The Girards dot com

Archive for May, 2010

Although this site has been all about Alice, the site itself is not allaboutalice.com, it’s TheGirards.com. There are 2 other Girards in this immediate family and I thought this would be an appropriate place to share Kim’s great news. Last night Kim was awarded with CAMH’s “Transforming Lives” award at a beautiful gala, held on the grounds of CAMH , here in Toronto.

With 900 people in attendance, the evening was a huge success, bringing in over $800,000 to support CAMH. Of the 4 Transforming Lives recipients, Kim was one of them. And her speech, in my completely unbiased opinion, was the best of all. It had people laughing and crying with Kim’s amazing ability to speak. Seems only natural that she is making public speaking her full time career!

Here are some pictures from the festivities last night. Again… congatuations (inside joke) Kim… Alice & I love you very much and are very proud of you! 🙂

Whenever we pick up Alice from a nap, we a guaranteed a little burst of ‘sunshine’… a smelly little toot or two that she’s been saving up for us. Alice, actually, farts a LOT, and yet not enough. She gets so much gas that her tiny little belly gets all bloated and hard, and she cries. Loudly. In a way, these stinky little messengers are helpful; when they REALLY start to smell like she’s crapping her pants, it means she’s about to do just that. Handy, huh? Sadly (happily?), Alice has only been evacuating her bowels once a day, or less. 🙁 While our pediatrician assures us that none of this will stop our little girl from being wildly successful in life, it’s probably hurting her a bit, and, frankly, I can’t imagine it will make her any little friends at the park, either. So, we’re trying two new sample formulas. The first has reduced lactose and partially-broken down proteins; preliminary results indicate that this gives Alice a) no relief and b) runny poop. <sigh> The second sample is completely lactose-free. We’ll keep you posted on how things turn out and/or come out (and I’m sure you’re delighted about that). 🙂

When it comes to formula, it seems that I’ve been lucky I haven’t killed Alice yet, or at least caused her leg to rot off or something. Example? I heard from a public health nurse that we have to mix the powder while the water is at near-boiling temperatures in order to sterilize the powder, which does not/cannot come sterilized from the formula factory. As such, I’ve been burning off my fingerprints trying to spare Alice disease… only to find out earlier today that the water should be at room temperature for mixing, as having it too warm will deteriorate some of the nutrients or some friggin’ thing. Next? I was told that we could feed Alice pre-made formula up to 24 hours old so long as she (or any hungry bystander) hasn’t actually had the nipple in her/his mouth (which triggers the end of the sterilization). So, for our roadtrip to Windsor, we keep a couple of bottles in the car at room temperature, and fed her one after a couple of hours, then another when we got to Windsor a couple of hours later. Alas, I am a BAD MOTHER. 🙁 Turns out you’re only allowed to have ’em out of the fridge for two hours, period, until they’re disease-ridden kill-your-baby meals, and only for one hour once the ol’ nipple is violated (we’ve been using them up to two whopping hours after this point). How, then, am I supposed to make it on, say, a five hour trip to anywhere?? Someone on the interwebs suggested bringing bottles of sterilized water and then adding formula as necessary, which is great, except that the same time limits apply to sterilized water, with or without the formula added. So, I just don’t get it. Then again, if Alice has lived this long with all my gaffes, we might as well switch her to diet coke or something. She’s tough. 😛

Below: Sometimes Rob lets me hold his camera!

This morning Kim left to go shopping with Toni, a friend of hers (and mine!). So what happens when the cat’s away? Hell ya, the mice will play! So that’s what Alice, Daddy & Sally did – photog stylez!

Alice has decided her 6 week growth spurt has started and her hunger has picked back up again, demanding to be fed every 1.5 – 2 hours. In between the rigorous feeding schedule, Alice and her Daddy and Sally decided to play photoshoot again. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

The last couple shots of Alice are her in her swing that Grandma & Opa gave her way back while she was still a zygote. We tried it out for the first time yesterday (she was too small for it before) and it works great! The pics I posted are before and after…. insert crying baby, wait 2 mins, observe happy baby. Rinse & Repeat 🙂

We have survived not only Alice’s first major growth spurt, but her first major road trip as well! This past weekend had the family loaded into the car and headed down to Windsor. Our main purpose was to provide some love and support to “Aunty Laura,” whose now-ex boyfriend will be singing the “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone” song for the rest of his life… but that’s another story for another blog. Mostly. Got me thinking about how Rob will react when Alice is a much older girl and someone breaks his little girl’s heart; it won’t be pretty. Hats off to both Laura’s dad and Rob for not causing anyone any physical injury this weekend!

The road trip itself was fairly smooth sailing. It’s weird to have Alice in her rear-facing car seat in the back and not be able to see her at all. We have to find a few minutes to hang up the mirror that a friend gave us for that purpose, to avoid pulling over and discovering that Alice’s head is leaning 90 degrees to the left or something. (Oops).  The trip is 3 1/2 – 4 hrs, which is just a bit too long for Alice, so we stopped once at a roadstop on the way down to feed and change Alice, and did something similar on the way back. During the second stop, we fed and changed her in the car — mostly. I was in the midst of changing Alice on the driver’s seat of my car when she decided to poop! Proud of my mothering instincts on this one: I grabbed the child (supporting her delicate neck, of course) and swung her into the air — poop land where it may! The seat of the car was spared. Alice was fine. Hurrah!

Anyhow – child is now crying. Love to you all!

Sally (our beagle) met Alice for the first time today. I was amazed at how interested Sally was in Alice, and how much she seemed to respect Alice. Beagles probably have the best smell of all breeds… so I wonder if she’s able to “smell” the genetic link between Alice, Kim and myself? I’ve seen Sally around other children and babies before, but she never seemed to like and respect the other kids/babies as much as she did Alice.

When Sally Met Alice...

There’s a good chance I’m viewing this through the eyes of a parent with their own dog and own child… but I really do think that Sally knew where Alice came from. Pretty weird! Do others have anything to share with respect to their own children & pets?

Anyway… can’t wait for Alice to grow up a bit and enjoy spending time with her puppies and kitties 🙂