December 26th

Thank you Gramma for the new sled! There's a cover for it too that we haven't tried yet.

After a full inspection, it definitely passed all tests!

We all had a wonderful Christmas! Thanks to everyone for the gifts! Luca got a couple wooden puzzles and a new water bottle! Fabien got an espresso machine and a an assortment of kitchen utensils! Luca gave him a fire extinguisher so he can play with matches! I got a wonderful new Lululemon outfit and some perfume and, of course, chocolate!

Happy holidays to all! Tons of love from all of us!

We took Luca for a little walk in his new sled. He couldn't resist the temptation to take a nap! He was pretty happy in it. Also in this video is Luca demonstrating his ability to eat really quickly! He didn't end up eating everything on his plate but I think he ate enough!!!

December 21st

Just after I performed as a Snowflake in The Nutcracker! Luca and his dad watched from back stage and I think they both were impressed!

He really wanted to pull all the sequins off my costume!

One of the best pictures I have of my boys.

Always after the camera!

I LOVE my amaryllis!

We've all been very busy lately. Luca has been trucking around the house, standing on his own more and more, though not attempting any steps yet. He's eating tons!!! Just about everything that comes within a two foot radius of his high chair gets eaten! He is - at the moment - responding to our commands of caution if he gets somewhere he shouldn't be. All around, he's getting more and more responsive and is always fun to be with.

Fabien is finishing a last couple days of work before he takes his vacation time. We haven't planned to go anywhere but if any last minute deals turn up, it would be hard to say no!

I've been performing tons in the Nutcracker. I'm really enjoying it, though I'm always sore! Sometimes I feel like I never get to see Luca too because I'm often at the theatre until 10pm.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! Big hugs and kisses from the three of us!

Cheers!

Friday December 4th

On a morning walk here in Quebec City.

Luca and his Gramma have a great time with clothes pegs!

A new Francais/Anglais toy! It's a huge hit! Thanks Gramma!

Bedroom renos before . . .

And after! Yippee! The other side of the door has a half sized closet as well. Fabien and I are so excited. The reno's are going as smoothly as we could hope for but they are still stressful. They also started just as I started my work which left little extra time to clean up the dust at the end of every day.

The Olympic Torch here in Quebec City. It's a little blurry but it was so exciting to see, and right outside our hotel!

Huge Happy Birthday to Luca's Unca Jesse! Happy 30th Jess!

Long time, no blog! I've been busy dancing. My contract with Les Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montreal started on November 16th. I had two weeks of rehearsals and now I'm in Quebec City in the first week of shows. Two shows down out of about 25. We will return to Montreal on Monday and finish the run there on December 30th. Ma is out helping baby sit Luca while I'm working. It's been going really well so far. I'm super happy to be back on stage, even if it's a little harder to dance than usual due to my 2 year hiatus!

Luca has taken to eating only solid foods in little pieces that he can feed himself. Everything gets carefully inspected first and on occasion something gets non-chalantly dropped over the shoulder. He just makes like he's going to scratch his head and he drops the food! Often if it is reintroduced it goes down the hatch though so we're not quite sure why things are getting disregarded like this! He eats everything and lots of it! Broccoli, cheese, bread and chicken are among the favourites and nothing really gets pushed away!

He's standing and walking holding onto things alot. Soon he will walk. He's getting close now!

Notice how he falls in the bathtub in this video and doesn't cry! He's pretty tough most of the time!

Friday, November 6th, day 304, 10 months old

For halloween this year, Luca was a shark! We went to a disco party to celebrate our friend Bea's 40th birthday. Here's Luca with Bea. Notice he's actually making his "shark face" which involves scrunching up his nose, showing his teeth, and breathing fiercely though his nose!

Fab really needs a haircut!

A few people suggested that I keep my natural hair colour!

This is at a halloween playgroup where Luca really enjoyed this walking toy! He even stood for a few seconds not holding anything when another baby took the toy away from him! He hasn't done that again since to my knowledge.

All the kids in their costumes. It was pretty noisy with the Mom's trying to get their kids to look at them! Luca just played with his drum!

He had just woken up from a nap and was still a little groggy! He also wasn't too impressed by the noise level I think! I like this picture cause you can see his fin too!

Be scared. He bites!

Luca found my stash of old toothbrushes and wanted to use them all at once!

He prefers my water bottle now to any other bottle. It has a straw that he can suck on.

Yesterday, Luca was vaccinated for H1N1. He was very strong about it. He didn't seem to have any side effects yesterday. Today, he has a lot of teething pain, a very stuffed up nose and quite rosy cheeks. I kept him home from the day care because he's not usually this sick, even with the colds he brings home from the daycare. It'll be 10-14 days before the vaccine takes effect. Fab and I can be vaccinated (if we choose) in December.

Luca is getting better and better and walking and standing every day. He doesn't let go when he stands that often and I don't think it's a conscious decision when he does. His personality is starting to show through more and more as well. He has such a sense of humour! We have so much fun together. He eats tons and anything (except fruit). Preferably meat. He's sleeping through the night from about 7:30 to 6am. He never complains about going to the daycare, or anything for that matter! He's a wonderful child. I'm so lucky.

I'm frantically trying to get back into shape for my Nutcracker contract which starts in 10 days. We'll see what happens!

Thursday October 22nd, day 289

Luca, the messiest eater ever. In this picture you can't see the food sprayed all over the wall as well.

Luca has started to sleep through the night!!! I can't believe how great this is! He sleeps from around 7:30pm to 6am. He's taking a nap on the way to daycare around 8:30 that I think we could add onto his night so he might sleep until 7am. Right now we're so happy he's able to fall back asleep on his own when he wakes in the night that we don't want to mess with the mornings yet! Maybe next week we'll work on them and gradually try to leave him in his crib at 6am until 7am and see if he falls back asleep for good.

He's still not taking formula. I'm thinking about putting him on a breast milk strike until he gets used to formula. I'll pump to keep my supply. The only thing that worries me about this is that he won't get as many antibodies out of formula and even if I continue to breast feed once a day, I'm not sure it'll be enough. He's bringing home a steady stream of colds from the daycare, this week it's pink eye which kept us both home for a couple days (not to mention the 4 hour wait at the drop-in clinic to see a doctor), so I think my breast milk is still very important for him. I just want to be able to drink formula and stay at the daycare the full day instead of finishing at around 2pm everyday.

Friday, October 9th, day 276

Luca and his friend Francesca who is 5 weeks older than him! She is also WAY more mobile than him, but they have a great time together!

Luca is almost crawling - he can crawl now but prefers his faster belly sliding! He stands up on anything and everything - from bookshelves to garbage cans!!! He's keeping us busy!

Daycare is going really well. On average he is staying there from about 8:30 to 1:30. He doesn't seem to cry there except when he's dealing with teeth pain - which he has been a lot lately. Since he already has all 8 front teeth, he's getting either eye teeth or molars next and they are a lot more painful. I've been slightly worried about him as he's had a day or two of real crankyness and borderline fever from it. He still has a bit of a cough from his daycare colds as well. Really he's amazingly tough!

Fabien and I have been working on helping Luca learn how to sleep through the night. With the colds and teeth pain it's hard for me to stick to the rules - which are basically let him cry it out (within reason). Over the last week, he has been going to bed at around 8pm and getting up at 5:30ish but wanting another nap about an hour later. We can hear him wake up one or two times through the night and he usually plays and stands in his crib. He cries for a while but it's not an "I'm desperate" cry. He always wakes up smiling!

In this video you can see him playing with Francesca which was super cute! My favourite part his Luca's new found talent in the car . . .

Monday September 28th, day 265

Tomorrow Luca will be 38 weeks old. Not that that really means anything to me! In a couple weeks he'll have been a land creature for longer than he was a water creature! We've spent the last couple weeks dealing with colds that Luca's bringing home from the daycare. As I'm still breastfeeding, I'm able to give Luca the antibodies he needs to fight these colds. I think that's so cool!

Luca has learned how to pull himself up to standing. He's really quite good at it - if there's something interesting worth doing all that work for! I have 22 minutes of video as I was trying to catch him doing it, but he's generally too lazy! Same with crawling on his knees. He's totally strong enough, but I think he finds his current method effective enough!

We've been sleep training him so that he'll learn how to sleep through the night. He would like to be fed every 3 hours or so during the night. The method we're attempting now is that he goes to bed around 7:30, I go down and wake him for a feeding at around 11:30 and then he'll sleep through to 6am. It works except with the colds - they're keeping him up a bit. I also find it pretty hard because if he does wake up, I have to just listen to him cry which is heart breaking for me. He needs to learn how to comfort himself.

Monday, Sept 14th, day 251

Yes that's a swiffer tied to him. My plans to have him clean the floor were foiled by his bladder. Serves me right really . . . but it was a good plan!

Today was Luca's first day of day care!!! I was very lucky to find a place here in Montreal, and on top of that, a government subsidized one. It's meant to be a temporary spot while a kid is away on vacation, but I'm hoping it will last or it's likely to take me another 2 weeks to find another one. It's run by a very nice woman and her daughter, out of there apartment. It's right between our neighbourhood and the area that Fabien and I work in. There are 6 kids there ranging from Luca's age to 3 years. Today he stayed from 9-12. I'm hoping to leave him there from 8:30-2 on average - after the initial week or two of getting him used to it. He seemed to not mind the experience but he has to get onto their schedule for naps and they seem to take fewer naps than he would like. He would have liked to sleep at 11 I think but he made it another hour until I picked him up and then he crashed really hard! I can now take some ballet classes to prepare for Nutcracker in November and do a few hours work at the pilates studio. It's great, I'm really ready to get my life back a bit.

I also started French classes again. I'm really enjoying them. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights from 6-8. Great teacher, and it's a block from my house, super convenient.

As you can see in this video, Luca is on the edge of crawling. We went to a party on Saturday that was full of kids his age that could crawl. The crawling part of this video was shot on Sunday when he was practicing all the moves he saw the other kids do! Another reason I want him to spend time in daycare. He just obverses so much from other kids. It's crazy the connection they have.

Luca also LOVES to stand as you can see in the video. He'll stand against the banister for 1/2 and hour! He just holds on for dear life. He's moving more now than when I shot the video a couple days ago. Now he can move a couple bars either way. I am wondering where I'm going to put everything that he'll be able to reach when he can walk or pull up to standing!

Also, Luca is experiencing more and more bumps and bruises. He almost always has a red mark on his forehead from bashing a toy into himself! He's fallen off our bed once (which was scarier for me than for him) and somehow got a nasty looking scratch on his chin. Sometimes he crawls under the coffee table and cracks his noggin trying to look up! Little monkey! I know, I know, it's only the beginning!

Wednesday, September 2nd, day day 239

Another busy week has flown by! I think Luca would be crawling but he slips too much on our hardwood floors to get his knees under him. He can get around pretty quickly now. I have makeshift gates all over the place to keep him where I want him - he loves to lick the wheels of the stroller which I'm trying to keep to a minimum. Tooth number 6 came in today. 4 on the top now and 2 on the bottom. He's babbling all the time now and sometimes mimics the noises his toys make, I'll have to hide the camera and try to get a video of it as he never does it when I'm around! He's eating anything we put in front of him. He especially likes chicken or turkey. I fed him 8 grain hot cereal for breakfast which he seemed to really like. He also really enjoys oatmeal, which is good because I'm trying to keep his cholesterol down!!!

This video is fairly long and unexciting. Near the end you can hear Luca grind his little teeth together! It drives me nuts!

Sunday, August 23rd, day 129

What a clever boy!

This phone doesn't work so it's a great toy!

This picture doesn't do justice to the wonderful relationship Luca has with his Grampa!

Luca, and apricot, and his Unca Jesse!

This is his second apricot. We picked it off our tree so it's as fresh as it can get!

The phone is the toy of choice! Fab was talking to Luca's Grandpa Denis with Luca.

The last couple weeks have gone by in a blur! My last week in Summerland was wonderful. I was sorry to leave but ready to get my life going again in Montreal. Luca's 4th tooth came through in that time. My journey back to Montreal with Luca went really smoothly due to the good luck of sitting next to a super nice woman who loved playing with Luca! She held Luca for at least half the flight! By the end of the trip, Luca was crying in my arms and only happy in hers! I was very thankful she was with me - what luck.

Luca took a couple days to get back on the eastern time zone. He's sleeping well and doesn't seem to mind the incredible humidity. It's hot here. Often over 30 with the humidex. I've made bread for the first time which is going to save a lot of money. I hate spending as much as we do on bread.

Luca continues to get more and more expressive everyday. He's so much fun to be with. He has a cranky day before a tooth comes through - the 5th is through this morning, the bottom two and three on the top. He doesn't need much attention but he loves being around people. Doesn't matter who! He's rolling over both ways now, though he doesn't roll from back to front that often. We are busy baby-proofing the house, he's always after the electrical cords, or anything he shouldn't have! He's eaten a couple jade plant leaves, but they successfully passed through his little system - I wonder what else he's eaten when I'm not looking! I've been cleaning the floor everyday now!