Holding hoofs on lakes of gold.

I think it's anxiety management; My brain obsessively repeats songs in my head over and over. For a month, it was Uptown Girl by Billy Joel and Mommy, Daddy You and I by Talking Heads.(Have I mentioned that already?) Lately, it's been this one from the first Pink Panther movie:



I have trouble falling asleep at night, so I've learned the art of extremely detailed fantasizing. I don't mean smutty stuff. I just mean escapism. I try to picture things in excruciating detail(temperature, wallpaper pattern, etc...)that seem relaxing. This week, it's been a ski chalet vacation a la the afforementioned original Pink Panther. The one with David Niven. I just love the whole ambiance of that movie.

They aren't very exciting fantasies, since they are meant to be relaxing I guess. Once, I imagined having a chat with Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson. We had dinner and I ordered a piece of cake for dessert. We talked about Texas and movies. They asked me if I wanted to continue the evening at an outdoor party with them, but I opted to go back to my hotel room early and have a bath and watch a movie and call it an early night. Yes, I am a boring introvert, even in my imagination.



Sometimes, I just picture weather. A cloudy sky or snow falling. Welcome, ladies and gentlemens, to the inner world of my mind. It's that uninteresting. Well what do you picture? Unicorns on lakes of gold, holding hoofs with striped elephants and chocolate covered leprechauns engaging in ultimate fighting championships? You do? That's pretty awesome actually. Good for you!

That sure as shit, would not get me to sleep at night though.

I remember the the 3 or 4th night, in the hospital, after Leon was born. We had been moved to a shared room with another couple. I was delirious from lack of sleep. Every time I would close my eyes, my brain would think of ridiculous scenarios and fevered plays on words that would crack me up. I would shut my eyes and start laughing and snorting and guffawing. Must have been annoying for the other woman.

My first tendency now, when I close my eyes, is to imagine all the possible horrors that await me as a mother. All the things I have to worry about possibly happening to the little Sasquatch. That's why I need to drown out those thoughts with very very detailed daydreams. It's called being crazy.

L is napping again at the moment. I shall go close my eyes, picture a particularly tasty bowl of ice cream and maybe a rainstorm and see if I can't get a new song in my head. Oh, that was another one that haunted me for a couple of weeks actually: New Song by Howard Jones. Probably started that exact way, by me saying: Gawd! I need a new song in my head! Not such a bad song to have combating catastrophic thinking...



Throw off your mental chains! Oooh, ooh ooh.

Will that ever come back in style I wonder? Dudes wearing big fuzzy sweaters with a belt and puffy pants rolled at the ankle? Actually, it's sort of still going strong with a certain genre of pan flute playing, "gypsy" type Quebec dudes. Swarthy ones with long curly hair who only wear sandals and have Guatemalan girl friends. These are dudes you just don't find in the rest of Canada...unless they are orginally from Quebec in the first place...

Ah crap! I missed the nap opportunity. L is up! Gotta go.

3 months, 1 week and 2 days.

Whew. I thought it was supposed to get easier around this time. HAAA HAAA HAAAA!

He gets cuter, that's for damn sure. Easier? Nuh-uh. I think I have less time now than I did at the start. I've been having troubles with breastfeeding and low supply. My goal is to inch, day by day, as close to the 6 month mark as possible. Every day, when I feed him and then pump to increase the supply and then give that to him to keep up with his demands and gear up for the next round, I think: Seriously? I keep doing this? The answer I usually come up with is: Yes. I keep doing this. At some point, it may just not be feasible any more, but I've reached, what I thought was the end of the line a few times and found a way to push through. We'll see. All I know is these days, I spend a poop of a lot of time thinking about, looking at or giving milk. Milk, milk, milk. I know the international sign for it too : squeeze your hand like you are milking a cow. Yep.

You know what though, it's only 6 months of my life. I have a bottle of Moet and Chandon that I will be cracking the heck open when that little bean gets his first piece of mushy carrot and mom's bazoombs start to ease off the frontlines. I was never much of a drinker, but I intend to chug-a-lug to mark the occasion of getting to the finish line of this breast feeding challenge.

I guess that's also about the time where I'll start dealing with the extra weight. Right now, I'm enjoying the steadfast hold my body is keeping on my post pregnancy weight no matter WHAT or how much I eat. (have you noticed how small easter cream eggs have become?) I've never been able to eat so freely in my life and not have my weight go up. It's sort of kick ass.

Leon is such a charming little buddha. His natural tendency is toward peaceful happiness. He's social and has a sparkling look in his eye of kindness and wisdom. Where is he getting it from?? Not me!

He is certain about his needs though. Hunger and tiredness can turn his humour on a dime. That, he does get from me. I'm actually choosing blogging over napping right now, which is dumb and I will regret it, but hey.

Often, Leon will look at me like he knows waaaay more than I do about everything and like he finds my naivety endearing and amusing. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

He's a little champion and I can't wait for him to talk to hear what he's got to say.

I go now and catch tail end of nap opportunity before I get back on milk duty, not to be confused with rock and roll duty. Shout out to you Kim Mitchell.

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.

It really is like they say: So hard and so amazing at the same time.

Well, well, well. Look at me! Typing and everything. Yoga ball plus wrap carrier, equals hands-free precious minutes. It's like this y'all, wrap the baby up against you, sit on the ball and bounce. Sleepity sleep. Sleepity sleeping is what I should be doing also, but I'm so happy when the sun is out or even if it's cloudy, I'm just so happy that I am still functioning. Night time feels like the long dark time of the soul in comparison. At night, I always wish I'd slept more during the day, but if I follow the advice of "sleep when he sleeps", I would for real be doing nothing but feeding him and sleeping and as an adult human, I need just a tad bit more going on in a day than that. Else, I feel lost to the world...Like an isolated milk machine, floating in space with a baby, off in the farthest regions of the universe.

He is 31 days old now. Holy moly. Anyone who has talked to me has heard how hard it is. Sound complainy? You've probably not done it or forgot how it was, otherwise, you know what I mean.

I frequent a forum for new mothers at babycenter.com and we are all saying the same thing: Oh my god, I love my child but bloody hell!! SO HARD!! And all anyone can say that's past that point is: it will get better.

It has gotten a touch easier. The first 2 weeks are true tests of endurance both mentally and physically. Full, to the limit, grind your sorry ass into the ground tests of endurance.

Waaah, waah waah you say. Maybe. Let me say though, that after your body stops feeling like it will die from lack of sleep and shock and your breasts stop feeling like your baby has razors in his mouth and you stop wondering if you will lose your mind permanently...the body starts to settle in to the routine.

I wake every 2hours from shallow dreams of needing to feed Leon, so that I can go do it for real. It hurts less now and he looks at me and even smiles sometimes when he sees them coming. He shakes his head around and snorts in anticipation like a little pig rooting for truffles.

During the day, he wiggles his arms and legs and tries out all his facial expressions when he's not sleeping. The second he is hungry, WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH. As if he was never fed before, and never will be fed again. I guess he has no memory yet.

Piles of laundry and dust and paper plates are rounded up when we find a burst of energy. Food is of the instant variety only. I've never been less picky about food in my life. Is it edible? Great, put it in my mouth. Chew chew chew and done, moving on.

I no longer notice that my top is covered with breast milk stains, or that I'm wearing the same pajama bottoms 2 days in a row. Gross? You bet, but who cares. Eventually, I will run a brush through my hair again or maybe even glance in a mirror. Not yet.

All the things I wondered about before having a baby...Will it really be like that? Will my house be a mess? Will I find it hard to get a moment to brush my teeth? Yes, yes and yes.

At first, I needed to pivot on the thought that these difficulties would pass and he would get bigger and sleep longer and feed less. Now, I know that one set of problems probably just follows another. However, I think it's starting to sink in that having a child isn't about waiting for it to get easy. It doesn't. It's about getting used to a life of challenges and adaptation. About accepting that this is life now and y'all (by y'all I mean me) best get used to it real fast.

I like the idea of getting the hang of it though. It's for Leon. It's a much better reason than worrying about my princessy need to sleep 9 hours uninterrupted or read an entire book in one sitting or spend hours in the kitchen making food that will be eaten in 20 minutes.

After just coping and surviving each moment as it came for the first 2 weeks, I can start to breathe a little and appreciate what's happening in the moment instead of fearing and dreading it. It's still tough. On the body that is... the mind too. I fear depression setting in, simply from the taxing of my physical and mental reserves, but for now, I'm OK. So is Leon and that's what matters. We are OK.

Ramble, ramble. I'm still only getting 2 hours of sleep at a time and no more than 5 or 6 a day so forgive me if I seem retarded.

As an aside: The snow is falling in huge fluffy clumps outside, as if one big ass feather pillow is being emptied from above. The sky is the same grey/white colour as the ground. Might as well lay back on the couch, with Leon on my stomach, snoring his baby sleep snore and watch those flakes fall. Perhaps I'll close my eyes and do a little of my own snoring if I'm lucky.

Batshit mental (as in, I am feeling...)

Well bloody hell. I haven't managed to birth a human yet, but I have listed some greeting cards on my etsy site. It's about the same isn't it?

Go to my Frauwerks site to see. There's a link on the right side of my blog too.

This song has been in my head for 2 weeks now. It's my current theme song.



So I may end up in the hospital monday, getting induced because we can't wait around forever. Sucks, but a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do.

Inhale...regroup. (strong language to follow)

So, here I am at 41 weeks. It's been an intense week of freaking out. Only today have I been able to rise to the surface long enough to start questioning where all this stress is coming from.

Two words: The medical community. Is that technically 3 words? I let them get to me either way.

I've had a really trouble-free pregnancy and here I am, toward the end, suddenly doubting my ability to have the sort of natural, normal birth I had been planning for. Why? Because by law, the midwives need to consult with the hospital at 41 weeks to make sure everything is "ok" and by 42 weeks? Oh my, all hell will break loose apparently. They will be forced to transfer my file over to the hospital, even if me and Leon are still doing fine. Never mind that a huge amount of first time mothers deliver after the 41st week. Never mind that the calculation of a birth date is a very approximate science and that although 30% of babies are born between the 39-40th week, 20% are born between weeks 37-39 and 40-42. That's a pretty high percentage for doctors to be butting in and telling you to start worrying. Why do they do this?

Even yours truly, a steadfast advocate of non-medicated, natural birth as a first option to all women, was tricked into panicking by this establishment attitude toward pregnancy as a crazy, drooling ape of a thing that must be harnessed, IV'ed and scheduled.

I've hit despair this week, by feeling that as I approached this magic brick wall time, devised by doctors, my visions of the sort of birth I could own and trust my own body with, was disintegrating before my eyes. I would be roped in and stalled up and monitored and robbed of my right to let my body and my son decide when the right time was.

Fuck that.

Seriously, it's only today, after an initial, extended, week long response of abject horror at the thought of my trust in the birth process being ripped out from under my feet by medical bureaucracy, that I snapped to my senses and said to myself: FUCK THAT!

Here is what occurred to me to get this new ball rolling. I realized that I would feel less conflicted if, for example, I started going into labour at the birthing house, with the midwife, but something went wrong, and I had to go to the hospital. That would be nature deciding that intervention was required. That I can accept. Things happen. Things can go wrong.

What I can NOT accept, is someone saying to me, well, it's the magic time that you should force this baby to come out because we say that it's taking too long. These are the same people who told me on my first ultrasound that my baby was a week older than we had calculated with the midwife because of a chart of averages of baby size and weeks. Forget that meant that I somehow got pregnant and then got my period after, according to their calculation.

I'm just saying. Doctors are not all knowing and err on the side of caution, even when that caution makes no sense and may even cause the patient more harm than help. They err on the side of caution to cover their own asses.

Now that's my rant on doctors. Yes, an inherent distrust of the medical community flavours the tea of my opinion on the topic. Will I be grateful if something goes wrong and they are able to intervene and help? Sure. There are some things doctors can be good at. Pathology. OB gyns are first and foremost surgeons, so if you need a c-section, heck, they are a good bet. If you just want to deliver you healthy baby in your own damn time without pressure, are they the best bet? No, not really.

I guess I'm blogging all this because this week, the thought of losing my belief in my right to a natural birth was a truly devastating, crushing, depressing thing. People say that what counts is bringing home a healthy baby. That sure is important. So is bringing home a healthy mom.

I know lots of women go to the hospital and are just fine with it. Lots of women even prefer having a doctor in charge and placing their trust in them. It would make these women feel more secure than taking it on themselves. I don't have any judgment on that. They would probably be scared and scarred even by being forced to go through a natural birth without the sense of security that a hospital and nurses and machines that go ping provide.

There's probably a whole big set of women that go to the hospital because it's just fine to them. No big deal. Feels natural. And that's great too.

But I'm neither of those. I haven't been able to, thus far, articulate how important it is to me to have birth that I feel connected to, that I own, that I experience fully and that I do as a team with my body and my son. It's like climbing Everest: The climb is important to the people going up, otherwise, they'd just take a helicopter.

What can I say? I'm intense about it, that's for sure. Ultimately, yes, I want a healthy child and I will do whatever it takes. I just know, that my own mental health and sense of self is deeply tied to this process. It's a big thing.

So where does that leave me now? Regrouped.

I'm brushing off the paranoia of schedules and dates. I'm brushing off the false impression that 41 weeks is late. I'm brushing off the bullshit idea that I don't have say in how this goes. Most importantly, I'm remembering that birth is a natural process that can be trusted. I can trust my body, I can trust my son's body and fuck anyone who tries to shake that out of me.

Ideally, I'll have the birth I'm hoping for. If I don't, it will be because something has gone wrong that I could not help. It won't be because I hand over my power and will. The first I can live with. The second, I can not.

So Leon, I inhale, I relax and I wait for you. I haven't feared the contractions I've had so far in preparation. I welcome them and look forward to labour starting. When you are ready, although I do hope it's soon, (I'm tired of having cocktail wieners for fingers), you and I will do this thing!

That's where it's at kitty cat.

STILL pregnant, and how!

No, I haven't given birth yet. Please everyone stop asking, I'll let you know as soon as it happens. It's just that it's getting really stressful for me right now as time ticks away. I had my heart set on a natural birth experience with the midwife. I've got 10 more days to accomplish that or else the hospital has to take over. Nothing is wrong at the moment, he's in the right position, good heartbeat etc etc...we're just waiting for labour to start. Each day I feel more pressure of losing time. I assure you that everyone will know promptly when we have news to give. Thanks very much for your concern and caring about the matter. I appreciate your excitement. Right now, I just need to stop feeling pressure about it.

2010. Year of the future...until next year.

So I realized I haven't really summed up 2009. There's a blog I read, Que Sera Sera, and the woman who writes it met a boyfriend a while ago and is now engaged. Since she met him, I've been finding the blog less interesting. She's very happy, but it doesn't always make for good reading. How unfair of me though, isn't it? My blog was much more interesting when I was slogging away in a bank, so bored and unhappy, that I was forced to observe the life going on around me and document it as an escape. Now? Pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnancy, blah, blah, blah right?

From a personal perspective, getting wrapped up in your own life is usually a good sign. Getting wrapped up in the person you love or your child...your life as a family; It's why couples with children are so intolerable often times, to people without. There's a closing in of your world. I don't think it has to mean you become a simpering idiot with nothing left in life to think about except your child's poop or your husband's favourite sandwich. I do think it makes you look around less to find external meaning or entertainment though.

When all I did was work, I had to scour through every tiny event to propel me from moment to moment. Noticing all the details, got me through the day and telling you about it made these bits of life seem more funny or more interesting than they probably were.

Documenting something while it's happening has always made the present more...well, present for me. The more photos I take during a trip, the more I remember and experience it. The act of framing and contextualizing life makes it feel more vivid and memorable. That's what this blog is for. I'd love to be altruistic and think only of the audience and ensure my posts were well-crafted and memorable each time...however, mostly, I'm just telling you how I feel, for real.

Pregnancy has been an overwhelmingly present thing for me the past 9 months. Waiting at the end of it like this is a complex mix of impatience, excitement, fear and a great deal of the ineffable.

Behind it though, still remains my individual self. Most would agree that one of the great challenges of parenting is embracing the all encompassing love and concern and focus you have on your children while retaining your sense of self and your relationship with your partner, family and friends. Your former self is a wire from the past, stretching through the present, holding you to yourself. Sometimes, people stretch it too far or maybe find it a nuisance and cut it. I won't presume to judge one way or the other. People do this even without families or children. We all know someone who has changed in way that is so distanced from how you knew them, that they might as well be a different person all together.

In a way, that even sounds appealing. There are parts of me that I would love to rise above and leave behind in the ashes. Parts that maybe some of the people I know, would find to be the main reason they relate to me.

Other parts, I'm sure, will tenaciously endure. I hope those are the parts that allow you and I to continue to relate, despite changes in circumstance between either of us.

Right now, the stretch of the near future seems like such unknown territory. It's hard to envision myself (as I currently know myself) in this future. Perhaps it will come and be as mysterious as it seems. On the other hand, maybe it will come and seem as natural as today or yesterday.

I really haven't a clue. I do intend to continue documenting it and cloistered as it may seem, I hope you continue enjoying reading about it and sharing it with me.

So 2009? Not a whole lot to list. Marriage and pregnancy. Two really big things that filled the year up like an infinitely, inflating balloon. That's an accurate description of how I physically feel right now too. Even trying to think of other things, that may have occurred this year, makes my brain jump around erratically like I'm asking it to find a pin I dropped in the grass when all my brain wants to do is go running across the field, into the horizon to see what's up ahead.

So good-bye 2009. You were eventful and flew by as much as crawled past at times. Certainly, your legacy moves me forward into 2010. Which, by the way, sounds like the most ridiculously made-up year ever. 2010? It's a joke year of science fiction movies. Are we really there? I guess we are. For at least another year, anyway. So let's see what happens. Let's see how it all turns out.

Thanks to Que Sera Sera, though, I discovered this blog today which is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. Check this out here. (myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com)

38 Weeks, 5 days...

Well Happy New Year then people.

I realized I haven't really given the full-on, straight up, no effing around view of my state. I included a skin version also because I find it doesn't really register until I see myself without a shirt on and then I say: Holy mother crapper! With clothes on, it's easy to sort of abstract the bump and just think it's a pillow.



I'm starting to feel the contractions and discomfort that are preparing me for the zero hour. So far: Bearable. So long as you relax and can move around and get in the right position. Although to say I was feeling a little grumpy might be a severe understatement. T pointed out that most of my sentances today contain a high ratio of swear words.

On a completely other topic, (thank christ, monsterteeth! You are getting hell boring!) a few people now, have mentioned not being able to leave a comment without having a blogger ID. Just to let y'all know, you can. Just select anonymous instead of any of the other options. Comments are good! They let me know you are out there.

I also wanted to renew the offer that if you would like to be updated by email, each time I post, let me know, and I can add you. That way, you don't have to check to see if it's updated. My new posts will be sent to you as soon as I publish.

Conversely, if you are on that list already and want to be removed, don't be shy to say so. Ye are not beholden to me, I do declare!

Finally, more proof that I have the cutest kitty cat in the universe.

Now excuse me, while I go hang off of the exercise ball to relieve the pressure of a human being trying to make his way very slowly through my pelvis.

Waiting and remembering

View of frozen river from our patio door.


It looks like we are living on arctic tundra today. Minus 28 Celsius with the wind.

Ah yes. Post-christmas melancholy. I always feel the let down. December is such a warm time of year, even with all the annoying xmas commercials and how many times can you hear Santa Claus is Coming to Town before you want to stab yourself in the ears, but...it's such a nice build-up to a fun holiday. And then. January. Winter. Lights come down, smiles on people's faces turn upside down. Decorations get packed up and ho ho ho turns to ho hum blech.

Wait a sec though monsterteeth, don't you have something coming up to make January a little more interesting? Well, yes I do actually. I haven't forgotten, believe me. I am officially in a position to give birth at any time now. Who knows when. I feel it becoming more imminent though. It's like waiting for a kettle to boil. Waiting for a big, fat, moody kettle to boil. And while you're waiting, the kettle makes you feel like you have to pee and poop a lot and get on all fours because the kettle is making your back hurt and somehow, the kettle also makes you want to become hysterical like a maniac out of the blue and the tiniest emotion feels a million times more significant as you wait for the kettle to decide when it's going to freakin' boil.

So who's the kettle? Is the baby the kettle or are you the kettle, you ask? Well, right now, we're all sort of in it together. There is a full moon on dec 31st. Perhaps that will be the boiling point. All this talk of boiling is making we want a cup of tea. Oh, and to give birth. Have I mentioned I feel ready?

T has put on a cd of pipe organ music that makes me feel like I should be rubbing lemon oil in church pews or polishing the stations of the cross. I'm trying to decide when to strip the tree of it's jewelry and cast it from our home. That's the brutal part of having a real tree. I have half a mind to just keep it up all winter. That's how I think of it anyway, a tree to celebrate winter. When I cast my eye out on the "arctic" landscape and then balance it with a glance at the decorated tree, it reminds me of the beauty of winter. Winter is beautiful, it's just that it triggers such a strong animal instinct of relenting and hibernating. Being sort of couch bound, doesn't help, I would imagine, to fight the hibernation instinct. I would really dig being able to head out for some skating or a winter walk...I'm not complaining though, not really. It's pretty cozy and relaxed in here and my lack of mobility is for a good cause.

I have been thinking of California a lot though. For some reason, those 4 months stand out in my memory more vividly than anything else. Sometimes, a flood of those memories will come in waves for a few days. The same goes for T. We have intricate sight, sound and especially smell memories of so much from that time: The decaying orange smell from the orange farm next to our building, the smell of the cherry blossom trees in Japantown and the cocktail of sake and sparkling fruit juice we used to get at our favourite sushi place Kazoo, the electronic ding of the light rail, the smell of the dishwasher in our apartment when it was done running, the chlorine of the outdoor hot tub, the disinfectant in the elevators, the rental car's new car smell, the cold morning air being warmed by the mid morning sun smell while running on the nature trail...I could go on and on and on. What lucky people we were to live that experience. To be honest, I still feel pretty lucky to be living my current life also. A gal doesn't need to be in California to gather a cache of good memories. Still, it was a particularly strong impacting experience.

I don't think my blog from that time did the best job of reflecting it. I focused too much on the creative struggle I was having. That's often the case with me though. I seem to experience the past more vividly than the present. I could probably write a better blog about it now.

Well, I've tried to remedy that with the past 9 months of this experience. We'll see what it all seems like when I look back on it in a few months from now. It's hard to actually believe I will really have a son by then; A real live human being! Right now it's seems purely speculative. Winter will pass though, spring will come, the ground will thaw and plants will grow and life goes on, even as we speak.

Happy holidays and junk and stuff

Well Happy Holidays lovely people. It's Christmas evening and I am full of Tofurky. An episode of Northern Exposure from my new dvd (gift) is playing and the cat is sleeping on the baby changing table because he can. Actually, he quite likes all the baby items. He was sleeping in the car seat for a few weeks, until we installed it. He got a taste for being carried around when he was a kitten so we decided to test out the baby sling on him, to get a feel for it. He loves it. Freaky little furball.



I'm nearly 38 weeks now. I am so close to giving birth it's wacky. All is go. Retro rockets, activated. And so on. It's a trippy ride, these last few weeks. Surreal at turns. Thanks again to hormones (which, if you read in my blog archives, you will note that I curse these same hormones monthly with all my might!), they have lulled me into a feeling that all is cool. And why shouldn't it be really? I had slight hitch in sanity lately when I couldn't get the "I want a hippopotamus for christmas "song out of my head. It was assaulting my brain, there's no other way to say it. I would shout f--- off out loud to silence the song going round and round and round, but it would just laugh and keep on trucking through my skull. "No crocodile or rhinoceroses, all I want for christmas, is hippopotamuses..." NOOOO!!!!!!

It lasted about 2 days. I'm better now.

Crazy, man, crazy.

We spent this Christmas as just the two of us. It was relaxed and simple and really nice. The midwife asked us recently if we felt ready to be parents. We told her we were as ready as people, who had no idea what to expect, could be. She told us it can be a big change in the routine of young people. We both laughed and explained how we already live like retired hermits.

I love staying home. I need to go out maybe once every 2 months and that's pretty much it. I don't go to parties, I hardly ever go out with friends, I don't even go to movies anymore. What for, when I can rent and watch from the comfort of my home without having to hiss to the moron 2 seats down from me that if they don't turn off their cell phone, I will follow them home and strangle them with piano wire...

On Christmas eve, we had a skype date with my parents and sister where we opened our secret santa gifts. I got a big sharp knife and a knife sharpener to keep it that way. Makes me feel like a big man...with a knife. A big pregnant man with a big sharp knife. Er...well, it makes me feel like onions are really easy to cut at the very least. It was fun and modern and less Bladerunner than Skype felt the first few times I tried it.

This morning, T and I opened our gifts to each other. We did a good job! We even got the kitty cat some cat grass as a present, since we wouldn't let him eat our poinsettia. His former vexation has turned to satisfaction as a result.



We went for a wee drive in the country and then lounged at home, reading our new books. We feasted on Tofurky, as is our wont and finished with a decadent chocolate cheesecake, for which my stomach is currently debating whether or not it's going to punish me.

It's already nearly bedtime. I can't say I mind. Laying down is so sweet. Sleeping is so awesome. Getting up to pee every two hours is less awesome but falling back asleep again is redeeming.

I dig life right now. I hope you do too. Merry holidays to all.

Solstice+Jesus+Arctic Magic Man= Ridiculous but fun.

Have I been knitting? Why yes, I have actually. I'm pretty much stuck to the couch these days. All of a sudden I'm hella pregnant. I'm at 36 weeks. Around 35 I blew up. Figuratively of course...

The tree is up and I'm pleased about that. As if by the power of Greyskull, it snowed for the first time the evening I put it up. For a while there, it was looking like a rainy, poopy green Christmas. All that's changed thankfully. This morning, I looked out the window and overnight, the river had frozen into a layer of ice shards. No turning back now.



So back to the knitting. I've managed another baby sweater, a baby hat, mittens for me and T, T's scarf, a hat to match my scarf, smurf/elf slippers for T and fat pompom slippers for me. You know, I always thought it was spelled pom-pom. but apparently it's pompon.







So yeah. Knitting.

We completely reorganized our place AGAIN and this time, I think it will stick. I keep snooping around looking for things to organize and clean instead of just saying: Okay, enough! I guess it's just the feeling that soon, there will be no time to do any of it and entropy will not be held at bay.
The unending fight with chaos will be on hold. It's my last chance to wrangle some organization in my realm before I am overcome with feeding and pooping a baby and walking around in a sleepless zombie-like state. (Read following outloud with a monster truck commercial voice)"LIVE, One month only!!! Melissa VS Chaos: The Last Gasp. It's a smackdown, no holds barred piledrivin' GRUDGE MATCH! Watch them duke it out until only one is staaaandinggggg."

T is acting like my remote control cleaning machine for the things I can't do on my own. Lucky him...

I'm winding down though. Definitely finding it trickier to do pretty much everything. What I need is lots of good movies and good sandwiches and a few more weeks of soaking up the non-parental life. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited as a bear pooping in the woods (which is very exciting to bears. They like it a lot.). I am really looking forward to meeting Leon. I ain't no fool though. I know this last bit of time is to be appreciated and I'm trying to do that.

Luckily, 'tis the season to be jolly. I am. I hope you are too. Let's rock this pagan celebration that somehow turned into a birthday party for a jewish dude from Bethlehem, that somehow has something to do with a dude from the northpole and toys and chocolate. Pick the part of the story you like and go with it. As long as you rock it full-on. Happy holidays!

Ready or not, it's nearly time to rock.

Eyuch. I made the worst pancakes this morning. I've been successfully making a rice flour pancake for a while and today I made it, for the first time, with homemade rice flour. I don't know if that was the problem or, more likely, that I forgot to put the baking powder in until they were already mixed. Either way, I had to make them like scrambled eggs. They wouldn't hold together so I had to just keep scrambling them and pressing them until they cooked into blob shaped, slabs of unrisen batter. The taste is still okay but the texture...leaves something to be desired.

I would have just dumped it and made more, but it was the last of my baking powder. In olden times, (ie a year ago) I could have hopped on the bike and trekked to the grocery store. Now, just getting up off the couch requires a helping hand from T. I try to use inertia to get up, whereby I swing my upper body back and forth a couple times in the hopes that it will eventually propel me forward enough to be able to stand, but it doesn't work anymore. Even just rolling over in bed requires that face that participants in the Strongest Man in the Universe make when they are trying to pull a truck with their teeth. Why are the men who win that always named Magnus?


Which leads me to my next point: I am going to have a baby in a matter of weeks (anywhere from 3-6 weeks) and it is completely, utterly, astoundingly blowing my mind. It is hitting me in a way where I can see it coming like a tidal wave waaaay out in the sea. I'm standing on the shore and I can see it's power and understand that is going to plow into me, knock me ass over tea kettle, as my Grandmother says, immerse me and pull me back out into the wide open sea.

A detached part of me is watching it coming and thinking: "Wow, that's big, really powerful and big. That wave is going to change my life." Yet, even though I see how massively things are about to change, my brain just can't fully comprehend it, having never been hit by a tidal wave before. My brain is trying really hard to process it, but it's more or less at a loss.

Luckily, I'm a big fan of the sea. I'm rooted to the shore, waiting for the wave. There's no running in the opposite direction, nor do I feel the urge to. But my whole psyche is bracing itself, trying to see if I have the courage to dive headfirst into the wave as it comes.

Having children seems so common place when you see it around. People have kids, millions of them everyday, all over, throughout time. Should be no biggy right? Well, millions of people die and always have and everyone will, but it doesn't make it any easier to accept or understand or process when it happens to your world. Birth, death, life itself: The most normal things in that they happen to everyone without exception, yet understanding any of them?...

I don't know. It really makes a gal stop and think. A whole live human being is the result of this endeavour. One that will rely on T and I to look after it and be it's guardians for the rest of all of our lives. For a while, it felt like the being pregnant part was going to go on endlessly. But it ain't. Soon, it will be a whole new scene.

I am stoked. Scared. Fascinated and mystified. Getting ready to rock. And so it shall be.

Navel gazing or: How I learned to be hermit and torture everyone with a blog about it.

Ah, the melancholy of a birthday over and done with... Luckily, being born in November means I have a good pace of things to look forward to each month, starting in August.
End of August: Look forward to the beginning of fall.
End of September: Look forward to Halloween
End of October:Look forward to birthday
End of November: Look forward to Christmas
End of December: (This year) look forward to birth of child and a new year.
End of January....uh, well normally, that's when the year starts to feel sort of blah.

This year, the birthday was low key and enjoyable. I started with 2 lovely looking presents to open from T and a card from my parents.





Then, a rather fantastic breakfast, if I do say so myself.

That's toasted almonds and walnuts with fresh squeezed pink grapefruit juice and homemade pumpkin spice biscuits with almond butter.

Then I watched T put together a new dresser we bought to replace the Ikea Aneboda dresser that I advise you never buy as it stinks like the most toxic plastic in the world and the stench will not part. Happily, they took it back at Ikea, even though I didn't have the receipt. They tried to psych me out beforehand, but I hung tough and called their bluff.

Then I had a nap. Then we went to Montreal and had a fantastic vegan lunch at Aux Vivres, my favouritiest of restaurants. Sure favouritiest is word. You didn't know?

So yeah, blah blah.

My cat just went on top of the dresser, opened the drawer to my jewelry box and found the toy mouse I bought for him and hid there, then somehow, managed to get it out without taking anything else out.

Uh, am I describing what my cat is doing to you? Yeah....

I went back and read some old posts on my blog. I suggest you do the same. This thing was waaaay more interesting when I actually left the house and encountered things in the world. It wasn't all: here's what I had for breakfast, and here's what my cat did.

You are lucky I haven't started talking about things that happen in the bathroom! T is not as lucky.

Everytime you read the word "birthday", have a drink.

Ah yes, a little birthday insomnia. Why not blog early. Like, 5am early.

I don't have many birthday traditions. I do enjoy my birthday, a lot. Mainly because it's a day where I feel justified in being kind to myself. I guess everyday would feel like that ideally, but hey. One day a year is better than none day a year.

A couple days before my birthday, I usually make a loose plan based on how I feel. The only thing that I for sure do and have done since the song was released when I was 14, is listen to Birthday by the Sugarcubes. I'm sure I've blogged it before, since it is the only real tradition I have.

Bjork was so amazing to me back then. A wierd little Icelandic pixie with a crazy voice and the best clothes ever. She forever implanted in me a love for a white dress with opaque silver leggings.



One thing I almost never want to do is have a party on my birthday. Or even go out for a little dinner with family and friends. The day before or after is nice, but for some reason, I like to reserve my birthday as a introverted, energy inward sort of day. Oh wait, that's pretty much what I want to do everyday. Har de har. Well, I'm better at it on November 17th.

I'm tired and hoping to get a little more sleep in before the whole day begins. I've got some presents from T to open and everything! I love presents. Not the opening of them or the getting gifts so much as the way they look. I acknowledged to myself in Ikea last night that I have a bit of a wrapping paper fetish. I love the way a wrapped up package looks. My favourite part of Christmas presents is just looking at them all wrapped under the tree. I'm actually quite uncomfortable opening gifts or receiving them. I much prefer giving them. However, I've got a couple gifts to open today and I'm not complaining. It is fun to unwrap a surprise just for you.

So Happy birthday to me. My last one as a not quite yet a mom. How crazy life is.

36 ladies and gentles. Thirty. Six.

Number one costume award of the universe goes to...

Halloween is over, but major props to my cousin-in-law who sent these photos of her and my cousin's son dressed up as Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys for Halloween. Hands down, best kids costume ever. He even had a little shopping cart to push around like Bubbles.


Brings to mind my favourite Trailer Park Boys episode: Conky. Please enjoy the scene below, where Ricky, after accidentally gluing a rag and model truck to his hand and nose with contact cement, fishes out Bubbles' puppet Conky from a swamp (where he was thrown years ago due to Conky's evil ways), because it's the only way to get him to go to the hospital for his abscessed tooth. Bubbles, Ricky and Julian find themselves with some explaining to do at the hospital. Further complicating things, is the fact that Conky is a beligerent puppet who has a mind of his own and ends up pushing both Ricky and Julian to extreme measures.

Warning: Profuse use of the word fuck in this delightful clip.



I recommend checking out the full episode here if you dig.

If you're happy and you know it, grunt and stand!

For lunch, I made a gigantic bowl of spaghetti and tomato sauce with lentils. We had that for dinner last night and there wasn't enough to have seconds, even though I wanted MORE!!! Well, there was enough, but we save all leftovers for T to have for lunch so he doesn't have to buy lunch. So to satisfy my (still present after sleeping on it) need for more spaghetti, I had to make a new batch today at lunch.

Technically, the -T gets the leftovers deal- is fair. Since I'm at home, I can make my own damn lunch. I have the leisure and time to do so. In practice though, it's annoying. I love leftovers! They are so easy. This begs the obvious question: Why don't you make more dinner so that there are enough leftovers for both of you? Why indeed. I've been trying for years to get the hang of that. Even when I think I am making an army platoon worth of food, we plate it and it's barely enough for 3 servings. Plate it? Who am I? Martha Stewart? Darling, I've plated your toast for you, tis ready for you to delight in. It's like Moe from the Simpsons saying to Homer "OOh Garage. You call it a garage. Well la dee dah." Homer says: "Well, what do you call it?"
Moe says: " A car hole."


So anyway, for lunch today, I filled a big cereal bowl to the top with spaghetti and place your bets on me eating it all ladies and gentlemens.

...

It's later now.

I ate it all.

Lordy lordy, I am full. I avenged the spaghetti craving, that much is accomplished. Now, I wonder if half a bowl might have also done the trick. Or maybe not drinking the huge, cold glass of water right after...I feel like a water balloon, that also has a lot of spaghetti in it. Nice imagery huh?

The moral of this story is...is...hmm. I'm stumped. There is no morality here I guess. It's a moral-less meal jungle. Only the strong survive! Only the - able to make enough for a proper amount of leftovers so they don't have to make it twice and then eat too much the second time around- will rule the jungle!

Forget the fact that we should be making EXTRA extras so we can have leftovers AND double that to freeze, for when we have a 2 week old child and 2 minutes of sleep and find ourselves eating handfuls of flour or mustard with a spoon like pudding because we are too exhausted and incoherent to make a real meal.

So much to learn, so much to learn.

I"m going to get one more hair cut before the next long long while, tomorrow. I figured I'd fit one last attempt at looking slightly kempt before the whole new baby, can't get out of my pajamas thing. Even now, I can't be bothered to wear make-up most of the time anymore, or small things like putting earrings in. Often, while getting dressed, I think, Gah, do I really have to put on a bra??

I'm sort of nervous about going to get my hair done, because it's a train ride, then a short metro ride, involving stairs, then a 5 minute walk. Lately, just walking to the mailbox, 2 minutes away, requires an hour of recovery after. However. it's my birthday Tuesday. I feel like I should make one last attempt, at the age of 35, to at least have half-decent hair for the commencement of my 36th year. Aye carumba. 36. That's a number that is not kidding around. 36 ain't playin'.

Oh whatever, who cares. 36, schmirty schmix. I probably don't need the stupid dumb haircut either. What's it matter in the grand scheme of things ? Life, the universe and leftovers...

Look at that. You can read, as it's happening, one of my rapid mood changes of late. I turn super sour and annoyed about something mid-sentence. Something that started off being fine. I also drop everything, I grunt from the effort of trying go from sitting to standing, I cry for no reason whatsoever, and I eat too much spaghetti.

Parts of pregnancy are amusing and fun and parts are gritty and not at all pretty. I guess most of the those latter parts seem to happen in the last 2 months. 10 weeks left, possibly 7. Egads, I say. Tally ho and hup hup as it were.

Look, I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. If I lean too far back on the couch, the baby starts pressing into some major artery that leads to my heart and brain and things start to go all woozy.

By the way, we've been sort of quiet about it, but it's decided so dig it or shut it. He shall be named: Leon.

On that note.