that was then, this is now

last year

this year


i think santa maybe looks a little older, must be all that whiskey.

and ummm why does cohen's hair look so red this year, must be the reflection from those flashy velvet curtains santa has encasing his lair.

merry christmas and a happy new year

hopefully this finds everyone relaxed and past the hustle bustle of all that christmas spirit. i managed to stay away from it all this year. instead we opted for a small roast beef dinner with cohen's two grandma's and us and a humble pile of gifts under our perfect as ever tree (although i do wish it were real and that i could say i went into the bushes one blustery night and cut it down myself like someone i know can).

leading up to christmas we partook in our fair share of christmas activities though. there was a christmas potluck with my co-workers that cohen and i attended, cohen playing the piano and dancing for everyone's amusement. then there was a pancake breakfast at the community centre, complete with santa and a community choir. cohen didn't completely understand santa, but he was very much interested in the choir and danced in front as they sang international christmas carols. to call it breakfast was a stretch but it was fun none the less and cohen seemed to have a great time. we tried to get a picture with cohen on santa's lap but cohen jumped down before i had time to focus! we also managed to take in the bright nights train in stanley park which we all found magical. we went last year but cohen was too young then to really appreciate it, this year his eyes lit up and he clapped with excitement, it was great and will for sure be one of our christmas traditions. lastly we took silvija to vandusen gardens for their festival of lights. we had never been before and didn't know what to expect. many people recommended it so perhaps my expectations were high, but we were all disappointed. there were far too many people there on narrow pathways and once through the gates you were left to your own devices to chart a course around the gardens, often finding yourself at a dead end. i wouldn't go back.



christmas eve was our annual fondue dinner (oil and chocolate) with just silvija and us three in attendance, it was deelish. we also set up cohen's christmas gift on christmas eve to save us the hassle on christmas day. i say we, but i really mean marko, i mean setting up train sets is the dad's job...isn't it? we weren't sure what he would make of the gift and i was perhaps more than a little against it, but in the end it was a hit and he has been playing with it ever since. instead of throwing things around or chewing on them he is starting to understand that cars drive on roads and make vrooom sounds and trains go on tracks, it is great!



i did quite well this year considering and managed to hand make almost all of the gifts i gave. it was a relief to not have to visit a mall, the closest i got to retail was a visit to kidsbooks where i spent 2 hours and $100 on gifts for cohen and others (thanks to everyone for their suggestions on books). i have to say though that i think that 2 hours may have been the best hours i spent that week. cohen was showered with a ton of new books this year, not just from me but from many of our friends as well, thank you to everyone who gifted us with their childhood favourite, it means a lot to us.

i know that many of our family read this from time to time and by now they know that we didn't send out a christmas card this year. our apologies, it just never seemed to come together. i did manage to make a card though, well cohen did i suppose. it was our first foray into finger painting and i think it turned out quite festive. so although it is being said a little bit late, i hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and that this next year is even better than the last!



for many more christmas photos go here. i also put our annual family slideshow online, i will warn you that the file is quite large and the slideshow itself is 12 minutes so it is not for the weak of heart or those violently opposed to sentimentality, but if you think you might enjoy it then please help yourself here

where one door closes...

i meant to get to this last friday but i was asleep before 9, a true sign that i am pregnant (and perhaps getting a little old). then there was saturday, but it was snowing and there was fun to be had so that didn't work either. monday i went to a concert with catriona, and last night was nicole's 30th birthday dinner...yummm! all this to say, excuse me for the delay.

what i would have said last friday is that it was cohen's last day with his nanny and dante, the little boy he shared the nanny with. don't worry we didn't quit because things were bad (although they were a little, but more in a minute), we quit because we didn't need it anymore. you see, marko has to take some vacation time before the end of the year and silvja (aka baka, or my mother in law) will be here on december 23rd, so with grandma still taking two days a week and marko taking on the role of stay at home dad, we seem to have it covered. no doubt baka's days will happily be spent tending to cohen's every need and spoiling him like any baka is prone to do. she is here until the end of february and then i am on maternity. maternity, wow! it is coming up so quick. i can't wait to get back to spending my days with cohen and the little monkey to be.

it was a tough day, knowing it would be the last. sure there had been some issues, often being sent home in a dirty diaper that had been left on way too long causing the occasional rash, and the insistent on snacks at 4:30 even after i stated i didn't want it (he never would eat a proper dinner after), but cohen loved amy and always had big smiles when saw her in the morning. plus, there is dante the seemingly perfect friend for cohen. we don't have a playmate replacement at our house, over here cohen just has us. still, now he has unlimited cuddles and one on one attention, late breakfasts with dad and soon to be long walks with baka, and that ain't bad either.

we have decided that it would be nice to keep in touch, so every second wednesday we plan on meeting up at the open gym at the mt. pleasant community centre. we went last week for the first time, it was great fun, if not extremely chaotic. the boys seems to really like it.

here are some pictures of dante and cohen both at dante's home and at the community centre. it was quite the challenge to get one with the two of them together!




that is amy on your left in this picture, she hates having her photo taken so i don't have any better!


in other news, i have been very crafty lately. there has been much sewing and decoration creating and soap making. hopefully i will get to an update here with what i have been doing and some pictures (but not too many as much of what i am doing is for gifts, gifts for some of you!) soon.

in the meantime i am looking for suggestions. what are a few of your favourite children's books? i know there are many of you that read this from time to time and never comment, so now is your chance, let your voice be heard!

20 weeks

i realized tonight that i don't yet have any belly pictures, not good. the poor kid isn't even born yet and they are already suffering from the second kid no pictures or videos syndrome. to make up for it i took this, the halfway point picture. 20 down, 20 (or 22?) more to go...

17 months

yes, no, maybe so?

here it is the middle of the week again, i have no idea where all the time goes? sorry for the slow update, but the short of it is that we went and baby looked great and there were no down's markers present (although this isn't a definite indicator of anything), plus we feel pretty certain we saw the female confirming three lines on the baby, although i wouldn't bet the farm on it or anything. the genetic counsellor did offer us the amnio, but the risks just seem far too great considering the odds of there being a problem, so we declined. i always had a good feeling inside and the older i get the more i have learned to pay attention to that, the results just confirmed what inside i think i already knew, the baby, right now, is fine.

i thought these pictures were great. the first one was taken at 8 weeks when we went for an early ultrasound to date the pregnancy.


this next one of the baby kissing the placenta was taken this week.


it is amazing to me that in 10 weeks a fetus can go from looking like a tadpole to a fully formed baby.

in other news cohen has been saying "yes" for awhile and will do it on command, but has not yet learned "no", his nanny sharing cohort dante on the other hand recently learned "no" and has yet to master "yes", so apparently today the two of them spent the day barking "yes!", "no!", "yes!", "no!" back and forth with arms flailing and feet scurrying. i don't know about you but i think that sounds pretty darn cute. makes me wonder why cohen learned yes first though? maybe he won't end up a pessimist after all.

happy hallowe'en

give me something good to eat

i just want to start by saying thanks to everyone who read my last post and offered words of encouragement virtually and in person, although it is still sometimes strange to realize just how many people in my day to day life read this, it is at the same time wonderful to realize that i belong to such a community of people rooting for me, it's nice.

for those of you that don't know, i did get a call from the doctor the day after i wrote my last post and the tests results were troubling. we made an appointment to go in the next day and then spent the night worrying and biting our nails to the quick. worst case scenarios were pondered and the question "what if" got thrown around. in the end we decided not to answer the question until we knew what we were facing. what we are facing, it turns out, isn't nearly as bad as we had anticipated. the triple screen returns results based on probability and it stacks that probability against what is "normal" in your age category. there is a line that gets drawn as abnormal when the ratio deviates too far from the norm. for us it was down's syndrome that brought back the positive. for my age normal is 1 in 666, our number came back 1 in 333. this was enough for the bells to ring and the lights to flash, but for us it was a huge relief. next to 666 it may seem like a lot but 1 in 333 is still pretty decent odds considering. so our next step is a diagnostic ultrasound on monday to look for down's markers and then right after we will meet with a genetic counsellor to talk about the findings and what to do next. i am still in the wait and see mode. i still don't know the answer to the "what if" question, but my friend paul said to me today "perfection comes in many different packages", which i think sums it up well. everyone keep your fingers crossed for us.



in other more fun and less gloomy news, cohen, nicole and i went to the pumpkin patch in richmond on the weekend. it was a really good time. there was a band called "the country bumpkins" that played kids tunes while a huge stuffed strawberry, pumpkin and corn on the cob danced around in the hay. cohen, never one to miss the opportunity for some dancing swayed his hips and stamped his legs to the beat. we also went on a hayride complete with an accordion player, as well as travelled through a corn maze to get to the pumpkin patch where cohen helped pick out all of our pumpkins, he even helped put each of them in our bags for us. he loves to put things in containers and then take the out again these days. it was like the pne of autumn, there were even mini donuts and farm animals (which cohen didn't seem scared of this time). i would definitely go back, despite the ankle deep mud and that smell.



sunday was supposed to be costume day at granville island, but it was pouring rain and i just didn't have it in me to make the trek, but don't worry, i did manage to eat lots of candy. i am off tomorrow and the sun is supposed to shine so hopefully we will get out and he will be able to do some hopping in his frog costume. now if only we could get him to say ribbett...

still, i'd rather be working for a paycheque than waiting to win the lottery

i know that it has been a long time. i create posts in my head every morning on the bus though, if that counts for something. most of the time it is a rant about weather, or people on the bus, sometimes it is about something more important. it doesn't matter in the end though because none of it made it as far as the end of the day, to home, to here. mostly i haven't had anything to say because lately life has seemed heavier than i am accustomed and to throw it all out there feels like a burden.

i couldn't say for sure why things seem kinda blue these days. on paper i can see that i have a million things to be thankful for, and i am. still, there are those things that creep in and cloud the vision. i am not going to say it's the hormones (although that may very well be true) because to do so is to place pregnancy into some kind of category that makes women disabled and "crazy", neither of which i think i am. it's just that sometimes emotional fortitude isn't as easy to come by, particularly when you have a toddler who is getting another molar and as a result refuses to sleep through the night or go more than a twenty minute stretch without throwing himself on the floor in defiance.

this is why come thursday when i pick cohen up from the nanny and he screams because he doesn't want to leave, i also scream, only inside, deep somewhere in the centre of my heart and it hurts. why having him go to my mom's for two nights a week, although theoretically a great situation, seems like the hardest thing to do some weeks. why despite knowing that i am his mom and we are connected i have moments where i feel so disconnected. it used to be him and i, we were a team. i long for that time back again, i can't wait until march when it can go back to the way that it was, kisses before naps and long afternoon walks. these days it is rushing home and hurried dinner, then bed. no time for us. it's tough.

there is also the worry that comes with pregnancy. it's true that it isn't as bad this time as last. there is more faith in me this go round. still, like everyone else i worry. i try not to and then i worry that i am worrying too much. i did the triple screen test last friday, they said if the results were troubling that i would hear back within 3 days. it is wednesday today and there hasn't been a call, good news for sure, but maybe the doctor wasn't in today, maybe the tests are sitting on her desk waiting to reach me. you see where this is going. one day at a time.

then of course there is the other big one that comes around every now and again. a few weekends ago my nieces kyla and reidun were over for a family dinner and for the first time cohen was engaged with them. they played ball together and put the pieces in the tupperware shape sorter. it was great to watch them play together like cousins, but it was there with me, maia would only be 3 months older than kyla if she had been born healthy. cohen would have a big sister of his very own. he wouldn't need me to take him to the park or invite his cousins over to have big kids to mimic and admire, he would have that all the time, but he doesn't. i know that he is going to make a strong and nurturing big brother, but i think he would have made a great little brother too.

so i guess that is why i have remained silent these last few weeks, i am waiting for the storm to pass. maybe this weekend things will turn, it is supposed to be sunny and we are getting dressed up and going to a halloween celebration at granville island, and really what better to cheer a person up than babies dressed up as farm animals and candy?

introducing...

my friend dreena and her husband mike welcomed a son, riley graham, into the world last friday morning. we went over for a visit tonight and were amazed at just how small newborns are (and at how quickly we forgot), so fragile and wee. cohen came along for the visit and seemed much more interested in the "it's a boy" helium balloon than the micro human. his interest perked momentarily when i was holding riley, but i think that was more just confusion than anything.

for those of you that don't know, cohen is going to be a big brother come april. if tonight is any indication all we will need to do is keep him constantly supplied with helium balloons and he should be more than up to the challenge! all kidding aside, i think he is going to do great, i think we all will, just one step at a time. seeing riley tonight reminded me of all the amazing things we have to look forward to once again. it feels really great.

here is one more up close shot, apparently this is riley's favourite pose i like to call it "the cell phone negotiator".

a chip off the old block?

today was my first flex day in what seemed like forever. usually i get every second wednesday off and just work a little longer the other nine days, but at the beginning of the semester we have flex black outs which means no days off to play in the sun with cohen. i was excited to finally have the day to ourselves again and wow did we make the most of it.

we started off ambitiously with a trip planned out to UBC to do some swimming and visit with some of my co-workers. it would be our first swim since the municipal strike began months ago, ubc aquatic center being one of the only pools around not run by the city. we left at 9:20, a time i thought would be tolerable for the express bus that runs the 35 minutes out to the university. i was mistaken. we stood and waited as bus after bus after bus (make that 25 buses, honestly) went by that were full to capacity. it was 9:52 when a driver finally took pity on us and made room to allow us on. i couldn't believe it was still so busy at that time...sigh. i was nervous about the belly aching that such a long ride might create (especially with so many people) but i was wrong, he was great with big smiles and quiet contemplation the whole way. so we swam and we visited, which meant he mostly charmed and entertained large circles of crowds. it was nice to bring him out to work, i think the last time we went he was only 6 months old.

the ride home was easier to achieve and he slept the whole time. in fact, he continued to sleep for quite some time after we got home, hunched over in his stroller. eventually i decided to take him back out (still asleep) to go and see my friend dreena's new house. cohen woke up about half way there, which made him ready to explore all four floors (!) of house once we got there. he doesn't get much opportunity for stairs so he had fun climbing them one by one, as well as playing with the bouncy chair in the soon to be nursery. the house was beautiful and so big! i couldn't imagine having so much space, it would be a dream come true.

after exploring, the three of us decided to walk to seb's for lunch. cohen and i shared banana bread french toast which i must say was even better than it sounds. in fact, we had to stare each other down for the last couple of bites, me being the sucker i am gave in. i am sure he ate more than i did. then we went walking for an hour in the sun (including a quick stop at the salvation army where cohen got a very cute new shirt) and finally came home to start dinner sometime around 5. such a good day.

tonight wasn't as great though. cohen has a bad habit of standing in the tub. he likes to turn the tap on and off and pull the shower lever up. we are always trying to get him to sit down, but trying is not the same as doing and as i have mentioned he is strong willed. so tonight while he was being defiant and standing, he slipped and hit his face on the side of the tub chipping his front tooth. he didn't cry for long and it looks like it is minor enough that it didn't cause nerve damage, but we won't know for sure until tomorrow. it just reconfirms that we need to be more careful with him. it is so hard to know where the line is between freedom and danger at this age. i worry that next will be a broken arm or worse, he just has no fear. so now to add to the possible scar on his forehead he also has a chipped front tooth. good grief.

the worst of times

it looks like i have may have spoken too soon. it started on tuesday night when he threw up his dinner all over the place and then went on to have a 39 degree fever. it didn't compute with me at first, we were thinking flu maybe? it was on wednesday morning when the fever was still there and his eyes were as droopy as his limbs that i realized, it was the MMR shot. the statistics are there, a certain percentage of kids (around 20%) will see a fever reaction 7-10 days after the shot. marko stayed home with him for the day and they relaxed, we hoped that would be enough.

thursday morning he still wasn't himself though and so i elected to stay home. i am glad i did, his temperature was up and down all day, he wasn't really interested in food, slept 3.5 hours for his morning nap and then had two bouts of diarrhea. he was a grouchy melting down mess all day, but by the evening he seemed to have come back around and was acting himself. we thought we were in the clear.

this morning we woke up once again to a fever only this time it was accompanied by the rash you can see here. it is another side effect, this time prevalent in around 5% of kids who get immunized. they show signs of the illness itself. so cohen has little red measles like bumps all over his face, chest, and back and only this evening have they spread to his legs. there is a patch on his forehead where he keeps scratching and so it is raw. i feel so bad for the little pooper, he just isn't acting himself, so many fits and tears and so much frustration (from both of us).

i hope it passes soon and that all is ok in the end. i'm sure it will be. right?

a spoon full of sugar helps

so today was the first day of school. i mention this because as many of you know i work at a university, in fact i work in the enrollment office of a university, which means this time of the yeah is a bit chaotic. the buses are overcrowded, the line ups for lunch are long and loud, everywhere you turn there are students. it was a busy day for me on the phone, call after call, question after question, it should have been enough to keep me distracted, but it wasn't. all day my mind kept thinking about how today was immunization day for cohen. we were late with his one year shots due to some scheduling mixups and so tonight was the night he was going in for his dreaded mmr shot. i say dreaded because once, many months ago, i did an internet search about immunizations, and the stories that the mmr shot brought out in people were terrifying to say the least. i quickly turned off the computer back then and vowed to never think of it again. it was always there though, in the back of my mind. so today there was a lump in my throat, not just because he was going to have to get it, the terrifying shot, but also because i wouldn't be there with him, i would be still be at work finishing my 10.5 hour day.

i pestered marko online all day confirming that he had all the details, which shots we were getting, which we were declining (chicken pox), what to do if there was a reaction, how he could contact me. i was a paranoid mess. eventually i took some deep breaths, talked myself off the ledge, and made the end of day trek home.

when i got here i found the two of them laughing away at something on the floor without a care in the world. marko could tell i was still worried and shook his head, what was i so worried about anyway? turns out he only cried for a moment and he was completely fine the minute it was done. there was no reaction, no sense of abandonment that his mom wasn't there, no fever or fatigue. he didn't even flinch when i touched his prick point, but instead swatted my hand away and carried on his merry way as if to say, geez mom, you need to relax. i think he's right, now that it's over maybe i will.

what a way to make a living

summer is winding down and the kids are heading back to school so it seems only apt that i head back here to the blog. so many things have happened in the space between then and now. cohen had his first (but i am certain not last) run in with a sharp edge. this time it was the space smack between his eyes that took the brunt of the wooden train impact. thankfully there weren't any stitches and word has it very little crying even, (he was with his nanny) but you can still see it almost a month later so we will see if there is a scar. Since then there have been dozens of bruises and scrapes on legs and arms and chins. not one to be knocked down by pain he is always on the go.

we went to the pne a couple of weekends ago and much to my surprise cohen was completely overwhelmed by the experience. he is constantly surprising me in that way. it was not unlike that time he was terrified of grass, only this time grass was petting zoo animals and large crowds clapping in unison. it is the strangest things that trigger fear in him. for instance, there is this scene in an episode of caillou we sometimes let him watch where a real elephant (as opposed to a cartoon) is shown eating an apple. it completely terrifies him, he covers his eyes and turns away in tears. is it because the apple is red? the trunk is so long? the elephant drools too much? who knows, but apparently he does not like superdogs, petting zoos or elephants eating apples. jumping off the bed without holding on though? no problem.

cohen's first work of art

back in black

so many joys these days, and so many challenges as well. cohen's personality is exploding and with it has come many exciting things. i have heard people mention the filling of their heart, the gushing of their pride and the previously unkown happiness that having a child brings, i have even said it myself, but only recently have i realized that for everytime i think it, or say it, i will turn around and it will get even better, even bigger and more full and i will think that before i didn't know joy, before was just a warm up for this, and i suppose it was. it is the only thing in my life so far that has lived up to the adage that it really does get better all the time.

i am loving this age so much that some days i think i am going to burst from the experience of it, and yet at the same time it is so trying that there are days when i spend the entire afternoon on the verge of tears.

i have a passionate child. he isn't the sort of kid who wobbles or stands on fences, he is sure and determined and so very strong willed. this makes him prones to outbursts of affection, large bear hugs and smiles as wide as a canyon, deep burrowing in cuddles and kisses over and over again on my cheek, but also fits of frustration, body limp, feet stamping and arms flailing. he shouts gibberish in the hallyway to hear himself echo and he dances around the room when i put on the stereo, his arms flailing around above his head, his feet marching up and down and up and down to the beat. he will bang on his drum and pound on his piano so fiercely that the walls vibrate, and then he will stop without warning, point his finger at me and say "mom" in the softest voice, a smile emerging across his face. he loves to explore and to get into trouble, throwing things in the toilet when my back is turned or running for the littler box hands out to grab. this afternoon he figured out how to screw the lid off of the fish food, pellets streaming across the floor, his hand tightly clutching only a few for a taste. yells of frustration when i cleaned his hands and vacuumed the mess, a waste of his effort.

so where is the bad? well, it is in there. the fits, the mischeviousness, the determination. in my heart i am glad he is who is, independent and strong, but in my body it is sometimes pretty tough. fighting to get dressed and then fighting to go in the stroller, fighting when he doesn't want to get out of the bath or leave the swing. it isn't because he doesn't want to do these things, it is because he wants to be the one to decide when we do it. he wants to be in control. it is easy to feel like a bad mom. a slip of patience, a moment of frustration and i feel crushed, incapable. i know that i need to maintain the control and yet language is still a barrier and so boundaries are hard to create. patterns are being set up now and i want to make sure they are the right ones, but some days it is tough not to just do the thing that seems easiest. bad nights these days mean bad days as well, there is no more afternoon nap or lazy morning lounging, it is up early sleep or no sleep and then home to dinner and laundry and playing and bath and story and then bed, then sometimes when there is a moment, there is this.

i guess what i am saying is that i am starting to understand how parenting can be the hardest job in the world, that is isn't always as easy as it looks. however, it is moments like this afternoon when i arrived to pick him up from the nanny share, the way his eyes lit up and his grin stretched from ear to ear when he saw me, the way he ran over to me with his arms outstretched for a hug, quickly followed by an adamant wave goodbye to his nanny as if to say "i have somewhere better to be now, home with mom", that it is all worth while.

out to lunch

all photos taken here.







& the path back to my desk

hey teacher, leave the fruit alone

* warning this post may make you angry

i just got back from the community garden. it has become my nightly ritual, just after cohen goes to bed i go for a jaunt down the block to water the plot and see how everyone is doing. tonight, after some research on the subject, i was planting beets and parsnips, two crops that can be safely harvested well into fall. i love the garden, the smell, the feel, everything. tonight was especially magical as for only a moment the sky opened up and rain came barreling down providing all of the plants around me some much needed moisture while the sun shone down hard from the west, rainbows in the mist. so by now you may be wondering, why would this make me angry? then there is this next bit.

a family of three adults and two children, well dressed and seemingly professional, appear at the top of the park. they are walking with purpose straight towards the fence the contains the garden. i knew right away that they were headed for the raspberries from the plot connected to ours, their branches dangling into the park inviting others to eat from their heavy limbs. once the picking began the littlest girl asked if it was ok to be eating someone else's raspberries, to which the father replied that "if it is outside the fence it is fair game". to a point i agree with this statement, it is a community garden and if a branch is hanging out with ripe berries attached then a taste is ok. it was when they chose to come through the gate, past the sign that clearly stated that taking from the garden was stealing, and right up to where i was sewing my seeds that i began to object. i was stunned, so i looked at them directly and with disdain. the one man, not the father, whispered to the others that he didn't think they should be in here, that i was looking and it didn't seem right, to which the role model of a father replied "i don't give a shit who she is looking at, it is a community garden, it is fair game". really, fair to who? my blood boiled, my fists clenched and i began to feel dizzy. they took away the happy place and filled it with rage. i wanted to say something, i wanted to yell and hit, maybe even chase them out the gate with a pitchfork, but instead i did nothing, i just sat there and glared with judgement as they pillaged the fruit and then started in on the peas. i sat and i stared and i wished that this bullshit didn't happen. my glare was as good as saying something and it was clear that there would be no backing down, it was five against me.

i left shortly after, they were still there. i couldn't handle staying anymore. as i walked home i tried not to take it so personally, but this week has found me growing more and more attached to the plot. i understand more completely how much work goes into the upkeep, how much pride is placed on it's progress and on the products of the labour. it is impossible not to see it as disrespectful and ignorant. impossible not to take it personally.

two nights ago i met the woman who owned marita's plot last year, she told me quite matter of fact that she gave it up because she was sick of having everything in her garden stolen. she was tired of weeding and watering and nurturing row after row only to come and find the land barren. she was tired of having to cart home still green tomatoes that she would have to ripen on her windowsill if she ever hoped to eat them. then yesterday cohen and i bumped into a man who was complaining about his beans, all but those that are most unreachable had been taken. he had walked down to harvest some for him and his wife's dinner only to find the ripe ones depleted. he has had his plot six years, this year, he says, will be his last.

i don't know, is it worth it? if your enjoyment is in the process then i guess it is. still, i am not sure i need another reminder in my life about how selfish people can be, i am cynical enough already. as i am writing this though i am thinking about yesterday afternoon when cohen was "helping" me water the plot by grasping the end of the hose and run his hand wildly through the spray his hair and shirt soaked through to the bone, or the look on his face when he first figured out how to pick a raspberry off the low lying branches and quickly shove it in his mouth a long "mmmmmmm" seeping from his lips, and it doesn't seem so bad. what do you think, is it worth it?

t is for tomato ripe in my hand

this evening cohen and i were chatting with each other in the kitchen as i emptied the dishwasher when out of the corner of my eye i saw him perch on his toes and reach for something. i quickly turned, prepared to pull yet another do not put in mouth object out of his hand or his mouth or both, but to my surprise he was standing with a tomato in his hand. i have a few in a bowl right at his reach level on the windowsill ripening. i was curious what he would do with it so i let him be. i didn't have to wait long for the answer as in one fell swoop he charged towards his mouth with the fleshy red skin and chomped off an enormous bite, juice running down his chin onto his pajamas and covering the floor. well i'll be. so he doesn't like them when i cut them up and place them in front of him at dinner, but in his hand all at once making a mess they are great? so i sat and i watched as he devoured the whole thing, puddles littering the floor, seeds scattered from one end to the other. deciding he was finished he got up to leave only to learn a hard lesson about slippery when wet. not one to be knocked down he kept standing up only to slip back down. don't worry he wasn't getting hurt, instead he looked like he was doing some sort of comedy routine and as a result i couldn't stop laughing. eventually he was back into the bath, for the second time tonight,and i mopped the floor. i had been meaning to get to it anyway, i guess he was just giving me incentive.

tonight i finally got motivated enough to trek down to the community garden and dirty my hands. i have been thinking about it for weeks, but thinking isn't doing. turns out that in order to "do", i simply needed the promise of some good company and a cold beer. it was a lovely night for it, albeit a little warm for my liking (no i am not complaining, how dare i complain about heat after all that complaining about rain...i know). one huge garbage bag filled with weeds, a handful of raspberries and a couple of peas later we called it a night. the plot is halfway there, another night and it will be back in business. i don't know what it is but there is something immensely satisfying about pulling weeds and watching as the beauty of the plants buried beneath come to the surface.

oh, and before i forget, that which was lost has now been found, this time under the seat of my mom's car. hope had long since flown out the window, luckily it came back to find me in the end.

out to lunch

12:30

12:37

12:42

12:45

12:51

12:54

12:56-1:18

1:25 - looking back down