Update and Ugh

I ate three nanaimo bars yesterday, and felt horrible. Man, those things really are too sweet. I've eaten a few more today and they are so sweet and so rich that I've eaten much less of anything else compared to normal, and I feel horrible from the richness and subsequent sugar crash.

Clearly I am 35 but need to be saved from myself.

Late night blogging

Last night I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep and thought of an absolutely fascinating post to write. Truly. And then, of course, this morning the only part of it that I can remember is ... that I thought of an absolutely fascinating post to write. 

So we (I) survived the gymnastics. The Boy ran about like I had put methamphetamines in his breakfast (which I had not, for the curious), and climbed and clambered over things as he did last time. I suppose it's good for him; he gets a lot of energy released, at the very least. And I suppose that any running about means that he's learning new gross motor skills as he climbs around things. But it's not like he's going to be winning any Olympic medals anytime soon. Not that I expect that, regardless. 

Six weeks or so ago I suddenly had an urge to eat vegetables. Lots of them, and pretty much only them. I get like this from time to time. Not a diet, because I don't believe in them, but just a conscious effort towards putting raw food into my body as much as possible. I dropped a few pounds, and found that the less junk I ate, the less I wanted it. The other day I headed down to our local coffee shop for a treat and found myself overlooking the cookie I thought I wanted and getting an all-fruit smoothie instead. 

Today, however, we popped out to the grocery store, ostensibly for milk, and ended up coming home with boxes: macaroni and cheese and nanaimo bars. I have never made nanaimo bars, I have never wanted to make them, and I don't even eat them all that much. I find them too sweet most of the time. 

But this box, it called to me. I bought it, brought it home, and figured it might share the same fate as the box of brownies I bought about four years ago that was, until I cleaned the cupboards six months ago, still unopened. (now it's in the garbage, in case any of you are gasping in horror that I ate a three year old cake mix.) 

I made the nanaimo bars. I salivated throughout the making of them. And then I ate several while the chocolate on top was still cooling. 

I write this post feeling curiously satiated, calm and blissful. There's just something about indulging a craving, you know? Six weeks ago it was for raw broccoli. Alas, this one hit right at the same time that those jeans were finally beginning to fit. 

AAAAIIIEEEEE

Last week we skipped the dreaded chaos of gymnastics because the rellies from England were here. Now we have no alternative! 

Pray for me.

Sleep

I spent part of my day looking at studies on sleep deprivation. I've been wondering, lately, why I haven't been feeling better even though I've been getting more sleep over the past few months. I have to confess, though, that better sleep actually isn't that much better -- three nights of seven I'm still woken in the night, and the other four I'm getting a absolute maximum of ten hours a night. Most nights, just eight. Which yes, I admit, is great sleep (at least, compared to what I've been getting the last few years) but it's not like I'm making up for sleep at all. One study I saw said that in order to make up a sleep debt, you have to sleep half the time that you missed -- as in, if you missed six hours of sleep, you need an extra three hours to make up for it. And given that I'm missing approximately eighteen trillion hours of sleep -- give or take -- over the last two and a half years, and not making any of that up, it makes sense that I'm still feeling less than well rested. I don't want to fall asleep while driving anymore, but I'm sure not feeling like running a marathon is a good idea. 

However, another study notes that it's actually impossible to make up sleep, and that with chronic sleep deprivation your body in fact forgets how to make up for lost sleep. As in, you'll start sleeping only eight or ten interrupted hours instead of sleeping for 12 or 14 like you might have otherwise with acute short term sleep deprivation, to make up for the loss. Uh, yeah. That's SO true. I haven't slept for more than 10 hours in a row in getting on for three years, even when I've had the time to do so. But then I feel kind of helpless and hopeless about it -- well, if I can't make up for lost sleep, will I ever feel well rested again? Am I just doomed to be like this forever, or will it eventually -- and very slowly -- get better over the next year?

Other interesting ideas of note -- sleep deprivation makes your immune system half as effective (hello all the colds I had last year!), makes you less able to cope with stress (hello feeling the effects of no personal time / alone time!), irritability, decreased mental function, decreased ability to concentrate ... pretty much everything I've been having lately, much of which I've been attributing to stress and boredom at work. And maybe I am stressed or bored at work, but maybe I'm just so chronically overtired that my ability to function is really impeded.

So what do I do? Get more sleep, I suppose. Easier said than done. I do sleep as much as I can, but fitting everything into the day that needs to get done sometimes means that I get to bed only at 9 or 10 -- early, but not early enough to make up for lost sleep. I guess that there's nothing else to be done but wait and hope that things continue to slowly improve. Unless someone can spare me a week wherein I get to do nothing but sleep -- no work, no house work, no child care, nothing. I think that I could probably sleep for the entire 168 hours.

Working flags

This afternoon The Boy and I drove home across one of the many bridges in this town. This is not a regular thing for us, so it still involves a fair amount of exclaiming. Arches! Cars! Trees! 

And then he saw the banners. You know the kind, the rectangular pieces of cloth they put on either side of light poles, often saying nice things about the city or advertising an upcoming community event. 

"There are a lot of flags here" he says.

"There are a lot of legs here??!" I ask. Because the bridge is noisy and crowded and I am of course hardly paying attention.

"There are a lot of FLAGS here." he repeats. Flags are a big thing. I don't know why. Like planes and ambulances and cement mixers and cranes, they just need to be pointed out whenever and wherever they are found. Who knows the mind of the toddler. Anyway the banners aren't exactly flags, in face their only similarity comes from the fact that they are both colourful material, given that these banners are held at the top and bottom and don't even wave, for pete's sake. 

A fact that is, of course, noticed by the child who cannot realize that eyebrows are made of hair. After this latest pronouncement there is a pause. A critical pause. And then, in a disappointed tone of voice. "But they aren't working."

Mindful

Yesterday I had lunch with a colleague, and she mentioned in passing to me that a friend of hers was teaching a writing workshop for women. It was a daytime class, which meant it was mostly full of retired women, and the friend had commented that what was interesting was that in a group of 60+ year old women the recurring and common theme was still "Who am I? What am I doing? How do I interact and contribute to my community?"

After the last post I took myself off to bed and on the way gave myself a mental shake. "What the hell, self? How is it that at 35 years old you still don't know who you are? How can you still be figuring this out at 35?"

I suppose the fact is that the figuring out of who you are, what your purpose is, and where you are going is just a lifelong journey. You're never going to stop, because you never stop evolving and changing and life doesn't either. I won't always be mommy to a toddler. I won't always be mommy to a child. I hope I will be mommy until the day I die, but the mommy I am will change from year to year and day to day. And that's just true of every identity I wear. It's the very nature of life, and so to wonder why I'm still figuring out who I am? Well, it's illogical to think I'll ever really know. Or in other words of course I'm still figuring out who I am. I recently added a huge, huge piece to my puzzle, and all the other pieces have to go in around it, and it's changed the whole playing field.

Go me and metaphors.

Anyway. I know. It's trite and obvious, but sometimes it's those obvious things you have to pay attention to. In the words of the late David Foster Wallace:

One day, two young fish were swimming downstream, and met an older fish. The older fish said "Hey kids, how's the water?" and kept on swimming. A few moments later, one younger fish said to the other "Hey  ... what's water?"

Sometimes the obvious, the stuff right in front of us, is the most important.

And with that, I need to go and pay attention to that which is right in front of me, and most important. My help has been requested to drive a firetruck.

Embracing my inner self

This last week I had meeting after meeting with strangers and had to organize events to which people were invited and let me tell you, when I can barely coordinate a dinner party, organizing a bbq for 350 people is no mean feat, even if all I had to do, really, was call the caterers. *Someone* had to take care of all that worrying.

And then this weekend we had the relations and had a wonderful time. And then Sunday I went to yoga and sweated again next to 40 other people and boy am I out of shape, my shoulders still hurt from all that downward dogging. (that just sounds so dirty, doesn't it?)

But all in all, I am really jonesing for the world to stop spinning for just a few moments. 

Lately I've found myself fantasizing a lot about a life which isn't so hectic, one that allows me time to sit and reflect and to write and take care of my family and myself. One where I can fit in work and solitude and the things I want to do. The latest romance novel is about a woman who runs a b&b on the isolated coast of western Ireland and I find myself envying her the isolation.

And lately I've also been feeling like a big failure. I am surrounded by people who have energy for family and work and home and extra curricular activities, and I wonder what the heck is wrong with me, that all I want to do is curl up in my home and get some peace for a few hours. I think there's something physically wrong, that I am tired and sick and weak, because the idea of something mentally wrong is harder to take. Not that the physical sickness is easier, mind you, I make myself sick with worry about that too.

In the end I have come to realize that this is the first -- first -- time in my life I have ever not had regular time alone. For five months until my office roomie left, my alone time was about an hour a week -- naptime on Wednesdays. And I have been used to having up to two hours of alone time, minimum, per day. Some times more like eight hours. From the earliest time I can remember, I would have hours a day to myself. 

And for someone who has scored 100 on tests of introversion, it's just not enough. I am perpetually exhausted and anxious because I have no mental regeneration time, no time to sit and reflect and be alone. I'm writing this now in the evening, The Man is working late and The Boy is sitting beside me, playing with my necklace, lying on my lap. 

Other people I know are not like this. They feel regenerated from being with people, or they don't need as much time alone to feel whole. I feel like a failure because I cannot do all the things I want to do -- meals with friends, time with my child -- because my psyche is begging that I pay attention, that I finally after two and a half years of dedicating myself to a child who has some pretty demanding needs, pay attention to what I need. 

This is the hardest part of parenting, for me. I hate how it drains me, I even hate how much of a better mom I am after we've had a babysitter. I want to be someone different. I want to be an extrovert.

But I don't think that there's anything I can do to change this. I think in the end I just have to accept it. I've made lots of jokes here about being an introvert, and while I had embraced that part of my person I never thought that it was as necessary to me as breathing.

Turns out? I guess so.

I'm trying really hard these days to accept this about myself, but it feels like it's standing in my way of being the person I want to be. Although I'm not sure it is; perhaps what I need to accept instead is that I'm not living the life that I'm meant to. And I'm working out what that all means -- should I be working in a different place, doing something different? Do I need to just try harder to get out of this alone time mindset? Is that even possible? I have a feeling that there is a life out there that I should be living, that I am not living right now, and that, were I living it ... I'd be much less stressed out, and much more blissed out.

There's a passage within The Life of Pi that I love, that talks about fear, about the way around fear is to "shine the light of words upon it". There's some fear about this for me, about what it means for my career and my parenting, and so maybe just talking about it a little will make it feel more personable, a companion in my living room instead of a tiger lurking in the corner.

Discovery

A few moments ago my child came over and sat on my lap. His head level with mine, his face a mere two inches away. He stared at me intently. "What's that?" he asked.

"what?" I asked.

"That." He says.

"What?" I ask. "My eyes? My glasses? My eyebrows?"

"What's on your eyebrows?" he clarifies.

"What?" I ask, laughing. As far as I know, there's nothing on my eyebrows. I rack my brain. Did I smear something across my face? Eat something and be Very Messy? I cannot think of anything.

"Hair!" he says delightedly. "You have HAIR on your eyebrows."

Oh. That.

You know, some days I marvel at the fact that he can talk to his grandparents and remember that when they come here, they go to the airport in Calgary. I am impressed he can remember details of a conversation that I had with his father two nights ago. He can count as high as 40 now before he forgets what comes next.

And then there are the days when I wonder how he could not have realized that eyebrows are MADE OF HAIR.

Rain

This morning has dawned rainy and dark but my child's humour has returned and there are no signs of rashes about his person, so I'm going to go ahead and call it a Very Good Start. This morning we are heading off to pick up some English relations whose presence in Vancouver I was reminded of when the phone rang Thursday night and they said "hey, what are the plans for Saturday?" This is what happens when people make their plans for vacation in January: I forget all about them.

Even more surprising was the doorbell ringing at 5:45 last night. I had come home after a long, long day and removed my work clothes and gotten straight into my pajamas, anticipating a nice evening of videos and order in Chinese. And so when I opened the door expecting dinner and saw these same relations ("We were just in the neighborhood, wanted to make sure we knew where you were for tomorrow!") I almost passed out.

Now don't get me wrong. I love these people. I do. They are among my very favourite people in the world. And I was actually delighted that they stayed for a few hours to visit, and even more delighted that they came to Canada to visit, because few of my relations have done so. It was merely surprising, but in what was in the end a very nice way.

I was only grateful that the house was (mostly) clean.

Thank you Friday, I thought you'd never get here

God, what a week. WHAT A WEEK. I miss my old job, the job where I got to write all day. In my office, researching and writing. This new job? Lots of writing, but lots and lots of meetings and responsibility and decisions and bleh. BLEH. I miss being unreponsible.

Hee.

My child clearly had a hard day too, as he wanted to be carried home and is now snuggled beside me watching shows -- he just wants to be close to mom. He's tired and weepy. I'm trying not to think about the fact that one of his favourite friends was out all week with Hand, Foot and Mouth. No. Not thinking about that at all.

Snippits of my child

This afternoon, I'm in the bathroom, The Boy is waiting outside. Silently. Ominous silence. I go out, he's pulled all the wipes, one by one, out of the box. Because you know, they pop up, like tissues! There's always another one to pull!

Me: "Oh N! What are you DOING?"

N: (puzzled) "I'm making a mess with the wipes!"

Because clearly, mommy is blind. 

While he was eating dinner, I went and fetched us each a drink. I got water for both of us, because (bad mommy!) I let him have (watered down) juice much of the time. He picked up the cup, took a few swallows, and his entire face crumpled. Not in the .... I'm mad you've given me juice way, nor in the I'm going to whine about giving me juice way, but in the my world has just ended because this is water, not the juice that I wanted. There was much sobbing, and tears. Mommy was a little taken aback.

This evening's dinner was again the mommy special of pasta, cheese and frozen veggies. And again, during dinner, he eats all the broccoli and asks for more. Mommy, on the other hand, is jonesing for a carb fix and is wolfing down the pasta as fast as she can go. I guess it's true that some kids can raise themselves well despite their parents.

Romance

So some weeks ago a friend of mine happened to mention that a friend of hers had given her two large shopping bags of romance novels. She wanted to know if I wanted to borrow / have them, since she had read through most of what she wanted to.

I confess here, internets, that I had a thing for romance novels in my youth. You know, about 13. I had several, and I loved getting them from the library. Especially the historical ones with the ladies in their gowns and fans and the gallant men in top hats. sigh. Since then I have moved on to other things and I admit become more of a literary snob than I was once; romance novels! Honestly! What trash!

But becoming a parent has meant that I have no time to digest literature -- neither the time nor, frankly, the brainpower, most of the time, to really appreciate a deeper work of literature. 

So I said yes. And she brought me a bag -- and I mean a bag -- of novels. Probably 25 or so? Maybe 20. 

Friends, the romance novel has changed since I was a girl.

Oh, not that I'm becoming prudish or that THAT part has changed. There's still sex, although it's fairly dull (being the old married (sort of) woman that I am I guess the sex part has lost its forbidden allure.) What I mean is the ... well, in many of the books, the distinct lack of plot. And by that I mean, I've read several books now that have gone on for 200 pages too long ... and they are only 300 or 400 pages long. There's a sense of creating plot simply to fill pages, and I find myself thinking ... just get on with it! Please! For the love of pete!

And then there are the strange ones. The more recent love of the paranormal and the occult has meant that there are vampire and quasi-vampire and other non-natural human forms ... including (and I shudder to even write it) a quasi-human-feline species. I just ... I don't even know where to GO with that. I haven't managed to even open the damn thing, it just creeps me out THAT MUCH.

I suppose that there must be someone who thinks this is the best thing ever and rolls their eyes at YET ANOTHER scottish-themed historical romance but ... oh, dear Lord. Perhaps I am just getting old and prudish.

But not so old and prudish that I'm letting go of those Enlightenment Era Scotsmen.

Meet Lim

I swear I didn't foster this idea. Much.

In other news

There are no new fruit obsessions in the house, although we did get through the grocery shopping this morning on the strength of a new citrus friend. Alas, although very similar, The Boy seemed to know that this new interloper was not, in fact, the precious Lem. (He who, looking oh-so-very worse for wear after his adventures, finally succumbed to wilt and died.) The new guy was quickly abandoned in favour of garlic that needed to be peeled.

Yes, in the store. It's amazing the attention span that kid can have over peeling garlic. Enough to get through most of the grocery store. I tell you, he's two: if there's any advantage I can take, as a parent, I'm damn well going to.

Yoga-rific

With the best possible intentions, I went a month ago and bought a pass for one of the large yoga studios in town. One of their branches is merely two blocks away, so I thought for sure that I would make it once in a while. Alas, my excuse being feeble that they don't offer as MANY classes there as in other studios, I haven't been once. 

This morning I woke up with guilt writhing through my body because hello? I hate wasting money! So I determined to get myself to a class this morning. 

I had also had a crummy week. Lots of work, The Man was busy and tired, The Boy was cranky, everything was  ... bleh. It was just a bad one, and I was in a foul, foul mood. Not all the time, but underlying there was a distinct foulness. I needed the peace found in 40 other sweaty bodies breathing heavily through strange poses. 

Most yoga classes -- I admit, I'm not even remotely close to a good practitioner -- I wend my way through the poses wondering, in turns ... "when will this be over?" "this pose sucks" "ugh, it hurts" "do I look stupid?" "am I doing it right?" Somehow at the end I always feel better, which is why I keep going back, but during the class? Not so much.

But today -- I don't know. Today I finally managed to get with the program, to wend my way through without thinking very much at all, and left the class afterwards feeling just generally lighter in the world. I took my glasses off and did most of it with my eyes shut, just feeling my way through and not seeing the rest of the folks so as to hedge the self-doubts and self-consciousness.

Also good in a crowded room when one of your close neighbors is a middle aged man who can't keep his balance, which of course throws off your own balance if you watch too closely.

I feel more relaxed than I have in days, which is good heading into a week which promises to hold a great deal of activity, some of it possibly frenzied. 

I must remember to re-read this post sometime next Sunday morning. 

Chaos

No, not the Hadron Collider. You'd think so, wouldn't you? But this morning, we found something MORE chaotic, faster moving, and more dangerous to the human race.

Toddler gymnastic class.

45 minutes of running, jumping, hanging, and shrieking. And that's just the adults. Class is apparently a term used very loosely, as the poor teacher attempted to have even a few second together to explain activities and the majority of the kids just ran pell mell around the gym with their hapless parents running after them, ducking under and over equipment and clambering over mats. 

In any case, there are some benefits:

1. the child is worn out and will nap soon.

2. he had a great time.

3. I got a work out too.

But dear Lord. 2.5? too young for these kinds of things.

Sleepy

Last night I slept poorly. The child was up at 4:30 for no apparent reason and needed mommy for more than an hour; I finally fell asleep again only to be woken by him again in the middle of a dream. I felt groggy and wanted a nap all damn day. 

I have mentioned -- probably ad nauseum -- that I have the child who doesn't sleep. That he didn't sleep through the night until a few months ago, at 2.25, and that by the end of it, I was feeling so far beyond exhausted that I was literally not thinking straight. And one of the things that has been so troubling recently is that while he was sleeping more regularly, and five nights of seven I was getting seven or eight hours of sleep per night, I wasn't feeling any better! What the hell?

And then today. Today when I felt like crawling into bed all day and it dawned on me -- I used to feel this way all the time. I don't anymore. I'm still tired. But I'm less likely to be I-am-five-steps-away-from-complete-collapse tired. 

I guess you don't know what you got 'til it's gone ... as far as sleep is concerned. Both ways. 

Nap

Every once in a short, short while, my child decides to NAP. Not his usual hour, hour and a half thing, but a NAP. He's been down two hours and twenty minutes and is still going strong. Or at least, still going. I envy mothers who have that regularly. Not that an hour isn't enough to recharge batteries -- by necessity, it is. But two hours? Three? 

I'm sure if I had a sleeper baby, there would be something else that would make me crazy. A kid who doesn't eat any more than three things. A kid who will only wear certain things. I don't know -- I have the kid who doesn't believe in sleeping, so I can't tell what other problems parents have. All I know is that lying here on the couch for more than two hours feels like a Gift.

Computer kid

One of the advantages of having a partner who works for a high-tech firm is the provision of a laptop computer from the workplace which allows us to, in effect, have a computer each. His doesn't technically belong to us, of course, but still. 

The Man's computer is slightly bigger than mine -- if the company buys, you may as well get the bigger screen -- and The Boy is well aware of whose is whose. The big one is daddy's. The smaller one is mommy's. If we had another one I'm sure Goldilocks would suddenly appear.

This morning as he sat with his dad on the couch, my son looked at the large computer and said "That one is daddy's", and then turned around to look at my computer and said "That one is mommy's." and then looked straight at his father and said "Daddy, we need to buy another computer for me."

We were really hoping that the materialism wouldn't kick in for another couple of years, but I think that perhaps having two computers in the house means we kind of set ourselves up for that one. 

CRAZY ASS things I have done as a mother

Honestly, mother

Mother, entering bedroom: N, do you and Lem want to come and have some soup for lunch?

(Figuring that I can't beat it, so I might as well join it.)

The Boy: Mommy, Lem does not want any soup. He doesn't have a face.

Apparently I'm the one who needs lessons in reality / pretend.

At what point should I start to worry?

Heard from the bedroom: 

"Here we are! That wasn't that bad, was it?"

"Lem! You're hiding!"

bump bump "Lem! You're ok!"

Rock a bye baby Sung. TO. A. LEMON.

Uh ... kid? IT'S A LEMON.

Trust my kid to come up with a really peculiar fetish.

The good news is that I got pictures of the reading with Lem-in-a-sock. The things I will have prepared for his high school graduation / first serious girl/boy friend / wedding day. Hee.

Addendum

A few moments ago, while I was heating soup for "lunch" (you make soup at 11am when wake up was 5:30) my son decided to drag all the covers off the bed and bring them to the kitchen. On the way, he knocked over the baby gate we have ready to be stored. He shrieked in frustration (a common theme these days) and called out "I ... I ... I want that UN OVER!!" 

I think the made up language is my favourite part of mothering a toddler.

In other news, he and Lem continue to be best friends. So far this morning, he has hidden in his house with Lem, wandered through the bedroom with Lem, and read books with Lem. Now I am requested to put Lem in to one of the new socks. Must run.

Kid really needs a baby sibling.

Observations

Yesterday in the toy store, I saw a woman pushing a stroller, wearing what looked like a sling. I looked closer and decided it couldn't possibly be a sling, it was far too low. Later on, I happened by to see her patting the sling and it was definitely holding a baby -- down by her hips! A tiny baby! Near her hips! To swing, and bump, and hit her stroller! Wha??!!

************

Yesterday at dinner, The Boy looked at me, smirking with barely disguised mirth. "Are you my MAMmy?? my MAMmy??" And when I distractedly replied "Yes!" he laughed delightedly and said "No, no you're my MOMmy!" and giggled and giggled. Toddler humour. Go figure.

************

The toy of the day yesterday was a lemon. A lemon, yes, the fruit. He wanted a lemon, and so we gave him one and he carried it around for an hour or more, talking to it and placing it on things ("Lem .... on the table!") I was just thinking that we needed to buy new toys for him, because he's tired of what he has and we haven't bought any in ages and he really does need some new age-appropriate toys ...apparently what we actually need to do is just go to the grocery store. Maybe I can get an hour or two of peace from a lime this afternoon.

************

The Boy is going through a growth spurt and needs new shoes, so we trundled ourselves off to the cheap shoe store to see what we could find. We found a nice, serviceable pair of runners, and purchased those, and then found -- on the buy-one-get-one-half-price rack, a cute pair of boy's high top runners. With multi-colour laces! What fun! So we got those too and got home to find out that the soles smell like bubble gum. And not the sugary bubble gum of my youth, but instead some nasty chemically version thereof. Can I get a WTF? I mean, shoes that smell? Like bubblegum? Who thought THAT was a good idea? Are you supposed to WANT to eat them? Or ... what, exactly? And how long will that take to fade because .. dear Lord, ew. 

Extended Nursing

I have mentioned here in passing that I am in the process of weaning my child. This is a Long Process. I started doing the "don't offer, don't refuse" process about a year or more ago, and haven't offered since, but have been blessed by a child who knows what he wants and isn't afraid to ask for it. 

About three months ago, I started to get fed up, and I pushed the weaning process faster, with the result that we went from between 4 to 6 times a day / night (egad!) to once. Which is a blessed relief as far as I am concerned. I just couldn't keep up, and the sleep deprivation was finally making me physically ill. This now is a level I can handle, but I am actually still working towards final weaning because I just feel it's time -- for me if not for him. 

A few days ago, The Boy and The Man had a conversation.  Lately, The Boy has seen many of his daycare playmates acquire new siblings, especially his closest friend, P. He speaks of P's little brother a fair amount. At the same time, the prospect of a new sibling 'round our own parts (ha!) has come up once or twice in adult conversation, so it's a topic of conversation we encourage.

At one point, The Man asked The Boy if he would like his very own little brother or sister, our own baby around the house. The Boy was quite enthusiastic about the prospect (but he's 2.5, so we take that with a grain of salt. It's not like he realizes what that will actually be like.) They spoke of it for a few moments, and then The Man mentioned to The Boy that the baby would get to nurse, and The Boy wouldn't get to anymore. The Boy's reaction was immediate and unequivocal. 

"No baby!" he said. 

So much for that method of persuasion.

Point form

* My cold, as far as congestion, is largely gone -- I can breathe again! And smell! I have a bit of a cough but the worst part is the stuffed up ears. My whole head feels like it's further away from things than it should be. Ugh. 

* I got a new project at work today. First new thing -- really new! -- in, uh, about a year. I am Excited. Dear Lord, excited. I don't think it'll be as interesting as all that once I get in, but who-whee, is it nice to get something new.

* I love fall.

* There's very little cuter than your child singing songs he learns at daycare. This afternoon on the way home I was serenaded by "We're goooooo-ing, on an aiiiiiirrrplane, up! and down! and up! and down! and up! and down! and up! and down! And ... finished." Silence. The up and down even had hand movements. Lots of enthusiasm! And then ... finished. Back to normal voice. Oh, and the other one I love? "thumb thumb up and thumb thumb down! thumb thumb dancing all around the town! dancing on my shoulders, dancing on my head! dancing on my knees then *kiss**kiss**kiss**kiss* tuck them into bed." 

The kissing noises? PRICELESS.

Alone time

One of the newest additions to our son's personality has been the (completely unpredictable) request for time alone. This is the child, may I remind you, who refused to be out of human contact for a single solitary second for the first five months of his life, who has been attached to me personally or tangentally for much of the rest of it. When I am home, he is nearby. If I am in the living room, he's on the couch. If I'm in the kitchen, he plays on the floor. When I put away laundry, he plays on the bed. I fervently believe that if it wasn't for daycare we'd have grown together, so close he wishes to be.

But today when he called out for mommy after his nap, our post-nap cuddling was ended by a request for mommy to "go to the bathroom". When this was met by confusion from a mother who didn't really need to visit the facilities, he then requested that I "go to the living room, and I stay here." 

After ascertaining that he actually wanted to be alone (incredulous as I was), I went to the living room with some amount of trepidation and some amount of delight (I hadn't actually finished the show I was watching while he napped!) and waited. No sound. I poked my head back in about 10 minutes later, to find him wrapping himself in the duvet. Not actually misbehaving or jumping on the bed, which is a favourite pastime. Just enjoying himself. Alone. 

It's times like these that I think -- Wow, he really IS my kid, given how much I value alone time, no matter how much I love my family. 

And sometimes I also think ... where is my baby? Shouldn't he be thirteen before he tells me to leave his room and wants to be alone?

This is happening at the same time as he wants to be with daddy more and more, and I get to experience that fun feeling you get when you spend a whole day with a child whose face only really lights up when daddy comes home from work. I used to be his whole world? How can this happen??

Somewhat ironic that lately I've been desperate for some time to myself. Uh, hello?? Isn't this a GOOD thing? How can I be desperate for time alone and then be sad when my child is behaving well, playing on his own? How can I wish to stop being his only centre and be a little torn when he only wants his daddy? 

They never said this in the books I read, the momentous amount of conflicting emotions that occurs as you raise a child. But I don't suppose anyone can really put it into words.

Isn't it ironic?

So at work we're getting a new head honcho this month, coming in from across the country. She seems like a good sort, although I haven't met her. One of the things we're doing for her is writing job descriptions and taking photos of all her staff so that she can figure out who we are and what we do. 

It was last week or so that the order for photos came in, and mine is scheduled for tomorrow. And I took one look at myself in the bathroom mirror and thought -- I cannot reasonably be photographed with a bad haircut, grown out. As long-time readers can attest, hair is a real problem for me. I don't like my hair, and have rarely found a hairdresser who is any good at cutting it. The last one who was good quit cutting hair around the time I returned to work from mat leave, and I haven't found a good one since. The one I've been using cuts the hair nicely, but it doesn't work on my hair, and it grows out terribly. 

So I've been putting off a hair cut not knowing what to do and where to go and just having a lack of time. But the photo taking was a deadline -- I could not have a picture the way it was. 

So one of my colleagues has a great haircut, but she tells me that her hairdresser only works part time and you can't get a hair cut with her for love nor money less than a month in advance. This is last week, of course, but in my optimism I called anyway. I wanted a cut on Tuesday! The day after the holiday! Who else would want that day?

Lots of folks. So I didn't get an appointment for that hairdresser ("She's booked on all her weekends until October; did you want to make an appointment for then?") but the receptionist, smart lady, did sell me on another hairdresser. So I made the appointment. 

Yesterday was my one day off from everything for the month, and I really just wanted to sit back and read the whole day because this cold? Not getting better. Getting worse, in terms of congestion in fact. Whee! But I went anyway, dragged myself four blocks to the place, sat for an hour and a half and made small talk (my favourite!) and went home. The cut? Ees mahvellous, dahling. (Although we'll see how it is when I wash it and do it, and how it grows.)

The irony? If I'm feeling this bad tomorrow, there's no way I'll be at work for photos.

Tragedy on the living room floor

Is it just me, or has something really tragic just happened?

Emotional

From time to time I take The Boy out into the world. He's learning how to interact with folks, and since he started daycare a year and a half ago, is getting pretty good at it. He was a very uninteractive baby, at least with strangers. He was very keen on mom and dad, and cautiously keen on grandparents and others, but strangers -- forget it. There was a lady we saw regularly at the nearby greengrocer, and she would always try to coax a smile -- or any response at all -- from him. He would just watch her. After months of this she actually asked me if there was something wrong with him.

Since those days he's become much more friendly with strangers. We're teaching him the words, the cultural norms of small talk, the "hello", "how are you?" and the "I'm fine thanks!" He's becoming more and more proficient.

But he's not as engaging as many babies. He never has been. My sister's older son would engage with anyone and everyone, even a baby. At nine months he would flirt shamelessly with waitresses in cafes; at a similar age, I couldn't leave The Boy with his trusted grandmother long enough to take a shower. 

Sometimes, when he doesn't feel like interacting, he will bury his head on my shoulder and say "I'm shy. I'm too shy." I don't know where he picked up that word; being a shy person myself I never push him to interact with people if he doesn't want to. It's ok to be shy in my world. But I wonder about the fact that he can say and identify that feeling before he has openly acknowledged that he is sad, happy, angry, or excited. I am sure he has felt this way. But he will himself identify the shyness, and speak of it. He doesn't tend to do the same with other emotions.

Why does this bother me? (Because obviously it does, when I'm writing about it!) Especially when I wrote, pointedly, above, that "it's ok to be shy in my world?" I think in many ways while we hope that our children inherit our strengths, it's harder to watch a child inherit traits that have both positive and negative effects. My shyness has caused some amount of social awkwardness, of social isolation, of accusations of snobbery from some less understanding high school acquaintances. I want The Boy to have all those things that I think have made my life easier -- my intelligence, my capacity for empathy, my stubborn tenacity, my love of learning, my delight in travel. I don't mind my shyness; it's not a problem for me anymore. It's so much a part of me that I identify with it. 

But oh, would I wish that I could save my child from playground awkwardness; from fear of rejection. I wish that he could see as I do that he is so amazing that he need not fear any rejection at all, that shyness could be eradicated because it has no purpose for him. He will go through life being who he is and there will be enough love and support for him, just because of who he is.

In the end, there is so much that I want to say to him that really, would probably be better spent on the three year old version of me. Because he is less shy than I was; he is learning those social skills better than I ever did, because he has great teachers. Not me; he gets to learn from daycare those social skills in an environment where the children aren't yet mean and dismissive. He'll be fine precisely because he can label his emotion as shy, and yet can still smile at the saleslady. He knows it's ok to be shy; he knows it's a part of him that he doesn't have to be ashamed of. Of course that's partly my influence -- my mother didn't do that for me. Which is why, in the end, this is only and ever my problem, my concern. I am afraid for him because it wasn't ok for me. But by making it ok for him, the shyness may never be a problem for him the way it was for me. 

Now if I could just invent that time machine and reassure my toddler self of this, everything would be ok.