Happy Canada Day!

Seeing as it is Canada Day tomorrow and it was fairly hot out today, I figured that it was a great opportunity to use my temporary tattoos that someone gave us during the olympics. Anomantia was more impressed with the fact that I let her be naked for more than 30 minutes at the time. Tomorrow we are not planning on attending the festivities due to Laurence's inability to walk long distances and the parking at the site is awful when a city with over 90 000 residents decide to partake in the activities. I think we might just go and check out the outdoor pool and waterpark that just opened yesterday. I know that Laurence has been dying to go back to the recreation centre to use their steam room. Tomorrow, is an entirely new adventure in itself and until then, we hope y'all have a great Canada Day!

Pronounciation

I don't know how many ways people think her name is pronounced... for the record it is:

ANOMANTIA

Ah-no-man-Tee-yah.

June Photos Part II

On Father's day weekend, Anomantia humoured us by making this new face.

And again... she loves pickles and I give her Cheerios to throw around. She doesn't eat them yet, but they make a great toy at the moment.

Hanging out in her Bumbo in the kitchen while we made dinner the other night. She likes it best when I let her eat a rice cake naked in the bumbo. It makes a mess of mushy rice cake when I give them to her.

Cookie faced playing with Sophie the Giraffe yesterday. I got home from my Muay Thai class to find her hanging outside in her exersaucer / jumperoo, while Laurence painted the fence. She had found a cookie that she had ditched in the tray a couple of days earlier and decided to eat it (or try at least).

Cookie faced close-up.

June Photos Part I

I can hardly believe that June is coming to an end and that the summer is already here. Only 3 more months before I have to return to work and leave my baby blue for the day. I am a little nervous about that, but I am sure things will go fine once we adjust to the new routine.

The bright Blue eyes are here to stay. This photo is kinda creepy with the overexposure but her eyes are really really blue now.
Anomantia eats sweet potato with her ear. She still thinks the "Little Potato" song is funny.

Beef Jerky... Need I say more?

yum!

Anomantia has learned how to kiss properly, now she does the little "ooh" mouth to most people with the exception being me. She still has this idea that it is okay to eat her mama's face.

Food for thought

Today started off rough but came around in the end. Yesterday, Laurence and I worked at getting our beef roasts ready for jerky. We made the brine and marinated it all overnight. This morning started way too early with Anomantia overheated and hungry crying for someone to come and help her out. As always, I hauled my half awake-half asleep butt out of bed to help her out. I changed her, then nursed her back to sleep. At 6:30am I woke up to the smell of Jerky being made downstairs. I thought I'd be saying YUM but my reaction was more of a YUCK! The smell dominated my house (for the record, I don't like the smell of raw red meat... It makes me nauseous) upstairs and all the way through the next three levels of our house. There was no escaping the smell of marinated meat. As the morning progressed, I cleaned the kitchen storage closet out and opened all the doors and windows to let the smell out. Anomantia was the most content in the living room next to the dehydrator all morning... Go figure!?! As lunch rolled around, I sliced some apple slices for her and she was really uninterested, so I was trying a piece of our homemade beef jerky with her next to me, eyes glaring directly at the jerky as I attempted to rip a piece apart. We decided that giving her a piece to nom on wouldn't hurt so long as we didn't leave her alone with it. This afternoon, we discovered that Anomantia's favourite food by far is homemade beef jerky. She gummed the jerky until there was just a tiny mush of meat left. She was so proud of herself at the end, covered in meat juice from ear to ear. I never imagined that my baby would be so... umm how to put this??? ... CARNIVOROUS!
After her jerky, she played for about an hour in her jolly jumper while I put laundry away, followed by playing Tasmanian devil with her sock pile, I think I am still missing a few. Seriously, it was pitching practice in her bedroom with paired up socks. Note to self, don't turn head away from her when in reach of any form of ball because it will likely end up across the room or cloth because it will likely end up in her mouth.

The Avocado Adventure

She had to try to smoosh it in her fingers before every bite. She was pretty unsure about it at first but once she realised that she could play with this one, she was covered up to her elbows in avocado mush.

On top of solids, Anomantia has recently found her voice. She lets out these high pitched squeals that are sometimes happy and sometimes irritated, but ear splitting yells. It was a little surprising at first but I now know that she has her dad's vocal volume. The days of peace and quiet are gone in Gurneyland.

More photos June 1st to 6th

May 29th- Anomantia's first Rice cereal and real use of her spoons. She fed herself a whole 3 tablespoons of cereal just to break out in a rash and get hives all over her face and torso.

The cauliflower thief. After she grabbed the piece and started putting it into her mouth, I decided that she should be in her chair. She wasn't too impressed with having to sit by herself.

June 4th- Thanks for the visit Auntie Debby. It was great to see you again.

1st Banana in feeder. We tried honeydew melon but realised that she does better with chunks than in the feeder with most foods. It is still great for breastmilkcicles.

Banana face!

backlog of photos from May 20th to June 1st

Anomantia loves her books but nothing is safe from her mouth especially once she gets it into her hands.

She drinks water and breast milk from a cup. She still doesn't like bottles.

And she doesn't like anyone helping her with her cup. It is all her even tipping it up.

She loves brushing her gums too. A toothbrush and her spoon make great teething toys and have helped train her hand to mouth coordination.

We had a really hot day on May 20th (30+ degrees Celsius) so she hung out in her diaper and t-shirt with a damp facecloth on her head to keep cool.

Garden and Food

June has arrived and we are gearing up for an adventurous summer. Our vegetable garden is planted (finally) after our last snowfall of the season (I hope). This spring has been unseasonably dry compared to most and I am hoping that we get a bit more rain to at least fill up my rain barrels for watering. So far we have corn, pole beans, sugar and snow peas, beets, a couple varieties of radishes, potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus all seeded.
So far this month, we have had a blast with Anomantia no longer in her harness. She loves hanging out at our level in the ergo carrier (thanks Christina, Mounir and Khalil). All in all she is a fairly happy baby, with the exception of teething and nap times. She is now eating solids by her own choice. It all started with her swiping a piece of cauliflower off my dinner plate and since then it has grown to include banana, honeydew melon, and this morning's newest was avocado (which I think she wore more than ate, but enjoyed it). I also picked up some yam and sweet potato for her to try later this week. We have decided to not use any purées or premade so called baby foods due to the extra ingredients that I can't even pronounce and her dislike for the texture of it (she would far rather chunks of stuff). We tried to give her rice cereal but she broke out in hives and a rash all over. We aren't necessarily using a particular method but I would say that we are leaning towards the "Baby-led weaning" method of approaching solids. She will be 6 months old in 9 days and finally learned to roll over the other day. She was playing on the floor while I was cleaning the living room and I looked over and she was on her back (front to back roll) and the following day she decided to spend some time on her tummy and rolled back to front. She loves kicking and sucking on pickles (great teething toys) while hanging out in the living/dining room in our home.
This month we wish all of our sisters (Melanie, Danica and Diana) very happy birthdays. And on the 20th we will be celebrating Laurence's first father's day. Thanks for the visit Auntie Debby and we are glad we had the chance to sneak in a visit on your short trip out our way. June brings us plenty to keep us busy and hopefully some nicer weather.