We are living at the in-laws while we are visiting Nova Scotia. It is nice to be in a huge house but it is funny what the boy gets out of it. We were bringing the laundry down the stairs and Aidan remarks “Are we going down to the dungeon?”

I guess that in a house with a laundry room in the basement may seem to someone used to a very small place like a dungeon. I am also wondering what the little pitchers have picked up.

We are now on the other coast for a month.  It has been an interesting few days full of many changes in routine, time and eating habits.  I always forget how long it takes me to adjust to the time and eating changes.  Add to this a toilet-training toddler, a second trimester pregnancy, later spring, allergies, a bigger house and a new big boy bed and you have a recipe for a bit of chaos.

My allergies in Vancouver this year have been really bad and I got a cold just before heading here to Nova Scotia.  Yesterday the cold seemed to have totally cleared up but the allergies are getting worse.  Added to that I am so mixed up in when I should be eating that I had my fist vomiting morning sickness ever.  I have always gotten the nausea but never to the point of actually throwing up.  It didn’t help that I was coughing up what was left of my lungs as well.

Aidan is adjusting to the changes really well.  The first night he was in the crib in the nursery and had a hard time with the new room and a new anxiety that his dad and I would go home without him.  This has since cleared up and he is now sleeping in the new big boy bed with the Thomas the Tank Engine sheet and comforter set.  He has never slept in a bed so big or so high.  In fact his first words when getting ready to sleep there were “This is a very big bed!”  I was a little nervous about how it would go but he did ask to sleep in the big bed so I figured what the hell, let’s try it.  He did pretty well the first night and last night he only cried out once and wasn’t actually awake.  Anthony and I are hoping that he will be fine going back into his toddler bed when we get home.  If not we will have to look into bunk beds.

The other really nice thing about being here is that the back yard is full fenced with a lot of room to run around. Well that and the sand box that grandma and grandpa bought him to play in.  With the trucks he already had here Aidan is having a ball playing outside by himself.  He has learned that if he wants to come in all he has to do is come up to the back door and knock.  We are watching out for him, and he is having a grand time playing “On the GRASS!”

We are keeping up the toilet-training here and sometime this week or weekend we are going to try the training in underwear.  He is getting a lot more consistent though a little distracted since we have been here.  The bribery still seems to be working and hopefully soon we can space the bribes out a bit.  I can’t keep up with the dinkies forever.

Other than a quick trip to Halifax for some expensive sushi (lunch with Nana) we have been pretty close to home, but we expect to expand that this weekend and I am hoping to have a few playdates next week with some friends. Hopefully Anthony and I will get some geocaching in and have a bit of time to take some nice pictures.

If you have any BPA bottles lying around you might want to take them to London Drugs. I had heard through another blog (sent to me by my husband) that London drugs was taking back any BPA bottle brands that they sold and giving store credit for them without receipts.

Now since that first post went up where they were able to take back everything that they had that was AVENT including pacifiers and their microwave steamer, London Drugs seems to have put a limit on what you can take back. I was able to bring back 6 AVENT bottles this afternoon and get 56 dollars in store credit. Since I was planning on just throwing the BPA stuff out and restocking for the new babe 56 dollars is nothing to sneeze at. If you have more BPA bottles I suggest taking a friend and getting a few refund cards. I might try another London Drugs as well to see if they will give me credit for the Breast Pump that only works with the AVENT bottles I just got rid of.

Let me know if you find any other stores that are willing to take back the BPA stuff for credit. I still have a bunch to get rid of.

Last night (well Tuesday night now) I was very happy to take a night off Guides and go to a book reading for Rebecca Woolf’s book Rockabye. I had been looking forward to this night for a few weeks, not only because it meant I had another opportunity to meet some bloggers I had been reading for a while. Yes I was looking forward to another night out by myself.

I knew where Sophia Books was because in my ESL teacher days I taught right across the street and would treat myself once a week to browsing either Sophia Books or Ward Music. Now oddly enough this part of town makes a lot of people nervous because of its proximity to the downtown eastside, but for me I was much more comfortable there than leaving the Wet Coast Women dinner a few weeks ago. When I was taking the bus home I needed to walk about 10 blocks to get to the stop and no one bothered me.

The first person I spotted when I was walking toward the bookstore was Kristin Darguzas of Parent Dish, with her son. I knew that she was in Vancouver, but this was the first time I had a chance to meet her in person. I decided not to be shy and introduced myself. She actually recognized me from comments I had made on posts of hers. She even remembered the blog name. I am glad she did because it made feel a little less stalkerish.

Rebecca was very gracious and cute. She spoke well and was lovely to all the people who made it out to see her. I met up with Maryann of Mother-Woman, and Kerry of Crunchy Carpets both Wet Coast Women with me. ( As an aside when Rebecca asked me if I knew Maryann of Mo-Wo and I didn’t realized she was talking about Mother Woman, can you say dumb? Oh well, it was obvious afterwards that I did know her. ) The reading went very well and was engaging. In fact it was kind of like talking frankly with your girlfriends (well with a few men in attendance trying not to cringe while we talked about some of the realities of childbirth) and by the end we were, friends that is.

As I am now becoming incoherent I will post a review of Rebecca’s book sometime tomorrow. I will also cross-post this on the Wet Coast Women site along with my review of Rockabye.

Kerry and Rebecca

You wouldn’t believe that Rebecca is due a few weeks before me. She looks fantastic.