Chester

Chester
Chester at 5:30 am on his 3 month birthday!

The Chester Diaries: Celebrating the feast and famine known as new motherhood.

Welcome to my blog! My name is Lara and I gave birth in April, 2010 to a baby boy. I've been calling him "Chester" since he was a little chestnut in my tummy. To commemorate his three month birthday, I wanted to write about the crazy, joyous and exhausting ride I've been having as a first-time mom. If you're interested in reading about the highs and lows of uncharted mommy territory as well as my unhealthy obsession with shopping, (particularly baby gear), reviews, and pop culture observations, then you've come to the right place. Be warned: This cute kid has a mommy who can be a bit of a potty mouth.

Note: This blog is no longer active but please enjoy Chester's journey from 3 months to 2+ years.


Friday, February 18

Cauliflopper

Our first outing with the Beaba was a complete success in the form of butternut squash.

Cauliflower? Meh. Not so much!


All I can say about this next reaction is, WOW! I guess there's a first time for everything. Pardon the shaky camera and wheezing. Apparently, kids making funny faces while eating turns me into a 90 year old man with emphysema.

Thursday, February 17

Crazy about Marilyn (sort of)

Not sure if it's because Chester is bored with his food or just easily distracted but I can't have cartoons or kids shows on when I'm feeding him.  I usually throw on the Marilyn Denis show to see if any of my friend Barb's segments are on.  Bad mistake.  Every time I do, Chester's head whips around like the Exorcist.  It always happens when they're headed in or out of commercials.  Something in the music fascinates him.


Whoa!  Forget food.  What's this mum? 

Evil network TV has me in its clutches!
Um...what is this shit?  Really?  Women chattering?  REALLY???
UGH!  Make it stop already.  Cue the music!

Wednesday, February 16

Sprout Right

Chester has been on solid foods for over three months now.  He's a good eater but he's starting to get bored.

So...what's for dinner?
Blech.  Pears again?

Luckily, our Christmas gift from my mom and Tony came in really handy.  The Beaba Babycook allows you to make your own baby food.  It steams and purees it for you which is a really nice feature as a lot of nutrients are lost boiling and transferring vegetables.  This process allows minimal transfer which means maximum yumminess. We gave the babycook a whirl for the first time tonight and were really happy with the results.

Butternut squash!
We made Butternut squash and cauliflower which I then transferred to Baby cubes and froze.

The little monster taste testing...
The verdict?  NOM NOM NOM!  YUMZ!

Tuesday, February 15

Sad panda.

Chester has been extremely cranky this week.  It's been a tough one.  The teething is pretty bad.  You'll see evidence of this in a couple days when you see the photos!  In the meantime, I've been wanting to make a hat for him for months now.  To be exact, this panda hat.  I've knit the hat portion.  I just have to do the ears.  Here are the pics we managed to get in the split second between putting this hat on Chester's head and him ripping it off.


Aww...QQ Panda.

Note the red blotches.  (Teething!)

I left the string on for now.  Keeping it DIY!

Our little pin-up boy doing his best Rita Hayworth impression. 

I'll post a finished hat when I get the wool for the ears.  However, this particular yarn doesn't come in black so this is going to be one funny looking panda!

Sunday, February 13

Year of the Rabbit

Every year, it's been a tradition in our family to celebrate Chinese New Year at our favorite restaurant. This year, we had to put the kybosh on our get together as Chester is at the stage where he can't be trusted not to scream his head off. The place we like to go also doesn't have the best baby changing facilities (meaning none.) So my mom and Tony came by tonight for a little Chinese New Year visit.

One of the newest (and crappy) developments now that I'm a mom is that I officially don't get an "ang pao" anymore. An "ang pao" is an envelope containing a gift of money. It is always in a red envelope which symbolizes luck. When you have a child or get married, you don't get them anymore. Boo for me. Yay for Chester though. He had the honour of receiving his first ever!


First ever lucky envelope.

The symbol on the envelope means "Fu" or "Luck."

Mmm.  Luck is tasty.

Wednesday, February 9

Best. Toy. Ever.

Chester has always gone at his bouncer pretty hard. He really stomps it out. Now, we're seeing the fallout from all this bouncing.


Chester noticed a new friend tonight. A little hole in the foot of his sleeper.


I saw it and thought, "HEY! Just like your dad!"


The kid already has a fascination with his toes so seeing it on display in such a fashion provided an endless source of fascination.


Maybe we don't need to buy that Stride to Ride Dino after all. =)

Tuesday, February 8

Update: The Grocery Store Incident


After posting about my run-in at the grocery store last week, a couple people took objection, saying I sounded terrible and I should take it down immediately.  Suffice it to say, it made me feel like shit.  I put a lot of effort into writing the post and felt I learned something from my less than shining behaviour.  I didn't expect that the only thing that would be gleaned from my post was that I yelled/swore at an old person.  One person wrote me and said: 

 Cute things I might have said if I were "Shakey McTurd"/"Shakey
 McFuckin' Shakeson" annoyed at you, instead of the dramatics of
 head shaking ..
 1.  ( Pointing to sign reading "Express 1-16 items" and then to 27
      items in your cart. )
    "What's the matter, lady, can't count, or can't read, or both ?
 2.  ( After you had dissed me.  Approach cashier ..)
    " Excuse me, is there a book section ?  I would like to purchase
      something on anger management as a gift for this young woman. "



They clearly missed the point.  If I was informed that it was an express line in the first place, instead of suffering through all the ensuing histrionics, there would be no reason to purchase a book on anger management as there would have been no angry confrontation to begin with.  Sigh.



Wanting the opinion of an objective third party, I asked my friend Lena to check out the post.  Lena runs a very popular blog, Listen to Lena, which has been named the Best Blog and Best Family Blog at the Canadian Blog Awards for the past two years.  Not only did she seem to be the perfect candidate as a busy mother of two and successful blogger, a recent story of hers, A Lesson in Humility, got me to thinking about my own lesson as I was driving home from the grocery store the night of the incident with Shakey.

Not only was Lena gracious enough to take the time to read my long-winded post, she told me she actually laughed her head off and asked if she could share my story with her readers.  Even though my post was embarrassing and certainly didn't paint me in a flattering light, a bunch of moms who have no affiliation to me whatsoever would have no qualms about reading me the riot act if they found my actions untenable, right?  I agreed immediately and prepared for the blowback.  A few days later Lena posted my story on her blog and I received over 500 hits on my blog.  We both received many comments on our respective posts.  Not only were the majority of responses positive, many women mentioned how much my story them laugh.  Whew.  Did it exonerate my behaviour with Shakey?  No.  But I feel better knowing I shared my tale.  I owned up to it, took responsibility and hopefully learned from my mistake.  In so doing, I also provided a few readers with some comic relief and perhaps a little bit of grocery store protocol.  Perhaps a few more people, who considered themselves "Shakeys" might be more inclined to speak up if they see someone taking advantage at an express line in the future.  One thing's for sure.  I'll always look twice to check to see if I'm in an express lane from now on.

Thursday, February 3

Movin' Time

If you've noticed the dearth of posts lately, it's for the simple fact that things have been really hectic! We've been looking for a new place for the last few months since our living quarters are getting kinda cramped. Chester needs room to move! And right now, our place isn't babyproofed. It's like a baby minefield so it's time to go! We'll be moving in April, but in the meantime, the little guy can't wait.

Rude Boy

Chester's started to make lovely farting sounds with his mouth. It's quite funny to listen to. Until of course, you are on the receiving end of such "noises." Very sloppy. As much as I love getting sprayed in the face with slobber, I'm going to hope that this new development is just a phase.