welcome, max

this little bit of info deserves a post of it's very own. josh and naomi welcomed their beautiful little boy, max, yesterday afternoon. he too was early like conrad, and he was raring to come out as labour was less than 12 hours with only a half hour of pushing! (phew! i still retain the pushing title!) both mom and dad are doing and looking great.

boy, i thought conrad was pretty darn cute when he was born but that was a very biased opinion, but this little fella is keee-YOOT. it helps when you have very good looking parents. he didn't have any of those newborn traits like the conehead or the wrinkly, old man face. he was nice and 'rosie' with plump little fingers and hands. and he has the littlest baby cry, he is just precious. we are so happy for you, guys, congratulations!

here's melissa and i fawning over little max(ie).

lordy, lordy, looks who's 37

happy birthday, horchie! i know, he doesn't look his age, it must be because he's got such a youthful wife! since he's got curling playoffs tonight, we celebrated last night with a feast from vij's rangoli.

oh, my. oh, my my my. it was simply delicious. vikram vij is indeed a genius because those who have babies who don't take the bottle can't wait 3 hours just to get a table at vij's so we brought vij's to burnaby. it was too easy. ready made dinners, all you need to do is dunk those little bags into boiling water for 20 minutes and voila! but apparently it was too easy because i forgot to make the rice (doh!), good thing i picked up some naan.

here's what was on the menu:

punjabi lamb curry
saag and paneer
garnet yams and green chili dumplings
tamarind and date chutney and naan

and don't forget dessert: vij's rice pudding. Y-U-M!

look's like he enjoyed it as much as i did. poor little monster only had rice cereal for dinner, but i don't think it bothered him much. maybe next year buddy!

happy birthday, my love xxxx

the tables are turning...slowly

we are starting to see some progression with the little monster's sleep habits. i can't remember when we started our bedtime routine anymore but i think he is starting to get that after storytime it's bedtime. it's been awhile since my last post but i'm a tired mommy. i thought blogging would be easier than it is. words don't come easy to me so as much as i love sharing my going-ons sometimes it just seems like work. my english sucks and my chinese sucks but the upside is i'm pretty good as baby talk. who said the glass is half empty?

conrad is definately not a "cry it out" baby nor could i let him cry it out, it's just too heart wrenching. he would just cry all night if we tried that method. so the latest book i've read about infant sleep is the lull-a-baby sleep plan. of everything i've read i think this is most suitable for our little sleep monster. it's a middle of the road plan that allows parents to lull their babies into sleepy bliss. naps are getting a little better and nodding off to bed isn't that much of a fight anymore but long stretches of sleep are still random occurances but keep your fingers crossed, so far so good. the author is canadian so there are some links to some helpful websites that have canadian content so that's a bonus.

two weeks in review:

naomi at her shower, she is so cute pregnant!

rounded this photo of me as a babe, me and conrad share the same hairstyle, don't you think?

mmm, eggs benny. thanks, martha, for the breakfast show!

the first time we got to use the backpack (what a steal, thanks, colleen)! trekking around the backwoods of north burnaby.

"hello to baba! i'm so glad to see you!" singing the hello song in music class, thanks for coming, baba!

oh, my sweet boy! don't be so serious!

finally fitting into jade's overalls. thank you, jade! we miss your dinners!

first time on a swing! weee!

happy valentine's day

to the ladies. 'nough said.

nominated

horchie is up for an elan this year again. the details i got from him were vague and the nominees list on their website has not been updated, but he's up for an elan in the best storyboarding category. check out their website but be forewarned that it's very no frills, here's a comprehensive list of nominees. i really hope he wins this year because i want him to win of course, but because the trophies are so bad they're good and because we can put it alongside my most honest golfer trophy. yes, that's an illustration of it on the left.

also up for awards are josh mephie and j falconer for best direction in an animated series, josh pong for best art direction and our favoritest italian, chris mizzoni for best animated short for clancy with the puck. pick up this one at your local bookstore, folks, because it's a keeper. every little boy and girl should have this on their bookshelf. there's even a bonus DVD of the animated short that's narrated by bob cole. that's right, folks, CBC colour commentator for HNIC. (horchie storyboarded that too!) good luck to all you guys!

radical's been nominated in a few of the gaming categories...so good luck to you, gerald, if you've been nominated too!

here are some pix from last year's awards ceremony:

the entire studio gang before heading out to the awards by limo. fancy.

william shatner hosted last year.

horchie and joshy with elan and beers in tow.

me and kenny park. jason who?

sleep

the lack of it. we were so naive to think the monster wouldn't have any sleep problems and that things were going to stay the way they were. it was so great for the first 4 months. he was just waking once a night to feed so we were getting blocks of 3-5 hours of sleep each night, but now he's been waking up much more frequently, about 2-3 times more often. so i've borrowed just about every book on the topic of sleep from the BPL. i know i was walking a very fine line with sleep associations, especially the one they claim is the most powerful one of all: nursing to sleep. it happens more often at night than in the day but he isn't the best at naps either so i definately have my work cut out for me. i am, however, able to catch his morning nap. when i spot his first yawn i'll plop him down into his crib. that's probably the only piece of advice i've read from book that has actually worked. i was skeptical at first because he just didn't seem like he was tired but sure enough, he'd doze off all by himself, sans soothing. i thought i was on top of the world, sigh.

our bedtime routine, tonight it's "hop on pop"

we also thought that he wasn't getting enough from breastfeeding, for monster babies need lots of food to grow, so we started him on rice cereal. we weren't sure how he'd do with spoonfeeding but he did just fine, but i'm not all that surprised since he's been quite fixated with our food as we ate it at dinnertime. he's had a couple of rice cereal meals now and it hasn't helped with the sleep sitch.

but otherwise, he's my perfect little monster. so what if i'm a little bit tired? i just need to remind myself that these times are fleeting and i'll never have them again.

we just very recently put up the jolly jumper. monster just loves it but he just didn't know what to make of it when i first put him in it but he got the hang of it pretty quickly. i can't believe it's taken us so long to put it up. little fraser's been in his for several weeks now thanks to his daddy's handy dandy blanket rig. it was this brilliant contraption that kept a wee little horchie out of toruble on family camping trips. i can't wait to use it up at grizzley cause he'll probably be in a world of trouble by the summertime.

fraser and his specially rigged up jumper

some of you might know that chinese people wear jade because it's supposed to improve your health or some kind of mumble jumble like that so the one that conrad's sporting here is one that my sister, brother as well as myself wore when we were babies. it was given to us from our maternal grandmother. i thought that's pretty neat.

conrad's been rolling around in his crib and one day i found him sleeping on his front, guess i can't do much about that.

**to all our far away friends, we've signed up with skype so give us a ring-a-ling when you have free time!

beautiful day **catch up post**

last monday turned out to be a beautiful day so conrad and i set out for a mommy and baby snowshoeing adventure. boy, i thought we'd never get out of the house. it was a whirlwind start to the day of gathering extra clothes, extra warm clothes, toys, diapers, boots, gloves, ski pants, etc. by the time i had finished packing it looked like we were going away for days but really, it was only a 1.5 hour excursion! but like the boy scout motto says, be prepared!

it was our first time snowshoeing and i was kind of nervous as this was the first-ish time for serious physical activity...aside from the time i had to bike to lougheed mall but let's not talk about that because i get nauseous just thinking about it. we had been looking forward to it for ages because our friend, janey, is the leader of the pack, plus it was cancelled the previous week due to poor weather, but not last monday. it was glorious. the day couldn't have been more perfect and i wasn't foaming at the mouth at the end of the hike.

view of mount baker on a clear, sunny day. breath-taking.

me, conrad, ash and addison hamming it up before the big trek

how fun is it having pals on mat leave together? linds, frase, ash, adds, christina, deighton, me and con. super fun!

our fearless leader, janey. check out all the gear she needs to pack plus 20+lbs quinn!