More Birthday PIcs

Here are some of Andy's pictures:




OUr girl got some neat presents:
Little Tykes 3 in 1 sports centre. It has a baseball to hit around, a football to spin and a basetball net with a scoreboard that lights up
Disney baby princess ride on car. We are not huge princess advocates but this was the best one they had at Toys R US. The other ones looked opened already, and used. Plus this one had cool features.
A red bikini
toque and mitts, (that match the scarf you sent perfectly, Baba)
Activity cube, with blocks to put in and ittle knobs to move around a track
a remote control
a cell phone (This one was awesome, the girl who bought it for her was so excited, as soon as she came in she said"Come and open this present right now, Gemma is going to love it!!")
The cutest esprit outfit from Allison (you'll see pictures of that later)

and so much more...She is so spoiled! (and loved, I guess!)

Happy Birthday Baby Gemma!

We had a lot of fun at her party. It was exactly opposite of what the books reccomend inthat we had tonnes of people in our house. We had to move the coffee table out because there was no room. There were three babies and two older kids and lots of adults. People loved the cake and cupcakes, and she got some super presents; her friends and grandparents are too sweet.

Just a few pictures are posted (I need a hero cookie for my first cake!) but Chris has more up on the flicker. Also, Andy took soome pictures too, and when they are ready we'll tell you how to see them.

Update

Babyfood making party round 3... This month's menu includes spinich/beef(have you ever seen forest green food before? Yikes!), chicken/pea/asparagus (we kind of just made that one up), green beans, applesauce, and apple/pear. There were three sets of hands this time and so we got all of that made in 2 1/2 hours. And then ordered pizza :)

Gemma had her chicken pox vaccine yesterday, and only cried when they stuck her. Pheww! She was also weighted and measured; 8.3 kg and about 73 cm (so about 18 lbs, and 29 inches). She is right in the middle of her growth chart, even though she seems to be a light weight beside all the other babies she knows. That's what other parents say when they pick her up; "She's so light!"

She has a new trick, too, but this one I really dislike. She can spit out food she doesn't like. So she squeezes it out of her lips, and then tries to grab it. Ewwww :)

Birthday on Wednesday, so excited!

Celery

Yummm...Celery is so good for me! I think I will eat the whole stalk!

Weaning

Starting to think about weaning. Not that I mind breastfeeding, she is down to early evening, bedtime, and once in the night. We've made the mistake the books all tell you not to make; I let her fall asleep while nursing, and so now it is just easy to whip it out in the middle of the night when she fusses. I also don't want to use bottles. Our dishwasher is a pretty old model, the NE-VADA 1979, and with Gemma eating solids that means an extra litte bowls a day, and spoons, and sippy cups...all I need is bottles to wash, too. BUT I guess she is going to be one year old and if I could figure out a way to get her off the breast I guess we could. I'm not really in a rush.

So I invite your advice (and not judgement please; I know everyone elses' baby but mine sleeps through the night. Oh, and before anyone gets upset about me doing dishes, I do it because Chris cooks and does laundry, and a variety of other household chores)

So funny

Two hilarious stories form Thursday...

At lunch time Nick and Ali (aka Nali) were over because Nck was watching basketball with Chris. We were eating subway around the coffee table, and we all had glasses of water. Gemma was of course hanging around and trying to get in on the action. Well, she reached across the table, grabbed a glass of water with two hands, and drank from it. She was like, "Hey, I can drink from a real cup, don't you know?" The second gulp she got a bunch of backwash in it, ewwww...The thrid sip, well, that was hilarious too because she totally missed her mouth and poured the rest of the glass down her chest. Hahaha.

Then Thursday night when I was talking to Mikala, Gemma was hanging out with Chris in the office when she toddled off. Chris came out to the living room looking for her, calling "Gemma..." but she wasn't out there. Then he hears the sound of baby playing in the bathroom. He turns around, peeks in, and there she is, in the dark bathroom, sitting in her bathtub. Her bottom half was soaking wet from the bottom bit of water that doesn't drain, and she was playing with her little bathbook. It was so funny.

Gemma's list of skills continue to grow....Climb on coffee table? Check. Drink water? Check. Bathe myself? Check.

Personality

Our baby gets more personality everyday. She is at such a neat stage where she is learning things really quickly, remembering old things and trying out tonnes of stuff.

Today Chris was playing with her Helen Keller style; he was touching her hand to his face and saying da-da..da-da, and then touching her face and saying Gemma...Gemma. After a few times, he put her hands on his face and she said it; da-da. Daddy is also working on 'kiss' and 'high five'.

Tonight was Gemma's first experience with toothpaste. We have a nurse that is working with our school system to be on call to ask health questions, etc, and I asked her this week about flouride drops for Gemma. (We drink bottled water, not tap water, and so there is no flouride in it) She said, after all her research and talking with doctors and dentists both in Taiwan and America that flouride drops or pills are very difficult to dose properly; too little and there is no point, too much can cause serious problems. What she recommends is brushing at least once a day with a smidge of toothpaste and then start flouride treatments at the dentist when she is 3. Anyway, Gemma and the toothpaste...It was so cute! She made this awful face, like "Mommy, take it out, yuck" and she never makes that face. I think it was a little too minty for her :) I will go buy her a more gentle kiddy flavor tomorrow.

Another little story; in the bath she likes when I put the soap on her hand. It started when she would first start playing with the bottle, and I would hold her hand flat, palm up and put a little on her hand and then rub them together to make the bubbles. Now she holds her hand out palm up all by herself, and waits for me to squirt the soap on. Then she tries to rub them together enough to make the bubbles. And I showed her how to rub the bubbles all over her tummy and arms...I gave her about 5 squirts of soap and she would have taken more. One thing about bath time is I can't make her look up to rinse the shampoo off. I try to dangle toys in front of her up high so she tilts her head back and then pour the water, but as soon as she feels it on her head she puts her chin down, and it all runs down her face. Maybe time for one of those foamy hat-ring things?

The Triumphant Scaling of Mt. Coffeetable

We are pretty firm about not playing with the remote control, so whenever we happen to leave it at her level she darts for it. Well, Chris left her today for a moment to go to the bathroom, and when he came back into the living room she was kneeling on the coffee table, bouncing up and down, grinning ear to ear, waving the remote control over her head. What a little goofball:)

Your Chariot Awaits

Before she used to like being picked up just to for the sake of being picked up; for hugs, cuddles, etc. Now she she likes to be picked up as a mode of transportation. You lift her up and she doesn't even bother to nuzzle anymore, she just extends her arm and points: 'Take me there. What's over there? Let's leave this room and go to another." In the mornings she points to the door of her bedrooom wanting out, or she points to the top half of the fridge (where we keep most of the magnets).

She definitely rules the roost around here :)

A few stories...

It's so hard to remember stories to tell! Or else they seem so short and insignificant. Anyway, since I committed to be a faithful blogger, I hope these tidbits don't suck too bad.

1) I was at school photocopying something and wen we were done she walked right up to the guard (doorman) and reached up her little arms. So of course he picks her up, and she points to things around his office to check out, and he obliges, and then she notices the security camera monitor. It's just a computer monitor with the screen divided into quadrants, with four different video cameras outside the perimeter of the school. Well, she was looking so intently at the screen that I thought I would mess with her a bit. I walked out the front door and stood outside the school facing one of the cameras and waved and danced for her. I couldn't see her reaction, but when I went back in after a moment she gave me this amazed, incredulous look. She looked back at the monitor so I went and did it again, and again she was soo amazed. It was pretty cute.

2) She waves to random people now and it is also soo cute. When we are waiting at a red light on the bike she'll look at people stopped beside us and wave Most of the time they wave back. Or when people pass her on the street.

3) Today we were at 101, and in the ten minutes it takes to eat a food court lunch she had her picture taken 3 times. Andy had a great idea for a T-shirt; 'Photos; 100NT' and get it printed in Chinese. I would laugh super hard.

4) She had two big falls today:(. Once at church, she lost her balance as Andy was setting her down, and she tipped over onto her head. The second time was tonight, she was climbing in her toy box and flipped right over somehow and out of the box, banging her head on the footstool before it hit the floor. That one even drew a little blood on the inside of her bottom lip. Poor baby.

5) Chicken and papaya has not been a success. Unless everytime I try to feed it to her, she just isn't hungry. Her favorite foods are yogurt, chicken, and beef/potato.

Have a great Sunday!

New Toy

So Gemma is way into phones lately. She tries to climb up on the counter where the house phone is kept and pull on the cord, and she loves cell phones. We were messing around with her at Penghu, and while she was playng with a phone we'd call it so it would buzz and ring. (She didn't really get it but it was funny for us) So when we cleaned Chris' office last week we found an old cell phone and gave it to her. At first she would hold it up to her ear and really listen to see who was there, but I think now she gets that no one is talking to her. I do the pretend talk on the phone thing and say, "Oh Gemma, its for you," and hand it over and she listens for a second but then hands it back. It's like she's thinking, "Mommy, it's not working for me, you try it again!"

Walking

She took her official first steps a month ago, but since then hasn't been to eager to use this new form of transportation. Our house is so small that she can cruise almost every where she wants to go, there is no large expanse of space that has to cross. Or when there is a space she would stand there, then lower herself down and crawl. Yesterday though it was like she got it. Several times when she was standing there instead of lowering herself down and crawling she walked. It's like she believes in herself; Yes I can walk! She is still very slow and stiff, like an astronaut, but she did about a dozen little walking journies of 5 or 6 steps yesterday.

Twin Day

No joke, this coordination of outfits was completely unplanned! Thanks, Baba, for the funky pants.

New skills

Here's what she's been working on:

1) Pointing to what she wants or where she wants to go.
2) Waving hello and goodbye consistently
3) More 'words'. I'm sure she's saying Hi, yeah, this, and no. (or not...hard to say!)
4) Picking up teeny tiny bits of food and getting them into her mouth.

She is also spending more and more hours in her own bed at night; two days ago she didn't wake until 6am. But as always some days are better than others.

Baby Bowling

Don't let a sleeping baby throw off your game!

Ponderosa

I wish we had pictures because it was really cute. We went out for dinner last night, and Gemma was really good. Restaurants have become a little more difficult with a baby; staying in the high chair that long, etc. So Chris and I usually spend a lot of the time walking her around or playing with her outside while we wait for the food to come, then put her in the highchair and try to eat as quickly as possible. But last night was really relaxing and nice. We went to Ponderosa, sort of like Bonanza, and got her some food from the salad bar and she stayed happily in her chair the whole time. She had little bits if plain spagetti noodles and some steamed broccoli, and picking up the bits of food and feeding herself kept her totally entertained. Then she had some papaya, and for dessert; a waffle wedge. The waffle was especially funny because she wanted to hold it by herself, and since she is gtting the bite thing I let her. It was so cute watching her munch off bites of waffle. It was a nice relaxing dinner for all of us.

Baby Food making party round II is scheduled for Monday at 3:30. The menu? Papaya/chicken, beef/potatoe, and fruit medley. RSVP to Nevada :)

Gemma the Octopus

We went grocery shopping yesterday and Gemma's new reaching capabilities put our parenting skills to the test. Chris threw a triangle of brie into the cart, and Gemma somehow got it, and bit a piece out of the aluminum foil wrapper. Then when we were walking through the meat section, she reaches out to the side and literally grabs onto a raw fish from a huge bin... EWWW!

We are working on 'no'. And she is frustrated, understandably. See a cheerio on my high chair, eat it. See it on the table, eat it. Mommy gives it to me, eat it. Find it on the floor, DON'T eat it??? Toy truck goes in the mouth, OK. Remote control, not OK. Toy banana goes in the mouth, OK. Paper, not OK. How difficult to be a baby. She is getting better with some things, for example, paper. She doesn't put that in her mouth near as much. But other little things from the floor, yikes! Last week I pulled out a popcorn kernel, a pretzel, a recipet...She does look guilty when I catch her, so maybe she is learning.

New Video

There is a new video on Chris' facebook.

It's been such a crazy week, practicing afterschool for my TV thing, plus events every day after the afterschool practice. Poor Gemma has been drug all over the place and not spent an evening at home. This isn't so bad, she's pretty good about travelling, but its teh missing her early evening nap that is killing her. She usually naps around 5-5:30 for 40 minutes or so. Except not this week, so then all evening she is tired and clingy. Her current bed time is 9pm, which is great beacuse I have an hour of quiet time, and she sleeps in till 10 or so. (Which may make you think Chris is spoiled but he is often up doing his classwork/church work late at night. Those are his office hours) Anyway, she is getting better at sleeping on her own, she even wiggled out of my arms to be in her bed and went right to sleep on her own. I think she is getting that can choose to go to sleep when she feels tired. (In case you are wondering, we totally spoiled her and let her fall asleep in our arms form day 1. And now thats how she has to fall asleep; the books are true!) Which leads to another topic...

I always said I would never let my baby sleep with us. In fact, I used to make fun of those people. But now I do it. A) I am so tired, and when she gets up two or three times a night its so much easier to pick her up, bring her to bed and nurse her laying down B) She often doesn't need to nurse when she is in bed with us; you can pat her when she starts getting fussy and she goes back to sleep without a full wake up C) She is so darn cute and sweet, I love her little baby hands beside my face, and her little milky breath and her teeny body. I just lean my face close to her and bretah in her baby goodness. To our credit, she does go to sleep in her own bed, and sleeps there until 1 or 2. But after that middle of the night wake up, to bed with us she comes and there she stays until the morning.

Thats how we roll at the McKenzie house:)

Back from Break

We had the best vacation in Penghu! Gemma was a star, of course, she travelled well. Ahe also slept really well, I think from all the exercise. There are tonnes of nice pictures, go check them out on the flicker. Enjoy the teasers, but seriously, if you've never looked at our photos before thats ok, but these ones are great and you should take a look.

We got home Thursday and Friday Gemma had a fever. Saturday day she was good but then was hot again all night and Sunday morning, but then at night was ok again. We'll see how she is today and maybe take her to the doctor.

New Skill

whistle blowing!

SHE DID IT!

We didn't have the camera handy but today was the day our baby took her first steps. She's been walking with our help and getting more and more stable. Nevada was just saying how impressed she was that Gemma was walking while only holding on to one guide hand. Today she was standing up against her blocks and all of a sudden turned towards mommy and just went for it. Then I called her over and she left mommy and took about three steps in my direction. It was thrilling. I was so proud and she was so happy. Although her new found mobility makes me a bit busier and more worried I do feel this opens up a whole new world of play. I'm excited to go to the park and watch her walk around and explore. I'll try to capture some video of her new skill sometime in the next couple of days.

New Trick

I could probably write a post every two or three days with that title but today's new skill was particularly momentous. For a while now we've been able to set our living room up as a large playpen using furniture and these cubes made of foam tiles. It's worked great. She has her toys and a few little places to explore but she can't get in much trouble or danger. It's the place I put her when I need to do things around the house and can't watch her every move. She's been pushing the boundaries lately by trying to squeeze out small cracks in the wall of this makeshift playpen...she's succeeded a couple of times with brute force. But today she finally figured out how to climb. Nevada and I were in the dining half of the room chatting and having lunch when all of a sudden Nevada saw that Gemma was on top of one of the cubes. We took some pics and helped her off. This will add a whole new dimension to supervision in our house.

a birthday party!

Gemma was invited to her first birthday party last week. A friend from school's son turned one, and so we went over for a little get together. The total count for people was 3 babies, 3 toddlers, 3 school aged children, and then 8 parents. The mom had games planned for the younger kids, and prizes, and it was a nice afternoon. Note to self; 2 hours is PLENTY of time for a first birthday party!

Unrelated note; yes, you can put prunes into icecube trays. Even though they stay sort of mushy, they will hold their shape in freezer bags.

Baby Food

So I made my own baby food this week. And it was easy, and cheap, and fun too. (I love making stuff, and since I don't have so much time for crafts and stuff making baby food sort of fulfilled that need). My firned came over with her babe one night and it was great; one set of hands for baby watching and one for working. I had a pretty extensive menu planned, so it took me three nights but I think with more friends it could go faster. Here's what I made:
1) beef/potatoe/carrot: Brown some ground beef. Chop it up. Bake some potatoes. Scoop the middles out and chop.(Can you use the peel? Maybe.) Boil some carrots. Chop. Blend in the blender. Sppon into ice cube trays.
2) Chicken/brocolli/rice: Baked some chicken breasts, steamed the brocolli, cooked some brown rice. Chopped and blended. Scoop into trays. It looked like glue, and tasted very gritty. I think it was the rice that made it gross, so not sure if I'll do it again. Although Gemma eats it fine.
3) Apple/plum/nectarine: This one was yummy! Carve an x with a knife onto the side of nectarines and plums. Steam until tender. They are quite thick, so it takes a while to get the middle tender. Keep the water you cook them in. Then peel them, it sort of scrapes off with a knife. Messy job! Then I peeled and chopped some apples, and cooked them in the plum water. They turned a yummy purple color. Then I chopped it all up, blended it and ta da! Aplesauce stuff.
4) Heather brought prunes, and they are yum! (I love prunes!) Just put them in a bowl and cover with boiling hot water. Let sit until they puff up, then chop and blend. Keep the water for other griut stuff or making cereal or just as juice. NOTE: prunes don't freeze solid, so don't put them in ice cube trays. I just put them in a tupperware, and when I need some I just spoon some out.

What did I learn that I didn't already know? 1) Blending stuff takes lots of water. Otehrwise its too thick and the blender makes an awful sound. I always tried to use as little water as possible when cooking, but then I had none left for blending, so go ahead and use water. 2) You need to chop stuff up before you put it in the blender. They are not as strong as you think. Hmmm...that's it. It was REALLY easy to do, made tonnes of food, and was easily half the cost of baby food ehre (Its over a dollar a jar!!!)

Any good recipes I should try?

How do they do that?

There was a comment on how we did the underwater pictures; well, Andy has a plastic case for his digital camera. So he just puts inside and can use it like regular under the water. As far as getting Gemma under the water, we just blew lightly in her face and dunked. (Sheri taught us that; blowing on their face causes them to breath in and hold their breath for a second)

Meet the Teacher Night

Here is me and Gemma at meet the teacher night, and a pic of her and members of her after school club. (Check out the jelly sandals; Thanks Allie!)

Fun with Hats

This was soo funny! Chris would put the hat on her, and she would try to pull it off. But every time she'd grab the hat and yank, her head would go along with it, so she was just pulling her head around in different directions. She loved it too, she thought it was funny, maybe because we were killing ourselves! Chris put the video on his facebook, so go there to check it out.

Under the Sea

Here is a smapling of picturs from our weekend retreat at Green Bay. We had a staff getaway at this incredible resort, with an indoor pool, two outdoor pools, on the beach, a spa, billards, arcade games...It was awesome! We had a buffet supper and breakfast the next day. The pool was the highlight though. It was so big and beautiful, with so many options. There was a current river you could float through, fountains, a little kiddie warm pool. Gemma had a blast and even got her face wet for the first time.

Tickle Time with Fangs Magee

The purpose of this tickle session was to get a good shot of the fangs. I have to hurry up and publish this post because she will not be fangs much longer, the middle front one popped out this week.

High Chair Yoga

...or maybe it's ballet. Or aerobics :)

First Word?

She is a chatty cathy, always with lots to say and lots of passion in her voice. I think I may have caught the first word. She was crawling around the music room and got under the shiny black piano. When she looked up and saw her reflection she said, "baby". She hasn't said it since, but it was so clear. Hard to tell if its for real or not. Other things she is close to saying is wa-wa (meaning water) and dada, and mum mum mum mum. She is also getting to be a good waver, waving hello to people and goodbye. Its funny because when she wants people to go, like when she's been held by others too much and she's back in my arm, she'll wave at them like, "My mommy's here now; buh bye!"

Into everything part II

So what do you do when you live in an apartment and have to eliminate the bottom 4 feet of storage space? The object I have the hardest time relocating is the toilet brush. I mean, who likes to keep their toilet brush up on a shelf at eye level?

The Gemma Fan Club

Everyday after school I go home, feed Gemma, and bring her back to school so I can get a bit more work done. There is always an entourage of kids waiting to play with her (no jokes, on Friday there eight kids in there all trying to play with her, carry her, walk with her, etc.) I am grateful for the help, they manage to keep her occupied for an hour or so and I can get a lot done. PLus Chris get an hour of alone time after his day of daddy-ing.



p.s. Brenda, good thing we kept that outfit. It is so cute, and fits her perfect now!

Are napkins a food group?

Into everything... I was standing two feet away from her, and I thought I had my eye on her as she was rummaging around the shelf in the kitchen. Well, I looked away for as second and when I looked back she had a handful of tissue with a huge bite out of it! It was hilarious to see the ripped off tissue coming from out of her mouth, and I would have liked to take a picture but I thought it was more important to get it out of her mouth before she swallowed any (or any more than she already had).

Ha, so funny I wrote that because looking back at our pictures, Chris DOES have pictures of her eating tissue! Hee hee.

Thanks for all the food advice! I appreciate it and have consulted back to it several times already.

Cherish!

What is it like being a mom? It means every day when I hold my baby girl, I pray that I would remember that moment forever.

Food

The solid food thing is going pretty good. It is probably the most complicated part of having a baby so far. (Maybe because I forgot to ask my peeps about what on earth to do, and so its the only part of parenthood I've done almost on my own.) I haven't done a tonne of reading, but one book I've been looking at is the Super Baby Food Book. It is huge and bright purple, and has lots of good information but a tad excessive for our style. She is a huge advocate of making your own everything, cereal and baby food and adding all sorts of funny things to it (healthy extras) like wheat germ, dried liver powder, brewers yeast and all sorts of other funny things that I wouldn't know how to find even if I lived in Canada. She is also a huge advocate of using ONLY organic produce. Other produce has pesticides on it and and pesticides kill living things. And then she goes on, "LET ME REPEAT THAT; PESTICIDES KILL LIVING THINGS". And so on... What has been helpful from it is that it is divided into month by month chapters so you you know what foods to add each month with lots of options and serving ideas. For example, things like shredded cheese. I wouldn't have thought of that, or shredded apple. Or making mashed potatoes into little balls for her to pick up but will mash in her mouth. I also tried cutting the mango into little spears, which she liked. They slide in and she mashes them up with her gums but if she accidently swallows they will just slide down like little noodles. So that's been good. Gemma really enjoys table food and so we are trying to give her what we can from our meals. Her favorite so far has been rotisserie chicken. Not the saucy outside, but little piece of the yummy white breast meat. She at that up. My question to you all is when to introduce wheat, and when to introduce dairy.

p.s. I just read some more of that book, trying to learn about meat, and she says that if we knew what she knew and read the books she read none of us would ever eat meat again. She has like three pages about meat and thats it.:)

Sleeping Beauty

I was doing dishes one night this week and every time I looked over at her, she was in a new position. I left her sitting on the floor, washed a bowl and looked over at her again; she was flat on the floor on her back. Wash another dish, look over, sitting up again. Look over again, standing against a chair. She is getting braver, too, and will crawl to other rooms in the house even if we are not there.

Her sleeping is getting better, only up once or twice at night which is good. Her bedtime is about 10:30, then she sleeps till 9:30 which is great for Chris, bad for me, but we'll try and negotiate that a bit this week. Speaking of sleeping, check these nap time photos out.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

This was taken our last day as Uncle Nate was sneaking us into RUH to try and catch the first glimpse at Baby Hickey. (Unfortunately she hadn't been born yet!) Maria made her entrance to the world as we waited in the airport. Congratulations Tom and Erin!

YA YA YA YA YA

Gemma spends a lot of time of her time saying these words really loud. Maybe she is going to be a preacher like her daddy! Sometimes she changes it up and it goes BA BA BA BA BA WA WA GA GA. She usually does it standing up at the footstool, waving one arm.

We've done pretty good in the falling department, none for a few days, until last night. Then she did a double; she fell backwards on her head but hit her chin first on the way down. Yikes!

No!

What a hard lesson to teach: No. Everytime we say it she looks up and grins, like its a game. I feel like to her, trying to figure out what is 'no' and what isn't is like those goofy party games, you know where you tell your name and what you're bringing to the it person and they tell you if you can or can't. (Does anyone know what I'm talking about??? The it person makes up some sort of rule before the game starts, for example, you must bring something that starts with the second letter of your name, so I could say 'My name is Nevada and I'm bringing bagels, and the it person would say I couldn't come, but if I said My name is Nevada and I am bringing eggs' I would be allowed... anyway, I digress) I guess the difference is we are more consistent; our rules don't change too often, but I feel like to her it is a very complicated system. What are some things on your NO list? We have (so far) remote controls and keys and most recently paper.

What is it with eating paper???? I am constantly squeezing her little cheeks to get paper out. I even found a sticker in there two days ago. I hate taking it away from her because she loves ot crumple it and tear it and shake it around, but as soon as you turn away, into the mouth it goes.

Baby Helmet

Number of days back in Taiwan: 4
Number of times Gemma has fallen backwards on her head on the hardwood: 3

These stats are from yesterday, which was also the first day she didn't fall backwards. Other injuries since we've been back? Well, she was standing at the coffee table, and saw something on the floor she wanted, so she bent forward and smoked her head on the edge. Ouch! The next one is sort of our fault. I was going to give her a bath the first night, and had her all undressed but alas, no hot water. So I set her down in her empty bathtub to play while I went to check out the water situation. She was playing happily but then decided to try and stand up. The tub tipped and now she has a bruise on her chin. Being a baby is very dangerous! I feel so bad for her, but yet don't want to limit her. Doh. I was relaying all this to our casheir and she told me about a thing she has for her baby. Should we go for it?

back at it!

Back in sunny green Taiwan! My committment this year is to blog more, so hold me to it.

Gemma was a great traveler, which was a huge relief for us. The worst flights are those little ones from askatoon to Calgary and then Calgary to Vancouver; the planes are so teeny there is no room for anything. She didn't fuss at all, slept most of the time. The few hours she was up we walked around the plane, met some other kids, and flirted with the stewardesses. We (mommy and Gemma) are both strugglig with jet lag this weekend, which sucks. You are so tired you can hardly function, but can't sleep. Yesterday we were up at 3am and had a big nap from 11-3, then today we were up from 4-5:30 then back to bed till 7:30. So not too bad. She actually just dozed off now so we'll see if I can convince my own body to rest.

She is getting TONNES of attention. We went swimming in the river yesterday and quite a crowd watching us. In the evening we went to a restaurant for dinner for Chris' birthday and the waitress tickled her eveyrtime she walked by. I think there are pictures of this and I will ty to post them soon.

Tomorrow is the first day back, so we are going to be working on our routine. These are the habits we need to break:
1) nursing her to sleep
2) crying when mommy leaves
3) sleeping the whole night in her own bed

We'll let you know how the first day goes!

Lots of New Pics

With the beautiful summer weather you can imagine why there has been a lack of posting but I just wanted to let you casual readers know that there are a ton of new pics on the Flickr. Just click the pic below and it'll take you there