Just Add Water...

It's been a long journey with Aria and water. She didn't like baths to start, and I didn't like giving them to her. Following a trip to Ontario with a couple traumatic bath time experiences, I knew that we needed to work on this, or our daughter would become someone who was afraid of the water (which isn't really an option). When we got home, we tried her out at a friend's swimming party and this was the result:


Not so great. This had to change. SO, I started taking baths with her, rather than bathing her in her own tiny tub. This, she likes. She feels safe because I'm holding her, and then she can explore things like kicking her feet and splashing her hands.

Today I took her to WC Blair pool for swimming for the first time since the traumatic swimming pool event. Today she was a rock star! She floated in a flotation device all on her own (and tried to eat it - surprise surprise) and when I did some walking laps with her, she loved the movement, and would splash herself & me from time to time with her hands (which would get water in her eyes, and surprise her quite a bit). We were in the water for over 1/2 an hour! I was very proud of her.

Getting her dressed afterwards...not so great - but this is definitely something we'll do again!

PS Bathing suit complements of Aria's Grandma. She loves it and was examining it today as we were playing in the water.

I Did It! I Did It!

Today we enjoyed the 'last day of summer' by zipping out to the lake. What I'm excited about is that I've finally created usable portraits with my ultra-wide lens! (If you use it wrong, it makes people look really, really strange.) Look at the range of scenery and sky that are pulled in to each shot! I'm still working on balancing sunlight and flash. And I'm lucky to have these two willing, great(!) women in my life to work with. :-)

This is our Daughter

She's beautiful

She's adorable


she's sleeping as I write this...lovely.

Aria meets Opa-pa and Oma-ma

It was the end of a VERY long day for Aria by the time we got to my Opa & Oma's place. We'd left Burlington, went to Toronto, then to Grimsby and finally to Hamilton (Caledonia) to see Opa & Oma. Aria was still doing really great, but by the time the cameras came out, she was finished.


It was too bad we missed my cousins Jeremy and Angela by about 10 minutes!! But Aunt Kathy was there and Opa & Oma were looking good (and my dad was there too). I love visiting my grandparents for so many reasons - it brings back a lot of memories from my growing up years, and they've got pictures of my mom up around the place (I talk to Aria lots about her Oma, I hope she grows up getting a real impression of what her Oma was like, even though she's not around anymore). My Oma has some great gardens - walking paths in the front of the house, and a maze of flowers in the back (us kids used to love playing tag in the maze, trying to catch each other on the paths - who am I kidding, a few years ago when we were all together we STILL played tag in that garden! ANYWAY, my dad took Aria out to look at the flowers (which she loves), but it was right at dusk, and the mosquitoes shortened that trip out.

Brad still got some GREAT shots though.

I also made a point of showing Aria where her Oma was buried. I still remember Uncle Al digging the hole, Opa sitting in a chair, Brad's dad saying a prayer and each of us taking some dirt to fill the hole. Rob & I did the rest. My Oma found a rock later to indicate the spot where mom was buried, and so I showed Aria that rock.

It was a cool thing to see Aria with two grandparents - and to see how well they were doing. When we came in, Oma grabbed Aria right away - and I realized that although Aria had visited two other Greats already - Oma was the first one I felt could hold her and walk around at the same time.


It's funny, this side of the family took this all in stride (no arguments about being a Great-Aunt Kathy, she's been one for 7 years already and has 7 other great nieces & nephews).

It was cool to see how much they loved her (as we've felt with all of the family Aria met).

Another neat thing about my mom's family is the fact that they've opened their arms to MaryAnna so much. They've brought dad & her into their family with open arms. MaryAnna's even gone on holidays and excursions with mom's sisters, and wasn't there that day because she's in Korea with my mom's sister, Aunt Greta, teaching English for 6 weeks over the summer.

It had been a long trip that day, by the time we left (dad & I in one car, Brad following with Aria) to go to my dad's for the night, Aria cried the entire hour in the car. She was DONE with all the travelling, and we had a trip home the next day!! Oh boy!

It was great to see Dad's house, although MaryAnna wasn't there. It was weird but still neat to see how dad & MaryAnna had made the place a home. A lot of the furniture was my parents, but they'd made it their own. It also meant a lot to me that there were mementos of my mom up around the house (although no shrines or anything creepy like that). There were pictures of her, as well as pictures of Dad & MaryAnna. MaryAnna is doing a great job of allowing Dad to not deny his past while still enjoying his future and moving on from there.

I'm glad Aria has had the opportunity to meet so many great-grandparents! They are wonderful people and just to know that Aria comes from generations of strong, loving, Christian people means a lot. Having not only grandparents that stayed together, but great-grandparents who did as well is an incredible (and very uncommon) legacy for her to grow up with. My prayer for her is that she'll learn from that, that Brad & I will teach her what we've seen, and that her life will be full of love and commitment like we've seen from generation to generation.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
No matter how you're feeling

Aria Being Cute

She's really starting to react to her world, and explore things around her. Of course if she drops a toy out of her field of view, it's lost. Lost! And then you give it back to her, and it's a whole new discovery of a favourite friend, smiles and kisses and trying to cram the whole thing in her mouth.

Aria's FAVOURITE book...

It's funny, I get gifts sometimes, and I totally remember who they're from and when they were given (Aria's currently wearing a yellow pj she got from her Great-Aunt Kellie and Great-Uncle Ken (yes I had to put the greats in there), that we got in May when Brad's parents came out to visit (see, I remember very specifically), BUT there are other things that we have and I have no idea who they came from, or when.

This book is one of them. When I got it I must not have thought much of it. It's four pages, with a bee, a worm, a butterfly, a dragonfly, a beetle and a ladybug on them. Whoooooooo. The words, not too impressive, the book is cloth, and I'm not super into biology, so bugs & beetles don't inspire me. BUT ever since I first showed it to Aria, she's been fascinated. The first time she stared at a book for a long time it was this book (this was June-ish).
The first time she grabbed something it was the wings of the beetle & dragonfly on that page of the book. She's learned to feel the fuzzy bee, grab the pages, touch the different textures. She loves the colours around the edging of each of the pages (contrasting colours, ohhhhh), she now consumes this book in a variety of ways (including putting it into her mouth and attempting to eat it). The book has some crinkly material in the front cover, and Aria's learned if she grabs onto the book and moves her hand, it makes noises...she talks to the animals. When we took the trip to Ontario, we brought that along, and each night we'd put it next to her, open, wherever we slept and she had a familiar thing to wake up to (it worked).
This book is one that I WISH I knew who gave it, because if I could thank them properly, I would! So - if you sent it, consider yourself thoroughly thanked. If you know who did, let me know.

Otherwise, it will simply remain in the realm of many of Aria's things - I'm very grateful for them, and for the love they were given with, and I couldn't tell you who gave them. What a blessing to have so many gifts we can't keep track of them all! Aria is a very blessed girl (who likes to read - YAY!).

Aria Meets Brad's Nana

First of all, I must point out that the whole "Opa-pa", "Oma-ma", "Grandpa-pa" thing breaks down when we get to Brad's Nana. To say "Nana-na" starts to sound like a bad song from an era gone by (there's about three I can think of right now). AND Aria has a Nana (my dad's wife, MaryAnna), so just Nana doesn't work either. We'll figure it out as Aria gets older I'm sure. We always had an "Opa who smokes a Pipe", who was my Opa's dad. He, of course, was married to "Oma who smokes a Pipe", although, of course, she didn't smoke.

Anyway, we saw Brad's Nana for an hour or so in Grimsby in the middle of some busy running around. We got up to a wonderful breakfast by Brad's cousin Eric (eggs, yummy) and drove to Toronto to see our good friends Dan & Julie (Dan was working, and we couldn't stick around to see him, as you'll discover by reading the rest of this paragraph). Left Julie & Wade & #3 whom we just found out about that day...(yay!! I can say that here, right? There's no one who's going to discover this by reading here that you should have told yourself, right?) and then we drove from TO to Grimsby to see Nana. Dad met us there, and Brad followed him and I to MY Opa & Oma's (more on that later), and then we went to Niagara Falls for the night. It was a LOT of back and forth, but we wanted to see as many people as we could, and ALMOST saw them all (Sorry, Ang & Jer - I missed seeing you guys a lot, thought about driving to Hamilton to watch you ref, but that would have just been TOO much driving & we'd have missed time at Opa & Oma's. NEXT time, I promise). It was important to us to see all the "Greats" this trip. We're going out at Christmas again, but who knows where they'll all be by then.

Speaking of which, Nana. Nana has always been a wonderful loving lady, who liked to have a conversation with anyone possessing an ear to talk off. When she randomly met a man at Tim's, she referred to it as a date -- that's just the kind of lady she is. Well, she still has the gift of the gab, but her mental state is deteriorating. She likes to talk, but a lot of what she said didn't make much sense (the narrative would jump from 1st to 3rd person, and multiple stories would get mashed together -- often comical in their sprawling impossibility). One of the tough things about being far away is that the last time we saw her, she was at Beth & Andy's wedding; although we noticed a few slips (mistaking Brad's dad for his brother), she was still able to take the trip out to Ottawa, and she did alright. The time before that, she was still living on her own, and doing ok (not great, but ok). This time, she was not making a whole lot of sense. She still had enough sense to admire Aria, but she didn't necessarily understand how special it was to meet her third great-grandchild. I think it meant a lot more to us than to her.


When we got there, the lady at the desk asked if Nana was expecting us. I said no, but kind of looked at her like..."And even if we'd told her to...?" We went into her room, and she was glad to have company, but needed us to remind her of who we were. She had the TV on, and when we got there, Brad turned down the volume so we could talk, but she kept getting distracted, and got Brad to show her how to turn the volume back up part way through the visit (I turned it back down, so it wasn't at an interrupting level). At one point a lady on the TV started to smoke, and Nana chastised her for doing so.

We met her teddy bear (she's still wondering when it will grow it's fingers and toes, and how to get it bones, so it can stand up -- it's called "it" because it doesn't have a name that it's willing to tell Nana, although she has asked it repeatedly. She's still waiting for a reply). BUT I was allowed to put it on the floor so that I could sit in a chair - so at least I still had priority over her "baby", besides, it doesn't mind.

Who knows what condition Nana will be in when we see her next. I know it was good to see her now, in this condition, to prepare us for the next visit. She reminds me a lot of my Oma Zanting, who lived in Grimsby and took a similar journey to the one Nana is on. Hers was many years longer though.

We still love Nana, and are very glad we got to see her again, and that she got to meet Aria.

Three Generations - Just missing Grandpa

Aria's Summer Vacation

Aria did lots this summer, and I could talk about it all, but I'll focus on some very special meetings and events. A big one was her visits with relatives in Ontario. She still has four Great-Grandparents left, two from each side, so we made a special point of visiting each of them.

The first visit was with Grandpa B@ker. Brad's mom was a little concerned, because Grandpa's hearing is going that he would miss out on all the lovely sounds Aria makes - and yes, he missed the cute happy coo-ing, BUT he certainly got to hear some of her wonderful noises that night! - more on that in a bit.

My sister's kids started calling my Opa & Oma "Opa-pa" and "Oma-ma" and I like that - so Aria visited with her Grandpa-pa B@ker at her Great-Uncle Ron and Great-Aunt Carol's place (they love it SO much to be Great aunts & uncles - all of the relatives on Brad's mom's side who've become great with Aria's arrival - they love it when we call them that a LOT - it doesn't make them feel OLD at all...right guys?) So, the whole gang was there (minus a few, including Aria's Grandparents, who stayed in Ottawa), and once she was passed around the circle a couple of times, she stopped at Grandpa-pa. Aria was a little fussy by this point in the trip (as she's almost never REALLY fussy) - there had been a lot of car rides and a lot of people, and this was a loud house full of many strangers, so Aria had been doing quite a bit of crying up to that point.


When Grandpa-pa held her she calmed right down and just stared at him. She grabbed onto the front of his shirt and looked up into his face, and Grandpa-pa held her for quite a while without her starting to fuss. It was really cool to see. **You'll notice she's wearing her "I love my Grandpa" bib, and we took a bit of tape, and added "GREAT" on in front of Grandpa**

You could tell she was well loved by him, and everyone there that night!

Bedtime Kisses from Grandpa-pa

Our Little Hiccup...

I've got a whole bunch of ideas on the go right now that need posts, so I'm going to keep working on them. First off, I thought I'd post this adorable video of Aria with hiccups. She still gets them, but these are much higher than they are now. It's amazing to see how much she's grown since then (this was still in the hospital), but she's still our little hiccup!!

She Just Keeps Going and Going

Aria is starting to develop more and more personality. It's fun watching her start to really interact with her world, to reach for stuff, and figure things out. We just attached a bunch of dangly toys to her car seat, and it was really cool how she fixated on them. We could hear her smacking them around in the backseat, and talking to them in her cute non-translatable way. Here's proof.

LOTS going on...

So not much time to write about any of it!! More will come soon. Nicole's getting married this weekend, soon I will have a new step-brother-in-law!! We've been enjoying spending time with family (dad & MaryAnna are down) and showing off Aria. She's been great! Opa and Nana (and her aunties) all love taking care of her, which I'm enjoying!

As well, I'm back working at the church more significantly, so that's requiring some interesting scheduling as well. It's good to get my brain working again, but it means my computer time is spent at the church rather than at home (thus, less time for blogging). I will do better, I promise!

Thinking about Stretch.

You know, some people ask me from time to time about Stretch. I still think about him / her (the "stretch" marks remind me for one thing). It's tough, if Stretch was around, Aria wouldn't be, but that doesn't make me miss my other little one any less. I think of Stretch as a him (perhaps because I wanted a boy first, Brad's the one who wanted a girl), and I think about the fact that my mom has a grandchild to play with up in heaven - she loves hugging grandchildren, so it's good my little stretch is up there so she has someone to read stories to.

Every time I hear about someone else losing a baby, it just breaks my heart again, to become part of this club isn't something I'd wish on anyone - but I feel blessed to be able to talk to people about it, nonetheless.

Something interesting to mention is that the time when we started telling people we were expecting Aria was right on Stretch's due date (which made that day a little easier to handle), and the day after Aria's birth was the day we started the miscarriage - so Aria's a sweetheart for taking care of her mommy even before she knew she was doing it (ok, so GOD also had a big part to play, and I'm glad he did).

I want all my friends & family to know that I don't forget their little loved ones, and that I DO love them all, even though I never got to meet them. For Laverne, Stretch, Acorn & Blip, and a few others whose names I didn't know, I cry for you all from time to time, and I look forward to meeting you and hugging you in heaven, where you're all playing together and where you can show me around.

In memory of...

In Ontario...

It's been great to be in Ontario visiting with family & friends. Aria has been absolutely amazing! We're both just so proud of her. Her grandpa put her to bed in her crib tonight (she's got her own room with a crib & change table, as well as having a stroller at Grandma & Grandpa's - what a blessing!!) and she went to sleep pretty quick - and I could hang out in the basement with Brad (which means sleep now a days).

There are so many stories to tell that I can't think of any of them right now. Aria was amazing on the plane - slept all night, even through a change of planes at 4am. Other than the three poopy diapers she was a rock star(minus the drug trips and womanizing...manizing??)!! We celebrated mom & dad's anniversary on Sunday and saw Aria's great-great aunt Ruth today. Aria's been making great sounds, many that sounds like words, a few are something that sounds like hello, mom and hi. Today Aunt Ruth said "hi" and she said "Hi" right back! How funny!

She's just about giggling right now - mom SAYS she heard her giggle - cascading tiers of giggles followed by catching her breath and doing it again. Of course no one heard her but mom...so I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not it's true. She hasn't done it since...

On Friday I'll be visiting with Dad & the B* family and showing Aria her Oma's special spot. I get teary just thinking about it, but it's the reality of what our family lives with, and I look forward to telling her about her Oma as she gets older, just like dad used to tell us stories about my Opa.

She's such a joy, and sharing her with all the family out here has been such a joy. Thanks, mom & dad J for the opportunity!

More stories as I think of them!

We Are Cousins, Hear Us Squawk!

Aria is on the left, Silas in on the right. Not seen (but certainly heard!) are three parents doing all manner of ridiculous things in the (mostly) vain hope to attract their child's attention.

The Latest

I'm working on some new lighting techniques. This requires a lot of practice, and thinking it through too. The hardest part about this is trying to make the light look subtle, and work with the background. I'm not totally happy with this yet (though Aria and Deb did their parts). One problem was that by the time we got set up, daylight was all but gone. But I'm getting there. This was all achieved with two flashes and the fading ambient sunlight.