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.