My big goals for 2012

I love this time of year. Christmas break was lovely. The boxing week sales were lovely. Then we had another long weekend with New Years, which also happened to be my birthday. It almost seemed like too much was going on. It was definitely nice to have Jean-Louis home so many days with us. Tristan is so attached to his dad! I call him the "daddy magnet." Just the way the stat holidays worked out this year, Tristan actually didn't get to go to daycare much this December. The past couple of weeks felt like a staycation :) Jean-Louis and Tristan would spend hours every day playing Lego. And I fear this is only the beginning. Now that the break is over, there won't be another long weekend until April. April! They really should spread out the holidays more.

It's January and everyone is talking about goals and resolutions. I actually didn't make any for this year. I think this is the first year that I haven't. What we did in the past was actually pretty silly. Before midnight every December 31st, Jean-Louis and I would write each others resolution and then discuss them before adjusting and adding our own goals to them. Then we would file it away and never look at them again until December 31st the following year. So silly.

I have a few definite goals in mind for the year but I'm just going to keep them in mind :) I will try to consistently remind myself of them and this way I will more or less do them. Here are a few of my 2012 goals that I don't mind sharing:

1. Eat more whole foods (i.e. organic, local)
2. Eat more legumes, beans, vegetables
3. Eat less red meat (e.g. pork, beef, lamb)
4. Resume iPhone app work & get on board development
5. Launch at least one more iPhone app
6. Run my 2nd marathon (1st one after childbirth)
7. Speak more French with Tristan
8. Meet another virtual friend in person

My marathon goal alone makes this year a very ambitious one for me! I'm kind of scared of this one actually. Two of the things on my bucket list are to run a marathon and then run it again after childbirth. It's time to stop procrastinating and coming up with excuses so I want this year to be the year I can cross that item off! Because it will be over 9 years since I ran my first marathon, my goal is just to complete the race. Besides, I'm old now:)

Happy New Year!

Daddy wants "me time" to do a hackathon

Tristan is in daycare three days a week so I get plenty of me time since I don't work on UI stuff or do housework for a full three days. Jean-Louis doesn't get that as much since he has a full time day job. We both have time after 9:30PM when Tristan goes to sleep to do whatever we want as well. He usually codes and I usually read news or work on videos.

Okay so without making it seem like we're both confined to always being together and not being able to do anything alone, Jean-Louis likes to take me time away from the family to do something fun other than his day job. He feels like he has given up a lot of favorite pastimes already and he needs to be able to do fun things like tweet-ups without us tagging along. Last year, he went on long bike rides by himself. Sure, I get that. I don't really like that he misses a day away from Tristan on the weekend but alright. He spends a lot of time with Tristan at night already but I know Tristan is always asking for his daddy when he is not around. And of course, I wouldn't mind the help either :)

Tomorrow, Jean-Louis is going to get his me time alone by going to a hackathon for iPhone game development. He is meeting up with a few of his Tweeple and they will code from 9-5. He has been organizing it for a couple of weeks now. They found some office space to hold the meetup and he asked me to make him cookies for the event. Now, how can I turn down a chance to make more sugar cookies? In fact, we haven't had any since Valentines!

After some planning and slaving in the kitchen, the geek cookies turned out just like how I had pictured it. Now that I think about it, they are nothing special and they were all rather simple designs but how often do you get to draw game graphics on a cookie? :)

With 8 hours of development time ahead of them, I think they could use some of these to munch on, don't you?

Portraits of Tristan via "Paint it!" Now

Mall ice cream truck through the 8mm vintage camera

Mall ice cream truck through the 8mm vintage camera from Mommying Around on Vimeo.

How we are preparing for a long flight with our toddler

I have read articles about traveling with small children. I have spoken to many other moms on Twitter who have traveled with their kids. There is plenty we can do to make our long 20 hour journey more pleasurable with our 18 month old. First, I think we just need to be very organized and plan things well. That's my department so like most of my projects, I research and make sure I have enough time to figure and plan everything out.

There are a few tips I am following from the article "Fly and cry: Babies divide air travelers." Specifically, I'm going to do the following:

• Because of the change in cabin pressure, I'm going to make sure Tristan's water bottle is nearby so that I can let him drink when we take off or when we make our initial descent. In fact, we're going to offer him water constantly because the air is dry and he'll be thirsty.
  
• We're not going to drug Tristan. I know a lot of people do but I don't feel good about it at all. I can understand how some parents would be tempted though. Maybe if we remember, we will ask our doctor about it on Tuesday to see what she thinks and what she can recommend that would be safe.
• We're bringing along familiar toys and books from home, and we'll be taking shifts walking around the plane with him every so often. We'll do this even if he doesn't cry.
• We're bringing along new toys he has never seen before. I will wrap a few of them so that he can enjoy opening them.
• We'll both have our iPod and iPhones and all of Tristan's favorite music will be on it.
• We will try our best to quiet Tristan when he is too loud or is crying. As the article points out, "if other people see you trying, even if you're not succeeding, they will feel at least you're ... doing your best to stop it. And they'll have some sympathy for you."
• We have lots of snacks! Some are old favorites and others are fairly new. We have tested all the new snacks on him already but have only given them once or twice so he may not even remember. I may even wrap a box and put some snacks inside just for fun :)
  
• In case of emergency, we'll have backup outfits for everyone. And of course, we will all be dressed comfortably and for Tristan it will be clothes we can remove easily.
  

Since we're not purchasing a separate seat for Tristan and he sits with us, he won't be receiving a meal. I'm going to pack him a couple of meals and he can eat some of our food as well. I'm still trying to figure out what the best food should be though. I'm going to ask if the airline will let us borrow their fridge. If not, we will feed Tristan earlier and then give him lots of snacks like bread and fruit. We're allowed to bring as much milk as we need as well but the problem is we may need quite a bit and I'm worried that it may go bad if we can't borrow a fridge. Freezing milk and his meal has crossed my mind but I'm still not sure. I'm definitely going to make him cream cheese and salmon sandwiches since I know he loves that and he can eat that at room temperature. Once I contact the airline with all my food questions, I'll have a better idea of what to do.

The airline we are flying with, Air Transat, has a Kids Club parents can join to register their kids. If you register, you get a traveling bag for your child that includes activity books, games, colorful headphones etc. Fill in the information online and they will mail you your welcome kit. However, the club is for 2-11 year olds so I don't think Tristan will qualify for it :( I think he is old enough to enjoy some of those things so I may ask about this too. It seems like they may also give out the bags at the check-in counter.

Once we leave the house for our trip, our entire routine will go out the window. Well, I hope not everything so I'm going to program multiple alarms on my iPod. With our iPhone and iPod Touch, we will be able to view the times in both Paris and Vancouver at the same time. In fact, we can add as many different cities as we would like so we can see the time differences. Based on Vancouver time, I'm going to program meal, nap, and diaper times for Tristan. This way I won't have to worry about that at all :)

What daycare has given baby and me

Tristan has been in daycare full time for 4 1/2 months now. In that time, I have learned and done many things. The 2-3 months were quite bad because either he was sick, I was sick or Jean-Louis was sick. In fact, we were averaging about 5 missed days of daycare every month due to sickness. Those missed days do not count the weekends, many of which Tristan was also sick. Sick or not, I still got to relax and catch up on much needed sleep. Prior to daycare, I was home alone with Tristan for 13 months. We barely went out and we had pretty much no social interaction at all. I was tired and a bit insane. Now, everything has changed.

Daycare has brought social interaction and play into Tristan's life. He is learning how to share and wait for attention. He paints, does craft, and receives lots of exercise. He is well liked at daycare and that makes us very proud. I also like to think that he is building some kind of immunity from being sick all the time from their germ-infested environment :) The most important thing is that he is happy and having fun. Farewell boredom at home!

For myself, I have been able to concentrate on work a bit more. I have increased my contracting hours a bit but I mostly work for myself creating iPhone applications. When I'm not working, I do fun things such as tweeting, blogging, assembling baby books, and organizing personal photo libraries and home videos. I also do not-so-fun things such as cleaning. I spend more time cooking too but I love to cook :)

In the past month or so, I have also been taking better care of my health. Actually, that was one of my initial goals when daycare started. I have reduced my sugar intake and am now running about three times a week. It's crazy to think that I used to eat chocolate, cake, or cookies every day for almost a year! But I kind of needed it back then :( In addition to running now, I bring Tristan to and from daycare during the day and that adds around 40 minutes of walking. I shouldn't really count that but compared to the past year, that bit of exercise is actually making a difference. As a result of my new found time since daycare, I feel physically stronger, am not tired anymore, less stressed, happier, and in control again. Thank you daycare!

Contraction Tracker USA is the result of patent infringement

As some of you may know, my husband and I build iPhone apps. Our first app in the iTunes store was the Contraction Tracker. Its one year anniversary in iTunes is actually coming up :) Recently, we released a version of the Contraction Tracker for the USA that is exactly the same as the original version, minus one feature. What I'm about to talk about is actually a common problem. If you are an iPhone Developer or any software Developer, you may benefit from hearing about our experience.

In the Fall of last year, we were contacted by someone who owned a patent for an alert system to be used in timing labor contractions. We have been discussing his patent and how it relates to our Contraction Tracker for something like 7 months. When he was finally clear at what exactly our application was infringing on, we decided to remove it so that we could both move on. This is the first time we have ever been in this position. We had no idea we would run into patent issues building something so simple such as a contraction timing application.

A guy that I contract for is recently applying for a US patent so I have been talking with him about some of these matters. Apparently, lawyers tell companies never to do patent searches. The reason is if you find a patent that you cannot avoid with technical workarounds, then you are stuck. You can't go ahead because that would then be willful infringement, which carries even more damages. You also can't license the patent for a reasonable price, because the other party knows they have you over a barrel. The very fact that you bothered to ask for a license gives away the fact that you do not have a technical workaround for the patent. If you never do a patent search, then by definition any infringement is not willful, so you are not liable to treble damages. These were his words and I am still very new at all this. The problem seems to be the patent system.

We removed the alert feature from our original Contraction Tracker and released the app as a separate new app just for the US store. We did this because there was no simple way of updating the app for one country. By releasing a new app, everyone who had already purchased the app in the US would not be affected. We also get to continue selling the original app everywhere else in the world. The alert feature is a minor feature but a nice one to have. It is actually disabled by default and from what I hear, a lot of people may not even know about it. It definitely does not define our app and removing this feature from all future sales in the US store should not affect things so much. Or will it?



Contraction Tracker USA has been out for a week and sales have dropped dramatically. The main reason we think is because we lost all of our previous ratings and reviews. We have a note saying that this is not a new app and if users click through to our website, they will be able to see a screenshot of the ratings and reviews before we submitted the US version. Again, this is the same app, minus a minor feature. What do we do now? Well, we just have to wait until more people purchase our app and submit new ratings and reviews.

Part time daycare begins in June

Hooray! Today was a good day. We got the news that Tristan will be able to go from full time daycare to part time daycare. That is what we wanted all along but since full time was available in January, I had to take it so that he would get in. Tristan will remain in the infant room for the month of June but will then move into the toddler room in July.

I am so pleased about June because we actually go away so it's perfect. A mom of one of the boys in the infant room just had another baby at the end of April. When they told me their mom wanted him at daycare full time now, I offered the swap. Their boy is in there 3 days a week and that was exactly what I wanted. Yay!

Although I still get to spend lots of time with Tristan every day even when he goes to daycare now, I feel bad not spending more. The past few months has been great and relaxing for me but honestly, I didn't need that much of a break. I don't do enough contract work to justify having him there full time right now. I know that may change down the road but I figure I can work smarter rather than longer :) What I made from my work never covered the month's daycare bill. Sad, I know :( Now, that he will be in daycare 3 days a week we will only be paying $798 every month instead of $1143. I can still do the same amount of work I already do so we will indeed be saving money. I am so relieved because June will be a terrible month for us. Not only are we traveling but we have big strata levies to pay. Ugh, I hate big bills!

In July, Tristan will be going into the toddler room, along with most of the other babies. They are all about the same age and during the summer, there is a big migration of kids at the daycare. The daycare only supports kids up to 5 years old so all of those kids will leave and everybody shifts up. I was told about 50 kids were getting moved between July and August. Basically, if I wanted full time, part time 2 days, or part time 3 days, I would likely get it right away. My preference was 3 days a weeks so that's what I got. That also means that any chance of me trying to find a full time job goes out the window. I'm okay with that as long as I can work on more contracts and get more iPhone app work out there. The future is still a big unknown for me.

Baby plays with iPhone & iPod touch

We are on our iPhone and iPod Touch a lot throughout the day and so naturally, the baby is trying to imitate us. He has his own iPod Touch since we own a 1st generation iPod Touch and we each have better ones now. At 16 months, he is actually getting quite good at operating it. He knows how to unlock, how to tap on apps, scroll and flip pages in all directions, and likes to type. Now, he even plays Ramp Champ (well, sort of) :) He enjoys looking at pictures of himself as well.

In the past, he would just steal our devices and press on the power button on and off for the fun of it. Somehow he would take numerous screenshots in the process and every time I plugged my device to my computer, iPhoto would open. That was annoying! Now that he knows how to unlock the device, sometimes he puts the screen in edit mode and moves applications around. He may have even deleted some but I have so many apps I wouldn't even know. Luckily, I have all my apps backed-up on iTunes :)

Word of warning: don't leave a 16 month old unsupervised with your mobile device for more than a few minutes at a time, unless you don't care:)

Speaking of apps and iPhones, this weekend we visited the Apple store at Oakridge Mall in Vancouver. Here is a photo we snapped of our little future app Developer:

What a 500 day old baby boy looks like :)

500 days old sounds way cooler than 16 months old. In the early afternoon, Jean-Louis accidentally checked in on an iPhone app we bought a long time ago when we were trying to countdown all of our important dates and discovered that Tristan was going to turn 500 days in 2 hours. Talk about nice accident and he caught it just before he turned 500 days too. I spent the rest of the day thinking how cool that was. If I knew sooner, I would have made a party out of it :) Happy 500th-day birthday little Tristan!

Fancy iPhone photo effects

You may have noticed a few of the pictures I have put up on my posts lately look a little strange. Well, they are strange but I don't have any others so I had to put those up. There are iPhone apps you can use to take photos with all sorts of effects but the problem is that you can't see them in its original form. Some are indeed cool and the photos are processed right away with the effects so you can tweet or blog using them in real time. It's really fast. All these effects can also be done quite easily with Photoshop but then that takes time. Jean-Louis has been playing around with Hipstamatic and other similar apps and a few have turned out pretty neat. I'm still sad you can't see the original shots without the effects though :(



Eating at the table:

Twitter CEO's wife Sara used the Contraction Tracker

Today, we are excited to find out that Sara, Twitter CEO Evan's wife, used our iPhone app to time and track her labor contractions. She went into labor yesterday and tweeted "The Contraction Tracker was fun until the contractions got painful." It's not the first time someone has tweeted during their labor but these guys are the founders of Twitter so the entire Twitterverse was listening. I store a search on "contraction tracker," in case we get feedback from users on Twitter and it was loaded with updates this morning. Wow! I also noticed news articles popping up talking about it too. Very cool.

If you ever want visibility for your app, have someone of importance use it and then tweet or blog about it. So lucky to have it happen for us. She chose us over the dozen or so contraction apps in the App Store. We must be doing something right :)

Hope Sara is doing well. I feel for her. Her water broke first, just like mine did. I hear that contractions come harder and is more painful when that happens. I had horrible contractions every 3-5 minutes from the start and it lasted nearly 12 hours. So glad I'm not there anymore!

Contraction Tracker app for your labor contractions

When I was near the end of my pregnancy with Tristan, I had the idea of creating an app for us to use to time and record my contractions for when labor strikes. Jean-Louis wanted to get into the iPhone development business so I suggested that we make something we could use right away. Timing contractions is fairly simple and it was the perfect entry app for us. It actually turned out to be not that simple. After a lot of brainstorming, research, UI design, development, and testing, our Contraction Tracker app is finally in the iTunes app store.

What does it do? Well, it is more than just a contraction timer. It times, records, and plots your labor contractions. It also tells you whether you are in pre-labor, early, active, or transition labor and it alerts you at the recommended time you are supposed to head to the hospital. There are other small features too and you can change your settings at any time.

So far, we are pleased with how it is doing in the app store. We have been selling several apps every day. This is such a niche market so it's great.

For more details, check out the Contraction Tracker on our website.

1st iPhone app party

It was not the best weekend to host the party since most of our friends could not make it but we still had a blast. We had our first BBQ of the summer in our newly cleaned patio. The patio could still be cleaner but at least we can see the dirt now :) For the barbecue, we made hamburgers, based off a meatball recipe from our Greek cookbook. We also had hot dogs, beef and lamb skewers, and smoked zucchini and bacon. That was all we had on the grill - honest! On top of that we had nachos with cheese dip, potato chips, vegetable pasta salad, and cake. We had a herb salad too but I forgot to prep it. Anyway, with such few guests, we now have food for the week. That's great for us!

It didn't rain and it turned out to be a beautiful day. Jean-Louis started out cooking but then the hamburgers started to fall apart since he was pressing on them too much. After that, I had to take over. Unfortunately, all the hamburger pieces at the bottom of the grill created a lot of smoke and then came the fire. It was hard to control. It was definitely a good thing I took over! Barbecuing is just not Jean-Louis' thing. Actually, cooking is just not Jean-Louis' thing :)

For Tristan, he got to smell the great BBQ food and he got to socialize. We fed him milk and mashed pears. One day, he will get to enjoy all of the great BBQs I will make for us. Until then, he'll have to eat all the boring baby food I make.

We're in! Our 1st iPhone app is now available

The iPhone app we started to build back in October (?) has finally been released in the iTunes Store. With the arrival of Tristan, we thought we would never finish the thing but we did it! Check out the Contraction Tracker in the iTunes Store near you :)

I will have to blog more about it later. We found out about its release early in the week and have been scrambling to update the website and fix things online. I'm still having problems switching servers with our hosting company. We're slowly working on promoting the app as well since this is really our window of opportunity. We've already buzzed about it on Twitter and now it's my turn to blog a bit about it :) Without much promotion, we have already sold quite a few units. We are surprised but maybe it's not too surprising since it's considered high season right now for having babies, no? I'm so glad to see that so many people have chosen our app over the 10 or so others that do a similar thing in the app store. I'm really looking forward to reading some reviews.

I'm also planning a celebration party for our 1st app. It's taking place tomorrow. The cake was ordered early in the week and we're likely going to have a barbecue. I have to finalize the menu today and then grocery shop this evening. So much to do today but it's okay because for the first time in days, we actually had a good night sleep. So glad the heat wave is gone!

Mother's Day is to blame for doing too much this weekend

Today is chore and recovery day. Both Tristan and I got off our routine this weekend and we need to get back on. This weekend was the first time we went out for like 5 days. Instead of taking it easy with just one outing and some small activities, we went out a lot and we're pooped.

On Saturday, we went walking for like 3 hours and we were sweating bullets since we overdressed. Then, I spent too much time cooking so we could have a nice meal. Tristan is not used to being at places that are too noisy or that have too many people. He doesn't know where to look and is easily over stimulated. He fussed so much we had to use the pacifier many times! When we go outside of the mall, he calms down but when he fusses again, it's because he's tired. He didn't nap much this weekend at all and didn't sleep much at night so he's been rather cranky. In fact, he's having a hard time napping right now. Again, too much going on and he's not used to it. Neither am I. I'm so glad to be staying home today.

We did have a nice meal on the weekend. We had lots of junk food and sweets but I also made us some fresh food. I made spanakopita for appetizers and mushroom and white truffle fettucine. It was a vegetarian weekend. So vegetarian that I had to sneak in a few breaded chicken strips just to have a bit of meat. I grew up eating lots and lots of meat, what can I say?

On Sunday, I got to sleep in - that's a good enough Mother's Day gift for me! However, I woke up to Tristan crying in his crib and Daddy telling me that our iPhone app got rejected. Great. It turned out there was a minor issue and we fixed it right away and resubmitted it. Unfortunately, we will probably have to wait another week before we hear back. That's how it goes apparently. Not a big deal for us since our contract is still in review. The app could be approved and ready for sale but it won't be in the store since our contract is not in effect yet. We should have started this long ago, I know. I will need to blog about that later so that others don't do the same.

We took lots of pictures this weekend. I wanted to dress Tristan up before he grows out of his nice French clothes. We also needed more pictures outside of the house, for a change of scenery. We got some great shots for our May gallery. You would think that since Tristan is almost 6 months old now, we ought to be taking fewer pictures but we haven't slowed down one bit. I think he's cuter now than when he first arrived. He won't look like this again. It's fun. I love taking pictures. Organizing and playing with the pictures isn't top priority right now though.

Hope you all had a nice Mother's Day. Mine was hectic but good. It was my first Mother's Day and I initially wanted a party but then, that would have just made it more hectic :)

Another productive weekend - can this keep up?

Tristan did not sleep well last night. His ability to sleep better at night is deteriorating or something. When he first goes down to sleep, he usually sleeps around 3-4 hours straight before waking up. Then he'll sleep maybe another hour and then we have to rock him or give him the pacifier. This repeats another 4-5 times before we actually get up. It seems to be his typical routine now but I'm not used to it. I wake up every morning feeling super sleepy and kind of jet lagged. Last night he woke up so frequently, we were both basically up since 4 AM. I think I may have had a 20 minute snooze somewhere in there. The entire time, I was trying to rock and hold him. Bringing him to bed with me did not work this time. I'm wondering when most babies start to sleep well at night? At this point, I'm starting to consider the crying it out method, at least some version of it. He'll be 6 months old later this month so he'll be more ready for it.

This past weekend was one of the most productive ones I've had. Saturday, I had a research meeting, then we submitted our iPhone app and then that night I got enough of our website done to make it live. On Sunday, I finished another page of the website, then we went shopping in Coquitlam. We finally bought our high chair for Tristan and some feeding tools. Every time we go to Baby's World, we always spend a ton of money. We also shopped at Babys R Us and Ikea. iKea just ended up being a food stop since the line up was too long. We didn't go grocery shopping really this weekend so we stopped by the Langley Farm Market on the way back and quickly grabbed a few fruits and vegetables (and a mango crumble pie!). When we are so busy, we don't eat well. We've been dining on frozen food and can food the past 3 days. On top of that, we have been snacking on junk food and sweets. I know it's terrible. I will make sure I cook something today.

Tristan sat in the high chair last night with us when we had dinner. The chair can do many things, which I like, but it's quite bulky too. Most of them are I suppose. We just have space issues at our place and there seems to be more baby things in the living room now than furniture for us. I will write a review for the high chair once we use it a bit more. Tristan is just sitting in it and playing for now. We're starting him on solid food in a couple of weeks.

First iPhone app just got submitted to Apple

Woohoo! We finally did it. The day has come. The iPhone app we started back in October has now been released and we are just waiting for its approval to the App Store. We're very excited!

Today, has been a crazy day. I had a research meeting this morning for almost 3 hours and then we did our submission online and then I worked quickly on our website to make it live as soon as possible. Still got one more major page to complete but it's basically ready. Phew! What a journey this has been. Will talk about it more soon since Tristan is starting to fuss in between my arms here. To be continued...

Already tired of being a stay at home mom

It's the same old thing over and over again but now, Tristan is more difficult. I'm tired of the same old routine in the house and tired of seeing the same toys and playing. I'm frustrated I can't get more work done and these days, I have to hold Tristan in my lap with a toy if I want to work more. He freaks out when I'm out of sight, even when I appear soon after or if I continue to talk to him while I'm in another room. He wants to be held a lot more too. Argg! It has been almost 5 months and I'm going a little nuts these days. I went from fast-pace crazy busy and getting lots done to this slow-pace, boring routine, just watching the clock waiting for Daddy to get home. Am I alone here?

I need to get out more. When I go out, like when I went for a walk and coffee with a friend the other day, the day went zooming by. That was nice. It was nice to socialize in person with the outside world too. Ok, now I must sound like a freak. I need to invite over more visitors too on days I stay home. Tristan is easier to take out now so I really should take him out more. When I do go out, I don't get much work done though and right now, work is quite important. I know, I'm a bit complicated :)

After the iPhone app is released and the website is done, I have to seriously look into daycare and babysitting for Tristan. I need a break from him so I can do other things like work and exercise. I think we both need to get away from each other :)

We have weekend plans that involve going out! This weekend and the next :) One day will be dedicated to working and chores and the other will be a fun day. If only weekends were longer.

Dressing your baby and staying at home... what's wrong with that?

Apparently, Halle Berry is a shopaholic when it comes to baby clothes. She shops online and buys more than what her 1 year old daughter can wear. Her boyfriend, Gabriel, tells her to stop since the baby doesn't even go outside. I actually do the same with Tristan. I change him out of his PJs and put him in his day clothes every day. What's wrong with that? I like to put nice things on him and it's important that they match too. Again, what's wrong with that?

Don't worry. The weather is improving so I'll start to take Tristan out for daily walks. I need to get out myself. I'm getting a bit sick of the same old thing at home. We spend most of the day in the office, living room, or bathroom. We play with the same toys and go through the same baby routines - it's starting to drive me crazy. How do stay-at-home moms bare it? At first, it was new and exciting, but now it feels a little old. I think it's also because Tristan's growth and development is slowing down.

I look forward to every Friday. Daddy is home for the weekend so I get a bit of a break. We normally go out to the mall or go for a walk so it's fresh air for all of us. Today, is the start of the weekend. Daddy will come home and be home for several days because of the Easter long weekend. It's Good Friday tomorrow and he's taking Monday off to work on our iPhone app. I'm hoping to work myself because once again, this week has gone by with very little work done. It won't be all work since my family will be coming over from Victoria. My parents will see Tristan again only for the third time.