It’s finally time for solid food! Noah’s first lunch of rice cereal and smushy bananas. He seemed to like it… eventually.

Noah’s First Food Adventure from Chantelle Finley on Vimeo.

Parenting is full of revelations, so I expect there will be more confessions to come in later posts.

1. My Mom was right. About ALL of it. Damn.
2. Being vomited on is no longer enough of a reason to change my shirt.
3. I’ve dirtied a dish just to put it in the dishwasher so I wouldn’t feel guilty about running a completely empty dishwasher just to lull Noah to sleep.
4. I tried baby formula to see what it tastes like. It tastes like barf.
5. Going pee now counts as my “me time.”
6. I once ran the vacuum for twenty minutes to soothe Noah before I realized I could have actually vacuumed the floor during that time. By then he was asleep, so I didn’t bother.
7. I count doing laundry as exercise. Well, it should be; there’s so damn much of it now.
8. Sometimes I forget to turn off the transmitter end of the monitor in our room once Noah  starts crying during the night and I don’t feel as bad about it as I should.  I know that it would wake up Adam while I tried to calm Noah down, but if I’m up, he can be too.
9. The cat once licked his head for twenty minutes and I counted that as his bath for the day.
10. If I have to use the bathroom while I am out with Noah in a carrier and have no where to put him, I have to pee while he is still in his carrier strapped to my chest. Instead of feeling weird about this, I feel kinda proud that I can manage it.
11. When talking to Noah all day I use the word “Mommy” a lot in the hope that I’ll win the “What Word Will He Say First” contest.
12. Mini Wheats is classified as complex dinner preparation these days because you have to add the milk.

What? I still have 20 minutes before Wednesday is over, so I’m not late.

Oh crap. I just ruined the “wordless” part, didn’t I? Ah well, I never was good at being wordless.

Via, Found by Adam

I forgot to write about it, but I made Noah some winter hats a few weeks ago. Being a preemie, he is still too small to fit any of the winter hats sold in stores, so it was easiest to just make him some. He is growing way faster than I realized though. The half-finished hat fit him fine one night, but was too small by the time I finished it and tried it on him the next morning. I am absolutely sure that is because he grew a whole size over night, and not because I may have missed an entire row of increases from my pattern while making it.

I had to take the pictures while he was sleeping because it’s the only time he sits still long enough to get a clear shot.

Thanks to Aunt Sara and Uncle Matt for Noah’s cute new hoodie.

I love searching babies faces for traces of their parents and my baby is no exception. It’s obvious to anyone that he looks a lot like his father, but he does have my grandfather’s smile, something that I don’t think I have myself, though my mother does. And I have proof.

Here’s Noah, freshly hatched (and looking quite pleased with himself) beside a picture of my Mom’s brother Harvey, who also has Dedo’s smile:

And here’s the little hero beside an old pic of my Mom:

See? The same smiles! Like they know something you don’t. And, of course, here is Adam and Noah, both taken at two months old:

He has so much of Adam in his face that it is nice to see some glimpses of my influence.

Noah has a bit of a cold, so I asked Adam to pick up some Saline solution so I could clear is nose and help clear up his congestion. I asked him to get unmedicated drops since you aren’t supposed to use cold remedies on babies and a mist wouldn’t help wash out the gook. I wanted to make sure he got something suitable for use on small babies, but didn’t realize I may have told him the specifics a couple times too many until he returned home.

Me: “Did you get them?”

Adam: “Yup.”

Me: “Did you get the right kind? The ones for ba —”

Adam: “Saline rinse, drop form, unmedicated, mild solution,  recommended for occasional nasal congestion. And there’s a picture of a baby on it.”

Me: “Oh. Well, good.”

I’ve started this post about 12 times, but I’m finding it hard to describe what’s going on using regular words. I need better words. I thought about making up my own words, but then someone pointed out that ALL words are made up words and I was so busy thinking about that idea that I forgot that I was supposed to be writing about the thing I didn’t have words for in the first place. But it’s a good story with a happy ending, so I’ll try to tell it with my inadequate vocabulary nonetheless.

On Monday, October 19th, I was 35 weeks and 4 days pregnant, and after a difficult pregnancy and over a month of bed rest I was ready for the pregnancy to be over. Apparently, so was Junior. Exactly half an hour after I had made up the crib as the finishing touch on his nursery I felt my water break. Of course. I should have known he’d be early; he’s a Finley. (more…)

I’ve turned into a Google Monster, which sounds like I grew fur and got a gig on sesame street, but in reality it just means that over the past 7 months I have increased my daily Google inquiries to a slightly insane amount and there seems no end in sight.

I thought I knew what I was in for. You get pregnant, you have all the pregnancy symptoms people talk about and then at the end you painfully push out a crying baby. But every day I think of about 800 new questions and I can’t understand how my Mom survived a pregnancy without trusty Google to hold her hand.

The majority of my questions run along the lines of “is this normal?” because there are LOTS of gory symptoms you never heard about in Gym class and some that even the baby books don’t cover. Is it normal for blue veins to appear all along my torso? Is it normal for my nipples to look like that? Is it normal to throw up only when I eat something orange-coloured? The shared stories and anecdotes on the various pregnancy forums and medical sites have been beyond helpful.

Being a first time parent also leads to many questions asked of my friend Google as well. What is the difference between the free prenatal classes at Peel Region vs the expensive ones at the hospital? What the hell is a birth plan and do I need it? Is a TENS unit for pain relief any good in labour or is it not strong enough? What kind of stroller is best? Do we donate the cord blood to research, or a public bank? I counted and I have already Googled 14 things just today.

One thing I want to pass on here, though, is that even though Google may be a wealth of information, I know I cannot take anything I read on the net as fact. There are some questions I need to save for my Doctor alone (when he isn’t whirling in and out of our 3-minute appointments), but Google has helped me find some truly great pregnancy forums and hear stories of real deliveries and connect with others in the same boat as I am, which is a comfort I can’t imagine doing without.

How has the Internet helped or changed YOUR birth experience? Or did you give birth before the advent of the mighty web and how did you cope? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.