Bluebird's Nest

Ikea 3 stage bed

Around the time that the wee babe turned 2 we transitioned her into the teenager’s big girl bed. I had many reservations around this. The main one being: how many times a night is she going to get out of the bed and annoy us.

Here’s what happened.

We set the bed up in her bedroom AND kept the crib up in her room too for a week. Her room is tiny so this left it very cramped.

During that week, I got some books out from the library about kids sleeping in big beds now. We talked about the bed and every night we gave the option for her to sleep in either her crib or the big bed.  The first couple of nights she slept in her crib. Then she said she wanted to sleep in the big girl bed! Success! Something we didn’t anticipate was the fact that she would want her stuffies to sleep in the crib and not with her.

In the beginning she didn’t really realize that she could get out of the bed. But that didn’t take long  for her to figure out.

There were two bonuses to having this bed.

1. You could get in the bed with her and read her a story. And fall asleep for a bit with her. (Also a downfall. More on this later.)
2. She can get out in the morning and come to your room to snuggle. (You don’t have to get out of your bed to get a crying baby).

Of course the obvious happens: she gets out of bed in the middle of the night. Not very night, but some nights. And sometimes multiple times stating “I told”. Translation: “I’m cold”. We just take her back to her room and climb back in bed with her until she falls asleep.

Some tips that we’ve had to learn the hard way:

1. Don’t fall asleep with her and stay with her until she falls asleep. We’re now stuck in this trap and if we were to leave before she’s asleep it would be a war of her not staying in bed for probably 2 hours until she’s so exhausted she’ll fall asleep. We’ll have to do this soon, but I’m going to put aside a weekend or so to get ‘er done..
2. Don’t make the room pitch black. Then when they wake up in the middle of the night and cant see anything, they scream bloody murder until you come and get them.
3. Our bed has sides so you might want to invest in sides for a bed. Ours cruises around the bed all night long sometimes fully inverted.

After 6 months almost, we have no qualms about our transition to the big girl bed.

As for when the right time to do this is? The perfect time for your child and you to be ready.

You’ll know when that is

Have you transitioned your child to a big kid bed? What was your experience? If not, what are your concerns? Do you have any other tips?

The wee babe started walking the day AFTER the big birthday party here, so January 22, 2012. That makes 12 months and 18 days.

It was a fantastic moment for our family. All of us just happened to be hanging out in the living room. We had a CD playing that our friends Kelly and Sarah made for her for her birthday the day before and it just happened to be a Bob Marley song playing.

She was holding two small board books – one in each hand – that our friends Jeffery and Lisa had given to her at her birthday the day before.

She took 3 steps.

My hubby and I cried.

We had a moment – our baby was growing up right before our eyes.

What were your baby’s first steps like? Did you miss it? Did you cry?

So that lucky wee babe. She had two first birthdays (that she’s not going to remember). One in Switzerland and one in Canada.

The one in Switzerland was held on her actual birthday at Maminou and Papinou’s house in the afternoon. It was considered a “Canadian Dinner” which translates to a potluck (I have no idea why we coined the phrase but I guess it’s probably like French fries.) There were many of our friends and family there. We shared wine, cake, presents and good food.  The wee babe did great. It also served as a bit of a going away party for us as it as 2 days before we left the country after being there for 5 months.

To be honest, it was a nice transition because as we said goodbye with a birthday party to one part of our lives, we came back to Canada and said hello to the family and friends we had been missing.

After a couple of weeks, we celebrated again at the Lion’s Hall just down the road from us with another potluck. Colleen had made the wee babe’s first birthday cake (It was only fitting since she made our wedding cake – and she did a fabulous job too by the way). We ate food, cake, opened presents and George snuck a beer (even though there was to be absolutely no alcohol in the building – there’s one in every bunch). And again, the wee babe did great.

After the party, a few of us went back to our house and had some fondue! I was all fondued out but it was nice to see our friends coming together under our house and celebrating with us.

The video captures moments from Switzerland and moments from Canada’s goodbye and hello parties.

And with this post, I think I’ve finally captured all the Swiss stories I wanted before movin’ on back to Canadian soil.

And thanks to Scott Rose for this video clip as well.

Imagine this: you open your email and click on the day’s Groupon (not really interested since you’re not even living in Victoria right now so why would you need anything), and there, facing you, is a photo that you had taken by a photography company, of your wee babe 5 months ago for a father’s day present!

Quelle surprise!

That’s exactly what happened to us yesterday. We were a little suprised to say the least.

Turns out that many months ago, when I hired Roy’s Photography to take some family photos of us girls for the hubby’s Father’s day present, I signed a “Model Release” form stating that this was perfectly alright with me.

My hubby had his knickers in a bit of a knot when he saw his little angel in his inbox, so I sent off an email to Colleen at Roy’s Photography and she promptly emailed me back a copy of my model release form.

So after we got over the initial shock, we are now the proud parents of a Groupon baby. This is the wee babe’s first taste of stardom. I hope it doesn’t go to her head.

We made it through the first day of Swiss school for my tweenager/baby. She’ll always be my baby. And I think she’s overjoyed to be going judging by this quote from her:

“Don’t take offense to this or anything but it’s hard when my friends are only you guys.”

So, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Swiss school, I’m going to shed some light on it for you.

First of all, your first day of school is for an hour and a half in the AFTERNOON. From 2-3:30. Crazy I know. I think it actually works out better as you can spend your time getting ready for it. Or in our case, moving homes. I kid you not. The morning she started school, we packed up and moved from our house exchange home to the apartment in Vevey.

Secondly, all of your school supplies are given to you by the school. You pay NOTHING. The stuff is the best stuff too. Not crappy Walmart specials. We’re talking high end Swiss designed school supplies.

The most shocking for me is that there is a two hour break in the middle of the day (and from what I’ve heard, they are planning on getting rid of it soon but it’s really old school mentality that the mom is at home so the kids go home for lunch). We live 12 minutes away from the school all down hill. So in the morning we walk the tweenager to school, then I walk home back up hill. And if you’ve seen Switzerland, it’s uphill. Then back at lunch to fetch her and bring her home and back to school after lunch. And then home again. And an hour and a half later, we walk her back home from school. Oh and did I mention we have 7 flights of stairs too? I’m hopefully going to have buns of steel when I return to Canada if I don’t eat too much cheese and chocolate (and bread!) before then.

What else? Ok, so on Tuesday’s they go to school a whole hour later and on Wednesday’s they get off school at lunch for the rest of the day. Cool!

Oh and there is never homework to be returned on Mondays. Not after a long weekend, a big long holiday break, a weekend. Never homework on Mondays.

The tweenager will also get to go on a week long trip in 3 weeks with the school to a 3.5 hour drive in Switzerland somewhere. Not camping but riding horses, hiking, crafts, biking, etc… I’m shocked.

But they are a tad bit strict on being on time and making sure that you have everything with you when you go to school. I think if you’re late 3 days you have to do an hour after class with more homework. And if you forget your stuff 5 times, again more homework and an hour after school.

All in all, I think it’s a fabulous system. I guess that’s what you get when your educational system isn’t wrought with cut backs. Makes me think that maybe my tweenager is missing out on a better education that she could have here. I can safely say that in this difference between Canada and Switzerland, Switzerland comes out on top by 200%.

Back to the story, so she met some new friends. There are 20 kids in her class. (Yeah, another bonus) most of them are boys and about 7 of them are girls. One friend has already made her a bracelet. This is a big step for her and for me. I’m so happy that they are reaching out to her. She’s easy to make friends in Canada but you just never know in a foreign country. A few others asked her if she wanted to walk with them to the stadium for PE. Oh, get this. PE is crazy brutal hard for them. They have to walk for 10 minutes to the stadium where they do their class. The run uphill and then do a bunch of stairs and then 900 meters around a track. Oh and the temperature is around 28 degrees. Yikes. I felt so sorry for the poor soul.

But I think there is a girl that she can walk to and from school with so once we get her a pay-as-you-go cell phone (we already have the phone just need to buy some minutes) I’ll feel much more comfortable letting her walk to and from school. I know. I’m a freak.

On our first night in Vevey, it was screaming hot and an electrical storm came through. (There was also an amazing sunset.)

View from our patio

We could see the torrential rain coming our way and when it did, the tweenager and I let our hair down and let the rain soak us through and through from the balcony. It was awesome. And then the lighting show started. It lasted for over an hour.

Our view from our patio is simply to die for. It makes it all worth it. I can’t wait to see the mountains covered in a blanket of snow. I’m really looking forward to Winter coming as I’ve only ever been here in Summer and I understand it is so completely different.

We’re here and settling in nicely. I did some shopping today in the morning after dropping off the tweenager. I managed to find a shirt for the wedding on the weekend, got wart stuff (eeeeewww…), bought some stamps, got some groceries and found a bathroom all by my lonesome. Not too shabby.

Today I’m posting my first video blog or vlog. I’ve been wanting to do one for a while and I thought I better capture the wee babe crawling and sitting up before she’s onto something else! Everything for her is changing so quickly.

I hope you enjoy.

I awoke at 6 am after waking briefly throughout the night wondering how she was. When I awoke at 6, I woke my hubby and asked if it was too early to go and pick her up. I wanted her in my arms.

I surfed the net and read some email and then drifted back to sleep. I awoke again at 8 am and this time I was excited. I quickly sent an text to my father-in-law asking the status of my wee babe. I sat with baited breath wondering if she awoke throughout the night giving my in-laws no rest or miracle of miracles she slept through the night. No that wasn’t possible.

But, in fact, it was.

He replied that she had slept all the way through the night (I found out later that he awoke in the middle of the night to make sure she was still alive – as I do too) and that she had woken at 6am. They gave her a bottle and then got up.

When we saw her not long later on Skype, she was sitting in her chair, getting ready for bananas. Doing GREAT! We turned on our video and she took a minute as we all said hi and sang to her in our sing song voices for her. Then she started to cry. I think it sank in a bit that she missed us. So we turned off the video camera and all was good again.

We ate breakfast, then ventured over to her. Every light took forever. I couldn’t get there fast enough.

And then I saw her. And she reached for me for a snuggle. Man was that snuggle good. I breathed in her sweet warm smell. I touched her soft hair. And then I received the biggest familiar smile I think I’ve seen.

We were together again. Mama and babe.

Et un grand merci pour mes beaux-parents pour garder ma petite fille.

~~~~~~

Below is the video we took of Papinou and the wee babe on Skype with our Flip camera. The quality is terrible but this is no fault of the Flip camera.

Tonight’s blog is written from a raw place in my heart. Tonight my wee babe went for her first ever sleepover to my in-law’s place. We’re doing this as a trial for her (and me) to see how it goes and get her used to sleeping at their house as we have two upcoming weddings that we are attending and if you know anything about Swiss weddings, they go until around 4 am. No kidding.

So today has been heavy day. All day long I’ve known that around 6pm, I need to part ways with my wee babe and hand her over to her very capable grandparents. I’ve been dreading it. Not because I’m worried about them but because I’m worried about her and how much I know it’s me who can sooth her when everyone else can’t. And trust me, there are times every night that she gets fussy and it’s only me who can calm her down. So what’s she going to do? Explode? I guess in my head, I’ve maybe built it up to be something like that.

So we drop her off. Hugs, snuggles, cuddles, one last breast feed, one last smile, one last giggle. And as we leave she makes a little whine and I make a little whine, knowing that I’m not going to see her until tomorrow and knowing that she doesn’t know that or know what’s in store for her.

I miss her immediately. I don’t know why I’m feeling this way as I’ve already done this once before when my tweenager was a baby but I guess I forget about how I’ve already passed these feelings 11 years ago.

We head home (the 3 of us) and we have dinner. All through dinner I’m thinking about her. But I don’t say anything to my family as I don’t want to seem ridiculous and lame to them. Immediately following dinner I ask my hubby to call his parents and see how she is. Something inside of me is saying don’t listen in case she’s crying. I just don’t think I can take it. And wouldn’t you know it, she is crying.

I think maybe the hardest part was the fact that everything that was said about how she was feeling was said in French, so I’m constantly asking my hubby, what did they say? What’s going on? Did she eat the carrots? Did she drink her bottle? Are her pajama’s on? And the lag in translation was killing me. It seriously was all too much for me and I broke down. Come on. Let’s be honest here. We all knew it was going to happen anyway from the beginning of this story.

We take a break and call them back in a bit. And she’s still crying. At this point I’m wondering if maybe it was too early for her (and me). Should we go over there and pick her up? What am I feeling about that? A failure? What’s going to happen on Saturday night when I NEED them to look after her? Am I just being a pussy and over reacting? Maybe I just need a good cry.

And then she stops. Ok, she stopped enough for the tweenager to break into “Baby Beluga” and wouldn’t you know it, she’s looking for the voice that’s coming from the computer. (By the way, we’re skyping so we can see her but we haven’t turned on our camera so we don’t scar her by seeing us.) She was still a bit whiny and so I decided to add my voice to Baby Beluga but when I started singing it, more tears came. Then the hubby started crying so that got me going even more (I might be crying while I write this).  Then the part in the song where they say “Is your momma home…” I can’t even get through it without crying. The look in her eyes is priceless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so huge since I’ve known here. Like the cat in Shrek. Come pick me up, their beckoning to me.

So she was still a bit whiny and standing up usually solves this for her. Sit down = she cries. Stand up = she stops. Go figure, it’s pretty annoying. So I make a joke to papinou (grandpa) why don’t you stand up, dance and sing to the little angel. I feel like we’ve told them all the little quirks that make her happy so what’s one more thing. Hold her like this so her fingers are free so she can put them in her mouth, stand up, sing to her, dance, flap your arms in the air, do some jumping jacks, etc… you get the idea.

Papinou get’s up and throws on a dance CD. Where’d her get that from? And on top of it, it has graphics for the TV too so the wee babe is transfixed. He puts down the computer so we can see him holding her, dancing. It’s freaking AWESOME! The tears are gone, and now I’m smiling from ear to ear. No more tears from anyone – my face actually hurt from the smiling and laughing. We’re laughing and the wee babe is dancing with papinou to some crazy disco song. Oh man. Then the tweenager grabs the flip mino and get’s almost all of it on video. I need to get papinou to sign the release forms first before I can post this on YouTube though. Stand by.

The song is over and we decide to leave on a good note. Papinou is moved to tears which gets the hubby crying again which sends me into another blubblerfest. Enough said.

Was I ready? I think so. Just on the edge of it. I might have been pushed a little bit due to a wedding or two but I think it was the right time for her. I’ve always prided myself on the fact that the tweenager has been able to sleepover at anybody’s house. Anybody. And I attribute that to the fact that she slept over at people’s houses from a very young age. Very young. So shouldn’t I be trying the same thing with the wee babe then if I want the same results? I think so. It’s just so damn hard. She’s so little and I HATE to see her cry even for a minute. It breaks my heart when I know that I can make it stop if she’s just with me. But whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger right? I’m sure she’s not going to die over there tonight so she can only be stronger.

Bon nuit ma beaute. Fait de beaux reve. Jusqu’a matin. I can’t wait to see you in the morning.

It’s been a full week now that we’ve been here and we’re settling in quite well.

Yesterday, we ventured into France with the hubby’s parents to check out the Mont Blanc. We took a gondola over to a glacier and we were able to walk inside. It’s not too often you can walk into a glacier and I told the tweenager that she would need to be sure to blog about it. What an experience.

It was pretty neat. Ice caverns acting as tunnels. There was even a St. Bernard inside that you could have your picture taken with for 6 Euros. Poor doggy. The most interesting (and sad) part for me was they had placed markers on the side of the rocks stating where the glacier was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. It sure has receded quickly over the years. Every year they need to build new caves as the glacier moves so quickly. We could hear rocks tumbling as the ice melted. I think my hubby said it moves 90 meters a year. That’s insane.

We walked down the 400 steps to get into the glacier then back up and back into the crowded gondola. Oh I forgot, we took a really cool train to get to the top of the middle mountain. So Swiss and so pretty.

I told my hubby today that I really like his country. It’s so beautiful. I think I fall in love with it just a little bit more every time I come here.

I also spent some time a few days ago with the belle soeur and the tweenager swimming in Lake Leman. It’s her private swimming place kind of. So cute. I almost thought it was someone’s private property and we might be trespassing but there was a garbage, a change area, a shower and a toilet. The water in Lake Leman is so beautiful and refreshing. I feel like I’m in a little piece of paradise here.

It’s hard to explain but the vineyards etched against the blue mountains with the Swiss architecture is beyond picturesque. I can’t wait to see what happens in fall and winter.

One thing that I’ve grown to liking is the meals here. I never thought I’d be saying that. I remember the first time I came here 6 years ago. I spoke next to no French, I barely knew anyone and everything was strange to me. The thing I disliked the most was the meals. Not because of the food. Oh no. It was because the meals were so drawn out and long. Ever meal started with a salad, then the meal, then the bread and cheese, and then fruit and a little coffee. Talking, talking, talking in French. Of course I had no idea what anyone was saying and the hubby would translate (poorly) I wouldn’t get any jokes and it was just a huge clusterf*&k for me. I hated it. It would have been better if I had brought a book or magazine to read. Although I guess that would have been really rude. But now! Oh now it’s wonderful! I can understand about 80% of the conversation. What I don’t understand, it’s much easier for the hubby AND the tweenager to translate and the food… the glorious food! For some reason, the food before seemed so foreign to me. Now I embrace it and look forward to it. (I don’t think I will ever be able to eat a fish with its face on though, that’s a little too much for me. I also don’t think I will ever get used to the water with bubbles either.) I love the fresh salad and fresh dressing, the unique meals and the cheese. Oh that cheese! Let’s not forget the bread and wine. And I would be so lucky to end off with a little coffee. I’m in heaven.

I need to make some friends though. The landscape, meals and warm temperature are only going to get me by for a while until I feel like I need more adult friendly conversation. And maybe my belle soeur isn’t going to want to hang out with me all the time The hubby is doing well with spending time with me, but I know he longs to see his friends he hasn’t seen in a while. And I feel for the tweenager. But it won’t be long until she is at school and meeting all sorts of new people.

Enough of that talk, we’re planning a trip to the Gewürztraminer area of France for a night. Just a small road trip. We might do a couple of others as well but I think we’re all a bit burnt out from traveling in a car for the time being. It’s nice to be planted in one place after such a huge trip across Canada. Oh, and the gas here is sooooo expensive. I think it works out to $1.70 per litre. It cost us $85 the other day to fill up. It’s going to be a relief when we move to the other apartment that we won’t have a car. Although, that will come with it’s own set of problems I’m sure.

We did a little photo shoot this morning with the wee babe when she was eating her carrots. I hope you enjoy.

Wee babe Update:

• She’s eating carrots, bananas and yams. Next up: apples and squash.
• She’s pulled herself up to a standing position a few times now. Wow, do I ever get nervous when she does this as she is so wibbly wobbly I can just see her tumbling over onto her head. Oh mon dieu.

Wow, these past few days have been a real whirlwind of activity. I said good-bye to some colleagues/friends, we attended a wonderful solstice party and father’s day wrapped it all up.

In the meantime, our wee babe has been growing by leaps and bounds and I don’t want to forget any of it so here goes:

Rolling: back, forth, in her sleep, wide awake, change table, floor, grass – you name it, she’s rolling on it.

360′s: like a spinning top, she’s doing her first break dancing on the ground. Mind you, she’s only mastered the clockwise 360. The Swiss mister likes to think she keeps time to her internal swiss clock.

Bumbo: sadly, we need to say good-bye to this unforgettable piece of furniture. It’s been a constant in our house for the past 3 months. We loved to plunk it down on the island or dining room table while we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and the wee babe stared deeply into one of our eyes trying to win a staring contest (I know you’re not supposed to have those things on anything higher than the floor). But no more. She now does a twist like no one’s business all the way around to the back and yesterday she *almost* fell out.

Rice cereal: we’ve made the plunge into solid foods! And she is definitely ready for this. No problems eating, big open happy mouth. We’re on day 3 and it doesn’t appear to be allergy inducing. Our plan is to keep up the rice cereal all the way across Canada and then start in on home-made purees once we’re in Europe. We’ll see how that goes.

Sippy cup: along with the rice cereal, we’ve started giving her a sippy cup with water. This is not as well received but it doesn’t go horribly. We’ll keep persevering.

The plank and knees up: a few times I’ve caught her doing the plank. And other times We’ve seen her bringing her knees up and then pushing her arms up but not having the coordination and balance to putting the two together. This can only be a matter of time before she masters crawling or creeping.

Sitting up: she does this with very limited assistance. She falls over a lot still but she can keep herself up for a good 30 seconds before tumbling.

Singing: The wee babe is very vocal. She’s mastered raspberries, da da da, some sort of weird grunting sounds and an array of various other interesting noises.

First tooth: her first tooth has come through with minimal disruption to her and us. There was one night where she screamed bloody murder and I thought she had been stung or bit by a spider so I ripped off her clothes but the next day her lower left tooth came through. Hindsight is 20/20. I am an extremely proud mama.

Standing: this continues to be her favourite thing to do (besides breast feeding) and prefers this any time over sitting.

Reaching and grabbing: I think I should note here that last month she started doing this but this month she’s definitely mastered it.

It’s been a big month for our baby. Did I miss anything mister Swiss or the tweenager?

P.S. I would also like to note in this post that we had a wonderful father’s day yesterday. I think we might have started a few father’s day traditions as well. We started the morning with a delicious breaky of eggs benny, followed by a hike out to our wedding spot in East Sooke Park to plant a tree (sshhhhhh… I think its illegal to plant trees in parks so don’t tell anyone.) we named Xavier. (This was going to be the name of our wee babe if she was a boy.) We had a sugar infused Swiss desert called Vermicelles that we also shared with my father, followed by a yummy steak dinner. Happy Father’s day my Swiss mister and happy father’s day dad!