Swimming

Me and Hannah went swimming this morning. I decided to take her to a pool after she soaked me during her last bath. As I expected she very much enjoyed herself. She enthusiastically splashed water everywhere using all four limbs. We also tried dunking her head completely under water, and although she didn't seem to particularly enjoy this she didn't complain either. When she became tired and resorted to chewing on her hand, I took her to the change room where she proceeded to enchant a whole change room full of aquasizers with her smiles and gurgles. This was Hannah's second time swimming, but the first was a few months ago and while she enjoyed her herself, she played herself out very quickly and it was a fairly short visit.

I need some sympathy!

I don't usually engage in self pity, but I think both me and Hannah deserve a little sympathy right now. This is mostly Hannah's problem, but at this point in her life anything that affects her, in some way or other affects me. Everything started last Friday when Hannah broke out in hives after drinking a bottle of formula. This was quit a scary experience as her bottom lip became very large, and I suspected her tongue was becoming swollen also. I saw the Doctor today, and well as you've probly guessed Hannah is allergic to cow's milk. Before today I didn't realize exactly what an allergy to cow's milk means (It is not the same as being lactose intolerant). It means she is allergic to practically everything. Milk, or some milk derivative is used in virtually everything we eat. Of course this doesn't really concern Hannah at this point as she is only eating breast milk and rice cereal. But I also learned today that Hannah is developing a sensitivity to the cow's milk proteins in my milk. Which means I have to stop eating milk products too, or Hannah will start having allergic reactions to my breast milk (I know this to be true as just the other day I noticed a few hives on her face after I fed her).

Okay, so you might be thinking to yourself that the obvious solution to all this is to put her on soy formula. I get to eat what I want and she remains allergy free, well at least until she starts eating a more varied diet. The Doctor also suggested this possibility to me, although he did warn me that 15% of babies with cow's milk allergies are also allergic to soy milk, so introduce it very slowly.

I took his advice, this evening we tried one teaspoon of a formula made from soy. And yes Hannah is also allergic to soy proteins. So I guess I am back on the no milk diet. The one ray of hope in this story is that 80% of babies outgrow cow's milk allergies by the time they are 2, and 95% by the time they are 3. Until then though she has to avoid all milk products. Unfortunately with the type of allergy she has, it isn't even that she can't eat anything with milk, she can't touch it either. And one of the things about allergies is that with each exposure the reaction gets worse. The Doctor mentioned the possibility that after 7 or 8 exposures she may start having breathing difficulties associated with a reaction.

I guess on the bright side, we probly discovered the source of her eczema. By eliminating dairy from my diet, her eczema should theoretically clear up. (Let's hope anyways). Her six month check up is in early June, and I believe I will ask for a referral to a nutrionalist to figure out what kinds of things she can eat.

In with the new!

Well it took the entire weekend, but it's finally finished (well, at least sort of...) Our new fence is up, and WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!! We actually have a private yard. While construction went relatively well, we did experience our fair share of problems...

1. Drilling post holes is a LOT harder than it sounds (even with a gas powered 2-man auger
2. Our lift of cedar was soaked
   Since wet wood takes no stain, the cedar went up without it. Guess we'll be having a painting bee in a few weeks...
3. And of course, since everything comes in threes:
   
   In an attempt to save ourselves the headache of transporting extra 12' lengths of Sonotube in our minivan, we chose to test our luck with the Sonotube and stain at Home Depot - BIG MISTAKE
   Not only did they not want to help cut the Sonotube, but some rookie staff member took our paint requirements, and completely fudged them. If anybody knows what an oil-latex paint is and how well it stands up to Canadian weather, please fell free to drop a comment

Out with the old:

Wow...

Who would have imagined that a busted down old fence could detract from the appearance of the yard more than having no fence at all...

Yep, that's right. I finally got around to ripping down the nasty old fence that the previous owner so carelessly erected 15 years ago.

Now I don't know a whole lot about fencing or how long treated fence posts are supposed to last, but seems to me that they should last more than 15 years... About 1/3 of the posts were already broken off within 2" of the ground, another 1/3 snapped off at about the same spot when I tried to pull them out, and the remaining 1/3 were so rotten that it's a wonder that they didn't snap off. My guess is that the previous owner didn't bother to spend the extra cash to get treated fence posts...

In all, it took me about 2 1/2 hours to rip the entire fence down, about another hour to clean up the mess, and a mind-blowing 1 1/2 hours at the Totem lumber desk. Not that I'm going to complain, I did change my order on the poor guy twice and insist on two separate invoices so I could charge 50% of half the fence to my neighbor...

Somebody get me some ear plugs

Hannah has officially discovered how to squeal, and I am going crazy. She squeals to express happiness, discomfort, anger and of course to tell me that she doesn't want to have a nap. I can't wait until she discovers some new amusing sound so we can leave this one far behind. On another note, tonight is the season finale of Enterprise. The end of a craze that has lasted over 40 years. Or do you think they will come out with another Star trek? Although I would love to see another series, I think they may have worn out their welcome. I would recommend watching this episode though, they've even brought in some of the crew from "The Next Generation".

Happy Mother's Day

Happy belated Mother's day.

I hope everybody enjoyed their mother's day. I know I certainly did. I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend. I started my weekend with a massage on Saturday and then ended it with a wonderful supper at Spagos on Sunday. It was a truly enjoyable weekend. I felt a little weird though, to be on the receiving end on mother's day. It made me feel old.

Hannah is doing wonderful with solid foods. She was an expert right from the first spoonfuls. Although I don't think you can really consider rice cereal to be a solid food. More like a rather bland paste. I did notice a small patch of eczema forming on her chest today, but it is hard to tell whether that is an allergic reaction to the food, or her skin just doing what it does. Seeing how today was the 5th day she has had rice cereal I am going to go with it being just a coincidence for now.

I feel the need to comment on Canadian politics. I usually keep my thoughts to myself, but lately I have been particularity disappointed by our government. I refuse to support Steven Harper, as he has become obsessed with over-turning the government despite the majority of people wanting to wait until the conclusion of the inquiry. But even more I am disappointed by Paul Martins "dithering", He has acted patheticaly this past week, desperately trying to hold onto his career. Perhaps if he had admitted defeat and gone out gracefully he could have kept his dignity, but I am afraid he doesn't even have that left. So I guess that leaves Jack Layton, the only one who has actually tried to make the minority government work.

At the last election the Canadian people chose a minority government. I am ashamed that instead of trying to make it work, Paul Martin and Steven Harper have just made a mockery of our parliamentary system.

Another busy couple of weeks

Well once again we let a couple of weeks go by before we posted, so I have an overwhelming amount of things that have happened.

Hannah got a play center and although she didn't like it to much at first, she now gets great pleasure out of sitting in it and drooling all over her hands and whichever toys you move into range.

Since her 4 months shots all of the concerns the health nurse had have been pretty much resolved, she is holding her head up, has become more interactive, and her head shape has rounded out. I saw her Doctor on Tuesday, and he had absolutely no concerns. She is now 14lbs, and 13 oz. Up from 13 lbs 5 oz at her 4 months shot. Yes, she is a very large baby. When corrected for her prematurely, her weight is off the charts.

She hasn't been sleeping very well lately, which is my excuse for not posting. So we are going to start her on solid food. Tonight we will make the plunge into rice cereal. Hopefully this will help her to sleep better and I can get more then 45 minutes of sleep at one time.

With the arrival of summer we have turned out attention to the sorry excuse of a fence in our backyard. In a few weeks we will start building a new fence, so I will be sure to post on the comical experience that us building a fence is sure to be. We have already picked out the type of fence and will be ordering it from totem in the next few day. I personally prefer totem to home depot or Rona, because they have free popcorn. and it's good popcorn too. Always fresh and taste just like theatre popcorn. Yummy.

Dan will be getting his appliance to stop his grinding today. We can all laugh at him now, because he needs to wear a piece of plastic over his bottom teeth all the time. Okay perhaps that isn't that funny, especially as that piece of plastic is costing us a fortune. Stupid TMJ disorder.

hmm well I think that is everything, I am sure I will think of something else in five minutes, but for now that is it.