ReNe: 7 months -- regarding activity

Ryan's a lot more active now. He used to sit on his own and play for a while, which was very convenient. However, recently he has been exhibiting an even greater interest in things around him as well as those beyond his reach. He would push himself off his bum into a half-kneeling/crawl position so as to reach stuff, though since he can't crawl yet, he'd either manage to pull himself back up or end up on his front.

It's great he's terribly curious. But it's also very tiring for us.

This grabbiness of his makes everything so much more difficult. Sitting on his high chair, he'd try to swipe for the nearest things, such as the table, wall, kitchen door, or kitchen cabinet doors. When changing him on his floor mat (it's just a quilt laid out on alphabet foam mats), he would lunge to the sides to pull up the quilt and then pull up the foam cut-out letters. Or he would lunge for the crib.

So far we haven't exactly baby-proofed the apartment. But I think, not too long now...

ReNe: ice skates?

Toying with the idea of buying ice skates...

I know how to skate, a little, both on land and ice, though the last time I've been on skates of any kind was in Singapore. I've always thought that while living in the Great White North, I'd have plenty of opportunities for winter sports -- I had planned to skate, to learn to ski...

I have done nothing. The first winter, I was too busy settling into my new job and simply settling into Toronto. Second winter, I was pregnant.

Augh. But we just bought a new microwave yesterday cuz our previous microwave died, and the new oven costs more than I hoped it would have cost.

ReNe: stunt baby

Ryan had a big adventure last night.

But, backtracking a little, the eczema on his face was flaring up last night, so before we went to sleep, we applied some cortisone to his face and bound his arms with a swaddle cloth. The cloth is folded in a long strip and placed under his back. Then the ends goes around his arms and are tucked in again under his back so his body helps to keep the cloth in place. Recently though he has been getting pretty good at escaping --- if he arches his back to lift his weight off the cloth and if he yanks his arms out at the same time, he can pull himself free. Apparently, that was what he did.

I woke up sometime around dawn to his crying and got off the bed to attend to him. Luckily I opened my eyes instead of stepping out blindly. When I sat up opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Ryan, on the floor beside our bed! He was lying on his back and bawling away, arms held out in his 'pick me up!!' position.

His crib is located on the other side of the room and there's a tall shelf in the middle of the room, as a room divider. To get to our bed, he would have had to free his arms from the swaddle cloth and his blanket (which was tucked in around him), push himself off his crib (which was about 40cm off the floor), and somehow crawl and make his way around the shelf to our bed (perhaps about 2m in total distance).

Most amazingly, he hasn't learned how to crawl yet. Not even an inch. He isn't even good at turning himself over. So how the heck did he get all the way from his crib to our bed?!?

Maybe the monster-under-his-crib carried him over... *cue dramatic music*

He must have squirmed a lot since the top few snaps on his sleeper were opened and his left arm had slipped out. Plus, he must have spend quite a bit of time on the floor since he was pretty cold. After picking him up, I fed him and tucked him into bed with us. It would have been too cruel to put him back in his crib after his monumental effort. When I tucked him in between our pillows (so we can't roll onto his head), while half-asleep, he immediately spread his arms out in an 'X' position. It was obvious he hates to have his arms bound...

We had joked about his stubbornness, but last night's Big Escape puts that trait in an entirely new dimension.

ReNe: first snow of the season

Last year the first snow fell on 21 Oct, so this year, since October, I was expectant.

It finally flurried a little yesterday, tiny bits of snow that melted as soon as they land. Turned out, this is the first snow-free November for Toronto in over 160 years, since the weather office started keeping records in 1937 in fact!

Coming from a tropical country, I found snow terribly exotic. The first year in Toronto, I got very excited every time there was a snowstorm, and I loved seeing the city blanketed in white. Now, lots and lots of snow later, I still like a good snowfall. Even if the clean-up's pretty expensive and we do end up paying, literally, for it later.