18/01/2010

Sick Mummy

Today has been a tough day, I've been fighting a very sore throat and achy muscles since yesterday and Graham had to go to Belgium this morning and won't be returning until tomorrow evening so I'm on my own with Ava. It hasn't been easy, but at least she's been fairly well behaved.

Unfortunately she didn't let me sleep last night... all I needed was one good night sleep, but she decided to be a little pain in the bum and wake up every 2 hours and cry. Normally she's pretty good and only wakes up twice a night but the one time I feel like hell... Anyway, she's sleeping very well this evening. I put her to bed at 7:30 and she's been snoozing away happily since.

My throat is still very sore, I think it might be strep throat (Graham thinks possibly tonsillitis, I wouldn't know though as I've never had it before) If it doesn't feel better by tomorrow I'll make an appointment to see if I need some antibiotics or something. I just really hope I haven't given it to Ava somehow. I'd feel terrible if the poor thing had to go through this too :(

Ever since she turned 6 months, Ava has been such a good baby. She rarely cries anymore and she can keep herself entertained for longer periods of time on her playmat. We've been sleeping much better since she moved into her own bedroom and I think she has been too.

Her eating habbits are becoming more regular as well and she's now almost completely on the bottle (yay!) When we get up in the morning I'll make her a bowl of oatmeal, and then at 10:30 she'll have a bottle of formula and watch In the Night Garden for half an hour. Around 11am she'll have a nap (today she napped in her own crib!) She'll have another bottle around 1:30 for lunch, and around 5pm I give her half a jar of baby food and some sort of desert like mashed fruit, or yogurt. If she's fussing between lunch and dinner I'll give her a bottle of juice as well.

She's growing up so fast it's almost unreal.

11/01/2010

Snow Castle!

Daddy and his brother Steven built Ava a snow castle in the back yard yesterday! They spent 3 hours working on it.

It's kind of funny, two English guys started building an igloo and it turned into a castle. They'd never cut it in Canada!



The Princess Ava in her Snow Castle.



 
It actually went all the way around.



Steven, Ava and Daddy


04/01/2010

New Year Goals

Well, I had 3 big goals for Ava for the start of the new year and only one of them seems to have stuck.

1) Sleep in her own room at night
2) Nap in her crib during the day
3) Three meals of solid food a day

The only one that has actually worked is her sleeping in her own room at night. (I'm happy about this, because it was the most challenging of the three, in my opinion.)

This means for the last 3 nights we've had our bed all to ourselves! I haven't been stuck in the same spot for hours and I can roll onto my tummy and sleep like I used to before I got pregnant - it's been great! The only downside is that I now have to get up when she cries and go sit with her in the other room until she settles down. I only do this when she cries and won't stop though, if she's just wimpering she can usually put herself back to sleep in a couple of minutes.

The only thing that worries me is that she only seems to sleep when she's on her tummy. I know that it's generally recommended not to do this but she just doesn't sleep on her back. I make sure she's not too warm, we don't smoke, she wasn't premature and she can roll over and lift her head up really well so I think she should be alright. I still check on her every couple of hours anyway.

I don't know how to get her to nap during the day though. She really struggles with that one and only sleeps in my arms or in the car. I need to work on it more this week if I can. It's been tough trying to sort out our own sleep schedules because of the jet lag, so it hasn't been to easy to sort hers out either.

As for the 3 meals a day, that one is completely my own fault. It's just so much easier to breastfeed and I've been so tired I haven't bothered to really work on it. I feel better now though so hopefully I'll wake up at a sensible time tomorrow morning and start her off with breakfast.

6 Months!



Once again another month has flown by.

My little Ava Bug is half a year old already!

Merry Christmas!

This year we flew to Canada for Christmas with my family. We had such a nice time and were spoiled by my parents. Unfortunately it went by far to fast and we're now back in the UK.

Ava received so many cute toys and outfits. Her favourite present seems to be a little singing purse that my mom bought for her. She always squeals at it when it starts singing and talking to her, it's very cute.






We arrived on the 20th of December and to be honest I don't really remember the first couple of days. Robbie had to go back to the hospital for some unexpected surgery to repair his pacemaker device because it had slipped and was threatening to come out. He had the surgery on Christmas Eve and was able to come home the same day and celebrated Christmas with us in the morning. :)

On Christmas Eve Graham and Ava and I drove out to Kitchener with my Grandma R to visit my Aunt and Uncle. My parents couldn't make it because they were with my brother in the city but the rest of us had a really nice visit.

On Christmas Day we all drove up to Newmarket to visit my other Aunt and Uncle and we had a big turkey dinner with the whole family.

For Boxing day my mom made another Turkey dinner for just us and the two Grandmas. (By the end of it Graham and I had gained about 10lbs each since we had arrived!)

On the 27th we went to my mom's cousin Adrenne's house for another dinner of roast beef, yorkshire pudding and lots more. I think Graham felt right at home.

We were able to catch up with a few friends as well which was nice but it turned out to be a very busy week! We've had to come back home just to relax from our holiday :)

We spent New Years Eve on the plane flying back to London and we've spent the last 4 days recovering from jet-lag.

I'm missing my family and friends and Canada already and I hope we'll get a chance to go back again soon.