Happy Valentine’s Day
This may qualify as cheating. The astute among you will notice that this baby is remarkably smaller than the toddler appearing in other recent snaps. Yes, I magically made my baby go back to the relatively easy six-month stage when the only thing I really needed to carry in the diaper bag was diapers. Now I take most of the pantry, a half dozen toys and hand wipes galore.
I used to be really good at Valentine’s Day morning. It’s easy when there is a direct route from your husband’s tummy to his big, beautiful heart. I’ve made heart-shaped pancakes a couple of times, before they made those cast iron things that help you shape pancakes. I’ve sent him cookies (because you can’t eat flowers). I even had a hunk of smoked meat, a loaf of rye and some special mustard delivered straight from a deli in Montreal. See? I’m good. At least, I used to be.
This morning, I blarghed my disheveled way into the bathroom like a hermit emerging from a decade of cave-dwelling and said, “Uuuuugh. Shouldn’t it be Thursday?”
Luke’s response was to head downstairs and sacrifice minutes of his ritualistic newspaper reading to make me the biggest americano misto the world has ever seen. It makes the coffee in So I Married An Axe Murderer look like a tall. With any luck, some of the caffeine will actually register in my brain so I can make it through the day with a registering level of intelligence.
Maybe by dinner I’ll have come up with a creative way of saying, “I nub noo, too.”
Happy (belated) Year of the Dragon!
E is a bit late to the party on this one. But she couldn’t resist having a little celebration to welcome the Year of the Dragon, especially since her brilliant mother happens to be one.
I tend to identify with a lot of the character traits of dragons: full of creative energy, over-active imagination, passion, enthusiasm. Aren’t I awesome? I’m also a hermit. I like being inside my own little cave (my mind) and if you try to come in when I’m thinking, I will breathe fire on you. A lot of people take this to mean I am snooty and aloof.
Here’s my favourite quote about us dragon-folk, from this cbc.ca post on the start of a prosperous year:
“They believe they can conquer the world” says Paul Ng, a feng shui master in Richmond Hill, Ont. “They are not very practical people.”
I know a few people who would agree with that.
Robbie Burns, Baby
E decided to take the high road today.
I am taking the low road in the hopes no one notices I haven’t exactly stuck to any of the “resolutions” I outlined in my previous post. Now who’s looking sheepish?
Best laid plans
New Year’s resolutions are rarely a good idea. Six weeks into a brand new set of days that were once new with hope and promise you realize it’s just too hard to forsake chocolate or write a play or maintain a weekly menu plan that includes at least one vegetarian meal.
Maybe it’s that we make resolutions that we don’t actually want to keep. Deep down we know we should but man is it ever a buzz kill when you have to nag yourself. Nobody likes a nag. Nags don’t even like nags.
So here are a few that I want to keep:
1) Read more
Rather, read period. It’s pathetic how little I read. A friend of mine said she didn’t start reading for real until her kid was around E’s age. So I know I’m not alone. And my inattention to type is not from a distaste for prose. I love to read. I just hate reading in snippits (sorry Twitter). I like to languish in a book. This is why on those rare occasions when I do decide to do some bedtime reading, I don’t turn out my light until 12:47am or something ridiculous like that.
Goal: 100 pages a week. Yes. It’s that bad.
2) Write more
I didn’t hear about NaNoWriMo until November 6th. Even if I’d heard about it on October 6th, there’s still no way on God’s Green Earth that I would have been able to do that. But it got me thinking. Writing is fun. I need to do it more. It helps give the things that are eating away at me something else to chew on for a while. It is kind of who I am. Writing for work doesn’t count cause that’s pretty much what I do.
Goal: One blog post a week (here or there). I hope this result in my subjecting the lot of you (all seven or so) to crap.
3) Exercise
Not the chase-the-toddler kind of exercise. I mean release-the-demons/curse your sweet tooth/it’s only been 4 minutes?! kind of exercise. This resolution will not last. I hate exercising unless it’s walking in a park, riding a bike or playing outside.
Goal: 30 minutes, three times a week.
4) De-clutter
This one is next to impossible. I am surrounded by toys and board books and sippy cups and plastic bowls and stuffed animals and happy-music-making things and partner-less mittens… It’s endearing but I feel the need for some free space. So instead of getting rid of her stuff, I will try to get rid of or at least organize some of mine. You should see what I did with the wrapping paper!
Goal: To be able to walk from the stairs to the kitchen without having to move something out of the way.
5) Take more pictures
I got a Diana last year for Christmas. I’ve only shot one roll. We also have a Holga and some other old clunker of a camera that might take cool shots. Digital is awesome, obviously, but I need to broaden my photographic explorations. This comes from my love of a new-to-me blog. It’s a full on lady crush.
Goal: Uh… a roll of film a month?
I suppose I could argue that these all fall into the should vs want category. But you’ll notice I’m not including things like “stop eating sunflower butter straight out of the jar” or “stop staying up too late.” Those are things I either don’t want to change or that can’t change because my circadian rhythms are on Eastern Standard Time.
You’ll also notice I am not embarking on one of those over-done notions where I do something every day for a year. It’s not just because it’s January 2nd and I didn’t do any one of these things yesterday. It’s because I’m not super woman. So… no book deal for me.
With this titillating collection of posts from her blogs, you can re-live the year when
Alison attempted to read a book in a month and get off her ass every once in a while.
She tried… did she fail? Most likely, yes.
And so here it is way past the time when I should have gone to bed. My tummy is gurgling so I’m going to meander through the kitchen on my way to bed. Chances are there will be a finger swipe through the Sunbutter by the time I call it a night.
By the way…
Merry Christmas! I just realized that last post sounded a little bah hum buggy which is totally not how I’m feeling right now.
We had a beautiful Christmas. It was perfect. We watched Scrooge on Christmas Eve and I fell in love with it. Luke used to watch it with his grandmother. His old tradition is my new.
We also enjoyed the delicious irony of our customary breakfast of bagels, cream cheese and lox.
And E got right into the opening of presents. She played with each of her new toys, then promptly went to the cupboard to get a plastic container to use as a hat/drum/echo chamber.
And I am happy to report I got a book on digital photography because wow, do I ever need some pointers.
Happy Ho Ho Ho.
Santa Cause and Plague Care
E had a sit down with the man in the red suit at our community Christmas party a while back. I knew it was going to be mayhem so I opted not to put her in a dress. And so…
Not exactly your picture-perfect Chris Cringle memory.
This past Friday I masochistically thought, I should take her to mall Santa to get a real photo. This is crazy on so many levels. I rationalized it by telling myself it would be over within a matter of hours and that the memory (the photo, not the trauma) would last for ever. There was the added bonus of surprising Luke with an adorable photo on Christmas Day.
Then he texted to say he’d be home early. Screw the surprise. Now I had backup. I informed him of the plan and immediately started prepping the cavalry’s supplies: snacks, diapers, snacks, toys, snacks.
Buzz buzz. Incoming text.
“What if it makes her sick?”
Whoa. Curve ball.
“I’m rather paranoid about that these days.”
Say what now? I thought that was my job. After all, I’m the one who backed us out of a party back when E was five-months-old because one of the other kids had a runny nose. Fast forward one year, three ear infections, five colds, a chest x-ray and a brush with hand, foot and mouth disease and we have not one but two parents willing to forgo customs and cuteness for the sake of keeping a child healthy for more than five days in a row. And let’s face it. Christmas wishes aren’t the only thing kiddies spew at Santa’s beard.
Exposure Leave
Remember when you were pregnant and all these weird, kind of gross things started happening to you? You probably thought, why didn’t anyone mention this? A similar thing happens when you put your kid in group care. Only this time, the gross things happen to them, not you (depending on your constitution).
It took less than two weeks for E to get sick after I started my new job. Six days in I was already taking a day off to squirt Baby Advil into my little junkie’s mouth. Then another day. A couple of weeks later there were a few more. So it continued to the point where my new colleagues started greeting me with, “How’s E? Is she over [insert random illness]?”
Friends with similarly aged children were going through the same thing: counting the number of healthy child days using one hand; calculating the sick child days using an abacus. So much for that nursing-boosts-immunity business. Ground control to antibodies? Anytime you’re ready…
“It’s hard to feel like a good employee or a good parent in this situation,” one of my friends said recently. Amen to that. The only positive is that sick kids tend to nap longer so it’s possible to get some work done, so long as you have the ability to work from home. I recently asked my bosses for a laptop to make it easier to do just that. The IT guy emailed two hours later to seal the deal. I’ve never had that kind of request approved so quickly. Heck, it takes longer than that to order business cards.
All that to say there should be a transition period between maternity leave and full-time work. During this time, everyone would understand that your kid has become a toddling germ-i-nator and that there’s nothing you can do but sit at home waiting for the mercury to saunter back down to an acceptable range. This time would also come with discounted alcohol, free coffee, and a return of Oprah to daytime TV.
Retiring My Momiform
*I started writing this a month ago. That should tell you a little bit about my attempts to stay sane in the real world.*
I’ll be starting work again in a couple of weeks. Cue the bundle of emotions.
I’m sad to be leaving E. So much of her life is going to be spent with other people now. Makes me want to cuddle her every last minute of the day even though she’d much rather chase a ball, eat a book or splash in a pool. I know she’s going to have fun and this is reality for the majority of the population. But I’m going to miss her sunshine on my cloudy days and that’s just a fact.
On the bright side, I got a new job. Honestly, I can’t wait to get my hands on it. People have suggested that going to a new job post mat-leave will be harder than going back to the one I know. I disagree. Let’s leave it at that. The hard part is leaving E. She’s just getting to the point where I can actually be a parent, not just a sustenance provider and play mate. How am I supposed to teach her values, ethics, love and compassion when I only see her three hours a day?
Emotions aside, there are a few truths I’ve come to realize about this transition back to the adult world. Believe it or not, I’m actually going to have to get up earlier. More importantly I’m not going to be able to put my pj’s back on after I shower. And after a quick perusal of my closet, it looks like I might need to start shopping for clothes somewhere other than a grocery store.
Before I had E, I would come home from work every day, immediately discard my work clothes and laze into some lovely, worn-in, cottony-soft grubbies. And I wonder why it took my so long to get knocked-up. Well after a year of wearing hoodies I can say I am looking forward to wearing something I care about and something I bought on purpose and not just because I saw it at the end of the meat aisle.
Super Size Me
It became painfully obvious early on in pregnancy that it was going to be tough to maintain a sense of fashion without breaking the bank. Pregnancy clothing, for the most part, is either hideous or hideously expensive. For a while I was able to get away with buying bigger normal shirts and doing that elastic through the button hole trick on my pants. That worked until one day I noticed some boys snickering at me. Quick reality check confirmed I was not back in high school. I looked down to see the elastic clinging for dear life at the top of a zipper that had given up all hope. Imagine the space between the buttons on the Incredible Hulk’s shirt just before it pops, only imagine it happening to my pants.
The shirt trick didn’t last long either. Try blowing a beach ball up inside one of your nicest shirts. Looks good, right? Eventually I gave in and bought a few things at Thyme Maternity. At one point Luke asked me why all my clothes looked like pregnancy versions of Reitmans. Well, I said, because they are. How the heck did we let Reitmans get a handle on that market? Eventually I had to remove all my regular clothes from my closet. It was too depressing to see all my favourite shirts reduced to halter tops. Besides… I wear a lot of stripes. Horizontal stripes.
I will briefly bitch about bras: if there’s one thing worse than shopping for a pair of jeans, it’s shopping for a bra. By the time I broke down, my unmentionables looked like tea cups trying to manage a couple of watermelons.
Deflation Nation
After all that, I am pleased as punch to be jumping back into the world of real clothes. But here’s the thing. My previous gig allowed me to wear jeans pretty much every day of my 12-year-long career. My new gig requires me to look somewhat professional. So I am using this as a chance to re-launch myself, inside and out. No more clothing crises for 40 minutes before work. No more jeans five days a week. No more sketchers. Yes, I’m actually going to dress like a real, professional, older-than-23-year-old woman. Not only that, I’m going to do what I should have started doing about a decade ago: I’m going to choose my outfit the night before.
This is going to be revolutionary. I’ve always known it was a good idea. I just never thought it was necessary. My excuse was that I didn’t know how I was going to feel in the morning. Well now I know: I’m going to feel tired, desperate for coffee and probably a little bummed that I can’t stay in my pj’s and listen to Raffi while making baby pancakes. This brings me back to the beginning: the whole part about wanting to cuddle E for every last minute. My theory is the less time I spend trying to put my pear-shaped figure into noodle-sized clothes the more time I’ll have to spend with the little lady before she goes off to play with her friends and I head off to act responsible and make money. This is the idea, anyway. We’ll see how it goes.
