Growing, growing...

Wow! If our analytics program works at all, it would seem as though a whole whack of people have been looking at the blog recently! Therefore, I will fulfill my end of the bargain, and keep putting new posts up of all the stuff I'd been meaning to blog about over the last month. And what better way to do it than today, the 30th of October - Juniper's 3 month birthday. Happy birthday, Juniper! It's also the day before Hallowe'en, which means we have Juniper in one of a few great Hallowe'en-y outfits that people have given her. She is currently sporting a top from Faye (which, if you can't read it, says "This IS my costume"), and some candy corn pants from Carroll. Stylish, as always!


I know the old adage about how quickly babies grow, yadda yadda, but honestly, I wouldn't believe it if i didn't see it with my own eyes. Juniper had her first doctor's appointment last week (she had previously been going to midwives), and it was the first time in over a month that she had been weighed and measured. She came in the 95th percentile for both weight and height, at 14 lbs, 24.5 inches. I think Clark and I must be getting progressively stronger as Juniper gets progressively heavier.

When she came back from Fredericton (which was almost a month ago, now) we realized that in the week we had been gone, Juniper had literally outgrown her bassinet. Check out the picture of her in the bassinet the day she came home, and then the day we moved her out of it (almost a month ago now).



So what this meant was that she was now ready for the crib - whether I was ready to have her in there or not! The crib had been set up in her own bedroom, but after hemming and hawing, I realized that I was not ready to sleep in a different room from her. Not yet, anyway. So after a day of moving things around and disassembling and reassembling her crib, we finally got everything set up so that she now sleeps in her crib in our bedroom. I hadn't decorated, of course, (all the decorations are in her nursery), so we bought some glow-in-the-dark planets and stars and put them over her crib. While she looked huge in her too-small bassinet, she now looks just teeny-tiny in her crib:


She's still an absolute angel to put to bed - we can lay her down fully awake, and she'll suck herself to sleep without complaint. She's still waking up on average 3 times a night, but it's a very small ordeal - wake up, feed her, and lay her back down. None of the diaper changing and rocking back to sleep that used to happen. At around 6am, she usually decides she's had enough of her crib, but is happy to sleep for awhile longer between her mom and dad. I understand how lucky we are with the whole sleep thing, and I also acknowledge how quickly things can change. But for now, it's wonderful!



Juniper is also developing such a strong personality! She has always been very alert for an infant, but now she just takes everything in all the time that she's awake. She's been figuring out her hands, and will grab at things and hold onto them, and apparently (though I wasn't here to see it), she rolled from her tummy onto her back the other day!! And boy, does she enjoy chatting. She chats with her friends (the dangling toys that hang from her playmat and her bud, Mr. Lion), and most of all she chats with me and Clark (and whomever else is visiting when she's in a chatty mood). I don't even mean that she makes cooing noises - I think she's actually chatting. Here's a video I took the other day.

OK, that's enough for now, but I'll post again in the next couple of days. I'm on a roll!

October visits!

Well, it's been almost a month since we got back from Fredericton, and I have hit that awkward stage where I have all these things that I have been meaning to post about, but there are now enough of them that I feel stymied every time I sit down to write. Where do I start? Do I try to post chronologically? By event? Do I smush everything into one post, or just string it out over a week, or what? Well, folks, I don't know the answer to that question yet, but at least I have now officially started the process. (This picture has nothing to do with anything, really, except that I wanted an excuse to put it in):

So... let's see. Why not start with some visits? People meeting Juniper for the first time is always important to post about, AND there are always pictures to go along with it! Shortly after getting back from Fredericton, my cousin Julia and her significant other, Riley, stopped by for a visit. Although they live in Halifax, they are both ridiculously busy (med and law students, respectively), and Julia had been fighting a cold for awhile, and (very nicely) didn't want to pass on her germs. So this was the first time either of them had actually met Juniper in person. As you can see from the photo, Juniper was quite tickled by the visit!


Another first time visitor was our friend Lydia, who we grew up with in Fredericton. It was a lovely visit, except that it was unfortunately timed with what I believe was a growth spurt on Juniper's part - that is, in was in the middle of a good week of cranky-pants-edness. poor Lydia would try and hold Juniper, and she would only stand for it for a couple of minutes at a time before she turned on the crank. This was one of the only pictures I managed to snap where Juniper wasn't crying - a good one except for the unfortunate placement of two tines of our hanging star above Lydia's head, giving her lovely purple horns. Ah well.

A very special visitor this month was our dear friend Judith, who came all the way from Manitoba to meet her honourary niece. Although we missed seeing Simon (Judith's husband), who was not able to get the time off of work, it was a huge treat to be able to spend some good solid time with Judith. Juniper obviously adored Judith, and essentially just smiled at her all weekend long. As you can see from the picture, they even have very similar taste - one morning, Judith and Juniper found that they had quite coincidentally worn the same leg warmers! How embarrassing :) We went on nice long walks, made some yummy meals, stayed up far too late chatting, watched a movie... essentially all the things we used to love doing when we lived in St. John's together, except with a new little addition to the festivities.


Finally, both Juniper and I got to meet Brent (my sister Faye's significant other), for the first time last weekend (Clark had already met Brent on a couple of occasions). Faye and Brent came up to Halifax for the Pop Explosion, and seeing as my parents were also visiting, Carroll and Stephen very generously invited everyone over for dinner on Saturday night. Faye was, unfortunately, quite sick with a cold, and seeing as Brent was quite possibly contaminated as well, neither of them were actually allowed to hold Juniper (what stickler parents she has!) Thus the rather funny picture of Faye and Brent with Juniper hovering in the background in my mother's arms.


And.... well, that's all for new visitors, I guess, although we did have a lovely visit with my parents last weekend - they came up so that Clark and I could go to a concert one evening (more on that later), but mom and Juniper and I especially had some fun times doing things like snuggling (mostly mom and Juniper snuggling, that is), making clothes (more on that later as well), and we went on an especially lovely walk in Point Pleasant Park on Monday before mom and dad left for Fredericton.


Also, Clark's sister Theresa came to Halifax for a visit for the Thanksgiving long weekend, which was quite lovely. We hung out, went for walks, visited coffee shops, and prepared a nice Thanksgiving meal that we shared with our next door neighbours (/landlords) Erika and Wesley.


Whew! I think that is quite enough to constitute a blog post all on its own. Stay tuned though - I actually have a bunch more to post about, and now that I've broken the seal, I'll probably be updating pretty regularly in the coming week or so.

Her first Autumn, and pictures to prove it.

Hi everyone. This post is in response to some nagging (er, reminding) that we've been getting from people far away from us that it's been awhile since we added any photos to our Picasa album. And we like to listen to those people from far away. So check out the two new albums for lots of pictures from our recent trip to Fredericton, and from the rest of this lovely October here in Halifax.

http://picasaweb.google.com/clark.richards

Fredericton, Part 2: All the other stuff

So, apart from all of the new important people Juniper met in Fredericton (see the previous post: "Fredericton, part 1"), this trip was noteworthy in many other respects as well. This was in large part because it was our first real trip... that meant the first extended time for Juniper in the car, the first time we slept away from home, the first time we had to pick and choose which clothes and baby stuff that would be necessary to have with us... obviously a big deal for all of us.

Packing was a wee bit chaotic. There were multiple lists involved, WAY more bags than I even considered possible, and by the time everything was packed in, you could hardly see Juniper. (that's maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much). Finally, we strategically fed Juniper, then got into the car, started on the road, and held our breath. We needn't have worried; she was a perfect angel. She didn't even sleep the whole time - in fact, for half of it, she was wide awake and just keeping herself amused, either by talking to her friend, Mr. Lion (the following picture captures them mid-conversation), or sucking on her thumb and checking herself out in the baby mirror.
We made it to Sackville, and then stopped to see Clark's sister, Theresa, and have a late lunch. We spent a couple of hours visiting, Juniper ate again, and then we hit the road for another completely serene stretch from Sackville to Fredericton. Amazing!

Very shortly after arriving at my parent's house, however, Juniper finally had a meltdown. You could hardly blame her... she was a perfect angel for the whole day, and the at the end of it, instead of being in her own house and her own bed (with all her own smells), we were in this completely strange environment. Very unsettling! Finally, however, she settled down, and we all collapsed into bed. We set up camp in my parent's room (they were still in Vancouver), with Juniper between me and Clark in her little co-sleeper bed. We had opted not to bring Juniper's bassinet, as it took up too much space, and figured it would be fine for a week of all three of us in the same bed. That first night proved us wrong. We had used the co-sleeper pretty regularly up until that point, but only in the mornings, for the hour or two between when Juniper was not interested in going back into her own bed, and we weren't interested in getting up for the day. We had never used it for the whole night. So, while Juniper slept relatively well, Clark and I tossed and turned, trying not to fall out of bed.

We were unsure of how to solve the problem, but Clark's step-mom, Barb, saved the day by suggesting we borrow their foldable play pen. We set it up at the end of the bed, and put Juniper's little co-sleeper in the bottom of it. Although I had to get over the initial weirdness of not having Juniper directly beside me, we ended up all sleeping very well from that point on. Luckily for us, even after my parents got back from BC, they let us stay in their room, as we had everything set up so nicely, with a change station in the next room over, so it all worked very smoothly.

As was evident from the last post, much of our Fredericton time was spent taking Juniper around to meet people, or having visitors come over to my parent's place to visit us. I had planned on taking Juniper out for lots of beautiful fall walks (one of my favourite things to do in Fredericton), but alas, most days were cold and rainy. Faye joined the three of us on one of the rare nice days, however, to go apple picking, which was a very nice fall-y thing to do.




We also ended up having relatively decent weather for our trip to Clark's grandparent's farm, as well, which meant that Clark and his dad were able to go for a sail, and Juniper and mom and I were able to go for a leisurely walk along the grounds (mom came with us, mainly, I think, so that she didn't miss a day of Juniper time. She and Juniper chatted the whole way there and back in the back of the car).


The other highlight of the trip was the shower that Sue McLeod threw for us, mostly with women from the neighbourhood - some of whom I've known my whole life; others that had moved in since I had moved out, and therefore I was meeting for the first time. I was apprehensive about how Juniper would behave - it only started at 7pm, which is pretty late for her, and I had this vision of her being a real crankypants the whole time. But I dressed her up in her nice party dress that I had been saving for the occasion (a beautiful gift from my supervisor, Diane), and put on her teal blue ruffled leg warmers, and we set off.


Almost immediately upon arriving, Juniper started to howl. I could hardly blame her - it was a huge influx of noise and energy (directed almost entirely at her) as soon as we opened the door. Mom took her to another room to try and quiet her down, but Juniper just screeched louder. So I came in to intervene, and I swear, it was like magic - only a couple of minutes of walking around with her snuggled in close to my chest, and she was happy. We returned to the party, and after having a bit more snuggle time with me, she was a perfect angel for the rest of the night. She was even fine with getting passed around to everyone at the party. I was amazed!

While Juniper was getting passed around, I opened gifts. I was just blown away by everyone's generosity. We got some absolutely adorable clothes, most of which she will have to grow into , which is great. The 12 months and beyond range is where her wardrobe is the most sparse right now, so this filled in the gaps nicely. Cathy Baker made a beautiful quilt for Juniper - apparently, she had made a boy's one first, and then had to start a girl's one as soon as Juniper was born! (for the record, I had told her my motherly intuition was pointing towards girl, but apparently she didn't trust my intuition!)

We also got some beautiful Waleda bath and skin care products (the only products I trust on Juniper for now, so that was great!), some nice books (always a welcome present), a great warm zippered thing for the stroller, which will be perfect for this colder weather, and various other wonderful and useful items like toys and a sippy cup and bath stuff. A really neat present from Sue were these labels with Juniper's name, that I can put on whatever I'd like, and are dishwasher safe etc. Very neat! One particularly thoughtful and wonderful gift was from Kathy Hicks, who got us a Juniper tree! This was something I had been wanted to get ever since Juniper was born, but of course never got the chance. I am so thrilled to have it! My mother planted it in her garden for now, and we will unearth it and plant it whenever we are someplace a little more permanent.

Anyway, I'm sure I could go on and on with other details, but this post is now ridiculously long, and I'm tired (and fighting off a cold, I think), so I will leave that as the end of our Fredericton chronicles. Stay tuned for more (non-Fredericton) stuff, coming at you soon! Also stay tuned for a Fredericton Picasa album, which we'll post in the next day or two.

Fredericton, part 1: Juniper meets new people!

OK, it's been an embarrassingly long time since we've posted. It's my fault, really - I offered to let Clark be responsible for the Fredericton blog post. Obviously, a big mistake - one that I now have to rectify. Fredericton seems like eons ago now, and there are so many other interesting little things to chat about that have happened since then, but I will take a deep breath, back track, and try to fill in the details somewhat chronologically. For those patient (and some impatient!) people who follow this blog on a semi-regular basis, I do apologize for the silence, but the upside is that there will be a bunch of posts in quick succession, I promise.

So, Fredericton. I'm sure most people know this, but Fredericton NB is where Clark and I grew up, and where most of our immediate and extended family members live. It is a beautiful city, and it's always lovely to visit, but it can be ridiculously crazy to try and fit everything in, and to see everyone we want to see, especially around holiday season. I couldn't even fathom trying to do this and add Juniper into the mix as well. However, we knew it was important to make a Fredericton visit, especially because there were a bunch of people who still had not met Juniper, and were not likely to get to Halifax in the next little while. So we strategically planned a visit around a plain old ordinary week - no holidays to work around, no multiple dinners and gatherings to try and juggle, no stressing about presents and such. Just trying to make sure everyone who needed or wanted to got to spend time with Juniper.

There are many interesting things about this trip to talk about, so I think I'll break it into sections. Perhaps this first one will purely be a quick and dirty photo montage of all the new and important people that Juniper met while she was there.

On my side of the family, my sister Kelli and her family (Jamie, her husband, and their three kids, Sawyer, Ethan and Ali) were especially excited to meet Juniper. Unfortunately, both times we went over (once for a lovely dinner/birthday party for Clark, and another just random evening visit), Juniper was a *bit* of a cranky pants. But at least she let everyone hold her (albeit very briefly, in some cases!)

Also meeting Juniper for the first time was my brother Paul's family (Linda, and their kids, David and Taylor). Unfortunately, Paul was away on business, but everyone else got some quality Juniper time. Lucky for them, Juniper decided to be a perfect angel for this visit, and happily let Linda hold her for a nice long time.


Another first-time visit from my side of the family was my cousin Maria and my aunt Annie, who came by to meet Juniper. I have to give props to Maria, who sent me an email very shortly before Juniper's birth, predicting a little red-headed girl. She was right!

Finally, we took Juniper to visit my grandmother, Doris. I wasn't sure how this visit would go, as Doris is in very advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease, and certainly would not know who I was, let alone understand who Juniper is in relation to her. However, when we got there, Doris was absolutely delighted to meet Juniper, and was very very interested to see her and to hold her, and repeatedly commented on how lovely she was. Clark was even able to snap a quick 4 generation photograph. Even if Doris does not remember the visit, I am thrilled that Juniper was able to meet her great-grandmother, and to provide even a few minutes of happiness in Doris' day.
On Clark's side of the family, there were only a few people who met Juniper for the first time on this visit. The first was Patrick, Elizabeth's husband (ie, our brother-in-law). Although it took a few different tries at a few different gatherings, we finally got Pat to hold Juniper ;) As it turned out, they got on famously - Juniper seemed fascinated with him!

Also of import was a trip we took to Oak Point, which is where Clark's paternal grandparents live, on their huge, beautiful farm. This was the first time either of them got to meet Juniper, so it was really lovely that we had the time to go down for a nice long, leisurely afternoon. It's pretty amazing that Juniper has so many great-grandparents!

More than just family members, Juniper also met some of our good friends when we were down. We had a lovely visit on Sunday afternoon with our friend Christie, who invited the three of us over to her house. Juniper was obviously a big fan of Christie, as she happily hung out in Christie's arms for most of the visit!

Our friend Meghan also came by to meet Juniper while we were home, which was wonderful! Altough she wasn't able to snag as much one-on-one time (she was in direct competition with both my mom and Clark's step-mother, Barb), she at least got to have a nice extended visit over supper.

Finally, Juniper got to meet a whole load of people all at once right before we left, as Sue McLeod, one of our oldest and dearest neighbours, threw Juniper a spectacular shower. More details on that later, but certainly it was the most new people Juniper had ever met before all at the same time. I'll post more pictures later in a picasa album, but here are a couple of samples from the party - one with Sue McLeod, Cathy Baker, and Kathy Hicks (all neighbours of my parents for as long as I can remember), and one with Kati Koller (mother of Zsofi, Kata, and Agi - and of course, my second mother growing up, as I was over at the Koller house all the time!)


Whew - that seems like an incredibly long post, and I only just scratched the surface! But at least I got to post a lot of the "new people" shots that I had been wanting to. More to come soon!