Aurora Wells

And as far as storms go, the past day (or at least a Jewish calendar day, from 8:30 pm to 8:30 pm) has been a perfect one.

On Friday night Daddy, Aurora and I went out to the Tomato Café for dinner with Grandma Shaun and Grandpa Bill, who are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this weekend. We had a delicious dinner there, but on the way home Daddy started feeling rather sick. He thought it was just his usual (albeit painful) intestinal thing, but when he took a good look at himself in the mirror he realized he had bloodshot eyes and serious hives, and then noticed that he was having trouble breathing. Bill and Shaun had left by then, so the three of us very quickly made our way to the VGH emergency room, which luckily is very close to our house. I called Brian’s parents from the ER and had them come to be with Brian so that I could get our overtired girl to bed.

Although I’m the one with chronic allergies, Brian’s the one with acute ones. His previous allergy attacks have been rare, sporadic, and scary, but we’ve never pinpointed what caused them. Our best guess was something to do with the outdoors, either a particular plant or what they used to spray on the athletic fields at UBC, or both. Now it appears we can add a more definite allergen to the list: shellfish. Yes, Bill and Brian shared an appetizer of crab cakes. This development is very sad, since Brian loves shellfish, but it could be worse; he could be allergic to shellfish, mushrooms and chocolate (sorry, Blair)!

After putting Aurora to bed, I was up until after midnight waiting for Brian’s return, and then we both finally managed to get to sleep. Unfortunately, Aurora was up at 4:15, 5:45, and awake for the day at 6:45. But here’s the twist: she’s teething so bad that she couldn’t nurse! The entire day was an exercise in frustration as she’d scream in hunger, biting (hard!) our arms and shoulders, wanting to nurse, then pulling back in agony as she tried to do it. We were able to give her some solids, but it barely helped. She was miserable all day.

But that’s not all! Yesterday was also our day for pouring the concrete floor of the garage, and it did not go smoothly. There were issues with the concrete truck’s chute that wasn’t long enough, the wheelbarrow that wasn’t big enough, the first spreading tool that kept coming loose, the second spreading tool that the rental place forgot to mention we needed, and the rain that started falling just as they were smoothing it all out. It was incredibly frustrating for both Brian and his brother Jim, who was helping out.

In addition to all this, there was the laundry and making of lunch and dinner, the buying of our nephew’s birthday present, and just dealing with Aurora’s current behavioral weirdness. Dr. T. Berry Brazelton describes this stage perfectly in his book, Touchpoints:

Before [beginning to walk unassisted], all of her energy, both day and night, goes into this new step. Seeing someone walk can make her scream. Whenever a parent walks away from her, she cries out in frustration. She falls again and again in her attempt to [walk]. At night, this frustration boils up at each cycle of light sleep. She stands at her cribside, crying out in revived desperation every three to four hours, as she remembers her attempts to master this new task. Sleeping through the night becomes impossible for her and for her weary parents… All of the daily tasks of living are turned into scrimmages. Trying to lay her down to diaper her becomes hopeless. She is sure to flail, kick and scream even at the thought. A parent must learn to diaper her in a standing posture. Suddenly, just immobilizing her to take off her clothes is more interference than she can tolerate.

It’s actually kind of reassuring to know that her current irritability is so common that an experienced pediatrician can describe our child’s behavior so perfectly. It means that this is not her personality, just a phase she’s going through. I know that when she’s finally walking around, our lives will be all about running after her wherever she goes, but maybe (hopefully) she won’t be so cranky anymore!

Thank goodness Grandma Shaun and Grandpa Bill were around to help, by fetching tools and playing with Aurora while Daddy and I were busy. When Aurora finally fell asleep after a long, hard day, we breathed a sigh of relief. I don’t know what she’ll be like once she’s walking, but hopefully it will bring her a sense of peace and satisfaction, and a decent night’s sleep.

Ah, Langston Hughes, one of my favourite poets. He wrote eloquently and often about freedom, and sometimes when I look at Aurora, face plastered with an incandescent grin just because she’s standing up, or lying on her back cursing the fates that stand in the way of her rising on her own, I hear his words:

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.

What a wonder she is. Just this past weekend we decided to give away the Little Tikes walker because it was too tippy and made her really frustrated when she couldn’t pull herself up on it without falling over. Then, as I was taking pictures of it to advertise it, I saw her new competence at using it, and the joy it caused, and realized that we should probably keep it a little while longer. (Click on any photo to see it larger)

I also read that until babies’ fontanels, or soft spots on their heads, close, their skulls are a little bit cushier than grownups. Obviously, they’re designed to take the frequent head bonks that learning to stand and walk inevitably cause.

Here’s another step toward freedom: look closely at the side of the sippy cup and you’ll see that it’s at four ounces. Well, guess what? I gave it to her filled to five! She drank A WHOLE OUNCE on her own – no 1 ml. dropper, no grownup tipping a cup of liquid mostly down the front of her shirt – she actually sucked deliberately, in order to get the liquid out of the cup. Some of you may be scratching your heads wondering what the big deal is. Well, to a woman who’s been a baby’s sole source of liquid for the past nine months, and only source of nutrition, period, for most of that, it’s a gosh-darned breakthrough. For five months I’ve been trying almost every day to get her to drink from a bottle, cup or sippy cup, but she’s only been chewing on them, not sucking, and if any liquid accidentally enters her mouth, she acts offended and indignant. One sucked-out ounce seems like a true triumph. I feel like giving her a medal or something. I have to thank the fantastic Virginia Zats for sending a variety of different styles of sippy cups for the girl to try. It worked! I’m crossing my fingers that soon she’ll be drinking a whole four ounces or so of milk, and then I can go out!

This week, between the two grandparents’ visits, was filled with chores and errands, but we did make time for a lovely outing to Riley Park to have a picnic with Hilary and Peter. Peter’s a couple of weeks older than Aurora, and just started crawling last week, but already he’s doing it like a pro. Aurora fussed and complained for a while until I decided to park the stroller next to the blanket, then she was happy as a clam. When Peter saw how much fun she was having, he left off his quest to get into all the food on the blanket and decided to join Aurora hanging onto the side of the stroller.

Hilary (who just got almost the same camera as mine) and I tried for quite a while to get a photo with both kids’ faces visible, and happy, but it just wasn’t happening. They were so focused on the stroller, and each other, that we moms were just a couple of annoying flies moving around, going “click, click, click”. For more pictures, see Peter’s Blog.

God, I love the summer in Vancouver. What am I going to do with this active kid when it’s raining every day?

Well, G & G Nestor and Great-Grandpa Harold (or G-Zat) have flown home, so it’s time for another blog posting. Here are some highlights from their visit.

Gelato at Bellagio’s on Main Street. Sorry, Aurora – maybe in a few months!

Showing off our cruising manouvers in the cute sailboat outfit from Uncle David and Aunt Ashleigh.

Lots of kisses!

Potluck dinner on Friday night…

…with Aurora and Barrett making the usual lunges at each others’ eyes.

A trip to the local park is always fun, especially when your local park is the gorgeous Queen Elizabeth Park.

G-Zat gets a photo op with Princess Aurora among the geraniums.

A trip to the Sylvia, English Bay, and dinner at the Boathouse restaurant on a really gorgeous summer afternoon. Aurora gets to sit on the loveliest grass she’s ever seen; much nicer than ours at home.

G & G’s condo provides an excellent vantage point from which to view the ongoing Canada Line construction project, which has been going on two or three times longer than Aurora’s been around. Unfortunately, the condo is so hot in the summer it’s better to go shirt-free.

Bye-bye, Gs! See you in October!

Well, Julio’s back, and we’re getting ready for the Nestor Grandparents’ (and Great-Grandpa’s) visit, but I thought I’d squeeze in a post to keep the pictures up to date.

Last week we went to our first pool party, at Kim’s house. We were the first to arrive, and friendly Max took the opportunity to get to know Aurora a little better.

Hopefully he’ll learn a little more finesse in dealing with the ladies as he gets older.

The boyz are in the pool, while Aurora sits this one out due to intestinal issues (you can never be too careful). When I was a kid we got undressed to go swimming, but it didn’t matter if we toasted up nice and brown. Now these swim clothes are de rigour to protect our little fair-skinned tots.

Sweet little Kaiya can’t wait to join the guys in the pool!

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Brian remarked recently that he’d only been to one wedding before his own, but Aurora’s already been to three! The third was this weekend, as Uncle Jim married lovely Lori in a small ceremony at Cultus Lake, BC.

Lori’s wearing really high heels, but it doesn’t make a difference next to Gigantic Jim!

Grandma Shaun plays with Aurora on the beach after the ceremony. She loves that little Ugly Doll!

Lori and Jim pose for a few pictures before heading back to their house for the reception.

Lori grabs a quick cuddle with her niece, the flower girl.

Crazy Uncle Jim took Lori out for a dip first, then ventured out with Steve, the best man. What a good sport!

Our nephew Kayden keeps Aurora company while the grownups are goofing around in the water.

The Wellses try to pose for a rare family shot in Jim & Lori’s backyard, but one of us isn’t cooperating.

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On Sunday night we headed to the beach, trying to snag a bit of summertime fun in between chores and garage-building. Aurora loves standing against the big logs at the beach.

We introduced her to sand, and half-buried her in it. She was so fascinated by trying to pick it up and feeling it sift through her fingers that there was nothing we could do to get her to look at the camera. Eventually she found a small rock she could get a grip on, and put it in her mouth, but what’s a trip to the beach without a little sand in your mouth?

Daddy took Monday off work, so we introduced him to the play gym. Here Aurora demonstrates the workings of her favourite toy there. We love the long weekends with Daddy, and are looking forward to several more this summer.

Please excuse the picturelessness of this post. My computer, Julio, is in the shop getting some much-needed upgrades to his memory and hard drive space. They told me he’d be back from compucamp Friday, but when I called today, they said they were “just getting to it now, and would be done by the end of the day tomorrow (Saturday)”. Since this is what Brian estimates is a 1/2 hour job, that means they haven’t even started thinking about getting to it today. My poor baby! I know, he’s four and a half years old, which is what? 63 in computer years? Most people believe he should be thinking about retirement now, but he’ll always be my baby. And yes, I named him after that Simon & Garfunkel song.

But I digress. Happy nine month birthday, Aurora! Tooth number 3, the first top tooth, made its appearance on your birthday, as your first bottom tooth did exactly a month ago. You’re cruising like crazy, eating 2-3 meals of solid food a day, and you finally have enough hair to hide your scalp.

Aurora likes:

• Dancing in her crib: holding the railing and bouncing. Occasionally she pauses to chew on the rail, and if she doesn’t pause to do this she bangs her mouth on the rail and much crying ensues.
• Mommy or Daddy’s complete attention. Being in the same room is not enough. We must not cook, put things away or compute while in her royal presence. While this may sound like a negative, I prefer to think of it as ensuring that she gets plenty of good quality time with us.
• Her birdies. We’re borrowing this fantastic birdhouse toy from the Milleys, and Aurora loves to pull the birdies out of the house, shake them, chew on them, and put them back in on occasion (although only Mommy has seen her do this).
• Feeding herself. Cantaloupe cubes, bits of bread, kamut puffs, tiny shreds of chicken or smoked salmon, banana bites, peach slices, beans, tomato chunks (although these may be causing some digestive issues), cherry and grape quarters, and cooked peas are some of her recent faves. In between these bites we can usually sneak in a few spoonfuls of mushier stuff, like oatmeal, pear or apple mush, or pureed broccoli, but it takes some finesse with the timing, and she must be hungry. She’s still getting six or seven milk feedings in a 24-hour period, but that’s partly because it’s so hot and she’s thirsty.
• Going for walks in the Baby Bjorn carrier. It’s like some kind of Pavlovian response thing. When she sees us pick up the Bjorn, she lights up. When we put it on, she starts vibrating with delight. She squeals, shakes and bangs her hands on whatever she’s holding onto, trying to get us to put her in it faster. If, God forbid, we’ve forgotten to get the shopping bags or our shoes on before we don the carrier, she goes nuts wondering why she’s not in it already. We face her forward in it, so it’s like she’s walking, with an adults-eye-view. Much cooler than lounging around in a stroller.
• “Piano Man,” by Billy Joel. This song, although it is about lives wasted in a slightly seedy bar, is simply golden to us. When nothing else works to get her to calm down and fall asleep, she can rest in Daddy’s lap and listen to him sing “Piano Man” and she’s asleep by the middle of the next song. For some reason the magic only works with Daddy singing along with Billy. Mommy tries not to take it too personally.

Aurora dislikes:

• Going on the potty. This is a relatively new development, because we were doing so well, catching 50-80% of pees and 95% of poos just a week ago. Now, all of a sudden, we’re on a potty strike. Maybe it’s because she’s having so much fun cruising around the house and doesn’t like to stop and sit down. Or perhaps she’s just sick of having her pants and diaper removed so often. We were warned this was likely to happen about now, so we’re not too discouraged. I still think that of all the decisions we’ve made about her care, choosing to do EC is one of the absolute best. Bye-bye diaper rash, hello better communication and (hopefully) an earlier end to diapering.
• Middle-of-the-night feedings. Well, so do we. The only thing worse is NOT feeding her when she wakes up at 2 or 3 in the morning, because then she’s twice as irate and stays up twice as long before going back to bed.

Well, I’ll be back soon with pictures, and you can see how our wonderful girl is growing up.

We love it when Daddy’s home for the whole weekend! There’s so much more time to play.

The weekend was a bit rough in places, though. I woke up in the early a.m. Saturday with a very painful plugged duct in my breast, or at least that’s what I figured it was after calling the nurse hotline at 5 in the morning. Some hot compresses and extra nursing took care of that, though. Whew!

Saturday afternoon was Hilary’s big birthday party, so we got to see a few of our prenatal pals again (Quinn, Peter, & Ryan). It’s been too long! Peter’s eyelashes have gotten so long that it’s clear he’ll have trouble wearing glasses when he’s older, and we’d better keep him away from Aurora or their child will have mutant foot-long eyelashes for sure.

We also met another Aurora at the party. She’s a month older, and awfully cute.

On Sunday Daddy went up into the attic and brought down the big plastic storage boxes so we could set up…

The Cruiseway. Now Aurora can circle the living room and get all the way around the east side of the dining room before she runs out of handholds. She’s been having enough headbonks to still want to hold on to something all the time. We’re slow to childproof, but quick to childplay, I guess.