Hey, look at me!

New Promise

So you've all heard the promises of blogging to come, of renewed blogging etc. I am going to try to post sometthing every couple of days, even if it just a sentence. Let's see how it goes.

About 1/2 hour ago Nate came up to me grinning. He said, "I'm drinking water mama!" On a closer look I noticed that his face and shirt were covered with water.

*DING*

"Were you drinking Snoopy's water Nate?"

"Yeah, I a dog!"

Oh my.

Just in case anyone is still out there!

Nate wakes up in the morning now in his crib and plays. When he's had enough alone time he yells, just loud enough for us to hear, "Mama, Dada, where are you?" How freaking heart breaking is that? It works on me like a magic wand.

All the news fit to print

I dunno where to start really its been such a long time. I got a new job in September that has been keeping me pretty busy. I'm really loving it but sometimes I have these rashes of severe doubt about whether I'm doing a good job of it. I'm wondering if I'm unsuited to be a public servant. I'm too much 'say what I mean' and 'ask for what I want' and not really all that good at subtlety. Up until now I've considered these very very good personality traits and I think they've got me pretty damn far in life. But the truth is, it doesn't make me all that good at compromising, or suffering fools gladly. Luckily, I have the best and most supportive team in the world and they seem to like me just the way I am. But I'm worried that this will keep me from moving along in my career. I know I'm a pretty good manager but I think sometimes I come off as being too aggressive and not appropriately meek or diplomatic or whatever. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but I think there is a danger of me being interpreted as too pushy, or outspoken or assertive. Possibly this is just me being crap on myself -- I mean I'm relatively new to this sector of the workplace and have a lot to learn. Maybe I expect too much of myself to get everything straight off the bat. I am trying to learn, but don't want to be other than me, just a bit better than me if that makes any sense.

Nuff said.

In other news, Nate continues to be the most amazing and incredible kid I've ever had the pleasure to meet. He is talking in short sentences now and is interested in absolutely everything. He continues to love bubbles, doggies, pumpkins, stars and Diego and continues to hate avocado and having his face washed.

Some new things about Nate:

He loves dried mango and raisins more than cookies. He often stands in front of the pantry asking for cookies, and when you open the door to the pantry to give him one, he then starts chanting either 'raisins' or 'mango' until you dole them out. This is hilarious. He needs to have a sneaky approach to get them?

His best new word by far is "funny". He says things like "momma funny," "Dada funny," and best "Nate's Dada funny."

He gets pissy when you try to take off his yellow rubber boots that he wears absolutely everywhere.

He now says pease [please], dadum [thank you], ecum [welcome]. When he does something wrong he says sodee [sorry].

He has mastered most of the animals in his books and is still obsessed with shoes.

Even when he is driving you nuts, which he does quite often now that he is getting his second molars in and is cranky, you just have to laugh cause he is being a brat in such a single minded, intense fashion that you almost feel sorry for him.

So, here is my little update and I won't promise more like I usually do (I will try though).

Goings on

Nate is staring slack-jawed at Four Squares on TV and eating goldfish snacks. Perfect time for a guilty little blog. Time has been a precious commodity these days. For the last few weeks I've been doing lots and lots of overtime at my job, which meant 15 hour days and some weekend work. On the home front this resulted in a Momma who hardly saw her kid for days at a time, and a Dada who was going out of his mind stuck with a nutty 18 month old for waaay too long at a time. Then at the end of last week I got a call asking me if I would accept a deployment into another position and then to an acting position two pay grades above my own level. Not only is the work exciting, the pay better, the direction appropriate with where I see my career path going, but it is with people I really like working with. What is the problem you ask?

Me. I'm the problem. It's not like I haven't had this before. In both my MA and PhD I was freaked. I figured that at any moment someone would bust into the classroom and haul me out saying there had been some terrible mistake, and of course they hadn't meant to accept me, and how could I be so silly. Now y'all I know I am some degree of good, but I'm so terrified of fucking up that it makes everything a giant-assed deal. I'm working on it, really I am. But every new thing brings on a little attack of this. Hopefully I will be too busy in my new job to pay too much attention to it. I would sacrifice my right tit (hell take both of them)for just a little bit more arrogance right now.

To switch gears, Mr. Nate is flourishing. He has of late discovered temper tantrums that make me want to scream, but as our friend Lori says, it's nice to know that he has a little fight in him. He is mostly a very happy child, but dammit he is headstrong. He's connecting words into little bits like "dadda gone," and "what's that?" He is obsessed with bottles, whether they be pop bottles, shower gel bottles, beer bottles, whatever. He also wants to walk everywhere and gets thoroughly pissed when you put him in his stroller. Problem is, he hasn't quite grasped the concept of cars and road = smushed baby.

It's off to Nape time for nate.

bye

BSG

I just finished watching the season ender and OMG! It's not like I didn't expect some of it, but the way it was done was fabulous, and trippy, and a little gonzo. I've got a migrane and I still had to watch it (those of you who have seen it will know what a special weirdness a migrane will add to the mix).

wow.

Snip snip

Vacation good. Work bad.

Hey y'all!

The last few days at home have been fabulous! We've done the hanging around thing, the shopping thing, the going out here and there thing. This not going to work thing is fun. We haven't really been doing anything out of the ordinary, it's just nice to have the time to do all the normal day to day things that I'm usually not a part of like going for the morning walk, getting a coffee and hanging out, putting him down for a nap etc.

Nate and I did have one adventure on the weekend where we went to Langley to a berry farm with a friend and co-worker of mine and her son. After the berry farm we stopped by to visit her in-laws "farm" (which was really an estate of sorts where they kept horses). Nate was in complete awe of the big horses and fascinated by the foals. He spent lots of time just watching them and then petting their noses. After this we went to Fort Langley, which is a charming little town where we ate fish and chips with the kids, and then made it home in time to watch the fireworks (well except for Nate who needed to sleep badly).

Nate got to go to his auntie's birthday dinner at The Reef, which has very fine food and very very lovely pitchers of Mojitos. He was admired by a large number of the hard working and lovely women of JJ Bean.

Today Nate had his first real haircut (other than the bits I manage to snag off once in a while) and he was very well behaved according to the stylist. I will be sure to post a picture.

Today I bought an ipod for myself. And not a little ipod. A big sucker. I've been wanting one for a while and just decided to go for it. Thing is that I'm feeling so guilty about it I haven't even taken it out of the bag. I don't need it. I'm not a hard core tech junkie, and it's not like anyone really needs an ipod. Nonetheless I want it. For those who don't know it already, I do two things when I'm nervous. I eat. I shop. I've been embroiled in this icky situation at work lately which came to a head on Friday JUST BEFORE I LEFT FOR VACATION. No kidding. Lucky me. So I've been thinking about it and eating and shopping. One chocolate cake in the 'fridge and one ipod in my bag = one Tirade entirely uninterested in going back to work. This would be so much easier if I just kept my head down and didn't worry about stuff like accountability, responsibility, and teamwork. Silly Tirade.

So here I sit bloated from eating cake and staring at a shiny black new toy.

If I take the plastic off, I have to keep it.

I'm so like my mother.

I came home from work today and Justin said, "Guess what? Nate went on the regular swings today." And I was like "WHAT? BY HIMSELF?!" Then I ranged into a rant about how it's not safe for him to do that yet and he's not old enough and if he falls and cracks his head open how Justin'd be sorry to have to haul a screaming bleeding and hurt child into the emergency room and how now Nate will expect to go on the big swings from now on and it's not pretty you know when the bleeding and stuff and x-rays blah blah blah. I still feel like I was right and it is far too soon for Nate to be on the big kid swings for all of those reasons. HOWEVER, I can't help but think of my mom when we visit Halifax, 'be careful of this,' or 'don't let him bump his head,' or 'watch out for that.' I have oh so smart and tough answers about how he isn't made of glass you know and he has to learn some things on his own and how we can't protect him from everything. RIIIIIIGGHHT

So.

I have to get it into my brain that he will eventually get pretty banged up. I mean I had to get stitches more imes before I was 10 than I had dolls to play with. And getting hurt never stopped me. Now Nate has the potential to be at least that determined, destructive and stubborn. Still, part of me wants that to never happen, to never see him in pain, to wrap him up so he doesn't get hurt. I came upstairs to check my email and the picture above was on the computer screen, taking up the whole thing. I was so proud for him and happy for him and sad that I missed it I could have cried my eyes out on the spot.

Fuck this shit is hard.

Did I mention I still think I'm right about the swings?

What shall I be?

Is it weird that I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up? I've been in this weird mood about work the past little while. I'm looking around and sussing things out and asking myself what my future career plans are. Do I want to stick with this government thing? If so, do I want to go into a management stream, try to fit somewhere else or move to a different department alltogether? I have sort of been asking myself these questions as I've been rolling along but they haven't consumed me to this point. Now that I know I don't want to be an academic the PhD has lost a little bit of its usefullness (in terms of finishing it any time soon). I've been so many things in my work life to date; researcher, retail shop clerk, office manager, legal advocate, student, teacher, case manager, facilitator, house cleaner, receptionist, project manager, and even a telemarketer once way way in my past. I've been lucky enough to mostly find interesting work in my life and have enjoyed most of it, but lately I've been wondering what happens when I get bored. It sounds a little weird but when I no longer find things challenging and I stop learning new things I get bored (when I get bored I get cranky). Does this bode well for my future as a person who has like 30 more years in the workforce? I also have the opportunity to take some classes in my current job, but I'd really like them to be as useful as they can be to whatever I want to do next. But I don't know what that is. See where I'm going with this?

Well, I'd better get off to sleep so I can not be late for work tomorrow.

Cheeky so and so...

This is on my desktop currently. It is a great picture 'cause you can see the big boy he will turn into on of these days. It is also a really strange picture because Nate is really way more baby looking than this mostly.

Smells like rain

Go figure, its Vancouver.

Hi there folks. Back from three weeks in the Maritimes. Okay, like I've been back for like three weeks or so now--and I have no excuse for not blogging sooner except thte following:

I've been cranky
I've been working (and not with lovely fun sitting on my ass eating bonbons stuff either, I've been busy at work which has been this past two weeks equal parts good getting work stuff done and being driven up the wall).
I've been being a Mommy when I'm not working (this is way fun mostly).
The rest of the time is basically devoted to sleep.

I have a million Tirades but will save them for a day when Nate isn't likely to start flinging food any minute because he ahs decided supper is over.

Our trip to Halifax was great but not at all like we expected. My chill child turned into a screaming, fitski of a Nateski. He decided that he wanted momma, momma, momma, all the time. Couldn't leave the house without him, wouldn't go to bed unless momma did it, wouldna let me out of his sight. Frack. This meant that Justin and I didn't even get a single date since Nate would wake up several times a night and wouldn't go back down for anyone else. Even if I hated my parents I couldn't subject them to the Nate in full fledged tantrum. My worst enemy maybe but not the woman whose loins I emerged from (or rather--whose abdomen I was cut out of). So it was a bit of a relief to get him back to his sleeping all night no fuss at bedtime routine (happened almost instantly).

Eek! Supper is over. More to come soon, possibly including the following topics:

Nate's New Words: a lexicon and guide.
I spy daycare on the Horizon
Tirade and why she needs to strangle a person a day for at least the next couple of weeks.
Why I want another puppy
Living like Kings in Halifax
Frackin Government
Frackin Summer TV
Fracking
Facebook: friend or Foe?
Why do I have so much stuff

Kay, later.

Weekend fun!

Our friends Tiff and Ben and their daughters Pippa and Clara came to visit us on Friday and Saturday and we had the best time! Nathanial is in love love love with Clara and Clara seemed to like him as well (although not in the goddess like way Nate worshipped her). Pippa found true love with Snoopy, who loved her right back. Pippa is the one kid that doesn't mind when Snoopy licks her face. It even seemed to make her giggle. Snoopy, in a stunning display of affection and reciprocity, let Pippa crawl after him, touch his nose, pat him, and generally be all over him. Snoopy likes all the childrens, but I think Pippa has a special place in his heart. We took some pictures and hope to have them up soon. For me it was lovely having Tiff and Ben come for the weekend. First, it's awesome to have other parents around since most of our friends don't have kids, but mostly it's cause they are so great to be around (I know you will read this Tiff and I'm not just trying to score points!), and we have history y'all. We've known each other for so long but hardly see them and they us, and I can't help thinking that I want them around all the time so our kids can grow up together, and we could garden together and stuff (okay now I'm getting all smushy). We love you guys!

Today we had a lovely coffee date with Lori and Paul and Sosi, and Sosi had the best new haircut! That little girl is just too cool for school. JJ Bean was just hopping so we sat outside and didn't even get rained on. Lori and I went shopping up Main Street, drinking Chai and enjoying the time as only escaped mummies can. As mummies, we also had to make obligatory purchases for our offspring (he needs shorts and she would look adorable in this dress) but also managed to score some very very cool shoes for our fine selves. I had a fantastic time and am just a bit sad that I'll have to wait for fall to wear my warm Camper boots (50% off y'all-how to resist?).

It's back to work tomorrow and probably more overtime this week, but I'll have the lovely warm glow of the weekend to keep me company.

I'm annoyed

There are too many multigenerational quirky womeny movies starring Jane Fonda and whattsername...Diane Keaton, that's it (or of the JF, DK ilk). I was going to say that this is an unfortunate trend, but it isn't...it's a whole thing isn't it? Like all women are smushy and we will automatically be absolutely charmed by this sort of thing. Blek.

And tonight's Grey's Anatomy is just an excuse to sell this new spin off show, which I am already not so much sold on.

And Anaheim just knocked Vancouver out of the Stanley Cup.

I gotta tell you that today has been a mixed bag of weirdness ending with Tequila, yes folks today merited a Tequila or three.

Mostly cause I am annoyed.

I need to update

I'm not dead.

I will post soon.

Field trip

Today we took Nateski to the Vancouver Aquarium and we all had a blast! Nate's favorites by far were the jellyfish, and the small children's area called Clownfish Cove. We sat out in the rain and watched the beluga whales and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and a good time was had by all. The top picture is Nate and his new best friend, a squeaky rubber beluga whale.

My sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet

boys.

They are the best. I adore them. They make me all smushy and soft-like. One is furry, one drools and the other smells like coffee!

As you can probably tell, no one is sick this week and everyone is happy and it was a sunny day today and some of yesterday and I have tomorrow off and no one is sick. Plus I've booked our trip home to the 'fax for three glorious weeks in June and am looking forward to Halifax in the summer (well, almost summer really) like nobody's business.

And the 'Nucks won against Dallas tonight in a nail-biting overtime period.

I have to go to sleep now while all is still good.

butterflies, kitties, fluffy clouds

I wish I could be all cheerful, cause it seems like I've been complaining a lot lately (and I know I have), but right now y'all, I feel the crap. I've had two super-long weekends in a row. This sounds like fun, yes? No. Last weekend I got the stomach flu that was going around the office and spent about 24 hours in absolute hell, and the next week in purgatory. In the middle of my stay in purgatory Justin goes down hard and fast. As a consequence of this I am exhausted y'all. I know I've said it before, and my experience is only a pale wisp of a ghost of an outline of a shadow of what single mother's face, but single mothers are awesome and I seriously don't know how they do it. With Justin down, I was basically on my own with Nate and Snoop for about four days (well, I tried to help out Justin with the sick as well). I can not convey to you how much this sucked. I shall not go into detail. My experience leaves me with a greater appreciation of women who go it alone and a terrible cold sore that I'll be sporting for a week or two. So no sunshine and rainbows for me today.

In happier news, Nate got a new Easter hat (a tradition started by my mother a long time ago) and a pail, shovel and other assorted sand toys for taking to the park or beach. My mom bought him a raincoat and splash pants, lots of Easter candy (yummy says momma), a book, and some brand spanking new yellow rubber boots. Nate is fascinated by the boots and goes for them every chance he gets. Nate knows nothing about the bunny yet, so I figured we'd save the egg hunt for another year or so.

In another great Easter tradition, I am looking forward to stopping by my local grocery store for sale Easter candy tomorrow.

I covet little candy bunny eyes.

What the?

Has anybody else noticed the marketing of adult cereals with "chocolatey" bits in them recently? Okay, first "chocolately" does not mean there is chocolate, so stop trying to convince us that this is chocolate we are eating 'cause it is not. Second, don't tell me how low in calories it is. If I want chocolate, I don't give a frack about how many calories is in the damn thing, I WANT CHOCOLATE. Third, if I want chocolate (which I think we have already established, your honour, that I do), what is going to make me think that I really want cereal instead? "I want a chocolate bar, hmmmmm-no I think I'll just have some cereal instead." Who has this conversation with themselves (or anyone else for that matter)? Jesus-H-Christ on a piece of toast, just get a frigging bag of M&Ms and get on with it already.

Anyhow, a big treat my my beloved for you all. He has gotten around to getting our video camera tape on the digital thingamie bob. This means (what, you didn't understand from my completely technical explanation?) that all of the video we have been taking of Nate will make it's way onto the computer!!!!! Prepare to be bored y'all. The first instalment is a lovely little bit of Nate and Snoopy having some fun.

S'all for now.

Kiss me

I'm Irish, well sorta. Ancestrally you know? Just kiss me anyhow dammit!

The world is chok a block with babies the past little bit. Two of my friends have recently had little girls, one in Australia and one just down the street. They are totally adorable! They make me think of when Nate was just a little 'un. I really miss it. He was so tiny. Not that I'd trade him or anything 'cause he's lots of fun. If you ask him now what a cow says, he consistently says something between "boo" and "moo." I think he's got sheep down as well, but we won't commit to that one yet. Oh, and he likes to wear food on his head. Noodles mostly, and the occasional bit of roast beef.

Just a little peek into the life. I'm going to get my hands on some chocolate.