I have not been that motivated to put my thoughts into writing lately. But this is me forcing myself to write, just because I know how fast the time flies by. One of my close friends asked how old Kaia was when she started holding her head up....sheesh I can’t answer that I don’t remember...tear tear. It was only a short time ago and I already can’t remember. I feel like Kaia has matured so much now that she is sleeping on her own terms. I feel like it is kind of like she doesn’t need me as much. I mean of course she needs me still but there is one less thing she needs me for. I know that this is the is just one of the many things she will begin to do herself. I do have to say yet again that I am so happy with her falling asleep on her own now. The first few nights of her crying was so worth the many more hours of sleep I am getting. Kaia has just yipped herself to sleep for her second nap of the day. The snowflakes that I see falling outside are so depressing. I have now hit that point of telling winter to screw the hell off. I am so ready for spring. Erick and I went for a walk with Kaia and Bruce Lee last night. It was -4 which is a definite improvement compared to what it has been. I swear I almost got frost bite on my legs. I was angry the dam weather can seriously piss off! I just want to enjoy the fresh air without having to bundle and bundle and bundle.
  This weekend is the annual bonspiel here in Elkford. It is hard to believe that last year at this exact time I had just found out that I was pregnant. Erick and I weren’t ready to tell anyone just yet....so I spent the  whole weekend whining and pretending to be sick and making excuses as to why I wasn’t drinking. I’m pretty sure everyone bought it. I still curled though and had fun doing it as sober as could be! This year Erick and I opted out and are not curling. Feb is a busy month so we decided to just be speuctators. That and we were too lazy to organize child care for our little bug. I have enough milk stored to last longer than a weekend but man I would have to be pumping between games...and blah blah blah... I am a bit sad though now that the weekend is here and I am not curling. Maybe it would have been worth it to just curl and get out. Oh well. We are now tossing around the idea of going out of town to spend some more money...but yet again this weather does not really help with that plan.
  I suppose that I should get motivated to tidy so I have time to tidy and shower while Kaia naps. Oh how things change...;)

The sun is out and teasing me big time. Kaia is napping and I would love to get outside with her and enjoy some well needed rays of vitamin D. This new scheduled life is really going great I usually get to shower daily now and I at least get one or two chores done. I feel like she sleeps so much more now. She is usually up for two hours at a time between naps and in the evenings she is up for a bit longer four ish hours. I have been judging her nap times by when I think she cranky when she starts to getting whinny....It never fails though I think she is cranky and she is acting all fussy and I march her up to the room lay her in her bed and she gives me the biggest grin smile and giggle. Way to make me feel guilty. I just tell myself she is smiling because she is so happy that she is about to go for the best nap ever.
   Tomorrow I plan to go to a friend’s place to learn some crocheting patterns for making little toques and what not. It will give me something to do on the little moments that I am starting to get to myself, especially in the evening when she goes to bed. So today I am going to a girlfriends place for a lunch date...she has a ten month old so kind of a play date. It seems crazy to think that Emery who is ten months will be in the same class as Kaia when they are in school. That six month head start she has on Kaia seems so big at this point. She is sitting up standing crawling sitting in a high chair...eating solids...I know that in just a few months their speed of development will even out more and they will be on or close to being on the same rate. I just cannot wait to see Kaia interacting with other children. Right now she seems content to be interacting with me and Sophie her giraffe teething toy (Sophie was the name the giraffe came with).
  Well Erick is off today for an acupuncture appointment for his aching back (I secretly cannot wait until his back is better...men are so wimpy). He is refusing chiropractic or physio at this point, he just wants to try acupuncture. Lunch date and then off to Fernie.

Sleeping beauty....

Baby Kaia is four months old as of yesterday. Wow the time is truly going by so quickly every one warned me. My little baby girl is now a sleeping beauty thanks mostly to the Ferber method...of sleep training. The first night was a bit rough...she cried for almost two hours. We were persistant though and didn’t give in. It was hard...Erick passed out on the couch too I think it took a lot out of him. Now it takes Kaia about 15-20 mins to fall asleep....she wakes up once in the night usually around 3 and then she is up for the day at 7. I feed her at 3 and then put her back in bed awake and it takes about 5-10 for her to fall asleep. If she wakes up or stirs any other time we just leave her and within minutes she is back to sleep on her own. I love love love the new sleep schedule...and the amount of sleep I am getting. It was just one week ago that I was up every 2.5 hours with my little peanut buster parfait (new nick name for this week...). I just can’t express enough how happy I am about this new routine. Also Kaia has set nap times in the day one in the morning and later in the afternoon. She falls asleep on her own for these too. I love schedule and some sort of predictability. Swimming lessons are going great too she loves the water when she gets use to it. She put her face in fully today for the first time. I think that it was me that was holding her back I was a bit nervous. Not really much more to talk about today.....time for my weekly yoga class.

Sleep training.... “What exactly does that mean”? That was Marcy’s response to that last night when I told her that I was sleep training Kaia this weekend. It means I am trying to teach Kaia to fall asleep on her own instead of falling asleep while eating and soothing herself at my breast. Oh no need to worry I am still nursing my baby I am definitely not ready to give that up yet. I just want her to be able to go to bed and fall asleep without having to be rocked and fed. All the books tell me that she is at an age where this is possible. Apparently it should take about 3 days and she will be falling asleep on her own without fail. Today is day one and the first nap of the day took mmm about a half hour of crying and she is still asleep 45 minutes later. My new bed time routine for my little stinker will consist of a bath on some nights, a bedtime story, a bedtime feed and then hopefully bed time. Maybe not in that order but the key is to put her to bed when she is still aware that she is being moved to her bed. So even if she is starting to doze on my breast....time for bed. And my goal for Kaia is one feed in the middle of the night. She is actually already there pretty much. She only usually gets up once in the middle of the night. But that is also due to the fact that we don’t get her in her bed till late like around 1130 or 1200.  It happens that way because I start feeding at say 10 and she eats and eats and then dozes and then I wait until she is really deeply asleep so that when I transfer her to her bed she doesn’t wake. It takes a while sometimes. And on some nights she wakes up when I put her down. So the cycle has to start all over again. This night time routine is getting old...so it’s time for me to take control for my own sanity.  I think that this new routine will go smoothly Kaia is going to be a quick little learner I just know it. When I told Dad today that it only took her a half hour to fall asleep at nap time his response was. “That’s the Hood blood in her”. I think my work might be with Erick....he’s a softy. Kaia is still sleeping in our room in her cradle and I think that with this new routine will also bring Kaia into her own room...which means crib shopping. Erick’s family gave kaia money for Christmas for purchasing a new crib.
Sleep Sleep Sleep.....for me for Kaia and for all. I can’t wait.
As I was reading up on sleep training a little bit more today I started to have feelings of sadness...I am ready for Kaia to move into falling asleep on her own I know that I need to do it for my own sanity. But all of a sudden I had this feeling of sadness that my baby is growing and isn’t going to need me for certain things as much. There is this teeny tiny little part of me that wants to delay sleep training so I can savour my baby for longer. But I know that this is the right thing to do for our future. I can see how some babies have sleep issues though it all stems from the Moms not wanting to give up the baby stages...or listen to the cries at night. I am so not the type of parent that will struggle with my child to sleep nor will you ever find me lying down with my child in order for her to fall asleep. It all starts now. Wow....this inner dialogue in my head is so confusing. Sleep Sleep sleep come to me....I am ready.
Oh and as if the sleep training hurdle wasn’t enough of a wakeup call that my baby is growing...I also read this morning that rice cereal can start around 4 months...Kaia is 4 months in 3 days....tear tear tear...she is growing so fast. I plan to make my own rice cereal so more research is in order to learn how to make this cereal. That will give me some time to come to terms with yet another milestone for baby Kaia.
  Oh and we went on a trip this last weekend and of course Kaia was in disposables....we had a blow out every single day. We even bought the next size up to see if that was the issue. But there was still more blow outs. I was so dang excited to get my baby back into her outfit saving, enviro saving and pocket book saving cloth diapers. I just can’t rave enough about our decision to put our little bum bum in cloth diapers.  
   Oh and Happy Birthday Dad!!

Oh its a good thing that my little Kaia is cute. Yesterday was a lazy day as a result of our horrible night before. Kaia’s routine for that night was sleep for an hour awake for an hour sleep for an hour awake for an hour. It was exhausting. It was bath day yesterday and instead of getting Kaia’s bath all ready I decided to have her bath with me. It is so cute when she is in the water she just loves it. She kicks her feet and giggles. She doesn’t mind when I shower her with water to give her hair a scrub. We were splashing and cooing and Erick was sitting on the side of the tub entertaining her. All of a sudden we hear this rumbling from under the water....Kaia gives us this huge mischievous grin....of course we start laughing at her bath gas. Oh but wait....all of a sudden the tub water becomes this awful shade of brown with float bits of Kaia poop infiltrating our nice comfortable bath water. Oh my gosh....chaos in sued as we pulled the plug and started shoeing the poop bits down the drain. Meanwhile Kaia is now sitting on my knee exposed to the cool air as I am huddled at the end of the tub. But she’s not crying for being chilled. It’s like she was enjoying watching us frantically try and avoid the poop water. We were in my Jacuzzi tub in the master bath. My spray nozzle on the tub never gets used because it for some reason has intense water pressure. Of course Erick doesn’t realize this as he never uses the bathtub. Erick grabs the nozzle thinking this will be great to rinse the tub from poop.  I’m trying to yell no don’t do it, but was too late the water comes blasting out he starts spraying the end of the tub that me and Kaia are not sitting in but the shear water pressure gives off this insane wind breeze that is blowing me and Kaia’s hair back and of course Kaia becomes all tense and starting to gasp and holding her breath and let out a squeel......I’m screaming Erick is spraying, poop is flying....the hot water is all gone....oh my goodness. What a flipping mess. That was the end of our nice splish splash bath. Eesh! Never a dull moment around here seriously.  
   The weather here has been so nice the skies are blue and the sun is shining I’m just so disappointed that it is so cold. I’m dying to get out and get some fresh air. I don’t feel like its walking weather with Kaia. I did discover though that the chariot is great to walk in the snow with. The wheels work great still on the snowy roads. We went for a walk with it when my parents were here. Me, Taylor Britt Marcy and of course Kaia ventured out. We discovered that the chariot is awesome in the snow but we also discovered that there are some real idiot drivers out there. We had 3 dogs with us and I was pushing Kaia we took up a good portion of the road. My Mama Bear instincts kicked in. We were walking along nicely enjoying our walk when this idiot came flying around the corner fish tailing and revving up his engine.  He came way to dam close for comfort. My fist shot in the air I was screaming you Effing idiot what the eff is wrong with you bleep bleep bleep bleepin bleep....oh I was angry. There was no need for him to be driving like that especially in the dark. It wasn’t till after did it dawn on me that I was wearing the touque that Taylor my littlest 13 year old sister bought me for xmas. It is a hippo hat with a hippo nose and teeth and little hippo ears. I was cursing up a storm throwing my fist at this guy trying to act like a tough Mama......with this dang hippo hat on. Oh brother that guy must of taken me so serious. Hahaha...so in a nutshell I know that the cold weather and the idiot drivers are the two things deterring me from wanting to get out and walking. Maybe snow shoeing will be my next outing. Sounds a lot less dramatic.  But I don’t think that I can do anything without making it dramatic these days.
 

  

my room has gone over a bit of a makeover these past few weeks. Britt bought us a little tv for our bedroom. I think she was feeling bad for Erick. Britt has come up to our room at bedtime a few times to chit chat while I  feed Kaia.I think she happened to notice Erick watching a movie from his play station portable which is a glorified game boy. Like I mentioned earlier we replaced our flooring in our bedroom which I love no more dog hair infested dirty old once was white carpet. It makes me very happy no more sneezing and I am hoping my little family of Darth Vaders in the morning will feel better. On Boxing Day we bought a brand new KING size bed....I am so excited about that. But they delivered it yesterday and left me with a muddy wet ripped mattress. I don’t know where my usual aggressive assertive self was hiding at that moment. I normally would not have let those loser delivery men leave my house with a bed in that condition. I probably would have torn a strip off of them too. Maybe it was their lack of scheduling that had me and my schedule all messed up. Kaia was fussy I still had groceries in the car which should have been a dinner on the stove ages before. I didn’t have my room prepared. They were not supposed to arrive for another 1-2 hours....so I guess the whole thing was messed up from the beginning.  Either way I’m left with a shit mattress that I had to put my beautiful brand new white sheets on. King size sheets are freaking expensive too. Yeesh...Erick did the strip tearing for me when he got home. He called them and spoke his mind. We aren’t satisfied with the outcome though. We still have to have those stinky delivery men come to our house again. Oh and they waved the $80 delivery fee whoopee. We are calling today to try and guilt them into more compensation. My room will be our sanctuary when it’s all complete though. I’m already enjoying the tv....
  The leisure brochure schedule came out the other day and there are some things that me and kaia can do together. I am going to start swimming lessons with her on Tuesday! I’m excited about that and really hoping that it goes well. The other thing I am thinking about is getting Kaia’s ears pierced in the next couple days. I had my ears pierced when I was only months old and it never scarred me for life. If she decides that she doesn’t want them one day she can take them out and make that decision herself. They grow over no big deal. I called the place in cranbrook that does piercings cause I originally wanted her to get pierced with a needle instead of a gun. The lady on the phone said “oh no we won’t pierce anyone’s ears unless they are able to tell me themselves that they want their ears pierced”. Geesh...she made me feel like some kinda monster after I got off the phone. Seriously.
   Well I better go Kaia is on my lap watching me type intently and the novelty is starting to wear off...either that or the hiccups are making her angry but shes kicking the computer off my lap. Strong little 3 month old.

It’s been a while since I have written an entry and its not for lack of trying or for lack of desire. This past holiday season as per the usual was busy busy and even a bit more busy with baby in tow. Also my little diva has been a clingy little spafart these days. I have not been on the computer for days. Luckily I have my handy buddy Mrs. iphone if it were not for her I would not be connected in anyway shape or form. I’ve even learned to shop online from my little Mrs. Iphone. Shopping online...eesh that is a little habbit I am beginning to pick up. I have been finding amazing deals coupons for shopping online on things that I can rarely pass up but will surely use...wink wink. I said to Erick that I want to start my own business shopping online for other people finding amazing deals and then marking the price up.
    So I caved at Christmas we ended up surprising my family on Christmas day arriving just as they were waking up to unwrap gifts. It was fun. But me and Erick were exhausted we slept most of Christmas day away. New Years Eve was also a different type of celebration eating a yummy yummy dinner at Erick’s moms and then quietly celebrating at a friend’s place.
  There are many changes that I see in my little spafart since the last entry. Well actually there are changes even in the last couple of days. She has started to discover her voice and I love it so much. She coos when we talk to her as if she is saying exactly how she feels. Her giggles are starting to come more easily. Thank goodness for that because I was starting to get exhausted from making faces and singing and dancing trying to pry a little giggle out of her.
   Kaia’s little bum bum is still doing fabulous in her cloth diapers. That is a still a choice that I am glad that I made both for the pocket book and for my little muffins bum bum. The big question everyone asks me about is the laundry. I don’t find the laundry any more daunting then it already was. I wash her diapers usually every other day one load and that’s it easy peasy. Sometimes people just need to have an easier going attitude about things the energy and attitude you bring forth makes the world of difference (Stepping off soap box now). 
  Breast feeding is also still going amazing. I love the bonding that I have with Kaia during each feed, especially now that she is starting to giggle. She will stop eating look up at me and let out a little giggle while quickly smashing her face back into my boob and madly start eating again. I love it. Oh and did I mention it’s FREE...this little child of mine is so cheap right now. The expensive part is me and my online shopping addiction. Some of the sites that I’m on daily are sites that showcase one sale a day with baby/ children stuff. I digress. Breast feeding, right... recently a friend of mine gave birth and I know that she was really wanting to breast feed her little peanut. I know that from my experience breastfeeding is difficult if you don’t have the understanding of the commitment level and the support. I know a lot of women that just can’t make it past the toe curling hurt, or the constant commitment of being tied to your baby every couple of hours. Anyways I wanted to make something for my friend that would help her along the way. I wanted to make a little gift pack that was full of items that would help support her. I included breast pads, nipple cream and a hooter hider etc. My friend already had most all of these items and I’m not sure that my little gift was well received. But this lead me to another business venture....I could make gift baskets for new moms. Hmmm. Oh I included Epsom salts too for the vag...hehe. I must also say that this gift was inspired by a gift that I received from a friend that included some of these items. I know that I was so incredibly thankful for that nipple cream and those salts.
  Well my spafart is clearly having a good morning nap I should continue to take advantage of this and start tidying my home.....I still haven’t managed to totally clean everything after the whirlwind of installing new floors into my bedroom on the weekend. Sigh