First Bath

On November 17^th we decided it was time for Liadan to have her first bath. So we heated up the bathroom, ran the tub, Andrew got it and I gave Liadan to him and we gave her a wash down. She was pretty indifferent about the whole event.. not happy, not sad (thankfully) just staring straight ahead. So pretty successful all in all and now we look forward to the many more bathing adventures to come.

Now I didn’t take a pic of the event and this of course is not Liadan…but I thought it was a cute pic.

Bye for now

Now my parents left a few weeks ago now but the blog is always a little behind… so I’m about mid nov now in reporting events. Before then came I had no idea how the time was going to go with my parents here. Was I going to love it and need all help I could get or was it going to be to claustrophobic parent invasion. Well I have to say after the time has now passed it was fabulous to have them here, they rented a huge apt just up the street so they were close. All the dinners and groceries and just watching Liadan so I could take naps and have showers was great! Now that they are gone just the littlest things seem to be more challenging.

So, mom and dad thanks so much for everything – can’t wait to see you over the holidays and for you to see how Liadan has changed

Cradle Cap

Again another common skin problem babies can get Liadan has. It’s something called Cradle cap, and she has a bad case of it on her forehead. It’s kind of like eczema with dry flaky skin that is so crusty it’s yellow and green. So our little Liadan currently looks like a romulan, klingon, ferengi or any other number of star trek characters. It been at least a few weeks now and the nastiness has disappeared from her forehead however it has developed on her scalp now.. so warning to everyone at home Liadan will not be dining in her black cocktail dress and her hair may look a little greasy. So here is just another pic of our little one where you can't see her scaly scalp getting a kiss from her dad.

Baby Puberty

Our cute little girl is maturing fast and now has a case of baby acne coming on. It’s just like it sounds, she has a rather zitty face. We decided not to take pictures of her new skin problem so her is another pic of her from a few weeks later. Enjoy.

I Can Read – sort of

My previous posting of the books I had read .. or rather had not read did get me reading a little.. I picked an easy murder mystery book called The Interpretation of Murder by Jen Rubenfeld. It was just what I needed to get back into reading, easy not to challenging but keeps you moving along. I have picked up another book but it is going slowly cause the biggest reason why I got a chance to read more was cause my parents were here giving me more free time…and I think I started the book before I had Liadan.. hopefully it will not be long before I finish the next one.

An Ear Full

In the first month of Liadans life we needed to take her into the clinic to get her hearing checked… everything checked out good so far.. so her ears are going to be ruined like all the rest of ours when she is a teen with her headphones and concerts.

The tuberculosis rate has risen by 80% in London over 10 years so they now are vaccinating all children in London now for TB. So we made another trip to the clinic to get her shot in the arm and my parents came with me. It was horrible, they stick a needle just under the skin and inject this liquid that forms a white blister the size of a tart and tiny and it’s not quick. Why it was so bad though was Liadan poor face.. she squiggied it all up and tears filled her eyes and her mouth and cry were just heart wrenching, it was the look of what the fuck do you think you are doing that hurts – you don’t love me!!!! She soon forgot by the next day but I haven’t and am not looking forward to her 8 week immunization session.

Aunt Fi

So Andrews sister Fiona was traveling around Europe with their cousin Alice for a couple months (sept – oct ) so on their way home they stopped by London to meet the new family member. It was really good to see them both and hear all about their travels..

But there is nothing like two twenty somethings, country and party hopping to make a new mother who did the very same thing more than ten years ago, make you feel ancient.

Andrew took them to Brick Lane for a curry one night and little pub crawls around where we live and we all went for a Sunday Roast up the street.

Here are a couple pictures of Aunt Fiona and her niece Liadan

Rogers Blog

just in case anyone is interested i have added Rogers blog to the list of friends blogs to the left

The art of staring

I know all new parents tell you how much you will be able to just stare at your new little bundle but it’s crazy you just get taken with watching her for hours.. all the little faces they make they are all so subtle but I could watch them all day – well I do. When she is sleeping she looks so peaceful, and loves looking at lights or out any of the windows and she has about three different types of yawning.. one of them start out looking like a dry heave it’s hilarious. Lately she has started the smile at you when you are smiling and it’s just lights me up inside. As the holidays get closer and I’m a bit more comfortable with the whole mom thing we will start venturing out and having people in so you can all see her smile too. Here is a pic of Liadan doing some staring of her own.

Milk

Another joy of new found motherhood has been the constant dampness of my chest region. It’s a never ending flow, squirt or trickle. Oh the joys of stuffing my new larger bra size so it looks like I’m packing a pair of rather lumpy pillows. It looks hot believe me. The best is when I’m feeding Liadan with one spurting nipple to pull her away and think oh no she has leaked from her diaper…no wait it was just my other breast using her as an additional breast pad – everyone gets to change now. It’s been almost two months now and the flow has not ebbed so beware the next spurt may get you in the eye.

Immigration around the world have now decided all persons need a passport no matter what their age they are, to travel .. so when we come home for the holidays Liadan cannot just go onto mine she will need her own passport. All passports have photos so we needed to get a picture of Liadan with her eyes open, mouth closed looking straight ahead and all the rest. She is 2 weeks old when we attempt this as we need to speed this process along so we can get her application in and get the passport before the holidays.. cause we all know how long consulates can take with that kind of thing if they want. It ended up not being as hard as we thought but here is a selection of we got in amongst the winner. Here is a selection of photos we got in the process.

Breasts

In addition to the soar and toughened up nipples behind them came milk and with the milk came their new size to accommodate their new duty. They grew and grew and grew, I’ll tell you it was not comfortable. Everytime I would see myself in the mirror I was blown away ..i was starting to look totally out of proportion like a Barbie doll. Thankfully they did calm down when they realized that I was not a cat, cow or pig and that they didn’t need to feed a whole litter. They can still get a little hard making reaching for the light not as easy as it used to be…welcome to motherhood

Jaundice

Liadan had a visit from our midwife a few days after we came home and let us know that she had a small case of jaundice. Quite common in new borns and it was so minor she just said we need to make sure she feeds regularly and that will flush the bilirubin out of her system. So our little yellow baby was feed every 3 hours for the next week or so and then she was all better… on the last visit the midwife said she looked all better and that the last little bits of colour were just her colourings from her mom.

Nipples

Okay so before I read a ton of things about nipples and that they get sore from breastfeeding so when that part of my task began I was prepared and prayed that it wouldn’t be so bad. At first it was no problem.. but then a couple days in ..man alive they were so soar that even the shower was painful. One book said that they would toughen up and not to worry and thank god a couple more days later and they did just that. Now things aren’t completely back to normal but I feel I am prepared for the next months of lactation duty.

Parents are here

So my mom arrived a couple weeks before my due date to ensure she was here for the main event. She stayed at our place for the first little bit and then when my dad got here a couple weeks later they moved into a flat just up the road and will be there for a month. We went to check out the place last night and watch the final World Cup Rugby game of South Africa against England and they have a really swanky pad. It will be really great to have them here over the next month to help me out with the baby and help take some of the load off while I figure out what I am doing. At the moment I have only changed Liadan’s diaper twice in about two weeks.. thanks Andrew!! I leave the dirty work for him and I have been mastering my cuddle technique. - here is a pic of Liadan with my dad, i don't seem to have one with my mom in it.. but we shall fix that shortly

Coming Home

After being taken to the ward with Liadan I was thinking great now I get to rest and sleep but I was mistaken. The ward had about 4 other mothers on the ward with their babies as well so someone was always up or baby was crying and all the rest so it was not very restful. Besides the fact I still had quite a bit of drugs pumping through my veins and with Liadan beside me in her little plastic bed I was really in no state to rest.

The next day I was not sure when they were going to let me go home, I had been told that women who had assisted deliveries can be held for at least a day but that my midwife thought that they would let me go home on the 11^th sometime.

They wake you up at 7:30am not that I had been asleep so I had a bowl of cereal. Then various people came to see me to give me some pain relief pills, make sure I could feel my legs after the epidural, and other info I would need for the two of us when we left the hospital. Had a meeting with the pediatrician who did a bunch of little checks on her and she was all good. When I came back from there Liadan was sort of making foodie faces again so we did a little feeding. Andrew came shortly after and they told me I could go home.. so we got all my stuff ready put Liadan in her new stroller and headed out. The hospital was so close to where we lived we just took the bus. Then we were home… ah.. now it’s really the time to relax .

the Labor Story

So here is the detailed events of Liadan Siobhan Lawson entering the outside world.

It all started before two am in the morning on the 10^th of Oct with contractions that I had been semi timing for the last hour. I really didn’t think it was going to be it.. I figured it was the false labor everyone seems to get in the movies first and I really didn’t think she would come before her due date as I though she was going to be late.

Just before 8am when it was just getting to be too much to handle I though let’s go to the hospital. When we got there the contractions started coming on thick and fast ...so i said bring on the drugs.. so i got fitted for an epidural. For those of you who may not know what an epidural is it is a needle/tube they insert into your spin and inject you with drugs to numb you from the waist down. They give you a dose that is not a much as it used to because you can still feel the contractions and when the push and all the rest and I could move my legs. Then as the feeling starts to come back they top you up through the handy tube they have just hanging over my shoulder. It was good.. definitely took the edge off but of course the down side is that its slows the contractions down.

I was 3 cm when i got there and then four hours later only 5 cms.. urgh... then in the evening I was fully dilated but my waters still had not broken so they broke them for me ... oh what a very wet occasion that was and on my drugged up legs I had to get out of bed.. while they changed me and the bed as everything was absolutely soaking.

After that labor speed up a little which is what they were trying to do …
more epidural drugs please cause man my lower back was in so much pain. So while I held out before I got a top up on my epidural I gave the ol’ gas and air a go. I have to admit it was lovely so I finished a tank of that off for them. Many hours later she is SLOWLY coming at 7:30 they wanted to see how far she got in an hour and that would decide if they were going to give me this other drug to speed up the contractions again. But an hour later she had made good progress so they gave her one more hour to “Come on Down” before the main pushing event.

Eight rolled around and we had a shift change so we met all the new doctors who were on and my new midwife and so everyone got caught up on my situation. At 9:30 she was pretty much ready to be pushed out and the doctors came in before hand and said that I would pretty much have 1 hour to push her out see how far we got and if it was not going fast enough they were going to give me the contractions speedy up drug so we could get her delivered and that they may decide to use a ventouse and episiotomy. Not to happy with the cutting side of the whole thing but at this point I was a little exhausted and on board with whatever needed to be done to make sure she came out ok and in good time.

Pushing began… I could feel the contractions fully but was pretty numb from the waist down so i was using all my memories of taking poos to figure out what muscles I think I should be using to push her out and cross my fingers I was actually flexing them. The Midwife and Andrew seemed to be happy with the muscles I thought I was using so I went with it. The pushing took lots of concentration which is good as it takes your mind off what is really happening in my neither regions as you can sort of feel that something so large is starting to come out. Over the next hour her little head popped out but still not far enough for the doctor so in we go with some assistance ..i push, he pulls. For those of you who do not know what a ventouse is its like a little vacuum cap they put on her head and pull as I push.

So Shortly after she was on her way I could feel her head on the way out and then of all things the doctor tells me to stop pushing.. so her head can come out smoothly.. that was almost harder than the pushing. And then out she came blue and bloody and all safe and ok but I have to admit it didn’t seem real when they gave her to me I didn’t really know what to do. Then they took her for the pediatrician to do his once over clear her lungs and make sure she is really alright and the doctor started stitching me up. Then when they brought her back to me that is when it hit home a little more that this wrinkly little thing was our daughter. She started making her foodie faces right away so we gave breast feeding a go, she seemed happy. Then it really was time to relax after the I was all sewn up and rested for a little I had a shower and got back into some clothes. The midwife brought us a cup of tea and we had some quiet time.

My blood pressure was high so they would not discharge me to the ward till it had come down so Andrew and I got to chill in the room longer which was nice since if they had been able to check me to the ward Andrew would have had to leave. So we got to be together the three of us till about 2:30am when they took me upstairs to bed.

And that was the pretty much 24hours that Andrew and I became a family.

Andrews review of New Pornographers concert

On the 9th I joined our new flatmate, Chris, and a couple of soon to be Framestore cohorts and went to see the New Pornographers play down the street at Koko.
Now, first off, I'm not a big fan of going to concerts. Indeed, while I love sitting out in a field enjoying band after band entertain me while I hang out in the sun/shade with friends, drinking whatever beverage suited my fancy at the time, I have never really fully appreciated live indoor music unless I'm dancing. And to prevent this review getting sidetracked and devolving into a drawn-out wet towel of a diatribe on the deficiencies of music concerts in general, let me say simply: It's on a rare occasion that I exit a concert venue not thinking my time and money would have been better spent just buying the album.
Then why even go, I hear you ask. Well, Chris arrived a couple of months before and, with the eager excitement that only his unique brand of boyish charm could produce, rattled of all these great shows we could go see. This sort of enthusiastic proclamation always gives rise to a feeling of guilty inadequacy that my lifestyle seems so comparatively slothful and uninspired and makes me chasten myself for not taking advantage of being in London, a city that on any given week dishes up a multitude of entertainment options that would never be on offer back in Vancouver. So, being humbled and wanting to redeem myself for my social inaction I accepted his invite to join him. Of course, the fact that I am a big fan of the Pornos and the venue was a mere 3 minute walk from our place helped seal the deal. (I told him, however, exactly where he could push his precious Tragically Hip tickets)
So although they had already won me over years before with thier music, the Pornos had my prejudices against live shows to overcome.
Did they? Well, the were pretty good. I liked the vibe they gave off and they did Canada proud by laying out a ballsy set that re-awakened a crowd that had been effectivey lulled into a semi-intoxicated indifference by the half-hearted efforts of the Phil Collins wannabe of an opening act. Most importantly though, and this is something I think every band should do in concert: they changed up the songs a bit so that they weren't just carbon copy versions of the ones you know from the albums. All in all a good effort from the visitors. Down side? As always: the sound quality. But hey, what can you do?
And it only took us 3 songs to recognize them as the group at the table next to us at the pizza place we ate at before the show.

Things I miss

So here is a picture of my belly about 4 weeks away from my due date at this point hope it’s big enough for everyone… and satisfies your needs as everyone just keeps asking for a picture of the belly. After nine months of being pregnant I really missed a number of things… and since by the time I am posting this post I have already given birth I’m going to meld it in with some after thoughts.

Lying on my stomach – which has not really felt comfortable from 3 months on .. and now that I’m with out baby in belly I though I could get back onto my front however my breasts are swelling so much at the moment producing milk lying on my stomach is having to wait still even longer. Even sleeping on my side sometimes is not comfortable. Look at that pic of that little girl on her stomach.. she doesn’t know how good she has it.

Sushi – oh sushi… I did recently get a couple pieces but it was not really good quality so I’m still really waiting till I head home for Christmas and can fully gorge out on cheap – in cost high in quality Vancouver sushi

Booze – not as hard as I thought it was going to be but I miss being able to have a glass of wine at dinner. This one like the lying on my stomach also has to wait even longer and didn’t not expire when I popped.. as I’m not going to drink while I’m breast feeding.. but still not really too bothered about this one. This will be one of my driest holiday seasons coming up.

Being able to see my crotch – sorry if that is too much info for some of you but it was the truth heehee I’ll spare you my thoughts on this one from my point of view now.

Farewell to Lucinda

Lucinda Glenn .. my lunch buddy, the reason why I even got a job at MPC and of course work bitching buddy is heading back to sunnier shores. The last week of September was her last week at MPC and she is going to do a little major city hoping ( Paris, New York and Tokyo) on her way home to Sydney.

It was great to get to know you better but I know we will see each other again and I’m looking forward to your baby tips. Safe travels

Lu we will miss you!

Andrews Parents here for a visit

Andrews parents came for a quick visit mid September before they headed to France for some wine, art and World Cup Rugby watching. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of our visit together but we went for tapas one night at our local Spanish restaurant, went for a roast one Sunday and watched Canada play a rugby game – we lost.

Lindsay came back for a day a couple weeks later on her way back to Canada so we went for afternoon tea at Fortum and Mason’s which is an up market department store for foods but most famous for their hampers and preserves and teas.

http://www.fortnumandmason.com/

Recent Books I have read…

This list is so little and nothing good so it makes me disappointed..and i hope by posting this it will shame me into making more of an effort to read a bit more. Unfortunately I have just not been in the mood. Sometime in April I finished a couple books.. the second and third books to the Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell trilogy. Not bad.. not hugely great, but really easy as they are for kids and they got better as the story went along.

The feature that Andrew is currently working on is based on a children’s book called the Tale of Despereaux – terrible book … sorry guys and to all the people working on the project. There is a way the author writes that is just so annoying, reader do you know what annoying is? Well look it up you lazy kid!

The End of Me and MPC

So with the end of August also came the end of my time at MPC. I had a great time and everyone gave me a great send off which was lovely. In my time there I got to work on 5 features though one was Narnia and it was only just getting going but still pretty good for only 6 months. The crew was great and I will miss the certain aspects and people, and of course some I’m glad to leave behind.. heehee .. who knows maybe I’ll be back one day. I would like to say watch for my name in the credits but I don’t think I actually get credits as most of the artists don’t get credits either… so the best I can do is just updated my IMDB oh well.. here’s to my starmeter going through the roof!

Andrew and his weddings

This entry is written by Andrew - August 24th marked my parent's 39th wedding anniversary and I celebrated with a 7 hour fight to Toronto. Now you might think that this would be a strange way to pay homage to their ongoing marital commitment, but you would be wrong. For you see, I was flying to Toronto to witness the beginning of another such union. This time between my good friends, Lino and Rosanna.
I've know Lino for about 10 years now. We met at film school when we were both learning our trade. Lino's American - from New York, in fact - and during his time in Vancouver he became besotted with Canada and it's people and ended up marrying one of us. Now he's half Canadian.
The wedding was a pretty gallant affair with good food and good people. Was good to see my buddy Leif and his wife Erin again - this time with their new kid, Magnus. Although extremely disappointed in the absence of Ben Bosgang. Come on Ben, New York to Toronto? You could've walked it! Shame!
My personal highlight of the night was sitting out on the patio after dinner, smoking a cigar with Lino and listening to a group of guys with heavy New York-Italian accents lamenting the modernification of pizza toppings and how it's near impossible to find a decent pie in Queens these days. "Back when I was a kid, all you had was regular, Sicilian and calzone. You walked in and all you had to say was 2 and 2 and the knew what you were talking about. Nowadays? Fuggedaboudit." Awesome.
The next day I went over to Rosanna's folks place for a barbecue. The food was amazing. Better than the wedding, I think. More cigars and imported Parmesan. Good times.

The next day I flew to Vancouver for another wedding. This time it was Jon 'Rocky' McCleery and Penny Weaver getting hitched.
Penny's folks live on my favourite island in the world: Hornby. I used to travel to Hornby almost every summer from when I was 14 into my early 20s, so it has a special place for me. In fact, my fist trip there was with Jon, himself, and Jen Finlay who was also at the wedding. On top of this there were a lot old school friends along for the ride, making it as much a reunion as it was a wedding.
The big day was tempered with some rain clouds but a couple of tents and umbrellas staved off the threat of a moist ceremony and everyone was happy.

Best man, Ian MacKenzie, and both sets of parents dropped some great speeches after dinner and afterwards, in true Hornby fashion, we retired to a bonfire down on the beach.
The next day, Labour day, the unofficial end of summer saw most guests, and most vacationers, leave the island to head back to their urban lives. A few of us stayed on the extra night to skip the crowded ferries and highways and give ourselves time to take a hike to the Helliwell bluffs and Mushroom beach - two locations frequented in the heady days of summers past. The decision rewarded us with two unexpected experiences, much in keeping with Hornby's giving nature. Firstly, down at the pub that overlooks the ferry dock we found ourselves part of a Hornby Island Local Tradition called the Wave Off, where the locals all gather to drink and wave off the last ferry-load of tourists, signalling the end to tourist season and transferring control of the island back to it's perennial inhabitants. Second was reserved for the those of us who stayed up late and braved the wind and mist to walk down to the beach in the middle of the night. Scott noticed the glowing waves from our cabin's lofty purchase up on the cliff so he and I with the company of Andrew Ellis and Moselle headed down to check out the phosphorescent waves in the dark. For those who don't know, the phosphorescence is caused by bioluminescent plankton - Dinoflagellates, to be specific - in the ocean that emit a green glow when they're disturbed by the water's movement. When it's dark - like on a cloudy night or new moon - the effect is pretty cool and is a perfect example of the magic Hornby has to offer.
Then I came back to England.

Cambridge Visit

Few weekends later Andrew and I went to Cambridge to see a friend of ours Mr Mark Lack. One day we went punting, it was so busy on the river that it was a bit much but fun none the less and a total different experience than from when we went punting in Oxford.

Cambridge of course is a beautiful little town and we went for some lovely walks as you can see by the pics

On Sunday we took a walk to a nice pub on the other side of a field for a yummy roast.

You can see the pub behind me and Mark here and here is another picture of the growing bump sorry I didn’t realize my shirt was not covering my whole belly.. heehee

A Site I would like to share with the class

Well to break up the blog a little I just wanted to thank Beau for sharing a wicked on line e-card site with me.. I think it’s hilarious and fills any e-card need you may have. I can’t recommend this site enough .. enjoy!

www.someecards.com

Latitude

Latitude was a music festival that Andrew and I went to this year in Suffolk for a long weekend. The headlining bands were Arcade Fire, Damien Rice, The Good the Bad and the Queen and there were other people like CSS, Wilco, Jarvis Cocker and smaller highlights were New Young Pony Club, Gotan Project and Rapture.

Now the summer in England was right poo this year and so we had to go prepared.. when the sun came out it was hot but in between burst of sun we would get little showers but we would take that time for mid day naps in the tent. The Festival was 3 days and there were 3 main music stages and then there were literature, comedy and cabaret tents and things like that for the 12,000 in attendance.

First picture here is of the main stage. Second pic is of food area and the distance the lit tent and cabaret and the second main stage is behind us. And the third pic is of the 3^rd stage in the woods. And then for the fourth pic I know a lot of you have already seen this pick from our flickr account but I am with my new bump in tent city. All in all we had a good time and in the end we made a good decision to go to this one and not the Big Chill this year… one I don’t think I would have been able to handle going to the loo every 5 mins as I would have been further along for the Big Chill and second it was right after all that rain and the site would have been right muddy.

Good times! Highlights were CSS, New Young Pony Club and Arcade Fire.

Day out in Ealing

Most of you know that I used to live in London a couple years ago. I used to live in an area called Ealing with is west west London, our friend Tony still loves over there and Andrew and I wanted to go for a Big Set Breakfast at our fav breakfast spot from when I was over there so we headed out one Saturday to visit the old hangs.

So here we are first at the Walpole with Tony and then next about to dig into our yummy breakfast of 2 eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, mushrooms, tomato, toast and a cup of builders tea. Yummy!!!The tables here are covered in brown paper and everyone has a cup of crayons on the table to colour while you wait for your brekie and when I went to the bathroom they have covered the walls in pics people have drawn and I saw they had one of my happy faces I drew a couple years ago once while we were there.. so that was cool.

Then just a couple blocks down we passed by the front of my old flat and my local Red Lion Pub. So here you can see the pub and that is my old front door on the right that is green between the pub and the naughty bite sandwich place there. Oh the memories.

We spent the rest of the day looking in the second hand stores and doing a little shopping before heading home. I still love the area!