Blink... Happy 1st Birthday Brendan!

Both Kevin and I feel like we've blinked and Brendan has turned 1!!


It has been an incredible year on so many levels.

After a marathon labour, Brendan was born - and I can honestly say that we were both amazed at what a wonderful little creature he was (and still is!). We've had the most incredible time learning how to be parents - figuring how to change nappies and bathe him, feeding him solid foods for the first time, how to exist on stretches of sleep lasting no longer than 4 hours at a time (on a very good night!!), etc.
But most of all, we have been overwhelmed by the emotion and the love that we feel for our little boy. We have so much fun with him every day and can't wait for the years ahead!


To celebrate his special day, we invited a few little friends over for a party and had lots of fun throwing food around, playing with toys, and eating cupcakes... Lots of fun!!


Happy Birthday Brendan!!

Adventures in Baby Led Weaning

After 6 glorious months of solely breastfeeding my little Brendan (who knew that breastfeeding was so easy?!! THE original fast food!), we have been introducing him to the world of solid foods. As an avid "foodie", what Brendan eats is REALLy important to me (and Kevin). We've been trying to buy locally grown, organic produce when we can and have adopted a vegetarian diet for him.
(I suspect that a lot of my entries will focus around Bren's food! )

After we slowly introduced Bren to the joys (or not as the case may be!) of baby rice, I found some info about a new "philosophy" of feeding babies. Baby led weaning is the idea that you can feed babies whole, solid foods without pureeing everything. It teaches them a lot about foods, flavours as well as hand-eye coordination, and how wonderfully bite-sized foods can be launched across the room!!!
Seriously though - I love it!
To begin with, it was a bit scary - is he going to choke? can his tummy digest this stuff? is he going to develop allergies? Ack!! After refering to a number of sites (really like www.babyledweaning.co.uk), we've adopted a bit of both worlds... We mostly start each meal with solids (like some toast and jam, some pieces of fruit, some cheese and crackers, roasted veg) followed by some fun things that Bren can eat with a spoon (yogurt, risotto, pasta shapes and tomatoe sauce, etc). Did I mention he's a little whiz with his cup - no sippy cups here, the real thing!
So much fun for all of us - Brendan gets to explore his food while eating, and we get the joys of watching his meal-time adventures! It also makes food prep a lot easier - he just eats a lot of what we're having!
One thing I have had difficulty finding are recipes that are a little simpler for us all to eat - not too spicy, flavours not too complex, etc. I'll keep searching... I'm bound to find more!

Not a natural blogger...

After Kevin "gave" the responsibility of the blog to me, I thought I would take on the challenge with gusto... (see previous posting in January making promises to post every week! ha!)
And I've realised, and can now admit it openly without shame - I'm not a natural blogger. I think I'm more the type of person to look to the person next to me and say "hey, guess what?!" rather than sitting down and typing out the details. But sadly, most of the people who I want to share the "guess what" moments with are not close enough to me to tell them things in person.
With Brendan now along for our adventures in the UK, I think I'm going to have to try harder to make the time to override my non-blogging tendencies. Watch this space! (I think!)

Lil' wriggler

This morning we woke up to a little wriggler in our midst!
As usual, Brendan woke with a lovely smile on his face. He looked up, gave a BIG grin, and then buried his head into the bed once again. Instead of repeating this series of cute flirtings, his bum scooched up in the air, his knees tucked underneath and he propped himself up on his elbows. By wriggling around a little, he managed to move forward a bit in bed. It wasn't a full-blown "crawl" but it certainly looked like a very good attempt! Once he figures out that his arms need to be in on the action, look out world!!

Saying good bye to an old friend...

We've reached a point in time that I thought would never come. After 15 wonderful years, sadly Billy is no longer with us. Over the last few days, his health and well-being deteriorated considerably and got to the point today where we knew that his time had come.


A few weeks ago we noticed that Billy had a number of lumps in his throat and, after investigation, the vet determined that his kidneys and liver were failing. He also suspected cancer of the lymph system. We knew at that point that we didn't have long with our old friend.

During the last few weeks we've tried to make him as happy and comfortable as we could, not to mention spoiling him rotten with cuddles, kisses, and LOTS of treats.

As I sit here typing this entry, I truly cannot believe that he's gone, and that he won't be plodding into my office to sit down on his mat next to my desk, won't come over to me in the living room and sit on my feet to "join" in the conversation, won't snuggle into me on the sofa, won't come for long walks in the woods, won't give me "kisses" on the nose when I'm sad... like right now when I could use it the most.

Never in my life have a known a dog like Billy, and I know I never will again.
Billy, my old pal, you are going to be truly missed.

3 months old... how did that happen?!

Its hard to believe that 3 months have passed by so quickly! In the blink of an eye it seems our little newborn baby has doubled in size and is babbling away like a little chatterbox!
He is such a joy... he wakes every morning with a little smile on his face and can't wait to tell us all about the dreams that he had that night. He literally spends the entire time we are changing his nappy every morning chatting away!

In the last 3 months we've certainly done a lot!
I'll provide a quick synopsis here so that I can write more about them at length later on.

Week 1 - Nana Kata was still with us and we went out for tea in Ely (see posting below!)
Week 2 - We survived our first week of parenthood flying solo! Brendan officially became a UK citizen today as we registered his birth with the City of Cambridge.
Week 3 - All four of us (can't forget Billy the dog!) took a trip up to Great Nana's house in Eccleston (see posting below)
Week 4 - We saw the arrival of Grandpa Savage and Rocio as well as Aunty Chlo! We had a lovely visit with them.
Week 5 - Flying solo again! (Aunty Chlo went up to see Nana Kata and Great Nana in Eccleston)
Week 6 - We were lucky to have Jeff and Jocelynn came to visit from Italy and Chloe returned from up North. It was a bit of a squish in our little house, but we had a lot of fun with everyone.
Weeks 7 & 8 - We had Brendan all to ourselves as we prepared for our little family's first Christmas! I was so excited!
Weeks 9 & 10 - The McGlynn clan from Mississauga came for a visit. Grandpa McGlynn and Aunty Tara were only able to stay for a week, but Grandma McGlynn looked after us for 2 weeks.

Weeks 11 & 12 - Just the 4 of us again and having a lovely start to 2008. Brendan has started his swimming lessons and he seems to LOVE the water! He's a little fish! I continue to meet with the "First Time Mum's" group and has met a number of nice ladies with whom to chat about baby poop, leaky boobs and feeling sleepy all the time!

And now here we are in Week 13 with our smiley little chatter box. After a busy day today watching Kevin's football match and then making marmalade (I know I'm weird, or so Kev keeps telling me!) its time for bed! That is if I can manage to claim a little bit of space somewhere in bed between Brendan and Kevin!
Love to all!

New Year's Resolution

Each year, it seems, I vow to myself that I'll change something in my life for the better (like eating more healthily or exercising more), improve myself in some way (learn a new language) or simply do things more efficiently or more often (like cleaning!). Yet, within moments of thinking these virtuous thoughts, I've forgotten and I'm back to my old ways!
This year will be different... This year, I have a purpose.


This year will be the year of Brendan!! I've decided, in an attempt to keep all friends and family up to date with Brendan's rapid growing and development, I will aim to write blog entries once a week (or at least once a month!! Let's be realistic!!) showing a photo of Bren and providing an account of his week.

This is the official first entry... I've put my intentions into writing and hope that I stick to it!
My next entry (once all the photos have been uploaded from the camera from Christmas!) will be an account of the last few months.

Hope everyone enjoys it!