Mercenary acts

Well, life certainly does not adhere to any rules you might want to apply. Yesterday, I gave away my cat. If you know me you know how much I loved my cat. I happen to think he was especially fantastical. However, he was also very jealous of the attention the new baby required. He would run and leap and meow and meow and MEOW all day, all night. He would stalk the baby's moving arms and legs, he would knock things from high places and he would wake the baby up CONSTANTLY!

Poor kitty. He was so spoiled by me and couldn't adjust to the change. A friend of T's offered to adopt him. So now he is with a family with 2 daughters in a house. It was heartbreaking for me. A really tough decision. I never, ever, ever thought I would give him away. In fact, while pregnant, I would lay awake sleepless for hours, worrying that the baby might be allergic to him and then what would we do? I even considered having to have a child on constant allergy pills or just vacuuming a lot rather than giving the cat away should that occur. That all changed drastically the second Leon was born. Poor kitty was no longer number 1 and never would have been again.

I hesitated to get a new cat after Hoovy, my old cat who passed on a few years ago after a long life. It took me years to get over that. Now, here I am, mourning another cat, even though he is still alive. The best I can hope is that he will be happy and well-loved in his new home. They are so lucky to get such a great cat.

And as for us, we can concentrate fully on our son without worrying about him being clawed by a cat or waken 10 times a day from his very precious and highly appreciated naps....however...still very sad.

Faut l'accepter, is what I am repeating to myself. Translation : gotta suck it up.
Makes me feel so mercenary. I keep having the inclination to call the new family and tell them all the little things they must do: litter once a day, no milk!!, likes little mice toys, rub his face like a mother cat cleaning her kittens, let him greet you in the morning by head butting you...I basically want to still take care of him. Guilt, you know. I cast him from his home. He has a new one, but maybe he won't like it.

And so on.

It's the whole grieving process all over again. No more pets. Never ever ever erver nerver. I can't even wrap this post up without it sounding like a friggin eulogy.

Sigh. Sorry Trilby.

Sasquatch, we know your legend's real.

L is accidentally watching his first hockey game. Pittsburgh VS Ottawa. We are the devil for allowing his precious brain to be sullied by the opiate of the masses. It just caught his eye and kept him happy for a bit, whereas seconds before, he had been wailing heart breakingly over a big poop he was trying to do.

We discovered a trick last night of turning on the radio, right next to his head. It helped him skip the pissy bit he usually does for a half hour before going back to sleep after each nursing session. The voices make him forget he's uncomfortable or overtired or enraged about the price of beer of whatever mysterious things make him grunt and turn his head back and forth and whimper and cry. Thank-you radio Netherlands! For boring our son to sleep! And thank you, inventor of earplugs, for allowing the BBC world service to play all night without keeping me up.

When we are lucky, he will sleep for 4 hours straight during the first sleep segment of the night. After that, it's touch and go from hour to hour. I woke up this morning pretty groggy to the sound of him straining to get out of his swaddling blanket. The sun was shining in the window and he was smiling like crazy when I got his arms free. He talked and cooed to himself and the Miro print on the wall (which he's had good conversations with since he was a newborn). I could have just plopped my earplugs back in and got another little bit of sleep, but it was hard to turn away from Mr. Bright Eyes and his wiggling feet and orchestra conductor arms.

L is teething, waaaay to early for my taste. He's also decided that crawling is beneath him and he'd prefer to just skip straight to walking. Nevermind that he can't even sit up yet or fully support his own head. He gets so mad if we don't hold him up so he can practice standing.

I set up a little play station for him to lay on his back and bat at toys but, he demanded that I hold him so he could walk around it instead. Little bean head! His head is like a perfect little navy bean...attached to sausage arms and meaty little hands and feet. Actually his feet are huge. Sasquatch is my other nickname for him. This means the song of the same name by Tenacious D is always in my head.



On that note, Sasquatch has decided that I've had enough free time.

Aw heck, one last video from the D since we're talking about awesomeness. I've got a real Jack Black thing lately it would seem....

Where does the wiener begin and the hand end?

Usually, I'm sleeping at this hour, while T takes Leon out of the bedroom to give me a bit of a rest after a night of nursing, nursing, nursing. But I've started having trouble getting back to sleep after the 5am feeding and then, by the time I do start to nod off, it's the 7am feeding. So this morning I just said: Tears in a bucket mutha fuckit, and got up.

I'm tired, but it gives me some time to eat blue and pink egg salad and have some hot tea for a change. T usually makes my tea while I'm nursing so by the time I can drink it, it's cold.

It's been a real trip so far. Recently, and quite suddenly, the wee monsieur has started to do all sorts of cool things like smile and laugh and flirt and discover his hands and feet. He tries to stand and sit up and walk. He holds toys, sort of and tries to fit both his fists in his mouth at once.

When I used to show him a story book he would gaze at the ceiling and "act" bored. Now he stares at the pages and giggles and tries to talk and pumps his chubby little legs up and down in excitement. The first time he did this, he was so excited by the drawing of the baby in the book, I thought his head was going to pop off his neck to release steam. He was ecstatically interested. These are all very, very rewarding events. People with children predicted that it would be so, around 3 months. Twas not a lie.

It's actually only been 2 and half months. Truthfully, it feels like 40 years in a way. I vaguely remember bits and pieces of the first couple of weeks. I remember eating whatever was placed in front of me without question (a lot of cookies and pizza on paper plates). I remember the strange, feeling that I was the same person as the baby. Like, when I closed my eyes, I felt like I was him. When I moved my arm, it felt like his arm. Lack of sleep the first few weeks does some very interesting things to the state of sanity.

I also remember being handed a tofu wiener in a bun and biting it and being freaked out because I couldn't tell where my hand ended and the wiener began...

It's so hard to remember taking care of L during those times. It was a blur of sleep and nursing. I guess that's why people say, eventually, you forget all the trouble and start thinking about having another one. Eventually, you can't remember the difficulty, even if you try real hard. You only see a charming, squirming, giggling chubby legged prince in front of you and think it's all good. This is why I have written myself a note saying: "Forget it lady, trust me, one is enough! Sincerely, your former self."

Another thing, and one that I don't have to write a note to remember, is to return the favours and pay back the karmic debt for all the people who offered help - Wildly appreciated help. Whether it was a card with some dollars to buy one of the millions of things you don't think you'll need but do, or whether it was coming over and bringing food or doing our dishes or playing with our pissed off cat or just calling and letting us lament or freak out or even bore you to death with the details of L's poo and burps...man, all soooo deeply appreciated.

I'm talking like it's all wrapped up and smooth sailing from here on in eh? Ha-hah, ha ha. Geez, I'm still in a daze most of the time. My hormones make me want to fight bears with my bare hands,(or just snap at my husband, in the absence of threatening bears) and, I'm pretty sure I will never have time to achieve anything that can't be done in a half hour chunk, ever again, for the rest of eternity...or at least till L starts school.

Pile on to that, the fact that we are moving 700km in less than 2 months. Wowzers. Will I be throwing stuff out so I don't have to move it? You friggin bet I will. I will be purging with no mercy; With extreme prejudice. (Have you ever noticed how every once in a while I will throw in a semi colon, sort of sheepishly. I haven't a clue how to use one properly. Sometimes, I feel I need punctuation that just isn't covered by the comma or period or colon, so I figure, heck, maybe this is one of those times to use a damn semi colon. I've read about the proper usage a million trillion times, but I don't think I've ever written a sentence that clearly fit in the demonstrated examples of semi colonoscopy. But I digress...) What was I saying? Oh yeah, throw stuff out. Lighten the load. Take a load off Annie, etc. Gonna chuck so much stuff and never look back (or ever reacquire it either).

My little chunk of time is closing in this morning. Since the weather has improved, we have been giddily taking stroller walks with L. The other day, T took L for a walk and I stayed at home to have some "me" time and I was so excited I didn't know where to begin: vacuum? dishes? pack? clean the bathroom? Oh the sweet sweet luxury of me time. Yeah, yeah I know. I should have eaten a chocolate bar, had a shower and then slept, but I'm stubborn that way. Anyway, a clean house is a greater reward than chocolate for me any day. That's another thing I remember, easily, because it's still happening: Utter chaos in the house. Entropy, I shake my fist at you second law of thermodynamics!

So I close this entry and prepare to do some dishes in the time I have left. Then a stroller walk in the early morning rain (sing it like Gordon!) and hopefully, a nap this afternoon. The days fly by when they are little chunks of time like this and yet, time stretches on endlessly when night is as day...a 24 hour, perpetual motion machine (although entropy forbids this) of nursing, sleeping, eating, smiling and hugging and singing Edelweiss and O Tannebaum (what can I say, they were the first songs I could think of to sing to L. It was right after Christmas and I had just watched Sound of Music when he was born!)

One small aside before I go: (I must admit that I have over used the full on colon in this entry. That's the real name for it by the way: Full on Colon. Ah! I just used it again!!!)Will I ever stop looking like a "for real" zombie? With the dark circles and sallow puffy skin and glazed over eyes? Entropy, you have claimed my body as well? You are an unforgiving law of thermodynamics!

Exit pig number one

I'm culling excellent children's video for Leon. I don't want him to learn about octagons any other way than through Jack Black



And, if he could only hear one version of the Three Little Pigs, let it be via Christopher Walken.