congratulations, You guys!  I wish we could be there!  

 Hey Friends, let's quit being so adult already and go hang out with our Babies and Spouses at "Centennial" or the mall food court sometime right?

Rowen likes paper bags.  Yeah yeah yeah, call us bad parents but sometimes Lowell and I will let her play with one for fun or as a "secret weapon" when we're eating in restaurants or trying to get something done.  It's probably not ideal but she reeeeeally likes them, so shut up.

There is some crazy cool graffiti happening at the train tracks at Queen and Gladstone/Sudbury.  It looks "the man" has finally given up on trying to white it out because literally every night after they'd paint over the graffiti, it'd all be back by the morning.  

Personally, I kinda like it.  And so do these cats!

Rowen *hearts* carrots

Rowen has been eating solids for about a week now.  On top of her usual feedings she gets one meal a day of either her rice cereal slurry, a fruit puree or veggie puree (or a cereal/puree combo).

Rowen likes to suck her thumb between bites.  I'm guessing that this is a fairly normal response after spending the first 6 months of your life instinctively suckling for food.  Whatever the reason, it's certainly really really cute.  Also really, really messy but who cares?  She's a Baby, right?

Carrots have been the resounding favourite so far.  She's accepted and seemed to like everything we've offered her but she devoured her carrots.

This bowl is empty.... Where did it all go, Momma??

Rowen's Fingertoes Love Bax!

Remember a little while ago when I described Rowen's giggle as a little bit "french man" meets "beavis and butthead"?  Well, this video from last month demonstrates that.  And remember how I've mentioned that she has extreme fingertoes?  Fingertoe use is also demonstrated in this video.  Baxter loves getting foot pats from the baby.  It's pretty darn cute... Enjoy!

Photos: These past few weeks... catch up!

 I am waaaaaay behind on my usual "this week" photo updates.  

This is more of a "these past 2 weeks" type thing.

Oh my goodness... Rowen turned 6 months!  She started eating solids and can stand on her own (when supported of course)... though, she still refuses to sit.  So when she tumbles down from standing, she takes a quick pit stop on her bum and then flops down flat on her back.  Her Jolly Jumper is still her most favourite activity...though she does love her new daily snacktime.

Hey dudes... my hair that fell out is growing back.  It's a bit lighter!  The existing Rohawk is growing ever long and wavier

Meghan got married!  

It was a beautiful day.  Hot and humid and beautiful!

Maid of Honor Ange and I before the ceremony here....  my flash tape was already starting to melt and shift around in most unflattering ways. :P  

I was originally going to wear a different dress purchased two years ago but it wouldn't zip up waaaah.  

We/I are/am obsessed with Banh Mi Boys.  The food is so so so good

  

Also Yougurty's.  It's so fun.

Aforementioned standing almost on her own!

Pigtails!

How cute is this little Lady Baby right?  This was after her first few bites of apple puree.  Her tongue went crazy.  It was the best thing ever!

Oh, we also finally got our home Internet set up.  They threw in free cable.  I watched 4 hours of So You Think You Can Dance after the Baby went to sleep last night.  Oh man.....

Meghan got married!

Oh my!  We are so very behind on blogging!  I guess we've been busy or something....  Have I ever mentioned that time is flying by too quickly? :)

My dear friend Meghan from pretty much childhood (grade 8...12 years old!) got married!  Meghan got married!  It was a beautiful ceremony, which I attended alone sans Baby followed by a lovely dinner...which Lowell and I did decide to bring Baby to.  I had asked Mego a few months prior if it would be okay and it turned out to be quite a Baby friendly affair.  Rowen seemed to enjoy dressing up for her first formal event!  And she was mostly well behaved.... mostly!

Rowen Whitty - Table 5!

Lemon dessert that Lowell was in love with

Amazing!  Congratulations Meghan and Stephen!  Love you guys and thank you for letting me be a part of your day!  

The Falls

I found this photo on the computer and I wanted to share it.  My Momma, her Momma and Baby Z... circa Spring of 1984?  I would have been around the same age Rowen is now.  This made me really excited to take her to Niagara Falls one day soon.  Most of you who know me know about my strange love affair with Niagara Falls!  (I certainly hope that she doesn't go through a weird casino-going Roulette playing phase like I did!)  As much as time is flying by WAAAAY TOO FAST, I  love being reminded of all the exciting things we get to do with her.

Do you love your digital camera?

I want to get a new camera.  Does anyone have any recommendations?  I have no specific wants or needs, just would like something better quality than my Galaxy S II phone camera.  Easy to upload to computer/blog/email etc and durable.  Thank-you Friends!

Beaches International Jazz Festival

Last week was the Beaches International Jazz Festival.  It was Rowen's first time going to one of her Daddy's big gigs.  We hung out backstage but she didn't get to actually see much of the music because we don't have her Baby Banz baby ear protection yet.  

I would say that the day started off great, with a super happy well-rested Rowen Baby who was posing for photos, giggling at the security guards and smiling at Uncle Paul of The Heavyweights ....and then as the afternoon went on, things went downhill quite quickly.  At around the second last song, we had a complete meltdown and I wound up having to feed her in the car and since she was too worked up to nap well, she kinda wailed and fussed during the entire ride home. Ah well, we will learn to master these longer Baby Adventures!  

I also recorded a video but it uploaded to YouTube with a weird WAKAWAKAWAKAWAKA over top of the music for a good 30 seconds, so I will have to re-upload it before I share it with you guys.

Here are some photos from our day at the jazz fest:

I turned the camera around in this shot and this was her reaction to seeing herself on the screen of the phone.  Oh Baby Girl, you so funnnny.

WHOA finally something kinda cool in the crazy City Place condos that are popping up like freakin' WEEDS in our city skyline...  The two towers towards the top left/middle of the pic are linked together by some crazy condo bridge thing, what!

Okay, this condo is obscenely close to the highway.  

No exaggeration you could actually lean over and touch the building.  Why is this necessary?

Rowen was really sad in the car.  

She could not be consoled... not with singing, her scrunchy owl and definitely not a pacifier.  This bag of Doritos from the food tent backstage was a last resort.  It made her happy!  It probably makes us look like really, reeeeeally bad parents though. But don't worry, she's not strong enough to pop the bag open! 

Happy Birthday Lowell!

The Baby bought Lowell some beer.  

I thought it would be funny and kinda nice since I haven't really been letting Lowell keep beer at home lately. Which kinda makes me a total jerk...cuz man, on my 24th many, many, many moons ago there was a literally a bathtub full of booze.  We called it the boozetub!  But I digress.   We got a 2-4 of nice Muskoka beers for Daddy's 24th. (Except we only got 12.)  

Super tall classic chocolate cake and a baby strawberry-rhubarb pie from Mabel's, one of my favourite places.  

One of my favourite lemon bars, possibly my favourite lemon bar in the city is from Mabel's! And their brownies are amazing so I figured their cakes must be as well.  They use real quality, local ingredients so that's a plus too.  I was way too lazy to make a nice cake so I bought one.

BUT! The wonky icing writing was done by me at home....

Her shirt says Incredible, Amazing, Incredible Dad.

Rowen very seriously composed a song for the occasion on her Baby Einstein piano.

Happy Birthday Lowelldish!  We love you!