Friday was freezing blue skies, lovely. Riles in his marshmallow suit.
Food-fight!
SOMEONE was very excited about the snow. Now sleeping soundly.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Snow day!
I just finished four hours of certification exams, so bear with me for the data dump. I can't decide which is the cutest pic, so am just throwing them all on.
Friday was freezing blue skies, lovely. Riles in his marshmallow suit.
Excited chubby Rags playing bumper cars.
Food-fight!
What with all his toys, we never make a day without the cat food coming down.
Today we woke to a bunch of snow!
SOMEONE was very excited about the snow. Now sleeping soundly.
Riles loved being towed around
... except when he got to ride with mom. fun!
Mellow with dad
Getting tired after a long morning tobogganing. Dad made all kinds of jumps.
Love the blue eyes!
Snug back home checking on the neighbours. This is Riles' favorite spot.
Hi mom!
Too gorgeous. Got a bit camera happy here. Love this boy.
How old are you Riles?
Friday was freezing blue skies, lovely. Riles in his marshmallow suit.
Food-fight!
SOMEONE was very excited about the snow. Now sleeping soundly.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Buddy
This post should have a picture, but I always forget to take them.
I just want to say that Riles is my best buddy. If I go somewhere without him on the weekend, I just wish he were with me. He's such a goof, and its so much fun to see things through his eyes or explain to him, we just chat for hours on end. He's at an easy age where he can play well independently, so you get some time to yourself, but he's still young enough that our silly games are fun, and mellow enough to sit in a high chair banging a wooden stick while I make dinner.
Thanks Riles. You're awesome.
I just want to say that Riles is my best buddy. If I go somewhere without him on the weekend, I just wish he were with me. He's such a goof, and its so much fun to see things through his eyes or explain to him, we just chat for hours on end. He's at an easy age where he can play well independently, so you get some time to yourself, but he's still young enough that our silly games are fun, and mellow enough to sit in a high chair banging a wooden stick while I make dinner.
Thanks Riles. You're awesome.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Playing short
I don't know whether to post this, but when I thought of it like this earlier this week, it made sense to me. Maybe it will to someone else?
The last few months without Matt have been hard. Especially for Rog + Jane, who saw him daily, and for Simon. Matt was just such a big part of Si's life, he still notices every day when he can't call him just to check in, or ask him over to work on something together. There is still a lot of hurt, and questions, but most of all there's a huge hole.
Simon and I have had a very special relationship from the beginning. We knew we were different, and special and lucky in each other. Recently, we found ourselves getting into non-productive patterns in our relationship, and were talking it through the other night. Si kept saying that he's lost such a big part of his team.
And then I got it. In all our lives, we have circles of people supporting us. If we were a sevens team, Matt would have been our fullback. He strategized. He's a finisher, pulling something out of nothing. He always had our backs, when we let something slip through, Matt would cleanup.
Now with him gone we're playing a man down. We're working harder, we're exhausted, and yet we're still not pulling away from the score. Something slips through and each thinks the other had that hole covered. We get annoyed we aren't fitter. We occasionally yell at each other out of frustration. We're used to winning easy, and while we're working harder the scores are worse.
We are learning to communicate clearer, to read the play better, to get fitter and develop new skills that will help to compensate for this hole. We will become stronger than we were before this. Its a process, and I guess that's what healing looks like.
Somehow looking at this as a 7s rugby game helped me to see what we're going through better. To cut us some slack for being short. To just continue playing, not needing the perfect score. To forgive, and correct, and recognize how hard Si is working to be such an amazing husband and father and partner and son in this horrible time. To be sad for him not just for losing his brother, but in the how.
Thank you Simon. And to the rest of the Greatwey team.
The last few months without Matt have been hard. Especially for Rog + Jane, who saw him daily, and for Simon. Matt was just such a big part of Si's life, he still notices every day when he can't call him just to check in, or ask him over to work on something together. There is still a lot of hurt, and questions, but most of all there's a huge hole.
Simon and I have had a very special relationship from the beginning. We knew we were different, and special and lucky in each other. Recently, we found ourselves getting into non-productive patterns in our relationship, and were talking it through the other night. Si kept saying that he's lost such a big part of his team.
And then I got it. In all our lives, we have circles of people supporting us. If we were a sevens team, Matt would have been our fullback. He strategized. He's a finisher, pulling something out of nothing. He always had our backs, when we let something slip through, Matt would cleanup.
Now with him gone we're playing a man down. We're working harder, we're exhausted, and yet we're still not pulling away from the score. Something slips through and each thinks the other had that hole covered. We get annoyed we aren't fitter. We occasionally yell at each other out of frustration. We're used to winning easy, and while we're working harder the scores are worse.
We are learning to communicate clearer, to read the play better, to get fitter and develop new skills that will help to compensate for this hole. We will become stronger than we were before this. Its a process, and I guess that's what healing looks like.
Somehow looking at this as a 7s rugby game helped me to see what we're going through better. To cut us some slack for being short. To just continue playing, not needing the perfect score. To forgive, and correct, and recognize how hard Si is working to be such an amazing husband and father and partner and son in this horrible time. To be sad for him not just for losing his brother, but in the how.
Thank you Simon. And to the rest of the Greatwey team.
Playdate
We're enjoying the blue skies cold in Vancouver, although -17' tomorrow morning will be interesting. I'm enjoying lots of cuddles from Tiger.
Some photos from our playdate earlier this week - thanks Si for organizing! TWO sets of twins came, both moms were called Jenny, and they were each born a week on either side of Riles. Twin parents are rediculously organized... both sets wore matching clothes and I felt guilty that we'd just changed Riles out of his PJs minutes before people arrived.
Playdate
My boys
Si and Riles were in Tsawassen yesterday while I was on the island. Riles has such a special place for his nana, its wonderful. When I took this pic he was just so happy, at home on her shoulder.
Some photos from our playdate earlier this week - thanks Si for organizing! TWO sets of twins came, both moms were called Jenny, and they were each born a week on either side of Riles. Twin parents are rediculously organized... both sets wore matching clothes and I felt guilty that we'd just changed Riles out of his PJs minutes before people arrived.
Playdate
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Sun/Snow
The last three days are the glorious mid-feb freezing blue skies type, made even better by the absolute dumping of snow on Friday. Wonderful.
Si was off fishing, so Riles and I took Rachel (french friend) on a bit of a tour to the lynn valley suspension bridge (Tenge is a woes and just lies flat on his tummy, all paws fighting getting on the bridge), and then showshoeing up cypress. Perfect day.
Photos soon.
Random: my last thing I do every night before I go to sleep is to see Riles and just feel him breathing. Haven't missed any nights but for travel. It makes me so happy/peaceful. He's growing up so fast. I'm going to miss my little baby while I revel in his new tricks.
Si was off fishing, so Riles and I took Rachel (french friend) on a bit of a tour to the lynn valley suspension bridge (Tenge is a woes and just lies flat on his tummy, all paws fighting getting on the bridge), and then showshoeing up cypress. Perfect day.
Photos soon.
Random: my last thing I do every night before I go to sleep is to see Riles and just feel him breathing. Haven't missed any nights but for travel. It makes me so happy/peaceful. He's growing up so fast. I'm going to miss my little baby while I revel in his new tricks.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Party!
We celebrated Riley's first birthday today with some wonderful friends, and just the right number of beautiful kids.
How old are you turning, Riles?
So I think everyone else here got the photo of him + cake + pointing #1... except us. Roger's got it covered though!
The push wagon was the hit of the party (thanks Dad).
How old are you turning, Riles?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Smiles
Photos of Riles on his birthday
These are BEFORE the shots pictures.
Actually, he's such a trooper he was gorgeous after the shots too.
Aren't we lucky for such a wonderful boy?
These are BEFORE the shots pictures.
Actually, he's such a trooper he was gorgeous after the shots too.
Aren't we lucky for such a wonderful boy?
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Birthday
One year ago today... crazy. Happy Birthday Riles! We're enjoying the calm before the toddler birthday storm.
Mean mom even organized for his shots today. Four of them. Poor kid. Fortunately the immunization clinic is in the same building as my office, so Riles got a cuddle and a feed afterwards. Dad made up for my faux-pas by taking rags to the pool, always a hit!
Unfortunately both Riles and I are now sick though, nothing is staying down. So off to bed, I'll do this occasion better justice another day.
Mean mom even organized for his shots today. Four of them. Poor kid. Fortunately the immunization clinic is in the same building as my office, so Riles got a cuddle and a feed afterwards. Dad made up for my faux-pas by taking rags to the pool, always a hit!
Unfortunately both Riles and I are now sick though, nothing is staying down. So off to bed, I'll do this occasion better justice another day.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Birth story
I promised that I would write this for my memories before Riley turned one. Procrastination - check.
Unless you are actually 8 months pregnant, this will likely bore you or gross you out - so skip it.
On the weekend two weeks before Riley's due date I had some 'braxton hicks' (first of the pregnancy) and Riles was sunny side up. They were quite painful in the lower back. No fun. Especially Monday at work. I remember telling Si that if this was the pre-labour, get me an epi the second they will let us! Our neighbour mentioned her acupuncturist may help, so I saw him at lunch on the Monday and as I got up off the table, the baby turned. Much better.
I was on a conference call at 4pm when I realized that this may actually be labour. Since Riles was early, I still had a ton of emails and work to do so jumped off the call and desperately tried to wrap up some customer issues. Then we went for a walk with the dogs, and by this time I was having full on contractions, although still pretty far apart. Got back around 6pm and it was pretty intense. Did some more emails to distract me, then couldn't concentrate any more so just focused on getting this baby out.
We went to prenatal class and heard the average of 27 hours for first time labour, so I figured this would be a long haul. Our instructor had also done this little skit of what is pre labour vs. "real" labour. Basically she'd moan and groan, then pretend to be hubby offering juice and if the mom acknowledged the husband talking in any way, it was prelabour, regardless of the performance. During "real" labour, she would be in la-la land and wouldn't even hear the husband.
This is where it gets funny. It there was a single word to describe our labour, that would be it. My favorite podcast is 'wait wait don't tell me', and comedy news quiz, and anticipating a 30 hour labour we'd saved up four weeks worth of shows. So I'm busy having contractions listening to the show and wondering why on earth I hadn't got the nesting urge so the house wouldn't be such a mess. Si's the calm and prepared type, so insisted on timing each contraction and writing it down on his clipboard. Poor men, I guess that stopwatch and clipboard is all they have.
I jumped in the shower to break up the time - my contractions were only 15 seconds long, and I remember thinking - okay, I'm an hour in and this is tough! and promising myself if I showered every two hours I would only need to take 12 showers and the average labour would be over.
In the shower my water broke, and it got pretty intense. Okay, so this was for real... until this point I still hadnt grasped this was actually it. Si wrote the time down on the damn clipboard. 6:47. At this stage I was still only around 15 seconds contractions, so Si was hesitating to call the midwife. He kept "juice or water?" ing me - to test if I was in labour - and I remember laughing in my head of frustrating at our stupid prenatal class. Do I moan and ignore him in the hopes that he'll believe me? I would yell "Quit testing me and give me some bloody water!". Finally, after some choice vocabulary from yours truly, Si called our midwife and was reading to her my contraction history excruciatingly slowly, when she heard me, said "is that her? I'm on my way". Hallelujiah!
The comedy continued as I asked for a bucket and alternated 2 seconds bent over it, two seconds sitting on it (?). I didn't know what was going on but knew something was coming out of somewhere and I needed something to catch it in.
Still no contractions longer than 30 seconds, but they were coming quickly. I still thought I had twenty something hours of this left.
Our midwife showed up, got walked through the clipboard again, and then wanted to check me, and I remember thinking 'please let me be more than 2cm'. By this stage I was calm. I wanted to be far enough along to be allowed to the hospital, but at the same time couldn't even think about sitting still in the car. It was also pretty funny as she walked in and this comedy show is playing. I guess she's more used to the enya / mozart scene.
As she came to check me I remember hearing wimpering sounds, and asked her if she'd brought her dog with her. She then responded that that would be my lovely baby whose head had now appeared. What? The rest of him followed quickly and I remember thinking that I had never seen anything so small (he was 8'6, but before Riley I was more interested in puppies than babies, so he was way smaller than random kids I see in the street). He was quite beat up for the quick journey and I was worried he didn't have eyes. I must have asked five times. Of course, at this moment my grandmother called to chat, and Si answered the phone to tell her she was now a great-granny! Yes, Si answered the phone before the full body was out.
My gran then called my parents in South Africa, who sent out a mass email, including to my mothers old college roommate in Seychelt who happened to be playing on the computer while talking on the phone to her daughter, who I didn't know but had gone to McGill with my friend Colleen. She promptly called Colleen and Coll called us - all before the placenta came out. Oh, and she told me that it was a boy - a total shock to me - I was so convinced it was a girl that I hadn't even thought to check but Si had told my gran. Crazy stuff, this web of people.
The midwife did all the normal checks and Riles was doing great. BTW, I played Rugby with her at UBC years ago, small world. Leslie is one of those ridiculously calm people, great to have around when she's telling you you've actually delivered your baby and you are asking how many cm you are. Quite surreal. The whole thing was done by 7:30. She showed us breastfeeding, I had a shower, she threw on a load of laundry, Si's parents and brother came over to meet him and we were all snug in bed by 10:30 and slept through to 6am with him in the bassinet beside the bed. Quite a shock in the morning, I can honestly say I couldn't figure out what that squeaking noise was and likely told Simon to let the dogs out to go pee.
So - we had a natural home birth. Hadn't planned on it, although we went to an info session since it was during the olympics and we were worried about traffic. Of course, I'm now an advocate - imagine getting eight hours uninterrupted sleep in a hospital! More importantly, I wanted to avoid a c-section (recovery sucks) and the hospitals seem so geared to this path. I felt great immediately afterward, walking in our forest as soon as they would let me, and pretty much rode the high until the breastfeeding challenges caused Riles to lose too much weight. But those ups and downs are already well documented in the blog a year ago. While I joke about Simon's clipboard, he was an absolute trooper and a gem, and he has the hip-squeeze down pat. I was initially concerned midwives would be froo-froo and really only went this route as I'd heard good things and I didn't have a family doctor; however anyone who's met Leslie - a rock-solid prop - would tremble at the idea of froo-froo. We are really happy with our decision to go midwife. BTW, home births are not unusual in canada, its not like the states, just FYI for any yanks reading this, its not as crazy as you think it is.
There we go. One hour to Riles' birthday and its written down. I met my promise.
Amazing how much love can grow for this little guy in just one year. That little 8lb squish-ball moved my world.
We love you Riles!
Unless you are actually 8 months pregnant, this will likely bore you or gross you out - so skip it.
On the weekend two weeks before Riley's due date I had some 'braxton hicks' (first of the pregnancy) and Riles was sunny side up. They were quite painful in the lower back. No fun. Especially Monday at work. I remember telling Si that if this was the pre-labour, get me an epi the second they will let us! Our neighbour mentioned her acupuncturist may help, so I saw him at lunch on the Monday and as I got up off the table, the baby turned. Much better.
I was on a conference call at 4pm when I realized that this may actually be labour. Since Riles was early, I still had a ton of emails and work to do so jumped off the call and desperately tried to wrap up some customer issues. Then we went for a walk with the dogs, and by this time I was having full on contractions, although still pretty far apart. Got back around 6pm and it was pretty intense. Did some more emails to distract me, then couldn't concentrate any more so just focused on getting this baby out.
We went to prenatal class and heard the average of 27 hours for first time labour, so I figured this would be a long haul. Our instructor had also done this little skit of what is pre labour vs. "real" labour. Basically she'd moan and groan, then pretend to be hubby offering juice and if the mom acknowledged the husband talking in any way, it was prelabour, regardless of the performance. During "real" labour, she would be in la-la land and wouldn't even hear the husband.
This is where it gets funny. It there was a single word to describe our labour, that would be it. My favorite podcast is 'wait wait don't tell me', and comedy news quiz, and anticipating a 30 hour labour we'd saved up four weeks worth of shows. So I'm busy having contractions listening to the show and wondering why on earth I hadn't got the nesting urge so the house wouldn't be such a mess. Si's the calm and prepared type, so insisted on timing each contraction and writing it down on his clipboard. Poor men, I guess that stopwatch and clipboard is all they have.
I jumped in the shower to break up the time - my contractions were only 15 seconds long, and I remember thinking - okay, I'm an hour in and this is tough! and promising myself if I showered every two hours I would only need to take 12 showers and the average labour would be over.
In the shower my water broke, and it got pretty intense. Okay, so this was for real... until this point I still hadnt grasped this was actually it. Si wrote the time down on the damn clipboard. 6:47. At this stage I was still only around 15 seconds contractions, so Si was hesitating to call the midwife. He kept "juice or water?" ing me - to test if I was in labour - and I remember laughing in my head of frustrating at our stupid prenatal class. Do I moan and ignore him in the hopes that he'll believe me? I would yell "Quit testing me and give me some bloody water!". Finally, after some choice vocabulary from yours truly, Si called our midwife and was reading to her my contraction history excruciatingly slowly, when she heard me, said "is that her? I'm on my way". Hallelujiah!
The comedy continued as I asked for a bucket and alternated 2 seconds bent over it, two seconds sitting on it (?). I didn't know what was going on but knew something was coming out of somewhere and I needed something to catch it in.
Still no contractions longer than 30 seconds, but they were coming quickly. I still thought I had twenty something hours of this left.
Our midwife showed up, got walked through the clipboard again, and then wanted to check me, and I remember thinking 'please let me be more than 2cm'. By this stage I was calm. I wanted to be far enough along to be allowed to the hospital, but at the same time couldn't even think about sitting still in the car. It was also pretty funny as she walked in and this comedy show is playing. I guess she's more used to the enya / mozart scene.
As she came to check me I remember hearing wimpering sounds, and asked her if she'd brought her dog with her. She then responded that that would be my lovely baby whose head had now appeared. What? The rest of him followed quickly and I remember thinking that I had never seen anything so small (he was 8'6, but before Riley I was more interested in puppies than babies, so he was way smaller than random kids I see in the street). He was quite beat up for the quick journey and I was worried he didn't have eyes. I must have asked five times. Of course, at this moment my grandmother called to chat, and Si answered the phone to tell her she was now a great-granny! Yes, Si answered the phone before the full body was out.
My gran then called my parents in South Africa, who sent out a mass email, including to my mothers old college roommate in Seychelt who happened to be playing on the computer while talking on the phone to her daughter, who I didn't know but had gone to McGill with my friend Colleen. She promptly called Colleen and Coll called us - all before the placenta came out. Oh, and she told me that it was a boy - a total shock to me - I was so convinced it was a girl that I hadn't even thought to check but Si had told my gran. Crazy stuff, this web of people.
The midwife did all the normal checks and Riles was doing great. BTW, I played Rugby with her at UBC years ago, small world. Leslie is one of those ridiculously calm people, great to have around when she's telling you you've actually delivered your baby and you are asking how many cm you are. Quite surreal. The whole thing was done by 7:30. She showed us breastfeeding, I had a shower, she threw on a load of laundry, Si's parents and brother came over to meet him and we were all snug in bed by 10:30 and slept through to 6am with him in the bassinet beside the bed. Quite a shock in the morning, I can honestly say I couldn't figure out what that squeaking noise was and likely told Simon to let the dogs out to go pee.
So - we had a natural home birth. Hadn't planned on it, although we went to an info session since it was during the olympics and we were worried about traffic. Of course, I'm now an advocate - imagine getting eight hours uninterrupted sleep in a hospital! More importantly, I wanted to avoid a c-section (recovery sucks) and the hospitals seem so geared to this path. I felt great immediately afterward, walking in our forest as soon as they would let me, and pretty much rode the high until the breastfeeding challenges caused Riles to lose too much weight. But those ups and downs are already well documented in the blog a year ago. While I joke about Simon's clipboard, he was an absolute trooper and a gem, and he has the hip-squeeze down pat. I was initially concerned midwives would be froo-froo and really only went this route as I'd heard good things and I didn't have a family doctor; however anyone who's met Leslie - a rock-solid prop - would tremble at the idea of froo-froo. We are really happy with our decision to go midwife. BTW, home births are not unusual in canada, its not like the states, just FYI for any yanks reading this, its not as crazy as you think it is.
There we go. One hour to Riles' birthday and its written down. I met my promise.
Amazing how much love can grow for this little guy in just one year. That little 8lb squish-ball moved my world.
We love you Riles!
Almost
I can't believe Rags is almost one! That used to sound so grown up.. He's going through a changing spurt - suddenly his shoulder blades and spine stick out, he demands more independence (feeding himself for example) and his little personality is just shining on through. He's growing out of my little baby to become a little boy.
I don't know if I'm ready.
Other randoms:
Riles is now sleeping often through the night (I define that until 5am)... what a treat. Either way wake-ups are no longer a huge battle, so I'm glad we stuck it out. It was probably about two weeks of gong show in all, not something we want to repeat. Now we don't even have to pick him up, we can just come talk with him until he decides he wants to sleep (a few minutes) and then put him down. What's with tired kids standing? Were we to do this over, I'd figure out the sleep thing before crawling and standing.
My computer at work is shot and it took IT a week to decide to ship it back for reformatting, so I'm pretty much SOL trying to use web outlook while the work piles up. So frustrating. Oh, and when they were trying to fix my computer they accidentally deleted my inbox off the server. Big trouble.
Simon and Riles are thriving. Si continues to be the hit of the moms group and we've met many other families nearby. Si's sorting out next year's plans ... stay tuned.
Shopping at Ikea for our new wardrobe... which ended up being 'customized' as it was two cm too tall for our room! Fun stuff. Riles loves the people and activity.
Darn I'm cute
Peek-a-boo!
Where's Riley!?
Playdates with Mads
Auntie Gail
He loves his new blocks from Nana. Unfortunately Riles inherited his coordination from mom.
Feeding yourself - its messy stuff.
See how hes growing up?
So many adventures
Hiking on the weekend in a rain-free minute. We have such wonderful trails in Vancouver!
Tandeborsel
The toothbrush always tastes better when its someone else's.
I don't know if I'm ready.
Other randoms:
Riles is now sleeping often through the night (I define that until 5am)... what a treat. Either way wake-ups are no longer a huge battle, so I'm glad we stuck it out. It was probably about two weeks of gong show in all, not something we want to repeat. Now we don't even have to pick him up, we can just come talk with him until he decides he wants to sleep (a few minutes) and then put him down. What's with tired kids standing? Were we to do this over, I'd figure out the sleep thing before crawling and standing.
My computer at work is shot and it took IT a week to decide to ship it back for reformatting, so I'm pretty much SOL trying to use web outlook while the work piles up. So frustrating. Oh, and when they were trying to fix my computer they accidentally deleted my inbox off the server. Big trouble.
Simon and Riles are thriving. Si continues to be the hit of the moms group and we've met many other families nearby. Si's sorting out next year's plans ... stay tuned.
Shopping at Ikea for our new wardrobe... which ended up being 'customized' as it was two cm too tall for our room! Fun stuff. Riles loves the people and activity.
Peek-a-boo!
Where's Riley!?
Playdates with Mads
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