A better picture of Kara



Having a contented nap in the car seat on the way to yesterday's appointment to the Breastfeeding Clinic.

Update: for those who are interested, I've started a Flickr photo- and video-set of Kara.

A belated Happy Birthday



Kara Grace Lloyd
born April 11, 2010 at 5:29 am,
5 lbs. 10.9 oz (2.579 kg)
18.5 in. (47 cm)

In a nutshell: false labour for twenty hours starting at around 2:00 am on Saturday, April 9th, real(!) labour begins around 10:00 pm, head to hospital where it's determined that I'm dilated 5cm, choose to forgo the epidural since — in my mind, any way — I'm "halfway there already", the approximately 100m walk from the Birthing Assessment Room to the Birthing Suite around 4:30 am dilates me from 7.5cm to the full 10cm (and was I ever ready to push!), had to forgo the "jacuzzi" experience since meconium was present when my water broke (around 4:40 am), an hour later Kara arrived.

P.S. Everything anyone's ever told you about how it hurts had it right.

P.P.S. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

On "the bun in the oven"

Until recently, I've been feeling overwhelmed with household projects to get to while I still have enough mobility to do so — or, otherwise, before the baby arrives — that I haven't had much time to think about the things that still need to be taken care of to be "prepared" for the impending arrival. For instance, it wasn't until about a month ago that I found myself unable to comfortably bend/recline enough to be able to apply painter's tape to the baseboards. Once I hit that stage, 'though, I knew that my days as a home reno/fixer-upper geek were drawing to a close.

So, I found myself with lots of spare time on my hands and even more to plan for. Again, I'm in a position in which I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, but am grateful for the fact that I have entire days worth of time to devote to researching my options and generally feeling like I'm making informed decisions. The baby's room (thanks, entirely, to Matt's hard work on it) is painted and ready to receive its future occupant. We've got a car seat/stroller combination that we both think will work out well. I ordered the majority of the components of a (cloth) diapering system yesterday, and that ought to ship within the next day or two. Thanks to our families, the baby isn't lacking in much, at this point. Clothes, for instance, seem like they'll be in generous supply until the baby is at least a year old.

Still, I wanted to be able to provide the baby with a gift that was just from her mom. So it came to be that — months after I had initially intended to resume my fibrecraft hobby — I finally put my knitting skills to use, and made a newborn-sized baby sweater. I had intended to sew the buttons on yesterday, and found I had no thread on hand that came close to matching the green I had chosen for the colour. A quick trip to the local Fabricland remedied that situation, so I sewed the buttons on today, as the very first thing I did. It's hard to believe that I'm soon going to be giving birth to something so tiny!

Yummy. Homemade burritos.



Made with:

• homemade Chewy Flour Tortillas
  (I used lukewarm water instead of lukewarm milk)
• reheated, refried beans
• fried (in an olive oil and vegan margarine blend) organic brown basmati rice
• taco seasoning-rubbed, pan-seared, sirloin steak, sliced
• sliced, sautéed organic yellow onion
• sliced, sautéed yellow and red bell pepper
• sliced organic grape tomatoes
• chopped chives
• Garden Fresh Gourmet's Mild Gourmet Guacamole