yoo hoo - it's me again

so bad lately at this blog-updating thing. every time i go through a dry spell i vow that it's the last time. but suddenly we're halfway through january and what do you know?

we have had a good excuse, at least. we've been buying our first home and since we've always been content to pay our rent and spend our saturdays doing anything except real estate browsing, it's been a whole new experience. we found a great condo in new west and we are putting a deposit down on it tomorrow. we've done the preliminary paperwork (ah, so many poor trees) and have our mortgage approved and certainly many long stories, most of them stressful and not very interesting. once i feel more like everything is a sure-thing, i'll go into more details. hey, we'll be our own landlords! our current landlord brings us wine every once in a while, so i guess i'd better figure out where the liquor store is in new west. ;-)

First round of baby photos!

Our first three days and nights at home with Cole have been amazing. Not always very easy on the ears or alertness levels, but definitely full of love and new experiences along with some crying and lots of diapers and laundry!

We had our first outing on Thursday, to the Doctor's office. Cole has started to regain the weight he lost after birth and he only had a touch of jaundice, so the Doctor wasn't worried. He didn't even poop on the scale (Cole, that is, not the Doctor), which looked like a distinct possibility, given the fact that when he started filling those diapers earlier that day, it looked like it was his favourite thing to do!

We managed to make a couple pit stops (Capers, drug store) for a few essentials - me dashing around the store like a weirdo while Jamie broke the City's idling laws and kept the car running. Cole loves sitting in his car seat once the car is on (so far, anyway) and he sleeps through all the bumps and shifts. To get him to and from the car we are using our Peanut Shell sling. He really loves to be nestled inside it.

For the first night or two (or whatever - they blend together) he was a bit fussy for sleeping and we let him sleep on us quite a bit just so we could rest. Jamie was able to get him to sleep in the crib on Thursday night and we were able to catch some zzz's together. We were feeling pretty good about our skills after that day - an outing, a bath, sleeping in the crib...

But Friday was a day of great challenges for all three of us. Cole would not sleep during the day in his crib or anyplace else really at all and cried all day long, whenever he wasn't feeding, that is! Through some miracle though, he actually turned around at bedtime and slept for three consecutive three-hour shifts between feedings. Sweet relief!!! We are keeping our fingers crossed that we are learning some good techniques and we can repeat this again!

Mr. Cole says "No more pictures Mommy," on his rough day.

Best news ever!

Hoorah!!!!!!! If there was ever the right time to use seven exclamation marks, this is it!

PJs was born on Sunday, making us so very happy. And also providing himself the perfect opportunity for a name upgratde!

Cole Hudson joined us at 10:58 on Sunday, April 20, weighing 8lbs, 8.5 oz and measuring 55 cm long. He is beautiful, healthy and we are absolutely over-the-moon and in love with him.

This is a short post for such a momentous piece of news, but we are now resting comfortably at home, and getting into the swing of things. Having a baby in the house certainly makes for an entirely new experience, and I for one am quite impressed that I've only make about 200 typing errors while operating on about 2 non-consecutive hours of sleep in 24!

Thank you to everyone for your good wishes and support during our pregnancy. More news and photos to come shortly (he's already had more photos taken than many folks in Hollywood I'm sure!) - for now it's time for Cole's post-lunch, pre-dinner meal. :-)

Run, Al, run!

This was too important to simply post in the fridge, where it sits now along with a couple of funny tongue-in-cheek/serious articles that you may also enjoy.

OSLO, Oct. 12 — The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Al Gore, the former vice president, and to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work to alert the world to the threat of global warming.

The award immediately renewed calls from Mr. Gore’s supporters for him to run for president in 2008, joining an already crowded field of Democrats. Mr. Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, has said he is not interested in running but has not flatly rejected the notion. [more...] and [more...]

*Lost.* Ahem... Let's skip over that one now, shall we?

Anyone who hasn't seen his Oscar-winning documentary or is from the moon, check out An Inconvenient Truth, the movie that marks the moment much of the public became aware of his work on climate change. Out on DVD now. Walk to the video store and rent it. ;-)

The fridge

Since I love a good soapbox speech, I'll introduce a new feature area on the blog - the fridge... The name is derived from the familiar practice in homes everywhere of tacking up clippings of news articles of interest to the refrigerator door.

In the right hand column, (below "this week Jamie is:). I'll post links to various articles online that I find interesting... Right now it's just a couple of articles - one on the environment and another on an anti-war movie that won't be out until November, Redacted.

"The film's title refers to how, according to De Palma [the director], mainstream American newspapers and television channels are failing to tell the true story of the war by keeping the most graphic images of the conflict away from public opinion." -Reuters

Have a read! Or don't - it's your call, but they're there if you're interested and maybe going for a midnight snack. By the way - these two articles are kind of heavy, but I will also post some fun stuff too!!

Man, I could really do with an ice cold Pepsi...

Thirsty yet?

Here's a new and disturbing approach to subliminal advertising... It's not really any different from the targeted ads in any other communications medium - all magazines, tv shows etc sell ad space to producers of products typically consumed by the target market... I find the most disturbing part is that the majority of people won't know this and if they find out, won't even be disturbed.

Company Will Monitor Phone Calls to Tailor Ads
Companies like Google scan their e-mail users’ in-boxes to deliver ads related to those messages. Will people be as willing to let a company listen in on their phone conversations to do the same? [more...]