cohen and i are off to prince george in the morning, at 6:30 to be exact. i am only slightly concerned about cohen being yanked from his bed, stuffed into clothes and hurried only to wait at such an early hour. i am hoping that lots of grandma love and perhaps a baby mum mum and a fun toy will be enough to keep his disposition pleasant. the flight is less than an hour which really is like taking the bus out to ubc, so it should be a piece of cake.
we are going to celebrate my mom's sixtieth birthday. there are many festivities planned including a nice dinner and a trip to the spa on tuesday, her actual birthday. it is going to be nice to get out of the city even if it is quite cold and slushy. we are going to go to the pool again which is a little crazy since i swore i would take him regularly after going during our last visit and yet have not gone once. there just isn't any good pools for kids in the city.
the reason i am writing this seemingly pointless post though is to let you know that i have made the decision to not take my computer. this is a big deal for me. i haven't really gone anywhere without it for the last two years, which is exactly why i am going without this time. instead i am going to try and take lots of pictures and read and just relax, maybe watch some movies. i, like many of you i imagine, waste far too much time on this thing so i will consider this my week vacation from the internet (although who are we kidding, i will still check my email).
wish me luck with the withdrawal. see you in a week.
i don't mean to stay away so long, honest. it just sort of happens sometimes, well lot's of the time really. i think that is one of the worst things about having a blog, thinking about the fact that you haven't written anything. if you have a moderate number of frequent visitors you feel as though you have let them down if you don't say something, but on the other hand you feel like a bit of a schmuck if you come here and post another boring post about nothing. so conflicted.
the big news is that i have decided that crafting blogs are my new mommy blog, and as a result have spent more time on my sewing machine then on the computer. there are so many creative people out there making such simple and yet wonderful creations that i quickly felt a need to be a part of it. i am not so great at the crafting stuff, but i sure do love to try, all the colourful fabrics and textures, the buttons and stitching. so wonderful. of course there is the continuous envy of these women who do fantastic work in a seemingly flawless and nonchalant manner, the way they make creativity look like a reflex. still, i think i would rather watch these blogs in wonder and feel the urge to "do" then read the mommy blogs and feel inadequate. it is all about where i am in the cycle i suspect.
you see, i have learned that being a mom is a very up and down job. when it is up there is no greater place to be then home with your child playing or singing, just present, but when you are down the world looks pretty bleak. my self esteem goes out the window and i convince myself that no one likes me and that everything i do is useless. i can't get motivated to clean and yet i feel ashamed that the place is so messy. i don't shower often enough or leave the house as much as i should. i mostly just wait for this thing to pass and for the good to return. lately i have been going through this, the down. it is a combination of so many things i guess, the change of season, the boredom of routine, small human mobility and an instability in my surrounding and of course hormones. so the mommy blogs have been tough to handle lately, some more than others (friend's blogs excluded, naturally).
i have to thank klay for inspiring me to find the creative outlet through links on her blog and then a multitude of links from there. i look forward to taking this energy and placing it somewhere positive while i wait this thing out, hopefully spring will be here soon.
*the photos are of nicole's quaint abode where i spent the majority of my last saturday night. the company, as always, was just as charming as the surroundings.
to mark the occasion of eight months come and gone i will entertain you all with eight pictures and a video, i would have done eight videos but i think that would cement my place in home video hell. there are four above and four below. those above are him being himself (and yes that is food on his face, he had just finished dinner and clearly taking the picture was more important than wiping the mess up) and those below are him acting out the range of emotions for which he is capable. someone should get this kid into pictures...or at the very least a hair cut.
surprised? possibly blowing a kiss? this one is open for interpretation.
very serious, don't you know!
i like to call this one the happy zoolander
and his trademark face the "let's have some fun" grin
the video was taken tonight after he was put to bed and was supposed to be sleeping (you will notice him nod off here and there from fatigue!). it was taken in the dark with our "please don't let this make you think of paris hilton" night vision function on the camera which is just a roundabout way of saying sorry that it looks so crappy (although a little spooky too...no?).
so cheers to eight months with the little pooper, i never knew life could be so fun!
i meant to get to this earlier, to say happy valentine's day when the day was still new, but life got in the way today and even now i am writing this while lying in bed moments away from slumber.
i had high hopes this afternoon to take a great cheesy photograph of cohen that would involve paper hearts and red fabric, possibly even teddy bears. he tried to eat the paper hearts only to have me panic and quickly scoop my finger into his mouth and retrieve the shards of pink paper and he covered his head with the fabric and laughed hysterically, the lighting way to0 low to capture such a jittery shot. as for the teddy bear? he kept gnawing at it's ear and the photograph was less than spectacular. so we ended up with this, he's wearing red so that is sort of festive right?
it was a good day. there was a roast and expensive wine, flowers, a chocolate pecan torte with a vanilla latte and an hour long bath. if i had slept more than four hours last night it would have been the perfect day, which brings us to now and me in bed before ten.
i hope you all had a great day. oh, and tell me what do you think of the new layout? i was going through a bit of a crisis this week, the kind where you want to cut off all your hair or move the furniture. in the end i decided to change the layout of the blog as a compromise, hopefully it is enough to keep the scissors at bay. is it just me or does this time of year bring out this feeling in everyone? i think it has something to do with spring...
cohen learned how fun it is to look out the window today. i am not sure why it never occurred to me before but today for the first time i let him stand on the back of the couch and stare at the world outside. he was fascinated and spent a good twenty minutes looking up and down and then longingly out at the mountains. at one point he stared so hard at the back of our neighbour paul's head as he unsuspectingly worked below that i thought for sure he would sense it and turn, but i don't think he did. it is just as well because i think we both looked a little crazy, so wide eyed and excited. so i think it may become part of our routine, couch time. i just wish there was something a little more exciting for him to look at, maybe the skateboarders will have another party soon.
in other news i saw this in my travels today and so i thought i would post it. do with it what you will but i think i might send a card, i wonder how many he will get?
this morning sometime around seven i felt a knock on my skull, so i carefully opened my eyes just a crack to see galena sitting right beside my head, paw in mid air coming in for another strike (claws in of course). so i opened my eyes and made the move towards mobility causing her to jump from her perch leaving a perfect view of cohen's crib where he stood, hands firmly attached to railing, staring intensely at me with a grin on his face. they both wanted the same thing, food. so like every morning i needed to make the call, which was of course to do the easiest thing first. as i trudged to the kitchen with the cat in tow cohen started screaming (he is not fond of playing second fiddle). out of necessity i trudged on and filled the dish with kibble then back to the bedroom to retrieve a screaming cohen and then milk. i desperately wanted some juice but there i was sitting on the bed feeding cohen with no chance of some juice, the chance for that had passed me by. this is my life on a bad day. on a day when who i was, neigh who i am, is lost somewhere in the rubble. a day when instead i am defined by who i am to everyone else. it is part of being a mother and a wife i suppose but on a bad day it is tough to carry the weight.
so today wasn't great, but he slept well and he is asleep for the night now at eight minutes to eight. i think i might join him. i finished stanley park and to be honest it wasn't really my cup of tea. i am looking for books to captivate me these days, the kind of books you just can't put down. that wasn't one of them. i think i will make some tea, put on my pajamas and crawl into bed with the memory keeper's daughter now. with a little luck i will wake up on my own in the morning.
cohen woke up at 6:30 this morning which is something he has unfortunately been doing for a week now, but today he chose to fall back asleep when i snuggled him into bed beside me (a trick i had tried unsuccessfully every other day this week). we slept in until 9:30, which felt more like noon it was so indulgent, then this afternoon we went for a walk. the sun was shining and everywhere i looked i could see crocuses popping their heads through the soil, reminding us that spring will be here soon. cohen loved being out, particularly our stop at the park where he swung on the swings and slid down the slide, a smile on his face the whole time.
tonight after his bath and a story he settled into his crib and fell asleep. it was such a relief, you see, ever since he started standing it has been impossible to have him settle at night or at naps. there is much singing and jumping and belly aching to be had. i have tried to hold him down by gently stroking his hair and face but he is smarter than that and sees through my guise, quickly brushing my hand away and back onto his feet. i have learned to just leave him to sing and jump and eventually (read hours later) he sits himself down and falls asleep, but tonight he did it without coaxing. maybe it was the fresh air, but i am hoping that the standing has lost some of it's excitement and that there are calmer bedtime waters ahead of us.
after he was asleep marko and i sat down to finish our office marathon. we are big fans of the original but had never seen the american version, so on the advice of nicole we decided to check it out. three days and some 45 episodes later i think we can safely say we enjoy it.
so yeah, it was a good day. hopefully tomorrow brings more of the same.
i have new pictures and some new video which means it is time for a new post, now if only i had some clever words to accompany them.
last saturday night i went up to seymour with nicole for some full moon snowshoeing. unfortunately there was no moon due to the loitering of ominous looking clouds but there was snow and we were given shoes (well they sort of look like shoes?). the guide would stop us along the trail and share moon folklore and then at one point we were each (16 in all) given a recipe card with a moon fact to read aloud, a flashlight passed hand to hand in replacement of the actual moon. my fact was something about ants and how even though they are busy and hard working they take the day off during a full moon. nicole's was about surgery and increased blood flow in relation to the fullness of the moon, how some surgeons won't perform due to an increased chance of complications. i won't say the facts were fascinating, because they weren't (although nicole's was at least interesting), but i will say that being out in the forest in the pitch black with all of the snow and the glow that came from behind the clouds, well that was something. plus, snowshoeing was kind of fun and afterwards we were all rosy cheeked and glowing as we sipped our perfectly sweetened hot chocolate and spoke of returning for more of the same, sooner rather than later.
yesterday we went to the aquarium again with my friend farha and her son javier. upon my recommendation they had purchased a season's pass as well and so we thought we would join them for a little fish fun. this time i brought the stroller and cohen was able to see more from it then he ever had before. he is also a little older and more engaged in his environment which made for a great outing. his jaw actually dropped slightly while watching the tropical tank. he was computing just how expensive it would be to have a tank like that at home and then he went all serious, no doubt trying to figure out the best way to convince me to buy him one. we decided to walk a little after we left as both boys were sleeping in their strollers. cohen and i ended up walking the whole way home in the end as it wasn't so bad out and we both liked walking along the water. when we got home he had dinner and then slept like a baby. an added bonus for me!
speaking of dinner, here is another video (what can i say he keeps doing all of these great things!) of him feeding himself for the first time last night. as you can see, we couldn't have switched to the plastic bib at a better time.
for those that are wondering he was eating zucchini, pear and red lentil mash. mmmmm mash
this week was filled with learning, for example i learned that i quite like to brush my teeth in the shower. i am not sure if this is related to multi-tasking or just the minty feeling whilst being doused in warm water, but it has become my new favourite thing. it isn't so easy with an electric toothbrush though. i also learned that i like dark chocolate coated butter cookies, well actually i mostly just like to peel the chocolate off and throw the cookie away, which i think means i just like dark chocolate which i guess isn't all that new. then there was the biggest revelation of all, i now like classical music. i swear i never thought there would be a day i would say it. it always stressed me out, the loud and then the quiet and then the even louder, it made my blood pressure rocket. i was always vaguely aware that i should appreciate it but i never could, despite having a husband who quite digs the stuff. however, this week i have been playing it for cohen to help with the sleeping and in response my body has chosen to now find it appealing. perhaps it is the fact that it works and cohen slept great all week because of it, so now i have to show some sort of respect or maybe it is just because i am getting old.
the learning didn't stop with me though, cohen learned much including that he likes rice puffs, or at the very least likes playing with them and trying to get them into his belly. his mouth to floor/lap ratio greatly improved as the week progressed. he also learned that diving face first into the bath results in all kinds of unpleasantness, not the least of which is an inability to breath (don't worry i was right there holding him the whole time, it wasn't scary at all really, just alarming for him i think). then there was cohen's big revelation, which is the next one we were waiting for (no not teeth, not yet anyway...but maybe soon?) which is standing. pulling up to stand with the assistance of some inanimate object to be exact.
the standing is making bedtime interesting. no matter how tired he is he insists on standing and jumping on the bed, sometimes crying with fatigue through it all. i lie him back down and he immediately stands back up. what to do? videotape it of course. here he is particularly tired and whiny, note how he moans through the tough bits (just like his mom when she is out for a jog).
*the sweater in the pictures was made by my very talented aunt helen. i know she reads this so i just wanted her to see how great it is on him!
this used to be one thing, but now it is something else. i have no idea what it will be tomorrow. i am hopefully pessimistic and live on the westcoast of bc with two little humans and one larger one. with a little luck that doesn't sum up who i am.
i don't mean to stay away so long, honest. it just sort of happens sometimes, well lot's of the time really. i think that is one of the worst things about having a blog, thinking about the fact that you haven't written anything. if you have a moderate number of frequent visitors you feel as though you have let them down if you don't say something, but on the other hand you feel like a bit of a schmuck if you come here and post another boring post about nothing. so conflicted.
there are so many creative people out there making such simple and yet wonderful creations that i quickly felt a need to be a part of it. i am not so great at the crafting stuff, but i sure do love to try, all the colourful fabrics and textures, the buttons and stitching. so wonderful. of course there is the continuous envy of these women who do fantastic work in a seemingly flawless and nonchalant manner, the way they make creativity look like a reflex. still, i think i would rather watch these blogs in wonder and feel the urge to "do" then read the mommy blogs and feel inadequate. it is all about where i am in the cycle i suspect.
my self esteem goes out the window and i convince myself that no one likes me and that everything i do is useless. i can't get motivated to clean and yet i feel ashamed that the place is so messy. i don't shower often enough or leave the house as much as i should. i mostly just wait for this thing to pass and for the good to return. lately i have been going through this, the down. it is a combination of so many things i guess, the change of season, the boredom of routine, small human mobility and an instability in my surrounding and of course hormones. so the mommy blogs have been tough to handle lately, some more than others (friend's blogs excluded, naturally). 
but today he chose to fall back asleep when i snuggled him into bed beside me (a trick i had tried unsuccessfully every other day this week). we slept in until 9:30, which felt more like noon it was so indulgent, then this afternoon we went for a walk. the sun was shining and everywhere i looked i could see crocuses popping their heads through the soil, reminding us that spring will be here soon. cohen loved being out, particularly our stop at the park where he swung on the swings and slid down the slide, a smile on his face the whole time. 
to have him settle at night or at naps. there is much singing and jumping and belly aching to be had. i have tried to hold him down by gently stroking his hair and face but he is smarter than that and sees through my guise, quickly brushing my hand away and back onto his feet. i have learned to just leave him to sing and jump and eventually (read hours later) he sits himself down and falls asleep, but tonight he did it without coaxing. maybe it was the fresh air, but i am hoping that the standing has lost some of it's excitement and that there are calmer bedtime waters ahead of us. 
and we were given shoes (well they sort of look like shoes?). the guide would stop us along the trail and share moon folklore and then at one point we were each (16 in all) given a recipe card with a moon fact to read aloud, a flashlight passed hand to hand in replacement of the actual moon. my fact was something about ants and how even though they are busy and hard working they take the day off during a full moon. nicole's was about surgery and increased blood flow in relation to the fullness of the moon, how some surgeons won't perform due to an increased chance of complications. i won't say the facts were fascinating, because they weren't (although nicole's was at least interesting), but i will say that being out in the forest in the pitch black with all of the snow and the glow that came from behind the clouds, well that was something. plus, snowshoeing was kind of fun and afterwards we were all rosy cheeked and glowing as we sipped our perfectly sweetened hot chocolate and spoke of returning for more of the same, sooner rather than later.
this time i brought the stroller and cohen was able to see more from it then he ever had before. he is also a little older and more engaged in his environment which made for a great outing. his jaw actually dropped slightly while watching the tropical tank. he was computing just how expensive it would be to have a tank like that at home and then he went all serious, no doubt trying to figure out the best way to convince me to buy him one. we decided to walk a little after we left as both boys were sleeping in their strollers. cohen and i ended up walking the whole way home in the end as it wasn't so bad out and we both liked walking along the water. when we got home he had dinner and then slept like a baby. an added bonus for me!
it isn't so easy with an electric toothbrush though. i also learned that i like dark chocolate coated butter cookies, well actually i mostly just like to peel the chocolate off and throw the cookie away, which i think means i just like dark chocolate which i guess isn't all that new. then there was the biggest revelation of all, i now like classical music. i swear i never thought there would be a day i would say it. it always stressed me out, the loud and then the quiet and then the even louder, it made my blood pressure rocket. i was always vaguely aware that i should appreciate it but i never could, despite having a husband who quite digs the stuff. however, this week i have been playing it for cohen to help with the sleeping and in response my body has chosen to now find it appealing. perhaps it is the fact that it works and cohen slept great all week because of it, so now i have to show some sort of respect or maybe it is just because i am getting old. 
results in all kinds of unpleasantness, not the least of which is an inability to breath (don't worry i was right there holding him the whole time, it wasn't scary at all really, just alarming for him i think). then there was cohen's big revelation, which is the next one we were waiting for (no not teeth, not yet anyway...but maybe soon?) which is standing. pulling up to stand with the assistance of some inanimate object to be exact.
