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.

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.

We received a lot of gifts when Noah was born. Beautiful blankets, adorable sleepers, lots of books. We treasured each one.

Brian and June (and Zoey) DeWagner gave us a gift that I will never forget. Brian, a gifted writer, wrote a post about Noah. He took the things I like about myself, the things I treasure about Adam and distilled them into a picture of Noah when he grows up.

If he turns out half this cool, I will be one happy Mom. Thanks, guys.

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.”

You may have noticed that the Sixth & Elm Etsy Shop has been closed for a bit, but rest assured that this closure is only temporary and I plan to reopen at the beginning of February. I had a very busy fall season and I needed time to finish my lengthly queue of orders before I took any new ones, and I knew that I would need some extra time off once Noah arrived too. In addition to that, there is a rule against earning extra income for the first 13 weeks of maternity leave while collecting maternity benefits from the Canadian Government. I will get paid for the full year off like everyone else, but for some reason they do not allow you to work for the first 13 weeks. I don’t mind though. I am using the time off to come up with some new designs for the shop re-openning in February.

If you would like to be notified when the shop is taking orders again to can sign up for automatic email notification on the Sixth & Elm shop page (don’t worry, you won’t be signed up for newsletters or spam) or you can check back here as I will post once I am up and running.