Thursday, September 28, 2006

For Kathleen


A picture of me because she has slow slow dial up and so cannot look at flickr close up or get photos via email (I had to say that so that y'all wouldn't think I was just a vain chick posting pics of myself for no reason). I took this a couple of days ago messing around with the camera. I was totally impressed with my eyebrows, which I had just had threaded the week before. It was really nifty and didn't hurt much. Wow the women who do threading are talented. That was too much information I suppose (about the eyebrows), but I'll let it stand.

Baby belly blues.

I've been feeling pretty low on energy the past couple of days and can't quite shake a teeny bit of blah in the back of my brain. I'm wondering if its just the change in season. I usually feel pretty pumped in the fall, but this fall I'm not feeling the love. Also, I'm starting to hate my baby belly a bit. Now y'all, I've always had some belly, even when I was a skinny thing in my teens, but not like this. I saw a picture of my belly yesterday from when we took Nate to the park and yikes! For starters, it begins way up farther than it ever did, and it pokes out. This is not attractive at all. Hrrrrmmph. Partly I think I've not been too bothered by it until now cause my damn boobs were so big from the breastfeeding that it kind of balanced me out a bit and made my belly look more proportional. Now that they are getting smaller, I'm noticing. I'm not sure now whether I really want them as gone as I thought I did.

Anyway, enough about my bad body image crap (I'm stuck with my belly and the best thing I can do is get off my ass and start getting fit--It may not help my belly but I bet it will make me feel better). I just need to suck it up (ha ha) and get on with it.

I'm thinking the reality of going back to work is setting in. I'm starting to feel like time is short and I need to squeeze all the family time out of the next couple of months that I can. This makes me want to do all kinds of stuff with the kid and Justin, which makes me try to plan everything, which makes me a bit stressy, which makes me all cranky, which makes me not want to do stuff. See the evil cycle here?

As a very good friend of mine once said "snap the fuck out of it!"

And I think I already have.

Thanks y'all.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Shiny happy sunny!

It's a lovely day in Vancouver, sunny with a temperature in the high teens and a lovely cool breeze (the kind of day I will dream about in the dreary, grey, rainy, damp, dark days to come). Nate and Snoopy and I went to the park and Nate had a swing. He loves them y'all and smiles and giggles the whole time. Also, he likes to lean his head way back and look at the sky as he swings. He looked so happy I wanted to cry.

The weaning is going well, although big boob is having a bit of a fit and refuses to take the hint that we no longer require it's services. Nate is gobbling up bottles like they are going out of style, and hardly seems to miss the boob (this makes me a bit sad, cause I miss breastfeeding a little).

Did I mention that my kid now weighs 19.5 lbs? He has almost outgrown his car seat (we are currently trying to find a new one). Tomorrow he will be 7 mos old. He still hasn't been on the outside as long as he was on the inside, but we are getting pretty close. He also has the crawling thing down now and is really really fast. We seriously need to do the babyproofing thing asap.

Mmmmmm, I've got chicken and rosemary stew in the crockpot and it is starting to smell pretty darn good. I'm loving my crockpot and am looking forward to a winter of quick and easy meals. We have had nothing but success so far with the crockpot, and even though you still can't make cookies in them, they are pretty good.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Most Upsetting

I got kinda hooked (like a little bit pregnant) on Grey's Anatomy this summer because there was frack all to watch on TV. I had got to the point where I thought I had viewed all the episodes and was just waiting for the season premiere tonight (Justin was taping it cause we were having people over) with much anticipation. So it turns out that the damn episode I thought was the season finale last season was actually the second last episode of the season. So I've been waiting for the wrong damn episode and I missed all the juicy stuff that happened in the finale. Cheated by my own stupidity y'all. I can't believe it.

A new thing for the list of what annoys me:

Expired baby products on supermarket shelves. I've found expired formula (both concentrate and powder), expired baby cereal and expired baby food on the shelves of four different grocery/drug stores. The first time I actually got the stuff home before I noticed the date -- now I always look and try to take the products to the counter when I find them. See, if the stuff was for us I'd be a little annoyed but when it is for the child that I worked so hard squashing out and am kind of really liking and all, I get kind of pissed. An I know how this works, they have people who are supposed to check these items when they restock shelves. Like formula and baby food isn't bad enough already as it is. And I'd kind of like my child not horking up his guts unnecessarily.

Makes me happier that way.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Breaking up with boob

We have been in the process of weaning for about a week now (I'm unsure as to whether Nate's weaning me or I'm weaning Nate) and I'm so not entirely sure how I feel about it. I had planned all along to wean Nate before I went back to work (looking like December) and it had seemed like now was the perfect time since Nate was waaay more excited about the bottle and was grazing the boob lightly and only for comfort most of the time. Also, the big boob was getting out of hand y'all. It was starting to feel like the boob that fed Vancouver. It was big, swollen, and cumbersome (not to mention painful when engorged). Little boob, on the other hand, had almost dried up and was something close to it's pre-breastfeeding size. I would look into the mirror in the morning and roll my eyes at the sight before me. Also another nursing bra had failed me.

Anyhow, enough with the justification. It is going really well and we are down to just one morning boob feed. I have the occasional attack of doubt about the formula full time thing, but that's just me I guess, and I'm trying not to over-think it (like I over-think everything).

Also, today is Nate's last round of shots, and I'm getting ready for the potential screaminess and swelling and crankiness. I'm really glad this is the last round y'all cause I'm a total wimp and can't bear to see the kid jabbed with needles (Justin has to hold him and I can't even watch). His crying breaks my little heart and I get to comfort him afterwards.

But I'd rather not have to do it at all.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Blogger drives me crazy sometimes!

I've been trying to post some pictures here this morning and it just don't work. Don't blame me if you are missing the Nate's picture. Blame Blogger, or.....well.....just click on the flickr link and see him there.

It's less than a month until the Nate and I head off to Halifax to dazzle the grandparents with his brilliance. For myself, I'm looking forward to being there but not to travelling alone with Nate. In my head it is potentially way too complicated (even though I know it will be fine and that Nate will most likely be pretty darn good). Halifax in the fall is freaking fantastic (jeans sweater and jacket weather is my favorite weather) and I can't wait to go there and just soak it up, y'all. Plus I miss my mommy (pathertic isn't it?) plus I get to visit my new nephew (who is waaaay bigger than he was just a month ago), plus visit all my cool friends back East (you so know who you are). I however am not looking forward to sub-standard lattes so I'm switching to Timmy's for two weeks, it is much less painful and I like the Horton beverage ( I do not call it coffee).

Things that annoy me lately:

Young and perfectly able bodied people taking up the elevators at the sky-train stations and in malls. Seriously, there is usually an escalator or (gasp) stairs very close by. I watched a couple of teenagers, a young couple etc. get on an evevator AHEAD of a woman in a scooter the other day. What the hell! I mean I get pissy when they get on ahead of strollers because those of us with strollers don't have much of a choice, but the elderly and others with mobility issues have no choice at all! Stupid people. Meanies. Morons.

Oooooh, I got so pissy there that I forgot the other things that annoy me.

Oh yeah, The Canucks annoy me lately. Paying 1.9 mil for buddy. Got nothing better to do with your cash? And that new coach? He's gonna have something to prove to me. I really liked the Crow (and his very ugly ties). I know we've been sucking canal water as a team but this makes me all very nervous. Everyone should know though, that my opinions on hockey are based on lots of very important factors like the cuteness of players, how hard they try, have they ever been up on charges of beating their wives, etc. This is why I ended up last in the hockey pool last season.

Reality TV. But that has always annoyed me, so no big deal really except that the summer is full of it.

Speaking of coffee, I think I'm gonna have one now and stop thinking about all the things that piss me off.

Fluffy bunnies, chocolate bars, Natester, Snoops and my honey!

That's better.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Standing ovation

Yesterday Nate pulled himself up into a standing position all by himself! He's been trying to do this for quite some time but has been injudicious in his choice of things to pull himself up on. Justin got a picture of it, and I will post it here in a bit. He is full of surprises lately, the little dude. For the past two nights he has only woken up once, at about 11:30, cried for about 10 mins and gone back to sleep until 7:00 am! Oh the sleep is sweet y'all, and I'm so proud of the little dude going it on his own.

Despite all this coolness I've been a little lackluster this past week. I've been doing some research work which is really interesting, but kind of labour and time intensive. I like the work but find it a bit stressful. I've also been working at home and find that I'm missing my Nate intensive days. One really cool thing that has come out of it is that I went to the university for the first time since I gave up the academic thing, and so totally don't regret it. Not even a little bit y'all! Sometimes I think I should miss it, cause it used to be such a huge part of my life, and I'm always surprised when I don't really. It doesn't hurt that no normal preson would want to be caught dead hanging out at the university in the first two weeks of school with all the frosh crap and join this fraternity and annoying undergrads wandering around aimlessly. In contrast, I really liked my job before maternity leave and am looking forward to returning to it. So, quite sorry PhD, but I don't think I'll be coming back anytime soon, if at all. Does this make me a failure?

Maybe, but I'm a relaxed and happy failure.

Not too bad, hey?

Sunday, September 10, 2006

The boy in black

We've been singing Johnny Cash to Nate lately and he seems to like him along with Elvis, The Village People, The Old Crow Medicine Show, and any other bits of nuttiness we can think up. Johnny seems to be a real winner.

I totally ditched the baby food making this morning in favour of going for a nice walk up Main Street with all my boys. We had lovely organic roti at East is East for lunch. Justin had an Afghan lamb roti, I had an eggplant and sundried tomato one and I have to say -yum yum yum. I also got to go to IKEA and bought a shelf for Nate's room and a couple of other things. IKEA now sells those crazy little meatballs frozen along with packets of the sauce, and I just had to get some. Now I know that these meatballs are hardly gastronomical delights, and all in all are pretty bland and weird (little strange nuggets of something), but damn they're good anyhow! It is kind of spooky really, like there's something else in there making you want to eat them (I swear they also put something in Tim Horton's coffee to make me want to drink it). I also got Nate this cute striped blanket and a couple of other little things.

For Nate's part, he went down like a lamb tonight at bedtime, which I'm taking as a good sign. He's been doing pretty well with the self soothing back to sleep at night, and only has trouble when he's hungry. I think I'm doing pretty well too, mostly with the whole sleep thing.

Or that's what I choose to tell myself anyway.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Mama be a chef

Nate's all stocked up on his veggies for the next little while. I made zucchini, yams, green beans, carrots and parsnips, and chicken and yams. Tomorrow I tackle pears, apples, peaches, chicken and apples, and stewed prunes. The whole thing turned out to be much easier and less time consuming than I thought. Steam/boil/poach, puree and leave to cool, smear the puree into ice cube trays, pop out when frozen and put in storage bags in the freezer. I figure I will have about three weeks of food or more made this weekend, but what is even better is that I feel like I've actually accomplished something. The speedy completion of tasks isn't really something that happens much in my life these days. I'm always starting things and then the baby wakes up, or needs to nap or needs a feed, or the phone rings or whatever. So it is nice to do something all the way through in a couple of hours that will benefit us a bunch. Yay for me!

Okay I'll stop being annoying now.

Now that I think about it, it is kind of pathetic that mashing veggies has made me so happy.

Oh well, I'll take what I can get.

And also, I'll try to be more Tiradey and less Martha-like in posts to come.

Baby food gourmet

Today I will attempt to make my own baby food (I hope). Nate is zooming through his food like gangbusters and I'm getting tired of the limited kinds of baby food in the neighborhood (even the organic jarred food is very limited and I really don't trust jarred babyfood containing meat--it always smells like cat food and I don't even want to know what cuts they are making the food out of). There are lots of things I could introduce that I can't get at the store and I think even babies must get bored eating the same old food over and over again. Today I broke the allergy introduction doctrine and gave him blueberries and apples, I'm just a food rebel y'all. I mean it's not like I'm force feeding him peanuts (the big baby food no no) and have you ever heard of anyone being allergic to blueberries? I'll spin the big wheel on this one and see. Probably I'll start making stuff with chicken and a single veggie mixed, and move on from there.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

In other news

I wasn't strong enough last night and after more than an hour of crying I went in and fished Nate's pacifier off the floor and gave it to him. He went immediately to sleep. The goddamn book says this will teach him to cry until I come in. I'm getting really tired of the freakin' book (this translates into 'I am a wuss and can't stand to hear the kid cry in the middle of the night'). He slept until almost six this morning, I fed him and then after a bit of crying he slept until eight this morning. I'm still thinking that is pretty damn good.

Fall TV season is here once again. I haven't seen anything yet that thrills me. I watched House last night and I have to say that they will lose me soon if they don't find some better plot lines. It's getting old guys. The two shows I am eagerly awaiting are the new seasons of 24 (summer reruns got me hooked last year) and Battlestar Galactica (incredible re-make of a childhood favorite). I did get sucked in to Grey's Anatomy this summer courtesy of reruns and Sandra Oh's fabulousness.

I've been dying to bake lately. Baking helps me to relieve stress, feel somewhat productive and feed people (which always makes me feel better). It's just too hot y'all. So I've been looking through cookbooks finding great recipes and waiting and waiting and waiting.

Did I also mention that Nate is growing like a weed? I bought him a winter jacket recently in size 9-12 mos thinking that it would be big enough to see him through the cold season (afterall he is only 6 mos old). Guess what? It fits him now perfectly!!!! So back it goes. I hope the next size up will do.

I figure he's got a great career in crushing Tokyo and fighting Mothra in his future.

GOGIRA!!!!!!

Awwwwwwwww #2


Daddies and their boys. My brother barely holds still for pictures, for this one I think he had no choice.

Cute like nobody's business

Evan is 3 1/2 weeks old! Aint he adorable? My mom still says he looks like me--see the resemblance?

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

We are getting there


So for the past three days we've been letting Nate 'cry it out' at night. No peeking, no checking every 15 mins, just letting him put himself to sleep. As you may have noticed this has been a teeeny bit difficult for me (like digging my own liver out with a ballpoint pen and then eating it). But it's been working, y'all. He screams, but less and less every night, and he wakes up in the night way less often now. He is also sleeping in his own crib all night, and in the daytime he stays more cheery.

Cripes, it is tough though. The night after I first reported to you, I sat and listened to him cry for 45 mins. I couldn't stand it anymore and went in and checked on him. I just gave him his pacifier and he went back to sleep. Later though, at about four thirty, we let him cry. I felt sick, sweaty and like a horrible person. Next night he cried less but it was still pretty bad. Last night he apparently woke up at midnight. I say apparently because I SLEPT THROUGH IT. Justin said that he didn't cry for long but I slept through. I feel kind of guilty but Justin thinks that this is great progress for me (mostly I lay in the dark asking him if he thinks Nate is okay and nobody sleeps).

I'm glad that it is working out and Nate is obviously not only NOT scarred for life, but actually thriving (napping better and sleeping sounder). It would have sucked to put him through this for nothing. Now that I see the results it makes me feel less like mommy dearest.

The stupid thing is that a big part of me not only doesn't mind him sleeping with us but might even encourage it (I like the cuddles y'all, and might be in danger of raising a mama's boy). I seriously could be my own worst enemy with the kid. Good thing I have Justin and at least a part of my brain that is reasonable and knows that this stuff is better for Nate in the long run.

Keep your fingers crossed for tonight.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Almighty duck give me strength

So everything was going really well until about 2:00 am this morning when Nate, thinking that this was a normal night and he would get to come to bed with us, decided to make himself and his opinions heard. For about two hours off and on, we did the check every little while. He'd go back to sleep and then wake up and then repeat the little cycle. I was sorely tempted to give in but Justin was awesome at encouraging me that we were in fact doing the right thing (and that no, the child wasn't hungry, wasn't dying, wasn't in desperate need of anything at all and wasn't going to be scarred for life because his mother was a cold unfeeling bitch who left him alone to cry in a dark empty room). I am a very weak, very silly woman. And also an idiot. A very good friend pointed out to me recently that this is probably hard for me because I would do virtually anything to keep someone I love from feeling pain. I thank you for this, and it makes me feel better (partly because I'd like to think that I am that person and partly because it gives me a reason for being such an idiot). I know this is not only tough for me, but for every freakin mom I have spoken to so far, and y'all deserve big friggin gold medals pinned to your chests (and chocolates, and diamonds and lots of praise and acknowledgement).

Nate did go back to sleep and I stupidly couldn't get back to bed until about a half hour after he did (listening for every little noise). This morning he was all bubbly and happy like nothing happened and 'hey momma, how are you and why are you hugging me so hard?' when I congratulated him for sleeping in his crib and going back to sleep by himself. From this empirical evidence I deduce that this is harder for me than it is for him.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.