I can stand

Christophe decided to sneak in one more mile stone before he turns 7 months he can stand unsupported for 3 seconds, he made it all the way to 7 seconds today.

First cold

It's official Christophe has his first of many colds. He has an extra runny nose and a pretty bad cough. No fever so far so we are happy with that.

We picked up this great humidifier from crane in the shape of a penguin; the mist seems to help with his cough. So far we have not given him anything for the cold as he has no fever but we picked up same infant Motrin just in case and also a nasal spray in case his congestion gets to the point were he is having a hard time breathing.

I have to say the little guy is a trouper he is still full of energy when he is awake; however he is probably napping a bit more then typically and when he get tired or frustrated he is a bit more irritable the typically.

We had a Wee Hands group today but decided to stay home and relax. We played a bit, read some books, watched 15 mins of a movie and fell asleep (this is probably the first time Christophe has been aloud to watch more then 2 minutes of TV), had a teething biscuit instead of his typical baby foods for lunch and supper (he already hates eating baby food I was not about to try feeding him when he is feeling under the weather).

I am off to bed as Christophe is sleeping in Geoff arm under the mister.

Unsafe Food Additives

Each week I am going to attempt to present a few new food additive that we are trying to avoid as a family.

Acesulfame-Potassium: Artificial sweetener, Poorly done saftey test in the 1970s suggested that it may cause cancer. Is often used together with sucralose. The US Food and Drug Administration has refused to conduct better studies.

Cyclamate: Artificial sweetener. Researchers believe it doesn't cause cancer directly, but increases the potency of carcinogens and can harm the testicles. Can not be used as a food additive in Canada.

Olestra (Olean): Fat substitute. Not available in Canada. It can cause severe and incapacitating diarrhea, loose stools, abdominal cramps and flatulence.

Information Source: Nutrition Action

Want help remembering what chemicals to avoid check out my quick guide to chemical additives.

Breast-feeding Chalange

Are you a nursing mom? Do you want to participate in a nurse-in to help bring awareness to breast-feeding? The Quintessence Foundation is chalenging you to attend the Breast-feeding challenge on October 11, 2008. Christophe and I would be participating but we will be away on our first family vacation that weekend celebrating Geoff and I's second year wedding anniversary. If anyone out there attends a chalange I would love to hear what you tough about it.

On-line song database

I was trying to find the lyrics to Zoom, Zoom, Zoom the other night and stumbled on this great database of song and finger play put together by the South Riverdale Child Parent Center in Toronto.

Thank you to the South Riverdale Child Parent Center... we love this site.

Eco Friendly Fridays

Plum Creek Bags Snack Bags

I am always looking at ways to reduce the use of plastic bags in my home. We are thinking of ordering these to try them out. I find it just seems like a sensible idea for snacks on the go. You can get these at Etsy, 4 bags for 14$.

Immunization - Christophe

A while back we posted about vaccination and that we were trying to figure out what to do. A few months have past and I think we have it figured out. We read tones of websites and documentations on the various vaccinations; below is our reading list:

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/cig-gci/index-eng.php
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/cig-gci/p01-tab01-eng.php
http://www.vran.org/
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/tmp-pmv/reports/cireports07_e.html
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/257518

The Vaccine Book by Robert W. Sears

I am sure many of you are wondering what we have decided to do. The basics that we decided to follow is:

• no vaccinations until 6 months or older
• only one injection per visit
• a minimum of 3 months between each injection
• delay the MMR until at least 2 years of age
• only give the chickenpox vaccine at the age of 7 years assuming he has not been exposed to this virus
• no influenza (flue shot) vaccine since this one still contains mercury

In order to help me keep track of Christophe's immunizations, I have made a revised vaccination schedule that I will be proposing to our doctor on our next visit. If you would like to see how this compares to Ontario's Proposed schedule you can check out the Health Canada Web Site.

I want to give a shout out to Kim as if it was not for her I would not have had such a great list of websites as references. Thanks.

Once we show our proposed schedule to our doctor I will let you guys know what he though about it.

Toy Thursday

A few weeks back I picked these up for Christophe; Christophe loves rolling the balls around, he is still to little to play with the turtle bottom part. I love these kinds of toys that can grow with your baby. Geoff and I however think racing the turtle are fun all you have to do is put a bit pressure on the ball and it send the turtle rolling away. I can't wait till Christophe is older and we can have turtle races.I hope he lets me race the red one.

All About Christophe

I just added some links to the right hand side of the blog with a list of various milestones and accomplishments that Christophe has reached. I think this is going to be a great way to keep track of all the little things.

Teeth everywhere

Tooth number 2 is poking through Christophe's gums.

Eco Friendly Friday

Minimize the amount of plastic bags you use...

I will never get to zero plastic bags as I don't think I will ever go bag-less for the garbage and our green bin. However all other plastic bags can be permanently banished from my home.

The first and easiest step to get rid of plastic bags is get some cloth shopping bags. We chose envirosax they are very compact when folded and do not attract pet hair. That second one is very important to me as the typical cloth bags you can buy at grocery stores just getter cat hair like there us no tomorrow.

Now that you have cloth shopping bags you can take the next step and replace other plastic bags, below is a list of great products to think about:

Garden bags : these are great to store leafy green vegetables in the fridge and actually prolongs there life. Just wash your greens and wrap them up in a cotton kitchen towel then pop in the bag. Voila you have salad green that are pre-washed and ready to eat.

Produce bags : these basically do not weight anything so they are great for buying produce at the grocery store, be warned do not use with string beans or peas as you will spend says picking them out of the mesh.

Trash bags: if you can buy biodegradable plastic garbage bags for your green bins and waste. If you can not get biodegradable bags make sure you buy plastic bags that are made from 100% post consumer recycle material.

Food Storage: Instead of grabbing a zip-lock bag use a glass or metal container in the long run this will save you money. We love the Glass Lock containers.

Toy Thursdays

Thanks Kim for posting this image on your blog. These Water Blocks from Plan Toys are beautiful and educational all at once. If you hold 2 different colour blocks together kids can see what new colour they make. These have definitely been added on our wish list for Christophe.

Baby sign language - have you tried it?

Since Christophe has been born we have been practicing signs with him, just recently he has started paying attention to them. I think he understands milk, cat and more. However on my side I am proud to say that I now know over 30 signs. To help us learn we bought 2 sets of sign cards: mocobabies and Signs and Smiles. The mocobabies cards are nicer looking but the Signs & Smiles cards are more functional. Each time we learn a new sign I mount the card up in our hallway so I can easily look at them for review. Geoff also ordered some books and a dvd about signing I will let him tell you guys about them.

Have any of you guys had success with baby signs?

Blind dates for moms

I have recently joined a group called mommy meetup group. It's basically blind dates for moms and babes in Toronto. I have met a bunch of moms in our area and gone to a few events. It's great everyone is very welcoming and all the moms are super nice. It's just really nice to have a chance to talk to other moms about everything and anything baby related.

I now have teeth, well kinda

This morning Christophe 1st tooth broke through his gums. It only sticks out a millimeter or so but its there and it sharp. It's the bottom middle right tooth.

Busy Busy Busy

We have been keeping crazy busy so I have been neglecting my blogging duties...

On Fridays we started attending French Circle time at Ella Minnow Book Store, they have a great space in the basement where various mom and baby classes are held. This is also one of the best book stores (for english books) for children that I have ever been to in Toronto. They keep a great selection of books and the staff is extra helpful. They do have a section of french books but not tones.

Christophe has been "eating" apple sauce, peach mush, sweet potato mash and rice cereal. I say "eating" because most of it ends up on him... I have been trying to give him fruit in the morning and vegetable a super time with a bit of the rice cereal. I think he likes the apples but its really hard to tell, he still finds having food in his mouth kinda weird.

On another note Geoff thinks Christophe may have signed the work milk!!! We offered him milk and guess what he was hungary. For the past few weeks Christophe has been opening and closing his hand while nursing. I always though he was just playing but maybe he has been signing...

Tasty Tuesdays

Edamame

Many people have no clue how to eat or prepare edamame; however it's extremely easy to cook and very nutritious and tasty.

You can use frozen edamame (still in pods) but fresh is much better. All you have to do is bring a pot of water with a teaspoon of salt to a boil. Once boiling toss in the edamame (aprox. 3 cups). Boil for about 8 minutes. Drain. Toss with about a tablespoon of butter and a 1/2 teaspoon salt. Enjoy. (for those of you who have never eaten edamame simply squeeze the beens out and eat, do not eat the pods)

On Tongues and Grooves: Hacking Bamboo Flooring

Way back in February, before Christophe came along and took primary position in my spare time, I was installing bamboo flooring in our house.  The bamboo flooring we have is tongue-and-groove (as opposed to click floating flooring, for instance).  One of the things you'll discover if you lay any significant amount of bamboo flooring is that you'll find yourself with a piece that is more than suitable for a particular location, other than the fact that you've already cut the groove off that piece, and a piece with a groove is required to fit into the tongue of the previous piece within that same course.

That's usually no big deal - that piece becomes a good starter piece for a subsequent course instead.  That works as long as you don't get heavily over-subscribed in starter pieces, but you may also find a time when you have neither tongue nor groove on an otherwise usable piece of flooring.  What's a homeowner to do?

In this case, I discovered that our  cheap table saw makes a fine groove.  It takes careful aim and tweaking to get the groove cut, and it's not likely to be perfect, but it doesn't need to be.  The groove is entirely invisible supporting infrastructure for the flooring, so the fact that it may be a little wider than it needs to be or slightly rough is irrelevant, as long as the previous tongue fits into the groove and you haven't weakened the material to the point of irrelevance.

This is surprisingly painless to do, so i'm happy to recommend the process for anyone laying bamboo floor.  If I have to do another one, perhaps I'll capture some video.

Tasty tuesdays

Baby food, when did you start? Now that our little on has turned 6 months we are going to start pretty soon. I have been doing a lot of reading on the subject and everyone has a different opinion. Some say to start at 4 months, some say start with cereal, some say it does not matter is its cereal or fruits and vegetables if you start after 6 months, some say the first fruit has to be a banana, some say it does not matter if its fruit or vegetables you start with and others say it has to be fruit. With all that contradicting information we are going to do what feels right to us. Christophe seems to be interested in foods as he really enjoyed sucking on an cut open apple on is 6 month birthday. Therefore I plan on picking up 2 items for him to try out this week from the market (we always go to the market on Tuesdays) as long as I can find these we will be introducing sweet potatoes and apples. Here are the recipes:

Apples

4 cups chopped peeled apples (about 4)
1/2 cup water

In a medium saucepan, over medium-low heat, bring apples and water to a simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until apples are very tender, about 20 minutes. Let cool.

Transfer apples to blender and puree on high speed until smooth.

Transfer to ice cub trays and freeze.

Sweet Potatoes

3 cups chopped peeled sweet potatoes (about 2)
1 cup water

In a medium saucepan, over medium-low heat, bring potatoes and water to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are very tender, about 20 minutes. Let cool.

Transfer potatoes to blender and puree on high speed until smooth.

Transfer to ice cub trays and freeze.

Movie Monday

This clip is from one of my favorite French TV shows when I was kid. Passe-Partout, the name of the son is Chanson les beaux legumes. I would love to find these old shows on dvd for Christophe.