I finally set my mom up with her own Etsy store. She's been making these wet bags and changing pads and selling them to people locally. She was interested in selling them online, but the idea just seemed a little too intimidating to her I think - dealing with the site setup, postage and all that.

Then she went into the local baby boutique store - the kind that sells slings, and cloth diapers and stuff and they were very interested in what she had made - BUT they mark everything up by 50%, so she wanted my mom to go way down on her price. My mom was basically only making her money back for materials, so that seemed silly.

Here's her new store: http://achoo.etsy.com

Also - and this is the main thing that prompted me to post -- I cannot believe how much I hate Vista. It came preloaded on my laptop, and instead of reloading it with XP as I should have done, I have been using it for the past 3 months .. and oooh boy is it ever aggravating. Simple UI things like right clicking to bring up the context menu sometimes take forever - and it's not a wimpy computer - 1.6Ghz with 2Gig of ram.

Now i'm just procrastinating reloading, because of course I'm using the laptop and I've got everything loaded on it that I need... but BOY it irritates me!

I just wanted to post this before I lose the scrap of paper that it's written on.

From Naomi's 15 and 18th month appointments

Feb 12, 2007
Height: 32"
Weight: 9.6 kg - 21 lbs
Head Circumference: 18.25"

May 7, 2007
Height: 33"
Weight: 23lbs
Head Circumference: 18.5"

Here's a video of Naomi walking today. After learning on Sunday, she didn't walk much on Monday or Tuesday, until Tuesday night after dinner when Dan and I were both home. Then she went crazy, walking up and down the hallway refusing to hold our hands. She walked all the way around the table, being very careful not to use her hands to hold onto things, even when things where in her way (this video is of the second or third time around the table, so chairs are out of the way etc).

She didn't want to go to bed once she remembered she could walk, she just wanted to go and go and go and go! She was visibly getting tired and wobbly after awhile, (and so was I!) but she refused to stop.

Naomi LOVES to feed herself. Here she is eating bananas.

Naomi turned 6 months yesterday. We took her to Superstore to have her 6 months portraits done. At 6 months, Naomi can sit by herself. She is very stable and everyone seems surprised that she sits so well. She's been doing it since she was 4 and a half months, so I guess she has had a lot of practise! I wonder if it is helped by her big cloth diapers. One of the moms in her Music class today was telling her son he needed a bigger butt to balance out his big head so he could sit without toppling over.

I found a tooth in Naomi's mouth yesterday. It's her bottom right middle, and it's just broken through the skin. It looks like a little white line when I manage to get a peek past her lips and ever moving tongue. She's also started saying "da da da" and "ba ba ba" and "ma ma ma" with pretty good consistency. Dan says she's isn't saying "da da" she's just making noises that sound like "da da". I don't think he'll recognize it as his name until she says it in relation to him specifically.

At 6 months Naomi isn't quite sleeping through the night with any consistancy, though there have been a few times when she's gone from 8pm until 6am or so. Most nights she goes down around 7:30 and awakens sometime between 11 or 1, then is back to sleep after eating untill somewhere around 4 or 6am when I can sometimes con her into sleeping for an hour or so more.

I've been enjoying the time off work on maternity leave. We've been taking music "classes". On Tuesdays we have babytime which is at the Ontario Early Years Centre, and is from 9:30-11:30. Someone comes in each week to give a talk on topics like carseat safety, nutrition, infant sign language, infant massage, attachment parenting etc. It's nice to see other moms and babies. There are about 19 mom and baby pairs. Naomi really likes to see the other babies, and she "talks" to them. My friend Michelle also goes to babytime, and then afterwards we always go out for lunch which I LOVE. So nice to get out for lunch on a regular basis.

Wednesdays we take a music class at prenatal plus which is good. It's a smaller class, and the leader is lots of fun. On Thursdays we go to the library for the Mother Goose program from 1:00 - 3:00. It's a good program. I think we lucked out because I've heard that the Mother Goose program at the OEYC isn't so good. The leader is just one of the women who work there and run babytime and they're not very musical or animated, but the leader at the library is very high energy and super.

I can't believe 6 months has passed so quickly. I love my little baby :) Going back to work in 6 months will be sooo hard. Gotta run, dinner's ready.

I put Naomi up on my back for the first time today. She seems to like it, more so when I'm doing things more exciting than computer stuff. She enjoyed watching me do dishes and walk around the house. It's the tibetan, and isn't the most comfortable thing so far. I think maybe her legs aren't around me enough or something. Being able to do stuff AND carry her is great though.

Naptime and Computer time are one and the same when you have a baby who will nap on your lap at the computer! She falls asleep pretty much every time I feed her at the computer. Right now she's sleeping in the hotsling which is a little more convenient since I can be mobile, but I haven't mastered the art of breastfeeding in the sling.

Naomi had her second doctor appointment yesterday and weighed in at 15lb 14oz. Almost 16 pounds! That's a pretty big 3 1/2 month old. She was 26.5 inches long, which is over the limit for her carseat, so we got her a new carseat this week, a Britax Roundabout.

Originally we had purchased a Britax Marathon, but it was too big the tiny backseat of our Jetta. We haven't tried the roundabout back there yet, but I'm pretty confident that it will fit as the Marathon _almost_ fit and it's quite a bit smaller. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye to the days of carrying a sleeping baby into the house, setting down the carseat and having the baby keep sleeping for another hour or so while we unpack from being out and about.

Here's Dan wearing Naomi in the hotsling I purchased awhile ago on a co-op. It's reversible, with black on the other side. I also ordered a red fleece one, but it came in the wrong size so I sold it to someone else for what I paid for it. The hotsling is nice for "poppability" and it folds up nice and small to fit in the diaper bag. So to go with my wrap, my pouch and my ringsling I'd like a mei-tei then I think I'll be all done ;) I better have another kid so that I can make use of all these carriers!!

Here it is! The christmas gift I mentioned that Dan had ordered earlier. It's a Jakob Didymos. So far it's great! A little more complicated to tie than the padded ring sling, but way way more comfortable for me to wear. Naomi's still in it sleeping now, about 30 minutes after we took that picture. It was pretty expensive, but I read about wraps and it seems to be a reall good one. The fabric is gorgeous, although she's already spit up on it once, good thing it's washable!

I'm going to the mall with my mom a little later today, I'm not sure if I'm quite ready to tie the wrap when we're out and about, but maybe. The only real problem is that it's so long (4.6m) that it drags on the floor while I'm tying it and I don't want it to get all dirty. Strollers + after christmas shopping crowds do not mix well though, and the ring sling kills my shoulder after awhile so maybe I'll give it a go.

We took Naomi to Superstore to have her picture taken, but we didn't have an appointment, and they were booked solid until Dec 27 so I attempted to take a picture at home. Dan was napping during our photoshoot and I think I would have benefited from another pair of hands. This picture is the only one which resulted in something semi-usable, and it's not that hot. All blurry but at least her eyes are open, her entire body is in the shot and she's not crying. I think we'll have to try this again.

Today Naomi had her 6 week checkup. She weighed in at 11lbs 11oz. She is 58cm long.

Her weight has been as follows
9lb 10oz Birth
9lb 3oz 2(?) days later
I'm fuzzy as to what her 2 week weight was. I'll have to look it up later
10lb 12oz 4 weeks
11lb 11oz 6 weeks


Some more pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/40762484@N00/72974681/
Must run, she's awake!

I'm not sure how to put the flickr badge in the sidebar, or even if I can on a free LJ Account, but here is mine:

www.flickr.com More of jennifer_akemi's photos

Details/Pictures to follow, but I didn't want to leave my few but wonderful readers hanging.

Naomi Jade was born by caesarean section at 5:20am on Nov 2, 2005. She weighed 9lbs 10oz and was 20.5" at birth. She's the cutest thing I've ever seen and me and Daddy are enjoying her immensly. We got home from the hospital today and I'm still in recovery mode @#$@##ing C-section :| Not the labour I had hoped for, but she is worth every part of it.

Our phones are off and we're just taking lots of naps with baby and enjoying her alert moments together. I'll return to the world soon and update you all!

So here's what it says ON my due date:

Kind of annoying, eh? Like I need to feel even more pregnant than I already am!
(the original link to that is http://lilypie.com/days/051021/3/0/0/+10/.png but it translates it into the link I linked to above.



( Grade 8 Math Meme )

Hi, Still here, still pregnant. I feel like I'll be pregnant for awhile yet. Already people calling up and asking if I have had the baby yet is getting tiring, and I'm not even past my due date. I'm not sure what is going on with the ticker - my due date is Oct 21, so I would think I have 2 days to go yet it says 1. Who knows. I guess it will be interesting to see what it says tomorrow.

Jay (rthoughts) brought over some brownies the other day that were absolutely DELICIOUS. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that they're already all gone.

Tonight I've been feeling a little strange so maybe that means something. I feel all faint and light headed. I kind of skipped dinner, but I've been snacking all day on fruits and things (and the last 2 brownies) and I don't think it's lack of food. Big meals are really aggravating my heartburn so I've been grazing instead which seems to help. That and drinking a lot of milk. I've been avoiding tums and other antacids since it only started bothering me recently and I figure drinking milk helps so I may as well do that for what little time remains.

I think I've been having random contractions the last few days, but really, I can't tell, so probably not. They feel kind of like little twinges, but they could just be the baby moving who knows.

I ordered 3 bridesmaid dresses from Sears today, all the same design, just different sizes. I'm the maid of honour in my friends wedding on Nov 26. I had requested something two piece that I could possibly nurse in, but this is what she picked out. The plan is to bring the baby with me, hopefully it doesn't turn out to be a disaster. The wedding and reception are in town so that is good.

Well, Only 13 days to go. Getting close! We had our last prenatal class last night. Overall I think the series was beneficial, even if I didn't learn a whole lot. I think that it made it a little more real for Dan. So far for him the baby is just something that is making my tummy stick out. It's more a concept than anything else I think, but being at the prenatal classes each week kind of brought home the point a little more clearly that yes, we WILL be going through what the people in the videos are (childbirth). Last night the dads put diapers on dolls etc which brought home the point that hey.. we'll be having a BABY soon. I was killing myself laughing at the dads. None of them really knew which way the diapers were supposed to go. It was very cute.

I've been feeling some different sorts of movements lately, lower down and more tightenings. I can tell that things are starting to get ready to blow all apart in there. Right now as I type this I'm wearing a sling that I got from a friend of mine at a baby shower that her and her mom threw me. I got a lot of cute yellow outfits and some other things that I wanted. The sling is a heart2heart and it's padded, not sure how it is going to work out right away since I'm all fat and bloated and stuff it seems a little too small, but hopefully I will be able to lose some weight fairly quickly and it will fit a little better. Since we don't have any dolls handy i am carrying around a first aid kit and my camera in the sling atm (They seemed to weight about the right amount :P)

I'm also wearing a nursing bra. I got a Bravado! one from my aunt and I bought a playtex one at Zellers the other day. Yep I'm all ready to go! If you don't count the fact that I still have to wash all the baby clothes, pack my labour bag, pack the baby bag, install the car seat in the car, buy a thermometer, and figure out what we are going to eat for the week after baby comes.

Last night was our first prenatal class. They are from 7-9:30 for 5 consecutive Thursdays. There are 5 other couples in the class so it's quite small. Last night we discussed the stages of labour, early labour, from 1-3cm, active labour from 4-7cm and transition from 8-10cm. We watched a short video which showed some women in labour and giving birth. It had a woman giving birth to a placenta which was neat - I guess I never really realized how huge those things are!

We were the only couple there who was using a midwife, everyone else has an OB. At one point in the class the men went off to answer some questions as a group and the women answered the same questions. It was interesting to me that everyone elses major worry about the birth was pain. My major worry was complications - mainly that I will have to have interventions that I do not want such as forceps, vaccumm deliver, epidural or worst case an emergency C-section. I know it's going to hurt, a lot, but I'm not worried about that part, I just expect it.

I wonder why more people aren't using midwives in Ontario where it's covered the same as an OB is. The teacher would say something like ... "breastfeeding is great, but be prepared in case you have some difficulties, it's important to know all the places to go because getting an appointment with your OB after the birth is really hard since they're so busy" then she'd turn to me and say "of course with a midwife they're on call after the birth as well and will come out to your house and generally be available so it's not as much a worry for you". And about how the midwife comes to your house in early labour to check you and you don't have to go to the hospital right away, and risk being turned away if you are less than 4cm dialated etc. If I had an OB I would think HEY! that's not fair, how did I get stuck with this sucky busy OB instead of being afforded the one-to-one care that a midwife could offer? Maybe they still don't realize that midwives are covered under OHIP.

I really liked the teacher of the class. She's been teaching childbirth classes for 17 years and thought that she might like to become a midwife 12 years ago, but then her 5th child came along and her plans of going back to school went out the window. She was funny, and told us some stories about her births, one of which was at home.

I get the feeling that the other women (except one who was in my prenatal yoga class as well) haven't really read up much about pregnancy or birth as they all seem to have pretty mainstream ideas gleaned from sitcoms and such about how labour starts and things.