baby food exchange

just over a month ago i was contacted by a girl/neighbour who i used to go to church with years ago (i think it was 1998-2000). she was organizing a baby food exchange with a bunch of moms who have babies around the same age. i was SUPER excited because i am all for making my own baby food but also liked the idea of not making all of these different kinds of food on my own. 7 girls said that they were up for it so the food prep began.

the idea was that each person would choose 2 different foods from a list provided and then cook, puree, freeze into cubes and bag it all up. everyone would make 2 ice cube trays (frozen cubes) per person of EACH food. that meant 14 trays of each food, 28 trays in total....hokey pete it was a lot. when we all got together everyone would leave with each kind of food. pretty awesome? i sure think so!! :)

i chose apples and sweet potatoes. doing the apples was A LOT of work! i had to peel, core and chop 20lbs of apples. then i cooked them on low with a little water until they were soft enough to mash. i did 5lbs at a time so it took a while.

steve mashing all the sweet potatoes

once they were mashed up i scooped it into ice cube trays and froze them (i had to do a couple freezing sessions since i didn't have enough trays). next i did the sweet potatoes. i baked them, peeled the skin off (which was surprisingly easy) and then mashed them up. it was super fast!! again, i froze it all into cubes. once i had the stuff frozen i cracked the trays into freezer bags (2 trays of apple into 1 bag and 2 trays of sweet potato into another bag for each person).

today i went to the exchange (one girl decided to opt out so we just divided up her cubes), hung out with the other moms and their adorable kids, had some yummy soup made by our host, cianna, and some dutch thing-which i can't remember the name of but it was AMAZING :), grabbed my bags of food and headed home. other than the 2 foods i made i left with pears, broccoli, butternut squash, peas, quinoa, carrots, yams, more sweet potato, cauliflower, and potatoes. it's so handy because i can pull out some cubes one night from the freezer, put them in the fridge and the next morning jacob's food is all ready for the day. :)

sewing project: stocking

a few months ago i bought a sewing machine (barely used!) off a friend. i was super excited to teach myself to sew. then i started practicing sewing seams and corners and got scared. i had a big plan to make a quilt for jacob (this turned out to be majorly unrealistic for a first project). pinterest inspired me to start small and make jacob a stocking. i found a GREAT pattern and step-by-step instructions via this pin and decided to give it another try. the site has a pattern which you could print out, cut out and tape together, genius! yesterday i bought fabric, today i made a stocking (in 2 hours!!). it isn't perfect, but honestly i am quite proud of it anyways!!

sleep training works!

so about a month ago steve and i made a plan for better sleep. we needed to teach jacob a routine for bed time and nap time so that we would be able to put him down, walk out of his room and he would fall asleep. we had spent WAY too many hours rocking and walking and singing to him to get him to pass out. we also wanted him to sleep through the night.

our plan for the new routine was to put him in his sleepsac, feed him in his room with the lights low and then put him in his crib. if he cried we would wait 2 mins then go back in, give him his soother again, calm him down (without picking him up!) and leave the room again. if he cried we would wait 2 mins and then go back in again....etc etc. (the bedtime routine also includes a bath, pajamas and reading books.) this went REALLY well. he caught on fast. the first few days we had to go in 2 times to calm him and that was it. now we usually don't have to go in at all, he just falls asleep (even if the nap routine doesn't happen). it has been AWESOME!

cutting out the night time feeding took longer. we didn't want to cut the feedings cold turkey. we weren't prepared for the amount of crying that would take place. we decided to work on cutting out the dreamfeed (this is an extra feeding we give him before we go to bed so that he wouldn't wake at 1am for his bottle instead he would wake up around 3 and we would get a longer stretch of sleep. he sleeps through this feeding.). we started cutting that feed back but of course all this meant was that he would wake up earlier in the night to eat (ex: 12:30pm) and then started to wake for a second feed around 5am. this wasn't working for us. so we went back to giving him the full dream feed and decided to cut back on the middle of the night feed. he used to get 6 ozs around 3am and we started by cutting it back to 4ozs. we did that for about a week then went down to 3ozs, then 2ozs. we knew that jacob needed to learn to get his calories during the day and not at night. we noticed that he started eating more during the day. he wanted his bottle every 3 hours again, not every 4 and was eating solids a few times a day. instead of waking at 3am to eat he started waking at 4am, then 4:30, then 5am. 3 nights ago he woke up at 4:30, i stuck his soother in and walked out and he went back to sleep until 7:15! i didn't want to be too excited but i was pretty sure that this meant that he had figured out that he didn't need to eat at night. 2 more nights with only putting his soother in once....i think he's got it!!

steve and i had decided that we would try this method from nov. 1st-dec. 1st and if jacob wasn't sleeping through the night by then we would come up with a new plan of attack. here we are on nov. 28th and we have had 3 nights of wonderful sleep!!

moral of the story? your child CAN sleep through the night and you can help them along the way!! you do NOT have to accept sleepness as part of parenthood (ok, it's not like we sleep solidly for 8 hours or anything but this is SIGNIFICANTLY better) and we didn't have to go through days of intense crying it out at night (i am not saying that it's a bad method it just wasn't for us). i felt pretty bummed when i asked people for advice and ended up getting a lot of comments on how i wasn't going to be able to do it. i am happy that we persevered and now have a 6 month old who is sleeping well. :)

next up? getting him on a solid 2 nap schedule then cutting back on the dreamfeed. by 8 months this kid will hopefully be sleeping well day and night!

MRI news

so it has been 3 weeks since jacob had his neurology appointment. the doctor had told us that he was going to hand deliver the request for jake's MRI to radiology so that he could explain how urgent it is for jake to get in ASAP. we didn't know whether to expect a call soon with an appointment date that is 6 months down the road, or if we should just be waiting for a call that would come close to the appointment date. last week i decided that if we hadn't heard anything by today we would call and ask. this morning steve called the neurologist's office and they told us that the wait is 18-24 months and we should expect a call approximately 3 weeks prior to his appointment. thankfully i have a husband who wasn't ok with that answer and he decided to call radiology himself. they put him on hold and pulled up jacob's file and when they came back on the phone they asked steve if he wanted to book the appointment now! WHAT?!?!?!?! this makes NO sense! we were baffled! so the earliest appointment we could get was for jan 9th. honestly, we are so happy with that date! we had discussed going to the states, or going to edmonton, doing whatever we could to get answers sooner. but we had also agreed not to do anything outside of BC until january and now we don't have to. a daycare nurse will call me on the 6th of january with all of the info we need for the MRI. jacob will have to be sedated so i am sure there will be fasting involved so that he doesn't throw up when he is put under. thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers! we are making progress.....it's slow but it's still progress!

can i get your opinion on labels?

a while back i posted about address labels and asked for your opinions. i am almost out of the labels i ended up purchasing so now i am hunting for new ones. i went through all 97 pages of return address labels on etsy and narrowed it down to 7. here they are, tell me what you think.

mellow yellow
i would change the top font

reimer
different colour scheme?

large chevron
i am fond of it just the way it is

dayton
i would probably do a dark gray font on top instead of brown

quatrefoil pattern

i would never, ever do these colours. i would do a light gray instead of pink and then probably a teal instead of the green

leonard

there are other colour options that are not as intense as this one....are these colours too much??

retro chevron

i like this colour scheme but i would also consider doing orange instead of gray and then instead of the green stripe i would do charcoal.....maybe....

post neurologist appointment

i know so many people have been waiting to hear what is going on with jacob. in a lot of ways i want to share the details because that means that people will be more understanding of how much all of these tests have consumed our thoughts and people can be praying for him and us. on the flip side if i actually write this then i know it is going to feel more real....more permanent....

i am an open person. i share stuff. i don't like to bottle stuff up and i like to talk it out with people. i like to know what is going on with the people in my life (like REALLY going on, not just the surfacey stuff) and i like to be open and honest with people about what is going on with me. sometimes it's not so pretty. this is one of those times. this is tough stuff. this is when i feel vulnerable. this is SO difficult because it's our son, it's our helpless son.

jacob has been arching his back and stiffening up for a long time. it got really bad around the 6 week mark. around 12 weeks our doctor noticed that jacob's arms shake (jitter, have a tremor....however you want to say it) and asked us if we had noticed that before. yup, we had. we thought nothing of it because his chin had done a similiar thing and we were told that he would grow out of it and that it was just having to do with his nervous system not being completely developed. his chin stopped quivering and we thought his arms would too. the doctor asked us to come back a month later. we came back. jacob was still doing the shaking, hadn't grown out of it yet. our doc sent us to a pediatrician to have it evaluated. we saw her 3 weeks ago today. she was concerned about it but was more concerned with how stiff he can be. when you hold his hands when he is lying on his back and try and get him to sit up he stands. he gets stiff as a board and stands up. she sent us for blood work and arranged for him to have an EEG. 4 days after his appointment he had the EEG! we saw the pediatrician again and she told us that the EEG showed no seizure activity. great news! next she referred him to a neurologist. today we saw the neurologist at children's hospital.

if i am honest i went into the appointment today kind of expecting him to say that there is nothing wrong with jacob and that he will grow out of this, it's just him temperment....etc etc. that is not what he said. he told us that jacob's high muscle tone indictates 1 of 2 things. option 1 is that he has some kind of brain injury (most likely this occured during labour and delivery. he had a low baseline heart rate during my labour and the neurologist is guessing that the amount of oxygen going to jacob's brain decreased and caused cells to die, and brain cells do not grow back). option 2 is that he has a metabolic disease.

brain injury is a better option and the option that the doctor thinks is more likely. what would this mean for jacob? it would mean that he has cerebral palsy or something like that. because jacob is developing "normally" otherwise the doctor thinks that if it is cerebral palsy it is a mild case. he may have some trouble learning to walk or run or have some issues with fine motor skills but with physiotherapy and occupational therapy he should be able to do "ok". he apparently won't be "completely normal" (man, those words stung). we were told that any skills jacob learns he will not lose.....this is different if it is a metabolic disease.

a metabolic disease (from my understanding) is degenerative. he could learn a new skill and lose it later. the fact that he is developing "normally" now could mean nothing because he could get worse over time.

how do we find out which one it is? an MRI will conclude whether or not he has a brain injury. if he doesn't then he will most likely need a spinal tap so the doctor can find out which metabolic disease he has.....or at least i think that is what the spinal tap is for.

when the doctor said "i don't have any good news for you today" i felt like i couldn't concentrate on anything he was saying. i was doing everything i could not to bawl my eyes out. i tried so hard to listen but i only caught some of it. between steve and i we have attempted to piece together the little we know and now have a TON of questions.

the next step: blood and urine tests and we wait for a call from radiology at children's so jacob can have an MRI. the wait is 2 years. the neurologist is going to push for jacob to get in within 6 months because he is so young and because the doctor needs to know if it is a metabolic disease so he can treat jacob as soon as possible. we are also working with a fabulous consultant from langley child and infant development and we are learning news ways to help jacob.

we were told that he HAS one of these 2 things.....but we trust that there is a THIRD option. we are praying that he will not have a brain injury OR a metabolic disease and that he will just grow out of this! we know that God is bigger than it all. we know that so many people are praying for him and us already. we appreciate it SO much!!! thanks for your prayers, thanks for your notes on facebook, thanks for thinking about us and wishing us well. we feel surrounded with love and we are seeking peace of mind big time! the last thing we want is to stick jacob in a box and expect him to struggle. we don't want to think about the worst case scenario. we are praying for the best case scenario (whether it is medically possible or not)!

jacob has THE BEST personality EVER!! he is goofy, he smiles at pretty much everyone. he is super social and has the best smile and laugh EVER! he thinks it's hilarious if you yell "boo" at him or if you whisper to him. he is ticklish and can not get enough of his sophie giraffe. we are blessed to have him in our lives and love him more than we ever imagined was possible. thanks for being there to support us through this and for loving our son too (we know that so many of you do)!!

my grandpa's eulogy

my grandpa passed away on oct. 4. the memorial service was today and here is what I wrote and read:

"Grandfathers are pillars of wisdom and strength within a family..." that is a quote that I recently read and my grandpa is no exception.

He and I spent a lot of time together since he moved into Langley in 2004. I would go over to his apartment at Magnolia Gardens for frequent visits where he and I would sit and work on a puzzle, reminisce about our memories as a family or he would tell me stories from his 91 years of life. We often talked about the people we knew from Central Park Gospel Hall and 10th Avenue Bible Chapel. He would tell me about how much he had loved all of his duties at 10th Avenue, whether it was being the treasurer, working on the gardens, cleaning the Chapel, preparing the table for the communion service or leading the hymns. He loved the church and he loved God. I always knew and never doubted his devotion to serving God and serving others. That is something that I will always strive to emulate.

Not only was grandpa devoted to the church and God, he was also devoted to his work. When he was 16 he left school and was hired to work in the lab at BC Sugar. He devoted 49 years to his work in the lab and as plant supervisor. During WW2 he joined the navy as a medic and he often told me about how he always sent his paycheque home to his mom to help pay the mortgage on the family home. After his mom passed away he and my grandma continued to care for his dad. They lived next door to one another and every morning grandpa would take breakfast over to his dad and they would make him dinner each night. Family has always been SO important to him.

Growing up my siblings and I spent a lot of time with grandma and grandpa. They lived only a 10 minute walk from our home which gave them easy access to their 4 grandchildren. Grandpa helped Trisha with her paper route a couple times a week, he never missed any of Brad and Robbie's soccer games, we often had family dinners together, went to their place and played dress up or "perry mappy", did crafts in their kids craft corner or "helped" grandpa in his garden with his tomatoe, cucumber and potato plants.

Grandpa was a man of routine. Whether it was picking up my dad's company's mail each morning and delivering it to him, cutting his lawn with only ever a push mower, eating fish and chips with MALT vinegar, making sure he always had HP sauce with his dinner, spending his summers in Penticton, giving his neighbour haircuts or unlocking and locking the Chapel every Sunday...he would never waver from his routine. When grandma passed away in 1993, he started a new routine of having us 4 kids over for lunch every wednesday. We would walk to his place from school and he would serve us grilled cheese sandwiches dipped in egg with salt and vinegar potato chips and chocolate milk. For dessert he always had fresh glazed doughnuts from middlegate mall. We would sit in the same seats at the table with the same cups, no matter what. We loved it and will never forget it.

Many of you may remember my grandpa as a bit of a worrier....maybe even A LOT of a worrier. He worried about his family the most. In order to counteract that worry he would call us almost every day just to check in. When my son was born in May I was unable to visit him as often and therefore the number of phone calls i received increased. He always wanted to know how his great-grandson was doing each day. Another thing he worried about was eating. "what are we having for lunch today? What are we having for dinner?" He had some of the care aides wrapped around his finger and they would supply him with monthly menus. If he knew there was a meal that he wasn't going to enjoy, most likely meals which contained onions, he would check and see what was being served on the other side of the building and arrange to have that instead. I doubt that he sat down to very many meals where he didn't know what would be showing up on his plate. I know that worrying is a trait I inherited from my grandpa, a trait I used to hate but now I think I can look at it differently, look at it as a little daily reminder of my grandpa.

He has always been, and will continue to be a pillar of what it means to be a faithful servant, loving friend and devoted follower of Jesus Christ.