Happy Hallow's Eve!!!

I absolutely love this time of year. The air is crisp, the leaves are turning and the smell of winter is in the air. Except of course, it's 17 degrees Celcius
today...but regardless, I love this time of year!

Sebastian and I spent our Hallow's Eve morning at his very first Hallow's Eve party at the drop-in centre. He was wearing his skeleton costume pictured above and now that we're home I put him in his bat onesie. It has a cute picture of a bat on the front and on the back it says, "bats are not scary".

I'm not too sure how we're going to spend the rest of the day.... Sebastian has been napping in the afternoons so we'll hopefully be able to get out to the park after naptime to enjoy the weather & our new stroller (I love you Bob!!), but other than that, I think we're just going to hang low, put up some more decorations outside and await the evenings festivities. Of course, Sebastian will be missing out on a lot of the action since he's in bed by 7 but I'm hoping to put him back in his skeleton costume for a little bit during the dinner hour so we can answer the door together.

I hope everyone has a terrific Hallow's Eve and remember the veil between the two worlds is at its thinnest tonight so light those lanterns and put out lots of food - your ancestors are going to be hungry !!!

Halloween Wishes,
Kim

I have been having difficulty attaching Sebastian's art project to my post dated Friday Oct. 19th. As such, I figured I'd just post it here. So, here it is! Sebastian's first project...he did the scribbles on the bottom!!!

Today we spent our day visiting with Kim, Christa and Griffin and taking a trip out to Knox's Pumpkin Farm in the Oshawa area. It was fun watching Griffin run around and get all excited to see the animals, whereas Sebastian just seemed to relax and chill while going for a ride on his dad's back (thanks to Kim & Christa for letting us use their backpack carrier...Sebastian really seemed to really like it as he was able to look over his dad's shoulder and was eye level to us).

In the barn Sebastian was able to hear a cow actually moo and I was happy that it didn't frighten him at all. Jamie & I were able to pet the cow to show Sebastian how friendly such a big animal can be. Later to make up for not being able to pet the cow (we couldn't get him close enough...) Jamie took Sebastian to pet a tree and a tractor. Not too sure what Sebastian thought of either as I heard about this after the fact!

We then walked through the corn maze and eventually went on a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch. We had the option of getting off the tractor to pick our own pumpkins but we chose just to continue on with the ride. Since we don't get many kids at our house for Hallow's Eve I think we're just going to carve up the pie pumpkins I purchased from the market last week. Next year we'll get a larger pumpkin for Sebastian that he can help clean out! I can't wait!

After the farm we return to Kim & Christa's where we relaxed with fresh apple cider and strudel. Griffin is so good with Sebastian and it's so cute listening to him say "Bastian". Right now I think he's going to be the only person we allow to call him that!

Anyways, it was such a great spending time with friends and the weather was perfect! And I'm sure we are all going to be sleeping well tonight!

Hope everyone has a great week!
Kim

Today marked Sebastian's very first time at his home care providers without me. I dropped him off shortly after 8:30 a.m. and he just stared at me as I backed down her driveway trying my best not to cry. I've been in denial for a long time that I'm going to have to put my trust into another person to care for him so that I can return to hell...err, I mean work, but I guess I can't deny it any further. And it's true what people say... it is definitely much harder on the mom than it is on the child. Sebastian didn't even cry!

Once home I managed to wash some of Sebastian's toys, throw some laundry in the machine and sweep & mop the kitchen floor. I then had some coffee and relaxed on the computer before heading out to Canadian Tire to do some shopping. It was really enjoyable being at Canadian Tire on my own, but it wasn't the same without Sebastian. I wasn't able to go "zoom zoom" with my cart or act all silly & such. Well, actually I could have done that but I chose not too...

I then went to meet up with Evelyn and the kids at the Ontario Early Years Centre. Upon entering my heart sank when I couldn't find Sebastian but I was then told that he was in the washroom with Evelyn. It took him a sec or two to register that I was there but when he did he almost leapt off of the change table!! Which was great except for the fact that Evelyn was trying to put a new diaper on him and his bum was bare! Lesson learned: if Evelyn is changing his diaper, wait until she is done.

We stayed for a bit at the centre to sing with the group and listen to a story and it was really neat to watch Sebastian sitting in Evelyn's lap. He would look at me and smile but it just reinforced that we picked a great caregiver for him. So, as much as I feel Sebastian should be with me and that work can take a hike... I'm glad to know that he's in such good hands.

As we were leaving Evelyn also gave me Sebastian's very first craft. When I have a moment I'll take a picture of it and then add it to this post. I think it's supposed to be a ghost.

Now let's just hope that I continue to handle our separations well! I have no doubt that Sebastian is going to be just fine.

And of course, the lil' pumpkin is fast asleep after being tuckered out from this mornings events. He fell asleep in the car on the way home and has been out since 11:45...1.5 hours at this moment.

Anyways, I hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend. We have swimming tomorrow and then we're off to Oshawa to go to the pumpkin patch with Kim, Christa and Griffin on Sunday. Looks like the weather will be amazing on Sunday... 21 degrees. Crazy!

Cheers,
Kim

I've been feeling quite delinquent lately in the blogging department, so I apologize to those who actually read this blog on a regular basis. I just don't seem to have a lot of energy at the moment, so I'm going to keep this entry short with the hope that I may actually be able to have a nap while Sebastian is napping today (for those who know me, this is nearly an impossible task... I never nap).

Sebastian had his one year check up late last week and no concerns were noted. He got his usual beautiful baby comments from the staff and wait room patrons as we waited and I must admit, I will never tire of hearing people tell me what big beautiful eyes this boy has! I was surprised to find out that he only weighs 19lbs 11 oz, but I guess he makes up for it in height as he's 31.75" long! The good news is that since he's still under 23 pounds I can keep him in the rear facing position in the car for a tad bit longer. He fits all the other requirements according to the manufacturer to turn the car seat around, but since facing the rear is ultimately the safest position for a baby we're going to keep him that way for as long as we can!

On Saturday we went to our Guardian swim class where Jamie & Sebastian took to the water while I sat with the other dad's and watched. Sebastian is such a water baby... he doesn't seem to mind any water on his face and he loves standing on the edge of the pool, with Jamie's help of course, and jumping into the pool. He also loves to splash and kick his legs and has been dunked numerous times with out seeming to mind at all!

On Sunday we had a lovely visit with Jim & Christine (a.k.a., Nonee & Papa). We celebrated Papa's birthday by taking a trek downtown to MEC and returning late in the afternoon to have a wonderful dinner topped off with cheesecake for dessert. Yum! Sebastian had not been on the subway for quite some time, and since most stations are not wheelchair accessible I usually put him in the ergo baby carrier when we go, so he had some difficulty adjusting to being on the subway in his stroller. I'm sure us going "choo choo" didn't help either as anyone who's been on the subway knows that it doesn't sound like a real train! Oh well.. he was much more relaxed on the way home.

Hope everyone is well,
Kim

Life sure is fun with a one year old!

The big birthday has now come and gone and we marked the occasion by having family portraits taken in the morning and spending the afternoon visiting with Nonee and Papa. Uncle Dan joined our festivities for dinner and the singing of Happy Birthday and Shawn came by after his soccer game in the evening for cake and ice-cream. Jamie bought me beautiful flowers to mark the occasion and overall it was a terrific day!

Since his birthday Sebastian is now napping only 1x/day. Prior to this he was napping in the morning for approx. 1.5 hours and then another 1.5 hours in the afternoon. In the past I would stay home in the morning in order for him to have his coveted nap (I'm not one of those mom's whose baby's schedule is dependent on what the mom wants to do...). But since he's gone down to one nap I have been finding it much easier to plan our day. For example, yesterday we spent the morning at Riverdale Farm and on Tuesday we were able to get to the Farmer's Market bright and early. Even with longer naps in the afternoon he still continues to go down for the night around 7 and he is continuing to sleep through the night without any difficulties. No complaints here!!

A lot of people have been asking us recently if Sebastian is walking yet. He's not yet walking independently but he can walk around with little assistance, usually just holding one of our fingers on each hand for support. I'm hoping that by the end of the month he has taken a few independent steps, but that's because I'm selfish. I am returning to work part-time on Nov 1st and there is no way I want his first steps to occur at his caregivers home! I'm just going to tell her not to tell me if it happens! Ignorance in this regard is bliss!

Anyways, the reason why I sat down to update the blog today was to give a quick update on the activities that a one year old Sebastian enjoys. So enough of my ramblings on about how cool it is to have a one year old... this is basically what our lil' pumpkin enjoys doing at the moment:

• taking the dishtowels and pots & pans out of our kitchen cupboards (this will entertain him for a long time... he takes out the dishtowels one by one, gives them to me, I say "thank you" and it sounds like he says "you're welcome" and when they are all out, we put them back in and the process repeats itself. For the pots & pans, we just bang them and put various items in them to see what neat sounds they make and of course, we have tons of fun seeing who can bang them the loudest!)
• playing ball, in which he will throw the ball to us and we will roll it back to him
• repeating what we are saying to the best of his ability
• pretending to talk on the phone
• playing with his musical instruments, including banging/drumming various objects together
• placing different items into various things (i.e., wooden objects into his plastic pail) to see what fits and what noises they make when they get stirred around.
• imitating actions to songs (i.e., clapping his hands as soon as we started singing "If you're happy and you know it")
• giving lots of sloppy kisses
• playing in the sandbox and being pushed on the swings
• playing with his wooden tractor in which he drives it along the floor saying "vroom vroom"
• getting to the front door as fast as he can to see the bus stopping across the street from our house as well as to watch any emergency vehicle speed by as soon as he can hear their sirens (at which point he imitates the sound... it's so nice having our own little fire engine!)
• and of course...walking around with our assistance!
  

I'm sure there are tons more to add, but these are the major things that put a big smile on his face at the moment.

Well, Sebastian just awoke from his nap so I am off to start our grand adventures of the day. These include having a delicious lunch of lima beans (I put that there for Jamie - he is not fond of lima beans!), carrots and banana, a trip to the store to buy swimmers for our swimming classes that commence this Saturday and then hopefully a visit with our mommies & babes from the public health group we attended last winter.

Hoping your day is filled with playful moments,
Kim