Where we've been

Those are my newly-pedicured toes, and that is a beach in Mexico. It was fun.

Feeding

My daughter will be nine months old in less than a week and still has shown no interest in eating anything at all. Oh, she loves food. Loves to hold it, look at it, and generally make a mess with it, but not put it anywhere in the vicinity of her mouth. This is actually kind of annoying, because she will not let me eat in peace but because she's nursing non-stop I need to eat A LOT. So my days are full of a fussing,reaching child while I frantically cram my mouth with anything I can eat.

So in order to eat in peace I end up giving her all kinds of things to hold which are not only not appropriate for a baby to eat but probably chokable and injurious, really. Like potato chips and chocolate chip cookies. Not ideal for baby's first food, I admit.

I had a little bit of hope the other day when, while holding a potato chip, she mimicked me and put it to her lips. I hastily grabbed it and got her a piece of banana, which i felt was more appropriate. It was swiftly dropped to the floor in distaste. But, like last time, I am getting to the point where I will give here anything -- recommendations be damned -- if she will just consent to eat it for God's sake. And years from now if she ever asks what here first food was I will honesty be able to answer that it was bacon. Or chocolate cake. Or bacon AND chocolate cake, just for the love of all that is holy.

The good news, I suppose, is that I got into a pair of size 6 jeans at The Gap the other day.

Sent from my iPad

Perspective

This morning my son was rude. Belligerent. Difficult. Refused to cooperate. I am tired, I haven't been sleeping well because my daughter is not sleeping well, so I lost my patience. A lot.

He refused to go to daycare -- something about someone being mean and not wanting to play with that boy and needing a break, and I understand that so despite the fact that *I* needed a break from *him*, I let him stay home.

I have some money I meant to spend at a bookstore left over from Christmas, so I took him off to the local big box book store, with dire threats about his behaviour and how mommy needed some time to pick things out and etc etc. So we went. And he followed. And he asked questions but stayed close. So we went to the ENORMOUS kids section so he could enjoy himself, and he ...

He was good. So good. He picked up books and read them nicely and put them back where he found them. He stayed where I asked him to if need be, but walked around when I didn't mind. He didn't yell or carouse or behave poorly in the slightest.

Unlike poor KARYS!!! KARYS!!!'S identity still is a mystery to me (I only know the spelling of her name because it was on the many easels around the place) but KARYS!!!! and her mother were clearly having a Very Bad Day.

Write, write, and write some more

I had coffee with a work colleague the other day. It was her birthday so I stopped by work -- not the office, but the little cafe nearby. It was good to see her, but a reminder of what I'm due back to in just less than four months. Yes, sure, it's a long time from now, but in most ways just not nearly long enough.

I miss work. I guess. I miss writing. Yeah, I could do it at home, but not with The Boy here because every minute or so there's a "Mom guess what?!" from his corner and the constant interruptions don't make for coherent thoughts. The Girl can be self-sufficient, but it's rare and the times are short, and it's not always easy -- as I'm doing now -- to sit down and force up a topic when she happens to have ten minutes that she's content to be alone..

Truth be told what I do now for a living isn't terribly inspiring. It's well paid, it's relatively interesting, my colleagues are great and there are significant perks -- benefits, childcare, pension plan, flexibility -- which make it a very good place to be. Why am I complaining? Mostly because I get up in the morning and think, "I get to go to work." and the statement is purely ambivalent. I really want to wake up in the morning and think, "I get to go to work!!"

And I don't.

I don't know precisely what will give me that feeling. I'm 37 and still working it out. And frankly with two kids under five and a husband who works long hours and a home to take care of, I don't really have the energy to devote to it right now. And I'm fine with that. I am. But the fact is that I promised myself that once I finished having kids that I'd go back and think about it. Eventually. And going back to work in May is the beginning of that promise.

A promise that has me doing something that makes me want to leap out of bed when I'm 40.

Or 41. But somewhere there. I'd like my working life in my 40s to be fun.


And maybe I can find it at this job I'm in now. I know the position and the office are going to change and morph and become something new, just as it has done since I started. And I know that maybe there'll be something interesting there for me.

Or maybe it'll be something else entirely.

But either way, despite this post, I just don't really want to take that on for a while yet.

I think I'd rather go play cars with my daughter.

Progress

Much as I suspected, the warned-of snow never did materialize, but instead gifted us with a cold, wet, blowy, sleety morning which was probably worse than the promised snow. I mean, it was just as cold and unpleasant and you didn't at least get the prettiness of the white all around.

And oh internets! My house, it is the pits. The absolute pits. So. Much. STUFF. And I confess myself yet again stymied. Last fall when I felt this way I told myself I'd just do the books, and so I did so, but now I'm at the point where I need help with the books and The Man is SO busy that I can't bring myself to insist that he take time off from relaxing when he is home to help me. I also need to sell some stuff, but the consignment store that will take it won't give me an appointment for another couple weeks. And I need to get rid of a bunch of clothes I never wear, but my weight is still fluctuating and I'm not sure what to get rid of and what to keep. You never know, I MIGHT fit into those jeans again one day!!

Oh and the toys. We have so many toys and my kid plays with: Lego. And a few other things here and there, and he reads his books but: Lego. Really I could probably get rid of everything but the Lego and a few books and he'd be just as happy.

And the kitchen is crowded and disorganized, and the paperwork, dear LORD the paperwork which needs sorting and the storage places could use a good organize and ...

And I just don't know where to start, is the problem. We need to get rid of a whole ton of STUFF and I don't know where to start because the problem is so overencompassing.

Sigh.

Anyway. I tidied the living room, got rid of the dessicated tree, cleaned the kitchen, threw some stuff out, put some stuff away, and made a nice soup for dinner.

And then I danced around the place with my daughter in my arms to Lady Gaga, with her giggling like a maniac.

I guess really it was a good day after all.

Canadian prairie sunset

It may have been cold, but I freely admit it was pretty.

Seriously, Vancouver?

I really do think a Snowfall Warning at a maybe possible potential but unlikely five centimeters is a tad over the top, even for this city.

Domo Arigato

I went to my sister's with my family yesterday for the last hurrah of the season. I always, I realize, go to my sister's with a deep feeling of inadequacy and with walls built up. A lack of self-confidence. My sister is blond, tiny, with a huge house in the suburbs and two blond boys. She has a good job. She is in shape, and her house is always immaculate. She is always the hostess, she always has what's needed. She never co-slept or indulged her children. They were left to fuss, and now when I don't swoop in and rescue my daughter when she starts, they rib me and tell me it's "about time" that I ... I don't know ... learned to be a better parent, or something.

In contrast, I sit here in a house that's a perpetual mess. I hate it, and sometimes harbour fantasies of my house burning down just so I can re-furnish and get rid of all the crap I own. I try to clean and de-clutter but the fact is that I own way too much stuff for such a tiny place. And I have two kids, and I don't want them to be clean all the time. They live here too. And I like co-sleeping, and responding to my children, because I think it's good for them to develop good attachment and healthy emotional well being. And I think it's more important to spend time with them, and on keeping myself healthy than it is to ensure the house is clean. I read something this holiday that I think I need to print and put on my fridge:

You can neglect the house for 20 years and it'll take a week or two to sort out. Neglect your children for a couple weeks and it could take 20 years to sort out.

Is it hyperbole? Yes. Is there some truth in it? I definitely believe so.

This morning we were all in pajamas. The house is worse than usual post-Christmas and post-holiday. We're expecting guests at 10. But we spent the morning making lego robots and then The Man put on "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto" and we all danced wildly around the living room with our little robots.

The looks on my children's faces was the best thing I think I've ever seen.

We then cleaned up a bit. But it's no House and Gardens home even so.

And house bedamned, I think my life will be more truly successful if I try my best to make sure my kids have those kinds of expressions of pure joy and delight more often.

2011

It was ten years ago, or so. I was in the UK with my former spouse, and we were at an age where many of our friends were having children or trying to have children, and we happened upon a Mothering store. My mother had waxed rhapsodic about the quality of their clothes and we thought some outfits might be a great present for these many friends of ours who were having children.

We bought several, and brought them home, and gave them out as babies began to appear. But one, one outfit I kept. I loved it so much, and I wanted to keep it for our own babies. He agreed.

A year or so later, the dreams I had of having those children were shattered.

In packing up my things to move away, I came upon that little outfit. And I cried. And I packed it up in tissue, away and hidden, a dream that I held on to but I couldn't even bring myself to look at.

When my son was born, I found it again. And I looked at it, and I dressed him in it, and I remembered that sad woman and her dreams and I gazed at my son and remembered that crazy things can happen.

The outfit went the rounds of a few people, and came back to me when my daughter was born. It's much worn and not as nice. The little pants have been separated from the shirt, which is very stained, and the little matching jacket is nowhere to be found. She wore it once, or maybe twice, I don't remember.

This afternoon I cleaned out her drawers -- she has so many new clothes from Christmas, and so much she's grown out of. The little pants were there, on the discard pile. I picked them up. Maybe I should keep them. I thought. As I reminder to never give up hope, and to keep going when things are tough.

And then I looked at my daughter, trying hard to pull the things out of the box as fast as I could put them in. I looked at my son, looking through one of his new books nearby. I don't need a reminder. I'm living the life I always wanted, I have everything I need, and I can cast off the reminders of my past life.

So for 2011, this is what I will work towards: getting rid of the last bits of detritus from the past. And staying present in today, so that tomorrow will be fantastic.