Farewell Toronto

Today is our last day in Toronto. Danny's last day of Fellowship, our last day living downtown, our last day in the hustle and bustle of it all.

It's rather bittersweet I might say. We knew our time here was temporary but we still tried our darndest to make it feel like our home for the past year. So today I'm feeling rather nostalgic looking back at all that has happened and saying goodbye.

Goodbye Toronto. Goodbye gorgeous sky-high view of the city and water. I'll miss watching the planes and boats and busses and birds and clouds. Goodbye streetcars, subway trains, honking traffic, fire-engines and ambulances roaring down the street every half hour. Goodbye to watching helicopters land just blocks away from our home. Goodbye construction noise and cranes that changed our landscape by the week.

Goodbye to our colourful and wonderfully diverse neighbourhood that offered us with endless eateries, museums, coffee shops and crowded grocery stores. Goodbye to the many lovely people who held the door open for this new mom with her stroller and to the interesting folks who said 'it would be okay if her baby was on drugs because he's so cute.'

Yeah.

Goodbye to our condo - to Ben's first home. We enjoyed time by the pool and up on the rooftop terrace with new friends. Goodbye to our concierge who were amongst our first familiar faces in this foreign city. Goodbye neighbours who never closed their blinds at night and provided us with plenty of eye-brow raising moments. Goodbye to the ill-placed fire alarm that went off every. single. time. I opened the oven door. You, my noisy friend, definitely won't be missed.

We celebrated a year's worth of birthdays and holidays here and even tried our hand at entertaining (despite very limited seating options). We enjoyed exploring and showing off the many things our city had to offer including the horrible traffic jams often endured to get there.

It wasn't always easy and there were plenty of challenges along the way but I'm so glad for our time here. I'll look back with (mostly) fond memories. It was a good year, no, a great year.

Until next time.

Six Months: Rolling & Solids

Six Months. Half a Year. And what a half-year it has been!

I find myself having to look back at previous monthly posts to remember which milestones Ben has hit as they come so fast and then seem like they've been here forever. The big ones for this month include rolling over at every opportunity (making diaper changes a fun challenge), hanging out on his tummy (no longer hates it), pushing his bum into the air while trying to get his knees under him and trying to crawl. He'll scuttle a few inches to reach for a toy or put his pacifier into his mouth (albeit backwards sometimes) but it looks like we might have a crawler after all!

We started incorporating rice cereal into Ben's diet and he absolutely loved it the first time around. The next few attempts were ho hum but the strained/pureed peas and carrots were a big hit. Slowly trying new foods, fingers crossed that there are no allergies. We'll see.

Ben also started making strange which made for a couple awkward moments but I know it is just a phase. Pretty soon he'll want nothing to do with his parents so I'll enjoy the clinginess while it lasts.

Sleep has taken a step backward with Ben waking 3 or 4 times a night. He seems to be in some discomfort over his teeth (which still haven't surfaced by the way). I feel like the girl who cried 'teeth' and yet we still have nothing to show for it apart from red cheeks and soaked bibs.

The past month has been busy for fairly obvious reasons (being our last month in TO) and Ben has been handling it like a champ. We enjoyed a nice Father's Day hitting up our favorite Sunday lunch spot and presenting Dad with a couple of sentimental gifts. We picked out a new set of wheels that should be a bit more 'kid friendly', enjoyed a few dinners with extended family, met some new friends on the rooftop terrace and attended our first birthday party for our sweet friend, Elea, who turned 1. We said goodbye to our worldly possessions as they were loaded up onto a big truck and shipped cross-country and we're now 'roughing it' for the next few days on an air mattress in an otherwise bare condo.

Big transitions ahead!

Things as of Late

OMG is the baby asleep?... is he still asleep?

We have entered the phase of teething and I'm not going to lie, it has been rough at times. The amount of drool is astounding and unfortunately with that constant wet stream comes some very chapped cheeks (and now neck and chest). We're doing our best to keep him clean and dry but it is such an uphill battle. New shirts, new bibs, teething toys (Sophie!), soothing lotion and moisture barriers, night time swaddles, mittens to keep the scratching at bay, great big bandaids to cover the open wounds when the mittens fail. 

And then there's the sleep issue. This poor kid fights sleep like it's the plague! I'm not sure if it's because he's itchy or sore or overtired or just plain restless but I really feel like we're back to the early days of getting up every couple hours at night and then spending 2 hours trying to lull him into a 30min nap during the day. We've tried gripe water and the occasional dose of Tempra which help a bit but I don't think there is a perfect cure no matter how much I try to find one. I know this is just a phase but some days I feel completely burnt out. I try not to complain too much when Danny comes home from his own long day of work but more often than not I just hand him the baby. "Here, you deal with him now." We take shifts which helps a but still isn't ideal. 

I'm not sure which one fell asleep first but I wasn't going to wake either of them up!

Side note: One of the fairly obvious things I've learned since becoming a parent is that despite your best efforts and intentions you can't control everything!

Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a Debbie Downer rant because (a) nobody wants to read about the problems every other parent faces and (b) my mom reads this blog and I don't want her to get worried. We'll be fine... it's just not always a butterflies and roses type of day.

Apart from the teething we've been winding up our time here in TO. I had a few things on my 'bucket list' that we were able to cross off. Fortunately we've been having fairly decent weather lately so the stroller is out in full force. We've made a few trips to Chinatown and surrounding area to indulge in the cravings that can only be satisfied on Spadina Avenue. We made an afternoon out of the Hockey Hall of Fame and posed along side the Stanley Cup. I spent a few hours atop our rooftop terrace taking in the skyline from all different angles. We even tried a new restaurant where I found my 'new favourite soup'. If it weren't for the move I know we would be regulars.

There are still a few things I want to cross of my list but if we don't get them all done that's okay too. I have to remind myself to stop wishing away time (It will get better as soon as the teeth pop through or I can't wait until we have a back yard to play in) because at the end of the day there will always be struggles to deal with and there will always be adventures to enjoy. It's just part of finding the balance in life; taking the good with the bad and embracing what you have. 

And at the end of the day I've got it pretty darn good.