Welcome Home Daddy!

Yesterday Marvin and I went to the hospital for 11am so that he could be admitted and all of his paperwork sorted out. He then went into surgery just before 1pm and came out just after 2pm. After spending about an hour and a half in recovery, they wheeled him to a ward where Bakica and I got to see him. I can't tell you how much seeing him smile at us meant! I know it was a pretty routine surgery, but it was surgery nonetheless. We were very relieved to see his wonderful face! After spending about 2 hours in the ward it was time to pack up and head home just in time to see Maja before she went down for the night. Here is a picture of Maja welcoming Daddy home. I love how she has her arm around him almost as if to say "Hey everyone, this is my Daddy! Isn't he great?!?"
A big thank you to all of you that called yesterday, sent messages or had Marvin in your thoughts wishing him well on his surgery! He was in and out throughout the night but he is in good spirits (thanks to his wonderful daughter's morning wake up smiles...) this morning and is resting up as I update the blog. Given I'll be taking care of both Marvin and Maja the next little while, I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to update the blog again... but I'll try my best to keep you all in the loop.

Also, I'd like to say a special thank you to Bakica for spending the day with me at the hospital (I appreciated the company) and to Grandma (and Grandpa too) for taking care of Maja all day despite having broken her toe back at her place yesterday morning! The things mothers do! Love you guys!

Tuesday is a Big Day...

Tuesday is a big day on two accounts. First, tomorrow is the day that my wonderful husband / Maja's Daddy has surgery on his knee to repair his right ACL. As you may remember, back in July Marvin torn his ACL while playing soccer. Well the day has finally arrived and he's going in for surgery tomorrow. I'm excited for him because this means he can now finally start his road to recovery, but I'm also worried about him because he's having surgery! Please keep him in your thoughts tomorrow for us! To remind all of you what a wonderful father my husband is to Maja, here are some of my favourite photos of the two of them together.

Marvin and Maja getting acquainted in the hospital when Maja was only one day old...
Marvin and Maja catching some zzzs together...

Marvin and Maja hanging out in the basement...
Maja giving Marvin kisses one day when he came home from work for lunch...

Marvin playing with Maja on the mat after work one day...
We love you Marvin and can't wait until tomorrow night when you're back at home with us!

And the second reason tomorrow is a big day is because Maja will be five months old! Can you believe it?!? I can't believe it's been five months already! Here is a shot of her at one day old...

Compared to her just a couple of days ago...

Where does the time go? :)

Happy Belated B-Day!

Maja would like to wish her special friend Stephanie (Christine's mom) a Happy Belated Birthday - she turned 29 yesterday! :) Stephanie and I have been friends since high school and I consider her one of my closest friends (I have to... she knows too much)! So Happy Belated Birthday Steph from Maja & me (and Marvin too)! Hope you had a great day!

Here are a couple of shots of Steph with Maja. This one was taken when Maja was only 6 days old and Steph came by for a visit. As you can see, Maja was very comfortable in Steph's arms...
And here is a shot of Steph holding Maja back in November when she and her adorable daughter, Christine, came by for a visit. Again, Maja was having a grand ol' time with Steph...

It's a Fluffy-Squirrel Kinda Day...

On Wednesday, Maja got to try formula for the first time ever. I was all worried whether or not she'd like the taste of it, but really who was I kidding? Maja, turn down food? :) We decided to try her on formula at nights partly because of the magical sleeping effect it supposedly has on some babies (not Maja, of course) and because I'm wondering whether or not she's getting enough milk from me these days. Over the past week or so, Maja has really started to fuss (ie. cries or screams) and pull on and off after only about 3 minutes or so (she used to feed non-stop for about 5 minutes). I don't think there is any new food that I'm eating that would make it taste different (that and she takes it from the bottle no problem), so I'm left thinking it's a quantity thing. Anyhow, she took to the formula like a fly on... well, you know. :) Here is a picture of Grandma giving Maja formula for the first time (I love this photo of the two of them)...
And here is a close up... if you look carefully you can see a big drool of formula coming out the left side of her mouth...
Just before I put Maja down for a nap a short while ago, Maja did a number (I'll let you guess which number it was...) on her outfit, so I had to change it. When I asked Maja what she wanted to wear she said she thought it felt like a fluffy-squirrel kind of day! Here is Maja head to toe in fluffy-squirrel attire (the shirt was a gift from Stephanie & Christine and the pants and socks (which you can't see - sorry) were a gift from Irene, Marko & Marina)...
Of course along side of Maja are two of her best-buds, George (pronounced hoor-hey in Spanish) Sanchez on Maja's right and Pedro Garcia on Maja's left. Just the other day, Teta Linda discovered that in his spare time, Pedro actually designs women's shoes (and quite pricey ones too I might add). I'll have to have a chat with him after he and Maja finish napping about why I don't have any of his samples...

Maja Finds Her Voice...

Over the past week or so, Maja has discovered that not only can she coo and laugh a bit (very cute), she can also scream - not so becoming! So now, whenever Maja is starting to get tired, or when she's bored of something, or really whenever she pleases, she lets out a sharp scream. Like I said... not so becoming. Maybe this is just a phase that she's going through and it too will pass (or maybe she'll scream so much that she'll lose her voice)... :)

A couple of Fridays ago, Teta Linda surprised Marvin and I by being home and having cooked dinner already by the time we got home from some errands - nice treat! But she also surprised Maja with a new friend - Pedro (he looks like Peter Rabbit, but we thought we'd try to introduce Maja to new languages so we decided her new friend is Spanish). :) Pedro is a soft and cuddly bunny from Ikea complete with carrot rattle. Here is a picture of Pedro (sans carrot)...Now please note that Pedro is smiling in that photo, which is actually one of Pedro's greatest assets. No matter what Maja puts Pedro through, there he is... smiling away waiting for more! Just to give you a taste of what Pedro goes through... whenever I feed Maja at night, Pedro is tucked in between me and her so that she can carress him gently while she eats. Then, when it's time for bed, Pedro starts by laying down beside Maja so that he can be a substitute for our hands (which Maja used to need to hold in order to fall asleep sometimes). Then the fun begins... Maja usually picks Pedro up (while she's falling asleep with her eyes closed) and rubs him back and forth across her face, head, chest or what-have-you. After a while, Pedro appears to grow tired of this and tries to escape. Sometimes he'll manage to sneak off to above her head to where he thinks he's out of her reach, but just then, she'll open her eyes, twist her head back, spot him and with quite a bit of force I must say, reach up, grab his jumper and yank him back to her. I've even seen him trying to slip through the rails of her crib once or twice... but to no avail. :) Not all is bad though in Pedro land, he often gets some smiles from Maja and gets to hang out with her all throughout the house. Here is a photo of Pedro and Maja hanging in the highchair (and of course Pedro is still smiling - I think he's actually waving to the camera)...
This past Sunday, Maja, Marvin & I headed over to Teta Linda's in the city. When we got there, Teta had some yummy lunch for us that included two of my most favourite things in the world... small white buns with butter and potatoes! :) After some fun filled hanging with Teta, Maja needed to take a quick snooze (although Teta swears that Maja fell asleep out of boredom because Daddy was "forcing" us to watch another Raptors game)...
After catching 15 winks (yes, I know the saying is 40 winks, but with Maja we have to reduce the number of winks these days...), it was time to jam with Daddy and Teta. Here is a shot of me and Maja playing the drums...
And here is Marvin playing the guitar and singing the Raptors blues (they threw the game away in the last couple of minutes)...

Catching Up with the Boys...

Yesterday, Maja and I had our first Salsa Babies class! I've been looking forward to doing Salsa Babies since I first saw it on Breakfast Television way back at the beginning of my pregnancy! Unfortunately, Maja was so excited about the upcoming class that she only slept for 20 minutes in the morning instead of her usual 45 minutes (not much of a difference in minutes, but a world of difference in her behaviour). So needless to say, Maja was a tad cranky during the class. She handled the first half ok but then had a hard time falling asleep (who wouldn't when they're being bounced around with Salsa music on loudly and a really sweaty (apparently I'm very out of shape seeing as the warmup had me sweating...) mom?!?). Hopefully next week she'll be able to sleep a bit more beforehand.

Then this morning, Maja and I headed over to Alina's place to visit her, her son (David), Tracey and her son (Gabriel). It had been over a month and a half (I think) since we last saw them and boy have they grown (the boys... not the moms - they actually looked like they lost weight)! It's so great to be able to get out of the house and visit other moms that have kids literally within weeks of Maja's age. As usual, we sat around chatting, comparing baby developments, and laughing at our kids as they played with the great selection of toys Alina & David set out for us.

Here Maja is waving to me while she's trying out the jumper chair that David just got this weekend (David is a star in that thing - he must have been bouncing for about half an hour at one point)...
Here Maja is studying the exersaucer thingy (the technical name...) with great interest...
Once Maja was familiar with everything, she got very excited and started chattering. Here's a shot of her mid-squeal... And of course, what would a visit with the boys be without a shot of all of them together?!? Here they all are doing some tummy-time. Gabriel (in the middle) looks as though he is not impressed with me taking the picture...

We also tried to take a picture of the three of them on the couch, but as we saw a while ago... having the three of them sitting on couch together nicely is a bit tough. I love how you can only see Gabriel's eyes peering out from behind David...
And although I did feed Maja while we were there, she apparently wanted a bit more so she decided to try nursing from the couch...
Here is a shot of Gabriel trying to whistle (ok you got me, he's just chomping on his fingers)...
And here is a shot of David showing off his cute chubby cheeks...

First Blog of 2007...

I'm sure you've all been busy with the holidays and haven't even noticed that I haven't updated the blog since Christmas Eve... yeah right... I've had a couple of comments about my tardiness lately, but alas, here I am! Happy New Year everyone!

I can't figure out how to put this picture in order without uploading all of the photos again so I'm just going to start off with a photo Grandma took of Maja doing tummy time on Boxing Day...

Ok, now back to the proper order of things... Maja has had a busy couple of weeks lately... it's been so long I don't know if I'll remember everything. Let's see, Christmas Eve Marvin, Maja and I headed over to Bakica's place (Note: Baba has now been changed to Bakica - pronounced "buck-eetz-a" - I'll never learn Croatian...). Teta Linda was there and the five of us had a nice "fish feast" as Teta calls it and got to spend some good ol' quality time together.

Here is a picture of Bakica soothing Maja into dreamland (I love how Maja is holding onto Bakica's hand as if to say "Please don't leave me, Bakica!")... And here is a shot of Maja showing off part of her Christmas gift from Teta Linda and Uncle Ryan. They got Maja an Air Jordan warm-up outfit (pants, onesie and hoodie), some Air Jordan socks and a pair of Adidas shoes. Now she's all set for her next basketball game...
We then spent Christmas Day at Grandma & Grandpa's place with my side of the family. Auntie, Mike, Will, Graham, Peter, Anna, Grandpa, Grandma and Great-Uncle Ron were all in attendance. It was nice to sit around and enjoy the chaos of opening gifts for five children together! :) Here is a shot of Maja when she first arrived at Grandma & Grandpa's (I love this photo)... Here is a shot of our family all dressed up in our Santa hats... On Boxing Day, Grandma & Grandpa came by for a quick visit and some chit-chat. Here is a shot of Maja telling Grandpa a joke... Here Maja is showing off one of the Adidas shoes Teta Linda & Uncle Ryan got her (she looks as though she's afraid we're about to take it away from her)...

Over the past couple of weeks, Maja has started to put everything (and I mean everything) in her mouth... from her fingers to her bibs (we are now double bibbing her because of the sheer volume of drool she continuously produces...) to your fingers to her toys. Grandma read somewhere that the hippest toy for babies in France is a rubber squeeky giraffe named Sophie. Apparently, Sophie has had her neck grasped by babies while they chew on her head or legs for over 40 years! At first Maja wasn't sure what to do with Sophie, but she soon caught on. Here is a shot of her chomping on Sophie's head... This past Thursday, Maja & I went to visit our friend Gaetane and her new little daughter, Lauren. We went for a nice walk and enjoyed the lovely January weather we're having (love it!!!). Here is a picture of Gaetane and Lauren, who was just five weeks old at the time - she's the one in yellow. :)
After visiting Gaetane, Maja & I stopped by Grandma & Grandpa's place (they're only 2 kms from Gaetane's). When we got there, Maja wanted to show Grandma her new trick of pulling up her legs and eating her toes. Grandma tried to capture the toe eating, but wasn't fast enough!
Another one of Maja's latest tricks is to rotate around if left long enough on the ground. We've seen her rotate almost 360 degrees on her mat and on the bed, but our favourite is when she wakes up from her naps in a completely different position than we left her (apparently she likes this too - she looks pretty pleased with herself here)!
And because of the nice weather we've been having, Maja & I have taken a couple of walks over to Bakica's place (about 40 minutes each way) to visit her. Unfortunately, Bakica has been having some back pain and hasn't been able to visit us at our place, so we have been heading out there. Here is a picture of Maja all dolled up in one of Bakica's favourite outfits...