YUM.

Those are quite seriously some of the best cookies I have ever had.

Or again, they are yummy when warm. Very, very yummy. They are very sweet, so next time I think I'll cut down the sugar. And then we'll see how they are when they cool, as well.

But: Oh, YUM.

The peanut butter bag

So I couldn't face it yesterday, but managed this morning to stick my hands into the bag and get out the various detritus of my lunch from yesterday, rinse them off, and dishwasher them. The worst hit was an apple, but at least it was easy to wash off. And as The Man said, at least it's a knitted bag you can wash, as opposed to a bag that would felt when you didn't want it to. Which is a very good point.

Needless to say I've put peanut butter on the grocery list for today.

* * * * *

On my other list of things to do today is to make these. The banana bread, which disappeared within days (even The Man ate it!) was from her site, and I'm just so darn excited about making cookies with quinoa. It's almost like health food!

But at the moment, my living room is full of men and possibly soot as they clean the chimney, so they have to wait -- a reasonable thing too, because I have no room temperature butter (I always forget to get out the butter!) It's raining steadily (we had ONE WHOLE DAY of sun yesterday, which is I think it for the entire month of November -- we've set new records for rain! -- and now we're back to deluge again) and the idea of later sitting back with warm cookies in front of a roaring fire is absolutely seductive.

(See what happens with pregnancy? I have a clean house and that combined with baked goods and warmth is what suffices for marital intimacy.)

* * * * *

Whilst we had the chimney scoured I begged a favour of a friend to take The Boy off our hands, and she called this morning to say she was planning an errand up to a nearby store, and would I like her to come and pick him up? I was terribly grateful, so she's come and gone. This is the same friend with the same aged son we had playdates with regularly over the last year, so The Boy calls her by her first name and went happily off to her car with her to play with his small friend. So while the house is noisy with vacuuming and brushing, at least there's time to sit quietly and relax.

Playdates are essential in this weather -- snow, if you are so inclined (which I am not), can be played in, but rain is just rather unpleasant to be out and about in for anything longer than an errand or a walk. Oh, they get the kids outside every day at the daycare, but I've suited the child up in the very best rainwear, which wasn't at all cheap but it's Vancouver -- it's SO worth it. He has fleece and boots and pants and a jacket which keep him pretty much completely dry, but given the expense we only bought a single set, and they are at the daycare. (I could bring them home; I just forget.) So weekends must include playdates lest we all go entirely squirrelly. Thankfully other parents seem to agree, so we're setting things up for as many weekends as possible over the next few months.

* * * * *

The cat sits huddled at my feet. She almost never lies down anymore; it's not clear why. She huddles instead, restless and a little irritable. I suppose it's likely she's not comfortable. I don't think it's pain, but I think general discomfort is very likely. We figured out she's lost I think about 2.5 kilos in the past three months, and she was only probably just over 6 to begin with; her size is startling. Unless this newest medication can help her put on weight -- or at least stem the tide -- I think we'll lose her alarmingly fast. It's most likely cancer, they tell us -- 75% chance, with the other 25% being some other unnamed terminal illness. We are lucky in that with her age, she probably doesn't have the leukemia virus, which would endanger the other cats. The only thing worse, I think, than losing one cat would be losing the other two in a similar fashion soon afterwards.

So we wait, and see, and hope for the best. And prepare for the worst.

Today ...

Today the kid was nice. There was cooperation. There were fewer tears. The work thing got done. And the cat ... well, the cat is still ill, but no worse. Which is nice.

But.

Today I packed lunch in a hurry. And since I'm the mom, what I end up doing is instead of doling out a portion, I just throw the entire package of something into my bag. Eat what I want, bring the rest back. And this week I'm trying to get more protein into my diet. Something besides dairy products and meat.

So I took peanut butter. In the jar. With a lid. That apparently wasn't screwed on tight enough on the way home.

Yeah.

So the inside of my nice, handknit and felted lunch bag is filled ... with half a jar of peanut butter.

Thank God it's the weekend.

Today ...

... my kid was rude, uncooperative, and had a temper tantrum at daycare which eventually required me to carry him to the car by the back of his pants, because with his coat and lunch and my pregnant belly there was no other way to do it. It was dark and rainy and generally unpleasant, and I felt like a failure as a parent because he's been like this for days for no discernable reason and I can't get him to stop for love nor money.

... work sucked. I am asked to complete the impossible within the impossible time frame. And yet I will do it, because I'm a good little worker bee.

... the vet says that the cat is dying. We have no idea when and have no money to fix it, so we're just going to have to wait and watch and deal with a cat as she gets sicker and sicker.

It's times like this that I miss drinking.

Pregnancy Hunger

This morning I got up and ate a piece of toast with jam. Had some tea. Got my kid ready for daycare, drove him up, came home. Sat on the couch and did some work, knit a little.

And then I thought -- I'm a little hungry.

And I went to the kitchen, and suddenly found myself stuffing cereal from the box straight into my mouth. Three or four handfuls. A few more. And then I ate an entire bag of snap peas with yogurt dip. Half a bag of fries with ketchup. The rest of the banana bread. Half a litre of water.

Am still hungry.

Baby is clearly malnourished.

Verdict:

The banana bread is by far the best gluten free recipe I have made. By. Far. The only problem with it is that it is a little crumbly -- but not in the rice flour cardboard way, just ... crumbly, the way some cakes made of wheat can be. The taste is great and the texture, other than crumbly, is fantastic.

I'm sure it was helped along by following the recipe completely and instead of adding chocolate chips I cut up a very, very nice dark chocolate bar and put that in instead.

I am trying to think of what might make it less crumbly, and am thinking of adding some xanthan gum or something, but I think while that might make it less crumbly, it might detract from the overall texture and make it gummy -- which I really don't like.

In any case, I am *definitely* going to try more recipes from her site. Wow.

Well, it looks like normal banana bread ...

Today's gluten-free baking adventure

Is this. The woman who writes this isn't celiac, but if you check out her blog there are some REALLY nice-sounding recipes there. (Especially rich chocolate ones, which I also want to try.) I have wanted to try this one for ages, because of my love affair with quinoa, but I was only recently able to find quinoa flakes and I didn't know what I might substitute for them.

I also had to substitute brown rice flour for the white rice flour, and brown sugar for the blond cane sugar, since I still haven't managed to find that. (This is Vancouver, you'd think I'd be able to find anything. But I guess that only applies to Asian cuisine -- no matter how strange it sounds, if it's used in Asian cuisine you can find it in Vancouver. Which is lovely, of course, but does mean you can be SOL if you aren't cooking Asian.)

So the loaf is currently in the oven, and smells lovely. Let's hope it tastes as nice as it smells. Maybe the update for later will also include photos!

Storming

Last night I drove west from downtown towards Workplace to get The Boy from daycare. It was dry, for the first time in a while, and close to 5, so pretty much dark. And then suddenly the sky lit up. And then again. And again. And again. Lightening. I called The Man.

"There's a great lightening storm out over the ocean!" I said. "But I can't hear the thunder and it's not raining!"

Ha ha ha ha.

By the time I got to the daycare, it was raining. Just rain, nothing too special for Vancouver. And as I stood inside the daycare waiting for the story to finish, there was a BOOM that seemed to shake the place. And then another. And another. We finished up the story, and went out to the car, and in the 1o0 metres we walked, we got SOAKED. It was just Coming. Out. Of. The. Sky. Sheets of rain. And lightening. And thunder. So close together I knew we were pretty much right in the eye of the storm. And on a bluff. In a metal car. I drove as fast as the pick up area and visibility would allow --- which was, if one was being safe, about 20kph. There was so much rain that the drains were backing up and the puddles at the side of the road actually slowed the car down and sprayed higher than the roof. (Don't worry -- there wasn't anyone walking or biking in that mess!) It torrented the rest of the way home, but the storm was moving fast -- I saw several more flashes of lightening, but by the time we arrived home about seven km away, there was no more thunder.

Just torrential rain.

We were thinking of heading out for sushi last night, but I decided that walking in this weather would be a bad idea. So we stayed home and had frozen pizza.

All that was missing, once we dried off, was a roaring fire. Ah well. Next weekend we're having the chimney swept, and we can indulge our love of fires.

Of course, next weekend we are promised some sun, which should be a great change from the two weeks of unbelievable wetness.

Forecast for today: rain. Don't even ask about the rest of the week.

Boy, 3.5, stumps mother at math

We are under yet another rainfall warning right now. And this week I'm downtown at a course all the latter half of the week, which means that at 4pm class close I'm sitting, half off my chair, coat on, bag packed, ready to dash out the door, down the stairs, down the block, around the corner, up two flights in the parkade to my car, to take it all the way across downtown in the dark and the rain at the start of rush hour and then across town to the Workplace and daycare to get the kiddo.

This is all after spending seven hours in a room lit only by fluorescent lights having a power point presentation which only tangentially relates to what I do for a living read at me.

I say this only because I'd like to explain my frame of mind for the conversation ahead, in the hopes that my math inadequacy will be almost excusable.

So post pick up, my child is in the back seat chatting away. Me, I'm negotiating yet more wet rainy dark roads, and the traffic that all wants to leave Workplace and daycare, and the lights and the cyclist and basically the insanity. And I hear from the back:

"One ten is ten! and then TWO tens are ....

...

....

twenty!"

And then:

"Mommy, what's FIVE tens??!"

"Fifty" I reply. And we discuss how two tens is twenty, which he knew, and then three tens is thirty and four tens is forty and so five is fifty. He thinks this is all HILARIOUS, for some reason. And then asks:

"Mommy, what's TEN tens??"

"That's ONE HUNDRED!" I reply. "Isn't that great?!"

He agrees that this is pretty neat, but then like all kids he wants to move on to something bigger and better.

"Mommy, what's ONE HUNDRED TENS??!!"

And I say ....

yes, it's true. I pause. I can't think. And I actually think to myself "I know what ten one-hundreds is. Is that the same??!"

I feel like I should be admitting at this point that I drool and don't actually work as a writer; in fact I don't have a post-graduate degree because hello! how can they grant a post-graduate degree to someone SO DAMN STUPID.

Eventually I cough out that one hundred tens is 1,000. "A one with THREE ZEROS! Isn't that great?!"

He agrees. And now that I'm more confident, we go into what 300 tens are, and so forth until we get home.

But MY GOD, this is pretty damn pathetic. And what's even more pathetic?

I did 100 10s on my computer calculator before I posted this just to make DAMN SURE that I was right.

Dentistry

Today was The Boy's annual dentist appointment.

I have extremely few fond memories of the dentist as a child. My first dentist, only hazily remembered, was an older man, the one my parents used, who wasn't that well suited to children. He soon told my mother he was removing kids from his practice, so we went elsewhere. The next one I don't remember as particularly personable either. The third one -- the one who I stayed with until I left the hometown -- was a very nice man and a great dentist, but he had the unpleasant task of removing the baby teeth I had that just. wouldn't. fall. out. I think all in all he pulled three or four of my baby teeth out, which was a painful and traumatizing experience, one which is forever burned in my brain.

Not the mention the fact that he was the man who recommended to my mother that I get braces, which of course in hindsight was a great decision, because my teeth are pretty and probably healthier because of it, but it was a full year of painful mouth and peer teasing, which pretty much SUCKED. Good memories of dentistry are something I simply don't have.

So the first time we took The Boy to the dentist, I was beyond nervous. I picked a pediatric dentist, too -- more expensive, but I was hoping he would be excellent with children, and so would his hygienists, and thus The Boy's first experiences would be good ones. I do believe that good oral hygiene is a very good practice, and I think a good start in life down this road will be a very good thing.

But I was nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I had to leave the room when they were looking at his teeth. I'm sitting there, just watching, and was feeling so ill and so horrible that I had to leave the room. They weren't doing anything that hurt, he was fine, but I was so distraught I had to leave the room. Let's keep in mind that I've held my kid down while he screamed while they stuck him with IV needles when he was sick with a kidney infection, so clearly I have a real neurosis here.

So I made The Man take him this time. Oh, I told him what was coming, I reminded him of last time and how he went to the special room with the special chair that tipped back and that they were going to look inside his mouth. "And count my teeth!" he remembered. And I said yes, but THIS time they would also BRUSH his teeth for him! He was puzzled by this news, but accepting. (Of course, he's three; if I told him they were going to kindly stroke his tongue he'd be puzzled but accepting. Everything is new.)

We texted back and forth through it, me at home, The Man at the office. When his turn came, The Boy just trotted off happily with the hygienist. The Man on tenterhooks, listening intently in the waiting room for close to half an hour for noises of distress and wailing. Nothing. He's called in, sees our tiny boy, legs in the air, back on the chair. His mouth is open, the dentist pokes around; the dentist pauses to talk to The Man, and The Boy closes his mouth. The dentist turns his attention back to our child, who obediently just opens his mouth again. Not a peep, not a complaint, not a tiny bit of resistance. Just ... fine.

This isn't the first time he's surprised me with his bravery in new situations; this is especially notable because he wasn't a terribly adaptable nor outgoing baby. But I guess this is what parenting is: you spend the time and energy and try to prepare your child to go out into the world, and if you are lucky they are just as able as you hope they will be. And we are. Very lucky.

But to put this into perspective, I might also note that upon leaving the dentist's office, The Man and The Boy encountered ... wait for it ... WIND. And while he can sit and have his mouth poked at for half an hour with nary a complaint, the WIND in his FACE was a definite cause for disquiet and great complaints.

You just never can tell.

Verdict:

Well, like all un-wheated baked goods, it's texture is .... well, not liked wheat based baked goods. It's hard to describe, and the best adjective I can come up with is that it's a little bit ... gummier. Which sounds much worse than it is. In order to mimic the binding properties of gluten, you have to add a binding agent of some kind to these recipes, and xanthan / guar gum is the ingredient of choice. And it binds, but just differently.

But the flavour? Spot. On.

And the texture is moist and soft, just like regular cake.

So all in all: A success.

(But a small one -- one recipe I tried was delicious when warm, but the next day was inedible. So I'll reserve judgement until I finish the thing. Because if I do, it's a real success.)

yay. :)

Smelling like home

The only thing I like doing in the kitchen is baking. Which means that basically it's the only kitchen thing I'm any good at, because it's the only thing I practice. I'm not saying that I'm any kind of virtuoso, but I like doing it and I like eating what I make, so I guess it's pretty yummy.

So figuring out that gluten is the root of all evil in my like has been rather a blow. Yes, there are lots of gluten-free things available in the city, but they aren't universally yummy; some of them are downright awful. And most of the rest are rice-based, which is fine but has a certain texture that isn't conducive to all baked goods.

And the mixes that you can find to bake yourself are very hit and miss; some of them so dry and white-rice based that they taste a lot like sawdust, and some that we made and literally couldn't eat. We have found a few that are ok, but there's always something lacking -- too full of white flour, too sweet, too dry. For someone who baked almost exclusively with whole wheat flour, it's hard to go back to eating empty carbs; I just don't see the point of ingesting something that gives me little to no food value.

There are lots of recipes on line, of course, but they can roughly be divided into the ones that use flour mixes, and thus are mediocre, and the ones who carefully parcel out the weird and wonderful exotic flours, like sorghum, quinoa, and teff. All of which I can find in Vancouver, but I am loathe to buy because they are expensive, and my luck with the pre-baked goods, baking mixes, and other recipes has been so hit and miss -- and mostly miss.

(Having said that, the idea of baking with quinoa and teff is rather exciting to me, because quinoa is a grain that is actually, from my reading, healthier than wheat. And since I kind of like my baked goods to have some kind of food value, I like the idea of eating something that gives me good protein and amino acids, and yet tastes like a treat.)

But I can't live without baking. I can't live without the carbs, and I thought to myself -- if I'm going to avoid gluten the rest of my life, I can't live like this. I miss it too much, I miss the baking itself, I miss the creation in the kitchen, and I miss, miss, miss yummy baked goods. I can't just eat mediocre mixes the rest of my life. And there are some pretty amazing-looking baked goods out there, and people who swear by the yumminess thereof, and .... well, in the end, what have I got to lose? I might lose some money, and some time, but what I might gain is my baking back again.

This was further encouraged by my finding, at the local store, a gingerbread loaf made by the local rice bakery. I was entranced. My mother made gingerbread cake when I was a child, and I loved it. And the instant I saw it, I thought, I must have that. And I looked forward to it all the way home, the rest of the day, and that evening, I cut into it, scooped out the first piece ...

And literally couldn't eat it.

I did kind of shrug it off; well, that sucks. Another thing I'm just going to have to miss. But then by complete chance I navigated my way back to a blog I'd been to before but didn't go to very often, and she had, as her most recent post: gingerbread cake.

It was a sign.

So I dug into the recipe, and put the wide array of strange flours on the shopping list, and when The Man came home with the groceries, I measured and counted and sifted and mixed my way into home made gluten free gingerbread cake.

I unfortunately can't end this post by telling you how wonderful it is: it's only just out of the oven, and too hot to eat. Moreover, The Man is making something Wonderful for dinner, and I don't want to spoil my appetite.

But the house smells like childhood and Christmas and home baking, and that in and of itself is a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I have hope that one day I will just get used to sifting together quinoa and sorghum flour into a beautiful baked item. And I will love it again.

(Either that or that my body will decide that I am not allergic to gluten after all, which naturopathy and even conventional medicine tells me is not an impossibility, and I will just start baking with wheat again.)

But I will try to remember to update later and hopefully will then tell you all then that spending $15 on a small bag of quinoa flour wasn't a colossal mistake.

Sundry

I'd write more about the Olympic ticket buying experience, but I'm so angry about it that I can't do it without writing in all caps. And no one likes to be yelled at early on a Sunday morning.

* * * * *

This morning we are under a rainfall warning AND a flood warning. We already have the Big Bad Flu, and there are a lot of sirens around for a Sunday morning. If we just had a locust warning, I'd start wondering if all those rumours about 2012 were true.

* * * * *

I went to prenatal yoga late yesterday afternoon -- despite the horrendous price. It's Vancouver Westside, it costs an arm and a leg to live here, and I guess the yoga prices fit the neighbourhood. It was a great class, and I'd like to go back, but I'm at this part of the pregnancy when all the ligaments in my lower abdomen are stretching, and if I move too fast or sneeze too hard, they hurt like hell. And so by the time I was ready for bed last night, I could hardly move from all the stretching.

It was a pretty unconventional yoga class -- never before have I sung "You are my sunshine" in a studio before -- and there was a lot of mama dancing ("move those hips!") and "embrace your power as a woman!" stuff, but it was fun and relaxing and I think I'd like to go back. If by next Saturday, I can walk without wincing.

Amusingly my work is trying for the first time to have a social life, and they've organized a bowling party in a couple weeks -- after the yoga experience I think bowling will probably snap something. So I think abstaining is best. For me and the team, because to be honest I'm the worst bowler ever. Having the ball go somewhere other than the gutter is quite a fluke.

* * * * *

This morning I can walk without too much pain, but last night it hurt so much to bend and / or lift a leg, I had to get The Man to help me get my pants off. I'd say something quippy about how that got us into this problem to begin with, but that seems too obvious. Clearly I do need to spend more time doing yoga if I'm that poorly after doing so.

So: onward! Let's see if we can get through this rainy day and find something interesting to do.

Dear Vancouver Olympic Games organizers

As I approach two hours in your virtual waiting room, let me just say this:

The place sucks.

Time spent in Olympic ticketing "virtual waiting room"

one hour and twenty minutes.

I don't want to be cynical or anything, but I think tickets for us ordinary folks might be hard to come by what with all the corporate sponsors, etc., who've already scooped most of the best ones.

But I'm not cynical or anything. Really.

Erk. Olympic-sized erk.

There is not one but two three year olds running unfettered in my house right now, and I am all alone. In terms of adult company. Which means I am outnumbered. The daycare, for whatever reason, has decided that today must be their annual work day, and given my delicate gravid status I determined that The Man had to go. And then I offered a playdate to a small friend whose mother is also out at the work day (which they term a "work party" which is misnomer if ever I heard one). So here I am, preparing for negotiations between small children, and lunch to be prepared at some nebulous point in the future. I don't know this child well; I don't know what he eats.

Wish me luck.

I am also sitting here with the idle goal of finding ourselves some tickets for these here Olympic Games that I have heard are coming here to Vancouver. I'm personally not really in favour of them; in fact I voted against having them. These things are always over budget and not paid for, and I do believe that the millions of dollars that they will cost would be better spent improving schools, health care, and opportunities for the homeless, among other things. Those people who try and tell you that there will be so much more revenue due to incoming tourists are full of it. People, it's VANCOUVER. People come here ANYWAY. It's not like people are unaware of the city and will suddenly start coming here in droves. And I'm already paying enough property tax to live here; I don't need to pay any more.

And that's not even to mention how my daily life will be affected. The place where I work will be one of the venues, and thus will be overrun with people, and they've closed all the roads that take me between the daycare and my office, which incidentally are five minutes drive apart normally but during the games I will be required to drop off my kid, completely leave the area, and then come in a completely different way to my office. I anticipate that due to increased traffic and confusion, that it will take me about 30 minutes to get between the daycare and my office. And that's not even the funny part. The funny part is that although the games themselves are just over two weeks long, due to security considerations, those road closures will be in place for ... come on, guess, can you? You'd think three weeks? Four? Maybe even six? TWO FREAKING MONTHS, PEOPLE.

TWO.

MONTHS.

So I have thus determined (and told my boss) that I will be working from home for the entirety of the games, because I am not hauling my six months pregnant self up there on over crowded public transit with a four year old in tow, nor will I be spending lengthy times in my car, because the likelihood of my needing a bathroom between leaving my house and arriving (late) to my office is just too great. And I am lucky that I can do this -- that I have enough vacation time to take part day vacations and work from home and do this combination for 2.5 weeks so that I can avoid the worst of the worst of the chaos. There are a great number of people who won't be able to do so. At my work and other places. And it's going to be very, very frustrating for people who are hoping that their lives can just continue as much as possible.

But at the same time ... there's nothing I can do about them coming here, so I may as well sit back and try to make the best of it. And since I have no plans to, in future, get myself to an Olympic event, I might as well see what I can find while they are here. What the heck, right?

Alas, despite trying to access the site for the better part of half an hour, I have had absolutely zero success and I can't see any hint that it's going to get better. And since I highly suspect that my peaceful time on the couch for today is rapidly approaching its end, I figure that 30 minutes of trying is all I'm likely to get.

Ah well. There's always TV. And scalpers.

Diagnosis: Anemia

Of course it's not like I actually asked a medical professional about this; goodness no! Why bother with an actual informed opinion? But today, after no more sleep than any other night this week (in fact, somewhat less!) I feel quite a bit better.

I credit the beef. Hence it must be anemia.

I guess we'll see.

Snap

When the boy was two, I was still in touch with most of the women I met in the post-partum Mommy Group. And between the time he was 18 months to 2.5, all of them got pregnant again.

I'm not exaggerating. With the exception of the woman who split from her husband and the woman who was 38 at the time she delivered her first baby and who I suspect may have had fertility difficulties, I was the ONLY ONE who didn't get pregnant again. So among those who were a.) fertile and b.) had a ready supply of sperm, I was the only one who didn't have a child two years after the first. And there were like 12-15 women, so it wasn't a tiny sampling of reality.

I felt like an outcast. Like I was doing it wrong. And it's not just there. At The Boy's daycare, he is almost the only one who doesn't have a sibling within two years. Barring those who I know are subfertile (it's amazing what people will tell you when you meet them at pick up time each night), he might be the only one.

Child spacing is something that comes and goes with fashion. In the 1970s, when I was born, three years was the norm. Almost everyone I knew was separated from a sibling or two by three years. It was the Perfect Child Spacing. These days it's two. Despite the fact that there's no evidence whatsoever that this is a good age gap; no more than three years. In fact if you read the literature, most child psychologists say four years (or more) is best because a.) your older child has had a lot of one on one parental attention for his formative years, and is more independent leaving you b.) more able to fully pay attention to the second child for his / her formative years and c.) children so spaced are less prone to sibling rivalry. In fact the two / three year age spacing is the worst possible for sibling rivalry, with every other age spacing being better. (This is not to say that your two years apart children will hate each other -- of course there are situations where children two years apart are best friends. But statistically speaking, children born less than 18 months apart or more than four years are less likely to be rivals.)

And woe betide you if you fall outside the normal spectrum. Because -- fast forward three years -- I have announced my pregnancy now to co-workers and colleagues at work (not a huge group, less than 10), and have been told now TWICE that "Oh, I thought you weren't going to have any more!"

(Which is I suppose a better reaction than I had to my first pregnancy announcement, because people knew I wasn't married to his father and they repeatedly asked "Was it planned / on purpose??!" UH -- are you FREAKING KIDDING ME??! Are you actually ASKING ME THAT??! Do you think I'm going to actually tell you that no, we weren't planning it and we're going to split up and my heavens, was this bad planning? Isn't it possible that we may have wanted to have a family and just NOT BE MARRIED??!)

But just because I don't fall into the societal norm of two years spacing between children, people think this is abnormal. I fall into the category of "not wanting more children" because four years! My God! I may as well have them 15 years apart when I'm 45 and barely fertile! It's like I'm telling people that I've decided to raise them with wolves! Four year spacing! Good Lord! Could anything be worse?

Can't we just stick with "Congratulations!" instead of commenting on my fertility / child spacing / family planning?

Honestly.

* * * * * * *

This rant may or may not have something to do with the fact that I am, 15 weeks in, still bone tired. At times. Energy returns on occasion, but some days taking the day off to sleep is all I want to do. I was reflecting on this today while trying to stay focussed at work, and remembered that I was a bit anemic last time, and perhaps I should think about taking some iron and perhaps that would help with the energy level (and subsequently, my mood, making me less prone to ranting about people's comments on my pregnancy).

And then I imagined in my mind a steak. (Look away, APC! And SRH. And anyone else who doesn't eat red meat!) A BIG JUICY RED STEAK! And it was seriously the best thing I could imagine to eat. And one the way home I went and bought ground beef to put in my dinner, and while it was frying it was the BEST THING I HAVE EVER SMELLED. Seriously, if I hadn't been so conscious of the health dangers of eating half cooked ground beef, I think I would have dipped my spoon into the pan and just started eating.

So there, I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a little less irritating. Or at least, that I will be.

Remembrance

I haven't been to a Remembrance Day ceremony in years. It's a strange thing how when one is a child, one (at least one did in my school district) attends a ceremony each, solemn with small children reciting "In Flanders Fields" (which I still remember from the year that it was my class' turn to recite, incidentally). And yet when one becomes an adult, there are far fewer opportunities to attend something similar. Over the years I've often watched it on television, but we don't own one now, and getting television coverage requires special plug ins for the lap top, not to mention a very dangerous home made antenna that would likely injure the child.

And then for the last few years, I've had a small child who would never remain silent and calm for the necessary amount of time for a ceremony.

It's a load of excuses, isn't it? It feels like it to me. I truly believe that we need to remember the sacrifices that people made so that we could live the lives we want to. I want to honour those who men and women who lived through those times, who believed the necessity of that they were doing, to thank them for living through that horrible time so that I wouldn't have to. So my child wouldn't have to.

As I sit writing this, my child is playing with a plastic syringe we have to make sure the cat swallows her pills (we fill it with water; don't worry, he's not playing with random feline medicines). He's shooting things, tells me he's shot his father's head off. I cringe. I asked him if he knew why we were home today. He said no. I told him that long ago there was a big war, and it was horrible, and many people died. And that we take today to remember what they did for us, and be thankful that they did, and to remember that war is dreadful and peace is achievable.

He's still shooting things.

And I feel like a bit of a failure. Especially today.

I guess it's too much to expect that at three he can understand the enormity of war, and the finality of death. That he can appreciate the unknown sacrifices of faceless people who came before him. It's a very abstract concept. He understands power and dominance and superheroes and fun. He doesn't know how the massive loss of lives in war and the superheroes he adores are related. He doesn't understand that when he kills an imaginary foe, in real life, people aren't just bad or good. No matter who you kill, it was still someone's son, someone's brother, someone's dad.

And I suppose that this is what parenting is about. A friend of mine once told me that there's no point celebrating a pregnancy. People get pregnant all the time. What's celebratory is raising that child to be a functioning member of society. A compassionate, kind, thinking, feeling, understanding, thankful human being.

So I have a few years to go in this process, and in the meantime, I can remember and observe the day how I see fit. Because the best way to ensure that he remembers is to remember it myself.

Huh

We have a book -- a children's book -- about medieval castles. This should not come as a surprise to any of you who know me in real life, and perhaps not to many of you who have been reading for a while. It's a flap book, so you can SEE INSIDE the castles and see the various areas thereof and see some of the activities that take place there. Like jousts. And banquets. Banquets with trumpets and food and boys serving wine. (It's a very romantic view of castlery. But they do at least show the smithy and kitchens and such as well.) Which is what I think led to this exchange this morning. At 5am, no less.

Boy: I've never served wine.

Me: hzzzrkkk ... wha?

Me: Did you just say you've never served wine?

Boy: Yeah, I've never served wine. Boys only serve wine at banquets.

Me: [cluing in] We have very few banquets here.

Boy: Yeah. So I've never served wine. [pause] You probably have to be four.

Me: Yes, I imagine there is an age limit.

Every once in a while I sit and think to myself -- I wonder what goes on in that little head of his? And heck, NOW I KNOW. Just wish he could wait until, say, 7am, to enlighten me.

Life, consumed

These days my life is pretty consumed by work and home life and my ever growing stomach, and I don't have a whole lot to write. Nothing that seems interesting, anyway. Work is work, it's interesting by times and not-so-much at others. The house is (mostly) under control, which it is at various times. The stomach is the same. Maybe slightly bigger. We shall see; we're off to the midwife tomorrow.

I wrote a few more paragraphs here about that, but honestly *I* didn't want to read it over again, so I figured no one else would want to read it once.

It amuses me greatly that a few years back I did that NaBloPoMo and actually did it, and this year ... wow, so far from that it's not even funny.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll actually have something to say.

First night alone in almost 4.5 years

So I did it. I spent a night away from my child, for the first time since he was conceived four and a half years ago. Every night since then I have spent in close proximity to him -- together while pregnant, bedsharing, co-sleeping, or just nearby. Last night I was ten minutes drive away, and my last thought before I dropped off was "I want my baby!"

The baby was just fine all by himself. Or rather, with my mother. He went to sleep happily and willingly, stirred and needed covers at 5am, and then the next thing she knew it was almost 7:30am and he had gotten himself up, gone to the bathroom, turned on the light and sat himself down for his morning routine.

They went to the beach, she taught him all about owls, and ate some nice food together. He barely noticed I was gone; when I called last night before we went out to dinner, the only thing he had to say to me was "Bye mom!"

And don't get me wrong, he was glad to see me when I got home, but he clearly found the separation much, much easier than I did.

Such is the reality of motherhood.

* * * * * * * *

Despite missing my child, we had a lovely time out. We left the house around 3pm, went to the tea store and the bookstore, found a new book. We then went to the hotel, and relaxed for a short while. I took a bath in the big bathtub. We went out for a lovely, lovely dinner at a downtown restaurant, where I had prawns and arugula salad, and then steak and asparagus which was beautifully cooked, and chocolate mousse with raspberry and sour cherry for dessert. And then we went out for a nice brunch this morning where I had a delightful cobb salad. And tea. Beautiful tea.

The one thing about having a new found food intolerance is that eating in high end restaurants is actually quite easy. They make each meal as you order it, and they make all the food there, so they know exactly what is in it. The staff is very attentive, and they are cautious with food preferences and tolerances, and are inordinately careful about it.

So really the fact is that I've now just been sentenced to eating in very nice restaurants for the rest of my life, which is a terrible hardship, of course. If my bank account can keep up, I know I will enjoy it.

Of course, no matter how careful they are, brunch still kind of sucks without gluten. Sigh.

A week down

Last Sunday The Man left me.

For a week.

To Michigan on a business trip.

And I spent a week being single mommy. It sucked.

But now he is home, and I am Very Happy about it. Very. Very. Happy.

And not just because he is doing bedtime right now.

Let the record show ...

that for this pregnancy, 13.5 weeks was the first time I had someone look me up and down and say

"Wow! You're getting SO HUGE!"

Which is of course what EVERY expectant mother needs to hear. Especially at not even four months in.

Just like last night ...

the moon rises over the trees we can see from the back patio. "Look N!" I say. "Look at the beautiful moon!"

He gasps in pleasure. We admire it together. I think.

And then he says ...

"It's time to go trick or treating again!"

He is not entirely surprised, but a bit disappointed, to learn that this is a once a year opportunity.