Hey everybody, just a quick, and final, post to let you all know that I have moved the site to it’s own hosted server at www.babysizelife.com!

So update your bookmarks and stuff to www.babysizelife.com as I will no longer be updating this blog!  I initially started blogging on WP just to try it out, and I have since grow to love blogging.  Plus, I like having a creative output more involved than deciding what to wear or mixing peas in my mashed potatoes instead of carrots!

The second reason is to learn.  I wanted to know what hosting your own site is about and, believe me, am I ever finding out!   Busy, busy, busy!  So, while the new site my have a couple little kinks in it, know that I am working on it to make it better every day.

So, a BIG THANKS to all of you who have read this blog as you inspire me, along with Sam of course,  to keep doing it!

That’s it for Adventures in Parenting… see you on the other side at www.babysizelife.com!!!

A little note today on my series of posts entitled “Sam’s Big Gift” (check out all of Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4).  It’s been a full four weeks since that adventurous day, and Melissa and I have thankfully not suffered any relapses.  We have also, to my great sadness , haven’t had any stripper nurses come around either .  So, life goes on.  Day by day we live our little routine, and as each day passes our fears of a repeat incident are subsided.  As each meal stayed the course and refused to ascend our digestive systems, we grew more and more confident in our recovery.

We are feeling fine and doing great, but my wallet isn’t.  Yesterday in the mail, we got our ambulance transportation fee.  It was for $216.00.  :shock:  For a 10 minute ride?!!?  They didn’t even put on the freaking siren!!! Hello! Remember us?!? The Jack and Jill medics? We’ll here’s our little way of saying “Thanks for riding along!!”.  So that clears one thing up folks: they didn’t do any prostate exams while I was in the hospital anymore, because it is now clear to me that they wait a few weeks, and stick it to you at home through the mail. Is it the gas? How much does it cost to gas up an ambulance?  Are they running on freaking caviar and Cristal?  Jack and Jill we’re a little hefty… Am I paying their lunch bill as well?  So 62 tacos is an ideal lunch for a portly pair of paramedics? Did I pass out and miss the buffet stop during the ride?!?

Mind you, the fee is a combined amount for both Melissa and I, but for a hundred bucks they could have at least managed to let me lie down in the damn ambulance.  If you remember the situation, I was fighting back a puke attack due to me bouncing up and down on the ambulance’s trampoline/chair!  My vital fluids are everywhere but where they should be, and they give me a seat in the Cirque du Soleil!  I guess it’s that attention to detail that drove the price up folks.

I’m just ranting here folks, but I feel better now!  I might rant off again in a few days, because if the ambulance wasn’t free, then the hospital stay sure as heck won’t be!  Stripper nurses don’t come cheap you know! Right guys?!? Huh?!?! Guys?!?! Right?!?! Hmm… yeah…

Sam’s Big Gift is turning out to be one of those gifts that keeps on giving!

Sam has changed.  He now has two little teeth poking through his bottom gum line. He eats “solid” food.  He sits up on his own, and now folks, he’s mobile!  No I didn’t set him up with an iPhone of duct tape him to a skateboard.  He’s done it all by himself by working hard and getting his little body in gear: he’s starting to crawl! We’ve been noticing him rolling and working his way around the floor for about a month now, but his movement has been more rotational than straight forward or backward.  One night this week, we were playing in the basement, when Melissa jumped with excitement and yelled to me that he was trying to crawl forward.

I ran downstairs and sure enough, Sam was shakily holding up on all fours, gently swaying front to back.  He had this puzzled look on his face as if he was either unsure on how to proceed or still trying to figure out how he got “up” there.  Three inches off the ground is high for a baby I guess. He looked up at me and I must have distracted him, because he lost his balance and flopped on his belly.  That’s when we grabbed the camera and recorded the first part of the video below.  Sam tried again a few more times, but he was pooped.  All the effort and excitement had worn him out, so off to bed he went dreaming, I’m sure, of all the potential havoc he could cause Mom and Dad once he successfully gets to crawling!

The next day, after a good breakfast, nap and morning snack, Sam wanted to try again.  So down he went on the floor and what happened next was quite a sight to see for us.  It may not seem as quite the amazing event to most, but to Melissa and I, this was a big moment. You’ll see that in the second part of the video, which you can view just below.  Enjoy!

As you can see, this is just the beginning.  Soon, Sam will be scooting around the floor getting his hands into everything he wants and beginning his plan to take over the world.  And he will, yet again, test another level of his parents patience!

As always, thanks for reading!

Sam’s been eating his share of fruits and vegetables for the past 6 weeks know, and we’ve noticed that he keeps asking for more and more.  So, we decided that it’s probably time for his to have something a little more consistent in his little belly.  Up to now, Melissa has been making Sam’s purees from scratch which I must admit, have tasted very good so far.  Sam’s now tasted peas, carrots, squash, sweet potato, pears, bananas and apples.  That’s your basic start for any infants solid food phase, but now Sam was eating at an incredible rate.  Every meal we would have to give more and more as he would cry when his portion was finished.  He likes eating so much, that he gets impatient in between spoonfuls of food!  I don’t even have time to give him some food, swoop the spoon back to his plate and then come back to his mouth before he starts wiggling in his chair, slapping the counter top, turning beat red and making grunting sounds through pursed lips!  It’s funny to watch!

Melissa picked up some chicken puree from a company called “La Mère Poule”, that translates to “Mother Hen” in English.  It’s a company that specializes in frozen baby foods made from all natural products with nothing added.  The ingredients for the chicken puree were – water and chicken.  That’s it.  Since I have this little policy to taste everything we give to Sam (yes that included breast milk ), I was a little worried about how this would taste since it wasn’t homemade.  I dipped a spoon into the gray, pale, lumpy stuff and slowly raised the spoon to my slightly shaking lips…and it was good.  Melissa tried it next and was also pleasantly surprised that the kitchen floor wasn’t covered in our vomit.

Now we had the final test: Sam.  He was sitting there, expectant, in his high chair watching us eat what he knew was his food.  He had a slight smile in the corner of his mouth as Melissa approached with the little bowl full of chicken paste.  I won’t spoil his reaction to you in writing, but instead invite you to check out the clip below! We laughed and I hope you will too. Enjoy!

An annual event Melissa and I like to partake in is apple picking.  It’s kind of like a right of passage into Fall.  A day were we acknowledge that summer has passed on and the beautiful and bountiful Fall season is now upon us.  We love Fall and for many reasons other than the apple picking: the trees changing colors, the cool nights, Thanksgiving (lovin’ that turkey!), the Fall harvest, the return of the nice & thick wool sweater, an evening fire in the fire pit and of course Halloween!

We like going every year with friends and family, but this year was a big one as it was, of course, Sam’s first time apple picking.  Now I know that Sam, being only 7 months old won’t remember jack squat from this.  But you need to remember something folks, most people’s earliest memories are from around their third or fourth year of life.  So any parents that do these kind of activities with their relatively young children aren’t crazy and wasting time and money.  They are doing it for two reasons.  Firstly, we do it for the moment, the present, the here and now, the immediate satisfaction, if you will, of doing something as a family and the pleasure it brings.  The second reason is for the parents memories.  We do these things to be able to remember the early times with our kids.  I mean they go by so fast! Sam’s 7 months already! Plus we can tell our grown up children stories that begin with “I remember when you were only a little baby and we…”.  Plus, parents want to show off their kids and the best place to do that is in public!

So last Sunday we head out to the apple orchard with Melissa’s two sisters, Norm, and my godchild Jeremy.  We had a blast!  They place was packed, however, and we got snubbed on one of the main attractions of the place: fresh, hot, right out of the oil, homemade apple and pumpkin donuts!  Man o man they are a treat, let me tell ya! But, it wasn’t meant to be as I had been standing in line for 30 minutes before deciding to give up and go apple picking with the gang.  We walked for a few minutes into the orchard to find a spot away from most of the crowd and settled down on a blanket we had brought.  The sky was a perfect blue and the mountain in the back drop made for beautiful scenery as we ran, climbed, picked and ate our way among the orchard trees.

On the way out we bought about 30 bucks worth of food related to apples.  They sold a lot of yummy looking stuff, so I had to restrain myself in my purchases.  It was twice as hard to hold back buying everything in the store as we had not eaten lunch yet, and it was about 5 o’clock in the afternoon by then.  In the parking lot, which was really a now trampled field, a couple hot air balloons were being filled and getting ready for liftoff.  We decided to call it a day and check them out.  It was impressive to see the angry orange flame and hear its roar as the balloon filled up and took flight.  We’ll have to hitch a ride in one of those someday.

By that point, Sam fell asleep in his godmother’s arms as we walked back to our cars.  He was in her arms because his super suspension, big wheeled, off-road, SUV-like stroller was filled with apples!  It might seem cruel to kick Sam out of his wheels, but it was a simple matter of mathematics really.  Sam weighs about 17 pounds and the apples weighed about 40 pounds!  Case closed.  Sam gets evicted from the stroller.  Besides, there was no shortage of arms to carry the little guy.  He was great again for us, being a happy, smiling baby.  Needless to say, all that fresh air pooped us all out.  It was an early night for bed, our bellies filled with apple goodness.  Did I mention we had a nice warm, apple and maple syrup pie for dessert?  Freakin’ good. Go get one.

Below are a couple more pics,

Take care and thanks for reading!

I took last Friday afternoon off as it’s part off my workplace’s initiative for a summer schedule.  We get every second Friday afternoon off if you’ve done the required hours, and last week was my turn!  Naturally, I took advantage and spent the day with Sam and Melissa doing things that new families do, namely have fun together!  Plus the budget’s a little tighter now, so a nice afternoon outside together was a perfect way to spend the sunny afternoon. So, Sammy-boy grabbed his shades and we headed for the door!

We’ve done this a few times now, we just grab a blanket and head outside on our lawn.  Melissa was busy working on a Christmas project (yes I know!!! In September no less!!), so Sam and I chilled on the blanket with a couple of his toys, not mine , and of course… the camera!

We must have spent a couple hours in the nice breeze just playing away, with only a couple regurgitation accidents.  That might seem trivial to some of you, but to a Dad who’s lying on his back, holding his son above him… it’s important.  So here’s a few pics of that really cool afternoon.  Funny how those simple afternoons, you know the ones that don’t require electricity, fill us with the best memories…  Here’s hoping you get to have one soon!

Enjoy!

Toppling over!	Sammy doing his Ray Charles	Sam wants grass!
Sam & Dad	Sam through the jungle brush!	Sam scoping out the neighborhood

Quick post today to give you all a heads up that my blog header has been modified!  That’s right, I have a new brother-in-law: Norm!  You can see Norm’s “simpsonized” likeness on the far right and on bottom row of the blog image header.  Melissa’s sister, Myriam who is just to the left of Norm, has been going out with him for over 6 months now. So I figured the relationship was solid enough to be worth my time to add Norm into the header!

That’s him with the glasses.

On a little side note, he’s also my boss at work!  FUN TIMES EH? Now I get to see him for a full work week plus family reunions!!! What a deal!  I know that may sound sarcastic or just not the ideal situation for most of you.  But Norm’s a good guy, so I don’t mind… Besides, he’s the boss at work, but I, on the other hand, have ALL the leverage with the in-laws! MUHAHAHAAHAHAHA! (Mad scientist cackle!)

I’m sure I’ll have a couple stories to share here on the blog from this perfect sitcom-like life that keeps pushing in on my normal life… You can’t write situational comedy this good!

Stay tuned folks, there’s bound to be some juicy stuff to come out of this!

Introducing: Norm!

Today’s post is the finale of my “Sam’s Big Gift” mini series of posts detailing, in hopefully humorous fashion, our adventures of last week’s trip to the hospital.  To get yourself acquainted with the rest of the series, why not read up on Part 1, Part 2 and (while you’re at it) Part 3 before proceeding?  It’ll put you into the context of what happened and how we got to the hospital.

And now for the rest of the story…

After my episode with the needle from Hell, nurse Sandi (not her real name) let me rest up a bit before “The Big Move”.  The nurses now deemed us self sufficient enough to be placed into an observation room, away from the crazy happenings of the triage hallway/cot area.   This was a welcome change, even though it took them 20 minutes of tugging and pushing my stretcher around the tight hallways of the hospital, before settling on a room that could fit both my stretcher and Melissa’s.  They would put me in one ammonia smelling room only to come fetch me three minutes later to park me in a bio-waste smelling room.  Just as Sandi pushed me into that nasty second room, an orderly came by and said that he hadn’t cleaned that room yet hence the smell of the previous occupant lingering in the air. Nice.  Now I had a throat full of bile and a nose full of sh*t.

So off we went for another session of musical chairs, this time landing me in a room with an 80 year old lady.  Sandi apparently thought that this lady, who was two and a half times my age and had a belly button between her boobs, was my wife.  Sigh… Enter nurse Mandi (never saw nurse Sandi again) who whisked me away yet again, away from my geriatric roommate to finally bring me to the last room I would visit in this hospital.  Mandi pushed me into the double sized room and assured me Melissa was on her way and considering how the last 20 minutes went, I hardly believed her.  But then, a noise found itself to my ear.  It was low a first, almost an unpleasant, incomprehensible buzz that quickly grew louder into a jabbering of words being rapidly and enthusiastically exchanged.  Words in the voice of Melissa and her sister chatting away as they approached the room.  Happy to see Melissa for the first time since we left the ambulance a few hours earlier, I greeted her with a blown kiss.  She smiled too, happy to be back together.

Myriam, Melissa’s sister, brought our bags to the door of the room and repeated a routine she must have done a hundred and sixty times that day: throw on a visitor’s gown and put on rubber gloves.  You see, Melissa and I were in “quarantine” due to the unknown nature of our illness.  So Myriam had no choice but to put on and take off, every time she stepped from or into the room, her gown and gloves.  Even back in the triage area, she had to change when she went between our cots. An annoying precaution to be sure, but to this day she hasn’t been sick!  Myriam was a great help to us and we were thankful that she was there as we are not sure what we would’ve done without her.

The IVs in our arms gave us much needed strength and by 5:30 P.M. our stomachs were growling, which we took as a good sign.  Supper came and Melissa started eating carefully, not fully trusting her bowels.  I was still having dizzy spells and feeling weak, but my stomach wanted food, and really folks, who am I to ignore what my stomach wants?!?!  I was having trouble sitting up close to my plate to get some carrot cubes into my mouth, so Myriam actually fed me some spoonfuls.  What are sister-in-laws for eh?  If I had any pride left, it was now gone at the expense of an empty, cramped and hungry belly.

Shortly after, around 7:30 P.M., Mandi walked in and told us that our blood tests came back negative and that we most likely had suffered from a form of severe gastroenteritis.  It was viral and not a case of food poisoning.  This conclusion was supported by the fact that no one else we knew got sick from anything we had eaten with them, including my parents and their friends who we’d dined with on Sunday.

She also let drop that pending the doctors approval, and if our meals “stayed down”, we could then leave.  That was welcome news because as you know, there’s no place like home and this hospital gown was itching my butt so bad!  It had been a long day and we just wanted to get back home and see how Sammy was doing.  We missed him terribly.

Now that we knew what they thought we had, we were busting our brains trying to figure out where we got it.  I couldn’t remember licking any toilet bowls and Melissa’s a pretty clean girl… So where? How?  Well, figuring something like that out is like finding WMDs: near impossible.  Before we knew it, doctor Brandi came in, gave us the once over with a poke here and a prod there, and told us to go home.  Needless to say, we were all smiles… maybe a little worried about actually, physically getting to the car… but smiling none-the-less!   So after sliding off the bed, going for a quick bathroom break in a chair/toilet thing (I will spare the details on that), we got dressed and headed for that blessed fresh air!  We were free, after what felt like three days, we were now actually walking out the door to our car’s parking spot… which was empty!

Stolen!

Just kidding folks!  The car was fine… and thank goodness too.  I think that would have been the last straw.  I would’ve had a rampage and the next mornings news paper headline would have read: “Man kills half the hospital with used colonostemy bag”.  In all seriousness, we got home nice and safely to see Sam sleeping soundly and my Dad reporting an easy time of babysitting.  We let him know that what we had was viral, so he could get it by touching us or something we touched.  He said it wasn’t a problem as he washed his hands frequently while going about his business in the house.  We thanked him and Myriam profusely for their help and they went on their separate ways, deserving of a good nights sleep after a crazy long day.

That night, we slept great.

We’ve been recovering ever since and barring a little diarrhea from Sam, we’ve completely recovered.  That, however, can’t be said for my Dad.  He fell ill two days after our parting with the same symptoms we had.  He’s doing fine now, but he had one nasty night and a very unsteady day as well.  Hearing this news, it dawned on Melissa and I that the only common factor tying her, my Dad and me to the sickness was…  Sam.  On the previous Saturday, Sam threw up on Melissa and I (see Part 1) and he’d been having wet poops ever since.  Two days later, we got sick.  My Dad, being the loving Grandpa that he is, kissed and hugged Sam while he babysat him the day we were in the hospital.  He only washed his hands after he touched our stuff and not after he handled Sam.  Again, two days later, he got sick.  It’s so simple to see now!

So, folks, It might have been obvious to you from the start… or not.  But now that you’ve followed us through our journey into the unknown filled with nursery rhyme paramedics (Jack & Jill), stripper nurses (Candi, Bambi, Mandi, Sandi and Brandi), killer needles, carrot cubes and an abundance of bodily fluids (both ingested and expunged)… You now know the full extent of: Sam’s Big Gift!

That’s it for now folks, hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading!

Last week, Melissa and I had a little bit of time on our hands, being at home and quarantined from the rest of the world.  I was just hanging around with my son Sam and decided to pick up the camera and start shooting.  The gallery below is the result. I just tried to get a bunch of Sam’s expressions on camera and the starkness of the black and white just seems to make his features pop.

So here’s a little fun we had, just taking it easy and relaxing on our bed, with Sammy hamming it up for Dad and his ever present camera!

Enjoy!

If you haven’t done it yet, I recommend you read Sam’s Big Gift Part 1 and Part 2 before proceeding.  It’ll put things into context for you and help you avoid brain cramping questions like: “Why is he wearing socks and sandals in a hospital with Jack & Jill ?”.

Moving right along…

The ambulance pulled into the hospital around 11 A.M. and Jill asked me to get out of the ambulance first.  Now this meant I had to cram myself between Melissa’s stretcher and Jill’s prominent bodily presence.  Jill was sitting and I had to bend over because of the low ceiling, which in terrific ice-breaking combination, lined her face up with my sweaty pyjama-pant ass.  Nice.  Talk about getting to know someone in a hurry. I kept thinking “Squeeze the cheeks and don’t fart!”.  If Jill calls us up in a couple days and says that she caught what we had – well folks, THAT was the point of transmission!

So out I went into what I was hoping would be a stretcher of my own.  Too bad for me, cause a wheelchair was all they had waiting.  Great! Another freaking seat! No beds in this damn hospital! They gently lowered Melissa out of the ambulance and wheeled us into the triage area.  I slouched as low as I could go in the wheelchair which put my knees about even with my forehead… Sexy I know, but I needed to get horizontal and the building full of medical experts couldn’t figure that out.  We spent what seemed to be four hours waiting for our turn, but it was probably more like 15 minutes.  Melissa and Jill were still chatting like pledge sisters while Jack and I were quiet.  I wasn’t in the mood to talk and Jack was checking out the nurses PHD’s.  That’s their asses folks, not their diplomas…  PHD means Pretty Heavy Dumper.  It’s finally our turn and we meet a new nurse that we’ll call Bambi.  Why? Just because we had so many nurses attend to us that I couldn’t remember any of their names. So I’ll give them stripper names, cause everybody remembers a stripper’s name. Right? Huh guys? Are ya with me on this?!? Riiiight, so anyways, back to Bambi in the triage.

Jack and Jill relay their information to Bambi and she gets up and checks our necks for stiffness. Doesn’t say why or what she’s looking for. I quickly found out that nurses tend to do that alot. They just grab you and fiddle with you to their amusement then write down a little scribble on their clipboard and walk away. Doctors explain a lot more, which is, you know, a nice feature for a human to have: communication. It helps the credibility along a bit. Bambi then assigned us cot numbers in the hallway. Yep the hallway. It’s actually not as bad as it sounds.  The hallway was more of a large curved and narrow room with curtains set up to separate the patients from the traffic and general din of the area.  But screw the room description folks, I was getting a cot! A bed! I was pleased.

Jack and Jill carted us to our cots, helped us get into them and bid us good luck and farewell.  Melissa and I were separated by one cot, so while we couldn’t see each other, we could hear each other.  Melissa’s sister Myriam arrived at this point and brought in some of our personal belongings.  I got into my super stylish blue hospital gown (with my awesome black socks) and laid down for a little sleep.  Wrong again!  While the curtain did ensure some privacy, the noise factor was more disturbing than I had anticipated.  But I digress, it’s a hospital dumping ground for sick people.  Coughing, hacking, puking, crying, whining, talking, shouting, yelping, farting, burping and other noises I wasn’t able to identify were all clearly ringing in my ears.  I can’t tell you how long we were there, but I do know that Melissa got her hydrating IV first and mine came a little while after.

I don’t know if I’ve said this before but, I am not a needle person.  Notice the bolding of that last sentence?  That’s cause I’m serious.  I hate ‘em.  And an IV is essentially a large plastic needle shove into your vein.  Nice.  Nurse Candi (strippers remember?) comes over to plug me in.  I tell her right off the bat: “I don’t like needles.  Lay me back all the way or you’re gonna be picking 200 pounds of irish off the floor.”  So Candi complied, lowered the head of the bed and proceeded to stick me with the biggest needle EVER.  It didn’t go well.  Already in my weakened state, I started to lose it.  I was sweating profusely and withering in my cot, ignoring the instructions Candi was giving me because… well I couldn’t freaking hear her anymore!  There was only this loud buzzing sound. I couldn’t even see Candi anymore either, as black spots where taking over my vision.  I was done for.  I felt like I was going to explode.  Actually, I guess I did because when I woke up, my barf bag had filled itself.  Stupid freaking needles.  Melissa was completly fine by the way.  Chatting away with her sister. Yay. For. Her.

About 15 minutes later, Sandi showed up (never saw Candi again) to tell me they were moving us to an observation room until we had our blood test results and our clearance to leave.  Leave!  I felt like I’d just died and now they wanted my pale ass out the door!  Little did I know, which seemed to be the current theme that day, we weren’t even half way done with our day at the hospital.

But don’t worry folks, I am almost done with this story.  Surf back over at the beginning of the week, for the super-exciting-awesome-blockbuster-batman-thrilling-stupendous ending to: Sam’s Big Gift!

Take care, and thanks for laughing (hopefully)