Great news! We went to the Drs today and Lily is doing excellent! She grew an inch since her early December appointment. She is now 25 inches. She gained close to 5 pounds in the past two months ~ she now weighs in at 8.6 kg (approx 20lbs!). She also had her needles that she responded well to, but still it breaks my heart to see her so angry at me since it was the nurse that gave her needle!

Monday was great as we had a lot of firsts for Lily! We were at Con's place as I've signed up to help Anthony get his computer room in order. Once it is organized, I'll post some before and after shots!

Lily had her first meal! She had some rice cereal. The photos don't do it nearly enough justice as she had some serious grunting going on while she was eating/drinking! It was awesome to be with her while she was discovering new textures!

On Monday night Con's family all goes swimming so we joined them. Lily had her first shower and her first swim! Lily really enjoyed the water and Whalen enjoyed hanging out with her! Yesterday we hung out with Liz and her family as I went shopping for some supplies to help get Anthony's room organized.

This past week was very interesting! Many of you know that I've applied to do my BEd (also known as Teacher's College) so that I may teach French as a Second Language (FSL). To be able to be accepted to the University of Ottawa's BEd program to pass a French proficiency test. I knew that this test was fast approaching so I've be attempting to contact UOttawa to figure out when the test was taking place in Toronto. Last Monday and Tuesday I called only for them to tell me "an invitation will be sent". I emailed them on Thursday before I headed out to hang out with Michelle and her great kid Erynn. When I returned on Thursday night there was an email waiting for me that informed me that the Toronto test was taking place on Saturday Feb 3! When I emailed them to say "Wow, why didn't I know sooner" they just emailed me back asking if I was going to attend. Having only 48 hours notice for the test presented with a host of logistical problems; Lily and feeding - Mike came with me and hung out with Lily but with the lack of notice, I couldn't get breast milk ready in time so we had to use the formula back up. The last time Lily successfully drank from a bottle was Oct 5th (incidently it's also the last time Mike and I went on a date!) so we knew she would accept the bottle, so we attempted a sippy cup. Now, Mike was the one with her but as I understand it, the attempt went over like a lead balloon! Poor Lily just screamed herself to sleep. The exam went from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Since we live about 80 km north of Toronto we left here at 7h20 to make sure we had enough time to get there. In addition to there being a written exam there was also an oral exam. So not only did I have to think about Lily but I had to think about French! It's been 8 years since I've lived in France, 7 years since I had to do anything resembling French academic. Needless to say, I spent about 8 hours on Friday (Mike stayed home with Lily) cramming for French. There is an awesome online resource where I was able to do some exercises and it would auto correct. But it has been a VERY long time, so I was quite rusty. IT was a two hour exam where there were fill in the blank questions, then a paragraph where I had to identify the 20 errors - truth be told I could only find 11! I also had to read two texts and answer questions but the hardest part was the 300 word piece I had to write on why it was advantageous to know multiple languages. The topic was easy, writing a cohesive article was tough! Folks asked how it went, my response - I didn't feel stupid while writing it. What I did think, in fact quite often, was that what I was writing was incorrect and I knew that it need corrections. I wish I had more than 8 hours to refresh the 15 years of French that I've studied, but c'est la vie. The obnoxious part was still to come - those that wrote the exam (about 90 of us in Toronto) were assigned a time for our Oral exam to take place either on Saturday or Sunday. When I arrived for the test I requested a Saturday time as it would have been a major pain to have to drive back to Toronto for a 20 minute oral interview. The examiner said that he'd accommodate my request. After the exam the schedule was posted only for me to find that they had me scheduled for SuperBowl Sunday! I went back to them and pleaded for a Saturday time slot, so I got it! The upshot of our Saturday was that we also got a visit in with Conor before he leaves for Ghana to visit with Chris and Miia.

Our Sunday was great as we hung out at 5 year old Erynn's place and watched as poor Mike's team 'Da Bears' were defeated.



All in all, a great week!

On a different note, I'd like to invite the viewers of the blog to email 'hello'. Last week I emailed a friend and asked her how her upcoming wedding plans were coming, and she commented that it felt that we were more in touch as she was kept abreast of our activities since we have the blog. Just as you are curious about our activities, we're also curious about yours! Please keep in touch!

Have a great week! PPS