Our bruiser

She's such a gorgeous little girl and yet she's almost constantly covered by scratches, cuts and other abrasions. The one on the bridge of her nose was basically self-inflicted: she tried to give a kiss to a boy at school who wasn't prepared for it and so he retaliated the only way he knew how. They've since kissed and made up.

Olympic torch relay in front of the Wallis House

For those who didn't get a chance to see it. I debated about whether I would post this on the blog, as I'm still very bitter about not getting tickets for the Olympics, but I figured it's part of the historical record, so better to post it. But there will be no further mention of the Olympics on this blog.

Saint Cece

Carolyn came for a visit last week to help us out with Isaac and get to know Gabrielle a bit better, as she's never had any one-on-one time with her. It turns out that the timing couldn't have been better for us, as we still hadn't bought our new car and we didn't know how we'd be shuttling G back and forth to daycare with Mark back at work and me having to take a newborn and G on the bus in rush hour traffic. Our lives are so bloody complicated - how did this all happen?

Anyways... Carolyn was such a saint, holding Isaac as much as possible, playing with Gabrielle in the morning and afternoon, cooking food, and generally helping out around the house. She also cemented her new nickname with G, who is calling her Cece (pronounced See-See).



We went out for Japanese food the day before Carolyn left. She seemed really impressed by G's ability with chopsticks. Hell, I was impressed too - where did she learn to use them??



Carolyn was a bit over her head when it came to changing cloth diapers but she muddled through.



And there was alot of this, for which I was extremely grateful. She'd plop on the couch with him and I'd hit the showers. I'd be away from him for just long enough that I wanted to hold him again. Sometimes she'd let me, sometimes she wouldn't.

;-)

Week 4 update

For such a little guy, Isaac sure causes alot of trouble. Since he's been born, we seem to be constantly worried about his health, which is so unlike our experience when Gabrielle was his age.

First of all, he was basically born with a cold, so he's been congested and stuffed-up since I've known him. This caused him to wake up gasping for air at night - and there's nothing that can be done other than wait for his immature immune system to fight it off.

Second, the midwife thought she heard a very slight heart murmur at his last check-up, so she sent us to a pediatrician for a more thorough examination. Since Isaac was so stuffed-up and congested, the pediatrician couldn't hear a thing, although she got about 3 seconds of clear breathing and didn't think she could hear anything. We're going to be following up with her this week, but it seems like there's nothing to worry about, as he's not showing any signs that would cause concern.

Finally, Isaac failed one of his newborn screening tests, having us (OK, maybe just me) in a complete panic that he might have cystic fibrosis. Thankfully, medical testing proved 36 hours later that he doesn't have CF but is only a carrier, as is one of Mark or I. Who knew?...



Here's Isaac at his 4-week check-up, getting the once-over by Denise.



Weighing in at 10 lbs 5 ozs - not the corpulent baby that G was, but completely within normal range.

"Big jump"

One of Gabrielle's favourite games, she stands on the edge of our bed, announces "big jump" and then throws herself onto the mattress. This is a new variation - synchronized big jumping: