Wow. We made it through Christmas!

Well, still no teeth in sight. It turns out that Jillian was getting sick, and is still trying to get rid of her phelgmy nose, and now she has a cough. Poor kid sounds like a puppy when she’s trying to breathe through her mouth :P . Not fun at all. Her sleep schedule is completely messed up from her illness keeping her up and visiting relatives at all hours of the day(and night). I keep telling myself that when she gets better, things will go back to normal! It’s 3am as I write this….please let things go back to normal!

Well, she’s made a lot of progress over the last week:
-pulling herself up to a standing position, then squatting, and back up again
-crawling to anything that she fancies. I love that when I call her to ‘come to Mummy’, she can scamper pretty fast!
-grabbing glasses and tipping the contents over. So far, it’s been a Sheridan’s, a glass of wine, and 1 Pepsi.
-‘playing’ with her piano and maracas
-swatting, crying, and whipping her head back and forth while I try to wipe her nose clean
And tonight she’s figured out how to escape from her BebePod/Bumbo seat. Just twist and flip, and BOOM! She’s outta there! Thank goodness I still have her exersaucer as a backup.

Wow.

So onto Christmas! Michael’s school had a Christmas play, which I was pretty impressed by! There are 41 students, and over 110 of their family members showed up to watch them perform. It’s a great little community.

We enjoyed Christmas Eve with my mom, brothers, aunt, uncle and my cousin Krystin. She managed to spend a few days with us in the country, which she enjoyed. I know that Jillian enjoyed another short person to play with! I was happy that Krystin was old enough to do basic tasks herself, like eating, picking out her own clothes, etc. It helps that she’s 7! Also, she was super- well behaved, so that makes a huge difference.

We opened presents Christmas morning, and no word of a lie, there were presents bigger than Jillian! And she’s almost 2’5”! We even ran out of room in the car to get back to our place, so we made a return trip on Friday. I was super-excited about 1 present though. She got a Cabbage Patch Doll, and I never had one as a little girl, and was too shy to ask for one at the time. Mom gave me the weirdest look, because I was actually jumping up and down. ;)

We headed to Michael’s Dad’s place for Christmas afternoon/evening, and got several more gifts. I even managed to surprise Michael with letting him party it up while I took Jillian and Krystin home with me, seeing as the 3 of us were tired and he wasn’t. I also told him that this would not be a regular occurrence! It was *insane* though, considering that there were over 25 people in the house, and 11 of them children! The next day when I went to pick Michael up, I almost didn’t think that it was the same house because it was so quiet!

Then off for another family dinner on Boxing Day, this one being the official ‘turkey fest’, including Tanya’s desserts! We’re still trying to convince her to start a bakery, or at least do catering. I swear, most of us just wait and see what she’s created this time! If you’re in the Ottawa area and want fantastic desserts, let me know, and I’ll pass on your order! We also had a sleepover with my cousin and niece. Right now our place is big enough for the 3 of us, but add two 7-year olds, and it feels cramped! They had a lot of fun hanging out and playing with toys. I also realized that Krystin likes to be the boss!

The 27th had Michael running around, dropping people off and picking people up. Shawn came over for a nice dinner, and killer Monopoly to boot...well, we *had* to let Shawn win...hee hee!

The 28th, we got our new car!!! Our old one kicked it, so we needed to get another one. We got a station wagon, but no wood paneling! I'm just thrilled that it's got lots of trunk space and it's nice and SAFE. If you had asked me 8 years ago what kind of car I wanted, I would have said, FAST. Jillian's going to think that I was always cautious and not cool, huh? Oh well. We also returned Mark's car, which he was super-nice to let us use while we were car-less for about 10 days or so. Jillian was so happy to get out of her carseat when we got home, as she was in it for most of the day.

(this is getting long, isn't it?)

Anyway, the 29th brought the first lazy day since Michael started his holidays.

I might not be able to get another note out till after the first, so I hope that everyone has a great New Years. I think (well, know) that we're going to stay in and ring it in quietly.

See you next year! HAHAHA...

If it's 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am & 6am, it must be teething time...

Right?

The last 2.5 days(& nights), have been punctuated by cries, keeping us up all weekend. Michael has to go to work tomorrow, so I get to keep the vigil tonight!

Luckily, we did buy some Baby Orajel (or Ambesol, whichever was cheaper), and we tried it yesterday morning when we were at the end of our ropes. She slept for 4 hours, so I guess it worked!

Tonight, I managed to slip her some after I gave her her last feeding of the night, and she didn't take too kindly to it. Since I had some left on my finger, I decided to have a taste to see what it was like. BLEAUGH! Bitter, but my tongue started to get numb pretty fast, which was a weird feeling, but it seemed to kill my taste buds, so I didn't mind. Jillian started licking her lips and smacking her gums, then immediately started to doze off. I have a frozen, damp washcloth in the freezer on deck, in case she decides to shriek after I've been asleep for less than 1/2 hour again.

We got a bit misty-eyed this evening watching her play. She was sitting on her haunches, with jeans and onesie, playing with her toy with her back to us. She looked so much like a little girl, and so not like a helpless baby anymore.

Michael has one more week of school before holidays...my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin are coming for Christmas from Trinidad, so I'm looking forward to having the holidays uninterrupted without having to go to work.

PS-if you have to pay any bills, make deposits, etc, etc, PLEASE do it this week before the holidays! With Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year's, and the weekends, there's actually few days to get your stuff done on time. I just feel sorry for the poor tellers that inevitably get flak for public holidays that they cannot do anything about.

Holy potato! (This is my pathetic attempt at trying to stop swearing.) It's not really working, as I can still let the 4-letter words fly when I'm driving downtown during rush hour.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Jillian's a crawling machine now, and the most entertaining trip was tonight, when I put her down on the carpet while Michael and I were watching a movie. She started giggling like mad(almost like, "I'm free, I'm FREE, you can't catch me!!!), and made for the TV. We plucked her away when it looked like she just wanted to fry her eyeballs, then she settled back to playing with her toys and wandering from the couch to the TV, to the chair, to the coffee table. This kid's got energy!

She's also mastered pulling herself to a standing position now. Two days ago, she struggled to pull herself up, her little legs shaking like leaves, to yesterday, where she managed to do it a few times, but with considerable effort, to today, where she can do it very quickly, but will cry if her legs start to do the splits, or she falls on her bum.

She's gotten way better at eye-hand-mouth co-ordination. When I give her her puffs(I call them her cookies), she'll take as many of them into one hand at a time(usually 3), then cram whatever piece is sticking out into her mouth. Tonight we were eating asparagus, and after I bit off the tip, she was gumming the piece like crazy, and managed to get some of the insides of it in her mouth.

Tomorrow, we're heading out to finish up bits of Christmas shopping. Her first Christmas stocking, etc. We're trying not to go overboard; after all, she won't remember this Christmas, but she's sure to demand Dora in a few years when she becomes a tiny consumer!

The tree is up, but no sign of teeth!

Why do 'they' make us paranoid that babies are suicidal?

"Keep plastic bags away or babies will suffocate themselves"
-but she is intrigued by them. She'll grab a plastic bag way before a toy-crinkly sound
"Stay with children in the bath or they with drown"
-she has put her face in the water to pick up her rubber duckie with her mouth
"Keep them away from plugs"
-yes, she thinks they're so interesting and has crawled and tried to stick her wet finger in one of them

There's a bunch more, but it explains parent paranoia...

Jillian's happily scooting around now; she doesn't have her timing with her legs and arms matched yet, but I'm sure it will happen sooner rather than later!

Still a gummy smile. Maybe I should take bets and make money that way...

We put the tree up this past week, and I managed to wrap a few presents. I have this weird habit of using up one roll of paper before I start another one. Sure I can't tell who gets what without labels, but the Martha Stewart in me feels a lot better.

We had a birthday party for my dad-in-law yesterday.
10-12 adults
6-7 kids
1 puppy who *didn't* pee or poo in the house(whoopie!)
2 meal options with salad and bread
2 fantastic desserts

Now I'm only taking credit for the main course because Tanya is the Dessert Queen, and no mere mortal can take that title from her! Her hubby was laughing at me, because I was literally *pushing* a second baking pan in the oven next to the first one. Well, it did fit, and nothing burned, so I'm not apologizing! ;)

It was a bit nutty at times with all the kids around, but overall, a lot of fun. I wonder when we can do this again?

I put Jillian's playpen/bassinet in her room next to her crib...I had a flash of Baby #2 sharing the same room with her, and I got a little mushy twinge inside. I am looking forward to getting pregnant again...not yet though!...but I really do enjoy the one on one time that I have with her. I also miss that teeny tiny baby stage, though. But that time is so short!

We've reached the 9 month mark...holy cow!

Just in the last couple of days, Jillian finally got the hang of crawling forwards! I've also noticed that she hardly goes backwards now...it's like she realized how crawling is supposed to work.

First it was:
-crawling backwards
-crawling backwards and going to a sitting position
-attempting to go forward, ending on tummy, then to sitting, pivoting, going on tummy, attempting to move, repeat
-crawling 2 paces, sitting up

Today, it was really noticeable that she was moving forward when we would put a toy in front of her, and instead of lunging for it like she usually does, she really moved!

I think this is the goodbye of clothes without worn-out knees!

She's also starting to make baby steps-literally! When she was standing today with Michael holding her hands, she would make exaggerated steps (knees up to the waist, take a step forward), then collapse with the effort. By this evening, she was really starting to get the hang of it!

We're also having fun playing ball together. I have a mini foam basketball that I would roll to her, and she would kick or push away from her. It's a bright orange, so it really keeps her attention.

She's feeling back to her old self after my last post; as soon as she was starting to feel better, she was ravenous and ate-and-ate-and-ate. She was due for a growth spurt anyway, but it can still catch you off guard. We were supposed to go for a 9-month checkup today, but the weather was INSANE! What, 2 feet of snow or something? Michael's school was actually *closed*; usually, buses will be cancelled, but teachers would still have to go into work. He was happy for an extra day at home with us. It was pretter-looking than the typhoon days we used to have in Taiwan. A Typhoon is like a Hurricane, but just in a different part of the world, so we would have a day or 2 off work.