there is big change on the horizon for marko and i. for those of you that don't know, marko was laid off from his job the week that i stopped working at mine. it didn't come as a surprise, as we knew that business wasn't doing so great. he and a few others were given severance packages, with budget cuts being cited as the reason. it has worked out well having him at home, and so far finances are the same as always, so we have been weathering it pretty well. then last friday we were given notice on our apartment. turns out the owner has not only decided that he wants to sell, but has found a buyer as well. july 1st is the big day we have to be out by. these two things coupled with the fact that we have a newborn at home and you would think stress would be at the top of our feelings list, but so far we have both managed to stay pretty calm.
today marko had an interview for a job that he thinks he would really enjoy, and it went well, so well that within the hour they were calling his references. keep your fingers crossed that he gets a call in the next week offering him a position. it would be a relief to have one thing crossed off the list.
the other item i am beginning to think might be a bit more challenging. we have been to see 4 places so far. 2 of them were the grungiest, smelliest, most disgusting places one could imagine, and the rents were 1500 and 1600, plus utilities! one other was beautiful but too small, and there were many people filling out applications. the fourth place was one that we went and saw last night. when we got to the house there was a for sale sign out front, a warning sign that it probably wasn't the best bet for a long term situation. when we asked about it though we were told that they had decided to take the house off the market and that the sign would be coming down, so we went in and had a look. it was everything we were looking for, laminate floors throughout, new kitchen with brand new dishwasher and stove, huge sundeck off the kitchen, laundry and a large backyard for cohen to play in, and it was only 1300 (did i just say only??). we told him right away that we were interested and he seemed keen on having us take it, but said he would call us back today with a decision. so today came and we waited and waited and then waited some more, as the hours went on it became doubtful that it would be ours, yet we seemed so certain he liked us. tonight we phoned him and he said that he has changed his mind and he thinks he might keep it on the market...sigh, that's vancouver for you (and we looked the house up on the real estate pages to find out that they are asking 750 000 for it, the whole house is only 1900 sqft!), so we will keep looking. luckily we still have time on our side and hopefully something just as perfect will come along. it is just tough lugging two kids and the stroller all over town on public transportation often in the height of rush hour traffic to view places. for those of you living here keep your ears open for us, hopefully our place will present itself soon.
i look around this apartment which is much too small for us now and i am filled with both excitement at starting anew, and dread at having to pack it all up. one thing is for sure, wherever we end up i know it will finally have a plot of grass to call our own, it is time for that. i can't wait.
here are a couple of pictures of me with my babies, both taken today while playing around with the photobooth on my mac (hence the rather poor quality!)
there are two excellent reasons to celebrate today, the first is that it is my mom, jessie's, birthday. that is her up there in the class picture, she is second row from the bottom third from the left. i love these old class pictures of hers that i have. silvija was quick to point out that there are 8 boys and 21 girls in the photo, those are some good odds for the boys. this picture was taken 54 years ago and she still looks just as cute today. so cheers to you on another birthday, i hope you have a great year!
the other reason to celebrate is that today is my second to last day at work or better put, tomorrow is my last day. everyone keeps asking me if i feel excited, but i don't think excited is the word. relieved is closer to the truth, relieved to be taking a little bit off my plate (well a lot actually) and to finally get a chance to sleep in past seven and relax more. things have seemed so hectic lately. as for the spending more time with cohen part, well i guess that would fall under excited, i can't wait! still it will be strange to leave all my co-workers behind and begin my life as a full-time mom, we'll see how it goes.
as for things not worth celebrating today (cause the good always comes with bad), cohen has been quite sick since last friday night and as a result i have had very little sleep and am now starting to feel sick myself. we have been pretty lucky so far with him and sickness, but this one has really knocked him off his feet. i joked the other day that it was the first time i think i have ever seen him without energy, and it is true. lying around on the couch all day whining, sipping his juice, and refusing to eat, he is a ball of sadness. tonight he ate dinner for the first time in 5 days, let's hope he is on the mend.
i am back! although probably not really. there are many kinks that need to be worked out of my working mom machinery, most notably my ability to stay awake past ohhhh...say eight o'clock (and for those of you astute enough to now check when i published, you are right it is late right now so good for me!). in truth the only reason i am up so late tonight is because grandma had cohen last night which meant i got a good nights sleep. every other night last week, and i expect the rest of this one (since i have to be at work at 6:45 everyday this week. seriously), i have been slumbering well before most of the cool kids. i will figure it out soon and then i can go back to blogging and facebooking like everyone else.
it was exactly one year ago today that cohen was due. the complaining hadn't yet begun, it took a few days overdue before my wingeing mechanism kicked into high gear. still, to celebrate what may have been cohen's first birthday i thought i would entertain you with some picnic pictures that were taken at cates park on the weekend. we bbq'ed and basked in the glory of our wonderful weather, summer is here at last (just not today, today it is raining...sigh).
in case that cuteness wasn't enough i have other big news that comes with it's own unique brand of cute. yesterday my sister in law laisha celebrated her birthday, which in itself deserves a round of applause, but the big news of the day was the arrival of our families newest edition, laisha and aaron's son and cohen's only boy cousin, jonah alexander rosnau deans who was born at home in the wee hours of the morning. what a wonderful birthday gift indeed! as luck would have it i just now received an email with a photo of him, i hope it is ok to share, it is just too great not to. marko and i will now commence our argument about which parent he resembles more. congratulations everyone, i can't wait to meet him in a few weeks!
5.28.2007
this was the scene i woke up to at 6 this morning. i guess the pigeon was looking for a place to rest his weary soul and our cracked open window seemed to fit the bill.
so work. it was much better than i expected, although i still think i would have rather been at home. i got right back into the swing of things and it all came back as clear as yesterday within a couple of hours. it felt familiar and inviting, so i guess that was good. there was also something slightly off about that for me though. the realization that i work at a job that you can leave for 13 months and come back only to find everything exactly the same, including the jokes and all the dialogue. a little surreal to be honest. i think it would have been nice if it felt awkward and new, if only for a moment to give me that first day of school rush, but it was not to be. so i am back and it is the same. i guess that means the posts about how much i hate the bus should start rolling in full force. i bet that makes you all excited, doesn't it?
so many things to write about. i am going to attempt to do one big summary, we'll see how it goes.
a few months ago i made reservations to rent a car one weekend every month throughout the summer. in april we went camping, but last weekend was our may weekend and we chose to not make plans but just to go out and do whatever we fancied. the weather ended up being underwhelming so some of the things we thought we would do, like a hike, didn't happen, but we managed to fill the long weekend with fun anyway.
cohen went to his second first birthday party this time in mission (about an hour drive). the birthday girl was beth who is the daughter of a woman i met online that had a due date close to mine. we had never met in person, despite being so close, so it was nice to finally meet. when we got there i overheard another mom telling a lady that she always worries that her daughter is going to be too aggressive with the other kids. as most of you know, cohen is the same and so my interest was piqued. after talking with her for a bit it became clear that we had to get the kids together and sure enough, they wrestled with each other most of the afternoon (she is the one in the picture). i think cohen was in heaven and he had that look of love in his eye.
on monday, our last day with the car the weather was pretty miserable so we stayed in and ate freshly baked croissants and drank coffee, that is until mid afternoon when the sky cleared up and the road beckoned us. we didn't know where we were going, but in the end our road led us to white rock for a long walk on the beach including standing close to the tracks as the train passed. we thought cohen would really dig the action, but it turns out he was more interested in my water bottle. maybe next time.
then last week cohen went and did some trial runs with his nanny to see how he would do. as expected, he did amazing and hardly cared at all that he was away from me, although the nanny, amy, did say that he kept looking at the door. i am glad she said that because it can be a little heartbreaking having such an independent baby, especially when i am being a needy mom! i know it is going to be a smooth transition for cohen (and hopefully for me) plus, the two boys seem to get along well (although the other boy dante did kick up a fuss every now and again when cohen played with his toys!).
i did end up getting my haircut. i know that many of you have already seen the cut on facebook, and if you haven't then why aren't you on there yet? actually i know why, and it was why i resisted for so long despite the polite prodding by friends. i have no idea why it is so compelling, drawing me back, sucking my time, but there it is. i am sure it is the real reason i haven't updated my blog in so long. so shameful. what was i talking about, oh yes! the haircut. i did end up finding a picture and going in with it and she actually did a pretty good job of getting it right. i also got it highlighted which isn't so obvious here so you may have to trust me on that.
the other big, no let's call it "the biggest" news of the day is that cohen is walking now! he has actually been walking for almost two weeks (first one step followed by a crash, then three, then six...), but i just haven't gotten around to documenting it yet. this is good for you as his skills have greatly improved making for a more entertaining video. in this one take note of the preaching motion with one finger pointed in the air and the serious tone of shouting. this kid has something very important to say, i just wish i could understand it!
so tomorrow is the big day. i am undecided about how i feel. right now i am ok with it though. i will have to report back and let you know how it went. i also want to tell you about this little get together i had today, but for now i am going to end this one here. wish me luck.
maybe it is a funk, i am undecided about the difference.
it is a case of bananas and thinking. that is, the more i tell myself to not think about bananas, the more time i spend thinking about them. only in this case it isn't really bananas that are in question, it is going back to work. so to tell you that i haven't been thinking about it is a lie, a dirty shameful lie, because it is almost all i have been thinking about. everyday we go out, to the park, to the pool, to the library, just for a walk, and all i can think about is that soon it will be over. it is crazy talk i know, nothing is really ending. there may be less time, but the time itself will stay the same, it may even be sweeter. still, it is the less that has me blue.
when i was in my first year of university i went through a much too long stage where i was sleeping 16-17 hours a night. at first i didn't give it much thought, which looking back now i think it is a little strange, but after a couple of months and several dozen missed lectures, i started to suspect that something was amiss. the dr. confirmed that in fact this was not normal and suggested that it was my bodies way of coping with the stress of change. he kindly told me that he could have me withdrawn from a class or two without punishment if i thought it would help, but i wasn't ready for such drastic measures and thanked him anyway. instead, i forced myself up at a normal time everyday, and despite my brains best efforts, i exercised a little everyday to keep me awake. slowly things started to get better and although i didn't do great academically that first semester i didn't fail anything either. so that is that, some people eat ice cream, and others stay up all night unable to sleep, but me? well i go to bed at 6pm and sleep right on through until noon, usually waking up with a sleep hangover and a thick fog around me. it is in my dreams that i find refuge, something about checking out i think.
all this to say that lately i have been sleeping. a lot. as much as cohen almost, which is much more than a grown woman should be. morning naps, afternoon naps and early evenings, and yes, when we wake i do make us leave the house and "do something", but the sleep always seems follows me. my spirit is having trouble getting roused it seems, which once again brings us back to bananas.
i have much to update about cohen, happy, fun, exciting things. i will take pictures tomorrow and i promise no more bananas.
there are only sixty nine days left before i go back to work. may 28th is the day. it looms around the edges of the room lately, it is something i try not to think about. a friend of mine, thea, offered up some advice on the activity of "going back to work" and it was this, don't let the worry and fear ruin the last bit of time you have together, it will all work out and everyone will be fine. she had only recently gone back and felt that her pre-return anxiety was ill founded. i saw the logic, but also thought it was fine for her to say, she had childcare!
for me the single biggest worry i have is daycare. this city has a serious shortage of facilities, with many having waiting lists two and three years long to get in. oh sure, i got on the lists as soon as we conceived, but i knew there wouldn't be space by the time i had to go back. so then what? i would hear rumours that you needed to look at least three months ahead of time, that you need to be phoning around all the time. diligence is what will prevail. however, i am not so great at the diligence and i hate phoning around, so instead i put word out with everyone i knew asking them to keep their ears open and letting them know i would welcome suggestions. the messages coming back were clear, be worried and hope for some good luck. however, it was in a reply that i first heard about nanny sharing, and the writer told me that this may be the best way to secure a decent place, albeit slightly more expensive. the idea behind nanny sharing is that one family has a nanny that cares for their child in their home (sometimes live in, sometimes not), and they choose to take in one more child to help lessen their financial burden.
so i began checking craigslist daily looking for something that might work. i wasn't married to a nanny share, but admitted that it sounded like a best case scenario. for almost two weeks there was nothing and then one morning i saw this and got more than a little excited. so i wrote back and hoped that not too many others would respond. it couldn't have been more perfect, only five blocks from our house and on marko's way to work and a boy close in age!
as it turns out she did have four responses, but she would love to meet us, and so we all went over on saturday morning to say hello. their son dante was incredibly cute and developmentally similar to cohen, the two of them hit it off right away each banging away on a toy drum and staring pensively out the window. the apartment itself was a beautiful loft in a building that boasts an enormous courtyard complete with a garden. the energy in the apartment was so positive and bright with 16 foot ceilings and windows from top to bottom, wood floors and big play mats. we knew right away that this would be a good fit (they even have a tropical fish tank with the same fish as us!), and hoped they felt the same. luckily for us they were taken with cohen and told us straight out that they would like for us to be the ones to enter in the nanny share! the nanny lives out so we have not met her yet but from everything we are told she sounds amazing. her and dante go to music class every week and walks everyday (they even have a double stroller just waiting for cohen), so we will meet her sometime next week and then sometime in may we will slowly get cohen used to leaving home during the day (although he is likely going to love it, it is me that is going to need the getting used to).
as the ad indicates, it is part time, which is what we were looking for as my mom has been hired to come and be with cohen two days a week (mon-tue). i wish i didn't have to go back to work, and hopefully one day soon i won't need to anymore, but in the meantime this is one less thing to worry about, which means i can go back to enjoying these last sixty nine days without interruption. so i guess she was right, things do have a way or working out, sometimes sooner than we expect.
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.
