Transition Period

I remember when Aidan was first born and the weekend came - after working Monday to Friday for a few years, I subconsciously assumed that I would be sleeping in on Saturday, even with a baby. This did not happen. I remember thinking, "Oh, right, I don't get to sleep in anymore" but even then it hadn't really hit me. It is only recently that I've started to realize that I don't get to quit this job....ever.....

As all moms know, taking care of a child is extremely tiring and draining. I'm beginning to realize more and more just how draining and tiring it is. I used to think that if I could figure out a way to make money and stay at home, I'd be happy and relaxed. HAHAHA I am home right now and definitely not relaxed! Then I kept thinking that if I go back to work, then life would get easier. I would get out of the house and have a break, but now I realize how difficult that would be.

So, the bottom line is, I've come to the realization that being a mom is a lot of work, no matter what you do. I can take a break now and then, go out for dinner with friends or get some exercise while someone else watches Aidan, but I am always, always the mom. A little while ago, Mike and I went out for drinks and decided to leave Aidan with Mike's sister for the night. I thought this would be a great break for us, and that we might even sleep in. I didn't realize the separation anxiety I would feel. When we got home at midnight and went to bed, I wanted to peek in at our sleeping son but he wasn't there. I woke up at 5am and kept wondering if he was awake yet and when Linda would be bringing him down. So much for a break! I wonder if all moms feel this way when they are away from their child and if this lessens as their baby gets older?

Aidan has slept through the night more or less since he was 3 months old, usually about 12 hours. But do I sleep through the night? Why is it that becoming a mom permeates your life so much that you can't relax, even when you're sleeping? Hopefully I'll figure out a better balance as time goes on, because I am exhausted these days.

Last Post Ever?

I had a job interview two days ago and it made me realize - my maternity leave is almost over! I still have 2 months, but I know the time will fly by and I can guarantee I will not be writing a blog nearly as often once I start working (and I don't write too often now so.....pretty much never is how often I'll write in the future). I've also applied for a few jobs in Nova Scotia so who knows, I may be moving home over the summer. The competition is stiff here in Calgary for teachers this year. The position I interviewed for had almost 200 applicants, and it's the only interview I've had so far so I figure I may as well apply for some jobs at home before my Nova Scotia teaching license expires!

Anyway, I guess this blog is supposed to be about Aidan. He is definitely improving his crawling skills but still gets frustrated when he can't quite make it work. He also gets lazy and will stop trying if he finds a toy closer to him than the one he was going for (lazy....does he get that from his mom??) His fav time of the day is still bath time, but now he splashes like a mad man and I get soaked from sitting beside the tub. No more reading the paper while he chills in the bath - he ruins it with his splashing! You can see in the pic how turbulent the water is, and his look of concentration while he kicks with all his might. Little soccer player in the making?

After typing this (above) I realize it's kind of boring...since there's nothing really too exciting to share, I'll just leave you with those 2 pics of my son and post again when there's a new adventure or an interesting topic that comes to mind. Have a great week :)

This, that, the other

Yesterday morning Aidan had his first (and hopefully last!) visit to the Children's Hospital here in Calgary. The hospital is really beautiful and he loved looking at everything. At his Dr's appt the other day, his doctor noticed that his fat rolls at the top of his legs were not the same size on both legs. Apparently this is one of the warning signs for hip dysplasia so she wanted him to get an x-ray to make sure. I'm not too worried about it yet, but hopefully I get a call soon that everything is okay! The staff at the hospital were so nice, quite a contrast to my experiences at Foothills hospital when I've gone to visit my sister. We only waited about 5 minutes. Aidan did great, and smiled at everyone the whole time. Here are a couple of pics of him at the hospital while we waited. I wanted to take a pic of him on the x-ray table but I thought the techs wouldn't appreciate it.

That's the one comment I always get about Aidan, "He sure looks happy today" or "What a happy baby!" I used to be a tad jealous (sometimes a lot jealous, okay?) when my sister and I would be out in public and they'd say to her "Ohhh, what a cute baby", "He's just adorable!", "Look at him, he's so precious" etc etc while saying nothing to me about my baby (really, don't you think that's a tad rude?) and to this day I rarely hear, "Oh, he's so cute" when we're out but I do get a LOT of "What a happy baby" and I guess in life it's better to be happy than good looking, right? I credit one thing and one thing only to his happiness - The Schedule. Which brings me to a problem that has me slightly panicky...I've lost the book that has The Sched in it. It has I think 4 different schedules - birth to 4 months, 4 to 9 months, 9 to 12 months, and definitely another one but I forget the exact ages. I seriously base Aidan's life on The Sched and it's going to change in another 6 weeks or so....and I don't have the book to tell me what to do! Now, he doesn't always nap for as long as he's supposed to or at exactly the right times, but I definitely use this book as my guide. It was published in the 60's so I can't just go get it at Chapters, I had to order it from Amazon.com (not even Amazon.ca because for some reason Canadian Amazon wants $45 for this book so even with the shipping Amazon.com was the way to). If I don't find it soon, I will have to order another one, or else my happy baby may not be so happy. I am nothing without this book!

Okay, so enough about that. Except one last thing - I will give you a reward if you find my book for me. Okay, so actually moving on now. After the hospital fun, we went for a visit to Aunt Natasha's to see cousin Isaac. The boys got to see eachother for a few minutes, but they are pretty much opposite schedule's for nap/wake time so they didn't get to play for very long. Here's Aidan at Tash and Ryan's trying some cheerios. He's still learning how to grasp food and get it into his mouth but I think he managed to eat a few and their dog, Whisper, managed to eat a lot more.

One last pic - the weather here has been pretty bad but the other day was finally nice enough to go for a walk. Here's Aidan getting ready to go and loving his life.

That's it for now, hope everyone has a great weekend :)

On the move!

So not too long ago, Aidan started getting up on all fours and rocking. Since he has a slightly older cousin, I'd seen this move fairly recently and I knew what it meant - crawling soon! I rushed out (as in took my sweet time) to get baby proofing items so as not to have another "falling-off-the-bed" incident. He is by no means an expert at getting around, but gone are the days where I can lay him somewhere and find him in generally the same spot a few minutes later.

In other news, I got the Dr's okay to start giving him finger foods. I can't WAIT for him to feed himself, so here are a few pics of me trying to get him to do all the work while I sit back and relax. Hey, anything that makes Mom's life easier, right?

That's it for now - Aidan's playing around on the floor and I'm going to join him :)

Sharing the bad news with the world

So I can't post any pics for this post because I had to delete my hard drive and reload windows so I've lost some pictures because....my computer got a virus, a terrible terrible virus. In fact, I cleared the hard drive (took about 8 hours) and reloaded windows and somehow the virus is still there. A few months ago we paid $135 to get the virus removed and the computer fixed and, since the laptop is almost 4 years old and the screen is going I don't really feel like spending another $135 when I could just buy a new one for not too much.

So, back to exciting things about Aidan. He had his first camping trip this past weekend and he loved it. He really enjoys being outside (as most babies do) so it was no surprise that he was happy for most of the time. His favourite things - staring at the fire and listening for dirt bikes and quads so he could watch them go by. I was really impressed with his sleeping, too. He slept for over 12 hours that night, despite the partying and bike riding going on all night. Napping was another issue, but we only stayed for one night so he quickly caught up on his sleep when we got home.

That's it for now - Desperate Housewives is on and Aidan is napping so I'd better enjoy my free time....maternity leave ends before I know it!

The Dayhome Search

So, even though I don't technically have a job, I thought I should start a dayhome search for September. This is not a fun experience, for those of you that were wondering. It's kind of fun looking up dayhomes and sending out e-mails, even meeting with the moms, but the idea of leaving my son anywhere but with me makes me want to cry. So far I've met with four ladies and there was only one that I am considering. For some reason I thought all moms running dayhomes would just be awesome. And they were all "okay"......but I want someone who's even better than I am, if that's possible ;) I'm going to check out two more today, just to confirm that most of them suck, and then I'll likely go with the best of the evils......

In the back of my mind, I'm still considering serving every night so I can be home in the day. I know this isn't the best option, but I really cannot imagine leaving my little guy every single day. How do all the moms out there do it? How do you not cry the whole way to work? I guess you get used to it.

I had Aidan's photos taken so I'll share one with you.

I think this was before he started teething - he can be quite fussy lately. I've started giving him tylenol when he seems like he's in pain and it actually really seems to help. Anyone have any other teething remedies that worked for them?

Oh, I wanted to give an update on my workout progress. I've done 4 days of level 2, which is WAAAAY harder than level 1. I took one day off (well, I've taken 2 days off in the past 2 weeks) but I'm finding it harder to stay motivated because the workout is such a killer I'd just rather not do it. I really pushed myself on day 3 and it was the closest to tears I'd ever been while working out. So day 4 I did the modified moves (barely)....I'm just not seeing any progress with this level and not finding it any easier even though I've done it 4 times. I guess I should just give up ;)

Bad Mother Post

So you know how moms (irresponsible ones, that is) have stories about how their children fell down the stairs, fell out of their car seats, etc when they were babies? Every time I heard one of those stories my thoughts were, "How can you admit that to people? How could you let that happen? How could you be so careless?" Well, on Sunday, I became one of those mothers.

Since Aidan was born, I have been changing him on the floor. I rarely leave him unattended for more than a few moments, and I thought I knew how to do all the "right" things to keep my son safe.

On Sunday, I was putting away my laundry and Aidan was happily watching from my bed. Now, I know Aidan can roll, but his feet were facing the edge of the bed and he would have had to turn his body 90 degrees and THEN roll to fall off the bed. Apparently I underestimated the speed with which he can move. I smiled at him and turned to put some clothes in the dresser. In that split second of turning, I heard the loudest thud that's ever been made, followed by the loudest wail Aidan has ever cried.

I turned around, and Aidan was not on the bed! Danielle (my sister) came running upstairs, thinking the thud had been a dresser or something falling on Aidan, it was that loud. He was on the floor, on his back...at least he hadn't landed face first (I think that would be worse?). I picked him up and tried to console him. Danielle found the number for health link, a 24 hour number that lets you talk to nurses who will assess non-emergency situations. I immediately nursed Aidan, since this usually calms him down and it was time to eat anyway. While I was on hold, I started wondering if I should call 911. It felt like I was on hold forEVER. When I finally got through, about 12 minutes later, Aidan had finished eating and was happy - babbling and smiling. The nurse asked me a few assessment questions and determined Aidan was probably fine, but that I should check on him every 30 minutes to make sure he was alive (that's not actually what she said).

Aidan had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday and my doctor told me about how she, as a doctor, had to bring her 9 month old to the children's hospital after she had fallen down the stairs. This made me feel somewhat better, but I still feel like a pretty bad mom. There was no need for me to have Aidan on the bed. I wish I had just had him on the floor. I really thought only terrible moms let their children fall, and maybe that makes me a terrible mom, but I actually think it can happen waaaaaaaay faster than most people think so be careful, mommas!

And, of course, to complete the blog - a picture of Aidan with pants on his head.