The first year: the fast and slow of it

My baby is one year old. Last weekend we had a big birthday party for him. Because both A and I have big families, almost 50 people came to celebrate with us. It was great to have everyone together, especially having a group of babies to play together. Unfortunately E didn’t last for the whole party and had to take a break for a mini-nap. But he made it back in time for cake (not that he eats it!)

At the party, many people asked me if this year has gone by fast. It has, for the most part. But in some ways it has gone by slow. I expected a lot of things to have happened in this year that haven’t. I assumed E would be sleeping through the night. He’s not. I assumed E would be eating solid food and would be nursing less. He’s not. I thought I would be itching to go back to work. I wasn’t, although I’m getting there now.

It has been a life-changing year for sure. I have experienced some high highs and some low lows. In fact I’ve probably cried more this past year than I had in my life before E was born. But E has also brought a new kind of joy that I had never before experienced.

After a tough first two weeks, E and I mastered our nursing relationship and I’m so proud to have reached the one year mark. My goal is to meet the World Health Organization‘s recommendation to continue breastfeeding up to two years and beyond and I feel like we are on our way.  I never thought I would be an attachment parent and I certainly never thought I would be co-sleeping but my instincts overrode my brain and it was clear that I would not be leaving my baby to cry and I found I actually felt more comfortable having E close by at night (most of the time!) And I feel so lucky to have learned about proper babywearing.  In fact, the back carry in our Beco changed my life.

Learning to parent has definitely had an impact on A`s and my relationship. We are pretty darn happy and overall I think we`ve made it through relatively unscathed, and he is an amazing father. But the new challenges and frustrations that come along with being a parents definitely impacted our relationship some days.

Having E meant that as a family, we are much more in demand and we’ve really made a point of seeing all of E’s grandparents pretty regularly and that has meant a bit less time with some less close friends.

Now we’ve wrapped up E’s first year by buying a new house and selling our condo. E’s second year will be another unique journey with a move, my return to work and all the developments that happen in a child`s second year – which will hopefully include sleeping through the night and eating solid food!

Moving away from complacency: do you know what’s in that?

Ignorance really is bliss. I had never given too much thought to what is in the shampoos and lotions I use on my body. For things like this my motto is usually “life is too short to worry about stuff like that.” And in many ways I still believe that – I don`t want to waste my life away worrying about all the chemicals and other junk I’m exposed to. But now I have a baby and I feel responsible for making some better choices for him.

Before E was born we received some toiletries as shower gifts and we were happy we didn`t have to go out and buy them ourselves. It was one less thing to do. Since then I`ve learned a bit about the kinds of things they put in lotions and shampoos etc, even in baby products.

Now that I`m no longer ignorant I can no longer just go and buy whatever is cheapest and easiest to get as we now just start to run out of the original supply. My first idea was to make some things myself. But to be honest, even in the best of circumstances this is probably more work than I have time for and with the move coming up it`s really not practical right now. So I turned to EWG`s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database to choose products with fewer or no toxic ingredients and placed an order today for some soap, lotion and sunscreen.

Next step is to start looking at the stuff A and I use but at least we`re on our way to one list item.

Choosing a car seat: safety or convenience?

I’m happy to have completed another item from my list. We recently bought E his next car seat. He still fits in his infant bucket seat (just barely) but only has an inch left so it was time to start looking. As usual, I wanted to research the heck out of this decision, to be sure to make a good choice. After all, a car seat plays a big role in child safety. I`d already read about the benefits of rear-facing as long as possible. And then, right as I was doing my research, the American Academy of Pediatrics released new guidelines recommending rear-facing until two years old.

When the new guidelines came out there were a lot of blog posts and articles (here and here are a couple of examples of ones I read) about the new recommendation and some very interesting comments. There were parents who feel like they can make their own decisions for their families who don’t believe the increased safety of rear facing is worth the inconvenience (real or perceived) of their child’s discomfort. Then there is the group of parents that believe that the increase in safety is more than marginal and cannot imagine sacrificing safety for convenience. I’ll be honest, I’m with those parents who value the additional safety. I’m not an expert so here’s a link to a good summary of the benefits of rear-facing, and in response to the safety vs convenience question this part is my favourite:

“Something I hear often is ‘His legs are scrunched up, he must be uncomfortable’ or ‘Won’t his legs be injured that way?’. There has NEVER been a single reported case of hip/leg/foot injury from extended rear-facing. Even if there were…a broken leg is much better than a broken neck.”

That’s why my goal was to find the car seat with the highest rear-facing weight. In Canada the highest I was able to find was to 45 pounds. We chose the Sunshine Kids Radian XT because it has a narrow profile, folds up very compact and has straps on the back that make it easy to transport, which we figure will come in handy when we travel.

Am I too old for this? Not yet

I have three teenage girl cousins and for the last few years, I get them a very small Christmas gift and then take them out for a cousins day/night of fun. Every year I worry that they are not interested because I’m too old and they’re too cool but every year they seem excited and we always have a great time. Usually we try for an activity, a meal and a movie. As the girls get older they get busier and sometimes we can’t fit everything in. This year was tougher for me because it was my first year with E and he’s not quite ready for a babysitter for more than a couple of hours.

But our annual cousins outing was a great success again this year. I dropped E off with my mom (I taught her how to use the Beco so that she could wear E to sleep) and then picked up all three girls.

Our first stop was a drop-in hip hop dance class. I don’t know what I was expecting but this wasn’t it. It was just the four of us and the instructor. It actually was much better this way as we are all novices and this guy is the lead of a competitive dance crew so we would have been totally out of our element otherwise. As the lead of a successful dance team he is always on the look out for new talent. We were really just looking for a fun, one-time outing so I think he was a little disappointed. But he was very patient with us, sharing his philosophy on the meaning and culture of hip hop and starting from the very beginning.

It was a bit awkward for all of us but we had a good workout and had a good time. The instructor’s friend took some video on one of our phones and the girls re-watched the video over and over again throughout the day, laughing at themselves. Frankly I’d be happy to never see that video again!

The four of us then went to gather E from my mom’s and bring him to one of their moms to watch.  My aunt had been (her words) rubbing her hands together in anticipation of watching E so I wanted to make sure to give her that chance. At this point we lost one cousin to her friends and went for sushi. The girls said they were into sushi but I realized when we got there that they aren’t quite as cultured as they make themselves out to be. So I ordered a few different appetizers so they could try some new and different dishes and they enjoyed that so I was happy.

By then I had had enough and was worried E would be done for the day soon so we headed back to get him. He had done very well with my aunt so we hung out there for a while before heading home after another successful cousins day out. Now to think up an idea for next year.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

Well it wasn’t really a rager of party but last weekend we did have a lovely open house with friends and family to celebrate A’s new job as a firefighter.

After spending more than a decade as a cook and chef, my husband got into to a college firefighting program and quit his job to go back to school.  After completing the year-long program he spent another year working in a related field, all the while applying to every department in driving distance and studying every night – even if he didn’t have a test coming up.  All his hard work paid off and while it can take many recruits three or more years to get into a department in our area, A got in just over a year after finishing his program.

I am immensely proud of A for his persistence and hard work and for making this dream come true.  So I wanted to celebrate him and give our friends and family a chance to celebrate him too.  We got some fire truck themed decorations, made a fire truck cake and had ourselves a little get together to mark the occasion.  And now I get to check this action off my list!