Turning one, my baby girl...

As warned, dear readers, I've been absent for a shamefully long period of time. But here in Northern Alberta it is our all-too-brief season of sunshine and warmth, and I cannot bring myself to spend precious sunshine-y hours inside when I could be outside, walking or gardening or playing with BabyA or just being. And so.

Yesterday was summer solstice, the year's longest day and my darling girl's 1st birthday. I can remember this weekend last year, the excitement and fear and pain and relief and joy of it all. After leaking amniotic fluid, waiting a day and a half, being induced and labouring for most of the evening, we had a C-section, and shortly after one in the morning, this beautiful vision appeared.



And yesterday, along with our fabulous families and friends, we celebrated her first birthday.
My heart nearly burst with pride as our girl was passed from one set of arms to the next, from grandma to auntie, to all these people who are helping us raise her. And when she started to get overwhelmed, she reached her arms out to her proud papa, something new-ish for her. As her at-home parent for the last year, I've been the go-to comforter, so it was really wonderful to see her seeking out her daddy for that role.

This last year has been... good lord, I'm not even sure how to describe it. When you have a baby, your world focuses down to this incredibly narrow field of view - you and baby, you and baby and daddy, you and baby and daddy and the house, etc. You know everything else is out there, but it doesn't really register. Your body heals and your hormones fluctuate and you adjust to the fact of a monumental shift in your sense of self. And more than anything, you begin to know this new person around whom your world revolves, their habits, what makes them happy or sad or frustrated or joyful. You watch a body unfold and a personality develop.

Our girl, my Baby A, how do I describe her at her first birthday?


She is a sweet, smiley baby, who will get so excited by nothing more than the joy of living that she scrunches up her entire face into a squinty-eyed grin, lifts her shoulders to her ears, and extends her clenched fists in a whole-body expression of pure joy. She has three teeth, two on the bottom and another on top, and a fourth that just cut through the gum yesterday. Dark blonde wisps of hair frame her face, curling around her ears and blowing wild in the slightest breeze.
She refuses to crawl, instead choosing to toddle around the house grasping the fingers of whatever adult will accommodate her, even marching up the stairs on determined feet. If we are sitting, she will grab our hands and walk as far away as our arms will allow, and then hoot loudly as if to say, "Hey, get up, can't you see I'm trying to walk here?" She pulls herself up on her crib bars, or the coffee table, but she is cautious when trying new objects, preferring to stick with the tried and true. She points imperiously at wall hangings or magnets, or at something on the table that I can only guess at (plate? cup? magazine? plant?).


She is moving away from my baby towards my toddler so quickly that it terrifies me. She grows and changes every week, day, hour, minute, second, so that I am afraid to blink for missing some milestone, precious smile, joyous hug. But I am also overjoyed at her progress, her joy in discovering new things. As always, the fear and pain and joy live altogether in my chest. This is, I think, the truest, most defining element of parenthood, the constant presence of all of these emotions.

Happiest of happy first birthdays, my darling girl. I love you more than you can ever know. MWAAAAHHHHH!!!!

To the Mothers in my life, on your day...

Letters to all the amazing moms in my life...

To GeekDad's mom:
You are an amazing example of why families come in so many different shapes and sizes, and how they can raise wonderful kids. You raised GeekDad on your own two feet, with the help and love of your fabulous family. You have taught him to embrace responsibility, to have a sense of humor, to love passionately and to share all of himself. I cannot thank you enough for raising him, so that he and I together can raise our little girl. And I also need to thank you for being in my life, for being so supportive and caring and loving. I know exactly how lucky I am to have you for a mother-in-law, lady!

To my Grandma:
You amaze me all the time, Grandma. You have given everything to your children, and then to those of us lucky enough to be your grandchildren. You continue to greet your great-grandchildren with the same brilliant smile and absolute joy that we were blessed with. You have lived through difficult times, and yet you pull it all of with such a sense of poise and grace. Even now, in your twilight years, you simply look forward to whatever milestone is ahead, and enjoy each day as it comes. We, your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, can never thank you enough for lessons in humility and patience and love which you have taught us. Thank you.

To my little Seester:
I don't know if you know this, but you set a fantastic example of motherhood for me. I see you with your Munchkins, facing each new challenge, braving every obstacle. You take it all in stride, looking for solutions to the problems, rewards for the milestones achieved. You cuddle and play and wrestle and discipline and cherish and love them, and the love that flows back and forth between you and your children is a joy to behold. I am so lucky to be following in your footsteps for once, and to be benefiting from the lessons you have learned and so generously share with me.

To my Mama:
You are the one who taught me what motherhood meant, long before I joined you here. Even as a child, I knew that being a mom, my mom, meant you would do whatever was in your power to... To what? Not just to make things easier, although you did that when you could. Not just to make me a better person, although your example and you unconditional love makes me strive for that. You have taught me to embrace life, both the easy times and the difficult ones. You also taught me that it is OK to make mistakes, so long as you can own up to your mistakes (even to, or maybe especially to, your kids), apologize if necessary, and learn from them. You taught me that respect must be earned, even between parents and children.

I don't know if you remember, but a few weeks after I had BabyA, I asked you if it ever gets easier, this business of loving your child. Because for the first time, I understood just how much heartbreak and worry and fear are a part of this love. Joy is a greater part, certainly, but also the worry that I need to get this right, the fear that something will happen which I cannot control or account for, and that things will go awry. But the lesson you have taught me, which I pray I can pass on to my little girl, is how to take the awry and accept it and allow it to shape her into a stronger, happier, more loving person. If I can be half the mother to her that you have been to me, we will both be fine. Better than fine, really. Excellent, in fact.

And if, like you and I, my daughter and I are one day more than just mother and daughter, but also friends, I will truly have learned the lessons you taught. It's a lot to live up to, but then, I've got a great example to follow.

To all the mothers in my life, thank you for the love and the lessons and the joy. Thanks for welcoming me into your club. BabyA has given me the basic requirements for membership, but I hope I can become gold star members like all of you.

On Being Sick and Parenting. Both of Them Badly

I'm posting again, and it hasn't even been one week. I wanted to point this out, so that no one would look at the date and realize this, and then faint in shock. Just so you know.

In other news, the parental guilt machine has kicked into overdrive. Because you know how I was bitching and moaning about BabyA being so cranky and clingy last time? Turns out that bit of a cough was the only visible/audible symptom of a brutally nasty cold that starts out with a sinus headache that makes your eyes feel as though they are bugging out of your head and your cheekbones are bruised and your head is a melon being pounded by a large rubber mallet. It then progresses to a body-wracking chest cough which makes you whole body ache and wakes you up in the night just to remind you that yes, you are still sick. In case you forgot while you were sleeping.

And how do I know this, you might ask? Why, because I am also sick now, of course! So while two sickly people in a house is worse than one, at least I'm no longer being a BAD, UNSYMPATHETIC parent, because I know exactly what BabyA is going through. And it sucks, just in case we weren't clear on that already.

In other news, I would like to state how sick I am (mentally this time) of whinter winter. Wait, is 'whinter' a combination of 'whine' and 'winter'? Because if so, that is exactly it! New word - whinter! I'm often sick of winter by this point in the year, but this year I think it is even worse. This may be because of the new, earlier daylight savings switch. Usually by the time it is light out until 8 pm the snow is mostly gone and some green grass may be peeking around the edges of buildings and fences. But with the new system, it is light at 8pm AND THERE IS TWO FEET OF SNOW ON THE GROUND. Two feet, people. This is seriously enough to make me want to move anywhere south or west of here. Preferably Vancouver or San Diego or L.A. or Texas. Anywhere there is NOT two feet of snow and MORE COMING DOWN RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT!!! Seriously, God, this is not cool anymore. It's just not.

So, anything else I can grouch about? Probably, yes, but instead I will be happy because my mother-in-law is now officially finished working at her old job, and is back to being available for visiting and babysiting on an occasional basis. She's been crazy busy the last couple months, and I've missed her visits. We're working on getting her reacquainted with BabyA to facilitate some babysitting at some point. So, not everything is dark and dire. I just have to remember that. Someday the snow will melt and my yard will be ready for gardening and the colour green will actually exist again. Someday....

The last tiny shard of patience winks out of existence...

It's officially been two weeks since I've posted anything here, which is disgraceful, I know. These last weeks have been that brand of busy that is peculiar to having a small child, wherein one is simultaneously busy caring for and entertaining one's child and mentally bored out of one's skull. I can only stack a pile of blocks just to watch them be knocked down so many times.

Seester and the three munchkins spent a couple of days with us last week, as the school-age kids were not in school due to Teachers' Conference. I have to say that I am utterly amazed at how quickly a 2 year old and a 5 year old can trash an entire house. BabyA isn't mobile yet, so we have a basket of toys on each level of the house, and those toys tend to stay in the general vicinity of the basket, unless she carries one of them upstairs on the way to a diaper change. But my two little neices managed to completely and utterly destroy that system during their visit, let me tell you. It really is a good thing that we give birth to infants, because if they came out as a toddler, I suspect no one would ever have more than one child.

This week has been the week from hell, really. I believe Baby A is teething, although as yet I have no evidence of such. She is generally cranky and whiny, and moves from being ecstatically happy to monumentally cranky in seconds, and it is driving me nuts. Also, in the past couple of months we had reached a state where I could alternate between playing with BabyA and doing a little housework, getting dinner ready, maybe being online a little. That, my friend, has been thrown out the window. It is now all BabyA, all the time. When I'm not holding her, she is whining to be held, and when I am holding her, she is squirming and whining for a reason which I cannot fathom. As I've already said, I suspect the culprit is teething and the general discomfort that accompanies this process, although she's also developed a bit of a cough in the last couple bdays which may be contributing to the crankiness. And on top of that, BabyA seems to have decided that nobody will do except me. No Daddy, no Nana, just mommy, non-stop. Aaarrgghh!!

Whatever it is, I am going crazy in tiny little guilt ridden segments. As of yesterday I officially lost my patience on the umpteenth time BabyA whined to be picked up, only to whine, arch her back, and squirm out of my arms, and I yelled. At my baby. I yelled, and then saw her eyes go all wide in surprise, and I tried to turn it into a hey look at mommy having fun and making noise,
and she totally seemed fine. But I knew I yelled at her, and that wide-eyed look nearly broke my heart. No matter how frustrated I get, I do not want to yell at my baby. I know this may have been the first time, and probably won't be the last, when I feel like the last tiny shard of patience and sanity I am clinging to disappears out from under me, but I really don't want to be a yeller.

So today, I woke up and decided that I had no expectations for the day. I wasn't going to try to clean, or tidy, or cook, or whatever. I was just going to be there for my baby. And you know what? Today was better. I don't know that BabyA was feeling better, but I just tried to let go of doing other stuff. When she fussed, I picked her up. When she squirmed, I found something new for her to focus onI'm not sure that she was less fussy, but things seemed to go more smoothly. No yelling, no pulling my hair out. I know this won't always work, but I had to remind myself that at least for now, I'm still on mat leave, and it is my job right now to take care of BabyA. The rest of it? All secondary. I will have other crazy crying weepy days, but for now I need to focus on my dearest girl, and hang on to every second before it slips away.

To Sum Up, Conflicted.

Today has been a long day. Not in any particularly bad day - BabyA is not sick or anything, and neither am I. It was just a long day of meeting the demands of an 8 moth old baby, and kind of being stuck in the house. And when GeekDad got home, he was exhausted, so I got to mind BabyA most of the evening as well. Which kind of sucked.

Don't get me wrong. I adore my girl in ways I cannot express in words. I could rhapsodize about her for days on end. But some days all I want is to be able to do something I want to do without being at the beck and call of my little one. Without having to be the one to feed her and entertain her and teach her and change her. Because even when GeekDad is minding her, I'm still the go-to girl for the unexplained wailing and flailing, and especially, for the boobie juice. And once in a while, just for a little bit, I wish for the untetheredness I used to have.

Days like today I feel very conflicted. Because generally I love being at home with my girl. There is nothing like having a little one erupt in gales of laughter simply because you waggled your eyebrows at them. Or watching her bounce up and down just because I stopped loading the dishwasher to look at her. It really is fabulous.

But on days like today I realize that I look forward to working again. To be teaching, and researching, and helping people, and being an adult in an adult world. I struggle with this, wondering if working at a regular job will make me a better mom, or a worse one. Will I be the mom who comes home rejuvenated from doing something I like, to be enjoy her baby all the more for having been away, or the one who is exhausted from trying to juggle more things than she is capable of and end up doing all of it poorly? I know the answer is likely somewhere in between, and will likely depend on the day. But knowing that in my head does nothing to relieve the conflicted, jittery emotions. Blah.

So, to sum up, today I'm feeling whiny and conflicted. Sorry I've subjected you all to this little rant. Just had to put it out there.

In other, less whiny news.....

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(please imagine angelic singing here).

I got the damned breadmaker to work for me, instead of against me. Finally. I ended up googling breadmaker problems, and found this website, which suggested less water and more salt, among other fabulous tips. And you know what? It worked!! I have an actual domed-top loaf, if slightly smallish, loaf of honey whole wheat bread. Yay!!!

Also in less whiny news, there is this. For which I am eternally and unequivocally grateful.

The Authoritative Allocation of a Scare Resource, or Hope Can Still Get Me Choked Up.

Heads up all - I'm about to talk politics here. But I promise to keep it short, if not simple*.

Here's the thing. I was watching President Obama's visit to Canada last week. There was a moment when he arrived on Parliament Hill, greeted PM Harper, and then went back outside and waved at the two thousand or so people who were waiting to see him. I'd been watching the coverage of 'This is where President Obama will land' and 'This is President Obama's motorcade' and 'This is the building where there's a room where President Obama will be meeting with so-and-so,' and was thinking "Geez, we are like 12-year-old girls with a crush on this guy." And then, just for a moment, when he made a point of greeting the people there to see him, I got a little choked up. I, the political cynic, got choked up at an American president waving at people. What is up with that??!!

I've been thinking about it, and I think I have an answer, or at least the beginning of one. Hold on, here comes the theory. One of the first things I learned in pol-sci (political science) class is that politics is all about the allocation of scarce resources - who gets what, and when, and how. It is also about power - who gets to make these decisions about allocation of resources. Now, we usually understand this in a formal way, ie. we vote someone into office, they make up the government, they makes the decisions on our behalf.

But this also happens in a much less formal way, through ideas and influence. For example, people start talking about the how the West kept getting screwed, and the West wanted in, and suddenly the Reform Party had decimated the Progressive Conservative party in Western Canada, the two merged into the Conservative Party, and now the Prime Minister is from Calgary. Trust me on this, ideas matter. But despite all this, people are more cynical than ever about politics and politicians, because whether the West is or is not 'in', things haven't really changed in Ottawa. In fact, there is less cooperation and more bickering and infighting than ever in our capital.

To go back to the idea of allocating resources, we all know that the more scarce a resource, the ore valuable it is. That's why gold is more valuable than say, steel. If you look at that in a political context, one of the most scarce, and therefore valuable resources is hope. We are all so cynical about politics and politicians that we don't even think about it anymore. We don't really expect politicians to keep their election promises, we don't even flinch when they talk about accountability, and we don't even bother watching Question Period, because watching all the posing and posturing just gets tiring. We don't even think anything else is possible anymore.

But Obama has changed this, not only for Americans, but for the rest of the world. His speeches about the audacity of hope made people believe that change in politics is actually possible. And what struck me in watching all the hoopla around his Canadian visit was the respect with which
he treated other people. Not just other politicians, but the press, and the general public. There was none of the usual attitude of 'I'm too important for this shit,' and man, was it refreshing.

Now, I'm not expecting Obama to be perfect. There will be changes and adjustments as he takes office. I would actually be worried if there were no revisions to policies, because, as former PM Mulroney said on The Hour the other night, being in office ain't the same as campaigning for it. Obama and his staff are in the midst of a monumental learning curve, and they have to have room to move. But it really heartened me to see the basic respect with which Obama treated the people around him, and I really think we could use a dose of that in Canadian politics. Respect, hope, and change have been in short supply, but that only makes them more valuable, not less. Here's hoping we can find someone on the Canadian political scene that can harness these scarce resources as well as Obama has, and give us a chance to say it - Yes, We Can. That, my friends, is something to get choked up about.

(*Apparently it's not short either. What can I say, I'm trying to wring every bit out of that mountain of student debt.)

How We Got to Here

So BabyA has contracted her first cold, and in addition to the endlessly runny nose and general clinginess, the worst symptom seems to be an inability to sleep at night. She'll go down for anywhere from 20 min to an hour, but then she's up and crying and snuffling and generally feeling miserable. Which leaves me feeling cranky and tired. This is, however, much better than the nasty flu which my nephew and neices have picked up. My youngest neice is two, and has had to visit the emergency room for an rehydration IV since she can't keep anything at all her stomach. I'm hoping BabyA hasn't picked this up, as we've been visiting with Seester and Junebug a fair bit. Fingers crossed.

On to other posting material. I've seen this relationship meme in various incarnations on Facebook and a number of websites, but I'm lifting this one from All & Sundry (Check her out - she rocks!!). I think it's kind of interesting, but I think it will be more interesting to revisit it a few years and see if any of my answers have changed.

What are your middle names?
Mine is Leah, his is Charles (same as his grandpa’s middle name).

How long have you been together?
8 1/2 years since we started dating, and a year and a half since we were married.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
We met in May of 2000, and started dating in July.

Who asked whom out?
He asked me out, the cheeky kid (he was 18 when we started dating). I was kind of taken aback with how forward he was, but also flattered.

How old are each of you?
He is 27, and I’m 33. I know, I know, but seriously, he was the one chasing me!

Whose siblings do you see the most?
Right now we probably see my Seester and her family the most. My brother lives in Calgary, about 8 hours from us, so we don’t see them as much as I’d like. GeekDad is an only child, but he has a step-siblings, who we see fairly regularly, as they live in GP like us. And his step-sister and her family have just moved here from Atlanta, so I’m really looking forward to meeting them.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
The period right after I had BabyA was pretty rough, what with me having a C-section, and GeekDad having mysterious chest pains, and neither of us having much in the way of sleep. Things have greatly improved since then, though.

Did you go to the same school?
The only school we’ve both attended is Grande Prairie Regional College. He did his business program there, and I did the first two years of my Bachelor’s degree there.

Are you from the same home town?
GeekDad was born and raised in Grande Prairie. I’ve lived all over Alberta, but insofar as I have a hometown, it would probably be GP. Both my parents live here, my grandparents lived here, and all of my family have lived here for a significant length of time.

Who is smarter?
I’ve got the academic credentials, but I don’t really think I’m any smarter than GeekDad. There isn’t anything I’ve studied that I can’t discuss and debate with him at home.

Who is the most sensitive?
Again, I’m not sure that one of us is more sensitive than the other. I definitely would say I’m the more tempermental one, and that this was magnified exponentially during my pregnancy. My hormones were all over the place, and I’d go from ecstatic to tearful to furious in literally about 3 seconds flat. We called them my MDK (Murder-Death-Kill) moments. It totally drove me crazy to be so out of control with my emotions, but GeekDad was incredibly patient and understanding. He’d just let me have my crying or yelling fit, wait for me to figure out I was acting nuts, and comfort me when I apologized through my tears. I really couldn’t have asked for a more understanding guy.

Where do you eat out most as a couple??
Eat out as a couple??!! BWAAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAA!! Seriously, we have an 8 month old baby. We went out for our first meal as a couple since we had BabyA for Valentines, and it was to the Keg. I think it could have been KFC and it would have been wonderful.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Vancouver, for our honeymoon. We’ve both been to New York since we’ve been together, but not as a couple. I went for work, and he went for school. We’d like to go together and visit Cindy and Junior and Sebastian, friends who live there.

Who has the craziest exes?
Neither of us, thank god.

Who has the worst temper?
Again, probably me, although in my defense I tend to get mad, yell, and the apologize for yelling and proceed to discussing whatever it is that is bothering me as a sane person.

Who does the cooking?
GeekDad can cook breakfast (bacon & eggs) and make decent sandwiches, but I’m the one who does the actually preparation of meals. The bonus here is that I love cooking. It’s a little bit of an escape for my brain, and there is nothing better than watching someone taste something you’ve cooked and see a look of delight spread across their face.

Who is the neat-freak?
That would definitely be GeekDad. He is the tidy one, the organizer, and I am of the whatever, leave-it-where-it-lies school. However, GeekDad’s neatness doesn’t necessarily translate into him cleaning up after me. Sigh.

Who is more stubborn?
I don’t really think either of us is that stubborn. We’re pretty good at discussing and compromising. However, I admit that once in a while I will get a bee in my bonnet about something, and be a general pain in the ass about it.

Who hogs the bed??
That would be BabyA. Before her, it was our cats. I guess we need to take ownership of our bed back.

Who wakes up earlier?
GeekDad, but mostly just because his work hours have started ealier than mine. On weekends, I’m usually up first. Not early, but first.

Where was your first date??
You know, neither of us can remember. When we got together, I were living 5 hours apart. The first weekend we got together we spent with our friends, and after that it wasn’t so much a date as spending whatever weekends we could together.

Who is more jealous?
I don’t think either of us is jealous. We certainly haven’t had any incidences where jealousy was an issue.

How long did it take to get serious?
Not very long at all. We started dating in July, and moved in together unofficially by December. This was due in large part to my moving back to GP when my father had a nervous breakdown. Not only did GeekDad stick around through that, but he was an incredible support to me and my family. After our relationship survived all of that crap, I knew we could make it really work.

Who eats more?
GeekDad probably eats more at meals, and I tend to be a snacker. Especially late at night. It’s a bad habit, and one that I am working on changing.

Who does the laundry?
Mostly me. I was going to say that this is because I don’t trust GeekDad to do my delicate stuff, but that isn’t really true. GeekDad tends to pull the “I don’t know what I’m doing. Isn’t it easier to just do it yourself?” card here, which is just malarky and he knows it. While I’m at home with BabyA, I’ve taken ownership of the household chores to a greater degree, but I think once I get back to work, we’re going to have to have a chat about this.

Who’s better with the computer?
I spend more time on the computer, and definitely more on the web. I have computer control issues, and watching other people computing drives me crazy. The itch to just do it myself is overwhelming. I think this comes from the same place as my impluse to finish other people’s sentances for them. I know it’s a bad habit, but I seem to have very little control over it. That said, GeekDad is definitely better with design and photoshop programs.

Who drives when you are together?
Normally that would be me – again with the control issues. GeekDad says I get too critical of what he’s doing, and it’s less stressful if I just drive. I am learning to change this, however, because with BabyA’s carseat, we have to move the passenger seat forward in our car, and GeekDad doesn’t fit (he’s 6’4”). And he’s probably the better driver anyway, just less assertive than I would like at times.

I'm a little late, and a lot anti-valentine...

As everyone knows, this last weekend was Valentine's Day. Now I'm in a happy and healthy relationship, and have been for a number of years, but I'm still more of the school of anti-Valentine's parties and Valentine's sucks cards. One year I made anti-Valentine cookies with a friend - they were cookies decorated with broken and bleeding hearts and messages of hatred and gloom. It was one of my favorite Valentine's Days ever.

However, that sort of thing is less appropriate when one is happily married, so GeekDad and I celebrated our Valentine's with our first dinner out without BabyA. I've written here before about how much work it is to eat out with a Baby, but I really had forgotten how NICE it is to be able to eat an entire meal without handing out crackers and making funny faces and wiping mush from a little face. I love my daughter, but I REALLY enjoyed my meal out. This was the first time in a long time GeekDad and I were able to have a conversation, and not just talk, and I was reminded how lucky I am to be with someone who gets me.

Which brings me to the actual topic of this post. It's been on my mind quite a bit lately, probably because of all the Valentine's hoopla, and also a conversation I heard on CBC radio, and another I had with my Seester. We were talking last week about relationships, and marriage, and babies, and one of the things we discussed was how I found it very frustrating in the churches I attended was this annoying emphasis on finding THE RIGHT ONE. There's this whole movement where you are supposed to pray that God will bring the right person into your life, which I think is really problematic. First, I'm not a believer in the whole idea of soul-mates, which is really what THE RIGHT ONE means. I don't think there is one person with whom you are compatible. There are people with whom you are more compatible, and people with whom you are less so. But relationships, and marriage, if that's for you, is about finding one of those compatible people, and then working your ass off at becoming the RIGHT ONE for them.

Because relationships are work - a lot of work. You start with getting used to co-habitating with someone, with all those things that are fun, but also all those annoying habits, and differences in handling meals, and chores, and even in how you communicate. And then you add in all those stressful life events, like the death of loved ones, and moving to a new house or a new city, and losing a job, and finding a new one. Throw a kid or two into the mix, and things get even tougher. And you start to see how this person handles stress, and whether they remember to keep talking to you, and sometimes you talk to each other, and sometimes you just let each other rest, so you can actually handle talking to each other again. You get angry, you get frustrated, you get sad.

But you also work at finding ways to take care of this person, this partner. You learn when to make them talk, and when to just let them be, to sleep, or think, or get their mind to a different place. You think about ways to show them you love them, whether it's little or big. You find ways to make their family happy, because you know it makes them happy. And you talk and fight and make love and compromise and WORK. And if you're lucky, they do all those things for you too. And somewhere down the road, you discover that you haven't found the right one, you've become the right one, and this person has become your right one, because of all the work and love and talking and fighting and compromise.

I think this is why I'm not such a fan of Valentine's Day, because it seems more about infatuation than love. The gestures of Valentine's Day are nice, but they are peanuts beside all those things that really make a relationship work. And the truth is that you don't find a Valentine, you make one. Don't get me wrong, I totally get that even finding someone with whom you are compatible and who feels the same way about you is hard, and not really fun, and can absolutely suck alot of the time. But I think if people were allowing themselves to look for someone they could work at a relationship with, and not magically have a relationship with, it might be just a little bit easier.

I am so lucky, because my partner in geekdom, my GeekDad, knows from work. He does all of these things, the love and the talking and the work, for me, and inspires me to do these things for him. And I hope that with alot of work and a little luck and just buckets and buckets of love, we will continue to work at being the right one for each other. So I won't wish him or you a happy Vaalentine's Day. I'll say to my GeekDad - I love you, and thank you for everything. And I will wish all of you the joy of a labour of love!

If I could freeze a moment in amber, this would be it.

Today's post is short, because things have been a little crazy around here again. But I just had to get this down somewhere. This morning, I babysat my youngest niece, LittleJ. It was fun - we made a hat out of Christmas ribbons, leftover scrapbooking stuff, and a paper plate. LittleJ kept BabyA endlessly amused simply by being herself, and we had great fun. After Seester picked up her daughter and left, BabyA and I laid down for a nap. And then Cat#1 decided he wanted under the covers, which he hardly ever does. And Cat#2 curled up at my feet. So I was lying in my bed with a baby snuggled into my chest, a cat snuggled into her feet, and a cat snuggled into mine. It was warm furry bliss. And if that doesn't qualify as a Grace in Small Things moment, I'm not sure what possibly could.

Another week in my suburban avoidance scheme...

Sorry for the delay, folks. This was supposed to be posted yesterday but I was having issues with compatibility between the new firewall I downloaded and Blogger. Hopefully these are now resolved. This wasn't a (planned) part of my suburban avoidance scheme, really


So, it's time for another weekend update, because I've been slacking this week. Actually, I've been working on a scrapbook for BabyA, which one hand, I hesitate to mention, because scrapbooking just feels so suburban and bourgeois and just uncool. But, despite the fact that I try to be none of these things, I am assembling a scrapbook for BabyA's first year. And damned if I don't enjoy it. It requires at least a little creativity, and I really don't have enough creative outlets in my life right now. And it can be done in short spurts, which is a requirement for any activity I take on right now. And it doesn't aggravate my carpal tunnel, which is also important. So, I'm coming out as a scrapbooker. Deal with it.

In other news, my grandmother celebrated her 91st birthday on Sunday. 91. Wow. I really cannot fathom that. Because she has seen so many things, and the world has changed so much in that time, and I wish I could bottle even a fraction of her wisdom, for hoarding, and downing on those days when my child and my husband and especially my own special brand of insanity are driving me around the bend. But I can't, so for now I will simply enjoy the fact that she is still with us, and can share her beauty and kindness with us for another year. Happy birthday, Grandma!!

After our brunch, Seester (my lovely younger sister) and her family came over, and we hung out and played RockBand and ate lasagna and had a really nice evening. It was really quite wonderful, and I would like to state again that I feel very lucky to have such a great family. Just sayin'.

I was planning on posting photos of my grandma's birthday, but we forgot our camera at home, and took pictures on my mother's camera. Which she cannot locate the USB connector for. So its a no go. So I'm posting these instead. These are today's Grace in Small Things. Please to enjoy.

Regular Baby.

Cow-face Baby.

Delighted Baby. There you go.

25 Random Things about Me

There's a meme going around, where you write 25 random things about yourself, and then tag 25 other people to do it. Nobody tagged me, but I'm doing it anyway, because I'll never turn down a blog entry topic. I think the idea behind this is so that other people learn things about you that they didn't know, but I found that I learned some things about myself too. You should try it.

1. I went to Japan on a school exchange when I was 14. I was horribly homesick the entire time, and went through a rather severe case of culture shock, but I still don’t regret going.

2. I love history as much or more as I do politics. Which, seeing as I have my master’s in political science, is saying something.

3. My first real job was shilling discount cards by phone in Abbottsford. We worked out of a skeezy hotel room with a kitchen table and some MacGyvered phone jacks, and I hated every minute of it, but I met some cool people.

4. I once went to court to testify against someone who robbed the 7-11 I worked at. They only stole some food and a pack of smokes, but I’m certain they would have actually held us up if other people hadn’t kept coming in and interrupting their attempted robbery. I feel grateful that nothing worse happened.

5. I would like to live outside of Alberta. I’ve lived all over this province, but I would like to try living outside it.

6. Until Grade 9, I used to get A’s in math class. Then I got screwed when they assigned a French teacher to teach math, and she had no clue what she was doing. I got frustrated and gave up, and have done poorly in math ever since. It makes me sad.

7. When I was in London (England, as opposed to Ontario), I had an very eerie experience, where I recognized places I had never been before, and knew streets and buildings before I saw them. I felt an absolutely inexplicable connection to that city, and I want to go back so that I can explore it further.

8. In junior high, I played the trombone, and I loved it. I would like to take it up again, but I don’t really see that happening.

9. There is only one person (non-relative) in my life with whom I have had regular contact since I was a little kid, say 4 or 5 years old. I would value her friendship for no other reason but that, but, lucky me, she is also funny and honest and loving. I love you, Linda.

10. I remember the name of every boy I had a crush on during my school years, starting with David, who I told my mother I was going to marry after the first day of kindergarten, because we both had freckles, and ends with Todd, a guy whom I crushed on throughout high school, and never spoke to. I can tell you the rest too, if you like.

11. I like my freckles. They give some colour to my pasty face, and they hide blemishes like nobody’s business.

12. I love the TV show M*A*S*H*. When I was a kid, it was on after school, and I remember watching it all the time. They are now showing it again on the History channel, and you know what – it really weathers well. I suspect it may be a classic.

13. I was once a part of a church that probably fits the definition of a cult. There were good and bad things about the experience, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.

14. I’m addicted to public radio – CBC Radio 1. I don’t like the idea of having the TV on all day with BabyA at home, so I listen to the radio instead. It helps me feel connected to the world outside my house, and keeps me entertained.

15. Facebook has made me realize that I’m a little bit of a narcissist. I have a tendency to check if other people have commented on my photos, or left me notes, but not do the same for other people. So I’ve decided to try to change that. This is, I think, part of my larger commitment to stay in touch with people I care about this year.

16. I can knit and do cross-stitch, but I haven’t in a long time, partly because I’m easily distracted, and partly because I think I have carpal tunnel syndrome, and they make my wrists hurt and my fingers tingle.

17. Growing up, I was happy to grow up in a household unaffected by divorce. As an adult, I’m happy to be in a divorced family, because both of my parents are happier now, and my dad has a new wife who is kind-hearted and loves us.

18. I love digital cameras. They enable an amateur photographer like me to take a million shots, means I get the one-in-a-million shots too.


19. I believe that if something is meant to happen, it will.

20. The curl in my hair is natural, but the colour isn’t. I’m not totally sure what my natural colour is anymore.

21. I’m lucky enough to be friends with my family – both immediate and extended.

22. I believe in God, but I’m skeptical about organized religions.

23. I love gardening, and I love cooking, but both activities are at their most enjoyable when carried out in conjunction.

24. I’m the opposite of a music snob – I don’t really want to say music whore, so maybe I’ll say a music democrat. I’ll listen to anything, from the Dixie Chicks to the Ramones, to Rufus Wainwright, to (ok, I’m being brave here) the Jonas Brothers. I’ll listen to anything with a good lyrical hook and a catchy tune. I do, however, know the difference between something catchy I can groove to while I’m driving or typing, and really great music that I forces me to stop, listen, and respond. If you want to know who’s always on my Ipod, that would be Sarah McLaughlin, Jann Arden, Frank Sinatra, Michael Bublé, and Frank Sinatra. So apparently, it helps to be Canadian or dead.

25. I’m a nerd in any number of ways. I love science in all its forms, and I hope to pass that love on to my daughter. I’m also a nerd because of my grad degree. Anyone with a grad degree is at least a bit of a nerd, simple as that.

So know you know a little bit more about me. And so do I.

P.S. Here's my GiST tidbit for the day. Today, I am happy for onions. They make almost every dish taste better.

Go be happy, people.

This weekend was quiet - we visited with some of GeekDad's stepfamily on Saturday, and did grocery shopping and movie watching on Sunday. I'm not sure why I specify stepfamily, because really, these people are just family. I totally lucked out on in-laws, I have to tell you. My mother-in-law is wonderful - kind and supportive and very careful of not overstepping her bounds. I find it kind of funny, because she never has overstepped her bounds, but she tells me about how she won't say something because she worries I'll be upset, and I can sense how much she loves both her son and I. And she is married to a generous and kind man, who comes with his own family, both immediate and extended, who have completely adopted us. It really is something to be grateful for.

Which leads me to my next topic - 365 days of Grace in Small Things. This project and network was started by fellow blogger Schmutzie, and it strikes me as a singularly fabulous idea. The purpose of GiST is to "Grace in Small Things exists because we are choosing not to allow the noisiness of life to rob us of the time and energy to be mindful of ourselves and those we love and to recognize the grace that exists in small things," by listing 5 things which make us happy every day. I have always found that remembering the good and happy things in my life helps me to stave off the occasional boughts of self-pity and a family tendency for depression. This just makes it a little more formal, and also, will give me something to regularly post about here.

So, here goes. Things I am happy for today:

1. My family, immediate, extended, and extended-extended. I love my family, and they make my life richer.





2. The colour of the sky on a bright winter day. I'm no fan of winter, but you just don't get that same clear blue in the winter. The sunshine is far preferable to the grey, overcast days, and I wish I could get my bedroom walls to be this colour.



3. My hair. Despite the changes pregnancy has wrought, I love my curly hair. It is easy to do, it recovers well from colouring, and it looks good both short and long.

4. Public radio. I don't like having the TV on constantly with BabyA here, and CBC Radio 1 keeps me entertained throughout the day.

5. Today, this video made me happy. It was posted by Schmutzie on the GiST website. The song is light and pretty, and the video is creative and interesting and happy-provoking.



Now, your turn. Go be happy.

To Santa, or not to Santa?

BabyA is only a few months old this Christmas, so the whole Santa thing isn't too big of a worry. But I know it will be, and GeekDad and I have to figure this out. Here's the background:

I grew up in a religious family. My father was a minister with the an evangelical association, and my church associations as a teen were of the slightly radical variety. I fondly refer to it as the Church of Big Hair. As a child, we did NOT celebrate Santa. Santa was a nice symbol of Christmas, and was never portrayed as bad, he was just a secondary distraction to what Christmas was really about - the birth of Christ. We still did stockings and such, but gifts were always from Mom and Dad, never Santa. I'm not saying that Christmas wasn't magical for us, because it totally was, and still is, my favorite time of year. But Santa just wasn't a part of that.

GeekDad grew up in a household that didn't regularly attend any church, and Santa embodied all that Christmas was about - giving and receiving gifts, celebrating family, etc. Most of the presents came from Mom and various other family members, but the big gift always came from Santa. He used to listen to the radio as it tracked Santa's progress on Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning eagerly awaited, because SANTA HAD VISITED.

Now that we're a family, I'm reaching to figure out how to incorporate both of our traditions. While my faith has significantly changed in both form and function since my youth, its still an essential part of who I am, and something I very much want to pass on to my daughter. And I know GeekDad also wants to pass on the magic that Santa meant to him in his childhood. But how to do this??

One of my biggest reservations regarding the whole Santa thing is the business of finding out that Santa isn't real. While I obviously didn't experience this moment, I've heard enough stories from various friends to know that it can be really traumatic. It feels to me like I would be lying to my daughter, and I really have some reservations about this. Because as an adult I totally get the Santa-as-a-symbol thing, but there is just no explaining that to a kid who just found out that Santa isn't an actual living, breathing person.

In addition, my sister's children haven't been taught the whole Santa thing, and I know if we tell the Santa stories to BabyA, its going to make family Christmases that much more complicated. So.

I'm turning to you, interwebz. How do you deal with combining secular and religious traditions? Do you celebrate more than one faith? Any advice for a fledgling mom on Christmas, Baby Jesus, Santa, etc.?

I Need to Remember This, my A-.

I need to remember this. This is always how I have affixed memories in my mind, by freezing time for a split second, stepping outside of myself, and consciously fixing a time, a place, a feeling, in my head. I have memories of a cafe in Paris, a trattoria in Rome, the first time my husband kissed, the first time we made love. The feel of the air, the smell of the walls or the wind, the ambient light; I can recall these circumstances and settings, and take myself back, not only to the time, but the feel of these memories.

And now, I need to remember my daughter, A-. The size she is now, as she sleeps on my chest, her head tucked into my neck. Her arms are draped down either side of my breasts, and her head is cocked back at that angle that can only be comfortable to a baby, whose bones still remember the weightlessness of the womb. I cannot see her face, only her ear, visible when I tuck my chin to my chest. Her weight, at once solid and slight, weighty and fragile. It is the knowledge that she changes from one moment to the next, as her chest rises and falls with each breath, that makes her seem so ephemeral. Her cheek, chin, hand, are so soft, as I run my fingers over them. I remember the feel of her mouth on my breast, the substance and sustanence I offer her each time she feeds. I bend my cheek to hers, kiss her face, breathe her sweet, familiar smell. The warm glow of the dim lights in our home and the cooler lights from the television combine in a familiar glow, particular to this room. My husband's arm and leg are pressed against mine, and my free hand and his reach for each other but do not clasp. They pass over each other lightly, tracing lines and calluses, bone and flesh, in that manner bred by intimacy. It is just we three here and now.

I am so afraid that I will forget this moment. It happens, I know, because our two grown cats, our first children, laze about this room with us, and I was their when they were born, and have watched them grow. My mind knows that they were once tiny balls of fuzzy hair and clouded eyes, and yet my heart cannot remember that they fit in the palm of my hand. I reach for that memory, knowing that it existed, and yet it eludes me.

I cannot let that happen with A-. And so I sit, after the moment has passed, and commit this memory to writing. To the solid black and white of words. I hope that this writing is more trustworthy than my slippery mind and heart, which can only see the present beauty. I need to remember this.

Doing it Right, This Parenting Thing.

So, I have started BabyA on solid foods, if you can call runny brown rice cereal and apple sauce solid. This despite very firm warnings from our local public health unit that BABIES SHOULD NOT BE STARTED ON SOLID FOOD UNTIL THEY ARE SIX MONTHS OLD. Which I am ignoring.

I actually started letting her taste some of my foods a couple weeks ago, because she seemed so curious about what GeekDad and I were eating. She'd watch us intently, reach out for our food and/or utensils and/or mouths, etc., etc. So I started with the rice cereal, and Baby A loves it. She not only opens her mouth for the spoon, but she almost lunges for it in her enthusiasm. And while I'm sure at least a third of the food ends up on her hands (which she insists on shoving in her mouth simultaneously to the spoon) and face and bib and clothes and chair, she is definitely getting a good portion of the stuff into her belly.

So while these seemed to indicate that I had made the right decision about taking this next step in the child rearing process, part of me was still uneasy. Because I was BREAKING THE RULES. Feeding my child, only five months old, solid foods. This is because while I understand on a intellectual level that every child follows their own development schedule, on a gut level, I am a rule-follower. When I first had BabyA, my post-partum craziness manifested in a low-grade obsession with whether I was doing things right. I kept lists indicating the times I fed her, for how long, how many poops she was having and whether they were small, medium or large, etc. I'm not kidding. I can show you the lists, as they are in a small notebook, which, thankfully, has been put to other, less-OCD tasks now that my PPD crazies have subsided. I am the type of person who reads the instructions BEFORE assembling Ikea furniture, before programming the new electronic device, and before using the new tools. But I realized somewhere around the time BabyA was two months old that what the baby advice books, columns, websites, etc., gave were ONLY suggestions and timelines, and that as much as it went against my nature, this parenting thing was going to require winging it, at least to a certain degree.

So I started feeding BabyA,and then I read through the brochure given to me by the public health nurse about starting babies on solid foods. Backwards, I know, but like I said, I'm working hard at winging it. And the brochure says that I'll know BabyA is ready to start eating solids when she can sit up without too much assistance, shows interest in me eating, anticipates her food, and can swallow the food and not spit it all up. Check, check, check, check. This is all in the same brochure that says no way, no how should babies be eating solid foods before six months. So much for consistency. So it turns out, I'm actually doing ok with the winging it thing. Wow.

Now if only I could be as sanguine about the utterly nasty less-than-fabulous solid-food-poop.