Jericho's First Christmas!

What a busy last couple days. I just felt a mad rush to get stuff done and half of it didn't even make it to the 'completed' list. I didn't even get my in laws gift mailed in time for Christmas. Nor did I have Christmas letters mailed in time. But you know what? It doesn't matter. It was an awesome day celebrating with family.

Some highlights:

1. Being able to give Nate a TV, a hat, and a mixed CD all on a $50 budget and seeing his look of shock at my sheer cleverness with making it happen.

2. Watching my 7 week old son try to master the art of opening a gift from Uncle Phil. He was fairly in awe of the pretty gold paper and kept grabbing at it. He wasn't so sure of the adorable Team Canada hockey jersey though. I will have to break him gently.

3. Playing cards with Nate, Nina, Kyle and Phil. I think we all had a little too much Christmas candy and coffee (Matt arrived this am with a Starbucks to-go carton with coffee enough for 14!!).

4. Watching my son sleep contentedly in the arms of many a family member.

5. Hearing Joe ask Kyle what his card from my parents said and having Kyle quickly reply "I like you better than Joe." Kyle is dating my little sister and Joe is married to my pregant sister.

6. Getting just what I wanted from my hubby!! A new jersey and an IKEA blanket I've been craving for awhile.

7. Thanks to the beauty of technology, Grandpa and Grandma in Ontario were able to see Jericho on our new webcam. They were really excited to see how much he's grown. Thanks for the Noah's Ark and super cute bib!

Also, my parents must really love Jericho. They want more like him. My dad's idea of great gifts for us married ones all entail chocolate body lotion, perfume lotion, and a two night stay at Harrison. I get the hint. You want more.

I hope everyone had as Merry a Christmas as we.

Busy Week

Tonight we go for dinner again at 4ever29's. We had an amazing time with them on Tuesday night. She spent all day preparing a Jewish meal so we could see what kind of food most might experience during Hanukkah. The Challah and Latkes and Brisket were all really good. It's really cool to try new foods and to try and put yourself into someone elses shoes. What is it like to celebrate Hanukkah and not to know Jesus? I mean, we didn't even make it a completely traditional thing. It was really about the amazing food. Have you tried something new before and been pleasantly surprised? Is there a religion out there that you admire for a certain reason? Ok, that sounds like a weird question - I mean..those who are Muslim don't like that we have different translations of our Bible, because to them that means it's been tainted somehow - the meaning is not as true as the original. The concept behind that makes sense...and how when you go to a Mosque - no Quran ever touches the floor or comes close to being at ground level. I think we need to treat the Word of God with respect, but also to be able to understand it and most importantly - to read it. I'm not sure where that sermon came from...

Anyways, Nate's been at a course all week and I've been getting up at 6:45 to drive him and his friend to the train. Then I pick them up anywhere between 4:45 and 5:45 depending on which train they catch. We actually had his friend and her son over for dinner last night. It was great. And like I said we're out again tonight - makes a woman tired. Jeepers.

Bye Bye Content Baby

Jericho has an ear infection. Last night at the party at 4ever29's he was bawling. Poor baby. So we are decked out with antibiotics and infant Tylenol. Miracle drugs. He calms RIGHT down as soon as he has the Tylenol. I'm sad he's already got this silly infection, but glad we caught it early. He was starting to not be himself and get upset so much more than normal... so I made an early Doctors appointment and sure enough. It just goes to show you that if you've fed, changed, burped and let him sleep and he still won't stop crying - there's something wrong. I'm learning to listen to him. But not quite like the Baby Whisperer or whatever she is.

We have some company right now and we're going to play Cranium as soon as the baby is sleeping and the guys are finished playing James Bond.

Here's a pic of him in a sweet outfit from Karin -THANKS DUDE. You can see how angry he is.

My Content Child

Life is unfair

Today I'm holding baby with a little bit of guilt. It's unfair I have a healthy son. It's unfair my labour and delivery were uneventful. Someone who will remain unnamed lost a child last night. A newborn baby. It makes the sleepless nights and days of crying more like little blessings. I'm going to cuddle my baby a little more today and pray for those who have to go through times I don't understand and can't explain.

Jericho - don't grow up too fast. Realize how much I love you and how thankful to God I am that you're here. You are the most precious gift besides salvation I've ever been given. Even as you sit here beside me and fuss, I wouldn't trade you for anything.

Interesting day yesterday

It began as any normal day - with a phone call at 7:30 am. Ew. It was Jericho's agent letting me know that he needed to be on set at 8:42 pm (Why didn't they just say 8:45... who knows). I guess she figured I needed the 13 hour notice. She called back 15 minutes later and said they had moved it to 5:00 pm due to the child labour laws. A newborn baby HAS to leave the set by 10:00 pm. She called again 5 minutes later and said nevermind - make it 3:00 pm. Argh. So we proceeded to get up and do all our normal morning activities. Nate hasn't been feeling well these past couple days and yesterday at 2:00 pm he was just getting up. He was up more in the night than Jericho and I! He had wanted to come with us and see Jericho's second job, but I told him he should stay home as he still looked green. So we left at 2:40 pm, without Daddy. Twenty minutes later I was wishing he was there. We had to park at a church about 2 minutes from the set and get shuttled to the hospital which was where they were filming. If any of you recall, yesterday it was POURING out. I got out of the car and was drenched a second later. I got the baby out and found Nate's rain jacket in the back of the car - score! No, I didn't plan well for myself. To make a long story short, I was frustrated with lots of things. For one, I have never put the car seat base in or out of the car. If I had stopped to look at it I would have figured it out eventually... but I was flustered and stressed. Many people would be shocked and horrified that I just held tight to my baby's carseat in the shuttle. I'm ashamed, yes. But I just didn't know what else to do. And the assistant director was not expecting me until 8:40. Argh. But there were other people who knew I was coming earlier. I ended up in a cold room with just the baby, three folding chairs and a plastic table. People would ask me what I wanted, but I was fairly overwhelmed. All I could think of was how much I wanted Nate. So I borrowed a cell phone. When I called him he was still a little groggy and I told him I needed him. The problem was I had our car. He couldn't get a hold of my mom so he taxied on down. I have never been so happy to see him.

There were some really sweet people on set. This lady was a nurse and would watch Jericho while I went to get some dinner with the rest of the crew and she would burp him and bring me stuff to snack on a drink. This other girl who was also an extra demanded one of the crew guys to bring heaters into my room and insisted I stay in their room until mine was warm. That's where I learned of 696-1033. It's a rude phone number to give to people who are hitting on you who you don't like. It's mean. Anyhow. I keep making this story longer and longer, but it was a long day. We didn't end up going on set until 9:15 pm. Count 'em - 6 long hours! But he'll get paid for 8. The kicker is that if we had gone at 8:42 pm, he still would have gotten paid for 8. Argh. But - he did do a FABULOUS job. He basically played a brand new baby. This guy hands him to this actress and says, "Congratulations, it's a beautiful baby boy!" and she says "oh... Mitch should be here." Then he does these other shots with three different guys who may or may not be his father. And one was in full scary makeup. Like a monster of some kind. The first part he just STARED at his new mom. The director kept saying, "Close in on the baby, close in on the baby!" He didn't cry at all.

It was cool because this show will be running in the States starting in March and most likely will get picked up by CityTV sometime after that. It's called Blood Ties and Christina Cox is in it. She came into our room with Dylan Neal. She kept asking Jericho how old he was and what his middle name was. Lady, he can't quite talk yet...duh. And Mr. Dylan asked me if he was latching on alright. Not many men have asked me that. I thought it was a little weird.

Does this happen to you?

Ever get the feeling like you have to pee like a racehorse that just drank enough water to fill the Pacific Ocean AND you're walking on by Niagara Falls?

My Nana Said

Highlight of my day so far?

When my Nana was over holding my baby and to calm him she said, "It's okay, be a good doggie." I had to break it to her gently that she has a great-grandson and not a puppy.

Cutie Patootie Learning To Sit

Okay, so he's not quite sitting yet.. But trust me when I say this little kid is STRONG and is getting real good at holding up his head and staying in one spot for an extended period of time. He's also starting to smile at me when I do goofy faces and poke his cheeks. It's a beautiful smile, but you all are going to have to just trust me on that as I haven't mastered holding him and a camera while I take the shot to prove it.

Baby's First Santa Pictures

Each year our church does this big Christmas event geared towards families in the community. There's a dessert theatre, pictures with Santa, crafts, an inflatable room, etc. This year my husband wrote the play so we went twice to see it. It was really well done. The best part was sitting with children who giggled throughout it. We figured since we were there, we would get pictures taken with Santa and the baby. They turned out pretty cute!





Last night I left Jericho with my mom for 3 1/2 hours while we went to my staff party. It was awesome. I came home and he was sleeping, but woke up quickly when he realized food was home. For a present Nate and I got a $30 gc for Frogstone as well as a tonne of second-hand boy clothes from Mike & Tanya. They are all really cute. It's been so encouraging to have so many people giving us clothes and not having to buy much besides diapers. And we're switching to cloth soon. Nate works the night shift tonight so we're going to set up our tree this afternoon together before he leaves. We got it for free...again - thanks Uncle Wes and Uncle Daniel. These past couple years I've noticed how their trees are getting better and better. I don't know of a better place to get a noble from. But this year we got a grand because I feel those who are paying for the tree should take the more expensive ones. I don't want to be a total mooch.

I weighed myself this morning and since last Monday I've lost 3 lbs. I've started to eat healthy and gone on a few walks. One was 6 blocks up and 6 blocks over. It was great.

Christmas Parties!

Last night we went to a great party, fun was had by our whole small family. The crowd consisted of mostly young couples - few were married, most were not. No one had a kid, but one couple is expecting their first in March. So Jericho spent the whole night sleeping in the arms of lovely young ladies. We were out from 8:30 to 12:30 and I had fed him at 7:30. The child slept for 5 hours before he realized he was starving. But it was awesome to have him well behaved while we caught up with friends and got our fill of adult conversation. Nate had fun catching up with an old friend and I just enjoyed laughing at all the silly people.

We have another party to go to tomorrow night, but the baby is visiting grandma. It's my staff party at Steve & Neva's. YES. Nate and I will just try to time it just right so hopefully Jericho will be fine for a bit. It will be the first substantial time apart for us. I've dropped him off a few times with my mom, but only for an hour or so at the most. There's also a gift exchange so I'm wondering who had my name. We got Steve and Helen a basket of fun food - chocolate, cheese, crackers, etc. Should be so yum.


Here's a pic from Jericho's first job - the set of Alien vs. Predator II.

We're tired now and J is sleeping so nighty-night!

4 week appointment

We missed our two week post-partum update with the midwives due to a miscommunication and yesterday we finally had our four week appointment. Turns out our little man has gained three pounds in the past month and now weighs in at a hefty 10lbs, 8 oz. The say that 15-30 oz in the first month is good and he's at 48. Thats my boy!

Pictures Perfect

Here are the proofs from Jericho's photo session. Notice anything about one of the shots that might be construed as disrespectful?

Jericho's One month Today!

My little guy has now been around for one month. How do I feel about being a MOM? Pretty darn good most of the time. I have nights where I'm exhausted and mornings of just trying to comfort him when he gets fussy, but overall it's been an amazing experience. Why didn't I have kids a long time ago?

Tonight we get some family pictures taken and I'm fairly excited about that. I just don't know what to wear. I can get J & N to match almost perfectly, but I don't have beige cords and a blue dress shirt so I'm the odd one out. I'll just plan on looking hot.

Here's a picture of Jericho getting tired of me taking pictures and also some of him bonding with his Daddy.

100th Post

I feel like I have so much to blog about, such a backlog in my mind of things I wanted to share with you all. First of all, Jericho's first job went well. He was an extra in Alien vs. Predator II. If any of you are 24 fans, Reiko Aylesworth is in the movie. We didn't see her or anyone else famous for that matter. Just some really creepy tall dude with long hair who kept staring at my sister - I should mention that he was there to play Alien. Jericho and 11 other newborns were called in to do a scene where they're in a nursery and the Alien looks in at them. The Assistant Director had us there for 11:30 in a warm, yet strange room in the old Riverview building. We were 9 new moms with our babies, two mommies had twins. Finally at 1:00 we were called to the set, 8 of us who had non-crying, non-hungry babies. Jericho was asleep. I do have to mention that we were one of the last to arrive and were stuck with a pink blanket, so my poor baby boy's first role is as a baby girl. So we went down to the set and each placed our kids in little bassinets - much like what you would find at any normal hospital. Jericho's tag said "I'm a girl and my name is Katharina." Pretty, but not my style. He lasted all of about 2 minutes being asleep and as I watched on the tiny monitor in another room I could see his little legs thrashing and the pink blanket going everywhere. I don't think he was happy in his role. The crew had told us we could get our babies once they cried to much, so I snuggled him for a bit and got him to sleep for his second shot. I'm not sure he'll up in the movie, but I'll keep you posted once I know.

But I did need to post pictures of J having a bath because it's almost his very favorite thing to do - besides have Mom feed him! He likes to sit on his little ramp and "skooch" down until he's drinking the bath water. Silly kid.