Happy Hallowe'en!

Departing slightly from tradition, Brandon's pumpkin is old school, but our pumpkins took a little more work. I have always been a little cynical about those pumpkin carving kits and I am now a convert. The kits are awesome. You still need at least one pumpkin with lots of teeth, but trying out a design is actually a lot of fun. Who knew? Mine is the one with the spooky trees and owl!

The month of the great orange squash is coming to an end. The month of pumpkin pies, seeds, and jack'o'lanterns is on its way out and bringing with it cold, crisp days that have me thinking about wearing socks around the house and trading my tank tops in for longer sleeved shirts. I am looking forward to dressing Brandon up tonight (and then watching Ken's hockey game, like who schedules games on holidays? don't they realize adults have kids? I am half whining about today, but it seems like if there is a holiday weekend, there is a game scheduled by the dude who says at the beginning of every season that it won't happen like that...) and taking him to my folks, and perhaps to each of the neighbours to round out the first Halloween experience.

My dreams have been bizarre this week. I wake up feeling a little disorientated and half out of sorts. Who knows if it is the time of year, or just my eating habits, or who knows what. It also feels like the weather has changed in to fall before I was ready for it. I feel like I am in a bit of a time warp. Jackets? To go out in? Cold feet? Extra blankets on the bed? Where did summer go? Being home is great, and I am finding myself in a different rhythm because my days are marked by a new routine, and then there is the unexepected shifts in Brandon's personality, and flucuations in myself too.

A quick moment

Not that you could tell, but I just had a total moment there where I logged in and realized I didn't know what the hell I intended to blog about. There have been a few moments this week where I have thought that either "that was damn funny" or "woah, that is just plain strange"

First off, I am reading this book, which is by a local author and has grabbed my attention. It is well written, with a bit of local history thrown in for good measure. I keep coming back to the crime/forensic novels at this stage of my reading career. I still find time to read - occaisonally (although not as often) when I am breast feeding, and just before sleep.

Then Nej decides to post this on her blog:



Evil game. Mind numbing game that for some reason was absorbing way too much of my attention span today. I did make it over a 1000 points in one game.. but there are folks with 50,000 points! What the hell did they do all day to get to that score? Get a life. Look who is talking though, eh?

Halloweening is around the corner, and I keep hitting hangman references. Interesting, non? This year is different, we have a child. Which means Halloween takes on another dimension. We can dress up Brandon, we have someone else to decorate pumpkins with, we can go to the pumpkin patch. And perhaps, as the folks, we can go to one of the local "haunts" and get scared sleepless!!!

prehistoric

Gunneras are a truly amazing plant... we were out visiting my coz whom has a fabulous backyard and I can't help but stare in wonder at this behemoth right out of Jurassic Backyard!

nostalgia - already

Brandon and I are playing dress up today out of sheer desperation.

The main drawer of clothes contains clothes ranging from birth through 9 months old. With the rapid weight gain in the last 2 months, I suspected that it was time to be putting some of the first sizes away.

I can't believe the range of emotions I feel about Brandon growing out of clothes. He is gurgling away in the crib while I try to wrap my mind around the fact that he is no longer in 3 month old clothes, he is already in 6 month old stuff. That and the range of sizes within one size. I guess the disparity in clothing starts right from birth and not just in women's clothes like I have thought for the last several decades of my life.

I look at the first clothes that he wore, and already I can feel the "oh he was so cute when he was so small." The milestones are highlights because your child is doing what they are supposed to - which is begin the process of growing up - but man, it happens even quicker than I thought it would!!!!

the saga continues

I am currently sitting on the floor typing this.

Ongoing evolution (or de-evolution) of our place hits round 3, or 4 is it now? I must admit, painting and reorganizing a living room is almost worse than moving in. Remember all those posts where I thought that I was getting rid of stuff. Well, my books must be like rabbits because holy shit do I have books, stuff, and do-dads.

This is the year I think I am moving away from the clutter. The ongoing process that has been beneath the wedding, pregnancy, and now parenthood. Trying to get a handle on all the things that I have held on to for decades because I had the space and I didn't really want to question why I was holding on to said objects. The decluttering and evolution has been like walking down the strip in Vega$. You cover a long block, take in the sites, and then realize that if you continue on, there are more great sites that are going to reveal themselves to you if you so choose. Ok, maybe not the best metaphor but there have been stages this year where I have been bursting at the seams with how proud I am of what I have let go. Then there is the other side of things, where I am absolutely dumbfounded about how much more there is to go through and where the hell did all this stuff come from?

There were times yesterday when I was putting things back together and I had to walk away because I didn't know what to do with everything. I am letting go of more books, and I have a box of do-dads that are being released back in to the world. I just don't need to be surrounded by so many things anymore. I guess that is a part of growing up - having fewer items around that are more meaningful and *tasteful* (like who knew?)

Now that things are put back to right in the living room, I love it. No more muddy-putty coloured walls. I am surrounded by a robin egg blue-esque colour that is so bright and clean it makes it look like we have moved in to a brand new house. The whole palate has changed since we moved in, and it is shocking what a coat of paint can achieve in a tired room(s).

We no longer have a compu-nursery. Brandon officially has his own digs. Although if there has been so much change in the other rooms, it means that this room is a disaster zone.

I am waxing poetic again. You can't stay static. Things are changing all the time (so much so my head has been spinning this year). I guess somewhere along the line I am getting a little better at dealing with the changes, and with all this de-cluttering, better at initiating some of the change. This is not saying that I haven't embraced changes in my life, this is just a different type/set of changes. Changes like learning how to be more focused on someone other than myself. Like becoming part of a marriage/partnership, you have to learn to go from thinking as one, to thinking about two. Now we think about three. The same, but different.

My little charmer

Apres bath, and looking pretty darn cute if I must say so myself!

The wall

I love being home with my son. Sometimes learning how to be a parent is a daunting task - we are blank slates when it comes to parenthood and learning everything the hard way (or so it seems some days) much like all parents do since our kids don't come with manuals and all we are doing is trying our best. Currently we are going through our first "family" cold, and I wish I could help him with his congestion as I hear him struggle with breathing through his nose. I can sympathize, I am pretty stuffed up too but at least I know how to blow "out".

I am not much of a television watcher, but when you are doing your feeds, there isn't much else you can do except for listen to music, make random phone calls, or stare off in to space if you aren't watching that evil box. I have been home for 3 months and already I am finding that my slight attention span to shows I actually like (all of course before noon when tv seems to take a real nose dive) is already starting to wane and my routines are continuing to evolve to occupy myself in different ways. I can forsee myself making a bunch of mixed CDs that I can put in to heavy rotation, and continuing to become more adept at the art of reading aloud and feeding.

Tried going down the hill first instead of up today. First off, I can't believe it is October and today was in the mid 20's! I could still get a tan!! And living in the middle of a hill should do wonders for my ass muscles by the end of maternity leave! Am also discovering the limits of what I can stuff in the bottom of the stroller. Coming up the hill, with my inside voice cheering every successful step up the hill, one stretch of the hill does not have a sidewalk. Like, WTF? As a city planner, you all of a sudden decided that for 2 blocks in the middle, who needs the sidewalk? Then after I switched sides for the 2 blocks since I was not making progress without the sidewalk in the grass and gravel pathway worn down on the one side... some idiot decided to park their pick up and RV on the other side, nicely blocking most of the sidewalk. At least my swearing under my breath and trying not to fist wave at the wankers momentarily distracted me from the uphill journey.

Successful mission - we are now the proud owners of a vaporizer.

A sea of van gogh wheat

I have talked about it long enough and today I finally made good on some of that talk. Whilst my son slept, I painted like a fiend. Amazing how quickly one can paint if all the taping up has already been done and ultimately you are not tackling that big of a space. Got 'er done, so to speak. My tape job was good, but there are some smudges of the old paint that will have to be taken care of, and then next step in this region of the house will be to tape the walls so I can redo the moulding, now that they no longer appear to be white next to the inscrutable van gogh wheat colour adorning a few walls around here.

It was a strange weekend. Brandon and Ken both have colds (I am now getting my own version of said cold, version 3.2), and Friday was spent making those pies (had spares after the one family dinner which is always a mixed-bag bonus since who needs the extra calories but damn I make a fine apple pie), the Crush won Friday night, and then saturday blitzed by with Ken's side turkey dinner (which went off really well) and then Sunday staggered to a halt it felt like and my vibe was off, Ken was sicker, and when it came to going to my mom's, Brandon started to scream from his cold and needing a nap. *SIGH*. Some holidays just don't end up like you think they will. I went solo, and had a decent time, but I think I spaced out for parts of it, everything felt like it blipped off of the surface with me, no experience really penetrating that far in to my consciousness.

Didn't get off to visit my gran, but will do so this weekend on our terms (read it didn't work out to head over with my folks since there wasn't enough "room" for Brandon and I). From the feedback I got from the folks, the hospital experience is one in which your dignity gets stripped away from you and all you want to do is go home, even if you can't- so my heart breaks a little for my gran and I wished that she lived not a ferry ride away.

I also can't say that I am getting along all that famously with my mom right now. She tweaked me something fierce this weekend and I am a slow burn and it is hard to swallow. Her mouth runs off sometimes and the things that come out are brutal. She should attempt to save that for her inner monologues at some point because once certain words are out there, they are hard to take back. As well, it is like perpetually crying wolf because a few hours after a bitchy phone call, I got the "I was feeling really stressed out at that moment and I lashed out" speech. This is happening all the time and she isn't making any significant changes to her life since it is so stressful, andI am not trying to enable her by allowing that kind of behaviour any more, from the outside looking in, her life is pretty damn skookum. Ah well. Some people feel the need to manufacture stress in their lives.

I just get the urge to paint, move furniture, read, play hockey, and do crazy things to my husband and spend time with my son. Nothing like healthy sublimation to make things at least resemble right.

Book ends

Well, that was a week. I think just "off" is a good way to categorize just how this week has felt for me. Just some not so positive stuff going on around me sprinkled in with a few things that have brightened up my day.

I can't believe it is thanksgiving weekend. A year ago we were worried about our cat, wondering what to do, and now I am wondering what day I should go and visit my not-doing-so-great Gran. Not so funny how life seems to go in cycles at times. We are, or should I say, I am getting better at the sharing holidays thing. I think being at the next stage (we are married, we have our own family) makes all this easier. Both our sides have equal stakes and both sides seem to respect that more.

I am getting out for more walks - the hill I trudge up is getting slightly easier, read I am not panting at the halfway mark, and after a few moments of taking stock of things on the way back down the hill, I would have to admit I am doing pretty damn good for 10 weeks away from labour. I fit in to my clothes, and well, I guess now that I have more time to think about it, I guess I am just feeling impatient about a few things - toning up a bit, and getting some house stuff done. I am learning a new kind of patience, getting things done as they get done, not in a big rush like how I used to do things at a frenetic pace.

Fall is arriving - I also have a yen to get out there and soak up some autumn colours. I am getting out a lot more than before, but it is all within walking distance during the day, so I guess I am getting to the stage where I do want to get out more, see more. I don't necessarily need the public filled spaces, I have more yearnings to get out in the woods, or parks, or near the water more so than the urban centers. I don't feel that isolated from people at this stage. I can thank my dear friends and family for that. At some point there will be a place for parenting groups.. but so far so good.... can't wait to do water babies though!!

Woke up funny

Ever have one of those days were you just feel odd? That is me today. Am sorting through it, and who knows why, but today is one of those days that I feel like a worry wart. Worrying about my parenting style (or lack thereof) and second guessing myself a bit.

While I think it is important to be aware of what other people are doing, what the major theories of development are, and taking note of what seems to be working, I think my doctor had it right when we were talking about sleeping habits (etc) when he said that "there are many right ways" without judgment in his voice.

Ken and I do know our baby best, but it is hard not to get caught up in the different theories, or books, or philosophies on how and what is the best way to childrear. I think what is working best for us is to observe other folks, do some reading, talk about it all, figure out our attitudes, talk about what we don't like, and then see what works with Brandon. I don't think we have one particular style, in fact my attitude is much more of a blended attitude in which I am approaching parenthood much like how I approach my concept of religion - I am taking bits and pieces from a vast and diverse range of sources and with a little dash of synergy, creating something that works for me, for Brandon, and for us. With a bit of chaos tossed in for good measure since I tend to learn by doing, and then readjusting to discover what works.

On a totally different note, Brandon held his head up today, looking around and checking things out from his belly for the first time! Yes, he has held up his head and moved it side to side, or pushed up off our chests so far, but not like this! A very cool milestone!

Time to do some cleaning and putting things back to right. It is helping having less clutter, but we still aren't there yet.

Weekend blitzed by way too quickly. Saturday we got to spend the day with Gilly (where the hell did the time go, but so nice to just hang out in your pjs, do some cooking, some gossiping, and some laughing) and then went out for a fabulous night with some dear friends. It was great. Funny though that 10ish or 11 is the new "2am" for me. At least to get on the road home to complete the day cycle with Brandon.