Year in review part 2

This is part 2 of the year-in-review. Here's part one.

It’s good to be a walker in the summer. Because mom, Lucy and Autumn take long walks around the city in July. They walk to Delaware park and hit every playground in a five mile radius. They walk the streets and mom takes a good deal of photographs. Autumn gets a sandbox, and the little courtyard at our house becomes our little playroom. Mom and Autumn are really bonding, and she’s really clingy. At the first moment of fear, panic, or pain, she runs to whoever is closest for a hug. It’s truly awesome.

Milestone: Autumn eats a blueberry. Every other food takes second place to her new fav.

August is hot. Not only that, we’re realizing that Autumn doesn’t sleep through the night. More times than not, she’s up at somewhere between 2:00 and 3:30 AM. We contemplate the whole ‘cry it out’ thing. She wins every time. On paper, the ‘cry out’ method seems so simple. She’s go to sleep, and from there, we will get to fall asleep. In practice though, it’s horrible. She coughs and sputters, and cries and wails in such pain that we cave and give her what she needs/want. We’re getting better. We go camping for the first time. Mom gets a new camera and takes a ton of great pictures.

Milestone: Autumn says ‘ball’ and means it.

By September, Autumn is running around everywhere. Our child-proofing on the go strategy leads to a couple of minor mishaps, but for the most part, she contained. We can take her out for dinner, but there’s a risk. Case in point, a night out at our local pizza joint, Casa Di Pizza. After furiously eating some pasta, she takes a good long look at us, and vomits all over the place. Mom grabs her and contains most of the vomit on her sweater while dad collects dinner suddenly to-go. Ten minutes after throwing it all up, Autumn is back to her happy little self. Rhona and I spend a wonderful weekend in Cleveland for our five-year wedding anniversary. We have a fantastic and grown-up weekend with dinners outside on both Friday and Saturday nights.

Milestone: Rhona and Matt celebrate 5 years of marriage.

In October, we learn that we’re pregnant, due date May 31st . October, however starts with Rhona feeling incredible cramps and pain in her belly. After a day of doctor and specialist visits, Rhona is admitted to the hospital for observation. No one can figure out the reason for the pain, and the tests they can perform are limited because of her pregnancy. They rule a lot out, but the waiting and the stress is enough to send us all over the deep end. Not knowing is the hardest part. Having Rhona in the hospital, even overnight, had me thinking about life without her. It’s something we can’t have. We need mom more than ever. She was released, and to date, doesn’t feel the same pain as she did early in the month. October ends much better with Autumn trick-or-treating as a cow.

Milestone: She says MOO when you ask her what a cow says, unless of course she is wearing a cow costume.

November sees the pregnancy progress more smoothly. Mom can’t rest as often as she’d like thanks to our little peanut. But mom is doing a wonderful job making it all happen. This is the month she takes her final comprehensive exam for her masters, and passes. It’s official: mom simply has to complete her thesis and will officially have a Masters degree in Student Personnel Administration. We’re incredibly proud of the work, time and effort mom put into earning this degree (six years of part time schooling). We celebrate with a big turkey dinner on her birthday (which is also Thanksgiving).

Milestone: Rhona passes her exam.

Rhona finishes her thesis and officially completes all requirements for her Masters degree. December sees us mom and dad giving each other our one big Christmas present. We are getting our front room in our house renovated. It’s called the living room, and it is in fact the room we live in. Meaning, when the renovations start today! We’ll be confined to the other rooms in our house – except for the dining room, which contains all of the living room furniture. Chaotic yes, exciting definitely!

Milestone: We write this year in review.

We have been looking for the perfect house. Not being the right time to find it, we are taking steps to make this one OUR perfect house. It’s a house filled with laughter, dancing, hugs and kisses. Autumn makes the days seem, at the same time both hard and long. But they are also rewarding, exciting and fulfilling. There is no doubt in our minds that staying home with Autumn was the right decision for us.

Have a happy holiday. And if you ever want to follow the action on a more day-to-day basis, contact us. We’ll show you how.

Happy Holidays!

The night sky

While camping in North Bay, I was loving looking at the sky. I saw what appeared to be slow moving stars, but what was one of the many thousands of satellites orbiting the earth. I was gonna post about it, but then I thought, who would care? And how can I show what I saw?

Around these parts, the night sky is polluted by light. It's the thing about living in a city. However, it makes getting out of the city that much more interesting. Used to be, the only chance you had at seeing the night sky was by getting out of the city.

Until now. Google Earth just added the night sky feature. It's too friggin cool to even put into words. So here's a picture. Up in North Bay, we saw this, and more.

camping in pictures

The car was densely packed with stuff. We had the dog, the baby, us, a tent, sleeping bags, and not nearly enough pairs of pants. Still, here it is in pictures.


At the Campsite.
Eating in the tent. Yes, in the tent.

We're not ready to go in the water.

Holy smokes, these are real ducks!

In Aunt Tracey's tent for a visit.

Hanging by the fire.

With mom.
Having some lunch.

With Aunt Christina.


This was the sunset.

This was almost home.

Camping, part 1

So, you have a 14 month-old. And you decide that you want to go camping. Here's the first important piece of advice: do not pick a city with the word North in it. A city with the word north is celebrating it's northness. It's celebrating the fact that it's up there. And thus, even in August, it can and will be cold.

We tent camped. The reason for the place was a memorial for brother-in-law's older brother Joe. Uncle John and aunt Tracey where there. Uncle Simon and aunt Christina where there. Nanny and Granddad weren't, which meant Granddad could watch Lucy.

Now that you know the players, here are some stats. The warmest it ever got was an estimated 70 in the sun. That meant a good 45-50 at night.

However, we survived. And in doing so managed a bunch of firsts for Autumn.

These days, Autumn is a roller when sleeping. At home, she likes to sleep, at some point in the night, on every square inch of the crib. That wasn't possible in her first sleep in a tent because we cocooned her in blankets and even one of my sweatshirts. So when she tried to roll over, she would wake up startled that she couldn't. Luckily she would fall back asleep.

Thanks to a nap that commenced at 5:00 and ended at 9:00PM, she was up for her very first fireworks show that happened on a star filled sky. Her eyes were wide as the sky literally exploded in front her. I can't tell if she loved it or not. She didn't hate it, since she continued to stare. I'll guess she loved it.

It's lunch on Monday and honestly my first chance to blog about the weekend. I'll have pictures later.

Camping preparation

This could be funny. We're heading up to the great white North, North Bay. Think about that: the name of the town has geography in it. It's a proud town that wants to show off where it is. Mostly, regions get that kind of treatment. States (when there are two) and continents.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, we're going camping. With Autumn.

A couple of days ago, we actually set up the tent, mostly to see if we could. Also to see how big it was in there. Upon setting up, we realized that sleeping in the tent with a sound asleep baby might pose some problems. Thus, I googled "baby camping", to see what the internet said about camping with a baby. The internet is basically mute. It says camping with a baby is fun. And fine. But offers no real head nodding insights into camping with said baby.

We're pretty confident about the daytime part. Autumn loves swimming and playing in the sand. Ergo, since camping is basically that interrupted by eating and drinking, we're pretty sure she'll be fine. It's the sleeping.

But, we have an idea. A plan. Rhona is crafting a barrier type thing to secure Autumn in the tent. Plan A call it. Plan B is using my brother's tent (his apparently has rooms) to place her pack and play in. Plan C is calling Johnny Mac, of North Bay, and begging for space. Plan D, "The Moe Z on Inn". I swear to you, said motel exists. I stayed in it back in my curling days. It's across the road from the Wagon Wheel Restaurant, site of a few late night dinners in various degrees of intoxication.

Point is, we'll vbe fine. We're gonna have some stories. And pictures. And fun.