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What the heck?  The kid can roll over on her side already?

Well, there went the plans of sleeping in.

For the most part, the baby has been doing pretty good.  She feeds and then she sleeps.  If she isn’t sleeping, she just hangs out.

Until the other night where she screamed like a banshee after every feeding.  Nothing was working…rocking, singing, breakdancing…it just wasn’t working.

Feedings came and went, kid was still screaming.  I took Sierra from Vero to figure things out because Vero is the key ingredient in this mix at this point.

After a few hours downstairs with my handy earplugs, I finally clued into the power of my pinky finger in her mouth.  Bingo bango, I left that thing in for 30 minutes and she went to sleep.  Great success, nyes.

I did my victory dance three hours later when Vero and I woke up.

It was a tough night and we made it through and that’s what counts.  Also, I guess whatever trick I pulled out of my hat may not work the next night, but a victory is a victory nonetheless!

We were pretty excited to bring Sierra back out into the wild after being cooped up in the house for the past few days.  I’m not sure why,  but I feel good to be cooped up and just get into a routine, but I also know that isn’t the best for us so it’s good when a change in the routine happens.

Case in point, the baby’s first doctor visit!

I swear Sierra loves the Superman pose.  She does this all the time!

Going outside the house is an interesting experience.  We had to sit long and hard and figure out the logistics of doing so.  First off, when I first booked the appointment, I should have chosen the 1:45pm slot and not the 11am slot!  11am is way too early considering we are running on lack of sleep.  So we wisely moved it to 1:45pm.  Our doctor’s office is across town so it takes a good 40 minute drive so it’s not like being back home in Kapuskasing where you can zip over there in five minutes.

Next up on the logistic front was the feeding. Quickly determining that feeding = sleepy baby, we decided to feed her immediately before putting her in the car.  Great success!  That kid was sleeping like a rock for the most part of the adventure.  Even the nurse didn’t get much out of her.

The nurse was fabulous as she clued us into some good information…the baby had gained a little bit of weight since she was born!  That was a sigh of relief because it shows that those late nights have paid off since we got enough food into her to not wither away.  The nurse also let us in on the fact that since the baby seemed to be gaining weight, we could probably just wait until the baby woke up in the night instead of waking her every three hours (like we had been doing).  Vero and I have visions of going to bed tonight and getting a solid eight hours sleep.  Ha!  I told her with our luck, we have conditioned Sierra to wake up after 3 hours and 5 minutes so we won’t get that much ahead.  Here’s to hoping we get a little more sleep.  I think it’s getting to both of us a little.

I didn’t realize this but people love holding newborn babies.  I could see it in my Doctor’s eyes after a few minutes with Sierra and I said “Vero, maybe you want to let the doctor hold her?” And the doctor was ecstatic!  Clearly they don’t get too many newborns coming in like the delivery room at the hospital where they probably get a dozen every day!

All in all, the baby looks pretty great on the health front and we will have a follow up appointment next week.  It’s a pretty amazing feeling when you find out that the baby is doing a-ok.

We also got confirmation that I don’t have to install an air conditioning unit into the nursery which is welcome news.  Not that I was totally against it…if the baby needs it, we’ll do anything.  But the doctor confirmed our suspicions that lots of babies grew up without air conditioning and if our baby seems confortable in a house that is 25 degrees, then that’s great!  But if she’s not, that’s when we should look into options of cooling her down.  But I’m not crazy…I keep the curtains closed around the house and the fans going.  Plus we have the air conditioner unit in the kitchen that I throw on from time to time.

Here I am thinking of a new career.

I’m going to call it a night on the blogging front.  It’s nearly changing and feeding time again and I have to mentally prepare myself for the baby making me spending more money.  Case in point, she waits until I change the diaper to poop immediately into it.  Kid, I’m taking that out of your allowance!

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!