Always time On May 13 as Mommy lifted her cup of coffee to her lips, Megan turned to her and declared "ahweh!", which is the Arabic word for coffee. Reportedly, Megan's been trying to say 'coffee' for a while, but usually she just says the first syllable: "ahh!"
Who? Another word Megan's saying this month appears to be "me!" However, this should also be her attempt at saying "Megan" or "Meg", as she sometimes says "me-me" which could be imitating our term of endearment, "Meg Meg".
It's been a very busy month for Megan, and mommy and daddy too. Megan is blissfully unaware that she will never again see her car seat, stroller, or orange Florida Mickey Mouse. She doesn't seem to care that we're now driving a Nissan Sentra instead of the usual Toyota Corolla. Nor does she seem to wonder why we keep hanging out at car dealerships! For those of you who haven't heard, our car was stolen a week ago. Things are looking up, I guess. We have secured a new Toyota Matrix and we should be picking it up in a week's time. Please please let May be an uneventful month!
Megan has been busy, as usual. She is enjoying the nice weather and she's been babbling nonstop for the past few weeks. She's got so many random syllables coming out of her, I can't even begin to approximate half of them! However, she has also started to mimic in earnest. This month she's discovered a lot of her favourite things begin with the letter 'B': Balloon, Ball, Bus, Baba!(Daddy in Arabic). Of course she's mostly just saying "Baa!" to all of them, but it's a start. Actually, her "balloon" pronunciation is closer - it at least has two syllables: "Baa'ooon!"
Megan took her first steps last week (only one each time). She stands very steadily but is very hesitant to step forward unless we are holding her hand. She bolts full speed ahead when securely holding the hands of her grandparents, parents and aunties. We know she can do it, its just a matter of time and to our delight earlier this evening she took 4 steps forward!!!
Events this month included Megan's baptism (lots of pics for you), Norman & Robyn's wedding, and Luiza's 2-year birthday party.
Well it's finally here. This is the big blog everyone's been waiting for: Megan's first birthday!
On her birthday Megan weighed in at 22.5 lbs (75th percentile) and 31 inches tall (95th percentile).
Of course, there were lots of photos taken prior to the Big Day, so I'll start with some comments about those.
Performance Art. Megan likes to drink her milk with gusto. At the same time, she doesn't let milk get in the way of other activities. Tonight we actually witnessed her crawling towards her giant teddy bear with the bottle in her mouth, which means she was crawling on her elbow as she held the bottle to her mouth!
Standing up for herself. On March 20 Megan reached that auspicious two-legged milestone: she stood on her own! She still has quite a way to go before she can walk, but in the weeks since that first two-legged balancing act we've watched her grow bolder and learn how to balance her chubby little feet.
April 7, 2007: One Year Old. Megan was joined by some of her little toddler friends for the festivities, which included a singing telegram, Barney busting out of a giant cake, and a vodka luge. OK OK... perhaps I'm fibbing just a little bit. Some genuine memorable moments included: Megan crying when we sang happy birthday, playing with all her friends (Maya, Sienna, Amalia, Neveen, and Luiza), playing on her new zebra & wagon. Oh yes, and then we lined up all the kids on the sofa. A chain reaction of crying ensued.
Megan is eleven months old and daddy has survived his month of indentured servitude at home. It's back to the old grind for daddy and a life of being passed off from grandparent to babysitter for Megan. February was a busy month for Megan - she kept herself busy challenging the will of her new keeper. Stair Crazy. This month Megan discovered the stairs. Although we barricade her in the family room and kitchen, sometimes we chase her around the rest of the ground floor and every time Megan passed by the stairs she grew a little more curious, until one day she started climbing. A few weeks later she completed her first climb to the second floor, with Daddy following behind. The look on her face was one of pure victory. She immediately headed for the bathroom to play with the toilet paper. Although I have no photos from this month, I will steal a few from next month to show you what she's like:
Poo On You. Megan used her potty a fair bit considering she was 10 months old. According to our records she peed a total of 10 times and pooed four times in February. We apologize for the frank discussion of human waste management, but really that's all new parents talk about.
Standing for it Megan has been experimenting with free-standing over the past month. On March 7th she almost stood up... teetering for a few moments before falling back on the sofa in a fit of giggling. She still doesn't quite understand what walking is, even when we hold her arms and guide her forward.
New Adventures Near the end of February, Daddy took Megan to visit her future babysitter, just to test the waters and get Megan used to her new surroundings. The visit went well, Megan played with Gopa (a cute 4-year-old who is distressed that she can't remember what comes after three) and Koji (1-and-a-half-year-old bundle of energy), but she was pleasantly surprised to see me return after a few hours. When Lori took her for real the next week (Tuesdays and Thursday) she was less than thrilled. She cried, moped and Lori was looking for alternatives, but the second week she was adapting better and the situation is looking up.
The Pincers I will quickly mention--mostly as as excuse to show another photo--that Megan has tweezer-like fingers that can find any object, however minute, on the floor or anywhere. On the right is a photo of Megan picking up a Cheerio with those pincer fingers.
Well that's all we've got for this month. No video, either!! I promise more surprises for Megan's REAL first birthday next month.
As you all know by now, these blog entries are written by Daddy, who is now on Day Four of his month-long paternity leave. This all-day caregiving stuff is exhausting! I should have done this before Megan learned to crawl in December. She's been into everything this past month--everything!!
Crib transformations. On January 2nd, she sat up in her crib for the first time. This changed the nature of her naps and sleeps. Once she knew she could get up and go, she was no longer quite as content to just lie there and sleep. So now there's more crying herself to sleep. The very next she turned on her mobile! She had woken up after an hour-long nap. Usually we hear her crying or babbling happily, but this time we heard her mobile start to play! The very next day we found Megan sleeping on her stomach. This happens now when she cries herself to sleep. Usually she has her bum in the air and her head is nestled into the bumper that surrounds the crib. Yet another first occurred the next day--Megan woke up from a nap and we entered the room and found her standing up, peeking over railing, and gripping the bars in her hands. Since then her primary motivation is to use anything to get up on her two feet --- her crib, playpen, coffee table, or television (which she now can turn on and off.. and attempts to do so 50 times a day).
Potty fluke. We have a morning ritual wherein we sit Megan on her potty. We do this so she gets used to the idea of potty-sitting, even if she doesn't know what to do next. Well, on February 5th as I sat Megan on the potty, I heard a tinkling noise! Although I'm sure it was a fluke, it's still pretty exciting (as is the concept of one day not needing to change diapers!) And then, just cuz I'm sure you wanted to know, on February 8 Megan pooed in the potty!! It's another fluke, but we're very pleased Megan is comfortable enough to do her business on the plastic throne.
Manual dexterity. Megan started feeding herself (cheese, Cheerios, small fruit) on January 17. She prefers to pick things up with her thumb and forefinger, very carefully and deliberately, and chomp it in two with her two bottom teeth. She also uses those same two fingers to turn off lights around the house (with our assistance and permission, of course). She is also getting into some kitchen drawers, pulling out the cup towels she finds inside. Time to child proof the kitchen!
Crawling update. Megan has become a holy terror on four limbs. And she's really fast. Turning your back on her for more than 30 seconds is not advisable. She crawls even faster when we're chasing her... she toddles ahead of us, then sits up and looks back to check out our progress, screams, then starts toddling faster.
Climate Change
There is no Megan video this month, but I would like to use this space to appeal to all of you to start thinking about your carbon footprint. As you've all noticed, climate change is in the news again. The reason it's in the news is because once again scientists from around the world have publicly declared the connection between human activity and climate change. Canada's carbon emissions have increased by 25% in the past 10 years alone, despite the fact that we signed the Kyoto Accord and promised to reduce our emissions by 6%. Not only are weather systems becoming more unpredictable, the polar regions are melting at an unprecedented melting rate. Lori and I went to see David Suzuki and Stephen Lewis speak last night. Suzuki has been an environmental activist for decades, but in the early 1980s he believed it would take centuries to see the results of global warming. Change is happening much faster and in a few decades we could be facing flooding in coastal regions, drought, and shortages of fresh water.
The most tragic thing is that our children and grandchildren have no choice but to inherit our mess. All of us need to act now to reduce our carbon footprint, which is a measure of the amount of greenhouse gases each of us is responsible for each year. Here's a very small list:
burning gasoline in our cars
using electricity generated by burning of coal
heating our homes
purchasing imported food (which gets transported on boats, planes, and trucks which burn petroleum)
flying in airplanes
David Suzuki has embarked on a 40-city tour of Canada on a campaign he calls "If You Were Prime Minister..." He is collecting ideas, enthusiasm, and the will of the Canadians and taking it all to Ottawa to present before the Harper government the fact that Canadians are willing to back (and vote for) environmental policies that combat climate change. He has also asked people to submit 30-second videos to YouTube. Here is the video I submitted:
No one seems to be talking climate change and what each of us can do, which is why I'm bringing it up now. Let's start talking about what we're doing to reduce our footprint. In our household we've replaced 95% of our incandescent lights with low-energy alternatives. Our appliances are mostly natural gas instead of electric. We keep our heat at 21 degrees C (usually drops to 19 degrees C at night these days). We recycle and will soon be buying as much local organic produce as we can find.
Please leave comments on this blog with your thoughts, ideas and contributions to carbon reduction. Thanks!
New Photos
Megan's latest photos are here - as you look at these photos, think about Megan, your children, nieces and nephews, and the rest of the world's children whose lives will be very different than the ones we live today.
The past month has been quite eventful. Megan experienced her first Christmas and New Years as well as a number of 'firsts' of her own. It was also a phlegmy month. I'll explain what I mean:
Flu Poo Poo. On Dec 20th 2006 Megan received her first flu shot. Flu shots are free for Ontarians. They're supposed to reduce your chances of contracting serious flus. I'm quite dubious of the controversial "let's guess which flus are going around and inject them into babies and the elderly" flu shot, so I wasn't completely surprised when Megan comes down with a serious cold shortly thereafter. Megan was coughing and hacking for days and days afterwards, right through Christmas, so we took her to a walk-in clinic and discovered she has twin ear infections. So onto antibiotics she went. We struggled to administer the amoxicilin for days, at first by injecting the bright pink (watermelon) viscous liquid between her clamped shut jaws, then later by hiding it in her formula (which also turned pink) and food. A few days before the end of the treatment Lori discovered Megan was more than willing to take the antibiotics on a spoon!
Holiday prep. Before she got sick, we kept Megan quite busy leading up to the holidays. We took her Christmas Tree shopping at a nearby nursery. In the end we picked a gorgeous Frasier Fur that cost us only a small fortune. We also took Megan to Canadian Tire to buy some LED Christmas lights.
Baby Chompers. Megan's first tooth broke through on the 21st of December, following on Christmas Eve by her second tooth! They're sharp little buggers, too! Unfortuately we don't have any tooth photos to share with you. However we can share a few teething pictures! Teething Pic 1 | Teething Pic 2
She crawls to conquer. After weeks of trying and trying and trying, on December 23rd Megan crawled for the first time! (In a case of not-too-subtle foreshadowing, she was trying to reach out to a boy at the time.) Note to Nova Scotians, in Ontario what you call "creeping" they call "crawling". It's linguistic differences like this which have alienated the east coast from Upper Canada for so long. Although crawling was her Christmas gift to us, lately we've been regretting her newfound mobility. She still treats crawling as a means to an end, a way from Point A to Point B, or in Megan's world, from Point A to the Christmas Tree. Her initial motivation certainly was to reach the dangling ornaments. In the days prior to crawling she would roll and roll and roll until she reached that tree. She also enjoys crawling to the TV and watching Star Trek and Jeopardy.
Critical Mass...er...I mean, Christmas. I cannot express in words the number of gifts Megan received. Many of them are in the basement waiting for their turn - there is simply no room! Megan had a great time tearing at the wrapping paper, eating wrapping paper and cards, and chewing on the boxes. One of the many gifts she received was a stuffed bear who sang Jingle Bells. Megan liked this bear's singing so much, she would cry whenever the bear stopped singing.
Chatty Cathy. After editing Megan's video for this month I realized I'd left out one important thing: she is turning into a real chatter box! She's also been giggling lots and becoming a lot more interactive. When you watch the video you'll see what I mean.
Megan wishes you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
