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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

HAPPY NEW YEAR !


We hope that 2009 will be as great as 2008. Without a doubt 2008 is the most special year of my life so far it is the year I became a mother and saw a new side of life that I did not know existed. All the best to everyone and to health and happiness for all in the New Year.

Traveling with a 9 1/2 month old

I am sorry I have been absent for a bit, but as we do every year I was off to New Brunswick for the Holidays. Tones to talk about but this entry will be about travel.

So you are all packed and you head out to the airport (60 minute drive) and arrive there to find out that your flight is delayed because the plane you are supposed to be on is stuck in Vegas because there is snow in Vegas. Yes snow in Vegas. they ended up finding another plane for us but we only got to leave at 1:30am by the time I was at my sisters house it was close to 6am. This would not have been anywheres as bad as it was if it was not for the fact that I traveled alone with my son. Geoff was joining us on the 23rd. Luckily Geoff stayed with us at the airport until I had no choice to go threw security, not because my flight was leaving but because security was closing for the night.

The 23rd rolls around along with a snow storm in Toronto, Geoff was in the same boat as we were with a plane being delayed and delayed some more. I was starting to think he would not make it to us for Christmas. He should have arrived in Moncton at 11pm but got to my mom and dad's around 7am.

You would think that was enough delays, well no. The day we were supposed to come back to Toronto our flight got canceled.

Well we are now home and all is back to normal.

What did I learn from all this travel.
  1. Pack enough diapers for 1 1/2 days in your carry-on
  2. Have a good long nap before you leave for the airport just in case you need to stay up all night holding a sleeping baby on the plane wishing you were sleeping
  3. Bring head phones so you can watch Satellite TV on the plane to help keep you up at 3 am when you have been up for 20 straight hours.
  4. Pack healthy snacks for your baby
  5. Pack toys to distract him at the airport while you wait for your flight
  6. The Baby B'air vest is useless for us. In Canada you can not use it during take off and landing, Christophe falls asleep during take off and does not wake up until we land; so I am not about to risk waking him up to put on the vest.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Wordless Wednesday

I was cleaning my computer the other day and found this old picture of Christophe I took using photobooth.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Stay at Home mom

It's official I told my boss (former boss) I am not going back to work. I am a Stay at Home Mom; my "job" is Christophe and I love it.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

HealthyToys.org

I think it is absolutly sad that we need a website that helps parents navigate trew all the various azards that comes with choosing a toy for your child. When you are shopping of a toy for your child you should not have to think those this contain lead, cadmium, chlorine, arsenic, bromine or mercury? Those are the chemicals this site will inform you about. The site is still a work in progress therefore it does not have all toys however I was able to find many items Christphe has at home and was very please that the majority of his toys passed the test. However we had one with a red flag - his Whoozit Activity Spiral.

The only thing that would be great is if this site also talked about what toys have BPA, vinyl and Phthalate.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Sleep is overrated

Well at lease Christophe thinks it is; I on the other hand quite enjoy sleep. Last night I swear the devil took over my child; well maybe not the devil cuz he was still his very cute self just an awake cute self from 11pm to midnight; then from 2:30am to 4am; then from 4:30am to 5am; then from 6:15am to well now.

That leaves 2 very tired parents.

I have to say thank god for my sling, when he was up last night and wanted to be bounced will I was standing half asleep otherwise I am sure we would have both ended up on the floor due to shear exhaustion.

He has been very gassy all morning but not producing so I am wondering if he has a tummy upset that kept him up...

Hopefully it will sort itself out before tonight as I NEED A "FULL" NIGHT OF SLEEP.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Christmas Hazards

This the season to be Merry; however there are all sorts of hazard from little ones that come with the holiday. How did we as parents deal with these?

One of the major hazard is the Christmas tree and I know first hand how dangerous this is. On my first Christmas is the day I learned how to crawl and I made a b line to the tree and ate a glass Christmas ball. To make sure the same thing does not happen to Christophe we installed the tree in an area of the house that Christophe can not get to on his own.

Other decorations can also pose a problem to we made sure that all decorations are out of Christophe reach and securely hung.

Christmast wrapping, you would not think this is dangerous but the ribbons and bows can cause havoc if swallowed, same goes for tinsel - all of these are banned from our house this year. I opted for natural fabric ribbons to add a bit of decoration to some presents.

The last thing you want is to give the gift of danger; so before you buy presents for your little one make sure they are age appropriate. Don't forget to remove all wires, hooks, ties and packaging before letting your little one play.

Also just cause you are hopping from the house to the car and then to another house over and over while visiting friends and family it is no reason to skip on bundling your little one. You may decide to skip the coat and hat but make sure you bundle up your kids always in the cold canadian weather. (Sometimes I envy our friends to the south but I don't think I would take the heat over the cold if it meant loosing the snow also - I just love a white Christmas).

Friday, December 5, 2008

Bugaboo Friends

Bugaboo has launched this new website that is an online community for Bugaboo Owners. You can make friends online (that also have bugs), you can upload pictures of your adventures and share stories. I think it's worth checking out for those bug owners out there. So far there are not to many other Canadiens on the site so lets unit and change that.

You will find us on the site as Wiseman_mama,

Earth Hour 2009

It's never to early to start planning for earth hour 2009 that will be held on March 28 at 8:30PM. What is earth hour you say it's one hour that we as a human race give a breck to our planet by shutting off all lights; if you want to take one step further you pledge to not use any for of electricity for that hour. Just as we did this year we will be participating in earth hour as a family in 2009. This is a great moment to take time to explain to your kids why the planet is so important and out energy conservation. If this is a concept your kids already know then you can take this time to bond as a family...

Thursday, December 4, 2008

I am no longer a vegetarian...

OK before anyone thinks I am ill... I am not talking about me.

Last weekend Christophe was playing on the kitchen floor with some pots and pans, and then suddenly it got really quiet. I had forgotten that Geoff had fed the cats wet food that morning, and I am sure you've figured it out by now: Christophe was covered in cat food with some around his mouth.

We are still planning on raising him a vegetarian but he has been tainted with Turkey and giblets (I think). Instead of freaking out we just laugh at this one and are assured by the fact that we only buy really good cat food that only use human grade ingredients.

The black eye

There are so many things I have been meaning to blog about but Christophe has been keeping me so busy...
The first one was the black eye.

Last week on tuesday the garbage can attacked me, I like saying that way because then I was not an idiot. I was on my way to the La Leche League Meeting and noticed that our bins were still at the curb so I parked the stroller and commenced to bring the bins back to the house when wham I slipped on ice and came falling down on my back with this massive bin on top of me the lid opened and hit me right in the eye. My glasses looked like pretzels. May I add that we requested the 2nd smallest bin but received one of the larger ones and are still awaiting for our new bin.

I have to say thank you to Tim and Val next door that took me in for a few hours and help with Christophe while I iced my head (see Geoff had agreed to go to this tech thing since I was going to be out that evening so I was solo). The lady at Envy eyware was also great she was able to rescue my glasses and this is a good thing because they are were not cheep.

Originally I was not going to go to the hospital because all was fine other then a few bruises but on the Thursday my vision started going blurry, so I sucked it up and went to the hospital again solo with Christophe, this time because Geoff had a job interview. Having a baby at the hospital actually makes time seem to go faster, Christophe makes for a fun distraction. We were there for about 2 hours. I got a cat-scan and Cristophe got to play with some nurses. The diagnosis was I had a mile concussion but I would be fine.

Today as I write this my black eye is gone but I still have a huge bruise left on my leg I hope it will be gone one day and my wrist is a bit sore.

Toy Thursday

Christophe is now 9 months old and we though he would need a few 9 month old toys to help stimulate his development.

My parents recently got him NooBoo Pound a Sound from Manhattan Toy. He seems to find it interesting and each time he triggers the sound on the toy; he is like were did that come from. (He does not seem to understand how to make the noise deliberately but he will get there.) I just love the crazy colour and prints on the fabric.We decide to get him the Peek-a-boo barn from Melissa & Doug. So far he seems to like to chew on it more then anything else. When I close and open the flaps it seems to intrigue him; again he will get there eventually.
Images from: Manhattan Toy website and Melissa & Doug website.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Movie Monday

Lets go swimming

This is a little movie of Christophe swim lesson last week, after about 6 weeks of swimming he is finally starting to kinda like it...