Road Trip

The last week has been somewhat of a blur. Emilie has settled into a groove with Charlie at home and it was my first full week back at work. I have discovered that I can still run a trial on 2 hours of sleep. Despite our ability to function on little to no sleep, the weekend was much anticipated.

On Friday Ceilidh, who was in town from Toronto, paid us a quick visit and then Charlie, Emilie and I then embarked on our first road trip. We loaded ourselves in the new car (sadly 'Carlos' the VW had to be put to pasture and was replaced by 'Carla', our new Subaru) and headed to the cottage. Charlie enjoyed her first trip to the country. More importantly we enjoyed the fact that Charlie slept most of the way there.

As always the cottage was a dream. We took a long walk and made the most of the change of scenery (a one bedroom apartment can become a little claustrophobic). On Saturday afternoon Sylvie and Robert paid us a surprise visit, I can only assume to meet Charlie.

On Sunday, after an all to short stay, we packed up and headed to Montreal to have brunch with Grandmaman Rose, her sister Henriette, Uncle Andre, Blaise, Sandra and Anna. Anna, who was in town for a conference from Whitehorse, joined us for our return trip to Ottawa and is going to stay for a short visit.

In retrospect the weekend was as blurry as the week. The prospects for rest seem to be slim. Emilie and I have just realized that we take possession of our new house next week. Let the packing begin.

Candy Dinner

I have managed to update the blog so that you can view a slid show of all of our pictures of Charlie. I was told that a small child could accomplish this feat in a few key strokes. I feel proud that it only took me an afternoon of work. To view the Flickr slide slide show scroll to the bottom of the page. You can also go to our Flickr page to view the photos.

Charlie had a busy weekend. Cristina and Michelle came to spend some quality time with our little squishy. This quality including being delegated the role of diaper changers. We also took Charlie to visit her soon to be new house and took a walk in nearby Brewer Park.

Charlie was also introduced to the time honoured tradition of the 'candy dinner'. The concept of the candy dinner is relatively self explanatory, dinner is comprised entirely of candy. We always try to represent all food groups in the candy dinner. These groups include: the gummy group, the sour group, the chocolate covered pretzel group, the smart food group, and the beef jerky group. Although not always strictly considered candy, smart food and beef jerky provide much needed protein and vegetables.

Charlie was not permitted to indulge directly in any candy eating and despite the consumption of sugar laden breast milk had the best sleep of her life.

I have now been back to work for two days. The combination of work and lack of sleep has rendered me a zombie. Charlie does her best to keep Emile and I on our toes. She has the wonderful ability to transition from sleep, to crying, to explosive poo, to wide awake, to screaming and back to sleep in the blink of an eye.

Emilie is beginning to develop a day time routine with Charlie. She has manage to make a few small trips out of the house between feedings. Emilie has been showing the baby off to all the market vendors and various local characters (the Afghanie parking lot attendant, the tattooed coffee Batista, the one armed guitar player outside the Bay, and the dude who has two jack Russel terriers dressed up like clowns with sunglasses - although these costumes are seasonal and it is only a matter of time before the dogs are dressed up like Santa). The consensus is that Charlie is the cutest baby in the world.

This weekend Aunt Christina and Michelle will be paying Charlie a visit. I hope they enjoy changing dirty diapers.

Home Fires Burning

Catherine left today after a wonderful visit, she must have taken our brains with her.

Charlie lost some weight during the first week and we have been supplementing Charlie's feeding with some formula. This means that every feeding we need to boil and sterilize bottles. In a non-sleep deprived world this extra step should not pose much of a difficulty for two adults with a combined 14 years of post secondary education. We no longer live in such a world. In order to sterilize the bottles they must be boiled for 10 minutes. Today we boiled the bottles for 45 minutes. One would think this would make the bottles more sterile. One would be wrong. As it turns out boiling bottles for 45 minutes creates a toxic plastic soup.

Our new motto: A watched pot may never boil, but a watched bottle will not melt.

On a happier note Charlie's umbilical stump fell off today, good riddance.

Aunt Poo

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Emilie and I are pretty laid back people. We don't really plan too far in advance, we don't open mail for weeks at a time, and we procrastinate (have you received your thank-you card yet?). So it is a bit of a change for us to be constantly monitoring the intake and output of a little human.

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Charlie was having problems on the output end of the equation. Wendy, our midwife, asked us to write down times and amounts of feedings and the time, type and intensity of Charlie's output to help diagnose the problem. Charlie had not had a poo in 48 hours. We were getting a little worried, until Emilie's sister arrived.

Aunt Catherine got into Ottawa on Friday night. Her first stop was to see our little Charlie. Catherine was very excited and wanted to hold Charlie. As soon as we passed a dozy Charlie to her aunt she (Charlie) immediately unloaded 48 hours of built up BM. Ironically Catherine had given Charlie a 'Poo Happens' shirt a few weeks ago. Poo does happen, especially when Aunt Poo visits.

Bath Time

Charlie had a bath today. OK, it was a slow day for news, but Charlie does not get out much. Emilie's sister Catherine is arriving tonight from Toronto. Charlie cannot wait to meet her new Aunt.

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Charlie = Girl, Girl = Pink

Charlie slept well last night. By well, I mean that she slept. Emilie and I got about four hours of sleep last night, which in our new reality is dreamy.

I also went to work for a half day. It was pretty hard to drag my self in. I have the next few days off to mentally prepare for a return to full time work.

Charlie is doing well. She had a good two hours of alert play today and she made another new friend, Yellow Bear (Charlie is very literal and has an underdeveloped imagination). We have now taken to dressing Charlie in gender appropriate cloths. All pink all the time is our new motto.

Grandmaman Returnes to the UN, Charlie Has No Comment

Charlie is now four days old. It seems, however, like she has been around for a lot longer than that. After hours and hours of thought I have discovered the reason for this apparent paradox. For non-babies four days equals about 64 hours after sleep is accounted for. Charlie has decide to make the most of life and forgo sleep. For Charlie four days equals the full 96 hours. I am happy for every moment I spend with her.

We had to say good by to Grandmaman today. Louise left Ottawa for Geneva. In typical grandparent fashion Louise proved indispensable over the last week. In addition to preforming official UN duties she cleaned, cooked, bought groceries, shopped for baby clothes and found time to watch hours of movies with Emilie. Like Charlie, I don't think Louise sleeps.

Family friend and former CBC journalist Mary Lou Finlay, in Charlie's first interview, asked for her thoughts on her first 4 days. Charlie provided 'no comment'.

I Name Thee...

Emilie has taken to calling Charlie 'Squishy'. I have no idea why.

Grandmaman Rose

Can you guess which Rose is which. Grandmaman Rose visited her first great grandchild today. Baby Charlie loved the visit. We think it was mainly because she received so many presents (clothes, toys, and a beautiful pewter cup). Old Rose could not stop commenting on how beautiful young Rose is. We tend to agree.

Gender Confusion and Parental Departure

Today my parents left Ottawa to return to Hamilton. They were such a help during Charlie's first few days. The house has never been cleaner, the laundry has never been so well folded, and the fridge has never been fuller. It was amazing to see my parent holding a small baby and imagine that 28 years ago they were holding me. Their help was much appreciated.

Charlie is doing well. She has lost a bit of weight, but I assume she will be a little porker in no time.

I am slowly learning how to address the new arrival. When referring to Charlie in the 3rd person I call her 'it' 50% of the time 'he' 10% of the time and correct as 'she' a staggering 40% of the time. I can only hope my gender recognition skills improve. Luckily Charlie does not seem to mind the confusion. I guess this is just my way of teaching her that labels are relic of the past

Mike

Baby's First Friend

When Emilie got pregnant (or more correctly I got her pregnant) she told one of her closest friends, Julie. Of course Julie was told this was top secret information.
At the same time Julie was told by our mutual friend Chrissy that she was pregnant. The same top secret lable was attached to this information.
Julie broke in less than a day and told Emilie and Chrissy about each others' conditions. We are glad that she did.

Charlie made her first friend before she left the womb. Chrissy and her husband Henrik have been great friends over the last 9 months. After sharing the highs and lows of pregnancy togehter, Chrissy and Emilie gave birth to their beautiful daughters within six hours of one another. Charlie made her appearance at 2:25 a.m. while Emma held out, emerging into the world at 8:25 a.m. I'm sure Charlie will be generous with all of the wisdom she accumulated during this significant head start on life!

As you can see Charlie may have a few pounds on Emma, but Emma takes the prize for screaming.

Mike