Friendly neighbours

Over the past few years I've had some great people living in my neighbourhood (or maybe I was living in their neighbourhood?). In any case, from Harmony and Tom down the road, to Peggy and Craig across the alley on 11th and at the Hobbit Hole, to Team Hard Core in various locations, to our upstairs and downstairs neighbours, K and R, in the Blue House, we've totally lucked out. Now, well, good neighbours are following us to this neighbourhood too...

Yay Mulvijohns who will be living a whole five blocks away!

But she can also sleep!

After Tuesday's performance, I wasn't sure what to expect from Baby J yesterday when we went to the doctor for the six week check up or today when I went to our weekly parent and infants group.

Um, yeah, so she slept, in the snuggly, all the way to the doctor's office, through most of the visit (waking only to eat), and all the way home.

And today, well, I was the only mommy who didn't have a baby to play with cause mine, yup, she was sleeping. Soundly. Even when five or six of the other babies started protesting group tummy time, in unison. And some other poor mommy, she had the baby that wailed through the whole thing...poor little guy was rather unhappy about something...

And last night, last night Baby J went seven full hours between feedings! Yay sleep!!

The lungs, how they work!

Baby J and I went out to run some errands today. When we do that, we leave as soon as she's done eating, because then she's full and dry for as long as possible...so, of course, it didn't last long today.

We made it to our first stop with no problem. We made it to the second stop, a diaper pick up, no problem, but as soon as I had the diapers in my hands, the wailing started. I took Baby J out and carried her...and decided maybe she was a bit warm as it was warmer out today than I thought.

I removed a layer and got her back in the stroller with the diapers and decided we needed to go home, NOW. Sure enough, Baby J agreed with me. She wailed and screamed all the way home. She even scared some pigeons and crows half a block away. We stopped at a park bench and I tried to nurse her, but even that wasn't successful...Baby J just wanted to scream.

We got back to our place, spoke briefly to our neighbour, and rushed to get through the front door so that I could nurse her properly.

And Baby J promptly fell asleep.

But, her lungs work, just in case anyone was wondering!

In the city?

Baby J and I went for our morning walk and wandered down to the pedestrian overpass that leads to a park and the seawall. We have been meaning to go down there since we moved, even before Baby J made her early entrance. I was surprised to see the overpass was park-like and while the traffic was definitely passing below us, I couldn't see it!

the overpass

False Creek/Fairview condos

It was sunny today, so we had to break out the UV protection...so here she is, Baby J in her sun bubble.

Lyons' Den in disguise

Okay, so these are not our pictures (so the quality might suck), this is not our furniture and with Baby J arriving (and arriving early) our place is a) not quite unpacked yet and b) strewn with baby gear. I'll try to post some of *our* place in the next few days!

where we live

These are in order as you come in the front door.

Baby J's bathroom

eating area

balcony off eating area

kitchen

living room

Baby J's room

our room

our bathroom and the laundry room

Yay for a bigger, brighter place than the pink palace. We love it here even though we're not quite unpacked yet!

Pink Palace

A long time ago I promised pictures of the pink palace...where we haven't lived for almost two months now! So, here they are...and hopefully soon I'll get some pictures of the Lyons' Den posted.

Pink Palace entrance way

Pink Palace kitchen

Pink Palace teeny-tiny bathroom

Pink Palace living room/dining room from the kitchen

Pink Palace living room/dining room the other way

Pink Palace bedroom

Pink Palace guest bedroom (which did eventually get unpacked, just to get packed up again soon after!)

Pink Palace kitchen from living room/dining room

It's here!

My favourite season of the year arrived officially at 8:44 this morning (or something very close to it!). I love this time of year. The days aren't too short. The light is nice. The weather is mild and not too rainy (usually, I do live in Vancouver after all!). The summer clothes are gone and the winter clothes aren't here yet. The slow cooker emerges. We get to eat soup. Mmmm...I love it!

It felt like fall last week...on Saturday night Alex and I came home from a walk in the drizzle with Baby J and her plastic bubble stroller and we PUT THE FIREPLACE ON! Yup...we did. I love that we have a fireplace...love it!

Happy Fall (or Autumn if you're so inclined) everyone!

Happy Day

Congratulations Steve and Jane!


Alex's brother got married this afternoon. The sun came out on what was supposed to be a horrible, rainy day...perfect! We had a nice day with family - it's always fun to celebrate a happy occasion!

When you have a few minutes...

This afternoon I found myself with a half hour or so of time *TO MYSELF*! Alex and Baby J were sleeping and my parents had gone out. Not knowing how long this "free" time might last (it's growth spurt time over here which means we're feeding every, oh 1.5 hours to every 4 hours), I had to limit myself to "short" or easily abandonable (yes, in my sleep deprived state, I just made up my own word) tasks.

I figure I could have

• read a bit of a book or magazine
• taken a shower
• given myself a quick pedicure (yay, no more cankles!)
• caught up on some email
• returned a phone call or two
• labelled some pictures destined for the post office
• written some announcements/thank you cards
  
• had a cat nap

There are other options too...but what did I end up doing? Ummmm, tidying up (yay!), taking a nap and updating my blog...oh priorities! I guess I did okay - some stuff for me, some stuff for the house, some stuff for the well-being of me and everyone around me (yup, that would be the nap!)

And now, a hungry little lady demands my attention...

Until the next "free time"!

The bubble

I feel a bit like part of August is missing...and I'm not sure what happened to it, even though I know exactly where I was, what I was doing and why it feels that way! I was admitted to the hospital on Sunday night and spent six nights there. It was a weird kind of limbo space. I was in the same room for the whole thing, but depending on the room's purpose - waiting, resting, labouring, delivering (or at least attempting to), recovering, visiting, nursing etc - it felt like I was in a different space. There were a bunch of different lights that were on or off depending on what was happening and that made the room feel different too.

The biggest, strangest part is the feeling of missing days in time...I was busy and preoccupied while I was in the hospital, but it doesn't feel like it can possibly be September yet, because not all of August happened...I wonder if this is how I'm going to feel for the next 18+ years!

It's all good though. We're happy to have Baby J here and it's okay that she was early...now I just need to adjust to the month!