Baby's ready, Mom needs weaning

In two weeks it will be August 15th, William's 6-month birthday. This is significant because 6-months is when Health Canada recommends introducing babies to solid foods (the term "solid" is used very loosely, as baby food is often quite liquidly and mushy). I'm the first to admit that this 6-month mark is hardly set in stone and I know plenty of women who started their children on "solids" at 5-months, and even 4 months, with no ill results. And William has shown himself to be advanced in other areas, so there's no reason to believe he isn't ready right now. I, on the other hand, need to be weaned to this idea of my son eating food.

So far, I have done the following things to wean myself:

• I bought a box of rice cereal, the recommended first food to introduce because almost noone is allergic to it. Now my husband teases me almost every day saying "Let's feed William some of that cereal." Nooooo! NOT YET!
• I put him in his high chair when I am eating so that he can "get used to it".
• I feed him his vitamin drops with a spoon. In theory, by the time he gets to real food he'll be a spoon pro and I'll have no problems. Actually, he already takes the spoon like a pro and really doesn't need any practice.
• Today Adam fed William some water with the spoon, and I made no protest.

If all goes well, I should be ready for solid foods by the 15th.

William says Mama

Yesterday, as I was feeding my five-month-old son, he looked up at me and said "Mama". He did it again while we were playing, looked right at me and said "Mama." His cries now tend to sound like "Ma! mamamamamama."

I admit, these "Mama"s are usually followed by a string of "Ga Ga Ga Ba Wa Goo Grrrngg" and other noises that could be interpreted to mean any word in the English language (or any other language for that matter). So whether or not William actually knows the meaning of the word "Mama" or whether he is just exercising his vocal cords is unclear.

I, of course, choose to believe that he says "Mama" because he loves his Mommy. It makes me feel all happy and cuddly inside.

Toasta17 versus the General

My dream of playing the villain in a science fiction movie has finally been realized! This is 2nd time I've voiced "The General" in one of my brother's Space Craig movies. I like this one the best so far because I get to be evil and drive a cool ship.

Graco deeply and sincerely apologizes

Hello Jennifer,

Thank you for taking the time to email us with your concern. Firstly, I deeply apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced in this matter. I have shipped you (express post) a battery for your monitor, it will be there within 4 business days.

What, just a battery? Not a life time supply of free stuff? Not a free university education for my son? Well, at least she deeply apologizes. That's something. No, wait, it's not.

In regards to why the second agent did not know why your unit was being picked up, simply put it was not her file. Her task was open the packages to ship you the replacement part you were waiting for and then to give the defective part back to the original agent. It is up to your original agent to forward the defective product to the appropriate person or department for testing.

That's all very well and good, but if opening and sending mail was this associate's only job, why did it take her two months to get around to my package? And then why did she neglect to send me a battery?

Once again I sincerely apologize for the trouble you were experiencing, and I wish to thank you for your time in this matter.

Heather Somethingorother

You are not welcome Heather McBeather!

Graco: the saga continues

Regular visitors to this blog may remember the incident of the exploding monitor and my subsequent e-mail correspondance to Graco customer care. For a recap, you can read about it here and here. Well the speedy little elves at Graco finally got around to mailing me a monitor. Of course by "speedy" I mean "slower than the thought processes of a neandrathal" and by "a monitor" I mean only the parent unit and without the battery! Sigh. Back to the e-mail I go:

Dear Graco Customer Care,

In May I e-mailed you regarding my Imonitor Digital Baby Monitor (2791DIG). The battery had overloaded and melted, destroying the parent unit. An associate named Allan Correia (service 3030) sent a prompt reply, promising me a new monitor if I sent in defective one for your "inspection". Your company even sent me postage so I didn't have to mail it in on my dime.

That was the end of my pleasant experience with Graco service. Nearly two months later, an associate (who did not give her name) called to tell me that they were finally mailing me a new parent unit. The associate did not seem to know anything about why I had sent in my parent unit, which led me to doubt whether the device had been "inspected" at all. It is important to me that your company investigate what went wrong with the monitor because I believe that the defect might cause a fire or serious injury.

Two days ago I received the unit in the mail. I was hesitant in using the monitor, worried that the battery might melt again and I wouldn't notice in time. When I did inspect the parent unit I received, I found that there was no battery in it at all!

So far, Graco has offered me less than the bare minimum of customer service on this issue. I realise that sending the parent unit without the battery was a simple error, however, added to the delay in mailing, and the original overloading of the battery, that error spoke volumes to me about the lack of care your company actually has for its customers. I will certainly avoid Graco products in the future.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Filipowicz

There you have it. And yes, I will certainly try to avoid Graco products in the future but it's going to be darn hard seeing as they make everything. Maybe Graco will send me a new battery, maybe not. At this point I don't really care. I've been without a monitor for so long that it just doesn't seem necessary any more. It's not as if I live in some gigantic (or even regular sized) house where I can't hear the baby from most of the rooms. This is a two-bedroom condo!

Right now the issue is justice. Justice!!! I paid for a monitor with the understanding that it wouldn't explode. I should have a non-exploding monitor! In addition, the people of Graco should get down on their knees and beg me to remain a loyal customer, and should thank me for alerting them to this problem with their monitor, and should recall the monitor to save other people's children from monitor-explosion-related injuries. Finally, as a token of their appreciation, they should pay for William's university education. That, to me, would be the bare minimum of customer service.

Super Happy Video Blog Entry

There's a reason why I don't have a video blog.

William's 5-month Birthday Marineland Extravaganza

It was William's 5-month birthday yesterday so we went to Marineland with William's best friend Aedan and his parents Becca and Drew. Truth be told, I didn't actually remember that the 15th was my son's 5-month until Becca reminded us. In any case, we saw much marine life and I took many photos.

I like the one above the best, because everyone is looking and pointing the other way while a killer whale swims by. This begs the question: what could possibly be more interesting than a killer whale?

The sign next to the underwater viewing area read "ANY LEAKS YOU MAY SEE ARE NOT A SAFETY CONCERN AS THEY WILL EVENTUALLY SEAL ON THEIR OWN." I found this less than reassuring because it told me that a) the tank (full of killer whales mind you) sometimes leaks and b) the park staff do nothing to fix these leaks reasoning that the problem will just go away on its own.

Other stuff we saw/did: a seal/dolphin/walrus show, a roller coaster, one of those swing-of-the-century-type rides (that's my favourite kind of ride and I'm not sure why, I guess I'm a 7-year-old at heart), one of those drop-you-from-ridiculous-heights-type rides (I watched the babies while the less sane adults went on this. Am I the only one who finds hurtling towards the ground from high altitudes to be a less than appealing prospect? I am. Alright then.), bears (which you could feed corn pops), beluga whales (which you could feed fish), fish in a river (which you could feed fish food), and fish in an aquarium (which wasn't stroller accessible). We didn't approach the deer pen, because most of us had had bad experiences with the viscious marineland deer, and I refused to go near them with my baby.

Jen on the Wii

Here is Jen on the Wii playing Wii Sports Boxing



:)

Warning: Computer Nerds in the Gym!

My husband and I have decided that we need to get in shape (or, more accurately, I have decided to force my husband to exercise), so three times a week we're using the gym in condo-building's basement. What a special place that is, complete with exercise and weight-training equipment from every decade (except the one we are currently in). It's been going okay, I do sit-ups in a futile attempt to regain some ab muscles, Adam uses the push-the-handlebars-lift-the-weights machine, and we both run on the treadmills until we sweat. We exercise for at least half-an-hour (pending baby crankiness) then reward ourselves with ice cream.

The World of Jen (and William)

Rolling update
When William was just over a month old he learned to roll over from his front to his back. Shortly afterward, he would roll over instantly when he was placed on his tummy. Fast forward a few months, William learns the back to front roll. Now he immediately rolls to his tummy whenever he's placed on his back. This is great for things like learning to crawl, but not so great for things like changing diapers.

Tag
Jen and Carol's International Tag(the blog where we compare our respective cities with photos) has gotten more challenging, since we ran out of street signs to photograph. Right now it's stuck at "school bus" because I forgot it was summer holidays. Carol assures me she knows where the buses go at the end of term.

A Little Work a Little Money
I'm updating the October calendar for Today's Parent Toronto. It's an interesting exercise to search for info on Hallloween activities in the middle of July. I'm surprised at how many people have their websites up to date for that period. Yesterday I finished all I could do with the net and today I'm going to once again confront my phobia of calling people.

Meme Dreams
My dream of creating a super-meme has somewhat fizzled, as so far only my devoted husband has filled out my little survey. Just as well, I'm going on to bigger and better things.

Youtubing the Flash
Frequent visitors to this site will recognize this little flash I made a while ago of Spock mind-melding with an orange. With a little bit of finangling I managed to get the thing posted to youtube. It was not, as I first imagined, as simple as exporting the flash file as a video. The end result has a bit of weird interference at the beginning of the clip, but I think it adds to the charm. One day, I hope to create more flash movies of Spock mind-melding with various objects and animals, but that may be one of my lofty goals that never comes to pass. In any case, I'm now in the 21st century.

Baby-proofing Baby-schmoofing
William is getting better and better at that trick of putting his legs under himself and pushing forward. Next step, crawling. I don't have any stairs , luckily, but other than that I think my place is one giant baby death trap. I need to baby proof soon and don't know where to begin. Perhaps with a good cleaning and vacuuming. Ugh. Blech. I HATE to clean.

The masterpiece (or it should be after all this time)
I'm rewriting the one and only book I've ever finished (way back in the day when I first started dating Adam). I say "rewriting" instead of just "editing" what I'm writing now is barely recognizable. It started by me fixing a few things that had always bugged me. Then those small things snowballed into big things. And now it's like I'm writing a whole new book. My Mom and husband liked the original, but I don't want to be the kind of author who goes around toting copies of her self-published schlock going "all my family and friends enjoyed it".

And
The water in the pool is very nice.

Meme That I Wrote Myself

Facebook quizzes, or memes for the blogger, are a string of questions to answer about yourself that nobody really cares to read. Most of which were obviously written by a teenager living in suburban USA. But for some reason they are highly addicting, so I'm going to take a stab at writing my own.

1. Make up a name for yourself that isn't your real name: Captain McZany of the Federation Starship Crazytown

2. How old are you? 27

3. No, how old are you in days? 10,100

4. Do you believe in God? No.

5. What about Santa Claus? I consider myself a Santa Claus agnostic.

6. The tooth fairy? The next tooth I lose is totally going under my pillow.

7. Capital punishment? I really don't think it's a good idea to be killing people for any reason.

8. War? See above answer.

9. Abortion? I believe in a woman's right to choose.

10. What did you do yesterday? I made a potroast and a strawberry cake for Adam's birthday. Dad and Craig and Eireann came over and we ate. It turned out pretty well, except the icing on the cake was very runny because of the strawberries.

11. What did you do today? I went to Mother Goose class with William. We already graduated, but we're taking it again because we had so much fun the last time.

12. What are you doing tommorrow? Not much planned for tommorrow. At some point I'm going to buy some Star Trek earrings that I saw for sale online. This may require driving to Mississauga.

13. What was your first pet? It was a gold fish. Either Fido or Shammu or Bubbles.

14. Name your siblings: My brother Craig, my sister Robin, my sister-in-law Julie.

15. Name your first cousins: Jason, Jeremy, Jodie, Kelly and Joey.

16. Your grandparents? Ernst, Gertrud, Thelma, Alan

17. Any of them still alive? Thelma and Gertrud

18. Do androids have belly buttons? An interesting question. An android is a robot made to look like a man, ergo if one is made properly he/it should have a belly button. However, since the definition of android can be broadened to include any mechanical device that resembles a human (ie: animatronic people in the "It's a small world" ride, mechanical arms in automobile factories), I would say that not all androids have belly buttons.

19. Do chickens have belly buttons? Hmmmn. They hatch from eggs so no. But that's just a guess.

20. Does a woman in her third trimester have a belly button? Yes, but not a normal-looking one.

21. If you had the telephone number of the afterlife, what dead person would you call right now? Anyone from a super duper long time ago. Like a woman living in ancient greece. I would be like "Operator, get me ancient Greece, and a translator. I don't care who in ancient Greece you get, just make it snappy!" Or I would call one of my grandfathers. Or both of them, if the long distance charges weren't too high.

22. Do you believe in the afterlife? No.

23. Name someone you went out with but wish you hadn't: I haven't gone out with very many people. My boyfriend before Adam was named Travis. It didn't work out, but I wouldn't say I regret going out with him.

24. Name someone you wish you'd gone out with but didn't: I generally wish I'd gone out more in high school and stuff. I don't have a specific person. Now that I'm married, I think I'm past any regrets about old crushes.

25. What's your favourite expression? Captain ________ of the starship _______. Example: if my computer is running slowly I might say "This computer is Captain Slowpoke of the starship Hundredyearstoload."

26. Including watches and jewlery, how many articles would you have to remove in order to be naked? 6. Assuming I don't take off my rings.

27. Name something that's important to you that you haven't mentioned in the above answers: My son William.

Now if anybody actually does this meme, I would ask you to add three random questions to the end and answer them. That way the meme will grow and grow to become a super meme!

Adam's Questions:

28. At what age did you loose your virginity?: 21

29: if you could get rid of one person to make the world a better place who would it be: I'm not big into assassination so I'll pick someone who's already dead: Jesus Christ

30: Did you torture insects as a child?: Quite the opposite. I used to rescue insects from being squished and release them outside.

Operation Pot Roast

Tommorrow is Adam's birthday, and like a good wife I am going to make a yummy dinner and a yummy cake. My plan was to walk to the super market today and get all the things I need to make a delicious pot roast and cake. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas.

Yes, it is raining.

Yes, this morning my Vonage phone service cut out on me. Not for long. Just long enough for me to panic.

No, I have never made a potroast before in my life.

But fear not, my Mommy is coming to save the day. She has made pot roast before. She owns a slow cooker. She has baked many delicious cakes. She has a car. She knows whether I should use red wine or beef broth or both. She is my cooking idol and she is coming to be my grocery-shopping guide. All hail the all-mighty Mom!

Happy 140th Birthday Canada! (Belated)

So this year Canada Day fell on a Sunday, so we get Monday off too. Sweet.

Yesterday, we celebrated the occassion by playing pass the baby at Amy's annual pool and sangria party. One of Amy's friends is a midwife and another is an ObGyn so there was much talk of babies, childbirth and other related topics. The air was on the cold side for a pool party, but luckily Amy's Dad keeps the pool a refreshing 32 degrees C (90 degrees F) and everyone including William had a dip. As the night went on and the sangrias flowed, some guests opted for a swim with their clothes on (by "opted" I of course mean they were thrown in). My small nuclear family stayed dry during this episode, as none of us had consumed as much alcohol as the other partygoers. Nevertheless we all enjoyed the entertainment (except for William who was asleep in his stroller).

We left the party at around nine thirty and considered going to the fireworks at the waterfront. In the end we just went home because I realised I am past the point in my life where vulturing a parking spot and a patch of grass just to watch loud lights exploding in the sky holds any excitement.