from our family to you and yours

Happy Holidays!

Labels: Brett, Christmas, Samuel

posted by Beatrice @ 9:59 PM 0 comments

days inside

It's a depressingly freezing day in Calgary, which means that yet again, it's too cold for my baby to go outside. I feel a bit landlocked. It's one thing if I choose not to go out because I simply don't feel like being part of the outside world on a given day; it's quite another for an outside force to compel me to stay in for over a week.

I know I'm not alone in this feeling of being cooped up for far too long. Other moms I know who also have small children and live in the deep freezer that is currently Alberta report feeling the same way. We all just want to go outside! I particularly want to bundle up Sam in his cozy blue snowsuit, take him to the little playground beside the townhouse complex we live in, and let him experience what snow feels like.

The week ahead supposedly holds warmer temperatures. So maybe I'll get outside with Sam as early as tomorrow. But I worry by the time we can get outside, the roads and sidewalks will be nearly too yucky to traverse.

In the meantime, I'm spending a lot of time with my baby asleep on my lap. He's quite content to stay on his mommy and have lots of play time together, and all of that makes me happy too.

Labels: Calgary, Samuel, weather

posted by Beatrice @ 1:26 PM 0 comments

photo essay: why Sam and I stayed inside today

Weather Network update


from Sam's room


from Sam's room: that walkway had been shovelled half an hour before


from my and Brett's room


from my and Brett's room


the somewhat opaque kitchen window


outside our front door


from the patio door

Labels: Calgary, Samuel, weather

posted by Beatrice @ 3:20 PM 0 comments

Sam's first solid food meal

Today Sam is sixth months old, and we've come to a major mark in his development: his first solid food. Per tradition, Brett and I decided to start Sam off with the pablum mix of rice cereal and breast milk. As I've written about, I've been practising feeding Sam with a spoon to get him used to the sensation.


I feed Sam some pablum.


Brett feeds Sam.

The actual event of Sam's first solid food meal went very well. Sure, some of the meal ended up on Sam's bib, but most of it ended up inside him.



Sam was a lovely boy as Brett and I each took a turn feeding him, and he was happy to be the star of photographs—as he is of so many already—and a video depicting this historical moment of our little family. As I look at the images from today, my mind retreats into an understandable parental cliché: my baby is starting to grow up.


Sam takes a well-earned rest after his meal.

Labels: Brett, Samuel

posted by Beatrice @ 7:58 PM 0 comments

spoon practice

Sam breaks out into a gleeful smile as I set him in the high chair I assembled two days ago. (It's the only piece of furniture I've ever built by myself, so I'm quite proud of this accomplishment.) There is nothing more delightful than seeing my son happy. I'm glad that he's taken so well to the high chair these past two days. He likes being able to sit up and observe the world: all the things most of us take for granted are still new to him. Sam grabs the star-covered bib I've just secured into place around his neck and examines it closely. It's yet another new and, therefore, fascinating thing for him to get used to.

I sit, eye level to Sam, in the dining room chair I've swivelled toward the high chair and explain to him what we're about to do: spoon practice. He's almost of the mythical six-month age when he should be introduced to food besides breast milk. However, as I tell him, we're going to practice using a spoon with breast milk on it just so Sam gets used to the sensation of having a spoon with liquid put into his mouth. He gives me more of his lovely smiles as I talk to him.


Sam practices eating off a spoon.
At first, Sam has a quizzical look on his face when the spoon is in his mouth; he's wondering what this is all about. However, within a minute he's opening his mouth wide for the spoon. It soon becomes clear that a challenge will be teaching Sam that he should keep his mouth shut as he's swallowing. Just as much milk ends up on Sam's bib as in Sam, I think. Throughout his spoon practice time, Sam is just as happy as he was at the start, and I keep encouraging him and praising him with how well he's doing in trying to learn this new skill. We'll work again tomorrow and many tomorrows after that on his feeding skills, and hopefully we'll both have as much fun as we did today.


Sam after spoon practice

Labels: Samuel

posted by Beatrice @ 10:24 PM 1 comments

moot vaccination

As it turns out, my family's personal H1N1 vaccination question is currently moot. Now the idea in Alberta is that only certain high-risk groups of people should be vaccinated at this time, and Sam, Brett and I do not fit into any of those high-risk categories. Indeed, Sam still has about a month to go before he'd even be eligible for the vaccine and, therefore, enter into such a category.

It feels like the government’s vaccination message has changed, going from "OMG everyone get vaccinated right now," to, "It was always only for the high-risk people in the first few weeks, and we're redoing the whole program to make it how it was always supposed to be."

This is stupid. It’s bloody well hard enough to make important decisions like this without information changing on me because the provincial government screwed up its vaccine distribution plan in the first place. Right now, Brett and I are leaning toward “no” for our family whenever any of us would be eligible to get the vaccine. By the time any of us could, it’ll be well into the flu season and likely make the vaccine even more moot than it already is for us.

Labels: Alberta, Brett, H1N1, Samuel, social commentary

posted by Beatrice @ 9:41 PM 0 comments

on the H1N1 vaccination fence

The realm of motherhood keeps me too busy to blog lately. I can snap a few pictures here and there and put them on Facebook, but my world pretty much revolves around Sam right now. (And honestly, the pictures I take are usually of Sam.) And that's okay. That's the way it should be when one has an infant to care for. The bit of spare time I've had for writing has been going to my fiction endeavours.

However, something is bothering me that I need to write about, just to try to sort out my own thoughts: H1N1 vaccinations and whether or not Brett, Sam—when he's old enough—and I should get them. Brett and I have been discussing this and haven't reached any conclusion.

To be clear, I am not someone who believes that vaccines are part of some evil conspiracy or that thimerosal causes autism, nor is Brett. Sam has received and will continue to receive his regularly scheduled childhood vaccinations. These childhood vaccines have been around for years and proven relatively safe, and we feel that any risks with having Sam get those vaccinations are minor in comparison to what could happen if he got the diseases the vaccines prevent. I remember being seven and having red measles. It wasn't until years later that I understood just how sick red measles had made me and that my risk of dying from it had been high.

But I feel some trepidation when it comes to the H1N1 vaccine. First, I can't find any actual data for the clinical trials that were held and are still being held in Canada for this new vaccine. All I can find is commentary on government websites and expert opinion in media outlets that the vaccine is safe. (Am I just not looking in the right place? If anyone knows where said data are available, please, let me know.) I'd like to read about what actually happened and is happening, particularly in the clinical trials for six- to nine-month-old babies.

Second, I'm not keen on the mandatory adjuvant in the vaccine. The squalene that is one of the adjuvant's components comes from shark liver. So the vaccine is not completely compatible with the vegetarian lifestyle I've chosen for myself. (I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian, so the growing of vaccines in eggs doesn't conflict with my personal beliefs.) According to its website, Alberta Health Services is refusing to let people choose to get the H1N1 without the adjuvant unless they are pregnant because of limited non-adjuvanted vaccine supply.

Third, there is practically no information on the effects of the vaccine in breast milk and in the breastfed baby. All I can find is information telling me I should still breastfeed if I get sick, which I already knew. Sam is just five months old as of tomorrow, and he's, therefore, not old enough to get the vaccine himself yet. How do I know getting some vaccine through breast milk won't hurt him?

Should I compromise my vegetarian values and get the adjuvanted vaccine? Should I wait until Sam is old enough to get the vaccine himself, and then we get it at the same time? Should I just keep taking the same OCD precautions that I always do against germs? Is H1N1 so scary that I should get me to one of the overcrowded Calgary vaccination clinics now?

What is really irritating me as Brett and I debate about H1N1 vaccination are the suggestions that anyone who hesitates to get this shot lacks common sense and is stupid. Neither of these things is true of us. We're just like everyone else who wants what is best for family and self. Weighing options and evidence is a sensible thing to do here. So for the moment, Brett and I will continue to talk about what we should do, for ourselves and for Sam.

Labels: Brett, H1N1, Samuel, social commentary

posted by Beatrice @ 1:21 PM 0 comments