Where Comedy blog meets Julia blog :-)

Here's the public link to the most recent pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50834&l=2f5c1&id=562630970
(note-this is a new link. The last one, it appears, was not the "public" link)

Julia and I (Marie-France) just returned from 5 days in Halifax at the Halifax Comedy Fest, where she was, in many ways, the star of the Fest! We made lots of new friends and we've discovered she really does best in environements where she gets to be social. She loves meeting new people, but won't let just anyone hold her (which makes mommy feel very good, of course!) We took her into numerous comedy clubs, with YukYuk's being our favorite because they had a decent Green room where she slept for a couple of hours every night. She wouldn't fall asleep there, though. Oh, no. For that, we had to go into the Comedy room where every one was laughing, hooting and hollering and the comics were shouting into the microphone! Then when she was asleep I would bring her to the green room, where one of the comics helped me build a "crib" out of chairs, and I would lay her down there while I listened to the rest of the show through the partly opened door.

The first night, she fell asleep at the club and kept sleeping until we got back to the place where we were staying, about half an hour's drive from the club. Then she woke up and for an hour and a half while I tried to sleep, she stood on my bed with her hands on my hip, LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY! It was too cute!

I was concerned that when we got back to the Island after the Fest we'd have some sleep issues (we had a few just before we left) but instead, we have had two delightful nights of peaceful slumber (knock on wood!). We are able to put her in her crib awake. She jabbers for about a minute and in about 2 minutes, she's out! We are very happy about that! :-)

We've discovered we have bad nights when we expose her to anything chinese: food, people, language, etc. When we do, she's up during the night for about an hour and a half with something ressembling about 75% of a night terror and where we try to console her but everytime she looks at us, she pushes us away. It's tough for us to keep those things out of our lives but for now we have to. For her sanity and ours.

Food has been a bit of a challenge, but we're starting to find out what she likes and dislikes and have learned to generally keep trying when there is something she doesn't like.

She is finally letting me do a bit of work during the day, which is nice. She screamed at me everytime I approached the computer for a while.

We have learned so much about the resources available in our community, such as Baby and Me groups, and toy libraries, and are taking full advantage of any free or inexpensive activity that allows us to get out of the house. Julia's been to movies too, and is a real pro at making sure people don't even know she's there :-) (or is it me who is a pro at it? lol)

Craig is finding it tough to not be with her as much but as soon as my busier property season starts, I'll be back in the office full-time and he'll be taking parental leave.

I continue to find it amazing how all of our girls are absolutely perfectly suited to us and our lifestyles. Obviously, some changes to our lives are required, but I am amazed how every one of these girls are perfect for their respective families!

For those of you who understand French, here is a link to an article about us in the Island's French language newspaper:

http://www.lavoixacadienne.com/pdf_2008/avril_23_2008.pdf