Adventures in Calgary

Today Molly is 4 months old and to celebrate we went to get her next round of immunizations. Since Noel just started his new job, I was on my own with the Mollinator. We ended up running into the woman I shared my hospital room with for the first night of my stay. I was surprised she recognized and remembered me. I didn't have a clue who she was but I guess hours of labour will do that to you. Molly did well with the shots and we finally got her weighed and measured. She is 12.2 pounds and 61 cms long.

The women from my birth class fabulous. We're continuing to get together weekly and I'm loving it. We've gone swimming the last 2 Mondays at the VRRI pool (a theraputic pool that is wonderfully warm) and the babies really seem to enjoy it. Molly wasn't too relaxed in the water (bath included) at first but she's getting better and better each week. Yesterday she was quite screamy-happy in fact. She and Eliot are definitely the loudest of the bunch! These pictures were taken by one of the husbands who came along as official photographer. Thanks Rob!

This past week has been so awesome. It was the first time since Molly was born that Noel got to spend a good chunk of time with us. Parenting, and life in general, is a lot easier and less lonely when he's home during the day. We didn't do anything exciting...just lots of relaxing family time.

Molly's latest tricks:
Rolling from front to back and back to front (she loved showing off this trick for Grandpa Frank and Aunt Michele)
Linking rolls so she can get to a toy
Getting up on all fours and rocking like she's trying to crawl
Laughing whenever she sees herself in the mirror
Trying to suck her fingers while she is nursing
Napping for more than 30 minutes at a time

Her biggest progress is definitely in the sleeping category. We've been trying to establish regular naps and it seems to be working (this week anyway!). We're hoping that we can get her into the routine of a nap at 9 am, another at 1 pm and bed around 7 pm. So far it seems to be working. She's also getting better about falling asleep on her own in her bed. For a while we thought we'd have to move her bed from the loft into the spare room so that we could make it darker for her to sleep but now I don't think it's necessary. We'll move her in there at some point but keeping her in the loft makes it really easy to hear her from anywhere without the aid of a monitor.

This week coming up is a big one. Molly turns 4 months which means it's time for another round of shots and her next doctor's appointment...since it's Noel's first week at the new job I'm on my own. I just hope Molly reacts as well to these shots as she did the last round.

We have had the most incredible week of Flatters family fun. Grandpa Frank stayed with us until yesterday and Molly loved every second. We got to see lots of Aunt Michele and Great Grandma and Grandpa Flatters too. It was so sad when it was time for Grandpa Frank to go back to Thailand (by way of Ottawa, Kingston, and Washington)...the house really seems so much emptier without him. If only the world weren't such a huge place! These are just a couple of the many pictures we took over the week.

Mark Peters will be happy to note that we are in fact keeping track of how many days old Molly is (as well as noting the weeks and months of course). To help us celebrate, Noel's grandparents flew in from Ottawa (okay so it was just a coincidence) and the RCMP called to offer Noel a job (also a coincidence but it helped with the festive spirit that's for sure). Our friends Turner and Ash gave their daughter rice to celebrate her 100 days...an interesting idea but I'm not ready for her to eat real food yet. Her newest tricks:

Never sleeping (we think it's due to early teething but who knows)
Occasionally sucking her thumb (we're big fans if it means we don't have to get up in the night to give her a soother)
Rolling from her front to her back (I've found her giggling away to herself after accomplishing this post nap)

I'll post pictures of the great grandparents and grandpa Frank when I have more time.