Get to work!

My little 7 month old Logan and I commuted downtown today on the subway...his third time on the subway already! After a quick orientation from Zia Sarah, little baby Logan was put to work.

Here is Loggie typing up the next grant application.

"Hi Mark. What? It's due by the end of the day? Hmmm, I'll try but I don't know how realistic that is..." "This is hard work! I need a coffee break! "

Rockin' Housewarming

This Saturday we had our Rock Band Housewarming party! AKA: a lot of drinking and playing Rock Band on the Xbox.

The kids even played other instruments while the older kids jammed out...

We had lots of Rock Stars show up for the party...
Logan got lots of cuddles from his family and friends...

It's hard work being a Rock Star...

Logan loves his Mummy

Logan loves the Mummy doll I bought him. He's been hugging his Mummy and giving it kisses. He has also been "helping" out in the kitchen...
...which basically means banging and tossing things for Mommy to fetch.

Just for Fun

I spent way too much time over at Yearbook Yourself that I had to share a few pictures...

The End of Tracking for Logan

Both Allan and I have been big fans of the online Trixie Tracker. We started tracking pumping, feedings, diapers and sleeps when Logan was just over one month old until he was 7 months. Allan and I have decided to stop tracking but it's helped us in so many ways -so here's a post dedicated to our tracker and six months of data collection.

Reason's why we loved our tracker

-Allan could check from work how our day was going

-I could see that the hard work put into sleep training was paying off; I needed all the motivation I could get!

-Even though it only took a few minutes a day people thought I was a supermom when they saw our site ;)

-When Grandma and Grandpa babysat I could look at the last few days of data and say with great accuracy what to expect from sleep, feeding and diapers ('He had a good nap this morning so he'll likely take about an hour and a half nap around two, around 6:30 he'll want to cuddle and might sleep for thirty minutes...') Truly data driven parenting.

-The first three months are fuzzy in my mind. It's nice to look back and see that we got through it!

-We've passed on the site info to friends who have new babies so they can see what the patterns look like and what to expect

-I love analyzing data and this gave me a little project :)

Sleep!

One of the reasons why we are stopping our tracking is that Logan now consistently sleeps through the night. He now doesn't even wake up at night for soother. The best thing that we did was switch to feeding Logan large volumes of milk four times a day (8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm) and then decreasing his night feedings. This had a immediate effect on his sleeping pattens and made going out on outings more predictable.

Month 1

Month 6

Pumping
Okay, all male relative have permission to skip this section.
Giving Logan breast milk was very important to me for many of reasons. Before having Logan I thought I could breastfeed if I just stuck with and got help from my doula. I went to the breastfeeding classes at the hospital and read up on it and thought I could do it no problem. But I found it awkward, painful and stressful. I could do it with Allan's help but I was afraid of being at home with a hungry baby and not being able to get him to latch by myself. We had a chat with our doctor who basically said 'having a baby is stressful enough. Any breast milk you can give your baby is a special gift -it doesn't matter how he gets it.' And so I pumped for four months and Logan did not have any formula until he was three months.

Anyone who has pumped breast milk knows it's time consuming -the whole process and sterilizing afterwards...maybe twenty minutes or so, compared to one minute to make a formula bottle. The first month I was pumping five times a day, often when Logan slept. If you look above at Logan's sleep pattens this didn't leave a lot of time for me to sleep. I think this whole thing shows how determined I was and it's something that I'm happy I could give Logan. Would I do it again if I have another baby? Probably not. LOL

Solids

According to our tracker Logan has tried over forty different foods so far!

Diapers
Did we ever change a lot of dirty diapers at the very beginning! Since the start of tracking we have recorded 832 diaper changes. Only maybe fifty were cloth diapers but I am happy to say that amazingly Markham composts their diapers.

Good bye, Trixie Tracker!

We love you!

Mathew's Birthday Party

This Sunday we headed to Pickering for Mathew's birthday party.

Here's Logan showing Auntie Mix his new teeth. All the kids together.
Giving Auntie Mylene kisses!

Logan even got a present!

Hugs and Biscuits

On Thursday morning Lola came for a quick visit to bring me Tim Horton's Coffee and to play with Logan before going to work. Before moving into our new house, Logan saw his Lola most mornings, so he was very happy to wake up and have her around.

So happy that he kept hugging and kissing Lola the whole time she was here!

And today Logan had his first baby biscuit -and loved it!

I'm 7 Months Old!

Logan turned 7 months old today! He's looking like such a little man.

He's wearing a lot of '12 month' sized clothing now. Allan and I are just in total awe of how fast our son is growing.

Logan's personality is really shining though. He's very curious and loves looking at the camera -sometimes it's hard to take candid photos.

He loves story time and picks the books we read from his 'book bucket'.

His favorite books continue to be 'On the Farm' where you pet the animals, 'Bobo the Dog' from Auntie Mylene and 'My Baby Elephant'. We're still working on the art of turning pages...sometimes he turns them the wrong way. I guess he must really like the story!

Logan has also recently 'found his voice', which I've learned is what parents say when their child learns how to scream. And boy can Logan scream. It's really made the last few days hard and has been a very good test of my patience. I try to remind myself that that he's just trying to communicate and lately I've been taking one nap when he does each day. "Sleeping when the baby sleeps" is great advice but now that Logan sleeps through the night I actually feel a little bit guilty about napping. However, it's keeping me sane. Anyway, Logan understands 'kiss', 'hug', Stinky poo-poo' and 'No, no, no'. I'm currently working on 'gentle' and 'quieter". I'll keep you posted...

We have started looking into daycare for Logan. It's a hard choice.
And knowing that I may only have a few more months at home with him I'm really trying take moments to enjoy just being with my little 'baby'. I know that soon he won't want to snuggle so often or fit so nicely in my arms.