Summer in the city

We decided it was time to let Gabrielle roam free in the great outdoors, so we brought her to this park right behind our house and plopped her down on the grass. Nice sitting, Gigi.

Then I made this dandelion crown for her, which she didn't like at first...

...but I think it grew on her...

...and then Mark introduced her to grass and weeds, close up....

...but her expression let us know she wasn't so into it. Maybe she's just not the outdoorsy type. Next field trip: New York City!

Sasha returns

Steph and Shannon were here for a visit this week and it's amazing to see how much Sasha has changed. He really looks like a little boy, unlike Gigi, who still looks very much like a baby, all cheeks and scalp. He's a very handsome guy with his Euro hairstyle and whatnot - in these photos, Gabrielle looks a little smitten while he seems quite blasé. 

Floating good, swimming bad

Mark took Gabrielle swimming at Derek and Angie's pool. She still wasn't crazy about it until she discovered...

...this big floaty crab!!

Safta is 70!

To celebrate my mother's birthday, the clan went up to Mont Tremblant for the long weekend. That's my brother in the background - hard to believe he's almost 50. That makes me *gulp* 40.

Although we were all supposed to be celebrating my mother's birthday, Gigi still did get alot of the attention, and there was alot of "I wanna hold her" from Ben and Amelia.

Safta and Gigi having a huggy feel good moment. 

Gabrielle's first trip on a mountain gondola. She seemed unimpressed.

Amelia took a big interest in Gabrielle's wardrobe, and made sure Gigi always looked "edgy."

Curly and Tennielle (not to be confused with the Captain and Tennille)

My father came to visit a couple of days ago and had a great time with Gabrielle. He decided that she needed a nickname, opted for a combination of her first and second names, and thus Tennielle was born. Then I decided that *he* needed a new nickname, because Grandpa Shalom never really had much pizzazz, in my humble opinion. In a moment of inspiration, he came up with Curly, which I thought was perfect. 

He seemed to enjoy feeding Gigi her rice cereal, much of which drooled out of her mouth, but we got some to stay down. Curly admitted that it's not as much fun as playing tennis with her, but that'll come, I'm sure...

Wheeee!!!!

New skills and bad parenting

I wasn't around for this, but Mark tells me (and supplied me with photographic proof thereof) that Gigi can now hold a bottle on her own, at least for a limited amount of time. It makes for a cute picture anyways.

By the way, those scratches all over her face are her own doing. I'm trying to keep her nails short, but they're really really small and hard to cut without trimming off the end of her fingertips (which I kinda did the other day - sorry, Gigi). 

Our first Mother's Day

Mother's Day takes on a whole new meaning when *you're* the one being celebrated. Mark did an awesome job, shouldering Gigi's responsibilities until she's old enough to make pancakes for me on her own. However, I hear she did have a hand in choosing the very cool card. 

Top: Gigi and I reading the Saturday Globe and Mail, waiting for breakfast; Bottom: seriously, I only get this once a year?

Ready for festival season

We got Gabrielle these noise-muffling headphones, in preparation for Bluesfest this summer. All the rock stars' kids are wearing them, dontcha know.

Biker bab[i]es

Mark's work friend, Suzanne, and I did the 35k Tour Nortel this past Sunday, and took a 25k ride home afterwards, giving me a 60k day, which isn't bad for this early in the season. Happily, I felt great on the bike, even though I'm looking a bit thick in this photo. Anyways, enough about me... Suzanne came over afterwards to meet the future female winner of the Tour de France, who seemed to enjoy hanging with the ladies in lycra.

Chowin' down

We decided to start Gabrielle on solids, even though the current recommendation is to wait until six months. My doctor explained that this recommendation is based on studies that have indicated that starting food later may lead to reduced incidences of food allergies, but she also conceded that those studies have recently been contradicted by other studies, so it was really up to us as to whether we thought Gigi was ready for solids. One reason we wanted to try giving her food is because Gigi is no longer sleeping through the night and feeds every couple of hours day and night. She's a big baby, so I thought maybe she's just hungry. Or maybe that's just my inner Jewish mama coming out. Anyways, the picture above is just before her first spoonful of organic brown rice cereal. Look at the excitement in her eyes!

And here she is, taking her first few spoonfuls. It went amazingly smoothly, as if she'd been eating out of a spoon her whole life. The books all say that you should be happy if you can get a teaspoon of cereal in her mouth the first time. More like five or six tablespoons, I would say - she ate the whole bowl we had prepared for her. Little Ms. Piggy.