Too lovely to eat (almost!)

Now that Jen is nursing again, her appetite has noticeably increased as expected. It is a testament to these cupcakes delivered from Eat My Words that Jen wouldn't eat them for a full day. She felt that they needed to be appreciated for a while. Once we started in on them, they were delicious. Isaac enjoyed the icing and we ate the cupcakes. Everyone wins!

Even better, a portion of each sale goes to support one of Jen's favorite charities: The Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Many thanks to Nima and Marit for this thoughtful gift.

Midwife Visit # 2

7 lbs 14 oz

The midwives dropped by for another home visit. Everything is on track and Amelia is only down 6 ounces from her birth weight.

The pad on the change table is reversible and predictably has two colours. While it was usually blue-side up for Isaac, it will no doubt be pink-side up for the most part now. We're not making any conscious effort one way or the other about it, but it is amazing how quickly we start reinforcing gender.

Isaac dotes on his sister

I read about babies in here!

Isaac is quite interested in his new sister. In fact,we're having a hard time explaining to him that babies need to sleep a lot - he wants her to be awake and share in his fun!

I took Isaac out for a drive (i.e. a nap!) this afternoon. It was a 2.5 hour trip from Toronto to Clarington and back but it seemed the only way that we'd get our desperate little guy to have a nap and give mom and baby a rest. Jen said that it was so quiet and peaceful to just be at home with baby. What a difference experience makes! There was definitely more stress involved with being home with a new baby the first time around. To hear her say this and mean it makes us smile at the difference :-)

In the last picture, Isaac is holding his "Wheels on the bus" book in which the baby on the bus goes "Wah wah wah!" Isaac is getting a kick out of it when Amelia makes a "big cry". He's a big fan of her getting changed as it definitely gets a reaction out of her.

Midwives

Jen's only half listening due to a
toddler growing out of one ear

As with Isaac, we had midwives and we highly recommend their services. We definitely found the anecdote "You wait 45 minutes for 5 minutes with the doctor and you wait 5 minutes for 45 minutes with the midwife" to have the ring of truth to it. Here they are checking up on mom and baby after spending the previous night with the delivery. In the weeks to come there will be a series of home visits, after which point we start up with the pediatrician when Amelia is 2 months old or so.

Isaac, meet Amelia

Neat, but she's no truck!

After months of talking to Isaac about Amelia being in mommy's tummy and how he was going to be a big brother, he finally got to see her and have it become more concrete.

Welcome back, Isaac! We missed you while you were at your sleepover (thanks Grammie and Nonni!). It was a great relief to know that Isaac was in good hands and that he having a good time with his grandmother, grandfather, uncle, aunt, cousin, great-grandmother, and great-uncle while we were at the hospital. It really took a weight off our minds to know that Isaac was doing well.

Amelia Joyce Smith

Look at the hair!

Jen delivered (good work!) a 53 cm long, 8 lb 4 oz baby girl at 3:12 AM this morning at St. Joseph's Health Centre in Toronto, where older brother Isaac was born ~2.5 years ago. We were home about 3 hours later where mom and baby were able to rest much more easily than a busy maternity ward.

Amelia's middle name is given in memory of her grandmother. In fact, we said our goodbyes to my mom, Joyce, at her funeral eight years ago to the day, on January 11, 2002.

The hair is quite the novelty for us as Isaac came out bald as a button:-)

Measuring Up!

88 cm tall

For the longest time, Isaac didn't seem to have much interest at all in food. At home that is - he's always having 2 or 3 helpings of this or the other while at daycare. In the last couple of months, though, he's been on a tear. "I want cereal and soy milk. Right now!" is something we've gotten used to hearing. A lot. Sometimes shouted out in the middle of the night. At that time, I have to tell myself that at least he's forming sentences.

This all adds up to a sustained growth spurt. We're trying to keep track of it all on the Giraffe (Thanks Julia!) so he can look back on his progress in later years.

New camera

I just used our old camera for pretty much the last time! Our main complaint with the old camera was that it took ~5 seconds to take a picture using the flash. When you're trying to capture a fleeting moment with a toddler, that's waaaaay too slow.


The new camera improves on the old in a number of ways:

• Burst mode (can take 10+ pictures/second)
• Waterproof! Shockproof!
• Image stabilization
• Internal lens does not protrude/extend
• Twice the Megapixels & takes HD video
• Can use higher storage memory cards
• Much slimmer so it can more easily fit in a pocket

This all means that Jen and I will have a much easier time getting great shots of the kids, whether we are indoors or out on adventure. And if one of them gets their hands on it, we no longer have to fret that they'll drop it or knock it around (shockproof!)

First haircut!

We've been meaning to get Isaac in for a haircut for ages now. Every time we are on the verge, something either comes up or we lose our nerve as we think that his long hair is too cute to let go. On Sunday, we finally managed to go through with it.

Before
Loving the train!
Mohawk!
After
When Jen took Isaac to daycare the next day, no one recognized him and they thought he must be a new kid.

Indian with Liann & Steve (and Julia!)

chuckling over chana
Congratulations to Liann & Steve! We had the chance recently to go visit them and their new 2-week old daughter, Julia Louise. When Isaac was born, Liann & Steve helped us out with a mountain of food so we were happy (mainly for their good news) to reciprocate.