Bunmaster

I'm still here

2007-08-31T23:05:00.000-07:00

Barely.

Just waiting for the words.

I think they are too scared to come out of hiding. It must be pretty comfortable wherever they are.

Anniversary 5 Oh

2007-06-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

No card for you Sugar Daddy.

No Facebook gift either because I'm too damn lazy to enter my credit card info.

Just my thanks for 5 good years.

Love your ball-&-chain.

Travelling

2007-06-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

We've been in the Toronto area for the past week for my step-brother's wedding (which was beautiful). Family obligations like shopping together, visiting relatives & trying to keep the only boys in a family of girls from getting out of hand, have been keeping me busy. Right now I'm sitting around in Brampton, kind of stuck but not minding it because I need a bit of a break before we head off to Newfoundland bright & early tomorrow morning. I am however, missing out from meeting up with an old high school pal so I'm feeling sad about that. Hopefully we'll be able to get together sooner rather than later.

Not too much else to say but Doodles is doing well even though the first few days were a bit hellish with the screaming & all. Of course, now that she's adjusted to the time difference we are throwing another jet lag curve ball at her so I'm sure the screaming will return for a few days after tomorrow's journey. Is it all right if I wear ear plugs for the next few years? Can they be permanently installed?

I am so not cut out for this job

2007-06-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not good with this tantrum stage. It wears me down & burns me out. I'm trying my best to deal with them but it's like living with a manic depressive on crystal meth. One minute Doodles is sweet as pie, calling me "mama" & giving me kisses. The next minute she's thrown herself on the floor, screaming at top volume, bawling her eyes out because I told her not to eat lip balm. If we're out on the town she'll take it to the next level & add in some shin kicking & thrashing herself out of my arms because I have to drag her away from some fine china.

This was my yesterday & the day before & a few days before that as well. It was happening a couple of months ago but we nipped it in the bud with more sign language. All of a sudden the tantrums are back & with a new intensity. I'm not good with conflict. I hate loud noises, like high pitched screaming. I hate feeling embarrassed by bad behaviour (ya I know she's only little, it's a stage, blah, blah, blah). I hate not knowing what to do. I hate feeling angry & frustrated with a little kid. I hate it when she won't listen to me (or can't hear over her screams). What the hell am I doing wrong?

Maybe it's all in the stars. This was my horoscope yesterday:

"Stress might be getting the better of a member of your household today, dear Virgo. This person is feeling especially volatile emotionally, and the least little irritation could set off a temper tantrum. Try to ease the pressure by staying out of the way - and don't offer advice, however well intentioned it should be. This person needs to come to terms with whatever may be bothering him or her. So distance yourself and do your own thing!"

Other than the tantrums, she's doing great so I'm trying to concentrate on that to get me through the days. Her language skills have really taken off lately & she's got about 150 words in her vocabulary, plus all her animal noises. She's kind of freaking us out with her parrotting & we're going to start having to watch our words really soon. Doodle Bug already know how to say "ass" & Sugar Daddy keeps egging her on to say it. She knows most of her letters & colours, though she gets them mixed up from time to time. She's trying to count & will call out the numbers 8, 3, 10 & 18 as she goes down the stairs (which as of yesterday she can go down forward, no hands - talk about scary!). They aren't in order of course but it's pretty cute. So these are the things I try to think about when she's being a crazy nutbar & hope that the next developmental stage is around the nearest corner.

I was hoping it was the leather one

2007-05-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

so I could ask for something like this, or this, or even these.

But alas, the second anniversary calls for cotton, or wow, "desk items".

That's right. I've been writing under the Bunmaster masthead for two years. If you can call it writing. Or maybe the lack thereof. Unwriting? Perhaps it's like an Unbirthday. If that's the case you are welcome to do as the song suggests ..... "It's great to drink to someone and I guess that you will do." You being me, not you. You get to drink. Me? Maybe. If I don't pass out from the pain of these freaking cramps first. I forgot what this could be like. Ugh.

I'd like to be all cool & link to a few of my favorite posts like the well-read bloggers do but lately I feel nothing I've done really warrants a closer look. If you are desperate you can go here for last year's explanation about me blogging. Or if you want a really good laugh check out this meme I did last June. Crunches? Nah. That crap about getting the baby to sleep through the night - still hasn't happened.

Oh the naivete.

In no particular order....

2007-05-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

Good:

America's Next Top Model finale is on tonight.
Doodles learned how to say her name (almost understandable).
She woke up this morning saying "cat".
The weather here is awesome.
I have yet to kill my dog while Sugar Daddy is away on business.
I purchased new fingernail clippers that I will now hide from my husband.
Doodles also learned how to walk backwards & sideways & now throws these skills into her dance repertoire.
Ben & Jerry's ice cream is cheap here so I don't have to drive to Stowe for the free samples anymore.
Facebook is fun.
Doodles has been napping for the past 2.5 hours. Ack!

Bad:

I don't know how else to put this but the dog is pissing shit.
The dog stinks & I refuse to wipe his ass.
Frizzy hair.
I ate too much Chinese food last night & for lunch today & probably again for supper tonight.
I think I am addicted to Facebook.
I still haven't read / caught up on any blogs.
We are full of snot & have been watching too much Blue's Clues because I feel too lousy to make an effort in any physical activity.
Sugar Daddy lost / stole all the fingernail clippers & my emery board even though he swears otherwise & so I've been using baby nail clippers until today. You know how hard that is?
I am now readjusting the bullet points again because stupid Blogger goes all weird if you add a picture after you wrote stuff, especially in point form. Argh!

Hoping:

To meet my new friend at the Zoo tomorrow.
To be able to steel myself for driving across the floating bridge to get to the Zoo.
My dog stops crapping soon.
To upload some videos soon.
To start running or going to the gym so I can tone up.
To finish one damn scrapbook soon.
To get tickets for the Zoo Tunes I want to see. (Pink Martini & The Be Good Tanyas)

Latest Doodle stats:

Weight = 19 lbs = <3rd %ile
Height = 29.5 inches = 3rd %ile
Head = 48 cm = 88th %ile
Still on the boob & now asks for "ilk"
Still super cute.

Best pants ever!

See I told you I was writing an update

2007-05-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

18 months old is what you are Freyja Doodles & this is to you.

So my little coppertop, I haven’t written about you in a while & I’m sorry but you’ve been a little much for me until a few weeks ago. I had some hints before your birthday that you possesed a temper, but I wasn’t expecting any major tantrums until closer to the “terrible twos”. Nu huh! You decided that when mama wasn’t doing something you wanted her to do, or was taking her sweet ass time getting a (much needed) cup of coffee, that that was the time to begin:

a. Screaming
b. Sobbing
c. Clawing at my legs (ouch)
d. Hyperventilating
e. Prying mama’s toes off the floor (double ouch!)
f. Flopping to the ground to provide more of a. & b.
g. Attempting to fling or twist your body out of protective arms whilst doing a., b., & c. in public, near traffic or in the bath

This started happening a hell of a lot once we got back from x-mas (vacation? Not!) out East. You were still pretty sick & we had to keep giving you nasty medicines & that evil nebulizer treatment which made you madder than a rabid wolverine. Then you’d cry & cry & cry until you almost passed out which made my heart shatter into little teeny tiny pieces. I think you were so pissed off about that situation that you must have felt you had no control over any part of your life. This just had to coincide with the moment you most wanted to assert your independence to date. You didn’t have a lot of strength left after losing over a pound but of course you had just enough to throw a good tantrum & kick me in the stomach as I quickly removed you from your desires. Obviously any chance of a happy life for you was completely ruined because mama wouldn’t let you steal an Elmo puppet or go for another ride on the escalator. A fate worse than death was apparently having daddy come home from work to ask for a hug because you would scream for a good half hour. God forbid mummy asking him to give you a bath. Only mama would do & yet I was apparently making you miserable by refusing to let you play with the knobs on the stove or watch Baby MacDonald for the umpteenth time.

And so, I had turned into what any mother fears. I was that woman who couldn’t control her offspring. You know the one. That stressed out gal in the grocery store who just needs to go down one more aisle (being one way too many) so she can get some Goldfish crackers to shove down cranky pants’ throat. The one who rushes past the booze section thinking hmmmm. The one who is trying to talk some reason into her seething, screeching toddler while also attempting to distract the child with some dumbass song or groddy toy that has been hastily stashed into the diaper bag.

Sidenote: Yes, I bought a diaper bag. Yes, it is awesome. Yes, I went 16 months without purchasing one. Yes, I was proud of myself for not dishing out the moolah. Yes, I told expectant pals they didn’t need no stinkin’ diaper bag. That was until I noticed the amount of crumbs & grossness in the bottom of my cheap slouchy Old Navy purse & MEC small backpack. Plus the amount of food & entertainment crap I was suddenly carrying was busting some of the seams. Anyway, I got this beauty & I lurve it. And yes, I am done talking about my bag.

So ya, I was that woman that you’ve looked at in the mall barely able to hold onto her thrashing brat who is catterwauling at the top of their lungs. I look back at you now from the other side of the fence & smile sheepishly embarrassed while really I’m pissed off that I have another bruise on my leg/arm/hip & that you, oh yes, the perfect child. Either that or you are some obnoxious teen so I don’t really give a shit because I was obnoxious once too. (still?)(really how old am I? trashing on teenagers. Sheesh!)

Needless to say life was very frustrating trying to figure out what you wanted, what I could do to keep you calm & how to somehow find a baby straightjacket on the web (where else?) so you couldn’t hit me with your surprisingly strong limbs or scratch up both of our faces because I had yet again forgot to trim your ~~talons~~ fingernails while you slept. Because I was probably sleeping too. After all, I had become incredibly exhausted both physically & mentally with trying to wrangle you & figure out how to deal with the meltdowns. Finally I made my way back to the internets after what felt like the longest hiatus in the history of the weeb. I spent one evening lurking on message boards, reading Ask Moxie & others in an attempt to find some help.
Through all the assvice I learned what I could & spent the next few days totally focusing on what Doodles wanted. No other distractions allowed. When I could see a storm brewing I’d get down to her level & talk to her about what she was feeling & then we’d go do what she wanted, even if I was in the middle of making lunch. We avoided all toy stores & favorite places you hate to leave just so I wouldn’t have to say ‘no, time to go’. This all seemed to help us out & I got better with offering distractions which worked almost all the time. Probably the best thing I did though was start signing to you again.

I’d done a few basic signs from the beginning, like milk, sleep, bath but got discouraged because you only did the milk sign & then you'd use it for just about anything you wanted. Milk could mean milk / gimme the teddy / I want to see the squirrel / I want cheese. So while I didn’t give up, I didn’t use the signs all the time & we just sort of lost track together. Come tantrumville I decided we needed to be able to communicate better (yes I know this sounds like I’m dealing with a disfuctional adult instead of treating my baby like a baby) so both of our frustration levels could ease up a bit. I started signing again & suddenly you were picking them all up & actually signing back to me. Awesome! All at once things began to get better between us & you could tell me when you wanted more, when you wanted to read a book, when you needed a cup of water or that you saw a lion.

Ahhhhh. Now I didn’t have a 2’-5” primate tyring to scrabble up my legs whilst howling at me all day. Sure it still happened every so often but it wasn’t for an entire day anymore which made me feel like I could breathe again. You also started to get a bit better about hanging out with daddy as long as you couldn’t see or hear me. Finally I could shower by myself every so often – what a treat!

Another treat was having you start talking more. You’d said oggy (dog), mammm, poppy & a few other before xmas but suddenly you are now off to the races & have become quite the little parrot. It seems like every time you learn a new sign that you can say the word itself a few days later. Favorites have been up, hop, out, hot, clock & all your animal noises. The past few days it’s been cat, house, milk & pen. Oh and how could I forget your ultimate tool – the word more. More milk, more music, more stickers, more tickling, more everything. There are many other words that you know & I’m trying to write them down every once in a while to keep track but then I’m lame & totally forget.

You have also impressed us by sort of learning the alphabet. It started with the foam letters in the bathtub & the wonderful letter I. Daddy soon got you recognizing most of the other letters & once I bought the They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABCs dvd/cd you were totally hooked. Of course you don’t get them right all the time but it’s pretty cool when we are out & you start saying Deeee because you saw the letter D on the back of a truck. You are also starting to recognize colours & shapes know how to recognize an Appaloosa from an other kind of horse. Your favorite colours appear to be purple & blue, though I think you secretly love orange & pink. Actually that’s me.

Let’s see, what else? You are a very determined & opinionated little person & will toss a book across the room if you rather read a different one. You are an excellent climber & whenever I turn my back you are up on the coffee or end table doing a funky dance. And dance you like to do. Unless it’s at our dance class. Then it takes you a good while to warm up to what’s happening & many times you’ve spent the class in my arms because you are scared of the parachute which is weird because you love it when we go to Gymboree. You get frightened of things that make a lot of noise like the vacuum, the play cars at the community centre & strange loud toys. You love stickers, Play-Doh, your rocking horse, your books & your stuffed animals. I could buy thousands of these items & you’d probably never get tired of them. Thanks goodness for Value Village down the street. We’ve totally lucked out on the toy & book selection there & despite a few missing pieces here & there we’ve amassed quite the collection of quality toys for super cheap. Plus some cheap ass toys as well that we’ll probably donate right back again.

Anyway (what is it with me & the anyway?) I should really post this before our friends reach through my laptop to give me a good shaking for being a non-blogging lazy bugger. I’m starting to feel more normal again since we are communicating better & with your new found confidence & indepence (sort of – I still have to be within walking distance) you let me get a few more things done throughout the day. Thanks for calming down the temper tantrums & for being so freaking cute I could smooch you all day. Thanks for not eating too much dog food & sharing you crackers with mama. Thanks for the talking &amp;amp;amp; meowing & neighing & your sweet kisses & the beauty of your smile. Without you I would be nothing. Well not much anyway. Love mama.

My brain went on vacation & all you get is this lousy post

2007-05-09T20:16:00.000-07:00

I swear I am writing an update. It's coming soon, promise.

I knew it had to end sometime

2007-04-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

No not the blog.

Rather, I break my silence to inform you, my faithful friends, that my blissful halcyon days of not having to purchase feminine hygiene supplies are now over. I haven't had to use any such products (besides the days following Doodles's birth) since December 2004.

And that was a 55 day cycle.

That's right. 17 & a half months of freedom from plug purchases, PMS & bloating. That's what you get for extended breastfeeding I guess. At least that's what I got. It's been a sweet ride hormones. Thanks.

And just to keep the peace here's a couple of crazy ~~baby~~ toddler pics.

Big smiles in her groovy dress.

Mmmmmm bread!

This blog sucks

2007-03-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

I mean really, what am I - down to one post a month? So pathetic.

I am not even trying anymore. It's just too damn hard. I know you folks back home want an update & I'm sort of trying to write one but it is slow going dudes. Slow going.

Anyway, there's new pics in the Flickr thing so go take a gander at our growing gal & I'll get back to everybody (& their blogs, etc.) when I can.

Sorry everyone.

What's my excuse?

2007-02-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

I'm not really sure.

I suppose I could blame the lack of posts & comments & general internet lurking on the usual lack of sleep excuse. I wouldn't exactly be lying. We've had a crapload of sleep issues going on lately, going back to the holiday illnesses & the 24 hour nursing marathons. Plus the molars, the growth spurt & some crazy night terrors that have left me shell shocked. Seeing your tiny daughter in a trance-like state screaming loud enough to wake the dead (I now have witnesses to the volume level - they know I'm not exagerrating - right mumsy?) & not responding to your voice is really, really weird.

And tiny she is. We recently had her 15th month well baby check & vaccines. During the RSV episode where she refused solid food & then taking her time getting back on track, Doodle Bug lost over a pound. She is small to begin with. People are always remarking on how cute it is to see such a wee baby walking so well, thinking she's around 10 months old, so I was really curious to see where she was on the charts.

Weight = 18.06 lbs = > 3rd %ile
Height = 29" = > 10th %ile
Head = 46.5 cm = 75th %ile according to the nurse but more than 97th %ile according to the internet calculator

That's right, our toddler is kinda a freak. It doesn't look like she has a ginormous noggin but apparently we are fooling ourselves. I like to think she's just brainy. Such is a mother's unconditional love, but really, her head doesn't look overly huge to me. She does seem little & some days a bit thin but hey, we're getting great use out of her wardrobe. She now fits into 12-18 month tops, but her legs are sort of short so there's a couple pairs of 6-12 month size jeans that she is still wearing. I think one pair are hand-me-downs & the other I paid $4 for. Woo hoo! Those savings of course are getting spent on Gymboree & disposable diapers. Ya that's right, I gave up on the cloth ones, just like everyone said I would. Want me to congratulate you or something? Bite me. Go on, I'm tasty.

(Hey at least I tried. I might try again if there's ever another go at this baby thing, but who knows if that'll ever happen. Right now this one is sticking crackers down my shirt into my bra. I don't know if I can take much more. Anyway if we do cloth again, I'd prefer to use all Fuzzi Bunz rather than the prefolds. Less bulk & so comfortably soft.)

Anyway, since Doodles is so small she still seems kind of babyish & therefore, innocent & vunerable. Which is part of the way I justify in my mind the fact that I am still nursing her to sleep, keeping her in bed with us & being wrapped around her delicate little fingers. As our dependence on one another eases I am finding this more & more exhausting, so now we are looking for a way to transition her to a more independent sleep. Before we moved I used to be able to put her down in the crib or on the bed & she'd fall asleep on her own. There were plenty of times I nursed her down because it was a sure thing but at least we knew she was capable of self soothing. With the stress of the big move & then the move across town I ended up nursing her to sleep every time. Then when we were sick & she wasn't eating I was nursing around the clock - it was like going back to the newborn stage (not to mention the evil threat of thrush from the antibiotics). It has eased off a bit since then but now it seems she's forgotten how to soothe herself back to sleep without me. I also used to be able to stay half asleep when I nursed her in the middle of the night & even pass out before we were finished. Now though, I can't seem to get comfortable & won't fall asleep until after she's done. Two weeks ago I was averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night. Now that the molars have broken through I'm getting more but she's still waking up about 3 times a night.

I don't mind it too much but it would be nice if she could figure out how to get back to sleep without my boobs. And without screeching. Sugar Daddy is capable of putting her down but not without a lot of crying. So... over the next little while we'll be attempting some No Cry Sleep Solutions (I like to call it the Pantley Removal Technique - get it? Ya I'm lame.). I'm expecting crying of course, but hopefully the screaming will be kept to a minimum.

Another part of the transition plan is to give her her own space. A place that is fun, comfortable & organized. Her room up till now has had the crib (filled with toys since she won't sleep in it anymore), the double bed without the frame, a large toy chest & books piled under the crib. It wasn't bad, but it's been driving me crazy. Not having a place for everything stresses me out & I have this thing about organizing books. I've been searching for a bookcase since we moved in. I wanted to do something girly & Pottery Barn-ish with white furniture & was hoping to persuade Grammy to make one of her fancy quilts. I tried searching for something cheaper because, well, I'm cheap (must be the Scottish genes), but everything I found was crap or not the right size. We finally settled on an IKEA one but then we were hanging out at Boutique de Target one night & I found this & fell in love.

Thing is, my idea of sweet white furniture would've meant purchasing a new bedframe & whatever else we ended up needing. We already had a black iron frame that came with the bed - not my ideal but decent. We also have a beautiful toy chest made by Poppy (Sugar Daddy's Daddy) that is honey pine. Anyway the grass skirt in the bedding set went nicely with the pine & the black iron matched the light fixture on the ceiling & the new fish tank (yup we now have two more pets) so I gave up on the Pottery Barn bedroom & decided to go kind of tropical. Now all the searching for the perfect white bookcase had been in vain because now I wanted something in honey pine to match the chest. Man it's hard to find a bookcase when you want one.

Then, suddenly, there it was. The perfect bookcase. Solid pine, honey colour, sturdy & totally matched the toy chest. See?

Yes the chest isn't actually being used as a toy chest, but it's full of stuff that isn't being used now & won't be for a while & the fish tank won't fit into the bookcase. This way it works as a nightstand & fish home. Hope that's ok Poppy.

Here's the bed with the Monkey Girl bedding, plus an awesome canopy from a different set under which I hung her dragonfly lights that had been over her crib in the old house. The monkeys are so cute & I just want to do the hula whenever I walk in the room.

Speaking of hula.....

check out the clock.

Her grass skirt & feet swing back & forth. Hillarious!

We are now teaching Freyja how to do the hula as only a white prairie girl & a guy from Newfoundland can do. My expertise resides in having watched Elvis movies & the episodes of the Brady Bunch that involved some haunted tiki idol thing. Sugar Daddy has no expertise except for maybe some drunk booty shaking.

Anyway, that's it. The room feels good now, it's organized & I can breathe. We just need to put a bit more art on the walls &amp; get the matching monkey lamp & it's all done.

Now if only she'll sleep through the night in there, we'd be all set.

You gave me a wad of cash & all you get is this lousy list for Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T08:07:00.000-08:00

To my first ray of sunshine

Thanks for making me laugh.
Thanks for having patience with me even though I think you are impatient.
Thanks for doing your share of diaper changes.
Thanks for always ordering the food on the phone for me, even though you think I’m nutso for being chicken about it.
Thanks for taking care of all the bills.
Thanks for being handy around the house even though you never quite finish anything.
Thanks for having good intentions.
Thanks for buying me chocolate & beer almost whenever I want.
Thanks for making me get my drivers license.
Thanks for taking me to Iceland.
Thanks for cooking lots of dinners.
Thanks for the Santa Claus pub crawls.
Thanks for putting up with my shit.
Thanks for making me do things even when I’m scared.
Thanks for burning all those cds.
Thanks for bringing us out West. Though I am lacking friends I am enjoying myself & it’s so nice to sit outside on a patio in February.
Thanks for being adventurous even if I keep expecting someone to call & tell me that you are in the hospital for doing some dumb trick on your bike.
Thanks for the most amazing meal of my life. Sorry I puked.
Thanks for putting up with my anxiety.
Thanks for when you do things by the rules I nag you about.
Thanks for taking the Doodles swimming & biking & throwing her up in the air even though it freaks me out.
Thanks for putting up with my book collection & my paper collection & all the other stuff I have trouble getting rid of.
Thanks for letting me have control of the remote 98% of the time.
Thanks for the video camera & not being bothered that I hog the digital one too, even though I think you should take more pictures.
Thanks for appreciating good beer & wine.
Thanks for playing your guitar for Doodlebug.
Thanks for being so smrt.
Thanks for killing creepy bugs for me & letting most of the spiders live.
Thanks for making up silly songs for your daughter.
Thanks for not getting too upset when she’d rather be with me than you.
Thanks for all the road trips & doing most of the driving. Sorry we always end up arguing.
Thanks for helping me out so much at school.
Thanks for teaching me computers back in 1992.
Thanks for working so hard & bringing home the bacon.
Thanks for letting me eat more bacon than you.
Thanks for letting me finally throw out those horrid rugby shorts.
Thanks for taking me rappelling over a 150 feet icy cliff for our first date.
Thanks for not telling me the ladder up that cliff was condemned until a few days later.
Thanks for being my friend.
Thanks for an awesome wedding 10 years after our first date.
Thanks for going to Dairy Queen so much when I was pregnant.
Thanks for supporting the breastfeeding.
Thanks for enjoying co-sleeping. Morning hugs feel great.
Thanks for trying to take me to the ballet. Sorry I didn’t go.
Thanks for taking dance classes with me.
Thanks for not being embarrassed about it.
Thanks for buying me flowers whenever just because.
Thanks for saying I look good even when I don’t.
Thanks for being a nice guy.
Thanks for loving me.

Most of all Valentine, thanks for helping make my second ray of sunshine.

Backfire Benadryl Buzz

2007-02-02T15:18:00.000-08:00

Chickenpox it is - despite the vaccination over two months ago. But at least, because of that vaccination, it's a very mild case. Maybe somewhere between 50 - 70 spots or so & they are fading already. A couple of oatmeal baths, some Aveeno anti-itch concentrated lotion & she's been pretty content. The nurse on the phone told me to give the Coppertop a dose of Benadryl to help her sleep if the itching was bad. It wasn't terrible but she seemed pretty annoyed last night (could've been the lack of napping during the day) so I gave her about 1 tsp around 6 pm. I figured it would do the same to her as it does to me - knock her out (my only allowed sleep aid besides a beer or two). It seemed to do the trick & though she woke up to nurse a couple of times, I figured it was just because she hadn't eaten much that day. Anyway, here I am thinking how lucky I am to have it work without her having any weird side effects. She wakes up again around midnight scratching at her face & ears miserably so I think oh I'll just give her another dose so she can sleep again - it's been 6 hours so it should be fine.

The light gets turned on which wakes her up a bit. She freaks at the sight of the medicine-filled syringe & spits about a quarter of it up. By this time she's half awake & I'm thinking I'll just nurse her back to sleep as usual. Nope. Not even close.

We (her & I since Sugar Daddy couldn't / wouldn't stay awake) are up until some time close to 4 am playing on the bed, getting down, playing with the radio, going back & forth to her room getting various toys, reading & me trying desperately not to pass out from exhaustion so she doesn't end up drowning in the toilet or some similar disaster that runs through the brain on 2 hours of sleep. Holy crap, it was like she was on speed or something. Busy, busy, busy little bug. I've been calling her Coppertop for a while now due to the colour of her hair (so cute!), but now I guess I've got even more reason to.

So anyway, not much sleep, silly post poorly written & now I'm watching Oprah shove cake in her mouth out of the corner of my eye which is very disconcerting. Apologies for my lack of comments on this & everyone else's blogs & thanks for sticking with me. I've got e-mail to catch up on & thank-you cards to write. The last few weeks have been exhausting & the last thing I have time for is perusing the sphere, let alone come up with something pithy to say. At least things are starting to look healthier around here so maybe I'll get to catch up on some much needed sleep. Or not. I'm not holding my breath.

WTF?!

2007-01-31T15:58:00.000-08:00

Oh my freaking god.....

I think she might have chicken pox now.

She had a vaccination for it in November so if it is the pox it should be a mild case, but just the same she's developing a rash. I noticed one spot on her knee this morning & now there's quite a few more - thighs, butt (where you don't really want an itch), lower belly & a couple on her her arms & back. Nothing on her face but we're back to the runny nose thing & she's also cutting three premolars right now so drool a plenty & crappy sleeps.

I really don't want to keep complaining but what is this, some sort of bizarre karmic retribution deal? Was she some evil despot in a previous life or something? I mean she can be a wee bit tyranical but hey, she's only 14 months old!

Please, please, please, don't start scratching my little Doodlebug.

~ On a good note, we figured out how to transfer videos from the camera to the laptop. It was easy enough for a monkey. Big surprise. ~

De-snotified

2007-01-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

Looks like Snot-Fest is over. Since the goal of the festival was to glorify X-treme mucus excretions / secretions in all its forms & inflict as much pain & suffering as possible in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, it was a raving success. Well, maybe not the enlightenment. I did spend an inordinate amount of time pondering the mysteries of pain though (that would be wallowing in its inflicted misery) & my insight into psychological & physical suffering is undoubtedly profound. And so, gentle reader, since I shared with you the details of horking up mass quantities of chunky green phlegm, I only feel obligated to impart upon you my garnered wisdom which is, in a nutshell, this:

pain sucks.

It debilitates the mind & makes one a selfish cantankerous suckhole. Of course there is much more to my awesome thesis but I shall leave that for another day. Because I'm tired. From the pain. From my broken rib that I cracked hacking pieces of my lungs out. (Or possibly from sneezing 243 times in a row. Seriously, I broke a rib. Near my heart, under my boob, right where my bra strap is now digging in. I feel like I’m about 80 years old. Next I’ll be breaking a hip slipping on some spilt milk. Or dog piss.) From the crappy sleep I've been getting. From shoving syringes of medication down my child's throat while she cries "nay nay nay" (no). From fighting flailing limbs during diaper changes. From having to deal with the stupid dog while Sugar Daddy is out of town.

Guess what woke me up last night after finally falling asleep around midnight? Come on guess. 12:31 am & it’s the sound of dog piss hitting the floor of my ensuite bathroom. Yup. That's right. He's asleep, then suddenly gets up to take a whizz. Inside. Wait though.... that's not the best part. To top off the piddle, while I'm cleaning that mess up, hoping that Doodles won't wake, mr. asshole is taking a shit in my dining room! It's not like he didn't get any opportunities for doing this during the day either. At this point I'm just waiting for him to kick the bucket. Seriously.

O.K. What else is new? We switched antibiotics for the coppertop's ears as they weren't clearing up. On Sunday I noticed that she'd also cut a molar. I'm sure this was half the reason she was so miserable at the doctor's on Friday. Anyway, since it's come through she's been awesome - way more comfortable & happy (except at medicine time). Weird though is why she'd get a molar before some of the other ones. She's got 4 on top, 3 on the bottom & now this molar on the bottom with nothing in between. I think there's another one coming in on the other side too because she's been chewing on her fingers all week. Also, until yesterday, she has not been napping. From Sunday until Thursday afternoon the crazy monkey did not nap once. She'd go to bed earlier & wake later, thank goodness, but the lack of naps hasn't left me much time to do anything besides some much needed laundry. I have a million blogs to catch up on, some thank-you cards to write & yes, still, some photos to organize.

Did I tell you the silly baby broke our camera? She threw it off the half height wall that separates our living room from the dining area. The lcd screen is cracked & needs replacing. This happened once before when Sugar Daddy took it on a trip but then it was still under warranty. Now, we have to either buy another screen & attempt to fix it ourselves or get a new camera. Do you know how hard it is to take pictures through the tiniest viewfinder in the world? Plus you can’t see how crappy they turn out until you transfer them to the computer. The computer that is now running Vista, which is really pretty & all, but as of yet keeps crashing as soon as I put in the photo card. So now all the pictures from Ottawa are on Sugar Daddy’s laptop & he has yet to send them to mine. I am the keeper of all photos so this is totally driving me crazy. The video camera I got for xmas has made up for the lack of photo taking but I still haven’t had the chance to figure out how to transfer the stuff to my laptop. I’m sure it is so simple a monkey could do it but since I’ve sneezed out all my higher functioning brain cells I have given up on attempting anything harder than playing rounds of Mahjong.

Anyway, that’s it. Back to Sesame Street dvd’s, Mahjong & fighting with my internet connection. Toodles from the Doodles.

The one where I complain some more

2007-01-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

No, no pictures yet. Because I suck. Because I'm too busy with our festival of snot. And pain filled cavities of bacteria infested snot. My eye sockets feel like I've got one of these being ravaged around inside them.

Looks painful eh? Oh hell ya!

My teeth feel like someone has been taking a hammer to them whilst I sleep. Who knows when that has been, because despite me having to keep my excrutiatingly tender eyelids shut to keep out painful triggers like retina burning sunshine (oh but what is that? It has been nothing but clouds & snow here.) for the majority of the day, it's been a good long time since I've had a snooze that lasted more than 3 hours at a time. Because either Doodle Bug is coughing, feverish or sleeping fitfully, or I wake myself up coughing & then I have to haul my ass out of bed so I can hork up chunks of green phlegm.

Oh sorry, did you not want to know that?

My bad.

This morning I got diagnosed with a sinus infection & was given scripts for antibiotics, decongestant / expectorant & was then offered one for vicodin. Though I was sorely tempted I figured it might not be a great thing to offer up in one's breastmilk. The doc told me if I waited for at least 4 hours before nursing it would be ok but since the little coppertop is still not well, she doesn't have much of an appetite for the solid food & wants to nurse more often than that. So alas, no vicodin. Just three extra strength Advils at a time. Even then, they are not quite enough to dull the pain completely.

We were then sent up to the pediatric office again because the Doodles wasn't looking too good either. We'd been there Friday for the pink eye (given drops - cleared up over the weekend) & were lucky to once again be fit in between the regular appointments & the head trauma that was on it's way. Since the xmas holidays emergency visits the poor baby has been traumatized & freaks out every time she sees a doctor's office / stethescope / syringe / inhaler mask / friendly nurse or doctor. Once she starts freakin' her breathing gets worse. So... more traumatic treatments & more crappy breathing. Today she got another start to a round of steroids & puffer meds to use in the nebulizer & to top it all off, antibiotics for an ear infection. We're also shoving advil down her throat for pain & fever.

It feels like we've had the plague for months & I'm so sick & tired of being sick & tired. If I'd known it was going to last like this I would've bought some shares in Kleenex or Puffs or Advil. Please somebody take me out back & put me out of my misery.

Getting back to normal?

2007-01-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd let you know, we finally made it back to our West Coast home. Lucky us got to spend an hour on the tarmac in Toronto while the maintainence crew tried to fix the cargo door. Since that was apparently impossible & a major flight hazard we then had to switch planes with another hour or so wait before taking off. Generous Air Canada gave everyone on board a free alcoholic beverage as compensation. Woo hoo! A free Coors Lite! I shoulda received 5 more for the having my heart in my eyeballs trying to deal with the crazy turbulence. It was probably the bumpiest ride I've ever been on. Nothing like being in a metal tube 30,000 feet above the oh so solid earth, while skipping frantically over waves of storm clouds blowing gale force winds. Fun. At least the silly baby slept almost the entire way.

Now that we are back, we are trying our best to recover from the RSV (I like to call it Respiratory Snot Virus). Seems she gave it to me so I'm hacking up my lungs periodically throughout the day & blowing my nose raw. Since Doodles doesn't know how to hork up mucus yet (I'm working on teaching her that trick) she spends the day rubbing her honker & smearing snot all over her face. I try to wipe it all away but some of it has made it into her peepers & it looks like she now has pink eye (conjunctivitis - viral). It's like she's got creamy snot in her tear ducts & it gets crusted on her lashes. I am about to try the breast milk in the eye remedy but if that doesn't work it looks like we'll be back at the doctor's sooner rather than later. This sickness is just so gross. We are walking snot factories & I've gone through half a box of kleenex in about an hour. At least her breathing is back to normal - still sounds like a mangy purring cat but hey, I miss having cats around.

Speaking of pets, we got Joxer the Mighty Dog back from the kennel the day after we got in (at 1am!) & he is still sulking around the house with a bitterness bred into the fibre of his being. Apparently he was outside for about a week as it turns out the kennel is outdoors. Sugar Daddy swears he didn't know this when he dropped hime off & so we are both feeling pretty guilty. The owners took him in for week two because he wasn't doing so good in the cold doghouse & he's come back to us about 8 pounds lighter. He looks great, like a puppy, but the weight loss is not helping our guilt any. Oh well, he's already back to stealing food from the baby so I'm sure it won't last long.

So that's it for the update. I've got photos to organize (my only resolution this year - hopefully manageble) & manipulate & post to Flickr. I'll get some up as soon as we can so you can share in the joy that was our xmas vacation. Photos coming soon include no scenic pictures of St. John's (because I barely went outdoors), perhaps a couple from the Doodles' christening (yes we heathens baptised our demon child), Sugar Daddy with his awesome Christmas present from me (just wait for the awesomeness) & maybe some video clips from my new toy (courtesy of the hubby). Signing off to go clean my mess. Later dudes.

Grounded

2007-01-03T18:15:00.000-08:00

We were supposed to be back in Seattle by now. We arrived in Ottawa on the 30th after having a grand time in St. John's, hanging out with Sugar Daddy's family & celebrating Christmas. Doodle Bug had a runny nose before we left, but we weren't sure if was because of the tooth she was cutting or if she caught something from her cousins. On the plane ride she started coughing & seemed irritable & tired. It got worse from there.

She woke up with a fever the next morning & got progressively hotter & sicker throughout the day. Her nose was running profusely, she was coughing & sneezing & really really grumpy. We did the Tylenol infant cold treatment but by late afternoon she was burning up. I've never felt her that hot before & her breathing was starting to become really shallow, rapid & wheezy. When she started getting listless & unresponsive on top of all this we figured it was time to get some treatment. Being New Years Eve & a Sunday all the walk in clinics had closed at 3:00 so we had no choice but to go to emergency at CHEO.

Seems there was quite a number of other babies & tots there with the runny nose, cough & fever thing so we thought we were in for a long wait. The triage nurse had other plans however because once she assesed the terrified babe with breathing difficulties she sent us to the mask room where two other infants were being treated with what looked like steam. We were taken to a treatment room where we got a mask of our own that was filled with ventolin in a saline solution (this is how I understand it at least). The medicated vapor burbles out of the mask for 10 minutes at a time & she was to get three treatments in a row. I tried to hold her but the little fighter put up too much of a struggle for me to contain so her daddy got to do the dubious honours. Oh what a mess. She got some Tylenol & Advil to take down her high fever & then had to take a liquid steroid (prednisone I think). We had to wait 4 hours after the steroid was administered before we were allowed to go home so we spent hours rocking her, reading, eating crappy food & listening to wailing babies & kids. Strange how it all becomes background noise after a while.

Because she had been exposed to her cousin with pnemonia we were told she'd have to have a chest & heart x-ray to rule out the possibility of her symptoms being the result of having that herself. Count yourself lucky if you've never had to witness your small child get a chest x-ray. Holy fuck - it was the most heartbreaking sight. I had to place her on this little bicycle type seat with her legs dangling beneath her. Then I had to hold her arms up straight above her head while the technician placed two pieces of plexiglass around her torso, pinning her arms in place. The pieces were velcroed together so she was stuck in this clear tube with only her feet & face free. The feet kicked in protest as she screamed (good for the xray but not my heart) & cried trapped in the evil contraption. At first she faced the wall away from me but then she was turned to the side so she could see me out of the corner of her eye. The look of terror & the sadness of betrayal pretty much broke me to pieces. I'll never be able to wipe that picture from my mind. But hey, no pnemonia so we were finally able to head back to my aunt's place where we were (& still are) staying.

We fought the fever & the poor breathing all night & no one got a good night's sleep though we were all exhausted. The next morning she seemed a bit better but wouldn't eat, had no voice, was still running a fever though not nearly as bad & was beside herself with uncomfortableness. The previous day all she would eat was two mandarin oranges & one eighth of a jar of baby food. The day before that she had also not eaten much but was nursing quite a bit. With all the breastmilk & no solids we were back in seedy liquid diapers that we hadn't experienced in months. All the acidity from that plus the irritation of the urine bag the night before (plastic baggy stuck to her skin to get a urine sample) gave way to terrible diaper rash. So the poor kid was having teething pain, burning privates, sore throat from being sick & screaming, fever off & on, chest congestion & breathing difficulties. I've never felt so useless in trying to make my baby comfortable.

Then her breathing got worse again. Her rate was probably triple what it normally is, very shallow & raspy. We decided to head over to CHEO again because the ventolin puffer (with spacer) wasn't controlling it anymore despite having administered it every two hours & then every twenty minutes. We could see the panic developing in her eyes & she was exhausted from just breathing. Once again the triage nurse sends us for treatment right away & we start round two of the masks. Thankfully tonight there will be no chest xray, pee bag or steroid gel being shoved into her mouth. Just some Advil for her hoarse throat that was barely able to squeak out her protests against her torture. She fell asleep during the mask treatments but would wake up with terror in her eyes everytime one of the fantastic nurses came in to check on her. It was so pitiful & I was at the end of my wits trying to keep back my tears.

Oh ya. Then she got the mucus augered out of her nose. That was fun. I got to hold her legs while hubby held her head & arms as the nurse suctioned out the snot. At least they diagnosed something from it. Turns out the poor sweetie has RSV. Most kids will get this virus before the age of three & it normally presents itself as a cold. Some kids are apparently at risk for a more severe reaction to the bug than others, like preemies & those with respiratory problems like asthma. From what I gather those that get a severe bout are then more likely to be diagnosed with asthma later, but whether it's because they had that in the first place that made them more prone to a severe attack or if the RSV triggered the asthma no one seems to know.

So we pretty much have our diagnoses of asthma with the obvious difficulties she was having, her response to the drugs & her over-inflated lungs in the chest x-ray. The RSV has been a miserable bugger but as of today, after sleeping about 20 hours in the last 24, she seems to be coughing a bit less. When we spoke to the doctor about having to travel the next day she expressly forbade us from getting on a plane for at least the next 5 days, if not a week so we are grounded until Sunday at the very least. I guess that means we technically now have the time to see the people we have not had a chance to see yet, but I don't want to take the Doodles around anyone who has wee ones as we're not sure how long she will be contagious. We are armed to the teeth with medicine & Sugar Daddy got a script for a nebulizer (same type of machine that the hospital uses to make the vaporous ventolin) so we've been using that to keep her lungs as clear as we can. I can't say enough about the awesomeness of CHEO & their wonderful emergency staff. Hopefully none of you will ever have reason to use their services, but if you do, you will be in the best of hands.

Anyway, just thought I'd keep you all up to date even though I'm making you suffer with piss poor writing skillz. I'm exhausted & sick & so full of leftover xmas food that I'm almost comatose. Ugh.

And then there was light

2006-12-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

The thing about losing power is that it makes you appreciate what you have. Especially when you get it all back.

After being stuck indoors all week by the pain in my back, the lack of napping & the pissing rain, on Thursday afternoon I persuaded Sugar Daddy to come home early to I could drive the three minutes required to get to Gymboree. Sure I could have walked but apparently I am made of sugar - that or I couldn't be bothered getting the stroller set up with the rain cover. We made it over there & Doodle Bug then went on her mission to collect all the balls scattered throughout the room whether or not they were in anyone else's hands. This resulted in a few tussels & several screeches of the velocirapter variety when someone tried to recover their ownership of the treasured plastic orbs. We were involved in this epic struggle while the rain poured down outside when all of a sudden there was the grumble of thunder followed by a huge flash of lightning. Despite the amount of rain we've experienced here I think this was the first bit of thunderstorm to date. Driving home you could see the cars ahead going through about 6 inches of water that was accumulating on the side of the roads. And the rain just kept coming down.

Then the wind picked up.

I'd seen the news earlier out of the corner of my eye while reading Dilly Duckling for the umpteenth time so I sorta knew that a severe windstorm was forecast. I was thinking Newfoundland gale but I don't remember experiencing anything quite like what was to come later that night while living in St. John's. You could hear the storm picking up power as the evening wore on & by the time we went to bed the wind was whipping up crap on the street & small branches out of the trees. It got so loud that I found it impossible to sleep properly & kept getting up every hour to look out the window to make sure the nearby trees weren't about to come through to main me & my loved ones in some freak accident.

Sometime between midnight & 2 am the power went out & the darkness was upon us. At first we just noticed that the clock was out but then realized that there was none of the regular piercing brightness from the streetlight outside our window. We figured the power would probably come back on as soon as the wind died down. Meanwhile we continued to not sleep through the night & kept watch on the desperate people still driving their cars in the total darkness. No streetlights, no traffic lights... what were these nutso's doing? We figured it had to be shift workers or stupid joyriders because we heard lots of screeching tires. Then the car alarms & sirens started. All throughout the night & the following 24 hours the sound of firetruck & police sirens were constant. Whether it was car accidents or candles left burning I don't know but it just didn't stop. In fact we're still hearing them though with much less frequency.

By morning the wind let up & taking a look outside we were a little surprised that the road below wasn't a bigger mess but I guess that the steady stream of nutty drivers throughout the night mashed the smaller branches into the pavement & pushed the larger ones to the side of the road. There was a large branch on the sidewalk from the tree outside our window & across the street we could see that the park was covered with tons of evergreen boughs & at least two large pines down on the ground (walking by later we found the playground closed because of the downed trees). The power was still out & when Sugar Daddy finally turned on the car radio we found out that we were just one of about a million people in the area without any electricity. Thankfully for us we have a gas stove, furnace & fireplace so we could make some much needed coffee. Seems we're pretty lucky. Our neighbor who works at Nordstrom's told us that many people were terribly pissed off that Starbucks wasn't making any coffee for them to fuel their shopping in the dark.

So anyway, no power. Oh well - no biggie. We've lived through 2 other major blackouts in the past 8 years. What's another one? It's not like its cold here or anything. Or is it? Apparently so. Once again I am conflicted by feelings of superior weather coping skills combined with concern for those who are suffering. Our place was a little cold the second night but nothing an extra blanket couldn't fix. It would've been a lot harder if we didn't have the gas stove but we still only used it to heat up water & fry up a microwave meal that wasn't cooking properly on the bbq. If we couldn't have used the stove we would've used our camping gear. We had a bunch of IKEA candles & tea lights, plus we had SD's bike light if we ran out of those. The dude even hooked up the laptop to the car so he could have music.

We spent Friday hanging out playing Yahtzee, reading to the baby & cleaning up. It got a little boring so we opened our Christmas presents to each other (the big things that we won't be taking on the plane to Newfoundland). Sugar Daddy gave me a digital video camera but since it didn't come with any tapes we decided to head over to one of the open stores to see of we could get one. Nothing like essentials people…. essentials. We ended up at Target & the place was packed with people stocking up on essentials (the real kind, like beer & Cheetos) & holiday goods. The flashlights were sold out & I think staples like bread & milk were in short supply.

Heading home we noticed how many dumbasses don’t know what to do at an intersection with non-working lights. Really, did you think that line up of cars in the other direction were waiting especially for you to get through mister? Oh by all means – go through. By the time we got back to the house we were once again shrouded in the darkness so we felt our way upstairs & began the search for matches & the little flashlight we knew was around somewhere. We managed to light about a zillion tea lights – just enough to be able to change a diaper with - & invited the new neighbors over for a drink. Last blackout we were in was awesome for neighborly activities. It was so warm people were wandering the streets in the evening for a bit of coolness so we got to meet a lot of the community we wouldn’t have otherwise. Folks would be hanging out on their lawns drinking their warmish beers, eating their decaying freezer food & looking up at the stars. That was good times. Good times.

Our new neighbors couldn’t come over at first because they had to go get gas. Seems everybody needed some. I’m not sure why people were driving around so much when most everything was closed, work & schools were cancelled & it was a pain in the ass with the trees & lack of streetlights. Apparently our neighbors both had to work despite the outages & needed to drive. Others were using their cars to stay warm because it was about 10 degrees Celsius (50F) in their homes. I know that’s pretty chilly but it begs the question of how little insulation do the buildings here have? I think our house might have gone down to 5 or 10 degrees during the ice storm blackout but it was about – 20 (-10F) or so outside. And this was after a week. Anyway there have been lineups at what few pumps are working throughout the area. Some pumps don’t have power & the ones that do have run out of gas because of the demand. Thankfully we had over half a tank & had nowhere to drive besides Target down the road.

Eventually the neighbors came over & hung out for a few hours, most of which I spent upstairs trying to get the baby to sleep. Of course I fell asleep once she finally went down so it was Sugar Daddy who got to do most of the socializing. And the drinking. When he finally went to bed around 2am he was pretty tipsy & the power was back on. Woo hoo! So in the end, at least for us, this was not a bad power outage at all. Of course there are still about 200,000 people without power & plenty of those are without heat. I guess we have a horseshoe up our butts because with all that could’ve happened we were lucky to have only been frustrated by inconveniences.

So we're back to almost normal except that the internet cable connection keeps going out so we lose cable channels & that most awesome information superhighway that keeps me in touch with the outside world. Also our phone is all screwed up - it rings & I can hear someone on the line but they can't hear me. Very frustrating. But we only have to put up with it one more day as we leave tomorrow for St. John's & Ottawa. We're looking forward to seeing everyone & some familiar sights, not to mention Lucky Ron. I'm super excited to see the Doodles enjoying the Christmas tree, ripping paper from presents & getting spoiled rotten from Grammy & Poppy. We've been talking to her about Santa & she points him out everytime we catch sight of one. Him & snowmen, reindeers & holiday lights. She's so much fun right now & cracks me up every few minutes. Anyway, this has taken way too long to get posted once again so I bid you all Happy Holidays & we're looking forward to seeing those of you back home.

Oops I did it again

2006-12-11T12:14:00.000-08:00

Oh my aching back. I think I slipped a disc yesterday picking up the Doodle Bug. I did this once previously & it was major suckage for about 6 + weeks. That time it was just before getting knocked up & I did it shovelling snow from our driveway (the back, not the knocking up though that would've been fun for our neighbors). It was a lift & twist motion that got me since I was bending at the knees like a good snow shoveller with a propensity for weird injuries. Same thing this time.

During our hopefully last foray to the mall for xmas gifts Sugar Daddy was searching for something special for his mom while I played baby wrangler. She had only slept for about 30 minutes that morning so by 5 yesterday she was going into overtired crazy mode & started picking up the charity promotion teddy bears that were lined up on the store floor we were looking in. She'd pick up one & then another so she had one in each hand, then she'd drop one & pick up another so by the time we left she'd touched each of the thousand bears in the store. Then of course, since she'd staken her claim to all of them by way of the grabbing she took a fit when I tried to make her put them back. We've been getting a taste of tantrum around here lately if the girl doesn't get what she wants. We are on a rollercoaster to hell people. She'll screech like a frenzied bat & then lose function in her legs as she assumes the position of either head on floor between her knees or the one where her back arches into a rigid backwards C as she collapes into my arms crying like her entire world is coming apart. It's good fun.

Anyway I think she did the head to knee position first & then as I tried to pick her & one of the bears up she manoevered into her next pose which made me swivel so as not to drop her on the floor. I shoulda dropped her. I felt the twinge in my lower spine as I did this & a quick "oh oh" flitted into my consciousness. Followed by an out loud "oh shit!" which got the attention of most of the remaining bears & store employees. Still I got her thrashing body in my arms & tried to quell the screams of frustration by promising ice cream. No go. She had to have one of those damn bears. Being the suckers that we are, she broke us down into whimpering puddles of weakly made jello. Jello that easily caved on our mutual promises of not to succumb to the pitfall of having little plastic cards in our wallets & to the ever-mutating whims of our whiny child. How far we have fallen in our quest for an unspoiled, quiet & even-tempered tot. But you knew that would happen didn't you?

So, my back appears to be frigged right up. Not quite as bad as last time but I'm having trouble sitting on my ass which I like to do a lot. Lying on my side to nurse is excrutiating & there's shooting daggers being thrust down my legs from time to time. I'm trying to spend my time lying on my back & then doing gentle upper body lifts while lying on my belly (as prescribed by the physio last time) but it's a little difficult when Doodles just wants me to pick her up all the time. If she'd just let me lie on the floor all day while I drink away the pain everything would be hunky dory. Maybe we can reach some kind of compromise. I'll let you know. Gotta go lie down & think about beer for a while.

For lack of brain power

2006-12-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

I'd like to do a meme that I stole from the most awesome DaniGirl. I have lots to write about but I just can't get myself in gear. I'm burnt out from too much Xmas shopping. Anyway here's a very long list of stuff I have (in bold) & have not done. Be prepared for my fantasticness.

01. bought everyone in the bar a drink (I'm too poor / cheap)
02. swam with wild dolphins
03. climbed a mountain (two, plus a few really really big hills)
04. taken a ferrari for a test drive
05. been inside the great pyramid
06. held a tarantula (Little Ray's Repile Zoo)
07. taken a candlelit bath with someone (awkward)
08. said "i love you" and meant it
09. hugged a tree
10. bungee jumped
11. visited paris (hated it the first time & got maced at New Years the next time)
12. watched a lightning storm at sea
13. stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. seen the northern lights
15. gone to a huge sports game (I wouldn't say huge)
16. walked the stairs to the top of the leaning tower of pisa (it was closed for repairs)
17. grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. touched an iceberg
19. slept under the stars
20. changed a baby's diaper (plenty)
21. taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. watched a meteor shower
23. gotten drunk on champagne
24. given more than you can afford to charity (well Sugar Daddy did on my part)
25. looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. had a food fight
28. bet on a winning horse (when I was 12)
29. asked out a stranger
30. had a snowball fight
31. screamed as loudly as you possibly can (In the car)
32. held a lamb (lived on a sheep farm)
33. seen a total eclipse
34. ridden a roller coaster (hated it)
35. hit a home run (I suck)
36. danced like a fool and not cared who was looking (countless times)
37. adopted an accent for an entire day (not really on purpose - it just happens)
38. actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment (a moment or two)
39. had two hard drives for your computer (does an external one count?)
40. visited all 50 states (22 I think)
41. taken care of someone who was drunk
42. had amazing friends
43. danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. watched whales
45. stolen a sign (Paddy's Day drunkeness)
46. backpacked in europe
47. taken a road-trip
48. gone rock climbing (I actually used to be decent)
49. midnight walk on the beach
50. gone sky diving
51. visited ireland (so close but never made it)
52. been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love (oh sure)
53. in a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. visited japan
55. milked a cow (fresh milk is kind of gross)
56. alphabetized your cds
57. pretended to be a superhero (does the Bionic Woman count?)
58. sung karaoke (only when drunk)
59. lounged around in bed all day
60. played touch football
61. gone scuba diving (once in a pool & I freaked out)
62. kissed in the rain
63. played in the mud
64. played in the rain
65. gone to a drive-in theater
66. visited the great wall of china
67. started a business
68. fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. toured ancient sites
70. taken a martial arts class
71. played d&d for more than 6 hours straight
72. gotten married
73. been in a movie (nope but on tv a few times)
74. crashed a party
75. gotten divorced
76. gone without food for 5 days
77. made cookies from scratch
78. won first prize in a costume contest
79. ridden a gondola in venice
80. gotten a tattoo
81. rafted the snake river (went on the Athabasca)
82. been on television news programs as an "expert"
83. gotten flowers for no reason
84. performed on stage
85. been to las vegas
86. recorded music (er....)
87. eaten shark (tried whale in Iceland - it tasted like liver. Yuck!)
88. kissed on the first date
89. gone to thailand
90. bought a house
91. been in a combat zone
92. buried one/both of your parents
93. been on a cruise ship
94. spoken more than one language fluently
95. performed in rocky horror
96. raised children
97. followed your favorite band/singer on tour (once my friends & I followed Jesus Jones from Winnipeg to Minneapolis, plus I've supported a few friend's bands by driving to Brandon - woo hoo!)
98. passed out cold (fainted a few times - never from booze)
99. taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country (how about biking in Cape Cod?)
100. picked up and moved to another city to just start over (more than once)
101. walked the golden gate bridge
102. sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. had plastic surgery
104. survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived
105. wrote articles for a large publication (I wouldn't say large)
106. lost over 100 pounds
107. held someone while they were having a flashback
108. piloted an airplane
109. touched a stingray
110. broken someone's heart (I think so)
111. helped an animal give birth (so cool - sheep, cat, dog)
112. won money on a t.v. game show
113. broken a bone (a few little ones along with a cracked tailbone - twice)
114. gone on an african photo safari
115. had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (shotgun when I was 14)
117. eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild (hallucinegenic ones count right?)
sidenote where is 118?
119. had major surgery
120. had a snake as a pet
121. hiked to the bottom of the grand canyon
122. slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours (mono)
123. visited more foreign countries than u.s. states (I think it's about equal)
124. visited all 7 continents
125. taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. eaten kangaroo meat
127. eaten sushi
128. had your picture in the newspaper
129. changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about (hopefully)
130. gone back to school
131. parasailed
132. touched a cockroach
133. eaten fried green tomatoes
134. read The Iliad
135. selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read (a few)
136. killed and prepared an animal for eating (a fish a long time ago)
137. skipped all your school reunions (you know I was never notified - what does that tell you?)
138. communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. been elected to public office
140. written your own computer language
141. thought to yourself that you're living your dream (for a moment or two)
142. had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. built your own PC from parts
144. sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you (school art auction)
145. had a booth at a street fair (face painting on Canada Day / lemonade stand)
146. dyed your hair
147. been a dj
148. shaved your head (pretty damn close)
149. caused a car accident
150. saved someone's life

That's it. I'll try & write properly soon.

P.S. Huge congratulations to G & K on the birth of Douglas!

Foot in blogging mouth?

2006-12-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

I don't know. I'm feeling pretty shitty for making fun of people who don't know how to drive in snow when something like this happens.

Tragic.

We were told this would happen

2006-11-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

We had a very nice weekend in Vancouver with Sugar Daddy's aunt & uncle. Doodle Bug was in a crappy mood for most of the time & ate less than 1 jar of baby food the entire time, along with about 15 Cheerios, 1 small piece of potato, 2 french fries (yes you read that right - bad, bad parents), half a cherry tomato & 2 bites of a muffin. Probably 1 days worth of food in 4 days. Of course as soon as she got home she made up for it all by eating 2 jars of food & giggling happily when she saw her toys. Ahhhh the comforts of home.

The weekend was spent hanging out, doing a bit of shopping(where I fell in love with a white leather coat & white leather boots but then realized that was $1000 worth of love with taxes & frankly I don't think I qualify for that much love), eating (pumpkin pie from the awesome Jody!), meeting up with friends (& their sweet new baby) we haven't seen in about 8 years & taking a gander at the the cool 40 foot sailboat belonging to our gracious hosts. Wow! Too bad it was a bit too cold for a jaunt in the bay. Cold? In Vancouver? Uh huh. It rained of course while we were there but then the snow began on Saturday afternoon. Of course being the bad parents that we are, neither of us had really checked the forecast before we left Seattle & so didn't even think to bring a coat or hat or mitts for our precious child. Oh we suck. At least we had a warm blanket to protect her from the scary white stuff that was falling from the sky.

Scary white stuff we thought we left behind in Ottawa. Hmmm... Turns out we brought it with us. Yes denizens of the Northwest, blame it on us. First we brought a month of no rain & then to mess with your heads we stuck you with this. Bwah ha ha!

So we woke up to a winter wonderland on Sunday & it kept on coming down as we packed up our belongings for the car ride home. We met our friends for lunch & hung out until about 4 just catching up & letting Doodles chase their cats. (oh the squeals of delight issuing forth!) Finally we got on the road for what should've been a 3 - 4 hour journey, depending on the border crossing line up & how many times we had to stop to nurse. The Canadian part of the drive was easy going despite the snow & traffic was pretty light. Then, once we got about 5 km from the border everything came to a standstill. It's usually a wait at this crossing but we hadn't seen the line back up this far back before so we figured maybe they were being extra vigilant for Thanksgiving weekend or some other strange reason we weren't privy too. Somehow we managed to bypass a bit of the line & finally made it through in about 40 minutes. We thought it would be clear sailing the rest of the way back but we were to be thwarted over & over again as we experienced the conundrum of unexperienced winter drivers.

What was a typical Ontario winter's drive in snowy conditions became a painful ordeal of standstill traffic & Sugar Daddy saying over & over "What is wrong with these people?! I am the best driver on this road! Doesn't anyone know how to drive?". Apparently not in these conditions. The amount of fancy SUVs & 4 wheel drives that were driving 20 km/hr on the Interstate was enough to boggle our used to 3 foot snowdrift minds. It was a bit icy in patches but nothing too crazy to warrant the number of vehicles off the road & the snail's pace at which we were going. The only vehicles that seemed to be able to handle it were the big wheel pickup trucks & 10 year old SUVs driven my mustachioed dudes. It was a bit surreal & really frustrating when we calculated that at the rate we were going we wouldn't get home until 2 am. Ugh.

We managed to somehow do a bit of passing & hit a few miles of decent driving speed every once in a while so we figured that we cut our estimated arrival time down to 10 pm. Better than 2 but still way past what it should have been. Traffic cleared up a little once we went past Bellingham but we still got to laugh derisively at the vehicles going in the opposite direction who were stuck behind a row of snowplows. Everything was stopped for miles behind them. (They may have been stopped for an accident we didn't see but I'm going with snowplows because we saw rows & rows of them going North but only 1 going our way so I'm jealous ok?)

Anyway, we finally made it home around 9:30 safe & sound, thinking everything was back to normal. Turns out nope. Monday afternoon it started to snow over top of the bit of ice that was left on the roads. Then all hell broke loose. Sugar Daddy was stuck in the underground parking garage at work because no one knew how to drive their vehicles on snowy pavement. After waiting for 40 minutes he gave up & went back to his desk for a couple more hours. The eventual drive home took another 40 minutes. It usually takes 8. I got to listen to more scoffing when he finally made it here & we tuned into the news to hear all about the crrrrrazzzzy weather.

The next morning it looked like this:

What is that? Maybe an inch of snow? Two tops. Get this my eastern friends - the city was shut down. Work was cancelled, schools were closed, roads blocked off. We couldn't get over it. I went for a walk with Doodle Bug later in the afternoon so we could go to Gymboree but it, along with 80% of the shops in the town center were closed "due to inclement weather". The local roads & sidewalks were a bit icy. The temperature was a slightly chilly 1 degree Celcius. Back East this is nothing. Here it is something to talk about. Here, this is serious & we shouldn't be laughing at it (that means you jackass). There really is a lot of ice & the hills (of which there are a ton around here) are treacherous. This is the second snow day they've had in about 10 years so no one is quite prepared for the conditions & how to handle them. There's more snow & freezing rain & cold to come in the next few days so who knows what's going to shut down next.

Us? We'll try & keep the smirks off our faces. At least until next year when we start freaking out because the sky started tossing scary white stuff at us again.

Missing out on the Turkey Eatin'

2006-11-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

We missed Canadian Thanksgiving because, well, I don't really remember. I think Sugar Daddy was in London for work or something. October was a blur people, a blur.

This weekend the U.S. holiday is upon us & we're headed up to the Great White North. Three hours drive up to the lovely city of Vancouver to hang out with family & friends. To do some shoe shopping with colourful money. To possibly sail on a boat. To enjoy a holiday without the holiday crowds.

To miss out again on turkey, stuffing & pumpkin pie. The turkey & fixins I can wait until Christmas for but damn, I love me some pumpkin pie. They've been sold out at the store every time we go & I'm too lazy / busy to make my own. Maybe there'll be a sale on the leftovers when we get back. Here's me crossing my fingers.

Anyway, have a wonderful Thanksgiving my new American pals & I'll see ya when we get back. Canadians - watch out, here we come.

Non-emergency Emergency

2006-11-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

I hate the thought of using emergency healthcare when it’s not warranted. It’s such a waste of resources & time that should be saved for real emergencies. Unlike calling 911 to get directions or to complain about Burger King not getting your order right. Or to go to an emergency department for a migraine & then sit for 3 hours on the free phone complaining to your pal about how your boyfriend doesn’t love you & you are pissed because your narcotic patch ran out two months ago & there are kids screaming & how that is so not cool. Lady, what’s not cool is you. If I had a migraine (which I get quite regularly) I certainly wouldn’t be able to talk on a phone, never mind sit in a loud & well-lit waiting room.

Get the impression we checked out some more healthcare? Yup. Within a month of moving down here Doodles & I got sick. We put her in the daycare at the gym for an hour & a half one day & two days later she came down with a cough that she gave to me & which then got worse for both of us. I suspect it turned into bronchitis, at least for me, & it took forever to go away. Then it sort of came back again but not as bad & it coincided with the shots last week, plus what I think is more teething. Anyway she’s been sounding like a mangy tobacco-smoking purring cat for ages now & the past few days there’s been a lot of coughing & hacking that disturbs her sleep & my worry. I asked the person when we got the shots about her possibly having asthma but after a stethoscope listen she said she sounded congested but fine.

Yesterday she got a bit worse & I could hear her wheezing. She sounded tight, congested, phlegmy & her breathing was almost twice her normal rate. Last night when I was nursing her I got Sugar Daddy to take a listen & he wanted to call the doctor. Microsoft Health has a number you can call to get advice & to request an actual house call (I thought those were pretty much obsolete but I guess MS has got the power) so he dialed them up & explained the situation. Upon describing her symptoms they told us to call 911. Huh? We are both asthmatic so we knew she wasn’t that bad. What we were hoping for was a house call or be told to go to the Urgent Care Center (vs. hospital) so we could get her an inhaler with a spacer or nebulizer just in case she got worse. A preventative line of attack. That’s what we requested so they told us they’d get a doctor to give us a call.

He calls & tells us he doesn’t want to prescribe without a definite diagnosis of asthma which he doesn’t feel comfortable making during a home visit. OK That’s cool. Totally understandable. He suggests the urgent care but then calls us back & says they don’t want to do that either & so therefore we should go to the nearest emergency room. Great…. I picture sitting forever in an uncomfortable waiting room filled with a variety of sick people. I picture the sleep disturbed baby not wheezy when we finally get to see a doctor. I picture boredom, frustration & futility.

What I pictured is what we pretty much got despite Sugar Daddy telling me that since we are in America now there won’t be long Canadian style wait times. Two & a half hours after arriving the Doodles gets weighed, temped (where she’s never been temped before the poor, poor thing) & assessed at level 4 because since she’s screaming so much the triage nurse says there’s nothing wrong with her lungs. There’s 5 levels & we are on the second to last so anyone worse that comes in after will be seen before us. One more hour later, during which she dozed off, we finally get called in. A super nice nurse checked her out without waking her, said she wasn’t wheezy & another twenty minutes later the doc comes in & almost does the same. Of course she wakes up when he’s checking her ears, so then he does the rest of the check while she’s half awake & getting upset. He doesn’t want to make a definite diagnosis either since he doesn’t know her history, etc. but he will prescribe an inhaler with a spacer for her that we can use if she gets really wheezy again. So we don’t have to use the emerg unless it’s an emergency. So not so futile in the end but definitely a lot of boredom & frustration felt.

Now we have an inhaler with a spacer & a mask for her which we’ve used twice. She freaking hates having the mask put on her face despite us trying to make the experience as fun as possible. We show her the pictures of the bears on the spacer & tell her she needs some bears in her chest. She’ll play with it & point happily at the bears but as soon as it nears her face she pushes it away & gets pissed off. But, it works. The breathing is smoother, clearer & there’s less purring. Too bad she still has the temper of a mangy cat.

Bandwagon

2006-11-20T11:07:00.000-08:00

Seems I’ve been jumping on a few bandwagons lately. Have you noticed? Not that I’d know since none of you bastards comment anyway. (Kidding.)

So… I’ve hitched my fake horse up to a few new things, a little behind the times on some, oh so totally with it on others (ya right). Here’s a sad little list for you:

Blogger beta – I was afraid, very afraid to make the jump. I thought I’d read somewhere about losing previously posted photos so I was horrified at the thought of a bunch of red X’s scattered throughout my poor blog. Turns out what I thought were a pack of lies & I’m loving the new setup. Plus I made a new banner. Clean & simple. Just like me. Shut up.
Internet Explorer to the nth or whatever the latest version is. At first I thought all my favorites were lost but now they’re just under a fancy smancy + button. I still can’t find my Edit doohickey though which is unnerving. I'm also having trouble getting the Beta dashboard to show up (works in Firefox). Also, there’s something up with my Flash player. No matter how many times I download the new version, it still won’t work, hence the regular Flickr badge to the right. Hopefully Sugar Daddy will fix when he returns from the Great White North. Maybe with Vista – I’ll let you know what that’s like.
BloggerChicks – I got the code for this about a thousand years ago & didn’t put it in my template what with all the moving & shite. Now it’s there but apparently the sign-up sheet is out of commission until the end of November. So I’m plugging it without being a part of it. We’ll see what happens. I may give up. Just like I did on the feeds. I never did figure out quite how they all work (I understand the basics, it’s the fine details that I don’t have the energy to sort my head around) & it’s not like anyone ever subscribed to them either.
Library Thing. I love, love, love this. Why I didn’t do this when I first read about it is beyond me. I’ve signed up for 4 accounts. 1 for the stuff I’ve been reading lately (since I had Doodles, but I can’t remember all of them since my positronic matrix is fried.), 1 for my library of books (that I haven’t started cataloguing yet because I am afraid of the end number), 1 is for the baby’s books (61 so far) & another for the books I’ve taken out of the library to read to her. My hope is that we’ll keep it up so she can have a list of all the books she’s ever read. Totally cool.
Flickr Pro account. Ya I was suckered in after I “lost” a whole bunch of my uploaded pictures. $25 bucks & a whole ton of newly uploaded pics later & I’ve barely used 1% of my monthly quota. Awesome.
Gymboree. When I looked into this in Ottawa I thought it was insane to pay good money to go play somewhere when I could basically do the same at home. I had the drop-in coffee mom group, spinning class, friends to talk to, other babies nearby to shove mine at & what I thought were plenty of toys. Here, I aint got nobody (nobody nobody cares for me | I'm so sad and lonely | sad and lonely sad and lonely) & it’s been raining a hell of a lot so we went to a free drop-in class & it was awesome. Doodles loves loves loves it & I even met someone from Ottawa. How weird is that? So. Worth. It.
Skinny jeans. Ya you heard me. I bought a pair of skinny jeans. I haven’t worn them yet. I’m too scared & might possibly need them in a size smaller. (Woo hoo!) I’m under my pre-pregnancy weight but things have shifted & I need new clothes. Last Saturday the dude took care of the monkey for a few hours (taking her outside sans sweater!!) so I could go to the shops. I ended up in Macy’s surprised to find myself thinking I looked not half bad in a pair of Calvin Klein skinny jeans, a long sweater & cute shoes. Then I thought, man I need to do something about the mop that is my hair.
New hair. (Holy hell this is a post in itself. Be prepared for the longest bullet point in history!) Yes Trish I cut it again. Sheesh! You see moving to a new city brings with it so many dilemmas that one doesn’t necessarily think about prior to packing. The whole doctor thing for instance (see a couple of posts down (update: have called Pediatricians & made appointment with doc who I thought had the nicest smile on the website.)). There’s also the horror of finding a new hairdresser. I’ve had two, maybe three good hairdressers in my life. You know, the kind who just get your hair. For me this is rare. My hair is weird. It’s very fine, dry, curly, cowlicky, frizzy, there’s a lot of it & to top it off I now have resistant grey. I’ve had few grey hairs since I was 13 (how mortifying to find one at that age!) & now they come in so fast (& they are multiplying! The horror!) it’s like that whole Dorian Grey episode. At the end when all the hideousness of age & corruption transfers itself onto him? Ya that part. So… I’ve been to the hairdresser’s once since we moved & while the colour was fabulous, the cut left me feeling like a 1980’s heavy metal guitarist. Why must they (the hairdressers) insist on layering my hair? Some layering is good, otherwise my hair can look like ancient Egyptian statuary (wedge-shaped headdress). However, much layering = bad ‘80’s glam. Plus, it makes the bottom half looks stringy. The stringy-ness was getting to me & I was feeling a mess because I had done the stupid thing & dyed it myself again since I wasn’t sure when I’d get back to the salon. So there I was looking at myself in those stylin’ skinny jeans & I decided I needed a haircut, pronto. I’d been formulating this in my head since before the last cut & decided I wanted a bob. Like what I had in my high school pictures. Hey man, I was cool. Back off. Plus I had read somewhere (magazine, internet, who knows?) that it was totally bitchin back in style because of Jessica Simpson, Sandra Bullock & maybe Madonna. But I had thought of it way before them. Really I had. Anyway, the fancy salon couldn’t fit me in so I went to something called Regis. Way in the back of my mind I seemed to remember a Regis salon from my childhood in Winnipeg where my mother would take me for trims & perms but I wrote it off as silliness & not having had any lunch. Looking at the place, it appeared warm & inviting but I guess anything would’ve with the torrential rain that was beating down. The girl that I took to be a receptionist was sweet & said she could fit me in in about 45 minutes so after a quick bite I went back to find out that this sweet young thang would be my stylist. She was really unsure of herself & I was beginning to freak out in my head sitting complacently in the chair thinking that this was going to be a disaster. I just kept smiling though & making stupid chit chat. Why I never said anything is my fault as I’m totally intimidated by all hairdressers. I said bob but what I got was shag. After the first few cuts I thought it was going the way I dreamed it would & then I thought she was done because it was looking great. Bob-like. Then she kept going. I got more layers. All over. Everywhere. There was no semblance of the bob in my head anywhere on my head. Crap. In the end it has actually turned out ok & pretty cute when I put the right amount of products in it (don’t get me started on the money I’ve spent trying out product) but I am on the hunt for the next perfect stylist. You know, one that gets it.

Finger Update

2006-11-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

This is mainly for me to keep track but also because it's pretty cool. Today Doodle Bug gave me her first sign. I've been signing to her from the beginning & I didn't think it was really getting anywhere because she didn't seem to be paying attention most of the time. Turns out she picked something up because today she told me she wanted milk.

Milk!

At first I think she was making the motion to say "gimme what I'm gesturing at" but with a few reinforcements of saying milk whenever she made the sign it worked. Now she keeps coming up to me making the sign over & over again. Methinks she wants the snack bar permanently open.

eta - Turns out she doesn't quite get it yet. She keeps making the sign but she's using it for just about anything she wants. Wants to see the flowers? Milk. Wants to look at a doggie on tv closer? Milk. Oh well. I'll keep working on it.

Giving me the Finger

2006-11-17T18:57:00.000-08:00

There’s this funny story about one of Sugar Daddy’s aunt. A very sweet lady, she got cut off one day in traffic. She was so upset she uncharacteristically gave the other driver the finger. “Are you serious?” we all asked incredulously. Turns out she passionately gave him the index digit instead of the middle one. Oh wait. Maybe it was the thumbs up. It’s been a while since I heard the story. And seen the actions that accompany it. Anyway, it’s a laugh riot, trust me.

Since the Doodles had her birthday, things have suddenly gotten a tad easier & way more fun. She’s so much more sure of herself & confident in her walking abilities. This in turn, has made her a lot happier & slightly less reliant on me. All of a sudden I can breathe. And pee. I even got to take a shower while she was napping yesterday. It’s not a wonderfully smelling bed of roses or anything yet – the nap situation is really, really weird (I think she’s transitioning from 2 naps to 1) & it’s kind of messing with my head. And what was once our semblance of a schedule. Oh wait. Not schedule. Let’s call it a routine. That sounds good & non-committal like.

Anyway, back to the fingers. It seems the Doodle Bug has figured out what her index finger is for (I know you were thinking I was going to tell you she was giving me the middle finger. Shame on you for thinking so poorly about an innocent baby!). She’s been picking up Cheerios & other assorted finger food for ages now & I’ve seen her dexterity getting better & better. But what’s really cool now is that she’s learned how to point.

And point she does.

She points at things she wants to see. She points at books she wants to read & she points to pictures on the pages in the books. Ask her where the little dog (who laughed to see so much fun) is & out comes the finger. Where’s the cat, the cow, the pig? Point, point, point. The girl really knows her farm animals. I’m not sure what that says about us but what the hey. It makes me feel so proud when I can ask her where the bee is & she’ll stick her cute little index digit right on the fat black & yellow bug & then to top it all off, she’ll make a funny buzz buzz noise with her tongue sticking out. Kind of a raspberry, kind of a word. It doesn’t seem to be a fluke either; she’s about 90% consistent with only doing it for the bee. Way to go baby!

She puts those index fingers to good work in other ways too. She gets so excited about her books with the animals in them that she’ll flip to the pages with her favorites (cow, dog) over & over again all the while reading to herself. The books that we have with paper pages (versus the board books) are now all dog-eared & torn (& taped) from her constant page turning. My photo albums are getting bent up & the plastic ripped. The toys with buttons to press are getting pressed (if I have to hear Tad’s rendition of Oh Where Has my Little Dog Gone one more time I think I’ll rip my ears out). The dog is getting poked in the eye. I am getting pinched on the boob & she is constantly pinching her chubby little knees so she can tickle herself.

All this is wonderful but there’s one more oh so special thing she has learned to do with her fantastic digits.

Pick her nose.

Shots

2006-11-14T20:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we got a taste of the U.S. healthcare system. Yesterday I tried not to cry while singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to keep my baby’s mind off her pain. And to drown out the screaming as two nurses held her down with me while they injected her with some mean looking sharps. Yesterday the Doodles got 6 shots in her chubby little thighs. It would’ve been more but on seeing the needles I asked to save the flu shot until later. I didn’t really want her to get it anyway because any time I’ve received one I’ve been sick for about a week. (Yes I know you are not supposed to be able to get the flu from the vaccine but... ) Sugar Daddy on the other hand wants her to get it – he’s never had a problem with stuff like this. Me, I’ve read enough on the possible side effects, as well as the benefits, so as to not have a clear decisive opinion on whether or not she should get it.

She also got a Hepatitis B vaccine. The leaflet on this explains that those at risk are those having unprotected sex, iv drug users, etc. Strange, but I don’t think my 1 year old child fits into any of these categories. Nor do I think that she will have much contact with the at risk population until she’s a few years older.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not anti-vaccine. We love the vaccines here. It’s just that some of the info I was handed afterwards made me think. Plus the fact that it was handed out afterwards rather than discussing it all beforehand kinda pissed me off. I guess it was because the entire visit was odd & stressful. The whole experience was similar & yet so different from what I’m used to. I’ve had the same doctor for the past 12 years minus a year or so of seeing a doctor on campus while in school & the odd walk-in clinic & specialist visits. In the past 12 years I’ve never had to worry about finding someone new to check out my lady parts or prescribe me medication because I knew I could always rely on my family physician if I needed or if I didn’t like what the walk-in clinic did for me. I may not have agreed with everything she said but she was always nice, patient, kind & treated me like an intelligent participant in my own healthcare.

One of the issues on my mind about moving to the States was the status of our healthcare coverage. I needn’t have worried & in this I know we are extremely lucky to have Sugar Daddy working for a company like Microsoft. It appears that everything we need is covered from doctor’s visits to massage therapy. With this group plan we get access to wide range of providers that are listed on a website. I just type in our address & up pops a list of who’s available in my area. It’s just a list though & so I’m left scratching my head trying to make a decision based on the sound of someone’s name in my brain. Since we don’t know anyone here it’s hard to get a recommendation based on personal experience. With Doodle’s next round of immunizations coming up & our suspicions of her having asthma I took the plunge & called one of the three nearest set of doctors. The closest one I wrote off because of her pro-life stance & religious affiliations – just not my cup of tea. That left a community clinic & a medical office. I went with the clinic because it was slightly closer (like a block, lazy ass) & the idea of community sounded caring & inclusive.

It was definitely inclusive. I’d like to think that I don’t have a problem with this but apparently I have some issues. Not with who is being provided for or the expertise of the providers but with the feeling that I was being treated as undereducated or lacking some intelligence. It wasn’t the personal treatment per say but rather, the questionnaires I had to fill out, the repeated questions (already answered on the forms) from the assistant, the nurse & then the medical person, and the assortment of pamphlets I was given afterwards, that gave me this impression. Questions concerning my coverage, my living status (married being the last available option), monthly income, what type of housing (if at all) I was in, if I was a drug user, alcoholic, or smoker. Questions regarding my baby about how much formula (surprise! She gets the boob & for this was called lucky) she took, whether she still took a bottle (uh... she neverreally did?), how her naps & sleep habits were (naughty me for continuing to co-sleep), how much food she ate a day & whether she was hitting all the usual milestones. It wasn’t what the questions were about that got to me, but that I was asked them over & over again like I either wasn’t telling the truth or I was a little too dense to understand what the truth was. I don’t blame the askers – it is their job after all – but it really just didn’t make me feel very comfortable.

And this discomfort makes me feel like a spoiled snob. Which in turn makes me uncomfortable with myself. But at the same time I'd like to think that anyone coming from what I've been accustomed to would feel the same way. The questioning was so over the top for me that I didn't even think to ask what vaccines were being given to my child. I was expecting to go in to get a checkup, talk about the breathing issues & schedule an appointment for the shots. I was so flustered I didn't even get a chance to write down her new measurements. Weight = 18lbs something. Height = ? (at home she's 27") Head = ? I was told she was somewhere around the 40 - 45 percentile for it all so at least I received some information.

The people were nice & they were competent. I just don't think they were the right fit for me which means I’m not going back there despite the fact that Doodles is supposed to go for another round of Hep B shots in a month. Instead I’ll call medical professionals number 3 on my list. Maybe this time we’ll even get to speak with an actual doctor about our concerns. Hopefully I won’t have to feel as though I’m being spoken slowly to &, hopefully, we will find someone who I can eventually appreciate as much as I do my old doctor.

I miss her.

More open letters

2006-11-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Pervert,

I'm glad you like our webcam, really I am. It's nice that you like looking at my innocent baby (or is it????). Thanks.

However, if you honestly think that I'm going to show you my boobs by either flashing you or by nursing my sweet child, you are sadly mistaken.

That is all.

~

Dear other webcam viewers,

Apologies if you witnessed Sugar Daddy in all the glory of his after-work uniform of t-shirt & underwear. At least you would've also witnessed the glory of a half-empty bottle of Wolf Blass Yellow Label Shiraz.

Deliciously embarrassed

~

Dear Friends,

Sorry to lump you in with the perverts but we wanted to wish Happy Birthday to Timothy, Uma, Nicole, Kanti, Todd & Evelyn & anyone else we missed sending wishes to. Also welcome to the world to baby Carson. You are pretty cute! Isn't this better than a card?

Hell ya!

~

Dear Family,

Thanks for all the wonderful presents that were sent to Freyja for her birthday. She especially liked ripping & eating the wrapping paper & the pages of her new books. She also looks great in the clothes that fit her & we can hardly wait to wear the bigger stuff. Well.... I think she can wait since she hates to wear any form of clothing but I really like them & will force her little hands through those sleeves when the time is right.

Love ya!

~

Dear Redmond Drivers,

Why are you not as polite & attentive as Seattle drivers? Why do you have trouble noticing two extremely bright & garish neon yellow day-glo crosswalk signs located beside a popular park containing a well-used playground? One set of them are even conveniently located right next to a decent intersection. Why do you not stop at said crosswalks when there are people with small children who probably have the propensity for running into traffic? Apparently a man in the middle of the street pushing a stroller with cars stopped in the other direction also doesn't warrant slowing down your precious SUVs. Seems even cop cars are immune to stopping for people. It's not just this crosswalk either. There is definitely something lacking in the ability of drivers to notice pedestrians here, especially compared to the painstaking troubles Seattle drivers would go to to stop for anyone trying to cross a street, crosswalker or jaywalker, light or no light. Perhaps, just perhaps, your reliance on your personal vehicles has rendered your eyesight incapable of seeing those who rely on the motion of their own feet.

No offence,
A local pedestrian

~

2006-11-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

2006-11-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it.

We made it through an entire year without leaving you on any doorsteps.

Just kidding my love.... I could never let you go. Plus there's no way you'd let me get more than 5 feet from you without kicking up a stink loud enough to attract attention so that we could never get away with doing something like that. And so, this is for you. Perhaps one day you'll be able to appreciate it for what it is in all its smaltziness.

Hopefully this will work. Here's the link if the embed doesn't show up. You'll probably need to download a new flash player though. I had to & something is still wonky.

As for the virtual webcam party, I'm turning it on now (11:00 am Pacific). The schedule for today is hanging out, followed by us possibly leaving for Gymboree drop-in, then back home for napping, then leaving for swim class. After that it'll be time for cake & presents (7 pm-ish). For those back East you'll probably be in bed by then but hey, this is the best I can do. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of pictures.

Toodles from the Doodles.

One Year Tomorrow

2006-11-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

The laptop screen is repaired but things are running slow & crashing a lot lately so I don't know if I'm just having a run of bad technological luck or if something else is up. I'm trying to finish up another one of those cheesy mommy-blogger videos of baby's first year because I know you are all dying to see how wonderful my baby looks to music (yes I know I did one before & despite the cheese factor you all loved it - right up there with velvet kitten pictures right Brian?). I'm getting frustrated though because I seem to be having some audio issues with Windows Movie Maker & I don't know if it's my stupidity or my computer. Hopefully I'll figure it out during the next naptime so you can all prepare to get teary-eyed at the beauty of my sweet baby.

Who is heading out of babyhood & into full-scale toddler mode.
The walking? Spectacular.
The stair climbing? Up & now down.
The talking? We can make out cat, dog & duck.

Pretty cool eh?

Too bad she hates fancy gourds....

boo hoo hoo

Just kidding.

She's crying because she is wearing clothes. And because I am all of 2 feet away from her. Somedays I think she just wants back inside. Too bad for her this time last year I was heading into pitocin induced labour 17 days overdue (always gotta plug that fact 'cause it makes me feel badass). Some days I wish I could shove her back in there to stop the crying but mostly I'm just glad she's here to give me at least one happy beaming smile a day.

Those make it all worth while.

p.s. Freyja cam should be on most of the day tomorrow for those who want to view the sham of our festivities. There's no schedule but there will be cake & presents & of course, beer for those who need it. Undoubtedly that will be me.

The Black Screen of Death Comes to Call

2006-11-02T17:23:00.000-08:00

I am writing this while looking at the tv (& what I am sure to be a dearth of typos). It's really really weird & makes me a little bit dizzy. Seems the monitor on my Compaq Presario R3000 has bit the dust. I thought I saw a little piece of red pixellated crap on the bottom left corner two nights ago & then yesterday morning after working just fine, I came back to tell ya'll about Halloween adventures & could do nothing. Oh ya & this was after coming home to find dog shit in my kitchen & piss in the den. Great day eh? Plus Calvin hid the leftover Halloween candy so I was freaking pissed!

Anyway, looks like my baby has to go into the shop for repairs so I'll be without my lifeline to the world for a few days. What the hell am I going to do? I'll miss you all. Argh!

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T21:54:00.000-08:00

I'll tell you all about it tomorrow....

For now here's our little pumpkin as.....

The Cheerio Bat

The shirt says it all

2006-10-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

my mom...

sucks

Ya you read it right. Hey I may sit on my ass all day reading Mother Goose & Dr. Suess but at least I can pick out & pay too much for a trendy ironic t-shirt to dress my baby in just like all the other hip mamas out there looking to keep some aspect of cool in their lives. Sarcastic & bitter much? Nah.... just tired.

In other news Doodles is in love again. Of course she’s always in love with me. That goes without saying. After all I am the snack bar that is always open. Yes I’m still nursing & will be until the cows come home. Ba dum dum. Used to be when she was about 4 or 5 months old she was infatuated with Ryan Seacrest & would smile ever so sweetly every time his smug mug graced our tv screen. I was ok with that. Really. Gave me an excuse to watch American Idol with a little less embarassment.

Now she has a new crush. It’s the Teletubbies baby. You know the one. In the sun. She giggles & coos at its beatific visage & it giggles & coos right back at her. Just like it is supposed to. The smiles on both baby's faces is enough to bring one to mine. Once upon a time I thought much like this guy about this strange little show but now it has become one of our favorites, along with Clifford, Poco & Sesame Street. With this admission you might infer that we watch a lot of tv. You would be correct. I suppose I should be bothered by that fact since most people seem to be taking the American Pediactric Association of not recommending tv ("Until more research is done about the effects of TV on very young children, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not recommend television for children younger than two years of age. For older children, the AAP recommends no more than one to two hours per day of quality screen time.") as saying I am all but ruining my child, but it gets us through the day & it seems to make her happy. What with all the smiling.

Plus the songs are fantastic. For instance yesterday Tinky Winky (you know, the gay one) sang a loud song that consisted of the lyrics:

"Tinkle winkle tinky winky woo woo woo woo
Pinky wiggle tinky winky woo woo woo woo
Tinkle winkle tinky winky woo woo woo woo
Woo woo woo woo"

Then another classic sung by Po:

"Po po po po pohhhhhh
Po po po po po po pohhhh"

Awesome.

How can it get any better than this?

Oh & get this weird fact (?). I was looking up Teletubbies links so I could find a picture of that cute sun & I came across this tidbit that the roller girl from this season's Survivor has the credit of being this same sun. I am a bit confused here though because the chick was born in 1979 & Teletubbies didn't start until the '90's. Go figure.

Burning Out

2006-10-24T08:17:00.000-07:00

That picture that turned into my last post sans words was supposed to be about how that day last year was my due date. And how I had to wait 18 more days before meeting the most serious baby in the world. And how it's almost her birthday & I cannot believe that I've made it through an entire year. And how that light at the end of the tunnel is still so dim. Obviously that post never really happened.

You don't know how many times I've tried to post something these past two months & either gave up or been thwarted by the Doodle bug. Mothering in the hood lately has been a challenge to say the least. The moving, the growing, the teething, & the dog whining have been wreaking havoc on all of us. Don't get me wrong - I like it here & I'm slowly getting us involved in some local activities which, I hope, will give us some sense of routine. It's just that Freyja's separation anxiety is still in high gear & her naps are all jumbled & short & unreliable so I'm not left with any decent amount of time in which to sit down & write. If I start, she'll wake up (as she's doing right now....) & then want to play what I'm playing i.e. my laptop.

Five hours later & she's banged on the keys until an accidental shut down, nursed three times, ate half a jar of plums & apples, shoved several handfuls of cheerios in her mouth, fought through a diaper change with all her strength, screeched when I put a sweater on her beacuse fabric is the devil's work, cried when I set her on the floor beside me three times so I could pee, screamed when I left her watching Clifford for two minutes while I got a cup of coffee (hence the peeing), banged on an empty tin for 20 minutes & had me read 8 or 9 books really fast due to her impatient page turning. We also went down the street to the local community center where they have a drop in play time 3 times a week for a couple of hours. It took her a while to warm up to what was happening but by the end of the allotted time she was pulling my sorry ass back to the push mobile thing she fell in love with & started laughing at the other kids. I think we'll go back & maybe next time I'll work up the nerve to say more than three words to anybody. Afterwards we headed over to the Value Village down the road. This is the best VV I think I've ever been in. Sure there's the requiste bunch of shoddy, dirty, broken crap and a boatload of Halloween costumes right now, but this place has one of the best selection of books I've ever seen. Plus, buy three & get one free. Woo hoo! Today I bought 4 paperbacks & 9 children's books for $14. It's closer than the library & I don't know who is dropping stuff off there but I hope they keep doing it because reading is one of the only things helping me keep hold of my sanity.

Barely.

Calvin is trying to give me breaks from the devil child & it is slowly getting better. Better meaning she doesn't necessarily break into a vomit inducing crying/ screaming fit every single time he picks her up. Now it's maybe only every other time. Poor guy. Poor baby. Poor me.

Yes. Oh woe is me. Oh please feel sorry for me. No one else ever had it this bad. My life is hell. Blah blah blah. Ack! I'm making myself even more depressed with this stupid pity party. I'll stop now & spare you more whining. Too bad that's all I want to do lately. That & feel burning bitter jealousy towards fellow (mommy) bloggers who have their shit together enough to actually spare a few moments to write something smart / witty / funny / whatever. I really can't even begin to fathom how they are doing it. I'm so burnt out that if I do get a free 20 minutes to write most times I'd just as soon veg in front of the mind numbing tv. Because I know that if I started to write something it would end up just like this.

Boring, self-pitying & repetitive. Sorry folks... I'll try harder next time.

2006-10-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

baby face

First Steps

2006-10-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

Tentative but gaining confidence.

Yay baby!

~ If that doesn't work try this link. ~

Preparing for change yet again

2006-09-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we sign the lease on our new living quarters. We haven't rented anything for about 8 years so it's a strange place to find ourselves once again. Though more homey & permanent than what we are living in now, there's still a sense of unattachment. Detachment? (I'm sleepy & sick.) Also, there's stuff to think about like possibly not being able to paint, staining the carpet with pureed plums & wondering if installing baby gates will muck up the walls that we don't own. We have this tendency to be a little more careless with our own possesions & I get overly concerned when I have to care for something that is not mine. I'm a little worried that I'll turn into this weird neat freak that won't let anyone come into the house unless they are wearing a blue hazmat suit.

Anyway, big changes yet again in the next week & a bit. I think we get the keys tomorrow but we won't start moving in until Wednesday when our movers are scheduled to deliver the obscene amount of junk that is legally ours. Calvin's brother Bruce comes to visit next Thursday for a few days so we'll also be busy doing more sightseeing & boozing it up. Or at least I will while those two are off biking in the woods somewhere. Watch out Whistler. Me & Doodles will be organizing closets & cupboards & installing baby gates. Woo hoo!

I'm also hoping to reorganize this silly blog. I feel like I desperately need to update my links & blogroll, plus the whole thing could use a fresh look. Fat chance eh? I've been trying for the past few weeks to create a different page to link to where all the crap I never get to read anymore will be organized. As it stands right now, there's quite a few blogs here on the right that I never have time to read & I'd also like to link to a few new ones every so often just to spice it up around here. It's not that I don't love the old ones anymore, but I just feel like it's time for a change. That way it'll go with the rest of my life.

We'll see what happens when it happens. Don't hold your breath or nothing.

Seattle Sightseeing #2

2006-09-26T23:34:00.000-07:00

The Children's ~~Maze~~ Museum

This is a great place to bring the monkey child. I’m going to miss living 4 blocks away from the Seattle Center because at $3 a pop (Microsoft discount) this place is so worth the uphill stroll. Unlike the Children’s Museum back in Ottawa this one has a fantastic area for little ones 2 & under called Discovery Bay. Park your stroller & away you go into toddler heaven. First there’s a decent sized fish tank that Doodles promptly tried to lick the scum off of & then once sated, she started smacking the glass so as to scare the bejeebus out of the tank creatures. Poor little fishes. Once inside the ~~padlocked~~ gated (so as to keep the older riff raff out) area there’s several of those wood bead bent metal maze things set up along the wall, as well as a couple of child sized table height ones. Of course she tried to eat the wooden pieces. Mmmmm crusty woodiliscious.

Next to the wall of wood chew toys is a seaweed area with bells attached at their bases above your head so when you walk through the vinyl green wavy things tinkle which makes for a fun game of peek-a-boo. Spread throughout the Discovery Bay are a few padded / matted play structure areas where your little ones can practice climbing & if they are like mine, biting & sucking on the vinyl mats. There’s also a huge basket in one corner that contains clear plastic tubes filled with assorted sparkles, plastic die, bells & the paper circles from your old three-holed punch. These are good for bonking against each other, as well as against other children’s heads. Also good for rolling along the floor with both hands so that you end up doing a face plant into the carpet. Oh and throwing into the air. That’s the fun. The best part in this wonderful area for Doodles is the little pond where two tiers of water are filled with various plastic sea creatures & boats for her to put in her mouth right after all the other germy kids. The ponds are too high for her for the moment so I am also stuck bent over like some old hunchbacked crone so she can be at the level needed to splash & grab the toys, but hey, at least there’s vinyl smocks to don so she doesn’t get her clothes wet. Not that she cares & not that I get to stay dry. The blissful look as she sucks the air brains out of the killer whale squeeze toy does however make up for any soggy garments I may have to wear.

The special exhibit on display at the moment is Clifford the Big Red Dog. Though we’ve never watched this cartoon I figured we’d check it out since all she wants to do is look at doggies lately. She can almost say dog now & it’s hilarious to watch her get so overexcited whenever she sees one of the canine crowd. She’ll kick & wave her arms & squeal & laugh hysterically at any dog she sees. Thankfully we haven’t met too many nasty ones yet but I’m starting to get a bit wary of where & to what she’s thrusting her innocent hands at. Anyway, the Clifford exhibit is pretty cute despite the whole thing needing a bit of antibacterial cleansing & a few less pushy kids. I know the child was only 4 or 5 years old but did he have to take ALL the plush flowers out of my baby’s hands? While she was trying to suck on it? No harm done but we were both a bit surprised. Good thing there were several large fibreglass dogs around to take the sting out of dashed suckage. Doodles especially liked the one named Cleo, a poodle with a perky little nose. Perhaps it reminded her of Gramma’s menagerie of doggies, or maybe she just wanted to gnaw on that snout.

Getting ready for some gnawing

There were plenty of other things to see & play with in here. The older kids appeared to be having great fun playing mail delivery person & maneuvering large dog bones onto some conveyor belt thing that I believe deposited them into a large dog bowl (I wasn’t paying attention because it looked too big for baby to play with). There were books to read, musical instruments to smash, a fake sand castle puzzle to piece together & a grocer’s deli shop complete with plastic food & a kid that told me to get out because he was playing in there. I’m sort of glad crazy pirate baby has yet to form words because from some of the smack I’m hearing from the youngsters these days I am not looking forward to the lip I’m sure is in store for me. Oh and the swearing. At the rate that I’m (still!) cursing at the dog I’m almost positive her first word will start with an f. That’ll go over well at the playground won’t it?

Watching the roses get snatched makes baby

So very sad

So… lots to see & do & play with at the Seattle Children’s Museum. Besides the two areas we hung out at there’s several other spots to have fun in, including a gear / machine section called Cog City where you can depress levers, press button & watch science at work. There’s also a music area where I think you can play some instruments, etc. but again I didn’t really check it out too thoroughly as it was way beyond our respective age levels. One area that we explored a little bit was the regular exhibit (doesn’t really seem like the right word but whatever) which was different parts of the world as a village. (Ah I see... it is the Global Village.. I'm a little slow.) Little splices of life from China, Africa & more displaying living quarters, dining & shopping likely to be found in each place. Kinda neat & there were some wooden musical instruments for baby to bang away on but for some reason there were some really weird dead ends. In fact there were quite a few of these throughout the museum. You think you’d be walking to another room or a way out & bam there was a wall in front of you so you’d have to backtrack to get back to the beginning. I think someone needs to rethink the flow of user traffic in this place because it’s just not the most intuitive set of pathways I’ve experienced. Some of the displays also need a good cleaning. Won’t somebody think of the children? The dirty, germy children who put things in their mouths, probably after sticking them down their pants? Anyway, I’ll give it an A for keeping baby happy & getting me out of the apartment twice in the last 6 days.

He's ok

2006-09-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

He fell asleep on the couch in his underwear while watching a movie.

After drinking 5 beers.

Phew! That splinterverse we were living in for like 4 hours was a scary place!

The aliens have landed

2006-09-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

And taken over Sugar Daddy's body. That or the pod people, or maybe he's finally gone bat-shit crazy. Otherwise I have no logical explanation for what he said to me in the car yesterday.

"I don't really feel like going to a beer festival."

Wha???????

Success on the Eastside!

2006-09-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

No I didn't pass my driver's test. I've yet to go back.... however we have finally finagled us a place to live for the next year.

Voila!

It's totally rockin' & probably the nicest place we've ever lived. Also a complete fluke in finding it. We had an appointment to see an apartment down the street that we'd been pinning some hopes on but the leasing agent never showed & no one was in the office that was supposed to be open all day. Someone who lived in the building was gracious enough to show us their place & it was nice but we really wanted to see the other plans available. After waiting about 45 minutes we decided to go get some lunch & come back. On the way back we walked past this pretty park & these townhomes were across the street with a sign that said "now leasing" so Calvin gave the guy a call & made an appointment to see them the next day (Sunday).

Meanwhile, we saw a few more apartments & one more townhome that was really nice but pretty far away on the East side of Redmond. Some of the other places we saw were really depressing & ugly & way too expensive for what you got. Most of the places come with a communal centre that usually has a business centre (fax, printers, etc.), workout room, pool, hot tub, movie room & living room area that you can book for parties. While this is great, it increases the rental prices & even though the common areas look fantastic, when you get to some of the apartments they don't live up to the expectations these areas raise. We also don't need any of this because we have discounted memberships at a fantastic gym complete with 4 pools, etc., etc., etc. (Seriously, the gym is insane!) So.... we were getting really frustrated with trying to find an apartment. The areas we liked in Seattle itself didn't seem to have much available without paying an arm & a leg for, plus we were severly limited by the dog restrictions. We started looking Eastside, which is across Lake Washington & consists of Bellevue, Mercer Island, Kirkland & Redmond (where Microsoft is) & prices weren't that much different but the farther we went the more likely they were to take out dog, plus it would be that much closer to work for Calvin who is getting a bit tired of the commute he's making every day now. We narrowed down apartments to one on the island & one south of Bellevue but decided to look one more day & check out the apartments that no one cared to show up to. Bonus for us I say!

Anyway, we got a 2 bedroom, 2.5 bath 3 level townhome with 1600 square feet for less than most other places we were looking at. I mean the place technically has more square footage than our house in Ottawa so all of our crap will fit & we won't have time pressures to get rid of stuff right away, but actually sort through what we need & what we can sell or give away. The place is across from a really nice park with bbq's, an excellent playground & lots of huge trees. We'll be walking distance from downtown Redmond & grocery stores (Whole Foods!) & a huge off-leash dog park & & &....

New car + new house = I am so spoiled!

Can you tell I'm happy? And so less stressed. It's like a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders & we can get down to really enjoying ourselves here. Doing stuff like choosing baby's first Halloween outfit.

This sweet mermaid is not it. Despite the happy demeanor above she hated this dress contraption so much I thought she was going to rip it off her flailing limbs. Good thing she loves hamming it up for the camera or you would be able to feel her wrath through the ether of the internets & you would be afraid. Very afraid.

Be not afraid my friends for tomorrow is Talk Like A Pirate Day!!
Are you ready?

Flailing & Failing

2006-09-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

I don't fail much of anything. Never have. If I set my mind to doing something I generally achieve it or even, overachieve. This is basically because:

I am s-m-r-t.
I am a total keener. And a geek.
I will only attempt to do something I am fully prepared for. Sometimes I can fake this because of number 1.
I can remember tons of useless information. Well... I used to be able to.
Most importantly, if there is a chance that I will fail I'll avoid the situation like the plague.

For me, failure is basically not an option because I do not handle it well. (Understatement of the year?)

In order for us former Ontario folk to drive in Washington State we must both take our driver's license tests again. Written & driven. No problem right? Plus for me it was a good thing because I never actually took the G whatever exit exam in the graduated licensing format. I had planned to do it when I was about 8 months pregnant so if I happened to make a little error I might just get a little pity or the benefit of hormonal doubt. By the time I was 8 months knocked up I was running out of energy & working quite a bit so I made excuses to put the test off. Here there is no graduated licensing so all I have to take is one driving test. Woo hoo! But first I have to do the written. Again, no problem right?

Wrong! One of the problems with never failing much of anything can be a sense of cockiness. How hard can a written driver's test be? I did the practice test online & made only 1 mistake. I scanned the book & thought "ok I may not have read the whole book, but I've been driving for a few years now & am confident in my abilities (except for the dreaded parallel park)". So on Wednesday morning we got in our new car (yay Subaru!) & drove to the DMV in Redmond. I planned to read the book again in the car on the way there but was defeated by the screams of my precious crazy Doodles the entire way there. She's not the type of baby who will cry & eventually settle down but the extreme opposite wherein the cries build & build until she is out of her freaking mind & can barely breathe. It's all I can do to keep myself from unbuckling the car seat straps & picking her up to comfort her. Needless to say I didn't get any studying in before getting to the testing office.

Oh ya & the DMV? As a foreigner you hear the stories & the comedians & the skits about the horrors of these places & while it wasn't as bad as some people make it out to be, it was still pretty bad. The wait was ridiculously long & frustrating & many of the staff appeared to be really grumpy. Especially the woman who was in charge of the driving tests & was behind in her appointments. You did not want to get in her way or some shit was gonna fly. Anyway, after waiting about 45 minutes I took the eye test & went to the computer to do the written exam with the baby crying in the background. Even though the tests are randomized I think the guy who sent me over must have thought I was a drunk cyclist because I swear half of the questions revolved around these topics. Seriously it was weird & sort of stupid. I mean come on, everyone knows it's really dumb to drink & drive, it's fairly well known that .08 is the legal limit, but really, what difference is it going to make in my driving ability & knowledge of rules of the road to remember exactly how many days you have to stay in jail or lose your license for if you get caught drinking & driving? I know not to drink & drive, I know if you get caught it's bad, really bad, isn't that enough? Why do I need the exact amount of days? For various offences? Why? Also why as a driver of a motor vehicle do I need to know how many feet a bicycle light should shine ahead into traffic? Isn't this the responsibility of the cyclist, not the car driver person? Things like this... I just don't get why I should fail a test because of these types of questions.

Ya I failed. And then I cried because it was just so fucking stupid. And then my baby wouldn't stop crying & screaming & clawing at me. And life just sucked. And then, upset, Calvin dropped me off at the gym so I could do a Baby Robics class (she goes in the Bjorn). She continued to scream & I continued to try & stifle my tears. I could barely get dressed because she wouldn't let go of me. I nursed her & put her down so I could get my shoes on & still she screeched. There was no holding back the tears anymore & I just about lost it in the changing room of the gym I'd only been to once before. Suddenly two sweet, sweet woman came & asked if everything was ok & made everything better again. I don't know their names, only that they'd been there (as in with screaming infant) before & I can't thank them enough for being so sweet to the crazy lady in the family change room. Whoever you two are, thank you from the bottom of my heart. The kindness of strangers is just about the nicest sort of kindness you can find.

Stupid Giraffe or proof that I am a bad mother. : )

Seattle Sightseeing #1

2006-09-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Aquarium

Eeek an eel!

We've been doing a hell of a lot of touristy stuff on the weekends since we moved here, just trying to get a feel for the city & I have to say, playing traveller in your own town is fun. Not that I'm sure I can consider this my own town yet, but we are in that strange transitional stage where we're not sure if we should raise our hands if the tour guides ask the crowd if anyone is from out of town. Yesterday I got all excited & raised my hand because we were from farther away than anyone else, but the guide never noticed & then I just felt like a dumbass schmuck for most of the day afterwards thinking about my overeagerness for some measly attention from someone whose job it was to entertain the paying public. Sometimes I am a goofball.

The tour yesterday was the Underground Tour of Seattle (Jennifer I went! And it was good!) but since I need to catch up on the other stuff we've done I'm going to skip it until I tell you about all the other places we've seen. And since I never get enough time to type out much, it's gonna be one site at a time. How am I even doing this right now you ask? Shhh don't tell anyone, but she's watching (captivated!) Baby Beethoven right now. Gah I know there's no educational value to these things but if it gives me a few moments peace, I'm letting her watch. She freaking loves it & tries to grab the objects off the screen while talking to the saxamaphone playing giraffe. We tried to get something mildly "educational" the other day & bought a Sesame Street dvd, but none of us are liking it as much, because a) the music isn't as great (though mildly less tinny), b) it has the baby versions of Elmo, Big Bird, Brandi & Prairie Dawn (who for some reason I loathe) & their parents which is just weird for someone who grew up with the regular sized versions & c) damn it, I'm supposed to sit there with her & interact! I'm sorry, but I bought this for a break from the interraction. Now I'm supposed to sing with her too?!

Yes I'm joking..... or am I?

Anyway, on to the touristy stuff. Last Saturday we went to the Seattle Aquarium and had some watery fun. We got there later than anticipated as Ms. No-Nap decided to snooze for 2 hours making our plans for getting there when it opened all for naught. Despite the long line up it didn't take forever to get in & on to the aquatic frenzy. The River Otters were first & didn't really live up to their reputation of being frolicking critters - they just laid there snuggled against each other looking cute & kind of oily. The Sea Otters on the other hand were chasing each other in & out of the water & being very frisky so the baby was fascinated for about three minutes. There was plenty to look at throughout the aquarium & several of the exhibits were located in a lower section where you could see the seals & other creatures swimming under water right beside you. There's also an underwater dome-like area full of fish, sharks (smaller ones) eels (see creepy one above) & other assorted slimy & anemone like creatures. Pretty cool. Elsewhere there's hands on exhibits where you can touch starfish, sea urchins & the like so Doodlebug was in heaven splashing about in there.

All said it was a good time, though probably better to visit when the baby is not so much of a baby but more of an inquisitive 3 or 4 year old. I think our almost 5 year old nephew Thomas would love it but as for Doodles, if something wasn't moving around directly in front of her or she wasn't able to splash in the water, she seemed to get a little bored / tired & got more enjoyment out of reaching towards unsuspecting heads to pull other people's hair. For some reason she really likes blondes.

The Aquarium itself is apparently undergoing some renovation & expansion projects which will hopefully update the look of the place. I think I was expecting something more along the lines of Marineland or Sea World because coming from the Prairies / Eastern Ontario the only exposure to ocean life you get is from commercials. It's like when I moved to Newfoundland & thought it would be exciting to visit the seals at the Ocean Sciences Centre in Logy Bay. Calvin took me shortly after meeting him & well, I thought it was really cool to see a couple of be-whiskered faces popping up every so often but after a short while it got pretty cold & exciting was not the word to describe the experience. I'll say breezy & fascinating. As for the Seattle Aquarium, not so cold but probably just as old (too lazy to check) so some parts feel slightly dated construction wise (like the dome) but really it's probably just due to my overly eager expectations. A part of living in this society that always wants the latest & greatest technology perhaps? Whatever. To sum it all up, the Aquarium was a great place to get acquainted with the watery environs that surround this city, the baby liked it, we liked it but left wanting a little bit more excitement wise. B grade for visiting with baby but I'd rank it higher if you are going with an older child who is fascinated by all things ocean.

Having a great time until she banged her head too many times on the glass.

Sidenote: Did you notice how long this took? I started this on Sunday... it's now Thursday. That's pathetic!

Where to begin?

2006-09-07T14:21:00.000-07:00

So much to tell & so little time to tell it all. It used to be back in the day that I could start a blog post in the morning, work on it bit by bit throughout the day when the Doodles would nap or play by herself on the floor beside me. By the end of the day I'd usually have something half decent typed out & I could hit that good ol' Publish Post button & move on to catching up on all the other blogs out there. This was when my child would nap. And be happy. Obviously it hasn't been working out so well for me lately. I think the extreme separation anxiety phase is dissipating because I can finally skip off to pee by myself again but she's still pretty attached & wants to be near me most of the time. Sometimes she'll be playing on the floor with her toys & I think I can sit 8 feet away in plain view at my laptop but within a couple of minutes she'll notice I'm not beside her & will crawl over & pull herself up on my chair, wanting to be picked up so she can bang on the keys. So much for trying to type. It's just been a losing battle so I've sort of given up writing anything during the day. I keep thinking I'll do stuff in the evening when she's finally gone to bed but by then I'm so brain dead & tired that the words are lost. It makes me a wee bit sad. Reality TV & light beer numbs it pretty good though.

I'm also feeling under pressure to find us a more permanent place to live. The place we are in is nice & I love the freedom of not having all of our accumulated possessions surrounding us. It's made us realize how little stuff & space we actually need to be happy. It makes me want to sell / give away most of our belongings that are sitting in the moving company's warehouse right now. There are items in there with a lot of sentimental value but that's it. Sentiment. Does one really need thses objects to remember the past? I'm not sure. I know when I see some of the trinkets & books & old articles of clothing I'll be overcome with the sense of remembrance but right now I don't miss them. They are just stuff. Taking up space that I don't need. That I don't have right now & that I'm not really looking for in a new place to live. This is the dilemma. Do we look for a house because of the convenience of having somewhere to put all of our crap or do we look for an apartment & pay extra for a storage space that we can keep extra things until we are ready to sell them? We are both thinking the latter but then there is the complication of only having the movers one more time. We'd have to rent a truck & make several trips to take stuff that would be delivered to a storage place if the building we choose didn't have a big enough space for us. So we would essentially be overwhelmed with boxes & boxes of stuff, large furniture items & patio furniture for a few days. All this clutter in an apartment... I couldn't live too long like that.

Because I'm a worry wart I'm also concerned about where to live. Neighbourhood wise. Right now we're in Queen Anne - South Slope. Walking distance to downtown, Safeway is 3 blocks away, lots of restaurants & coffee shops (go figure!) around & we're 4 blocks from Seattle Center (Space Needle, etc.) There's a bit of traffic noise, loud seagulls (Elliot Bay close by too) & weekend drunks yelling, but it feels safe & pretty vibrant. If we can't find something else we could always get another apartment in the building so at least there's that option. Then there's Belltown which is pretty much downtown so I'd be really close to anything I'd want to do (Library, art galleries, shopping, restaurants etc.) but there'd be a bigger noise factor (traffic, buslines & more partying drunks) & some sketchier areas that are kind of weird walking through with baby. We've also been looking in an upcoming area called South Lake Union which has some cool apartment buildings, REI (= MEC but with more selection), & a soon to be Whole Foods. There's also noise from the float planes & nearby major traffic routes & well, it's a transitional area so some parts have a really industrial feel which I don't have a problem with but it's not so family freindly. Capitol Hill, Madison Park & Madrona look great & would be good for Calvin getting on to the bridge (bike/bus or car) to go to work but there doesn't seem to be as much available there.

Then there's Eastside. Which is where Calvin works. Which is where it seems many Seattleites thumb their noses at & vice versa. At least this is the impression we have from a few travel books & maybe one or two people. Surburbia versus culture. Nitty gritty living versus clean family fun? Who knows if it's true or not but it just gives me more to consider. I love being an urban dweller in a metropolitan city because I imagine myself to be ever so cosmopolitan & chic, taking my funky-dressed infant to galleries, cafés & cool stores where she doesn't protest while I sip a soy cappuccino & read a good book. Ya right. I'm lucky if a shower every day, the baby hates wearing anything other than a diaper, she will scream like Alice Cooper if I'm not paying attention to her & likes to tear up & then devour paper. I want to think that we would go out to restaurants once a week to enjoy ourselves & take in the gastronomical delights of Seattle but really, it's too freaking hard & I feel like I'm eating like a savage half the time because I can only use one hand which is busy tearing up what I'm eating into teeny pieces that I can feed to the suddenly ravenous birdlike creature that is sitting in my lap. I guess what I'm saying is that we don't necessarily take advantage of the conveniences of living the urbane urban lifestyle.

Not that there isn't any restaurants or any other attributes missing from living on the Eastside. It's just doesn't have the same feeling. Which is fine. I really don't care but it's just something else to think about while searching. Along with some things we're not used to like leasing offices instead of just an elderly superintendent couple, 20 day notices instead of 30 day making searches before the 10th of the month just pointless, high rents (more than our mortgage payments in Ottawa but less than what we'd be paying here for one) & then there's the whole doggone dog restrictions. Most places have restrictions by weight - 20, 25, 30, 45, 50, 60 pounds, some also have breed restrictions like no Pitbulls, Rottweillers, German Shepards & yes, even Dalmatians. Crazy neurotic aggressive dogs. At least according to some leasing companies. Whatever, I'm not going to start ranting about what a pussy our dog is but try to be cheery that our choices are narrowing which should make it all easier. Right? Thing is, it seems that all the (nicer) places I'm interested in are the ones we won't be accepted in.

Anyway, this has sadly taken me two days to write because of a certain someone with a very mean temper. Seriously, the little bugger can be nasty even on the day when we should be celebrating her 10 month birthday. And now I can feel the bass from the sex freaks' stereo in the apartment below so I gotta go slug back a beer. Pronto. Ahhhh apartment living is fine....

Virtual Party Time

2006-09-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

Guess who's old?

Birthday wishes today to me, John B, Bob Newhart & to Dweezil Zappa who is old like me. But with better sideburns.

Belated happy stuff to my sweetie Calvin, Denis, Stan, & Teanna. We miss you all. Well... except for Calvin. We just miss his brain.

e.t.a more birthdays & take a lookie at what I got for my birthday. Men in sailor suits. mmmm yummy! Better than what I got the sugar daddy for his big day. What was that you ask? Nothing. Nada. I suck. At least we both got drunk.

Just a question

2006-09-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

When did the pronunciation of Empire (as in waist) turn into umpire? I think I've been watching a bit too much TLC lately... or just too much tv in general, because I've been hearing a few too many so called fashion experts refer to high waisted garments as something that belongs at the ballpark.

OK Here's an explanation but it just seems so affected & silly.

Must go to bed.

Who wants pictures?

2006-08-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

I've finally uploaded a few to Flickr so here's a set of the latest Doodle bug pics & some from the lovely city of Seattle. Slideshow style. Enjoy it 'cause I'm too tired to think about writing anything.

Arg mateys!

Bad Blogger Me

2006-08-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

Man I suck.

Good thing I don't get tons of traffic here. I'm just feeling bad for anyone looking for updates on our situation here. Because obviously there hasn't been much. We are having a good time. Adjusting hasn't been too bad. We are loving living in an apartment despite the noise levels. And the ants. I hate hate hate ants with a blazing passion. I've killed about 15 so far. They are teeny tiny so I'm not super freaked out, but they are pissing me off. How do they get up to the 6th floor?

Seattle is really cool. I've been exploring. Which doesn't leave much time for blogging. I've been taking pictures but I haven't sized them down yet so you'll have to wait yet another day. So far Doodles & I have done the Pacific Science Center, Experience Music Project & the Science Fiction Museum with Calvin, shopping day at Macy's, Nordstrom & the downtown shopping malls, Pike Place Market, the Capitol Hill area & more. Today I'm going to check out some cool apartments. Cross your fingers it's good & decently priced.

More later dudes. Plus pics.

Open letters

2006-08-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Stompy McDrops-alot,
You are living above me & you are keeping me up & irritated. I don't want to hate you because I don't know you but you are starting to drive me mental. I do not want to be a bitchy neighbour or like that crazy guy from Friends who would poke the ceiling with a broom, but the loud walking has got to stop. Do you weigh 500 lbs? Because it sounds like it. I know that is not nice to say but I can't think of too many reasons for someone who lives in an apartment to not be aware that there are people living below them. Especially since you live on the top floor of this building. Also why do you like to run from one end of your apartment to the other at top speed between the hours of 11 pm & 1 am while moving what sounds like dead bodies & furniture? Because people are trying to sleep. People with a baby. Those kind of people are already so sleep deprived that any more interruptions will soon put them over the edge, probably prompting some broom ceiling banging.
Thanks in advance for buying some slippers,
The one below

Dear Baggage Handler Bitch at Toronto Pearson Airport
Thank you so much for storming into the U.S. Customs office to yell at us about our dog. Because we weren't stressed out enough. No really, we appreciate you not looking us in the eyes while you stomped around our luggage & yelled at us about the size of our dog crate while we were trying to make a good impression to the nice immigration officer who pretty much held our future in her hands. Also, thanks for having the patience to listen to us. Beyotch. For your information the size of the kennel we purchased was the size listed for our breed & size of dog. And he is shorter than your average Dalmatian. Despite your concern, we know that he could turn around in the crate. He could also stand up. Please see picture a couple of posts below. He's just lazy. We know he was stressed but so were we & for you to come into an area where you should know people are already on edge was way over the top. To yell at someone you don't know, not knowing their situation & not knowing what sort of pet owners they are is frankly, none of your freaking business. It's wonderful that you obviously care so much about animals but frankly, screw you.
Yours truly,
Someone whose dog drives them crazy but would never hurt a freaking fly (well, maybe flies... & ants. And creepy crawly basement dwelling bugs.)

Dear American cable provider
Why are 80% of your channels devoted to sports?
Just curious,
Not a sports fan

Dear makers of Crocs
I don't get the hype.
Perplexed,
Miss Narrow Feet

Dear Air Canada
Please stop serving PC General Tao's Chicken. It really, really sucks. Also, if you know that summer is the time for backpackers, maybe you should stock up on those plastic bags before the season begins. Because it's really nice to have the seat that cradles our precious baby go naked through the filthy caverns of your baggage carousels.
Thanks,
Yet another traveller who is tired of your crap

Adjustments

2006-08-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

So obviously I'm not posting as much lately. To improperly quote HBM this baby is kicking my ass. That & the whole move & time difference adjustment. I've been napping when Doodles naps just so I can catch up on my sleep & by the time she goes to bed at night I'm too exhausted to devote any time to writing. The little monkey won't stop moving & it seems she must be touching me at all times. If she gets brave & crawls away from me to get a toy she turns to make sure I'm still watching her & have not gone more than 5 feet. If I get up to get a glass of water & she notices that I'm gone she starts crying & crawling after me. If I'm standing up she must stand beside me & will pull herself up on my pant legs & sway there until I pick her up. My (sweat)pants are only held up by a flimsy drawstring so they are spending an innapropriate amount of time way below waist level. I'm looking like the dude I saw at the airport the other day whose basketball skater shorts had their elastic waistband halfway down his thighs. Of course I'm not wearing cool boxers under mine so I'm not really getting away with this new look. Thank goodness it's too much of an effort most days to actually get dressed & go out of the apartment so I don't have to worry about the state of my drawers.

We've been hanging around the apartment quite a bit. It seems to take so much effort & time just to get organized to go out now. Plus the baby hates putting on clothes. And diapers. Actually, the diapers have been easier to put on in the past few days for some reason. A Wonder Week perhaps? I've lost track of the developmental stages. I know she had a growth spurt a while ago & she's a total crawling, standing, walking with assistance machine. She stands up by herself now & balances for up to a minute or two. She got her fangs still coming through & now one of the middle ones is making it's way out of her tender gums. I thought the drool was bad before but all of a sudden we've got puddles of saliva all over the place & I can see a little rash under her chin where the spittle likes to pool in the cute folds of her neck. Yuck. The little monkey has also developed quite the temper & will scream at the top of her lungs & then make this weird yelling sound. There's different levels of both the scream & the yell. We were at DEFCON 2 on our ride from the airport to our apartment the night we arrived in Seattle. First the dog started whining & then barking because he was stuck in the crate in the back of the massive vehicle we rented. Then as soon as we put baby in the crappy rental car seat she started to lose it. She was super tired & I couldn't sit beside her to comfort her because of the crazy amount of luggage back there so Calvin & I were stuck in the front listening to the most horrible screaming & crying that would be interrupted by high pitched dog whines. Then the barks. Which would set off the screaming. It was fun.

Anyway, we made it minus our eardrums & our sanity to the furnished apartment that Microsoft puts us up in for a couple of months while we look for our own pad. It is situated in between the Belltown & Queen Anne neighbourhoods of downtown Seattle, really close to the Space Needle. We're not sure if we're going to look for another apartment or go back into a house. We've got enough crap for a house but we're all liking the compactness & simplicity of apartment living. The dog is more manageable, the mess is definitely more manageable & I & the baby are liking the carpeting. The furnishings are nice & comfortable, you can watch the security cameras on tv, the view from the communal rooftop terrace is great & there's a workout room downstairs. On the negative side the towels are linty, the noise from the traffic & the gulls are taking some getting used to & I really need some more hangers but all in all, it's a cool place. Lucky us.

Sleeping in Seattle

2006-08-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

(C'mon you knew a title like that had to be coming some time or other.)

We made it. I think we're all in one piece. Perhaps a little worse for wear but safe & sound. It was quite the adventure getting here but I'll leave that tale for when I've had a few more hours of much needed sleep. Right now we're getting settled & unpacked & getting to know what's in our immediate vicinity. That & watching Big Brother. Woo hoo!

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll try & update tomorrow but it depends on the Doodles mood & if she wants to let me use the laptop or just be her slave all day as usual. I'm betting on slave.

No we're not (+ my tv unmentionables)

2006-08-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

Dog + United Airlines at Ottawa Airport = SNAFU

We're still here & back at the Westin. We tried to get on our flight. We were early. We checked all appropriate websites regarding travel with pets. We were told just bring the dog in to the check-in counter & away we would go. Then the supervisor guy told us nope. Since the new terminal was built United Airlines has no access to the animal cargo or something like that. So.... they changed us to an Air Canada flight going to Vancouver & then on to Seattle. No problem. We checked all our million pieces of luggage, including our oversize crap & thought we were all ready to go. Calvin calls the lawyer (visa specialist dude) & gets told no way. Don't go through customs at Vancouver because it's likely we'll get majorly delayed & have to spend a few nights with friends or at another hotel. Don't even think about it. Oops. Back to the ticket counter & supervisor Denis (we love you!) cancels our A.C. flight, calls back our luggage & books us on United for the next day. Of course there is still the dog issue. Our options are to send him Air Canada cargo or Fed Ex him. O.K.

So we've been at the airport since 8:30 am. By now it's lunch time & I've only eaten one third of a croissant plus some of the Doodle's cheerios. Calvin goes to transfer our luggage to the 24 hour holding tank & I feed the crazy monkey until she falls asleep in my arms while sitting at the U.S. Departures area. Then the tv crew comes along. Well, a camera guy & Trish the reporter from A Channel doing some shots & interviews about whether or not travellers know about all the recent restrictions to carry-on luggage. I agree to an interview, cover up the boob, try & smooth down my hair & start babbling about lip balm. Ya I start talking about my addiction to lip balm. Great. I blame the lack of food. This is probably the 6th time since I've moved to Ottawa that I've been interviewed or been on tv in some capacity. Am I that approachable? Anyway I was one the news at 6:00 today making stupid faces & comments about packing bare necessicities for the baby. And my hair was really frizzy. And then they showed a shot of my toiletries bag that we had taken out of our checked luggage so I could brush my teeth tomorrow. Lots of Ziploc bags. I love me some Ziploc. So ya, I was on tv. Again. Still doesn't beat my shining Tom Green moment.

So back to the SNAFU. Calvin talks to the lawyer again & things are ok so we find an internet terminal thingy & make some calls to try to get re-booked at the hotel & the car rental place. Finally we get the go ahead from Mission Microsoft Control & we rent a car, shove the dog in, & drive back downtown to re-check-in to the Westin. Calvin calls FedEx first because that's what Denis told us to do. We are told that they don't ship live animals or dead animals & so Calvin asks what about live animals that end up dead? Nope, none of those either, neither? Air Canada Cargo says they can do it but not on the weekend because Seattle won't accept doggie cargo then. WTF? Because dogs go bad come Friday? Whatever. Call the kennel we use. They would normally take him to the airport come Monday but they are totally full. Damn you vacationers! OK So we're thinking who can take him for us? Who wants a dog? We almost gave him to the check-in woman at United but thought the spur of the moment decision would probably come back to haunt us eventually. Start checking out other flight possibilities. Figure out & then finally confirm that we can fly tomorrow to Toronto, clear customs there & then get a direct flight to Seattle that gets us there around 8 pm. Excellent!

Of course our moving van can't go anywhere until we get our visas faxed to the company so it's sitting there, waiting, costing a wad of moolah outside of our former house. Since the house is still full of packed boxes it's impossible to go in & clean up for the next owners. Since I am so burnt out I barely even care. Even though we are here for another night I can't call anyone up do more goodbyes. Even though I should. Even though I missed a few or didn't do some very well. I am done. We walked around the Market tonight & had a Beaver Tail (Killaloe Sunrise of course) so I am satisfied. I am done & satisfied (don't let your dirty minds go anywhere they are not supposed to perverts). I can do no more & the baby cries again. Goodnight & goodbye once more my friends.

And we're off

2006-08-11T05:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a slice. We're off to the airport now so blogging probably won't happen again until we get to the apartment in Seattle tonight. Will try to update tomorrow.

Bye Ottawa. We love you.

> 30 Hours + Terror Plot = Panic Mode

2006-08-10T03:44:00.000-07:00

We'll be going to the airport about this time tomorrow. I am expecting major delays & severe security checks. As far as it stands this moment we can't bring any liquids on board & we'll have our shoes scanned since we are bound for O'Hare & then Seattle. If security gets stepped up to UK levels we might not get to bring on any carry-on luggage. I completely understand the precaution & I don't want to complain but over the past two days I have undertaken the most intense packing job of my life. It's been a mathematical conundrum & balancing act of major proportions, trying to assess the right amount clothing, toiletries & shoes needed for 8 weeks of living.

Since we are moving to the U.S. we are not allowed to move food, liquor, medicine or plant items so we've also had to pack up vitamins, cold medicine, Tempra, a bottle of champagne & baby food into our luggage. Sure, we could leave this crap here, but we've already given away hundreds of dollars worth of food, booze, clothing, baby equipment & the like, that I figured if I could fit it in, take it. We bought two huge suitcases to fit all this stuff & it was hard work getting everything we need in them, plus the regular sized suitcase, the Rubbermaid tub full of bike crap & the stoller to be our checked luggage. Then we each get a regulation sized suitcase as carry-on & as well as a big as we can personal item. Oh and there's also the dog crate. At least we got a seat for the baby so we are allowed this much. If we didn't we'd be screwed.

Now I am wondering, if we have to check our carry-on, will they be charging us for extra baggage? The possible logistics of this new development are stressing me out, not to mention the entire thought of international air travel at this point. Combine this with the move & you got one big freak out. Oh ya, Calvin also let the baby roll off the Heavenly Bed last night while I was in the Heavenly Shower. Things are grrrrrreat!

edited to add: Happy Birthday Susanne & belated wishes to my sis Andrea & anyone else I might have missed in internet land.

> 7 Days

2006-08-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

We're back from our trip out West. It was fun & hard (& not in a party hard dude kind of way). The Doodles' mobility has increased exponentionally since my last post & she won't stop moving. Plus she's more than a little attached to me & screams almost everytime someone else tries to hold her. If they manage to hold on to her for more than 20 seconds she spends the time in their arms scanning the room for me & when spotted will strain & stretch & twist with hands stretched out towards me. Also, two more teeth have sprouted & not the top two middle ones but the ones beside them. I like to call her Fang. To top it off she's decided she needs to grind the top left one against her bottom two & I am now cringing at the sounds coming from her little mouth.

So anyway, I've been trying to write this post since we got back on Tuesday & obviously haven't had much luck. First I was totally bagged with the jet lag & so that combined with the stress of upheaving my life across the continent, selling our house, conversing with lawyers, accountants, movers & relocation specialists, the baby craziness & the fact that our luggage took two days to get home making all of us not still in diapers a little less than fresh, well, made for some delays in getting anything written for all you folks out there still reading this blog. Are you there still? I understand your reasons for leaving but I promise I'll write more some day soon. There's also this little problem I seem to be having with my laptop. Someone else in this household really likes using it more than I like letting them. I'm not naming any names or anything since they pay most of the bills, but everytime I go to check my email & whatnot, this jackass has signed me out, logged themselves on & started downloading stupid mountain biking videos. To top it all off, the other little person in our household is also in love with the computer & would like nothing better than to bang on the keyboard all day long playing this game or watching some cute videos. So what's mine is no longer & all my time is spent stressing about the amount of time I don't have to fit all that I want into it. That & trying not to herniate any discs as I walk the Doodles around the house going back & forth between the dog & the mirror.

Anyway, here's the facts. We are moving to Seattle. Next freaking Friday! Calvin starts work at Microsoft on the 14th. Visas are acquired at the airport when we go through customs. The movers cannot load up the van until we fax them a copy of those visas from the airport. The movers start packing our stuff next Tuesday so we get to spend a few nights in a hotel. (Which hopefully won't be anything like the Holiday Inn we stayed at for 2 hours on Monday night in Calgary & had to leave because we weren't getting any sleep since the loudmouths next door couldn't speak to each other unless it was at the decibel range of a heavy metal concert. The offered upgrade was not taken because we figured since we were awake we might as well try to get on standby for the redeye.) The house is sold. 5 grand under our asking price so we're pretty happy. We are not allowed to move any plants, liquor or foodstuffs so if anyone needs any spices or scotch just ask. We are throwing ourselves a going away party tomorrow. If you live in Ottawa & want to join us we'll be at the Royal Oak at Pretoria Bridge from about 3:00 onwards. This is not an invitation to steal stuff from my house. Unless it's spices or booze. I have a headache. Maybe I need some booze. Or spices. Ya, spices.....

Gotta run, baby awakens yet again.....

It's Official

2006-07-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

We are moving. I tried to tell you yesterday but stupid Blogger was down again. I also tried to tell you slyly in the last post. I've hinted at adventure & spoke of chaos but I couldn't spill the beans until we were totally sure what was happening. Now we know & I am rapidly losing my slippery grasp on what sanity I had left.

Where are we going?

Seattle.
Washington.
U.S.A.

So Calvin can go work for the company you probably can't do without. So that next time Windows pisses you off he can share your pain.

I have so much to do & not much time. We are going out West for a couple of weeks on Sunday, then we're back for a week & that's it. That's it! Unless we don't sell our house. (Hey, wanna buy a house? It's cute.) Then I might be stuck here with the baby & the dog (Hey, wanna buy a dog? Scratch that.... he's free. Seriously.) all by myself until that's all settled. We've had some interest since we put it up a week ago but no offers yet. Fingers crossed please. We've been purging & cleaning the house like mad & packing up stuff that we don't need. It's never been cleaner & it now almost feels like there's nothing to do because I don't want to create a mess that I'll just have to clean up again. So it's almost as though I have nothing to do.

And yet I have no time to read my daily blogs or write in this one. It'll probably be like this for a while yet I'm afraid. The Doodles is keeping me very busy hanging out on the bed playing with her all day long. Seriously. All she wants to do is hang out on our bed rolling around, climbing over me, practicing standing up & sitting. Sometimes she'll let me take her downstairs to stand up at her piano thing & maybe sit in her playpen for 15 minutes so I can watch a little tv while I eat something. She has separation anxiety so bad I can't be out of her sight at any time or the screaming ensues. She wants to be in my arms constantly & yet when I'm holding her she twists & squirms so hard that I'm afraid she'll thrash right out of them onto the floor. Oh ya & she's been sick again with a horrible cold / flu. Fever, sore throat, coughing & now she sounds like a purring cat with the rattle that comes with not being able to hork up some mucus.

So life's enormity is crashing down on me & I'm just trying to keep afloat. I write blog entries in my head that I'm sure you would all love to read. Too bad I can't get to my computer until I'm too exhausted to write coherently, let alone spell properly. All those witty words & deep ponderings on the meaning of starting over in another country fall like a word jumble out of my brain as soon as I start basking in the glow of my laptop. There's so much else to do, like email everyone the news, google rental properties in Seattle, search for Seattle bloggers (call me!), think about looking up mother-baby group things to do once we're there, make lists of all the stuff I want to do here before we go, make arrangements for things like visas, selling the house, the cars (sniff), various things we don't want to take..... this goes on & on. I am making lists in my head when I go to bed. I am so tired but cannot sleep.

I am excited & stressed & full of wonder at what this all will bring. Wish us luck.

Read Between the Words

2006-07-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

Did you miss me? Too bad. You must be without my oh so pleasant company for a wee bit longer. No time for blogging. Must organize life.

"Vacation" was good. Babies. Lobster. Swimming. Rain. Growth spurt. Doodles learned how to pull herself into a standing position. Is now cruising around her crib, the couch & whatever else she can get her grabby little paws on. Am afraid. Mobility is scary.

(If you get my little puzzle don't post any spoilers in the comments or I'll have to sick my crazy baby on your ass.)

The best laid plans

2006-06-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

So I'm all ready to go down the street to a playdate & yet, now I sit here typing this up. I'm unshowered but the hair is washed, dressed in un-sweatpants like fashion, even a wee bit of mascara on to make myself look more awake than I actually am. I've had 2 large cups of java to get myself going & the Doodles is all dressed & ready to go. While I was making myself presentable she was playing away in her crib, having fun with her musical guitar (I know, what is a guitar if not musical.... whatever, it makes noise and has no strings). I decide to see if she wants to nurse before we head out & she hoovers away at my boob until she falls asleep 3 minutes later.

Sleeping beauty

How can I wake that up?

So anyway, this week I am suffering once again from insomnia & am ready to kill the dog & anyone else that crosses me. It started when Calvin was gone for the weekend & the dog decided to stay up all night whining because he must've had a stomach ache. How do I know that? Because I had to let him outside at midnight, 1:30, 3:45, 4:50 & 6:00 am. Because even with doing that he still took a dump in the basement. Not something easy to pick up either. No it had to be the slimiest, most gag-inducing crap I've ever had the un-pleasure of trying to scrape into three layers of plastic bags & the biggest handful of industrial strength paper towels ever. After that the dog disturbance abated but my so did my sleep. I've been lying awake at night for hours thinking & ruminating over what chaos I might come across next. It's driving me bonkers.

Some of the chaos involves going on a plane tomorrow. Me, the Doodles, my friend & her 16 month old are about to fly to Halifax to visit another mutual friend. I'm super excited to go but a little nervous at how the plane ride will end up with a squirming 19 pound (?) monkey girl on my lap that likes to practice her operatic screeching whenever someone needs to concentrate. I've been going over what to pack, how the whole check-in security gate thing will work with her in a Bjorn & whether to give her a dose of Tempra / Gravol ? before we go. Dope her up? Nurse on take-off & landing? Bring earplugs for nearby passengers?

I gotta get some sleep man.
Like this preferably....

Sweet slumber.

Not sure if I'll get a chance to post over the next week while I'm gone so miss me ok?

Happy Father's Day

2006-06-18T05:49:00.000-07:00

This is for Calvin..... (turn your speakers on silly. If you can't see it here's the link.)

We love you dude.
No matter what happens tomorrow, we're proud of you. But we know you are gonna do great!

Happiest of Father's Days also to my dearest, most generous Dad & to good ol' Kenny Boy. Sending you both love & kisses across the distance. Smooches from me & screeches from Freyja. Calvin probably just wants to send you beer.

To all the dads out there, happy day to you. Here's to you getting breakfast in bed, homemade cards from your kids & lots of ties.

Happy Birthday Amma

2006-06-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

Til hamingju med afmaelisdaginn!

P.S. Happy Belated Birthday Ruth!

Because I am busy "cleaning up my house" before I start an afternoon of drinking Margaritas on a patio somewhere I am being blog lazy & posting some fun links for you all to waste your time with. If you get bored, come join me & some other drinkin' mommies on our shady patio in the Glebe somewhere. Just look for the line up of strollers outside the bar.

Linkage.....
You do not want to wake me up this way. Trust me. I would kill you if you tried any of this. That means you Todd.

Secret Agent Hasselhoff, Rhinestone Hasselhoff, Hooked on Hasselhoff & of course the Hasselhoffian Recursion. I know some of you have never seen these goodies before. Don't blame me if you go blind.

Dizzying drinking ska monkeys. Don't watch if you are hung over.

Can't go to Vegas to see the Bellagio Fountain? Here's a cheaper version. Mmmmmmmentos.

If you do have some money & can get to Paris on a Friday night, this looks totally awesome.

You've seen this stuff already haven't you? Too bad, it's cute & funny. Stuff on my cat. Cute Overload.

Plus all the things you never told your husband. True Wife Confessions. (via HBM - hillarious!)

I am alive

2006-06-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

Plus I didn't hold up any traffic.

Us on the other side. (Please ignore the huge bags under my eyes - I am tired. Plus I am squinting from the sun. Oh, who am I kidding? They're always there.)

The evil bridge of which I spoke.

I would like to thank Alan Neal at CBC Radio for keeping my mind from focusing on what lay ahead. I would also like to thank the tailgater for backing off when we were on the bridge. As it was, I had to hum very loudly to cover the noise & tried not to think about how the metal grate below me was making my tires wobble.

The wave of relief that washed over me once we made it across was tremendous & I would've started crying except that I had to then drive into an underground parking garage. These also give me the creeps.

Yes, I know I am weird.

To distract you from my weirdness, here's a couple more pictures.

The view of Parliament from the Museum of Civilization.

Douglas Cardinal's Architecture

The exhibit? I went to see Petra: Lost City of Stone. It was quite good. Lots of carved stone, prints & artifacts. Most interesting was the Nabataean civilization's use of water from desert springs 5 km away that was ingeneously channeled through the canyon city. Really cool. If you are into that sort of thing. The displays were nicely organized & the well thought out graphically.

The Doodles was marvelously well behaved & once again got lots of attention since she was in the Bjorn. She had a great time trying to grab the letters off of the printed display boards in the exhibit & then sucked on some watermelon when we were done. We saw some ducks, some rabbits & a gorgeous yellow finch. All in all a great day.

P.S. Note to self. Avoid Children's Museum on a Tuesday afternoon in June. Those kids were wild I tell ya. Wild. And also, they did not look where they were going, ever.

P.P.S. I did not give my child a bath today. Nor did I do any crunches. I did eat some delicious pizza though. Just thought you should know.

Culture terror

2006-06-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

I am about to do something that terrifies me.

In order to go see this exhibit, I must drive over this bridge. As I have explained before I have an irrational fear of driving on a bridge over water from which I might be flung to my (now our) deaths(s) at any moment say if I was rear-ended or something. Some bridges are fine, this one is not. It is high & makes weird noises. Sure I could take another bridge but that would take way too much time, burn more gas, etc. Plus, I should face my fears right?

So for those in Ottawa, if you hear that some moron is backing up traffic on the Alexandria bridge it's probably me.

If my fears come to fruition, just know that I loved you all.

Time warp meme

2006-06-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

I am pretending I was tagged for a mem e (though technically I think I qualify being from the Great White North) because I read over the memory I was going to post this morning & it needs some revision which I have no time for. Plus who am I kidding? I never get these things out in the morning unless I wrote them the night before & come evening lately I've been too exhausted to even think. Anyway, I thought this was kind of neat & I liked reading everyone else's time lines so here you go.... (I suck at games so if you want to do this then Tag you're it!)

20 years ago I was...

Trying to climb out of the hole I put myself in by skipping too many classes in Grade 11, being an angsty, depressed & surly teenager. I had been in a full International Baccalaureate program but had had a bit of trouble with the advanced math, primarily because I hated it & there were a couple of math genius boys in my class who would snicker & make fun of anyone who had trouble. Hence, withdrawal & daydreaming in class which led to not learning much which led to failing tests & eventually the class. In the end I only graduated with partial I.B. certificates. Oh well.
Dancing my heart out every day I could at RWB, trying my damndest to strengthen my weak ankles for pointe class. Eating only a couple of bran muffins during the day & maybe some taters from Taco Time in Eaton Place before ballet class with my friends. OK I was a bit of a mall rat, but it was the downtown mall with all the alternative weirdos so it was cool all right?
Involved with my first serious boyfriend. He was a mod. He had a couple of scooters that I never got to ride because they were always being repaired. He tried to get everyone to adopt a new nickname for him. Ace. It didn’t work. He tossed me in the snow once when I was at home sick in my pajamas. Turns out he was an ass.

10 Years ago...

Calvin & I were living in the Glebe, hanging out a lot at Irene’s & the Arrow & the Loon. Seeing a few bands, having fun.
I was working at a boutique-y women & children’s clothing / linens store called La Cache for this totally evil manager. Seriously, this woman a few screws loose. She thought everyone (especially me) was out to take her job away from her, she was a bitch to customers, treated the staff like idiots & was supposedly having an affair with some rich married gentleman who lived in Europe. She’d have strange conversations (with him?) on the phone & ignore people who came to the cash. This was the only job I ever quit. The owners were coming in so the night before I did I really good job tidying up. The next day she accused me of stabbing her in the back, etc., etc. I went to the stock room, changed my clothes & walked out the door. I never went back despite her calling me 20 million times after bedtime.

5 Years ago

I was graduating from Interior Design & stressing about my portfolio, organizing a grad show & worrying about getting a “real” job (still not done) after my work placement was done

3 Years ago...

I was about to celebrate our 1st anniversary of trying to call my boyfriend of 11 years my husband.
I was in London getting irritated & bored with our self-guided tour of Jack the Ripper hot spots. Getting excited about flying to Iceland in a few hours.

1 year ago...

I was feeling the bun move around in my belly
I was having the worst heartburn of my life that would not ever stop until a week after I pushed her out of my hoo-ha
I looked like this & obviously liked my dog a whole lot better

So far this year…

~ I’ve found immense pleasure in a tiny little thing that

lights up my day with a no longer totally gummy smile
sucks on her first two fingers of her left hand only
squeals with delight when I read her a book

~ I learned it was a lot harder to

breastfeed than I ever thought possible
leave my dear sweet baby alone with anyone not myself
let Daddy do it his way

Yesterday…

we gave a newborn child a Moses action figure for her Christening
we took the long way home just to keep Doodles asleep
I wouldn’t let my hubby have a nap because I wanted to go for a walk

Today …

we went to the library & Starbucks (how cool am I?)
I read Mr. Brown Can Moo for the zillionth time & realized that neither of are sick of it yet
we came home to slimy dog shit in the baby’s room. I almost puked three times cleaning that stuff up.
I wrote this thing in chopped up bits of time that I snatched when Freyja finally napped

Tomorrow…

I will probably not do half the stuff I should
I will read Mr. Brown… & Owl Babies over & over again & like it
I will give my child a bath, promise
I will remind myself to do some crunches but then will promptly forget about doing them until the next day

This year…

We will eventually get the Doodles to eat some solid food so I can fill her up enough to sleep longer through the night & can therefore get her to sleep in her crib a bit longer
I will feel guilty for making my baby sleep in the room down the hall & will miss her little body snuggling in the crook of my arm
We will travel East & West to show off my chipmunk cheeked baby
We will hopefully be going on a big adventure that will bring on happiness & terror all at the same time.

More of the same + Firefox blows goats

2006-06-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

So I was once again interrupted whilst trying to blog last night. The silly baby turned over in her sleep again, woke herself up & hollered until I came to rescue her with some boob action. She did this about 8 times throughout the night & I had to get up & rock her around the house 3 times to get her to settle down again. Also gave her some Advil once because she kept rubbing her gums & grabbing her ears so I figured those sharp little teeth were bugging her again. It's been stupid just trying to blog this week. Blogger was down for a day & being totally dumb & then stupid Firefox kept crashing on me. Since it's been doing this for a while now I've been writing most of my posts in Word & then pasting them into Blogger so I don't lose everything I've written. If I don't do it this way I try to remember to hit the Save as Draft button every so often just in case. Of course I forgot to do this yesterday when I was typing away during the early evening slumber & lost everything. I am a dumbass. And Firefox can bite me. I don't care if it is a better web browser, it pisses me off.

Hi, I'm happy! I don't care about Firefox. Just give me a piano to bang on & everything's coming up Millhouse.

See?

Happy happy joy joy! I am surrounded by things I can make noise to torture uncaffienated mummy with.

So ya, what else is new? I've covered the dog love, the Seacrest love, the love of twisting (my god the twisting!) & the crawling in her sleep. I've mentioned the teeth & her testing of what she can bite. She seems to know now that the boob is not for gnawing on for which I am ever thankful but everything else is fair game. We've made the foray into biscuits this week & she loves those but the slime trail they leave on her clothes leaves a lot to be desired. Even better, when she sticks her mushed up biscuit fingers in her hair. After an Arrowrot or Mum Mum episode she is covered in this gooey paste from head to toe so we've been getting a few more baths lately. Bathtime is a favorite except it means me also getting in the bath since she's too big for the infant one now & I kinda broke the convertible one that was on loan to us (sorry Barbie!). Calvin will bathe her leaning over the tub but my back just can't take that for any length of time so I just get in with her. She'll splash around like crazy & suck on her duck, cup or fish while I try to keep her from slipping out of my hands the entire time. It's like holding onto an eel with all the squirming.

Having a snack, getting some tail.

Bad snack!! Where has Eeyore been putting his tail?!

As for other eating endeavours we have been less successful as my sustenance is much preferred over anything that comes in a jar. I make attempts (in vain it seems) every day but as soon as I put her in the high chair the crying begins. I get maybe three, four if I'm lucky, spoonfuls in her mouth & then it clamps shut & she turns away, twisting once again in her chair to get as far away from the spoon as possible. It's just easier to give up & give her what she wants instead of fighting the little demon. I try & make it fun, I try different foods (except the meats - that's Calvin's job because that stuff makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit every time I open a jar.), I am patient & persistent but it's just not going as well some of us would like. I was a bit stressed about it but the doctor assures me it is ok as long as I keep trying, others I talk to say it's fine & if it is still happening when she reaches 1 year then they'll start checking iron levels & such. She's growing so that's all that matters. I suppose we could just feed her biscuits for the rest of her life - there's gotta be some nutritional value to them. Right?

Let's see, what else.... did I tell you she squirms a lot? She's totally kicking my butt these days but apparently I'm not the only one so that makes me feel a little better. I get very little done during the day anymore due to the constant demands of my attention. This is communicated through screaming & shrieking at the top of her lungs. It's a barrel of fun let me tell you but I think I should get my hearing tested in the next few months because it's like living with Megadeath. With the new teeth she's been exploring her mouth with her tongue a bit more & experimenting with the noises she can make. Besides the shrieks she also produces this hillarious "mumumum ma ma ma ma" sound that makes my heart swell while I laugh at her, as well as a curious "ba-bo-bo" when she sees a book. This morning I swear she said "ruff" when I showed her the blue hexangonal dog toy so I know she's a total genius.

See, she already knows how to multitask.

"I am composing a letter to a Ms. Drover to see if she is indeed the long lost relative of a certain T. Drover who was unfortunately killed in an automobile accident along with the rest of his millionare family in Nigeria. She needs to send me her banking info so I can transfer an enormous sum of money into her account."
"Of course it's legit mum! Buzz off!"

Anyway, I'm sure there's more to tell all you good people, but for the life of me I can't remember anymore at this moment. She's beaten me to a snot & I hear her stirring once again so I better go rescue her before she rolls over one more time or the screeching starts up.

Chillin'

The old adage rings true + I hate Firefox

2006-06-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

Time is flying.
Yesterday the Doodles turned 7 months old.

Around this time last year I was just beginning to feel you moving around in my belly. Thinking about that makes me feel so connected to you (I know it's cheesy but hey...) & when I spy your cute little bellybutton I wonder about our attachment to each other. It is staggering to think how deep within me you were & I know I will always feel that closeness even when you are far from me. There's been days in the last week when you are driving me crazy & I forget about it in my impatience (sorry my little kitten), but when we are just lying down together in that snoozy dream-like state it gives me a sense of peace.

And then anxiety.
Because the attachment breaks apart a little day by day as you grow bigger & more brilliant.

Sometimes I just sit & watch you & your little brain at work figuring out all the different ways you can smack one of your rattly toys against your leg or how to get those linked rings apart again after I've put them back together for the umpteenth time. The way your eyes light up & a huge grin crosses your face when I bring out Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? or when you talk & coo to the Owl Babies. Now you know what it means when I put you in the high chair (torture) or walk into your bedroom (baby jail) or when I get the car seat ready (acid bath) so I know you are remembering or associating places with some type of consequence. Sometimes you get all in a huff when I take you into your room, thinking I'm going to put you in the crib for a nap but surprise, you get a diaper change instead. Psych!

You are now completely in love with the dog & want him in your sights at all times. If you so much as hear the clicking of his nails on the hardwood floors down the hall, you whip around excitedly until he comes into the room & then you follow him with your eyes like a hawk. You will sing & screech at him if he so much as looks in your general direction & if he starts barking because his nemesis has walked by with his provoking owner or because the only person who still loves him comes home from work, you bounce up & down & cackle hysterically. He tolerates you pretty well & lets you poke his face & grab tufts of fur out of his back. Every once in a while he'll try to lick your face to show his appreciation but I try to prevent this as much as I can because a.) you break out in hives & b.) I know where his tongue has been.

The last few days you've been a bit of a pain in the ass (I tell you this with all the love in my heart) because nothing is making you happy. I'm not sure if it's those dang teeth or because you haven't passed anything besides the stinkiest farts known to mankind in the last 4 days. (Since it's taken me hours to get this out she's finally pooped much to both of our satisfaction.) In fact it all seemed to start on that evilest of evil days so I hope your behaviour isn't an Omen to anything more than some irascible behaviour. I certainly won't be hiring any nannies anytime soon so I think I'm safe, even though I'm a bit grumpy & worn out. I guess you are going through the stage where you realize I can walk away & leave you by yourself so you want me close to you all the time & are very demanding of all my attention. I used to be able to sit you on the floor playing with your toys while I ~~read blogs~~ did housework. Now you want me beside you all the time entertaining your every whim. That's fine but by the end of the day I've got nothing done & am completely exhausted. You will scream within 5 minutes of being placed in your car (exersaucer) & will try to scramble out of your bouncy seat by contortioning your body like some Cirque de Soleil performer. If I am holding you in my lap, you twist & turn & try to do back flips out of my ever strained arms & all hell breaks loose if I try to feed you while I'm sitting up.

I christen thee Twisty Mc Twists a Lot until further notice.

Your sleep habits have changed a bit as well & you are not going to bed as early as you were a couple of weeks ago. It's no big deal but it means I have to pvr all my shows so I can watch them the next day. Sometimes you'll stay up & watch them with me so that's cool. You seem to really like So You Think You Can Dance & I can't blame you as it is my new favorite, but I think you miss Ryan Seacrest who was your first great love before the dog. You would giggle at him every time he graced the screen with his gelled presence. You don't like Canada's Next Top Model as much as the American version & I have to agree that gorgeous as Tricia Helfer is, she just does not have that drag queen je ne sais quoi that Tyra Banks exudes. We also both wonder why does 90% of Canadian programming have to have that Canadian tv quality to it that makes it look like you are watching someone's home movies on network television. I've asked our friend in the biz this question but never got a straight answer so I call conspiracy.

Anyway back to the sleep patterns. The problem seems to lie in the fact that you are attempting to crawl in your sleep. It must be the best time to work out those complex problems but it's a bit frustrating for you when you are lying on your side almost zonked out & then you turn your head & finish the roll. This is when you either start crying because it woke you up from your light slumber or you turn to me & give me an impish grin because you get to stay up past your bedtime again. Once you are on your belly you then begin your Ashtanga series starting with the Cobra, then Cat/ Cow, followed by Downward Facing Dog, the Plank, Upward Facing Dog & finally end up with a modified Child's Pose & Happy Baby /Dead Bug. You are in better shape than I am that's for sure. No wonder I keep buying clothes for you instead of me. You look way better in them.

ok i will finish this tomorrow.... it's bedtime trouble again

Peek-a-boo!

Tramampoline! Trambopoline!

2006-06-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

In grade eight I became champion in the trampoline war that was gym class. And I almost got my ass kicked for it.

I was always more of a geek than an athlete in school so I would get teased for being a bookworm or smarty-pants & almost always got picked last in gym class. Even though I knew it was coming it was always hurtful. There’s a certain sense of shame that goes along with this that you just aren’t good enough & when you believe it I think it just becomes this perpetual cycle of sucking. If you think you can’t hit that stupid t-ball you probably won’t. Don’t think you can play floor hockey because the boys hog the puck/ball then you most likely won’t take a chance to score a goal. Trust that the volleyball is going to hurt your wrists when some athletic classmate spikes the ball in your direction & it’s gonna smart like a bitch. So you end up standing back being utterly useless & fulfilling the presumption that you are not worthy of ever being picked first.

The gym teachers I had never tried to make a difference either. Just like in the movies there was the requisite butch lesbian who made us play golf & floor hockey, dodgeball & climb the dreaded ropes. There was the super hefty jock who made us run in circles & then play that evil volleyball game where the boys thought the goal was to hit the ball at any girl as hard as they could. Sometimes our geography teacher would come in make us do calisthenics until we all wanted to puke. Those were the worst days as he was a real masochist with a very quick temper. Once he threw a desk at this sweet kid named Aaron just because he passed a note in class. Anyway needless to say they weren’t the most supportive mentors to pathetic weakling students like me.

It also didn’t help that most of the kids in my new junior high had been together since kindergarten so they had their cliques & friends firmly established. It was like trying to break into a bank with a heavy security detail. The only way I found any sense of cool was being friends with the other new girl in school who had the most perfectly feathered hair, great clothes & pretty eyes that all the boys like. Plus she had a big sister who could kick all kinds of ass if she wanted to & she smoked so that made her ultra-cool. Turns out my new best friend was pretty good in gym class too so that gave me a little protection & with that a little more confidence. This I turned into a few decent performances such as running in those stupid circles. Seems I wasn’t the fastest runner but stamina I had plenty of & ended up running more laps than anyone else. I also lasted one of the longest in the first Jump Rope for Heart contest things in the school. So I was finally good at something other than reading & it felt pretty good. It didn’t make me any higher up the echelon in the picking order but it didn’t make me any enemies either.

That is until I found what I was really, really good at in gym class.

The trampoline was something everyone looked forward to all year long. We didn’t learn anything too fancy on it though some of the boys tried to do back flips when the teacher wasn’t directly looking at them. What we did on it was play a game. A game called Competition. Two people at opposite corners would jump three times then sit on their butt & then get up to jump again. It went on like this until someone couldn’t get up again. So it was 3 jumps – seat-drop - jump - seat-drop - jump - seat-drop, etc. like getting up from a chair & sitting back down repeatedly. Sounds silly & simple but there was an art to this game & it was in the timing. And the stare down. I perfected both & started demolishing my opponents. I’d give them the eye from my corner & then somehow with my super rhythm I’d get them off balance so they could not get up again no matter how hard they tried.

This was the best gym performance of my life & even the teachers were a little surprised that this nerdy scrawny little kid was kicking some major butt. So were the cool athletic girls who were my only real competition. I think there were about 5 of them & they were pissed that I was going to take the title away from their leader Mona. She was the only one that came close to beating me & our competition lasted for almost an entire gym class. I ended up winning but in doing so I was suddenly at the top of the cool girls list of people they wanted to beat up. I was terrified. Nowadays the stuff they did to me would qualify as bullying & might get them in shit but back then it was every kid for themselves. The only protection I had was in sticking close to my best friend & at the front of the class where I had several heads between them & myself to deflect the spitballs.

For some reason we traveled to another school for our home-ec / shops classes. They’d taunt me on the bus saying they would beat the crap out of me after school or at recess. In baking class I was put into a group with two of them & we were actually buddies until the trampoline incident. After that they made me absolutely miserable so I would try to help my friend’s group instead. The teacher would always make me go back to my own kitchen area with Maria & Angela where they wouldn’t let me do anything to help like add ingredients or even stir the bowl. All I got to do was wash the dishes & then to top it all off, they wouldn’t set a place for me at our table where we were supposed to partake of our delightful banana muffins, triticale honey bread or scrumptious yet healthy date squares. One time they all cornered me in the girl’s bathroom & I thought I was a goner but all they did was threaten me some more & pull my hair.

I think it finally escalated at recess one day when we were playing in the snow outside. Somehow they got me up against the fence & started yelling at me, calling me all kinds of names I’d never heard before & shoving my face into the snow. I was soaking wet & cold by the end of it but they never actually beat me up. All these threats they didn’t make good on. I finally knew they were as chicken as I was – they just had strength in numbers & even with that they still weren’t as tough as I thought they were. I told my best friend what happened when we went to band class & I think she told her sister. Who knows, maybe she threatened them or maybe they decided I wasn’t worth the effort. In any case they dropped most of the bullying after that, though I still had to deal with dirty looks. Then I got mono & when I came back to school I had my saving grace in the form of a sick note from the doctor that excused me from gym class for the rest of the year.

At least trampoline season was over & I went out on top like a champ.

Obviously I've missed a couple of my scheduled Monday Morning Memories but one of them was a holiday & the other, well I don't remember what happened. So this is me catching up, making amends so to speak. I know it's not morning once again so perhaps I should drop that from the moniker but I still like the way it sounds & there's nothing like a little guilty prodding to make me think I'll get in in before noon the next time.

Open Lobbies more like it

2006-06-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

I get excited about this every year but it never seems to live up to my expectations. Next year I'll be more realistic & set my sights low.

What the hell am I talking about? Doors Open Ottawa. It's such a fantastic idea that buildings (businesses, places of worship, etc.) would open up their doors to visitors curious about the insides of places normally only seen from their exteriors. A wonderful way to "Promote[s] architectural literacy and strengthen[s] appreciation for the rich heritage that can be found and explored in our city's built landscape." Sure I guess but some of those doors need a bit of prying if you ask me.

We started the day determined to go to the original & newly re-opened Library of Parliament on the Hill. To do so we needed to get timed tickets to get into Centre Block even though we only wanted to see the Library. We go to the tent & find out it'll be an hour before we can go in so we decide to get the tix & go to the "new" Library on Sparks while we waited. Turns out someone forgot the tickets on the counter even though they managed to pick up bookmarks for everyone & none of us noticed until 1/2 an hour later so we figured it was too late to go back to try & reclaim them. Plus you don't really want to get caught trying to cut in line going into the building that seats your government. Could get you on a list or something eh? Anyway we were dissappointed not to see one of the sites we came downtown for though it was entirely our fault that we didn't.

The second place we stopped was the Library of Parliament which was formerly the Bank of Nova Scotia, a lovely Beaux-Arts building renovated to house the Parliamentary Library. The site says you are restricted to cordoned areas only. Ya , like about 12 square feet. It was good enough to see the atrium like interior but you couldn't get up close & personal with the cool girder system that was devised to hold the book shelves while not interfering with the original architecture. It's understandable that access is limited & that the books need protection from grimy bodily oils but still, it would've been nice to get a closer look. The librarian on duty must have gotten so bored by the end of the day repeating ad nauseum the answers to everyone's similar questions.

Library exterior

Let there be light in the library

Since the Doodles didn't like the enclosed space too much I went outside with her to get some fresh air & took a gander at the drizzly sky only to get a glimpse of a very cute face up yonder.

Hey ho. Ain't he cute? Kinda made up for the my slight dissapointment over the bank. We then ambled down Sparks Street in the drizzle with the baby in the Bjorn. That thing is a total magnet for smiling ladies & Grandpa's. (The younger men, not so much. Dang!) Too bad my back was done for at the end of the day.

Also on Sparks a weary steed in a tired pose.

We then made our way to the Connaught Building which is that castle looking building sandwiched between the old Daly building site & the American Embassy. This is what I was tempted with on the website & sadly this is what turned out to be the coolest thing about the place. Sure it's a nice coat of arms but sort of boring when you think you are going to walk into a cavernous castle-like interior. The bathroom was free to use so that was a good thing but it was a pretty lame lobby all the same.

Coat of arms

After this sad escapade we huddled under our umbrellas before deciding to try out the embassies on the list. A quick trip through the Chateau Laurier & into the car to make our way into Sandy Hill. I seem to remember more than two embassies on the list of buildings in previous years but all that was available were the Embassy of Algeria & the Embassy of Croatia. The plan was to try & get both of them in but we were running out of time. The Algerian Embassy was pretty stunning & made up for the previous lobbies only buildings. Too bad you weren't allowed to take interior photographs because the plaster work in the first room was fantastic. There weren't any guided tours like the website offered but that was made up for in hospitality by way of free wine & art.

Laneway between Wilbrod & Laurier.

No justice in the laneway.

Plus this bee person with funky shades.

Much happier we then made our way to Laurier House which had free admission for the weekend. I've seen this building plenty of times driving around Sandy Hill but stupidly never realized it was a National Historic Site that was open to the public & was previously home to Sir Wilfrid Laurier & Mackenzie King. And here I thought I was a pretty good tourist in my adopted city. Guess not. Anyway it was really quite interesting & there were lots of guides around to answer questions & give little info sessions in various rooms. Favorites were the player piano & the political cartoons but by the end of it the Bun was losing her cool so we hightailed it back to the car & whisked her home.

Lord Strathcona's Fountain

So I know I sounded a bit sour at the beginning & really when you read this I don't have much to complain about seeing as though we only got to 4 buildings & 2 of them were pretty great. It's just that we weren't the only ones complaining. Plenty of people we met along the way were grumbling about the lack of openness at a variety of sites. It's too bad because the potential of this event is huge & it would be so interesting to see more of the offered sites. The best ones we've experienced have been the ones with informed tour guides who seem pleased to tell you about the building's history & architecture. Even if the building itself is lackluster a good teller of tales can make a huge difference. I know I should be proactive if I want more out of this but it's kind of hard to volunteer when you've got a monkey child dependent on your boobs. I doubt it would go over very well if I was offering tours while suckling a ravenous baby who pulls off at any minor distraction delivering my rack up for inspection along with the woodwork details.

Fabulous Freyja Friday #2

2006-06-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

Weekly baby roundup:

Cut two teeth & 1 nipple with crazy razor fangs (not bad - it just smarts a little).
In-laws visit done leaving the Doodles with some fancy new finery to dress her up in, an unfinished laundry room, and a tired baby recovering from all the quality grandparental time.
Brother-in-law visit also over with Calvin sporting several new huge bruises & scrapes all over his (shaved!) legs from some crazy freeriding. Also brought wonderful finery for the baby (super cute pictures to come).
Froze outside trying to drink a beer on our patio.
Checked out the Great Glebe Garage (Garbage) Sale & spent $13 on cute handmade (not the greatest quality but good price) dresses for the baby. Sweat a lot walking around looking at the odd piece of interesting junk that could be found amid the mounds of trashed toys, cheap 1980's IKEA furniture, used ski boots & shitty paperbacks.
Hung out on the secret patio of Irene's Pub afterwards definitely not freezing but probably getting high for free.
Took baby to her first wedding shower where she was held & tickled & loved by about 20 women.
Went out for delicious Greek food at Papagus but had to cajole monkey child the entire time by walking around the restaurant 300 times.
Went out for dim sum the next day & ate until bursting. Thankfully monkey child slept in her stroller until almost the end. Then had to keep tiny hands away from the tablecloth made out of a million layers of plastic sheeting - you know, the kind of plastic used to makethose stupid ugly flowers that you put up at prom or festoon your car with .
tried out her boyfriend Timothy's swing & received a rockin' pink tricycle that was then rode by someone who weighs more than 25 pounds & cracked the seat but it was so worth it just to see the Homie the clown trick.
Spent $12 going to the Experimental Farm so the baby could check out some smelly cow pies. It was fun & she seemed to enjoy looking at the animals until a loud sheep scared the crap out of her. We could tell she loved the horse the best because as with anyone she adores, she tried to stick her fingers up his nose.
Baby became beast with teeth that won't stop squirming. Mother exhausted from trying to not let baby squirm out of arms, picking up toys after being thrown on floor 47 times in a row & from having pablum bubbles blown in face.
Went to the newish War Museum with Roopa & Uma for some air conditioned semi-educational meandering. Probably would've been more learning if we hadn't chatted the entire time about the sleeping & eating habits of our little ones but hey who needs edumacation? Oh & fyi, there were no baby changing stations to be found anywhere. Grrr.
Went for lovely mosquito driven walk in Mer Bleue Bog. Took lots of pictures but most came out blurry due to necessity of swatting bugs combined with the impossibilty of stopping one's movement lest they be covered in encephalitic / West Nile harbouring bug bites. Oh ya, & the thunderstorm threatening to open the skies upon us at any moment & further fuel my paranoid fears of being struck by lightning since we were the tallest things out in the open surrounded by marshy water.
Tried to find a decent umbrella stroller for upcoming trip to Nova Scotia but got confused by the differences in the cheapies versues the quality ones & couldn't figure out what I should buy. Do I even need one or can we just Bjorn / sling her around the airport?
Helped daddy make some beer by playing with the stainless steel hops bowls & chewing on plastic bottles so as to make us look like completely assinine parents. Nothing new there right?

To tide you over

2006-05-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

Proof of teeth

I told you. Not the cutest picture of either of us but I just had to show you all. That was Saturday. As of yesterday they are out a little bit more & she is now testing them out on the snack bar (a.k.a. the boobs). I have been afraid of this happening for a while now & I've heard so many people say that once the teeth are in, that's it, they are done with the breastfeeding. So far it's not so bad. She's clamped down towards the end of a feeding a few times now so I've been keeping my hand close & ready to pry her off if need be. I've had to stop her about 5 or 6 times now & last night I said "ouch" & pulled her off so she got upset & cried for a few moments but then happily latched back on. Now I know these two teeth are not fully out & she's got a hell of a lot more to come but I figure if I can handle three freaking months of thrush & the Raynaud's syndrome then I can handle a few nips at the old nips.

That is unless she starts chomping on me with these.

Hey mommy....

I vant to suck your blood!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

2006-05-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

Gramma gave me my loves of

hanging out by the pool in the hot summer sun
(lying on the hot concrete patio stones until they seared your flesh so you had to roll into the cool blue water but then only swim on the left hand side because it was farthest from the creepy filter where the dead frogs & mice would be found)

sipping on a shandy to cool off
(bubbling ginger ale & lager clinking over a couple of ice cubes in a tall clear glass)

holiday dinners feasting on gravy & rolls
(thick delicious gravy made in double or triple batches because the standard amount was never enough)

rhubarb jam & crabapple jelly
(tart homemade goodness from the fruits of our land - is rhubarb a fruit?)

good table manners & politeness
(always saying thank you & please)

standing on the kitchen stool helping with the baking or drying dishes
(i still have the stool with it's 1950's laminate & wonky legs)

building gingerbread houses
(coloured icing & gumdrops holding the pieces together)

sliding down the bannister & the slippery stairs
(hours of fun bumping our butts along the edge of each step racing to the bottom)

doggies
(Bridget & Breichen you were so pretty even covered in mud from the clay banks of the Red River)

lilac bushes
(the heady smell fills me senses)

snow forts in her yard
(where the white stuff blew into a small mountain through which we dug tunnels & foxholes so deep we could be lost for a day)

acting like a monkey on her trees
(scratches & woodticks ignored until after dusk)

shortbread and scones
(almond, plain, currants, butter)

Thanks for these & so much more.

I love you Gramma!

~Birthday wishes also to my old friend Kelly. I am the worst returner of e-mails.~

Worky Work

2006-05-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

It's like the Matrix, only suckier.

You see all those lines & squiggles & dots? I done drew that... ain't it purty? It is a wonder that I am not blind. And yet, this isn't really even that complicated a drawing. Some of them would make you go mad (mad I tell ya!) if I put them up here.

So that's what I do. Draw lines & get paid for it. That is, when I actually do any billing. That I totally suck at. The AutoCAD though, I pretty much rock. Well... not really, but my employers think so & that's what counts. Plus since they don't know any better, I'll just keep letting them heap praise upon me & keep them in the dark about what I don't know.

I've been working every now & then since the bun came out of the oven &, since I work from home most of the time & have the most wonderful & flexible (probably not literally so get your minds out of the gutter) ladies to work for it has been pretty easy to do stuff around the baby. She'll play in her car (exersaucer) or on the floor surrounded by toys & pillows or even in her crib chirping away as I pick apart & draft construction plans. It's all very lovely & productive & if I need to I can stop, coddle the baby as need be & get back to work later as long as I meet our eventual deadlines.

So I said I'd been working every now & then. Well it actually hasn't been too much lately. I haven't really done anything for almost 2 months. That is, until yesterday. Holy crap am I ever rusty. It took me probably three times as long to draw what usually takes mere moments of time. So pathetic. It's as though I am slowly forgetting everything I learned in school & beyond. Like my brain has that fuzz on it that you get on your tongue after drinking all night at a sleezy bar, then eating a greasy garlicky donair before passing out on someone's couch without brushing your teeth. I am losing my mad skillz & it is a little frightening.

I've got more work to do today so I guess I'll go caffienate myself into some form of fake mental alertness & try to pass off what I'm doing as something productive. Hopefully the Doodles & the men downstairs will co-operate with me. Calvin & his dad are building me a nice clean new laundry room in the basement so I must be pleasant with them despite their incesssant hammering that is keeping the baby awake. Her lack of naps combined with the teething pain is making for one little Miss Cranky Pants.

What is that thing up in the sky?

2006-05-24T16:39:00.000-07:00

That yellowy orange circle thing. Haven't seen that in ages.

It burns.

In celebration of the sun returning we bought the baby some fancy pants sunglasses.

huh?

well hello there

She was all obliging & the like until the press got wind of it.

no papparrazzi!!

My baby just made me bleed my own blood

2006-05-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

Despite efforts to get back to sleep I am lying in bed this morn with the little Doodles in the crook of my arm, when she suddenly decides it is time to stick her index finger up my nose to see what that feels like. I feel a painful poke in the region of my brain cavity so I pull her hand away & am aware of the sensation of gushing. Hands immediately to nose as I scramble out of bed, hastely placing pillows around baby, & rush to grab a roll of toilet paper as I spew forth a torrent of red from my right nostril.

That was a fun way to start the day.

No no no do not disturb whilst I am eating puh-lease!

Also, the teeth, they are a coming. Sharp little razor like fangs have been seen & felt breaking through the surface of her much maligned gums. It's fun & cute but it also makes me feel old. She's growing so fast & I feel old & wrinkly & flabby beside her. I would also feel grey but I dyed my hair the other day to cover it up. Stupidly I left the stuff on too long so now I look like a frizzy haired Munster. Once upon a time I could / would do this & be oh so rockin' & alternative (back when that was cool) but the black hair just isn't really going with the mummy uniform of sweatpants & sloppy nursing shirt. Plus the frizz is just not attractive.

Anyway, back to the teething. Calvin, Freyja & Uncle Bruce were out the other day for breakfast at the Ottawa Bagel Shop & picked up a teething bagel for the bun. Could be the best invention ever or the worst, depending on how much cleaning of sticky fingers you like to do. She loved it & gnawed on the thing for about 2 hours. Then she got home & sucked on it some more. Then we left it on the table & the stupid dog stole it. Then the stupid dog was constipated for two days. Then we bought some more bagels & hid them from the stupid dog. Can you tell how much I love my stupid dog these days?

the aftermath of bagel & blueberries

Oh ya. I made a title banner. Do you like it? Calvin doesn't get the "you know you love me" tag. I don't know what's not to get. Anyway I made a few of them that I'll try out over the next few days so let me know what you like best.

Anybody? Bueller?

Apparently Calvin's life is a sitcom

2006-05-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

The butter problem turned out not to be an issue. In fact it (the cake) was delicious. Chocolatey & very smooth going down. I am also happy to report that there was even enough left over for breakfast this morning to go with my toffee nut latte after I slept in until 11:30. Plus I got roses today "just because".

So we're sitting around the table last night & Calvin starts talking about the time him & his sister were being greedy, sneaky pigs & ate the middle of some chocolate cake before it was supposed to be served. To cover up their bad deed he said they filled the hole with paper towels & then covered it back up with icing. Bruce turns to him & says "You idiot. That was a Cosby show episode." Cue hillarious laughter.

I know the '80's were a blur dude & you had had a few beers last night, but come on, the show had totally jumped the shark by the time that episode aired. What were you thinking?!

~~Apparently he mixed it up with the time his sister licked all the icing off of the brownies. ~~

Butter makes it better right?

2006-05-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

Because I just accidentally doubled up the butter in the cake I am making for my friend's birthday party. Ack!

I do have some left over so maybe I can start a new hobby like butter carving. Apparently this is Bob Hope in the 70's.

In butter.

mmmmmm

6 Month Check-up

2006-05-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

I have become a jungle gym. My body is bruised, battered & aching from accommodating baby whims. The movement is constant (in this she is her father’s daughter) & if I don’t hold on tight she will break free from my arms & fall precariously to the dreaded hard plane of the floor below. In order to see all things at once she whips her head & body back & forth, around & around in a frenzy of taking it all in. Her eyes are wide & I wonder how fascinating it all looks to her, how new & shiny the world is. She reaches for objects in her field of vision & then, the ones on the periphery. The grabbing & grasping at anything she can is constant & if she snags something desired it is deposited immediately into her drooling mouth.

She sits on the floor a few feet from me surrounded by pillows, looking at the dog, then her toys, then me, then her toys again & practices her short burst of a laugh. Almost a cackle. Smack goes the hand on her musical cube & then two fingers in the mouth while she twiddles with the polar bear. Both hands now grabbing the cube trying desperately to get the bear in her mouth, so the music is constantly switching mid tune. I am creating an opus from all the sounds – just you wait. Next up, plastic keys, then the mirror that rattles. Banging it all against her legs, trying to find out what I don’t know. How it all fits together, how each material tastes, what it sounds like? It is fascinating to watch her little mind at work & her face gets so serious. Then all of a sudden she beams & starts laughing again. Then it’s back to sticking the next object in her mouth.

Where's that damn polar bear?!

And speaking of objects in her mouth, the nursing is still good. It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come since all the trouble at the start when it was literally feeding to feeding determining whether or not I could keep going with it. Now when she’s really hungry she starts making this funny laugh cry like she’s super excited about what’s about to come but it’s just.. not… coming… fast… enough damn it! Then because she’s all giddy with the milk lust she spends the first few minutes patting or smacking my hand & doing a dance with her cute little feet on my thighs. I was wondering why I kept getting these weird small bruises but duh, they are from the constant kicking punishment. If we are sitting up or out in public when she feeds it’s a whole other story because there’s just so much to look at. She’ll yank herself off, expose me & look around to take it all in for a bit & then it’s back on for another hit. Then off again & arches her back so she’s almost upside down to see what the world is like from that angle.

Yay! That's the... red... heart!

We had her 6 month checkup yesterday and while we were in the waiting room another mom about my age came in with a cute little 8 month old girl. We chit chatted a bit & once Freyja actually noticed the other baby she was smitten so I brought her over to sit on the floor. They went at it trying to grab each other’s hair & patting the other on the cheek or leg, whatever was handy. It’s been a while since she’s hung out with any other babies who aren’t in car seats (besides our picnic last week) and it was just so cute how big their smiles were for each other. Now it’s interactive! Of course that just demands more energy & vigilance from me but hey, besides the eye poking, it’s pretty fun.

So the check-up was good. She’s growing well, staying in her percentiles (around 75 weight & 45 height) & was deemed very active as she ripped off about 3 feet of the paper roll from the examination table & proceeded to put about half of it in her mouth. My lovely doctor was in a great mood & much more relaxed about the food issue, saying don’t worry about it so much, she doesn’t have to eat rice cereal, try her on veggies & don’t bother with any juice (which we weren’t going to anyway). If all she wants to eat is those silly blueberries that’s ok too, just keep trying with the veggies. There was more I wanted to ask her but whenever I’m at the doctor’s I get all discombobulated & forget everything. Even if I write it all down I forget to pull out my list & feel like a dweeb every time we leave. At least the vaccination shot went ok and for that I must thank my pal Roopa for the recommendation of the Emla paste. It’s a cream you smear on & then cover up at least one hour before the needle & it anesthetizes the area. I swear she didn’t feel a thing so, totally awesome dudes!

Anyway, (I say that in my head here way too much don’t I?) all is good & healthy, & today after the immunization she seems pretty happy (unlike last time). We are going out with her tonight to a birthday party (see below) so I hope the pleasantness lasts & we don’t regress back to the meltdown of the day before because mama needs to have some quality drinking time. As for that scream festival, I think it was a mix of gas & teething pain combined. I thought I felt something sharp on her gums yesterday & today it is even more pronounced so I think we may finally have some teeth coming up. I just hope she doesn’t start biting anytime soon because I’ve seen what she can do to a rubbery toy & it ain’t pretty folks.

Playing with the triangle mouse (Please don't hate me in a few years baby for putting up naked pictures of you. They are just too cute to resist!)

~~Happy Birthday Karen & Shannon!~~

Sucky things

2006-05-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight was payback for that 3 hour nap she had the other day. We have just tag teamed the screecher for the past 4 hours. Nothing was working. Thought it might be teething so I rubbed her gums with my finger, with a cold cloth & gave her some Tempra in case she was in pain. That did nothing. Thought it was gas so I burped her, bounced her, massaged her belly & gave her Gripe Water. She had some burps but the screaming continued. Finally Calvin had to revert back to the swaddle & rock. She finally passed out all bundled up like when we were back at the beginning. Poor thing.

I know we have a really great baby, easy going, healthy & happy most of the time. Perhaps this is why it is so hard when she gets so upset. The heart - it just gets shredded into rough scraps of tissue when you can't seem to do anything right. (I just had to go bounce her for another half an hour. The swaddle has been abandoned & she lies clad only in a diaper on the bed. My back is so tired.) Then the frustration kicks in & I feel myself getting angry. You tell yourself over & over not to get angry, not to get frustrated. She doesn't know what's going on & even if she did she can't tell you. Not so you'd understand anyway. Communication gets a bit limited when screaming at the top of your lungs is all you can do to relieve the pain.

There came a point tonight where there was nothing we could do but let her cry-it-out. It was horrible & didn't work. She screamed & writhed her way to sleep but every few minutes she'd wake up again doing the same thing. Ugh. I can only imagine what this weekend is going to be like. She gets her 6 month vaccinations tomorrow & who knows how she's going to take it.

Oh ya & some idiot slashed one of the tires on my car. Thanks asshole. I don't mind spending $165 for a replacement. Really, it's my pleasure to afford you the opportunity to practice your deliquent knifing skillz. Hope you impressed somebody 'cause it ain't me & if i catch your ass trying anything like that again I will torture you with a lovely sound recording of my child splitting open the universe with her tiny wailing mouth.

Happy Blogiversary to Me

2006-05-17T06:18:00.000-07:00

~And a very Happy Birthday to Lynn & Velia~

Whatever will you buy me?

It's the paper anniversary of course (or clocks by the modern calender) but what does that mean in a virtual world? Some extra bandwidth? Some free cool graphics? Ya right. So I'm thinking cupcakes.... ya, cupcakes will do nicely. Thanks in advance dear sweet husband.

Yummy!

How I came to blog

I first met the internet when I met Calvin at MUN in 1992. It was a text-based world of newsgroups full of academic information & lots of porn where it would take an hour to download a picture. Not that any of the computer science geeks were downloading porn - it was mostly pictures of Deanna Troi from Star Trek TNG. We all know there’s still tons of porn but it’s also now this insanely vast network of billions of people & it just boggles my mind trying to comprehend its size. Sort of like the universe or even the solar system in that the scale is just too overwhelming to really truly understand. So since 1992 I’ve spent more time on the information superhighway than is probably good for me but like some bad addiction, I’ll never be able to kick it. The last four + years I’ve been reading (lurking at) Freakgirl’s blog for a daily dose of infotainment. I still spend almost every day there for a little while so I don’t lose my edge over the hubby for finding things out first. As with so many other blogs out there now I find myself interested in her daily life & like some weird stalker on some level I feel like I know her. (Yes I know I am sort of pathetic.) Anyway her site broke my blog virginity & I was hooked.

The links (oh the links will always get you people!) would show me things & take me places I’d never been so I felt like I was on some whirlwind tour of life or rather, other people’s lives. It was fucking great. At the same time I would also spend hours lurking (after working of course!) & sometimes posting at on-line message boards related to reality tv & wedding planning since Calvin & I decided to finally have a par-tay. I then started our website as a way to help guests navigate our upcoming wedding day since so many were coming out of town. I used Front Page to make it & was proud of myself for being able to figure out most of it & be able to tweak some the the html code plus make my own graphics. After the wedding I attempted to change it into a photo blog but it got way to much to handle with the amount of pictures I was taking & the way I was going about it with Front Page so I gave up & just let it stagnate like some forgotten project out there in the wild frontier of the web.

When we were trying to pregnant I went madly searching for info & found the Fertility Friend website where I could track my cycles & oh so wonderful things like cervical mucus & what was stupidly termed “baby dancing”. You’d think a website devoted to mucus & blood would have the balls to call it what it was but I guess s-e-x was an offensive term. (Like baby dancing isn’t – gimme a break!) Then I finally got knocked up & started my mad Googgling about anything & everything related to pregnancy. I thought to myself, hey since there’s blogs related to everything else there has to be something out there on being pregnant. Somehow I came across A Little Pregnant & was suddenly voraciously reading infertility blogs with more than a little bit of guilt. I could sort of relate because it wasn’t nearly as easy getting pregnant as I thought it would be but I counted myself so very lucky that I never had to deal with some of the stuff they were going through.

Somwhere along the way I stumbled across Milenka's Blogroll (it seems changed now, the link I had before had them categorized into sections like Infertility, Pregnancy, Moms, etc.) & found a few pregnancy journals & blogs so I had proof that they were out there. Plenty of them were what I'd consider pretty cheesy & full of fuzzy cherubic angel baby graphics which I guess are ok but not really my style. Then there were the others that seemed to tell it like it is, the real truth about puking, swelling hands & feet, weird stabbing pains & the paranoia of having done something bad to your growing baby because all you ate was McDonald's cheeseburgers & ice cream. Finally I had found the crowd I wanted to hang with but was more than a little intimidated so I hung back on the sidelines a little while longer lurking & biding my time.

That's probably when the heartburn started & the need to get the pain off my chest. Plus I figured this was the easiest way to keep family far & wide up to date on the bun in the oven. What to call it...... hmmm.... bun... oven. There's a bakery called Bunsmaster plus the remembrance of this made me giggle. What can I say? I'm easily amused. (I just googled bunmaster & found myself first followed by this - oh my god don't click on the link. No don't do it. I warned you.) And so the blog was born with a photo of orange flags in Central Park under a very silly title. Looking back I could have written more. I could have written better. But here I am still typing away whether I have the time or not because now it's so much more for me. If I don't let it out the release valve on my sanity will pop & then you'll all be sorry.

So thanks. Thanks to family & friends who took the time to read about my stretch n' sweeps, my late night heartburn & finally, after 42 & a half weeks of pregnancy, the Doodlebug's arrival. Thanks for sticking with me while I complained about the burning boobs, the screams (though apparently we have it good), the purple boobs, the apathy, the refusal of boobs & the horrible micro-organisms attacking my boobs. Apparently this blog is mostly about boobs. Take that Google search engines, though it might give the person who was looking for info regarding Canetsen on a cat some paws for thought. Get it? Paws....

It's stupid crap like that you keep coming back for isn't it?

And the photos. Always for the photos.

Now where's my damn cake people?!

Monday Morning Memories #3

2006-05-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

I know it's not morning (here anyway) but I have an excuse. Calvin's parents are in town & we've had a morning full of baby lovin'. Now exhausted, she's been sleeping for the past almost 2 freaking hours & still going strong!! This, my friends, never happens. The naps around these parts usually last about 45 mins. max. I am beside myself & don't know what to do. Of course I am blog surfing now that the in-laws have gone out for a while instead of doing some much needed office organizing but hey, you gotta come down from that Mother's Day high slowly or you will crash & burn. Hard. So I'll do my bills tomorrow honey. Promise.

Rory, Happy (belated) Birthday my bro-in-law. I spent hours looking for a picture of you to put up here but came up empty handed so I gave up posting yesterday. I hope many tall smooth glasses of delicious Guinness went down easy & with no morning after the night before bitterness. breithlá sona duit

And now, on to the memory, complete with an embarrassing picture (hey mom, I finally found that box of photos & I'll bring them when we come out to see you). That's why I'm here people. To embarrass myself for your pleasure.

Princess

For grades 1-3 I went to Red River School on Main Street in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was basically a two room school with some other rooms for administration. The three lower grades were in one room & grades 4-6 in the other. It might have been some sort of open concept education or it might have just been small. There weren’t a lot of houses in that part of the city then – we were pretty rural. Prior to this I had attended kindergarten at Governor Semple School & I loved the principle because he always called me princess. He knew my mother somehow so I think I got a little special treatment, plus I was a total suck-up / teacher’s pet. For some reason he was also the principle at our school though he mainly stayed at the larger one.

One day he came to our little school to sit in on some classes (auditing the teachers I suppose) & it was very exciting. At the time we were practicing our letters & the teacher told us to draw some S’s & make them as pretty as we could. Besides being the suck-up I was also the artist of the bunch & I knew how to make S’s like nobody’s business. I went to work making the most exotic fancy bunch of S’s I could. There was one made into a snake complete with hissing tongue, while others were large block letters filled with beautiful flowers. There were scrolling ones with super flourishes on the ends & very architectural bold ones. It was freaking fantastic & I was so very proud of my wonderful accomplishment.

Of course I was finished before everyone else was & wanted to show off to my favorite principle, hoping he would pat me on the head with a “that’s a talented princess”. So off I went up to the front to show the teacher who was busily talking to the principle. Being seven years old I didn’t understand that those S’s were supposed to be keeping us busy while she was probably stressing out showing him her curriculum. I went up & stood patiently beside them waiting to show my masterpiece. She looked down at me & took a gander at what I had been doing & showed the principle. I think she shook her head & laughed a little so I beamed up at them expectantly. Then she told me I needed to make regular S’s, that I wasn’t supposed to be doing artsy things to them. Then I was sent back to my seat.

I was totally crushed & embarrassed that I had made a mistake. A huge mistake. In front of the principle. I scribbled over & scratched the wonderful S’s I had made & wrote regular ones, in between the lines, over & over again. I had to make it up to the principle. I had to show the teacher I was still the smartest in the class even though I had done the wrong thing. The principle left without seeing that I had fixed it all up, but as he left he did say “Bye princess”.

Grade 1 baby!

Happy Mother's Day ya'll

2006-05-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

Warning: Baaaad poetry below

So far for Mother's Day Calvin gave me a lovely potted orchid (how long will it take me to kill that I wonder?), a small dent on the roof of my car & then he stepped on my breast pump so now there is no way I can modify the suction strength. I am just hoping I hadn't left it on super sucker mode or else my nipplage is in for a big surprise next time I go to supplement my baby's dinner. But I also got to sleep in a little bit & eat delicious German Pancakes for breakfast. Mmmmm icing sugar & lemon.....

I've been getting a bunch of e-mails over the past few days full of mother's day wisdom & sentiments so beautiful they've brought tears to my eyes. There's always the requisite smultz but even that has just a tad more meaning to me now. Oh how I've changed. Yesterday we even went for a Sears Portrait Studio sitting. The baby was cute but I felt I should've been doing something like this just to get the full effect of the cheesy poses they put you in. Why oh why didn't we just go to Loblaws? Or better yet if I knew how much it was going to cost why didn't we go get something a little more my style? How far I have fallen from cool (self-delusionary though it may have been).

I was going to write something special for my mother to tell her how much I love & appreciate her but nothing seems to be sufficient. I hope your day is sweet & relaxing & full of garage sales & nice glass or two of excellent wine. Freyja misses you tickling her feet.

Grandma & the Doodles

And now on to some general mommy lovin' of the bloggin' kind. A "call-to-celebration" has been put forth by Her Bad Mother to spread some goodness around as an antidote to some experimental public derision. It was asked of us to write a love letter post to any mommy blogger who has made a difference in our world. But alas, I could not just pick one (probably because I have enough trouble making decisions about what to put on my pizza, let alone trying to come up with one wonderful blogger to put before all else) & was tempted by the word "ode". Hence I give you, bloggy mothers & all other mothers & those who want desperately to be mothers out there this pathetic & admittedly pretty lame poem with so much linkage your eyes will burn. (I tried for more but started losing my mind.)

Ode to Amazing Mommy Bloggers
(a la Pablo Neruda)
(no offense to Pablo Neruda)

Out of desperation
hear their cries
lamenting
loss of sleep, or, perhaps,
gas, oh the gas
of infant bellies, insatiable
lust of boobies
sodden with milk
the love emerges
through
aching hearts,
bursting pride
and bareness of soul laid open
upon virtual page.

Blogging mommies!
unite
drink from the Kool-Aid
pitcher of electric happiness
sate your thirsty
palate
and leery polyps
like a girl gone child.
Information superhighways beckon
to far off lands
bridging distances
vast, and mothers
good and
bad.

Lessons taught
fraught
with humour, ripe with
irony, sarcasm and picture-perfect
smiles so broad,
crafted
and stitched together
tableaus and postcards from the
edge and verge of
nervous
breakdowns show the
new
mummies, mommies, mums, moms, mothers, mamas, mommas, mamans and
etc., that it is
going
to be
ok.

And yet do not forget
pain so deep for
what was
not to be, scars along
womanly essences,
fertility
eluded; but then
hope arising from
adopting
small perfections.

Rise drinkers full of
support
all hail
all mothers
everywhere:
peace
out.

My John Hughes Moment

2006-05-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

So I wrote this post that I worked kind of hard on that was basically a response to some brouhaha that’s been going down in mommy blogger land recently. It was about the sort of group-think mentality that can occur when you get a related bunch of internet users writing similar sentiments. Obviously there’s good (supportive help) & bad (internet trolls) to all of it.

Anyway I’ve decided not to post it mainly because of my chiken-shit-edness & Calvin’s suggestion that it might polarize some readers. Then I also read this & have to say I am glad about my decision. I realized that by writing it I wasn’t writing it for me or Freyja but for what I wanted to be a growing audience. Why the audience? Self-gratification of course. That ever present need to please & be thought well of by friends & strangers alike. To make me feel better about myself because being popular is good right? It was like being in high school again as the geeky weird girl who would’ve liked to be popular but knowing that wasn’t going to happen went with the I am a rebel look & so am too cool for you. I don’t think that even makes any sense but whatever.

So I wanted to see my name in blogger lights (by being added to people’s blogrolls) or to gain some probably ill-fated glory by being linked to for some wondrously fantastic post. I didn’t do too much about it besides listing myself in a couple of webring things but I still had the desire. So I started writing more stuff on the big concerns of women, motherhood & the like under the guise of practicing my craft. Stuff I never did post because as usual someone else seemed to write about it better elsewhere. I began getting discouraged & then pissed off because I’d see other bloggers who’d only just begun have so much more “success” than I. But you see they’d put more effort into it. Or maybe it was effortless for them to come up with great stuff in a short amount of time whereas I was stuck barely literate at my laptop until I’d had my morning coffee & then I was already running out of time because damn it I had to do laundry again.

The last week or so with the insomnia, the teething (please let it be teething) & the stress I was creating for myself over trying to become popular almost did me in. But, I also managed to go on a picnic, visit a new friend with blueberries, exercise a little bit (do not ask me about that 10km thing though ok?) & get this, go scrapbooking (& it was fun!). While I was there on Friday night my friends (real live ones) expressed how much they enjoyed reading what I had to say & it made me feel great. So it’s back to basics for me & writing what I want without trying to become something I’m not. Calvin said most of my audience wants cute & if it comes off too trite & vapid for some people then they can (continue) to ignore it. I don’t have the energy right now to give more to this than I already do & my sweet little baby is growing so fast I need to take more moments throughout the day to soak her all in. I’m doing this for her.

The Beauty of Blueberries

2006-05-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

We have finally found a "solid" food that the Doodles likes. Up until now we've tried rice, barley, sweet potatoes & prunes as well as mushed up banana & applesauce. At first she seemed to like the rice cereal but after a couple of tries all she did was push it out of her mouth with her tongue. Same with all the rest along with some fancy facial contortions to display her distaste for the stuff. I thought she'd end up breastfeeding until she was ready for college at the rate we were going.

Blueberries

We were over at a neighbour's place the other day & her friend's 7 month old was eating some blueberries & pears (PC Organic) so I thought I'd see if I could get mine to taste it. She sucked that stuff off my finger so hard I'm surprised there's a nail left on it. Then she attacked the bowl with a gusto I've only seen when she's jonesin' for my boobs. Interesting....

Yummy

Once upon a time Doodles was known as Grape Face. Now, Blueberry Baby will do just fine thanks.

Blueberry face

Coming up tomorrow or the next day, a mother love fest. Oh and speaking of mothers, many congratulations go out to folks I've been forgetting to mention, plus a few belated Happy Birthdays. Hello to new Baby Jack, Nya & Xander. Happy belated shout outs to Emma, Nancy, James, Pete, (Josee & Barbie I got you right?), Haley, Tina B, Cleo, Scott, Malibu Tracey, Colin, Bodacious Brynnski-doodle & Dan. Anyone I missed I'm sorry but this baby thing makes my brain operated like a sieve. I love you all!

Insomnia Insanity

2006-05-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

Every night I’m exhausted & go to bed half asleep after watching an hour or two of television because I think it helps me unwind from my day & it stops my mind from racing. Of course when I get to bed it just starts up again & I can’t sleep. I hate insomnia. It just eats away at your sanity. It is not the baby; she sleeps pretty peacefully beside me. It is instead my anxiety surrounding the baby. What kind of bad things can happen to her & what I need to be vigilant about so nothing does? What if I drop her? What if she falls off the bed? What if she starts crawling & falls in the pool? What if I pass out in the tub with her in my arms & she drowns? What if I get in a car accident while she’s at home with Calvin & something happens to me? How will she survive without my boobs? What if someone steals her & does bad things to her? What if I’m not providing the right sort of non-paranoid non-over-protective parenting she needs to nurture her independence?

Holy crap, that’s a lot of what if’s & I haven’t even scratched the surface of some of the delusions I’ve been harboring. This is what the lack of sleep is doing to my poor addled brain. I’m so tired I am falling asleep typing this & yet if I go back to bed I’ll just lie there thinking about what a stupid post this is going to be & why the hell can’t I write something worth reading? And now? My stomach hurts. Oh & get this, once I fall asleep I start having these idiotic dreams like this one….

Calvin & I are in some reality show where The Amazing Race meets Punked meets The Surreal Life. We are partnered in the race with Jessica Simpson & LiLo. Jessica has her new ginger hairdo & Lindsay is auburn-ish. Phil is there of course & I think I get a hug. And we’re off. The girls go somewhere while Calvin talks to an old doctor man about the clue & I for some reason have to go to the library. Not so I can figure out the clue but so I can check my account to see if anything’s overdue & post something on my blog. (Loser!) We are in my old hometown of Winnipeg but apparently close by are the Gatineau Hills. I have to go along the Assiniboine River to get to the next checkpoint thing where my teammates are waiting for me. The girls are sitting around doing their makeup & LiLo starts bitching at me because I’m dressed in my usual best of track pants & nursing shirt. She’s better than me she says because she’s a Virgo, pale & has freckles but has a great tan to cover all that up. Oh & her eyebrows? They are naturally that perfect. She doesn’t even have to pluck or wax them! Wow! So I pull my car up (why I have to drive my own car & not some cool Mercedes I don’t know, but I’m pissed about it) closer to where we have to make a quick getaway from & I notice that my seat is too far back. One of those bitches was driving my car. Calvin is in big trouble.

See? I’m losing it people. Losing it.

That & I watch too much reality television. Tonight I'll probably dream about ANTM models trying to outwit each other on Survivor. I'll say Jade wins that one. Reca-nize soldier soul sista & dwelve into her starshine. The others just can't withhandle her. Sad isn't it?

I swear

2006-05-08T19:53:00.000-07:00

I think this thing was just flying around my living room. Somehow I managed to flick it back outside but I am afraid it will come back & attack my laptop as an enemy agent. Help!

Clark-Nova

Monday Morning Memories #2

2006-05-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

(It's morning somewhere isn't it? I've been trying to post this all day with technical difficulties so suck it up people.)

How the Bun Came Out of the Oven

Well it seems that my new MMM has coincided in its second week with your 6 month birthday. What better way to celebrate it than with my clouded memories of your birth. Way back in November I promised a birth story to my 15 readers & never came through with it. I did actually write one with every single gory detail I could remember but it ran about 6 pages long so I figured no one in their right mind would want to read it. So now I will attempt to recount what happened without the running on & on about crap. (It seems I am finding it near impossible to shrink this down any more plus some of you already know the story so apologies if you get bored. If you want to keep reading click on the word tempted.)

Let’s see, it’s 17 days past your due date & everyone is raring to go. Except me. I could keep going like this. The feeling of you inside my belly is nice & it makes me feel pretty badass to be the world’s longest gestating woman. But… of course no one will let me keep you safe (disputable) & warm inside any longer so its off to the hospital we go to get you out one way or another. Over the past week I’ve had 3 stretch ‘n sweeps, a castor oil & root beer milkshake, nipple stimulation via the breast pump, spicy food, long walks, some other stuff & an attempt to break the amniotic sac all in an effort to coax you out. I must have one hell of a nice oven for you to want to stick around after all that poking at your head & some major indigestion showing up as non-stop hiccups.

Once Josée the midwife arrives at the hospital & we are checked into our labour room it’s time for a yet another peek at the ol’ cervix to see if you are ready to bust out of the joint. Nope & nope again. The attending OB & her cute intern come in for a consult since I’m post dates & we all decide to break my water to try & get things started before having to resort to the heavy-duty drugs. This had been attempted twice before with no luck because the sac had been pressed right up close to your head. The doctor was confident she could do it so off comes the wrapper on the crochet hook of pain. Really it wouldn’t have been bad but somehow she scratched me with the hook when she put it up the va-j-j despite me squealing in protest & scrambling back as far as I could up the bed. It’s done & first the trickling starts & then the hysterical laughing because it tickled & felt like I was peeing myself. The laughing of course makes everything come gushing out even more which brings on more laughter which brings on more fluid. You get the drift – a never-ending circle of leaking & laughing. I’m told I can put on a diaper & go walk around for an hour. Great, a diaper, I feel so feminine. So I get helped out of bed as I am not so mobile at the moment & splash! All over the floor goes what must be about a 2 litres of fluid. Oh what fun! Somehow, giggling & dripping I make it to the toilet so I can let the waters run a bit before I attempt to get dressed again. Finally I pull on the adult diaper & my pants, get someone to tie my shoes & away we go to walk until I have some good contractions or my feet fall off. At 42+3 weeks it heads or tails as to which happens first.

So we walk, and walk and walk. We walked the halls, the lovely path near the hospital, the nearby mall

& finally we did the stairs. Turns out my feet gave out before the uterus. Prior to this I’d had contractions but they were all manageable so I thought I was some kind of super-human labour machine. Not. The walking did bring them on a bit stronger which appeared promising but when I was checked again the powers that be were not satisfied so out came the big guns. Throughout the pregnancy I’d of course Googled everything & anything I could about labour so I was not looking forward to what the Ocytocin (Pitocin) was going to do. Anyway, I’m hooked up after 3 attempts to puncture my “twirly” veins & settle in for a long while of waiting, walking the halls & chatting via webcam & Instant Messenger to my sisters & mother out West. Oh & Calvin brought in a dvd player so we could watch Garden State. I think it was a good movie but halfway through I started zoning out on the yoga ball while Calvin & the midwife ate Chinese food so between the food jealousy & the increasing pain I really can’t remember what happened at the end. After one last pee I make it to the bed because I just can’t bounce any longer. What used to be small hills on the contraction print-out has now turned into mountainous jagged spikes & then these turn into a vast range of never-ending peaks.

rockin'
What I was worried about is happening. There is no break in between the peaks & my mantra of “relax, relax, relax” & deep breaths is no longer working. I guess I’m in the zone but the zone fucking hurts like hell. So much for that high pain threshold of mine. I’m desperate for some relief so I beg to go in the tub & am finally allowed after another internal lets us know I’m at 7.5 cm. It takes probably 10 minutes to walk the 10 feet to the tub & get in to what should be oh so soothing warm bubbly water. It totally sucks ass & my hopes of being able to cope through this intense pain without drugs are completely crushed. Somehow I get the words “I want a fucking epidural” out of my mouth & Josée immediately goes into action to get a nurse to page the anesthesiologist which surprises me because I thought she’d try & talk me out of it. Not that I am not grateful (oh so grateful). Anyway the dude is doing a c-section & can’t come for another half an hour so I’m left to my own devices which involve a lot of moaning & wailing like a wounded animal. Finally the anesthesiologist arrives and asks if I’m the one who wanted an epidural. Calvin tells him no, I’m the one who wants “the fucking epidural” to which he replies “I think I got that stuff right here”. Yay good doctor man. He takes my pulse & asks if I’m an athlete because he’s never seen such a low heart-rate for someone in labour. Calvin tells him I’m just kind of weird and that my normal resting heart-rate is around 40, which is true but hasn’t been like that since I got knocked up. Who knows what the hell was going on but the guy was impressed. (Wow, I am super-human after all. Just not when it comes to pain obviously.) Then a nurse comes in and asks if I would mind having some paramedics come watch the epidural.

What?! Here I am making freak show noises with my butt exposed (along with old fuzzy tattoo that no one needs to see) & 4 or 5 people in the hallway want to come watch me get a huge needle in my spine? Oh sure, that would be great. I’d love to have them all in for tea & crumpets too. I think Calvin noticed the look of incredulousness on my face & told them no. Finally they get me to bend over & not move while the doc tells me blah blah blah something about adrenalin… mistake…. You feel it…. Blah blah blah. Apparently he put in some adrenalin first to make sure he got the right spot and I would feel it if it was wrong. All I could feel was the next contraction bearing down on me & then I was told it was over & could expect to feel better within a half an hour. What?! I though it would be instantaneous or at least sooner than that. So I continue to moan for about 25 minutes before the good stuff kicks in. Oh sweet, sweet drugs. A wave of relief washed over me finally & I could rest a while.

Hours go by. I think I sleep. I know Calvin does while poor Josée pries her eyes open with toothpicks or something. At one point we do a check & she tells me I can try pushing if I want. Not much happens so its back to resting. Oh & I’m starving so I take a few sips of watered down Gatorade & suck on a homemade popsicle. It tasted like heaven but soon I noticed the familiar burning sensation in my esophagus that I’d experienced the entire pregnancy. Hello heartburn hell. Plus the epidural was wearing off by this time & because I hadn’t been able to feel the contractions while I was on it they had turned up the ocytocin full blast. So I am burning in so many places that shouldn’t be burning & its really pissing me off. To top it all off I can’t get into any position other than lying down because my legs are too numb to hold me up.

The other midwife arrives after an hour of pushing & burning & vomiting & she is surprised to see me making no progress. Finally someone turns down the ocytocin & gets another bag of epi drugs so I can finally get some strength back. It’s sometime around now that they tell Calvin (not me) that if something doesn’t start happening soon they’re going to have to get the doctor & probably pull out the vacuum, the forceps or go in for a c-section. They try to get me into some other positions but nothing works so I’m flipped up on my back like a turtle & Theresa (the other midwife) pries my hip bones apart from the inside (!!!) which is apparently the magic trick because things finally began to happen. Calvin tells me he can see the head, someone else ask me if I want to touch it. I tentatively reached down & felt a weird spongy, slimy mass & then to my horror, what was my horribly stretched & swollen girly parts. So freaky. Calvin said afterwards that the head looked like some weird animal trophy mounted on the strangest plaque ever. Nice dude, nice.

So the rest of labour was pretty much breathe, then push, then burp, then breath, push , burp & so on. The heartburn never stopped, I never could really tell when I was having a contraction & kegels apparently do nothing for you when you have an epidural. But hey, I didn’t tear & for that I am ever grateful because I can’t imagine it being worse to pee afterwards than it was. Oh ya, the baby. Someone finally told me the head was out & to give one more push. I didn’t know that that had done it because I told them all I had a few more pushed in me ready to go. Of course they all laughed at me, told me it was out & that they were just suctioning out some meconium. They put the babe on my stomach & I looked down in wonder at this weird looking creature for what seemed like forever. Calvin cut the cord & got it out of the way so he wouldn’t mistake it for anything else. Josee asked him if he recognized what the parts were & he said that he hoped so as he’d been looking at them all night. It was 18 hours or so since I’d had my water broken & I finally had a little 7lb 14 oz girl in my arms 18 days after her due date.

proud

I remember little dark eyes staring up at me. I remember the sliminess of her skin after they put her on my belly & I remember being told she was a girl. I remember the hospital room and the soothing coolness of the floor. I remember the burning heartburn & the animal instinct to moan in pain. I remember when I felt the stirring in my soul that this creature was mine & what an enormous responsibility I now had to see her grow up. I remember the love wash over me like a sunshower & fill my heart with a smile that now grows larger every day as she smiles back at me.

Freyja daya doodle bug I love you more than you’ll ever know & so much more than I can ever explain. You are my everything.
Love,

Fabulous Freyja Friday

2006-05-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

Here's your fix people. I know you crave cute baby pictures so who am I to say no? Besides I have been working on a post for three days now & I can't quite seem to finish it because some little person keeps interrupting me. It's pretty hard not to forgive her though.

Checking out the tulips. And yes she tried to eat it.

Mmmm plastic donut. I love the riot of coral.

What is this contraption? One of this week's purchases & it has paid for itself in making her sleepy for nap time. Plus fresh air is good.

Now this is fun

Show me the Money!

2006-05-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

All I gotta say is where's my damn paycheck?

(Did I just reference Tom Cruise? Many apologies.... I never actually watched that damn movie.)