Month: May 2016

When Mommy is out of the room, Sierra watches Star Trek.

Nanny, Troy and Connie sent some excellent questions for Sierra.  Luckily, she actually stayed awake after a feeding for the first time this morning so I got to take her on a tour of the house and I proceeded to ask her the questions that were sent in.

Question: Does Sierra know how to knit yet?

Her response: “While I haven’t figured out how to knit yet, my Mom was crocheting for nine months so I managed to figure out how to do that.  I am pretty sure Mom was trying to make a scarf for an elephant’s snout because she never really stopped crocheting so I will see if I can continue and maybe make some mittens for the elephant.  Thanks for the question Nanny!  I’m glad that you are having fun in London.  Hopefully it is not too hot while you are down there!”

Question: Would Sierra like to go to a garage with me (Connie)?

Her response: “Absolutely!  I LOVE garage sales!  I felt bad that my parents had to miss the Great Glebe Garage Sale (GGGS) this year as it was on my due date.  The GGGS is an important day in my parents life because that was the location of their first date and they go every year!  But I got a taste of the garage sale when they went to Embrun instead and scored on a nice bocce ball set, a grass seed spreader and some other knick knacks.  Perhaps Aunt Connie would like to take me to my first Great Glebe Garage Sale?  I’ll slot you in for 2017.

P.S.  What good things have you found at garage sales this year?”

Question: Does Sierra like bourbon or scotch?

Her response: “Oh Uncle Troy, you know me too well…I can’t say no to either!  Plus I don’t mind if Dad sneaks in a drink at the same time as me!  Enjoy your time off as I know you are going back to work soon enough!  Take Nanny to Chaucer’s for the sausage platter!”

Sierra loves the questions so keep them coming.   She accepts questions in both official languages of Canada and because she is trilingual (she speaks French, English and Baby) she will respond in the appropriate language! She will try to find some time to answer them in between eating, pooping and sleeping.  She loved seeing the faces of her family members that she will end up meeting soon enough.

Sierra out!

How did Vero sneak a shirt like this one into the mix?

No word of a lie, this is the coke that came with my St-Hubert meal that we brought home last night!

Holy mackerel we were tired this morning!

We got home yesterday afternoon with some St-Hubert in hand and then it was go time.  Time to set up the house to mimic the hospital surroundings.  Set up the changing station with plenty of wipes (I might need to buy stocks in baby wipes), make sure the room temperature is a-ok, and overall set up the house to be functional.

For parents reading this, I’m just chatting about things they have already gone through.  The one thing that I didn’t know was that if we want to feed the kid every three hours, you start the timer for the three hours as soon as the kid STARTS feeding.  What the heck?  How fair is that?!  So when you are looking at this kid mow down for a couple of hours, you’re sitting there thinking “There goes my nap time!”  Sierra has an interesting habit of eating for a good hour, but then five minutes later wants some more.  So we weren’t sure how to curb that appetite (we laughed at the description of Barracuda in one of those baby books) but we think we figured something out.

But this morning was interesting where you start out knowing that you will be waking up around 3am, then you don’t know when you are going to get back to bed, then you realize that you don’t have much time to nap afterwards before the next feeding around 6am.  6am was rough, but sitting here at 11am I am actually feeling decent.  My Fitbit is an interesting tool right now as it tracks my sleep so I can see how I was super non functional around the 2 hour sleep mark, but now that I have six hours in me, I can tell that my energy is good and I can probably make it through the day with a catnap in the afternoon.

I’m sitting here chatting about myself, but I have to say that Vero is doing quite well and I’m pretty sure she has access to some adrenaline because she has way more energy than me!

We are trying our best to respond to emails and chat on FaceTime with people once in awhile.  If we haven’t got to you yet, don’t worry, we’ll get around to it.

Gotta run, some baby is making noises.  I did figure out how to connect the Bluetooth keyboard so these posts are quite a bit longer now.

While we know that you all want to meet Sierra, we ended up deciding on those who offered gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Vero, Martin and Mike dropped by for a quick visit last night.  This saved my stomach sanity as I received a quarter pounder and some scotch.  Thanks!

Last night we had an amazing nurse by the name of Jessica drop by and give us some great breastfeeding tips.  I guess we were doing it slightly wrong, but hey, that’s what you get when no one is around on the weekend to teach us.  Sierra ate like a champ last night but to the point that she didn’t want to wake up in the morning for another feeding!  It’s strange to say it but we wanted to hear her cry!  Anyhow, not a worry to be had as she woke up an hour ago and went to town at the Vero Drive-Thru.

Annie also dropped by as she works here in the hospital. We were appreciative to have her drop by and manage to send her good mom vibes our way.  The baby woke up and ate after that!  She is a superstar in our eyes.

The glucose levels and hearing test look good so we are probably heading home today some time.  My only regret at this point is not trying out the jet tub yet!

Because Aunt Ree (and everyone else!) loves the moustache pics, here is another one for good measure.  I call this one “teenage ‘stache”

“Dad, please stop taking photos already!”

Say hello to Sierra Cantin Palmer.  Dad was hoping that her middle name would be Danger but Mom decided Cantin was a better fit.

She was born yesterday around 10:47pm and weighed 6 pounds 7 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.  Wait, is it in inches or centimetres?  It’s probably centimetres.  20.5 inches is quite long!  This is what happens when Vero is in the shower and I can’t ask her questions.  Now I’m really second guessing myself.  I think it’s inches.

She woke up Mom with a fart around 4:29am.  Atta girl!

For those of you thinking we were going to have a boy (Anne-Marie!), I guess you weren’t too far off.  Clearly she inherited my fathers moustache!

That was a long night!

I would like to thank Holly and Alex for somehow acquiring the flu which led to a bonus afternoon of work for me!  Joy!

The May 24 long weekend is a honoured Canadian tradition where the following generally happens:

– Beer is drank
– Sunburns are acquired
– Bare flesh hits the water somewhere (preferably a lake!)

Gone are the days of Matt’s cottage parties of yore, but hey, we have vegetable gardens to plant!

Friday night Vero whipped up some pizzas and Trish came over to watch 10 Cloverfield Lane which was a fantastic film.  Dan Trachtenberg (of Totally Rad Show and the aborted Y: The Last Man film) makes a fantastic directorial debut here!  Check the film out!

Saturday was spent drooling over an amazing tool that Mike lent me: the Stihl Kombisystem.  It’s basically a motor on the top, and an interchangeable set of tools on the bottom.  For example, he has a whipper snipper, a mini chainsaw and the piece de resistance…the root-tiller.

The morning started off with hearing the neighbourhood having good laughs while I toiled away in the vegetable garden pulling out weeds that had grown over the spring.  I also got to chat with neighbour Brian and his son Sebastian who live across the Palmer River.  It’s hard to meet neighbours on that side as I have to crawl through the woods, but I managed to chat with him and he is a pretty cool guy and I’m sure beers will be shared in the future.

Then it was time to go to town…I let the roto-tiller rip.  Now, last year Vero and I rented a roto-tiller from Home Depot and that thing was a beast.  Her and I had to hold it back or else it would have just gone off on its own!  This Stihl tiller was the cats meow and much easier to manage.  It took a good 30 minutes but it was the easiest 30 minutes I’ve ever had in the garden.  Honestly, there is something to be said for tools that just make backbreaking work easier.  Sure, it leads to a less fit society, but hey, it’s a smarter use of my time to not have to till the soil by shovel!  I give this tool two thumbs up and I am going to be keeping my eyes open for one myself.

The rest of Saturday was spent running around town picking up mulch (on sale at Home Depot for $3.50, sweet!).  For future reference, ten bags in the front would be perfect.  I found a couple of extra bags that the previous owners had left in behind the dog house.  I wouldn’t have noticed these bags if I didn’t chat with the neighbour so I tip my hat to you good sir.  We managed to find a decent crop of veggies this year, but no zucchini or cucumbers were to be found at Ritchies due to the frost a few weeks back.  Vero managed to find them at the Navan garden place the next day so we’re good on that front.  We’re going to try corn again this year but the racoons got it last year which really pissed me off.

My favourite part of having a baby soon is the fact that the car is always packed with luggage that we will need for the hospital.  But as soon as I need to go for a trip for some mulch, I have to unpack the entire car, then repack when it again.  Welcome to fatherhood?

We’re also having some major problems in the front yard near the ditch where a lot of the grass has gone dead.  I tilled that grass up and spread some grass seed/fertilizer with Mike’s spreader (I need to pick up that guy some beer for all the things he lent me!) so we’ll see how that works out after I water it for three weeks.  I have zero knowledge of lawn maintenance and I have to say that every year that the Weed Man calls us, I get very tempted to spend whatever they are asking.  But we made a pact to forget about professional lawn maintenance until the mortgage is paid for.  We will see how we fare on our own!

Martin and me

Sunday we planted the veggies in the garden and then got ready to head to Vero and Martin’s wedding celebration.  They had got married last fall at City Hall, then went and got married down in Cuba, and now they were holding a celebration in their backyard for the people who couldn’t make it to those other events.  It was a great afternoon with plenty of sunshine.  I had a good laugh when I realized that I had worn the exact same outfit as the groom.  I got his permission to keep my hat on!  I have to think that they were probably pretty burn out since they were starting strong at 11am and the party was winding down at 9pm!  That’s a wild day.  But there were good laughs, great munchies and all around a good celebration.  Congrats Vero and Martin!

Monday was a more relaxing day which involved mowing the grass and catching up with some reading.  Mike and Melanie dropped by with Max who looks to be teething right now.  It’s cool to see him up and about and I would say 50% of the time I drop by, he’s managed to hide himself from me.  But hey, that’s life of a 6 month old.  Just laughter, pooping and sleeping.

All in all, a great long weekend.  It’s an interesting time in our lives right now…every day that passes just makes us realize that it’s nearing the end of a chapter of being two adults who just do what they want, when they want.  We’re nearing the end of that adventure and entering a new one!