Cutie in the high chair...

Here's a picture of the little smiler in the high chair. I don't know exactly what John was doing to entertain him, but Landon was sure enjoying it. I managed to catch a couple of pictures, before he saw the camera. As soon as he saw the camera, mr. serious-face appeared... LOL

We're ready, I think...

We're all packed up and ready to hit the road in the morning. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything too important ... heh heh. Most things can always be purchased when we get there. The main thing: I've got diapers! LOL Oh yeah, and food ... that's an important item now that we didn't used to worry about :-/ Lots of food. *sigh*

I'm surprised at how hard it is to find barley cereal with formula. A couple of places carry oatmeal and rice with formula, but I couldn't find barley ... until I wasn't looking for it. I found it today at Shoppers Drug Mart - made me happy. Now all of Landon's cereal have formula in them, so I don't have to use formula to mix them ... much easier. Happy mom.

We had a nice dinner last night with Aunty Margaret (who's celebrating her birthday today! Happy Birthday!). We had pork (we always have pork with Aunty Margaret), nice white wine, and homemade apple pie for dessert. Very yummy! It was nice to spend the evening with her - we don't see her often enough.

Other than that - Landon is adorable. Getting to sleep at night continues to plague us, or rather elude us. Last night he went to sleep at 11:20, only to wake up a midnight and play happily until 2:45. It's lucky for him that he played happily ... aiaiaiai. I just laid on the floor beside him, and he played with my pj strings, he played 'oops dropped my soother, where is it now?' and giggled and laughed. He was very cute, and I hate to admit that I enjoyed watching him play (despite the hour), but I was very glad when he finally went to sleep :-/ Hopefully tonight will be better as we plan to be on the road at 5:30 am.

So that's that for now. I'll post again when we're at the farm hopefully ... let everyone know how the trip went and whatever. Hope all is well where you are...Take care...TK

New countertops!

Our new countertops have been installed ... YAY!! They are quite nice, I am very happy with them. The flooring install has been delayed, it will be installed on Oct 12 now. Ah well...

With the counters being installed today I actually relaxed a bit, felt really good to just read in the afternoon, instead of painting something LOL. I have some touchups to do now around the counters, and the backsplash is lower than the old counters, so I'm going to have to fix that up. Either with paint, a paper border, or a row of tile. I may just try the tile, see how that goes.... But that is a project for a couple of weeks from now!

Landon has fully recovered from the his shots. No more fever or anything. And no fever with foretelling the onset of roseola...that'll likely hit Saturday or something, just because we want to leave Sunday morning :-/
Right now he's in the jolly jumper jumping away, puking about every 5 minutes because he gets himself jumping so much and then sticks his hand in his mouth, gagging himself. But he doesn't seem to mind. I'll just notice him stop jumping for about a minute, he'll be chewing on his hands, and then BLECH ... and I go clean him up and he starts the entire process again! Monkey...

He slept through the night again last night ... and I got the longest stretch I've had in, oh I don't know, a year or so ...?! I slept from shortly after 1 until 9:30 without waking up! YAY Usually I wake up sometime between 4:30 and 7, just because. And then it takes me awhile to get back to sleep. Not last night ... I woke up at 9:30, and then went right back to sleep until 10:50, when it was time to get Landon up.

I couldn't believe Landon today - he slept right through the countertop install, including taking the old countertops off, sawing and banging and everything!! What a sleeper! If only he slept like that when we first put him down at night!! LOL Oh well, I will take the good napping and not complain too much!

Oh yeah, Landon tried green beans today. I thought he wouldn't like them as much as they aren't as sweet as squash and sweet potatoes, but he barely batted an eye and munched them all up. Something's gonna' happen around food here, because feeding him is just too easy ... he has only rejected chicken so far. And to like green beans!! C'mon!! I guess he doesn't like cereal made with water either, so I pump every day to mix milk in with his cereal. So that's not easy ... so maybe that's the trade-off. I don't know. But I'm liking this veggie love of his ... we'll just keep on introducing veggies!! LOL

That's the news for tonight. Getting excited for the trip to the farm. Calling all friends back home: I'm looking for a loaner exersaucer for the week I'm at the farm. If you have one, or know of one I can borrow, please let me know. Mom will be in Swift on Saturday, so she can pick it up in it's there...Thanks!! I'll post again tomorrow probably...TK

Landon's world today...

Well, Landon was a bit feverish last night, and extremely fussy. The Motrin likely helped him feel a bit better, but he did struggle to get to sleep. He slept for about 30 minutes from 11:30 to midnight, then he was up for quite awhile, and miserable. Finally I put him in his crib with the aquarium light going, which he watched for quite awhile, and he was quite happy in there -- playing with his feet, 'talking' and laughing. I fell asleep shortly after 1, Landon woke me up about 1:40 fussing because I think he was ready for bed but doesn't realize he could just fall asleep in his crib ... He cried and was a moron until I nursed him, then he calmed right down. I snuggled with him in the recliner and we both fell asleep. I put him into his bed shortly after 2 and went to get some quality sleep myself! He did wake up again about 6:30, but I was able to nurse him and he went right back to bed. By then the Motrin was likely worn off, so he probably felt crappy again. He seems okay today though - the fever is gone and he's napping like a star right now. So maybe that will be the end of the fever, and hopefully the fussiness will disappear too.....

I got the painting touch-ups done today ... and put the painting supplies away. YAY I like painting, and I like getting it done even better :-)

Now it's full-fledged 'getting ready to travel' mode for me ... I'll be going shopping to get baby food, diapers, etc today. Clothes washing comes next...etc, etc. I'm excited, and I hope that Landon travels and sleeps well. The more I think about it, we'll have to be creative with the sleeping situation ... Landon whines and stuff during the night, but doesn't necessarily wake up. If he sees me or anything then he does wake up and it's a struggle to get him back to sleep (if it's early in the night). So I may end up sleeping on the couch, or we'll have to put Landon in the computer room ... poor kid, in the 'office' to sleep! But I'm afraid if we don't neither of us will get much sleep. *sigh* we'll see, I'm sure it will all work out ... I'm just used to sleeping in my 'own' room now, so I don't look forward to sharing with Landon again!! LOL

Anyways, I hear the little monkey waking up now, so I'll go get him. I will maybe post again later, and I should have some pics to post again soon!! take care...TK

6 month shots...

Landon had his 6 month shots today. What a trooper he was. He didn't even cry at the first needle, then a short little whiny-cry at the second one. The third one though (the nurse said it hurts the most) he really bellered ... but he calmed right down even before the nurse had the band-aid on. What a big boy! I was very proud. Then he nursed and went right to sleep ... such a deep sleep that he didn't even wake up when I put his pants on to leave! LOL But he did wake up when we got outside...
He's doing okay ... no fever yet, but we've given him Tylenol today and I just gave him Motrin when I put him down for the night. Hopefully he won't react this time ... He's whiny as hell though :-/ Oh well *shrug* What can you do?
Other info from the dr appt: Landon's 17 pounds, 10 ounces, 27 1/8" long. He's totally healthy (spleen and liver are back to normal size). All is good, the doctor thinks he's wonderfully cute too! She thinks that he quite likely will get roseola as it's very contagious, but she wasn't at all concerned about it, and thankfully recommended that we still give Landon his immunizations. So we'll probably arrive at Grandma and Grandpa's house with roseola.

That's right! We're making the big trip back to Saskatchewan!! WooHoo!! We are planning to leave here early Sunday morning (hoping to make a good chunk of the trip before Landon wakes up fully). John is going on from there to Calgary, job and house-hunting. I will stay at the farm for the week, and we will likely come back home either Thanksgiving Monday or Tuesday. So get ready .... I'm bringing my baby home to show him off!! :-)

So the rest of this week will be devoted to getting ready for the big road trip! LOL Wish me luck that I don't go insane before we even leave!

On the house front - I got the painting done today. Just have to do the final touch-ups tomorrow and no more painting YAY!

I should get going now, all this painting and doctoring and I'm tired! :-P And I'm still incredibly stiff from volleyball!! Imagine that! I'll post again soon...TK

Painting ... again...

Today I finally got started painting out the faux stuff in our house, in the dining room, living room and kitchen. There isn't much there, but I got it all primered today. I kept putting it off as I'm pretty stiff from volleyball practise, but I knew I'd better get to it or it'd never get done.

Landon's doing well. Last night he went to sleep at 11:40, then woke up at 12:10 and we thought 'uh oh, it's gonna' be a late one'. But we just left him in his bed (he was bouncing and whining, but not crying ... I checked on him once, he was fine) for about 20 minutes, and he got himself back to sleep! YAY Landon. And slept until 11 am ! Double YAY YAY Landon!! So I think (hope) we're making some progress (knock on wood!!). He went down again tonight at 11:30, so we'll see how tonight goes.
I will have to get him up a bit early tomorrow to get him to his doctor's appointment at 11 am. I think I will just put him straight into the car from bed at 10:30, and let him 'wake up' on the drive. That way it won't be quite such a shocker, and maybe we'll be able to salvage a bit of this (dare I call it) routine. I'll just change him and stuff at the dr office when they weigh him. Watch ... he'll have a big dump in the morning or something...heh heh. I hope he doesn't react too badly to the vaccines this time.
Karen let us know that Nathan does in fact have infantum roseola ... so we'll see if Landon gets it. I've been checking him for fever and he hasn't had one. It's supposed to be contagious only when the child has a fever, and we weren't around Nathan when he was feverish, so I'm hoping Landon won't get this one. Just once it'd be nice if Landon didn't get 'it' (whatever it happens to be at the time). Of course, roseola isn't a serious illness, so if he gets it so be it. I just hope that we won't have to delay the shots because of this exposure :-/ We'll see.

We had a wonderful visit with Trish tonight too ... we haven't seen her all summer so it was great to have her over for awhile. Landon really likes her too - didn't make strange at all :-) And he put on a couple of flirty-faces, complete with one-eyebrow-lifts, just for Trish!! LOL

That's the kind of day it was here ... tomorrow to the dr, then hopefully I'll get the painting finished and that'll be done. Flooring guys are here on Friday! YAY. Then only countertops to be done. Phew...

Hope you're all well. Take care...TK

I'll be sore tomorrow...

Today I went to volleyball practise ... I can already tell that I'll be stiff and sore tomorrow!! aiaiaiai Went to Liz's to watch the Bomber game after that, and it was all fun!! It was nice to go out for most of the day ... without Landon (as awful as that might sound). Practise was at 10, so I left before Landon was up, and got home about 4. I had lots of pumped milk for him, and so John could give him bottles and cereals all day. It was fun. But when I got home I was very relieved to breastfeed Landon again!! LOL
Good football day too as the RoughRiders won as well!! :-)

Got a call today from a mom from mommy's group last week ... it seems everyone and their kids have gotten sick since last Tuesday / Wednesday (Tuesday was a birthday party that I didn't go to, but I went to mommy's group on Wed night). Now Nathan (her little man ... we shared the hospital room with them) has little pink spots on his body too :-/ They think it could be infant roseola ... very common. It is also of the same viral strain as CMV, chicken pox, etc ... so perhaps Landon is actually immune??!?? Could that be?!?!? What I've read about it (just a quick google search) is that it's only contagious when the child has the fever (that occurs just before the pink rash), and no one was feverish on Wed night, so maybe we'll actually get to avoid this 'illness'. In any case, most kids, again, get this virus before they're 2 years old ... it's very common, causing nothing more than a fever for a day or two, and a minor rash. So if we get it, we get it, if we don't, that's good!
As long as what Nathan has is in fact this roseola.....Adults don't get it, so there must've been another bug flowing around that the adults weren't feeling well either.... hmmmmm But both John and I feel fine, and Landon hasn't displayed any symptoms at all, so maybe we'll be good.

So, that's the news for today. I think I've recovered from my football beers, and John's recovering from his squash game with Wes, and hopefully Landon will go to sleep well tonight! Last night I nursed him to sleep at 12:30, he slept until John woke him at 11 am. Another night slept through ... they're becoming more common now, that's for sure. I'm not holding my breath, nor expecting it every night, but when it happens we sure enjoy it :-)

until next time....TK

PS -- Nikki, I fixed the speeling mitskaes!! LOL

Guitar Time!!

Landon loves when John plays guitar ... and he loved it even more today when John put the headphones on him (very quietly). He was mesmerized!!

yummy sweet potatoes...

Landon likes sweet potatoes too! He gobbled them right up this afternoon LOL So now he's an orange-veggie lover ... squash and sweet potatoes. I'll maybe have to try something green next, see if he likes that. That's for next week, after his 6 month shots.
Shots on Tuesday morning :-( I don't like the thought of that, but I guess it's for his own good in the long run. I hope he doesn't react as much this time ... he had quite a fever after the 4 month shots. We'll see.

Sleeping - he keeps changing it up, but we're getting used to that!! Last night he had a late third nap, falling asleep at 10:15 after his bath. There was no keeping him up, he fell asleep while I was burping him!! He woke at 11, and played and cooed and talked, quite happily, until after 1. When it was time to go to sleep, he lay nice and quiet in my arms and went to sleep. I liked that -- he can do that anytime! The best news though --> he slept through until 11 am. He was awake when I went in to get him, but not crying or anything ... just waiting for us to come and get him I guess :-) Little stinker.

This afternoon John and I cleaned up the yard a bit -- it was nice to get some trees pruned and our poor neglected garden tended to!! Landon was so cute - I sat him on his blanket outside with a few toys. He ignored the toys, just sitting there watching the trees and us work and whatever was around. He sat there for almost 2 hours!! Then I sat with him in the grass, and he pulled and pulled at the grass ... it must've felt pretty neat, all cool. What a sweetheart.

And Landon listened to John playing guitar today, with the headphones on (really quietly). It was pretty cute -> he sure loves guitar. I took a couple of pics with the webcam, I'll post them soon. I have to run now, as Landon's done his bath, and it's time I took him up and got him ready for bed.

until next time...TK

Sleeping Angel...

Ok, if all nights could be like last night ... *sigh*. Landon went to sleep at 11 (YES 11:00 PM!!). No crying, no fussing. I put him into bed, he went to sleep. Done. He woke up at 4:30 am, ate, and went back to bed. Until 11:00 am. 12 hours of glorious sleeping Landon-baby!! Very nice. Now we do recognize that he was crazy tired from stupid crying the previous 3 nights, and we don't expect that he'll do that every night, but to have done it last night was just wonderful!!
We'll see what happens tonight. He's only taken 2 short naps today ... he may need to get that third one in there, and that will push bedtime back a bit. But we'll deal with that when it comes...

We went to the mall today, bought a toque and mitts forLandon :-) I couldn't believe how many places were already sold out! But The Children's Place had some left, so we got 'em. :-) All of the clothes are so cute, but I had to restrain myself as I already went nuts on ebay (that's in addition to all of the wonderful hand-me-downs we've already received from Thomson and Kyle!!) and there's absolutely no room in his drawers for more clothes!! LOL

And EAT! Man this kid can eat. He still breastfeeds 4 - 5 times a day, and once overnight (I don't plan to quit that anytime soon). It's the cereals and veggies that he packs away as well...aiaiaiai. Today, 4 Tbsp of squash, and 10 (yes, 10) Tbsp of cereal! PIGGIE!! LOL And I stop feeding him when he's had 3 or 4 Tbsp at a sitting, he'd keep eating if I kept on feeding him! And I always feed his cereal / veggies after breastfeeding, so he's taking in quite a bit of food at one shot. Man oh man ... we'll have him eating steak in about 3 weeks at this rate!!

That's the news from here for today. Landon is right now enjoying his jolly-jumper ... he's spinning in circles because he's trying to look at the the harness. Too funny!! Yesterday I swung him slightly in the jumper ... he lifted his knees right up and giggled the entire time. Something about this worries me ... like maybe he'll be swinging from the chandelier by the time he's 1 year old?!?!?!?! hmmmmmm

Hope all is well wherever you are....take care and I'll post again soon!! TK

Cute Landon... :-)

Here's some cute pics of Landon from earlier in the week ... chewing on his favourite rattle and sitting around in his Tigger outfit (thanks again Dianna!!).

Bath time fun!!!!!

Here's Landon enjoying his bath. This kids LOVES the water ... and the sooner he figures out how to drink the bathwater, the happier he'll be! He is absolutely intrigued with any type of running water, always watching us fill the tub, and more recently a fascination with playing with the water coming out of the faucet. Could prove interesting when he's bigger and wants to turn the faucet on himself... We dump water from a glass repeatedly while he's in the tub (we've done this since he was about 2 weeks old, he loved it then, and loves it now!). And now he's trying to figure out how to do it himself -- well, how he can pour the water into his mouth!! He still hasn't mastered that one yet...thank goodness. But he plays with his sippy cups every day, so sooner or later he'll get this figured out.

Me no like chicken...

We tried giving Landon some chicken today ... to start him on some protein foods... Didn't go over too well!! LOL He screwed up his face, made gagging sounds, his eyes were watering! It was funny as hell, for me not for him! So I tried putting a very very small amount on a spoonful of rice cereal ... he could tell! So no more chicken for awhile. I froze the rest of the jar and we'll try again in a month or so.
I gave him some squash again though ... I had not given him any for the past few days to see if he was having tummy troubles (which were causing him to cry forever at night instead of going to sleep). He's still crying for hours to go to sleep, so I figured I'd give him squash anyways. The menu of cereal-cereal-cereal had to be getting boring! He likes the squash, no doubt about that. Next on the menu -- sweet potatoes. I had Landon pick what was next by putting the jars in front of him, and the one he gravitated towards was sweet potatoes. So we'll give that a whirl in a couple of days. For now, it's cereal-squash-cereal-squash-cereal......and repeat.

Nighttimes are still a struggle. I've been trying to follow Ferber ... putting Landon down a bit later than he usually goes to bed so that he'll fall asleep easier. That is not working for us. He just gets too tired to calm himself down and fall asleep. Last night was 3:30 in the morning before he fell asleep, in my arms. He hasn't had to do that for weeks!!! So it's a regression, not progression. We're still getting him up at 11 am every morning, to 'reset' his daily clock (at least he gets up at the same time every day!!). Tonight I'm going to try to get him down earlier...I'm not 'keeping him up' any more. And I'll do whatever it takes to get him down ... I'm done with the whole cry-it-out for hours on end ... not for us!!!!
So we'll keep trying and trying ... one of these days we'll get it right. We had it right twice last week ... when Landon went down with very little crying at midnight. Hopefully soon we'll figure out the 'right' bedtime routine so that he's calm enough when we put him to bed to actually go to sleep. These days he's just tired and gets overtired easily, so it's extra touchy at night. But at least he is still a happy little monkey, and he's darned cute too!

So, I'll upload a few pics for you too, just because he's adorable. enjoy and I'll post again soon...TK

What a great weekend...

We had a wonderful weekend with Grandma and Grandpa!! Landon didn't make strange at all, which was very nice. And John and I got to go out, by ourselves, for almost 5 hours!!!!! I drank beer (3 -- woke up with a hangover at 4 in the morning LOL). It was good, we had a good time, and now that first 'leaving Landon with a sitter' step has been taken, so the next times should be that much easier! :-D
Landon was a bit fussy the last couple of nights ... don't really know why. Maybe he's got a bit of an upset tummy from eating squash? Maybe he's starting to teeth in earnest? It hasn't disturbed his overnight sleep (thank goodness!!). But we are thinking it could be teething now, as he's chewing on everything so HARD ... much more than before. And his drooling is kicking up a notch as well. So we'll keep an eye on his mouth to see what happens there :-)
I think he's dropping his third nap too, which will be nice to go to 2 naps. We put him down for his 2nd nap at his usual time, and he just wasn't ready to go to sleep. He didn't cry or anything, but just wasn't ready for sleep. So we got him up and he played for another hour. I ended up feeding him before he went to sleep, and he's been sleeping for almost an hour and a half. So maybe it'll be 2 naps / day from now on :-) That will be fine, because maybe he'll even move his bedtime up a little bit? Maybe? We'll see.
We're getting him up at 11 am on the dot now, and he's been going to bed fairly well. Last night it took a bit longer, he was very fussy (teeth? tummy?). But it's been between 12 and 12:30 for the past few nights, with very little crying (YAY). Last night I ended up holding him for a few minutes to calm him down, then he went right to sleep, so only 20 minutes of crying. We'll see what tonight brings with this new nap schedule. I want to give it a few more days to adjust to the new nap schedule (if this is in fact the change), then we'll start getting him up earlier to move his schedule up a bit. Next Tuesday he gets his 6-month shots, so I want to move him up before then (likely to a 10 am wake-up time), and keep him there for a few days so that we know where we're at with the shots. He spiked a good fever last time, so I want to know what to watch for this time.

That's the news for today. It was a good weekend, despite the rain (which is continuing still ... I hope tomorrow is a nicer day!). I caught up on some of my sleep with a nice nap this afternoon :-/ I wonder where Landon gets those sleep habits!! And hopefully this going to bed thing will continue to be not so bad tonight! Will post more soon, along with a couple of pics when I get them uploaded. Hope all is well wherever you are! Take care...TK

Squash ... yummy!

Well, Landon has tried his first veggies this morning - squash. So far so good. He ate them like a pro. He didn't seem turned off by the taste or anything, so that's a good sign! He'll get squash at lunch time for the next week or so now, so hopefully he keeps on liking them!! Then we'll try another veggie.

I decided to go with veggies versus a protein now because he seems to have more troubles pooping since starting cereals, and the veggies should give him a bit more fiber than meat would. We'll introduce meat in a couple of weeks, once we have a couple of veggies under out belt.

He's been a cute little stinker today ... maybe he's just getting practiced up for when Grandma and Grandpa arrive *shrug* They should be here in about an hour, so we're looking forward to seeing them!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I'm sure we will. Take care...TK

Grandma and Grandpa are coming!

YAY ... Grandma and Grandpa will be here tomorrow afternoon!! I'm very excited to have them come, and of course I'm excited to show Landon off. He's grown so much since they were here in June.

Today was a pretty good day. Landon is eating up a storm, so tomorrow he will get some veggies. I used formula to mix with the cereal today, and he liked that too, so I don't need to panic about having enough milk pumped.

I had a pleasant surprise ... I've been reading Ferber's sleep book. I was not too keen on the idea, as I viewed him as a tyrant who insisted you let your child cry all night so that they learned to fall asleep. Instead, I'm learning even more about sleep than I've learned already (reading every sleep book on the market!!), and his approach isn't nearly as tyrannical as I thought (it's stern, consistent, but not tyrannical). I've learned a lot about my own sleep habits, (which I recognize I've passed on to Landon), and the information he's shared will help me as well as Landon sleep better. So we're moving forward on that front. Last night Landon went to sleep at midnight without any crying YAY!! We got him up at 11 am today. Tonight will hopefully go smoothly again. And maybe in a week or two we'll have his schedule (what Ferber calls his sleep phase) moved up to a more normal hour. That will be wonderful!! I will keep you posted on that. The good news ... we're getting enough sleep now (albeit between midnight at 11 am, but that's pretty usual for me!!). Landon has been waking up only once to eat, and I think once we get this sleep thing figured out a bit more, we'll be able to lose that feeding fairly easily. So I'm pretty optimistic about everything now....there's much less stress which is nice.

Well, that's it for tonight. Hope all is well with you! Take care...TK

The look of concentration...

Landon has a very serious look of concentration, especially when he's focused on something important ... like the tab on the zipper on John's shirt. He played with this tab for quite awhile, we guess just amazed with the tab itself! We tried hard to capture this look ... it's hard to get a true view of it with a picture. But it's close....

That's all the pictures for tonight! Enjoy...TK

Eating pictures

Landon likes to "help" us feed him ... and the result is he usually ends up pretty messy. Since discovering the yummy-ness of cereal with breast milk instead of water, we've had a lot less 'help' at feeding time ... he now sits there with his mouth open like a little bird, and I can't shovel the cereal in fast enough!!

Family Pictures...

Here is the family picture from Sept 7 -- Landon at 6 months. And a really cute picture of me and Landon from last night. He was being particularly cute and we managed to catch a couple of pictures.

Forgot the weights and measures...

As I've been such a stickler on weights for Landon...he weighed in at 16 pounds, 14.8 ounces today. So he's still growing, albeit not as fast as he used to! Thank goodness ... I like my little monkey just the way he is! LOL

Bye...

Our room's back together again!

I got our room painting done today ... phew! So it's put back together, complete with our new bedframe from Aunty Margaret. It is definitely brighter!! I'm just glad it's done, painting over that blue was a pain in the buttinski! :-P

We had our follow-up appt with the dr from Landon's cold a few weeks back. The bloodwork came back negative for mono, but positive for CMV (Cytomegalovirus). It's the same viral strain as mono, chicken pox, and herpes. It's surprisingly common for something I'd never heard of before. Apparently most of us are exposed by the time we're 40 (yup, even adults), but we often don't realize we have it because it can be asymptomatic, or appear as a cold. It's true, if Landon was 2 years old, I likely wouldn't have taken him to the doctor, just treated his cold symptoms. So he wouldn't have been diagnosed.
More on CMV: It has symptoms like mono, and will have been the cause of enlarged liver and spleen. Now that Landon's had it, he will always carry the antibodies, so hopefully he won't get sick with it again. We don't know where it came from ... could lie dormant for 3 to 12 weeks, so maybe at the cottage ...? *shrug* Doesn't really matter I guess. Most kids that go to daycare or are exposed to lots of other kids will get it, so I guess Landon is just getting it over with early! In any case, he is healthy now, so I'm not worried about it. I just hope he stays healthy for awhile...I'm tired of viruses affecting our little monkey!

The doctor also recommended that we start Landon on protein foods next, not vegetables and fruit like we'd planned. She said meats (baby food meats) and even hard-boiled egg yolk should be next on the menu!! So we'll give Landon wheat cereal this weekend, and then the following weekend maybe we'll try feeding him an egg yolk. I guess I'll keep the vegetables in the cupboard for a few more weeks...

So that's the big news from here today. Tomorrow should hopefully be a quieter day, I don't think I'll do any more painting this week, instead focusing on getting ready for Grandma and Grandpa's visit. I will get the rest of the painting done next week. My back is sore from our bedroom ... I must be getting old :-P

I hope everyone is having a good week...chat again soon!! TK

Cereal feeding goes much better...

Feeding Landon cereal goes much easier and quicker when I use pumped milk instead of water!! Today he sat there like a bird with his mouth open while I shoveled in cereal ... barley and oatmeal cereal even, not his favourite rice!! LOL I'm going to try mixing it with formula to see if we get the same effect. I hope so, or I'll be hooked up to the milking machine a lot more often to have enough for cereal!! LOL And this week I'm trying to save the pumped milk for John and my big outing on Saturday. We'll be gone for dinner and part of the evening ... likely until 9, maybe 10 if we can handle that long!! Probably only 9 though!! But we're looking forward to it nonetheless.
I got our bedroom primed today, and plan to head up there to paint it in just a little bit. I should get it all done tonight, and will do any needed touchups in the morning. It sure is a lot brighter in there ... I should've painted that hideous blue out years ago... *sigh* It'll be nice to get that done so that we can move our bedroom back in there, and clean up the living room / dining room for Grandma and Grandpa's visit this weekend!
We went for a walk tonight to enjoy this beautiful weather. Landon had his first time on a swing ... he thought it was ok, but wasn't overly thrilled with it. John also took him down the slide, but that didn't even really phase him. But we thought we'd try it out since swinging and sliding weather is fast disappearing!
That's the news for now...will get some pics posted soon. Take care...TK

Sunday news...

Things are going well with us these days. Landon is as cute as can be ... he's starting making some new sounds, like 'dadadadadadada'. And he's still squealing away whenever he's excited, which seems to be most of the time he's awake. And especially when he's in the jolly jumper! He's making lots of razberries too, wherever and whenever he can. On his hands, on our hands, on our shoulders, cheeks, chins ... Little goofball!
I started today to give him cereal three times a day, feeding him a bit when we first get up, then in the afternoon and in the evening still. He's eating barley, likes it a bit better than oatmeal, but nothing is as good as the rice so far. I'm looking forward to introducing some veggies, but we'll get through wheat cereal later this week first I guess. Then the fun stuff!!
I started getting our room ready for painting. Filled the nail holes, etc this afternoon, and sanded the wall with faux painting on it. It will be done a nice off-white, something I likely should've done when we first moved in!! But I guess I'll do it now that we're planning to move out :-/ Landon had a 3 hour nap this afternoon so I was able to spend that time working on the bedroom. Tomorrow morning I'll get up and prime it, and then paint it in the afternoon, and hopefully we'll only spend one night sleeping in the living room!! lol Then I'll move on to the faux wall in the dining room, living room, and the stenciling in the kitchen. Then the painting will be done! :-D I'll be very glad to put that project behind me.
And we're getting estimators in this week for the kitchen flooring and counter-tops. Those should both be done within the next few weeks, which will also be very nice. Then I think we'll be ready to put the house up for sale :-D YAY
That's about it for news here. Landon is just as adorable as ever. Except when it's time to go to sleep. This crying-it-out bullshit is becoming very annoying ... one week and he's still crying for 40 - 45 minutes or more each night. He is nothing if not persistent. Hopefully it will end soon, and we can all relax to go to sleep at the end of the day. I don't know how much more of this I can take. Once he's asleep he is sleeping really well. Night before last he slept from 12:30 until 11 am ... no waking up to eat at all in there!! Last night he woke up three times, I fed him twice. So it's definitely still up and down. But when he slept all night long he missed a full feeding as we didn't make it up yesterday, so perhaps that contributed to a poorer night last night? Who knows...but it was nice to have him sleep that long. We'll see if we can get a few more nights like that!!

Ok ... so I'm outta' here for now. Going to sand my patch-jobs. Hope all is well with everyone!! Take care...TK

Cute picture from yesterday

I forgot, I took this picture yesterday ...actually got Landon smiling! Gotta' love it! Thanks to Darilyn and Larry for this adorable outfit :-)

pooper pants!

Here we were kind of worried as Landon hadn't poo'd since Sunday. Well he definitely made up for it today ... with no less than 4 poops, 2 BIG ones, and man do they stink now that he's eating cereals. aiaiaiaiai *gag* But at least we know everything's working down there, and if this is the normal course of things, we'll be thankful for the poopless days and deal with the poopful ones as they come! LOL
Tomorrow we're going to start barley cereal, see how he likes that one. He prefers the rice, but he doesn't refuse the oatmeal either so that's good. I'm so excited for him to start vegetables that I bought a bunch today :-) We will likely start some veggies late next week, assuming no adverse reactions from the barley.

We took some family pics today, will post those in the next day or so once they're uploaded on the computer.
I've been busy e-baying these past days, but I think I've got enough clothes for Landon now so I'm not buying any more until these parcels arrive. Once they're here, if I need more I will go back to buy more. It's just so hard to stop once I start! LOL

That's the news tidbit for tonight. Until next time...TK

6 Month Old Landon!

OMG - it is so hard to believe, but our little munchkin is already 6 months old! aiaiaiai Where has the time gone?!?! We will be sure to take some pics and post here later, we just didn't get any pics taken yet today (surprise surprise!). It seems like yesterday that I was sitting in my rocking chair 23.5 hours a day nursing, and now he's eating cereals twice a day! John and I were watching some of Landon's videos from his first weeks ... he was so small, so cute! I am so glad we took lots of pictures and video ... the videos are the best! Reminds me to keep taking lots now :-)

So now Landon is six months old. He's eating cereals twice a day ... oatmeal in the afternoon, rice in the evening. We'll be trying barley next, on the weekend. He hasn't reacted negatively so far, so that's good. Neither John nor I have allergies, so I don't anticipate Landon will have any problems with food (let's hope!). He's sitting up to play now, doesn't want to be laying down at all! We sometimes lay him in his crib to watch his mobile, but that is fast coming to an end now that all he wants to do is grab his mobile characters and chew on them! He rolls from his tummy to his back, and I think he could roll from his back to his tummy, but every time he gets close he stops himself because he still doesn't like to be on his tummy!!! LOL That might change if he figures out how to skootch himself around on his tummy one day! He will move himself around more now though, especially when on his back he plants his feet and lifts his bum which pushes his head along the floor. So he's losing some of the precious hair he's finally grown back there!! LOL
And he's sleeping in his bed all night long now. It's very nice ... finally mom was ready for him to be in his own room, and he went quite willingly. He's still crying himself to sleep at night (I had to admit that our doing anything to help him get to sleep was only keeping him up longer, so now he goes to bed and we check on him periodically). It's been four nights of me in bed with earplugs in while John listens in case the cries are more than just "I'm f*#($&g mad, come and get me out of here!". It was 1 hour the first night, 40 minutes the next 2, and 35 minutes last night. So hopefully we're getting to the end of this 'training' phase ... Plus we're getting him to bed a bit earlier and he's getting up a bit earlier too, which is good. Last night he was sleeping by 12:30, up today at 11. It doesn't sound early, but it's over an hour earlier than a week ago!! Hopefully by the time Grandma and Grandpa get here we've got his bedtime moved up a bit more, and the crying minimized or completely eliminated at night. That's the only time he cries, so it's really hard to listen to.

We have been taking full advantage of the beautiful fall weather too ... every day Landon plays in his kiddie pool in the backyard. He really enjoys it, and it's been so nice to sit out there. The days are getting shorter, the mornings colder. I do love the fall though, so this isn't too hard to handle. I'm excited for Landon to see his first snow too ... but that can stay away for a month or two still :-P

Well, that's the novella for this afternoon. I will come back and post some 6-month pictures soon. Hope all is well with everyone!! TK

Play play play!

We are having such beautiful weather for September, which means we still get to use the kiddie pool with Landon. It's so much nicer now that he can sit up ... it's much easier for him to play now. We always have to have one hand on him, because he still falls over alot, but it's a lot more fun now!! Just like when he was only a few weeks old, Landon is still mesmerized by water being poured from a container! He will stop whatever he's doing and watch the water, putting his hands under it. We don't know if he's trying to catch the water, or just loves the feeling of it. Either way, it's cute to watch.
And he's sitting up to play more and more. Where we used to put him in his bouncy chair, we now put him on the floor. I guess more toys will be able to be put away soon! He loves playing with these stacking rings (thanks Meagan for the toy-buying tip!). And he loves the pillow too, he's always trying to pick the bugs off of it :-D
We've been having good days lately. He's not sick (YAY), he's not yet teething, he's eating well, and we're all getting lots of sleep. Very nice, very nice indeed!! Let's hope this keeps up for awhile ... heh heh

The black eyes are healing up quite nicely, only a bit of bruising left, and that's quickly turning yellow :-/ John's on the job-hunt, which I'm sure will be short-lived now that's it's gearing up. And we're getting ready for a visit from Grandma and Grandpa next weekend YAYAYAYAYAY!! That's our news ... hope you're well. Until next time....TK

Sunday news..

Not much news this Sunday, really. Life keeps on going by, and we're loving it. Last night Landon only woke up once to eat!! Unbelievable!! So I'm feeling pretty darned good today - albeit a bit 'full' ;-) And the fibrous wonders of oatmeal are kicking in, so we're getting our first FULL doses of 'solids poops' ... *Sigh* Gone are the days of the sweet-smelling waste from a breastfed baby. But I think we can live with it, since he's so much happier and is sleeping so much better. It's a small price to pay, really!

We are having some friends over for dinner today, so we are in the midst of preparing for that. It's nice to have something finally prod us to clean the house up a bit ... heh heh. It's not that dirty, just full of baby stuff EVERYWHERE!! So for about 2 hours we'll clean up the clutter, and then I'm sure it'll go right back to how it was. Oh well...

For those curious about our 'go to bed at night-time' battles (I've been avoiding writing about them, for fear people accuse me of being obsessional): Landon's still up stupid late, but sleeps late too (like me!). Overall he sleeps between 9.5 and 11 hours at night, getting up twice to eat (last night only once). The best news: he's sleeping in his own bed in his own room all night long. I pull him into bed to eat, but put him back into his own bed when he's done. Last night he was even awake when I put him back in his own bed, and he went to sleep. And sometimes he'll even go to bed at night awake and fall asleep on his own (assuming he's not overtired). Those are the good nights, even if that bedtime is 1:30 or 2 am!
Naps are wonderful, he has 3, sometimes 4. If we don't let him nap, he gets over-tired and won't go to sleep at night (cry-it-out ... don't think so ... not when we know he can keep it up for at least 1.5 hours!!). And for everyone thinking "well don't let him nap as much during the day and he'll go to bed earlier at night", that doesn't work for Landon. Believe me, we've tried, several times, with disastrous results (see cry-it-out note above)! So we're working on shifting his schedule, getting up earlier in the morning, so that he'll be ready for bed earlier at night. I'm a proponent of gradual shifting ... we'll try that first. If not, then it will be 'the rude awakening' where we'll just get him up early in the morning and deal with grumpy, overtired, miserable Landon. I hope the gradual thing will work - much easier on all of us, even if it does take longer. We've got nothing but time ... what do I care? I can sleep in in the mornings right beside him :-P

So that's the news and the sleep update. It's a beautiful day, great day for a B-B-Q with some friends. Hope you're all enjoying your long weekend!! Take care...TK

The feeding frenzy continues...

No wonder Landon was breastfeeding so much the past month ... he's been HUNGRY! LOL He likes oatmeal, had it for the first time this afternoon (3 Tbsp). And still loves rice, ate 7 Tbsp of it tonight. This is all after breastfeeding too, it's not like we're starving him to get him to eat solids or anything! Man oh man. It's fun feeding him this way too, and it's great because it gives John more opportunity to feed him too.
All of this eating, we are definitely noticing that Landon is chubbin' out! Ha ha. He has dimples for elbows and knees, a dimply butt (gets that from his mother), and he's getting a chubby belly too! So cute, we can hardly stand it.

The E-bay shopping has begun again. Landon is starting to truly outgrow his 3 - 6 month clothes, so we're shopping for wintery 6 - 12 month stuff. Fun Fun Fun!! Gotta love e-bay!! I bought some outfits today, and some sleepers. I'm trying to control myself, but it's all so damned cute! *sigh* I keep telling myself to take it slow, to savour the shopping fun, stretch it out so that it lasts longer!

And Grandma is making plans to come up for a visit. She's planning to come for the weekend of Sept 16, she will babysit while John and I actually go out somewhere, together, without Landon, with other adults!! LOL It's about time! :-D That is the night of my softball social, so we'll go for dinner at least. How late we stay depends on Landon's night-time 'schedule' at that time. It'll just be nice to go out for dinner at least! Hopefully Grandpa will make the trip too ... Landon has grown so much since they were here in June, and he's in need of a good grandparent-spoiling (after all, it's been 2 weeks since he's seen a grandparent!).

That's the news from here. The face is healing well. My nose is itchy (healing), so it's driving me nuts! And the bruises are now turning that beautiful yellow-green colour ... sweeeeeeeet! Ah well, live and learn I guess. Until next time, take care....TK

Landon's a piggy!

I think Landon may be feeling much better, despite a still stuffy nose and a cough. This afternoon he ate so much cereal, I could hardly believe it. I fed him until I was empty, then he ate about 3 times as much cereal as he ate yesterday! 10 tsp of rice in 14 tsp of water ... and the last 6 tsp were mixed 1/2 and 1/2!! He kept eating, I kept mixing more, he kept eating ... I wasn't sure it would ever quit! So we'll be sure to mix up more from now on. Tomorrow we are going to try oatmeal cereal, we'll see if he gobbles that up :-)

So here are some cute pictures of Landon -- taken before I broke my nose obviously!! He is just such a happy little monkey, it's so fun to capture those big smiles! John took the camera fishing the past few days, so I don't have any new ones from this week. He should be home shortly and we'll take some more cute pics ... especially when he gets himself covered in cereal!!

That's the news from here ... not much of it, but what can I say!! I spend my days putting Landon to sleep and waiting for him to wake up so I can feed him again :-) And I'm loving it!! Take care...TK