Eau de Chlorine

It's official.

Chloe has been in this world longer than she was in my belly world.

39 weeks ago today she made her debut.

I went for a swim the morning before I went into labour. This was not unusual as I swam 25 laps almost every day of my last trimester. It was such an amazing feeling....totally weightless and then I would go to step out of the pool and BOOM! There's the belly I almost forgot I had. I loved the way the sounds of life would become muffled underwater, and I would picture my little girl doing her own laps in my belly as I would move.

The smell of chlorine & protective shampoo will always be a beautiful reminder of the final days before she would arrive.

When I was rolled into the delivery room that afternoon, my doctor was trying to figure out what the strong chemical smell was. I assured her that nothing was wrong...it was just that I could not escape the smell of that lovely chlorine.

So today we swam together to mark the occasion. But we opted for a salt water pool, because chlorine is so 39 weeks ago.

Do you ever have one of those days...

...that goes exactly how you planned it?

Well today was it. I made my little "fantasy for tomorrow" list before I went to bed last night - nothing new about that. But it actually all worked out today and it was the best day ever with my little girl.

We:

Had breakfast, playtime, yoga while Chloe napped, shopped for fun fabrics, perused the aisles of Whole Foods for veggies & fruit, had a coffee date at Starbucks, I read Breakthrough in the sun while Chloe had her afternoon nap, I took her for a run in the stroller to the post office to mail birthday cards, had a lovely dinner - squaccoli for her and veggie spaghetti meatballs for moi. And now the little angel is drifting off to sleep while I start another sewing project & watch the cheesy Bachelor.

Seriously...this day could only be better if Mr. Swell was here. I can't wait for him to get here!

Good Afternoon

We went down to Cityplace this afternoon which is a pretty, breezy outdoor area full of great shops & restaurants here in Florida. It was the perfect day for walking around with the little monkey and she was so good! We had yummy pizza for lunch & then browsed the bookstore & my fave store Anthropologie...I wish I could scoop up every little thing in that place!

My 2 fave people in the whole world:

Chloe had a teething episode in the car

Baby love

The Great Grape Stomp

This weekend was the Great Grape Stomp held at Harbour Estates Winery in Jordan. I think this is the 10th year I've gone with Starbucks and I look forward to it every year! This year was extra special because I was able to introduce Chloe to alot of my "partners" that haven't met her yet. It also donned on me that she actually was at the stomp last year...she would've only been in my tummy for a few weeks!

Chris & Chloe hanging out at the food booth

Me & my stomping partner Martin. We won our first heat with 1070 mL of stomped juice!

Chloe fell asleep while I was stomping....I won't take that personally.

Here's the whole Starbucks team!

Grape & Wine Parade

Last weekend, we took Chloe to her first Grape & Wine Parade. For those that aren't familiar...the Grape & Wine Festival is easily the biggest annual event in St. Catharines and people travel from all over to be a part of it. Not to mention it marks the 1 night each year that Chris gets together with all his dudes and goes MIA for the day...and most of the night!

And I of course had lots of fun buying Chloe a grape hat & onesie off of Etsy!

It was the perfect, crisp fall afternoon and Chloe has just woken up from a nap. She was good the whole hour we were outside but seemed to be a bit awestruck by all the floats & commotion...check out the face:

I can't believe how big she's getting. Good things she's just so scrumptious, otherwise I might have paid too much attention to the lack of feeling in my arm by carrying her for the duration of the parade!

Baby Matinee

Today was a big outing day for Chloe & I. After our first yoga class together, we picked up daddy and went to the movies. It's a special viewing for those with small children...aka they're aloud to cry all they want! Well - she was out like light after 10 minutes as we watched All About Steve. Will definitely do this again!

Looking a wee bit grumpy waking up after the movie. Maybe we should've done a double feature!