The new sleep solution

Disclaimer:  This is actually quite an old post.  I wrote it more than a month ago, but I wanted to add a picture, so I didn't post it.  I'm finally posting it with one mediocre picture.  Enjoy!  Good news...I added a second sleeping picture.

As an update on Gus's earlier post, we have now resolved the death trap that was Max's bed.  Our first attempt involved simply placing the mattress from his play pen on the floor.  Although quick and easy, this had a few downsides.  For one thing, I felt like I was sleeping my kid on the floor in the corner.  The play pen mattress is not really thick and doesn't provide the feeling of a bed.  Max also seemed to be missing having a closed in space to sleep in.  He would wake up fussing regularly in the night and need Gus and I to help him back to sleep.  

Lying awake after just such an occasion, I recalled that my sister once mentioned the benefits of sleeping children in tents.  Conveniently, this same sister had recently purchased Max a series of kid tents.  Max had played in them a few times, but got easily bored with them, so we hadn't used them much.  This tent, I decided at 3:00am, was the perfect solution to our problem.

So the next morning I set up the tent in Max's room and put his wimpy play pen mattress inside it, with all his stuffed toys and blankets.  What a transformation!  First, I felt like a better parent now that my child had more of a "bed like" structure.  Second, Max absolutely LOVED it.  His past apathy towards the tent was completely transformed.  Somehow tent + bed is MUCH cooler than tent plus other random toys.  It has been three days since we put his bed in the tent and he still can't get enough of it.  He practically lives in that thing.  He rearranges all his stuffed animals, hides under his blankets and just stares lovingly at the tent walls.  Best of all, he sleeps well in it and doesn't really try to get out of bed.  Thanks Wen!

Grandma Gutoski has a night light that plays music and displays a light show on the ceiling.  Normally it doesn't work very well (you can barely see the lights on the ceiling), but in the tent it is quite a spectacular show.  Max was so impressed that he sat in there just staring at the lights and laughing for a full half hour.  Unfortunately, our digital camera has had some recent issues, so we didn't get any good videos.

Horsey for Halloween

Initially, we had no intention of taking Max out for Halloween -- too much work, and he won't know what's going on anyway.  We changed our minds under mild pressure from family, and I'm glad we did.

Greta picked up an adorable little horsey costume from Value Village.  They gave it to her for only $4 -- a deal due in no small part to the big doe eyes and smiley face looking up at the store manager when Greta inquired about the costume's unmarked price.  Max was disgustingly adorable in his horsey costume.  (See photos below.)

He was a star.  One lady answered her door, took one look at Max and immediately said, "Oh my god.  Robert, you need to come see this!"  Another, elderly lady insisted that Max come in her house and sit on her lap.  She showered him with kisses.  (And yes, we caught it on camera.  See below.)

We taught him to say "trick or treat", though he could never summon the courage to say it to a real live neighbour on his or her doorstep.  He did, however, bust out a couple enthusiastic thank-yous when given candy.  This gratitude was very well received.

That's all I can think of for now.  I'll update this post if I recall any more interesting details.  Unfortunately, all of our photos are terrible.  Enjoy them anyway.

Max brushed his teeth before trick-or-treating.  Pretty cute.

"Light!"

Our elderly neighbour forcibly pinned Max on her lap and showered him with kisses.  She gave him enough candy to feed a whole village for a month.

Breaking News - It's probably a girl

My 20 week ultrasound for baby number 2 was today and it looks like we are having a little girl.  Our new baby was not particularly accommodating so the technician told us she was relatively sure that we were having a girl, but due to a less than optimal view, she was uncertain.   She told us to keep our receipts.... I think we had better choose a boy name too, just in case.

Max falls out of his playpen for the first time

We need a new place for Max to sleep.  Fast.

Max was unusually fussy last night.  He awoke several times for extended periods.  We gave him acetaminophen (tylenol) but it didn't seem to help.  Greta and I lay awake in our bed listening to him cry over the intercom.  Finally, at about 4am, the crying was punctuated by a loud thump, followed by more ferocious crying.

Half asleep, I assumed that he was just banging his playpen against the wall again.  Half asleep, Greta did a standard vault-out-of-the-bed-in-a-mad-panic.  Turns out her panic was justified.  She found Max screaming on the floor in his room, outside his playpen.  Fortunately he was uninjured.

He wasn't injured, but he was wide awake.  We were in a bind.  We needed to put him back to bed so we could get some sleep for ourselves.  But with him so wide awake and with his new found propensity to do swan dives out of his playpen, we were out of options.

So we took him into bed with us for the rest of the night, paranoid that we'd screw up his excellent track record for sleeping through the night alone in his room.  Naturally, he passed out immediately and slept soundly until 8am, making up for lost sleep during the night and throwing off his whole schedule. (And ours.)

He successfully napped in his playpen today without diving out of it.  We'll try him in the playpen tonight, mostly because we haven't yet found the time to set up a new bed.

In other news:

• I finally got a new chain for our bike today.  I also fixed up another one of our bikes.  We're finally back up to a full compliment of bikes.
• The renovations in Heather's bedroom are now complete.  Heather's pretty busy with school and won't have the time to move back in for a while yet.
• Our renovations are mostly complete.  It remains to finish drywalling our new railing-wall and to fancy-up our stairs.  Rob will be back to help us again.
• After an exhausting battle, the fleas in our house are finally on the defensive.  Every once in a while we'll find one at a random location in the house and I can often find one on the dogs after a few minutes of careful searching.  I'm hoping that our newly reduced carpet area will allow us to eradicate them entirely with another blitz of carpet spray, flea shampoo, and internal flea treatment for the dogs.
• Sorry mother, but I still haven't gotten around to replacing the windshield wipers on the van.

That donkey behind me is crazy!

We spent last weekend up at the river for some much needed outdoor relaxation.  On Saturday morning before gramma and grampa arrived, Greta and I decided to take Max and the dogs to visit our neighbours Chris and Lisa.  These friendly neighbours have a baby of their own (six months old now?) and a hobby farm with chickens, goats, and sheep.

The visit was short lived.  Chris was busy at work in the barn and Lisa was on the phone.  We said our farewells and made our way back through their property towards our own.  Along the way we noticed that the sheep were out in the field we were crossing.  The dogs noticed them, too.

At first there was no problem, the dogs would simply pause, look, sniff, and then continue on our way home.  Perhaps they hadn't yet realized what had tickled their spidey senses.  Eventually though, they discovered that there was a whole flock of live sheep right there in the field.  The yelping and jumping turned on like a light switch.  The dogs behaved admirably, listening to our urgent commands to heel and continue on our way off our neighbour's property.

Shaky finally cracked under the temptation.  He took off toward the flock, ignoring our shouts for obedience. The sheep soon noticed that there was a carnivore barreling at them and panicked.  It was quite a sight: sixty sheep ran in unison at a speed I never thought sheep could achieve.  Shaky had absolutely no plan for the sheep, he just chased them.  It was all herding instinct.

Before long, the resident donkeys -- a pair of farm animals whose job it is to guard the sheep against wild predators -- sprung to the defense of the sheep.  The donkeys chased after Shakey, who chased after the sheep.  Donkeys are fast.  And big.  Shaky noticed the donkeys once they began to close the gap between him and the sheep.  After a moment of careful consideration, Shaky decided that he did not wish to be trampled to death by a charging donkey.  His interest in the sheep quickly waned.

I had left Greta and Max at the edge of the pasture in a pathetic attempt to fetch Shaky. (Hailey remained with Greta and Max -- a stellar display of obedience for a two-year-old border collie mutt, given that not even Shaky could resist the call of the sheep.)  It was while I was vainly trying to catch my dog that he abandoned the sheep and began heading back up the path toward me.  We headed toward each other -- Shaky, in a bit of a rush to save his hide from the donkeys; me, in a bit of a rush to grab his collar and secure him.

The donkeys, however, were not yet satisfied.  They wanted justice.  They left the sheep (who were now safe) and continued their pursuit of the interloper.

I stopped running and stood there.  Shaky casually glanced over his shoulder to see two angry donkeys charging behind him at maximum warp.  The whites of Shaky's eyes became clearly visible at that moment.  He picked up a considerable amount of speed and continued on his course down the path... directly at me.  As he neared, the expression on his face was clear as day:  "Dude," it said to me, "I don't know what's going on, but that donkey behind me is crazy!"

It dawned on me at that time that I was in the line of fire.  I took a step or two off the walking trail, hoping to stand innocently in the bushes as the chase roared past.  Shaky, however, slowed to a walk, trotted right up to me, then stood obediently at my side.  This with donkeys in pursuit.  I was in trouble.

Thankfully, the donkeys began to slow as they approached us.  They stopped altogether not ten feet from where I stood, still as a statue, with Shaky panting madly beside me.  The donkeys began to mill around in the grass, grazing, as if they weren't involved in a high-speed chase not five seconds past.

Not one to look a gift donkey in the mouth, I grabbed Shaky's collar and began a calm, measured walk back to Greta, Max, and Hailey.  The donkeys left us alone at that point, apparently satisfied that their job was done.  Shaky and I rejoined the rest of our family and continued on our merry way.

Next time we visit our neighbours, we'll bring leashes.

New laminate floor already delivers on its promise

We haven't even finished the renovation yet, but our new floor has already proven its worth.  This morning Max peed on our shiny new living room floor.  If we'd still had carpet then we'd have to painstakingly soak up as much pee as possible with rags, dig out the carpet cleaner, spray, scrub, and dry.  Instead, today we simply wiped it up with a rag.  Done!

As an added bonus, I was able to fix our crooked, rickety table.  Turns out all it needed was a new set of washers ($1.50) and a re-levelling of the feet.

Not to be outdone, the world continues to conspire against us.  Yesterday Heather set out to Waterloo Park with Max on the bike trailer.  She didn't get off our street before her bike chain snapped!  How can a bike chain snap?!  Anyway, we now need to fix a bike chain and/or move our trailer attachment to another bike.  One step forward, two steps back.  We're not out of the woods yet, but I think I can see daylight...

Photos of living room renovation

I managed to snap a handful of photos of our ongoing living room renovation mentioned in a previous post.  Before I get to the photos, some highlights:

• The painting and floor is now done.  It looks very hip.  We should hurry up and sell our house now before it goes out of style.
• There's still lots to do.  Next up: baseboard, handrail, stairs.  We also need to move all the furniture back into the living room.
• Our friend Rob has kindly agreed to design and construct our new handrail.  He's an architect and he's using our house as a chance to flex his artistic muscles.  I hope he comes back because it's not finished yet and only he knows the what it's supposed to look like.
• Rob also has plans for our staircase.  This guy is crazy.

Just to give you an idea how nice Rob is, he commuted here from his home in Guelph on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  He spent at least eight hours here per day on the weekend.  On Monday he drove in after a day at the office.  Without him, Greta and I would still be arguing about how to lay the first piece of laminate.  We are very thankful for his help in moving this project along.

Now, on to the photos:

Mommy and Max enjoying breakfast before a hard day's work.  The carpet is gone.  The couch is the only piece of furniture remaining in the room.  It's too big to move it elsewhere.  We just work around it.

Nowhere for the fleas to hide.  Also, Max was mowing the lawn in our living room.

Painting is finished.  We'd just started the floor.  It looks very stylish.

Our indispensable friend Rob busily constructing our new hand rail.  He has a vision of how it will look.  We feed him and stay out of his way.