the hair.

If I believed in old wives tales I wouldn't have been surprised that Kale was born with a lot of hair since I had terrible heartburn throughout my pregnancy. Kale was born with a full head of hair and even though everyone told me that it would all fall out before growing back, it only thinned a little around 6 weeks. I think that his hair has been one of his defining features since day 1. People ALWAYS comment on it. Need a reminder of how cute a newborn with hair looks?

Cute, right?

Well Kale's hair grew...and it grew, and grew and grew. Around 3 months his hair was the perfect length.

Even cuter, right?

Well, now Kale is almost 6 months (eek!) and the hair is just totally out of control.

I have to side sweep it and TUCK IT BEHIND HIS EAR.

A few months ago I would have told you that I was going to just let it grow until he turned a year old, but between the cat and my post-partum hair loss, we have enough of the long stuff floating around our house. Besides, it's always in his eyes and now that it's toque season (that's a winter hat you Americans!), he always has terrible hat head.

Clearly I need to cut it, but I have no idea how. My mother used to cut my hair with scotch tape. As in, she'd run a piece of scotch tape across my forehead and cut my bangs straight across. I'm not even close to kidding. Obviously I have been traumatized and feel like cutting hair should never be done by mom's (unless they are a professional), but there is no way Kale is going to let a stranger cut his hair and no way I'm going to let a stranger with a pair of scissors near my constantly moving almost 6 month old son.

Sooooo....suggestions?

Please vote!

hello.

sleeping in the driveway.

Blogging has definitely fallen to the bottom of the priority list this week, along with things like eating and sleeping. Over the last few weeks Kale's sleep has gradually become worse and worse. For awhile we blamed it on the major congestion he was experiencing for a couple weeks, but that went away and the sleep didn't get better. Last night he woke up every 45 minutes.

I'm not exaggerating.

Kris and I are recording Kale's wake ups since we re-committed to following a 10 day sleep plan and so we know for a fact that it was every 45 minutes. We didn't just dream it. There is no time to dream.

On top of the lack of sleep, the weather has been terrible and if there are two things that can give me a guaranteed migraine, it's too little sleep and bad weather. Awesome.

We want to blame it all on teething since he's been gnawing like a mad man on everything and everything and I even thought that I felt a little tooth bump today, but who really knows.

What I do know is that today we were driving home from the library and Kale magically fell asleep. I then proceeded to drive to the nearest drive thru, park in my driveway and eat my lunch in the car, enjoying the silence and letting Kale get some much needed shut eye. I then considered taking a nap in the driver's seat.....

voting.

Yesterday was municipal elections in Ontario and so we walked down with Kale to our ward's polling station to cast our ballots. Despite being a consistant voter since I was 18, I still get a little thrill every time I mark my X. There is something awesome about participating in the democratic process and being a part of something so BIG, while at the same time waiting in line in an outdated church basement and standing behind a cardboard screen that is so charming and small. This year was a extra special for a couple reasons - one, I was on the campaign team of a (re-elected!!) city councillor, and two, we had Kale with us.

As we were walking back home last night after voting, Kris explained to Kale what had just happened and told him that he was going to come with us every time we voted so that by the time he hit 18 he'd be super excited to participate. Kale drooled a little, blew a raspberry, and chewed on the tag of his stroller toy (his new infatuation is tags...go figure). He clearly has a future in politics.

Here we are on our way to vote:

PS - A big hug to our friends in Toronto who are likely feeling terrified for the future of their city now that Chris Farley..errr, Rob Ford (that joke is going to get old so fast) is running things. Let's cross our fingers and hope that he proves us all wrong. Or you could just move to Guelph because, at the risk of gloating, our council is pretty awesome.

Didn't get enough voting in yesterday? Vote again today - for our blog!

prioritizing time.

Regular reader's of this blog and real-life friends and family already know that I'm a major planner. Not just with long-term stuff either, but the really minor, day-to-day things. Our house in stock full of various calendars and checklists so I can show Kris the 900 things I have planned for us on a regular basis. He secretely likes it, don't worry.

Along with planning comes a need to prioritize and multi-task and this often requires creativity. Remeber when I started drinking my coffee in the shower? This is an example of my inability to prioritize coffee over a shower or vice versa, hence a creative solution that requires some multi-tasking. However, I didn't realize how much prioritizing and planning has taken over my life until the other day.

I turned the shower on to let it heat up while I put Kale in the jolly jumper. I got in and cleaned up while singing songs to Kale and regularly sticking my head around the curtain to assure him I wasn't just a voice. When I got out of the shower, I mentally went through the list of things I needed to do to finish the whole hygiene routine and decided to go: deodorant, brush teeth, comb hair. The reason I need to prioritize like this is because I'm fully aware that at any given moment Kale could announce he's tired of the jolly jumper and requires me to entertain him. So as I'm brushing my teeth, I decide to do thirty seconds on the top and thirty seconds on the bottom rather than the full minute on each just in case and that's when it hit me: Not only has my prioritizing become totally INSANE, but this little person that lives with us TOTALLY RULES MY LIFE.

I wish that I could say that this realization caused me to reevaluate and shift toward being a more relaxed and chill mama. But that's just not going to happen.... That would require a whole other plan.

wordless wednesday.

my beautiful family.

We didn't do professional newborn photo's, opting instead to save our money and get some done around the six month mark when Kale was a little more interactive (read: awake). So I was super excited when I recently found a great deal for a portrait shoot with two local photographers. When I read about Ashley & Brennan on their Caverhill Photography website I was instantly sold. I mean, look at how cute these two are!

This past Sunday, Kris, Kale & I scrambled to get ourselves together and looking our best at the same time. It's pretty difficult considering the amount of drool that constantly comes out of Kale's mouth, leaving blotchy wet marks on just about everything and everyone. We also had to cross our fingers and try to time Kale's naps so he'd actually be awake and in a decent mood for the two hour shoot. Oh - and the photo's were being done at our house so we had to tame that zoo.... Somehow it all worked out and when Ashley and Brennan showed up, we looked like a stylish, well-put together family (we totally fooled them).

Ashley & Brennan were amazing to work with and we had so much fun. We did some formal shots outside (we borrowed our neighbours gorgeous garden...I can't even remember the last time our lawn was cut) and then did some fun pictures in the bedroom. We decided to do the bedroom since Kale was made there, born in there and we all sleep together there every night. It's kind of a special place for us. However, this meant that we had to take off the bedrails, tear down the co-sleeper (better known as a glorified night stand since Kale doesn't actually sleep in there), put the duvet back on and buy new white pillowcases that I put on two minutes before the actual photo's were taken.

Anyway, it was a fabulous time and if anyone is looking for a photographer in this area I would higly recommend Caverhill Photography! Not only were they fun and awesome at the shoot,  but they were super fast in getting us the images and that's why I get to share some of them with you now!

I'd love if you could give us a daily vote!

is this a real blog?

I kind of have a love/hate relationship with some mommy blogs. I love getting a peek into other people's lives and ohh-ing and ahh-ing at their cute little ones, but some mama bloggers just seem so perfect. They have incredible style, are super crafty and creative, are witty and intelligent, and in every picture they post they look fantastic. I know that despite our best efforts to keep our blogs honest, we still tend to represent ourselves in a certain (a.k.a. flattering) way, so I do try to take it all in with a grain of salt.

Lately some of my favourite blogs have been posting pictures of themselves and their little one's and writing about what everyone is wearing and where it was purchased. I totally love these posts because I get all kinds of fashion idea's and I can find new places to shop for Kale (as if I actually need to know that). However, I can't help wondering: (1) How did they manage to get everyone looking that good AT THE SAME TIME?, and (2) Where do they find the TIME to make everyone look that good and then take a picture of it?

I know for a fact that I'm not the only mom out there with spit up stains on the shirt she's been wearing for three days straight with a kid who has an out of control Justin Bieber haircut and a drool rash. But that doesn't make me want to be a well put together, fashionable mama any less.

Anyway, last week Amy over A Good Life blog posted a pic of her "bad side" and wrote about how we can sometimes make our lives look like the way we wish they were in our blogs. So when my photography class was assigned the task of taking a self-portrait, I took some inspiration from Amy and decided to take a 100% real, honest picture of myself and am posting it here. When I presented the photo in class the teacher actually asked me who it was because she didn't even recognize me! "Oh that's mom-Randalin. No makeup, 7am, dark circles under they eyes, freckles I didn't even know I had."

Now, I do want to note that today we had some professional family photo's taken by Ashley & Brennan at Caverhill Photography and Kris, Kale and I all managed to look our best AT THE SAME TIME. So I suppose I do have it in me to be a fashionable and well put together mama....

It just takes so.much.energy.

I hope that I'm an honest blogger and I hope that I portray my family in a realistic way and that people still enjoy visiting here. In fact, if you are one of those people that enjoy's this blog, I'd really love if you could click the Top Baby Blog link below and then click again to give us a vote.... :)

BLOG LOVE.

I blog for a lot of reasons - to update my friends and family on what's happening with Kale, to track Kale's daily happenings so I don't have to feel guilty about all the empty baby books, to vent/brag/celebrate about all things mama, and (this is a big part of it) to connect with other mom's in the blogosphere. Being listed on Top Baby Blogs has really helped me find other mama friends.

I've worked hard to up our ranking on their website, but every now and then they reset the vote numbers and we have to start all over. That's what happened today and so I'm asking people to do us a big favour and click on the link below and then click again to give us a vote. I REALLY appreciate it!!

the stroller.

When I was pregnant I basically determined that the stroller was going to be our most important purchase. Kris and I spent HOURS looking at different strollers and it was incredibly overwhelming. Once we determined what features we were looking for, I created a spreadsheet (I'm not joking) to track things, watched video's on YouTube, and read blog after blog of stroller reviews. Being the Taurus I am, I decided the stroller for us was also one of the most expensive - the UppaBaby Vista. I loved the bassinet feature, the fact that it could turn on a dime, the way the seat could face us or face out, and how easily it collapsed. Other bonus features? It has an extendable handle which is great since Kris is almost a full foot taller than I am, it's really light, and it comes in great colours. So I searched the internets and found a sale and we made our first major baby purchase. We were so proud of this stroller that we would bring it out when people visited to give them demonstrations. Again, I'm not joking.

For the first couple of weeks we would happily cruise around our neighbourhood with our newborn content in the basinett. Here is a picture of us taking our first walk together:

I thought that Kale was going to love that bassinett so much. I thought he was going to sleep in it next to our bed. I thought I'd just wheel him around, room to room, while he slept in there. But that didn't exactly happen.

Kale grew tired of the bassinett after a month or so. We figured he wanted to look around and see what was happening, so we put on the seat attachment and strapped him in. Except he totally hated that too. It wasn't long before the stroller was collecting dust in the back of our car and we were wearing Kale for all our walks and outings. Kris and I both prefer wearing Kale, so it wasn't a big deal at all. Having a baby that enjoyed the stroller was just part of a fantasy I had before I actually had a baby and realized they have their own agenda's.

A few weeks ago we brought the stroller in the house and it became a good place to set Kale down while we put our shoes on or grabbed something out of the fridge. He'd put up with being in the stroller for about 5 minutes before he started registering complaints (very LOUD complaints). Every now and then I'd put Kale in the stroller and walk to the park at the end of our street, but he'd be screaming half way there and I'd end up carrying him with one arm and pushing the stroller with the other.

Last week my back was really hurting and I was frustrated because I couldn't take Kale anywhere. It just hurt way too much to wear him. In a burst of determination to get Kale to like the stroller (as if I have control over that), we bundled him up, put him in the stroller, and walked to the park. Like usual, he screamed half way there, but on the way home we noticed he was being totally quiet. I peeked in and saw this:

He fell asleep!! We were so excited that we decided to extend our walk and when it started to spit rain, we shrugged it off and kept walking. But then it rained harder...

Anyway, along comes Wednesday. We missed our music class because Kale fell asleep two seconds before we had to leave and I figured it wasn't worth waking him up for. After being home all morning I was dying to get out by the afternoon and knew that we had to go to the mall to find a dress for our family pictures we're having done on Sunday. Originally we planned to go when Kris got home from work so that he could wear Kale and I could try things on, but I decided to take a chance with the stroller and go with just Kale and I. I figured that I would wear him until I had to try something on and then put him down in the stroller. But guess what? I put him in the stroller right away because he'd fallen asleep on the way there and when he woke up - HE DIDN'T WANT OUT. He LOVED it. It was unbelievable!

The next day I had to go to the mall again to get some pictures developed and I decided to give the stroller another shot. HE LOVED IT AGAIN! We even waited around for an hour and a half until the photo's were developed and he was totally happy to hang out in the stroller for most of that time.

Having the stroller as an option is so great. We were getting worried about the winter because we knew it was going to be harder to wear him in the cold weather. I'm sure that we'll continue to wear Kale the majority of the time, but knowing he won't have a meltdown in the stroller if we have to use it is pretty awesome.

I know this was an extremely long way of telling this story, but that's kind of how I roll. I guess what all of the reaffirms for me is that babies go through stages. Just when you think you have them figured out - they change things up.

a neglected blog.

I've totally neglected the blog this week, but I haven't had a free second. Kale has started to sleep better at night again now that his congestion is cleared up, but the naps during the day are still 30min. Elizabeth Pantley, author of The No Cry Sleep Solution, tells me that if I want to improve frequent night wakings (yes, please), then we should do everything we can to extend his naps during the day. The only way Kale will sleep longer than 30 minutes during the day? Nap in my arms. He still wakes after 30 min., but once he realizes he's in my arms he'll slip back into sleep for another hour.

Basically this is a really long-winded way to say that I haven't been able to blog because I've been holding Kale for his naps and have zero free time.

I do have exciting things to post though - so I'll try to get around to it tonight!

wordless wednesday.

a thanksgiving saturday.

It's pretty amazing to think that last Thanksgiving we spilled the news to my parents that we were expecting. I will never forget how my mom's eyes welled up with tears (of happiness, right mom?) and how my dad could barely choke out a "that's good, Rand" before ordering another round. I think it's pretty safe to say that they were surprised and even though my mom was trying to plan our wedding before we even hit dessert (sorry mom - not going to happen), they were still super happy for us.

This Thanksgiving weekend we decided to stick around home and even though we missed a turkey dinner on Georgian Bay and one last boat ride of the season, I'm glad we did. The weather this weekend has been incredible and our city really shines at this time of year. I'm a bit behind on my assignments for the photography course I'm taking, so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather, and take a bit of a tour to get some good shots.

We started by hitting up Guelph's airport since I need to get a picture of a plane. The airport is so tiny that we could walk right out to the ramp and set up the tripod. After that we went out to the Rockwood conservation area and it was totally amazing. We could not have asked for a better day to be there. Kris wore Kale in the Mei Tai and Kale snoozed while I tried to find a piece of grainy driftwood for a picture. It's just too bad I couldn't stop taking shots of these two:

After we left the conservation area we went to another little town and went to a pub on the river and ate outside on the patio.

We went over to Kris's parents last night for Thanksgiving dinner and a bit of a going away party for Uncle Karl and Aunt Niki who will be travelling to Slovakia, Cairo & Thailand over the next five weeks. We are totally not jealous.

The dinner was amazing, although Kris and I were both kicking ourselves for having such a big lunch because we couldn't eat nearly as much turkey as we wanted to. Kale was so well behaved considering the long day he'd had and the fact that there were lots of people around. He pulled out all the stops and entertained and woo'd the crowd until he had everyone signing his favourite song.....

5 months.

The other day Kale and I went for a walk and I started looking around and almost fell over from sheer shock. The leaves were these incredible shades of yellow, orange and red. People had Halloween decorations up. The air was crisp...

What?! It's FALL? It's OCTOBER??!!? Then I looked at Kale and I saw this chubby little MAN strapped to my chest. How did I get here??! Where did the summer go? When did my newborn become a BABY MAN?

It was a lot to take in.

This is what Kale looks like today (I literally took this photo this morning):

5 months.

Weight: 17lbs. 11oz. (up from 16lbs. 15oz. at four months)

Height: 26.5" (compared to 25.5" at four months)

What size of clothes is he wearing? He's in 6-12 months shirts, but mostly still 3-6 months pants. Kris jokes that he has Ellery legs and I pretend I don't know what he means. Apparently he has huge feet because I bought him 6-12 month winter booties and I can barely get them on. That might be due to the cankles though and not necessarily the size of his feet.....

Milestones in the past month:

• Rolling over. He can roll easily from back to belly, but hasn't really got belly to back down yet. We've seen a complete roll a couple times, but I think he's way more interested in resting on that chubby belly of his than laying flat on his back. Now everytime we lay him on his back he immediately rolls to his belly and then proceeds to establish a large pool of drool directly under him.


• Sitting up. He's pretty awesome at sitting up on his own now, except when he sees something cool and starts flailing his arms at it. That's a guaranteed recipe for a topple. Here's a shot of him showing his skills:

• Giggle fits. Oh, the things that make this kid giggle.... tickling him under the arms, catching sight of the cat, hanging him upside down, showing him his reflection in the mirror...let's see, what else....oh, looking at him. Kale is a true fan of the giggles and so are we. It's the cutest sound I've ever heard. However, a giggle fit leads to a case of the hiccups about 99.9% of the time, which always sound painful for Kale.


• Amazing hand control. He's been reaching out and grabbing things for awhile, but now he's much more precise. He can grab things and turn them in his hands so that he can get the part of whatever the object might be into his mouth. EVERYTHING he grabs goes directly to the mouth.


• His first cold. Booooo. I still blame the baby sign teacher, but regardless of where he caught it, the first cold really sucked. Coughing, sneezing, runny nose, congestion - he had it all.

Special outings in the last month:

We actuallydidn't get out too much this month because Kale was sick for half of it. Also, my parents visited us here and so we didn't have to make any long roadtrips to their place. He did attend our friend's Lisa & Dave's wedding reception and took his first trip to Mountain Equipment Co-op.
What is his routine?

At the start of the month Kale ran like clockwork. He'd get up around 7am, be awake for 1.5 - 2 hours, sleep for 45 minutes, and then repeat until about 8pm. A couple weeks ago this all went out the window when he got sick and we've been battling serious sleep deprivation ever since. He is still pretty predictable in terms of his awake time being 2 hours, but his naps have decreased to 30 min., unless it's the afternoon and I give in and let him nap in my arms - then he'll konk out for a good 2 hours. Normally I'm so exhausted by the afternoon that sitting on the couch watching The Birdcage while Kale sleeps on me is actually pretty enticing. Gone are the glory days of his third month of life when he would sleep for 5-7 hours straight at night. Now he sleeps for about 4 hours and then gets up every hour for the rest of the night. This is our sleep routine. Yes, it's exhausting, but there are signs that things are changing as he starts to feel better and hopefully we'll be back to something more manageable soon.

In terms of our "awake" routine...it's GO! GO! GO! I never knew that a mostly immobile five month old baby could have so much energy. Kale does not like to sit still for more than three seconds and so we're constantly moving around, looking at and touching things. I've read so much about the "quiet state of alterness babies enter when they're learning," but Kale does not have this state of mind. He just absorbs everything going on while bouncing, jumping, kicking, or dancing.

We've started all our classes - baby signing, music, and swimming (we ditched salsa) and he likes the music class the best. Swimming is still a lot of fun for him, but the class is a little too slow for his liking.

Kale's favourite things to do:

• Be tossed in the air, held upside down, generally tossed around. I'm a sociologist so I know better than to fall for gendered stereotypes, but Kale really is your typical rough and tumble, high-energy, bouncing baby boy. He laughs hysterically when you throw him in the air, flip him upside down, and run around in circles with him tucked under your arm.


• Listen to "the Bear Went Over the Mountain." We learned this song in Kale's music class and he loves, loves, LOVES it. I'm pretty sure because the last few lines involves tossing him from knee to knee and he thinks that's hilarious. Now everytime I start signing it he smiles and laughs.


• Play with his blue cup. Someone bought us these coloured plastic cups for the bathtub and Kale fell madly in love with the blue one. He became so attached to the cup that we took it out of the tub and now he plays with it all the time. He mostly likes to look at it and put it in his mouth and then drop it and watch me pick it up. After we took it out of the tub we noticed him looking around for it during bath time so we put in another blue cup and a green one that came with the set. Now bath time is all about playing with the cups. I don't even think he realizes he's in the tub. He is that into the cups.

• Stare and laugh at the cat. Now that Kale can track moving objects with his eyes his favourite thing to watch is the cat. You can usually guess when the cat walks by because Kale will stop everything he's doing, zero in on the cat, and the slowly start to smile and laugh. Despite the fact that our cat is friends with no one, tore through our screen door to attack another cat, and regularly attacks Kris and I in the middle of the night, I still have high hopes that Kale and the Hrubie cat will be best friends some day.


• Grab faces. Lately Kale has been reaching out and grabbing our faces. You really have no idea how much extra skin is on your face until a five month old gets a hold of it. He'll take anything - eyes, noses, lips - whatever he can get those chubby little hands on! He normally grabs something and then laughs hysterically, while we grimace and yelp.

Photo's of Kale from this month:

Fall Kale.

You know how every time a new season rolls around you think, "what did I wear last winter/summer/etc.?" Your entire wardrobe suddenly seems entirely single-season. It's hovering around the freezing mark outside and you can only find shorts and sandals, or the tulips are ready to bloom and all you can come up with are knit cardigans. This happens to you, right?! It definitely happens to me. Except this year it's happening x 2. Last year when the temperature dipped I was pregnant and I spent the winter in elastic band pants and a maternity jacket that could fit around a small country. Kale was cozy in the womb, kickin' it naked and growing into a baby. Dressing the little man has been pretty easy up to this point, but now that it's getting cooler I'm starting to panic. How do I keep him warm?! Snowsuits? Winter booties? Mitts? I know nothing about keeping a small human warm and safe! So yesterday we took a little trip to Mountain Equipment Co-op and Baby Gap to check out some winter wear for Kale and came home with a few goodies...

BAAAHHH! I know, right? So cute!

Vote for us?

huge baby.

WE'RE ALIVE!!! I feel like our family crawled out of a deep, dark hole today. A hole where babies have stuffy noses, a cough, and the sneezes, papa's have sore throats and sleep deprivation, and mama's have the flu. It's been a long, long week around here. Thankfully everyone is feeling better today and hopefully tomorrow morning we'll all wake up at 100%.

Anyway, since I'm still feeling the affects of the two gravol I downed last night, I will leave you with a short story and photo. My friend Michelle - who is the sister of my sister-in-law, was my travel companion for 6 weeks in Peru, and who now lives in S. Korea - sent us a gift when Kale was born. In the package was a cute pair of pj's with a note that said "Sorry the pj's are so big but it's the smallest baby thing I could find. Apparently Korean's have huge babies." When I looked at the pj's I distinctly remember saying, "these will fit him when he's around 1 year old." Ha. Korean's aren't the only ones with huge babies.