hitting the snooze button and making it stick

i only have a handful of blogs that i follow on a consistent basis. they are mainly comprised of people i know outside of the computer, and people who found me here and commented at one time or another. it would seem that i am a rather poor citizen of the blogging community. i don't really have a good excuse for it either, other than the fact that i spend most of my aimless internet surfing time gawking at random photos of complete strangers on facebook. don't lie, you totally do it to. so why do i mention it now?

well i mention it because it seems that everywhere i look this week the blogs are talking about sleep. needing it, missing it, loving it, overdoing it, and all this sleep talk has me feeling a little sheepish. a little too happy at my good fortune. i hesitate to put it out there for fear of retribution, but what the hell, nothing wrong with a little gratitude, right?

you see, marko's mom is here again this month. she makes the pilgrimage from croatia once a year and stays for an extended visit. one year it was for one month, and then last year for two. two years ago i was on maternity with cohen and it was nice to have the company, we took turns cooking and together we went for many walks and drank many cappuccinos (well, actually, make mine a latte). a month was too short. then last year i was back at work and we didn't have that time. she was generous and would always cook dinner before we returned from work, helpful to be sure, but i missed cooking. i also missed having that one on one time with cohen at night, i was at work all day, i needed him as much as she did. two months was too much. this year we have found the balance again.

silvija, or baka as she is known around here, is an early riser, usually sometime between 6:30 and 7. she just can't sleep past that time, it isn't part of her wiring. as it turns out ada also has this wiring, wiring that would have me pulling out my hair were it not for baka. our routine, the one i am so grateful for these days, has me waking for the day with ada sometime around 6, feeding her and then letting her poke my eyes or pull my hair until baka wakes up and comes to get her. then i tuck myself in and go back to sleep. i know, i am a bastard. to be fair though, things have been rough with the toddler the last couple of weeks. the last 3 nights he has woken up 3 times during the night. last night we even caved in and squeezed all four of us into our queen size bed, our necks and legs cramped by morning. so it hasn't been a total picnic, but close.

she takes ada and feeds her breakfast, and when cohen wakes up around 8, she feeds him too. i usually sleep soundly until 9, a couple of times even 10. i don't wake to anyone needing me, or screaming, just a couple of kids playing and a pot of coffee. who needs mexico when you have a baka around?

her and ada have become fast friends, and so she puts ada down for all her naps and at night too. she feeds her and changes her, and kisses her little cheeks plenty as well. i am already scheming on how i can make her stay longer, and dreading the 22nd when she goes home. it hasn't been long enough. not by a long shot. i don't know how i am going to cope when it goes back to just being me. i am trying not to think about it and instead just enjoying these last two weeks of sleep, and calm (sort of).

so there, that's my post about sleep. come back in a month, i am sure i will be singing a different tune.

evening out the sides for balance

the house is quiet right now. mostly anyway, i can hear cohen snoring down the hall, yet another thing he picked up from his dad. i am alone in the silence and it is beautiful. i haven't had much of this all week. it has been a tough one.

when cohen was ada's age it was common practice to lie down next to him in our bed for nap time. when he fell asleep i would wedge pillows on either side of him and then get up and attempt to be productive (except for days when i gave up on productivity and voted for napping instead). i would keep the house quiet and listen to hear him babbling upon waking. it was a system that worked. some people rock, or cradle, or stroke soft little foreheads, we always laid next to him. we still do most nights, so it wasn't a surprise that this is the same approach we would take with ada. this method became null and void near the end of last week though when she fell out of bed for the sixth time (five here, once at grandma's). i know, i know, six?!? there should have only been one i suppose but i kept tempting fate, believing i would get there fast enough when she woke, and probably a little of being lazy as well. it would work if she wasn't so quiet when she wakes up. silent. there is no other time in the day when she is quiet. she makes parrots and monkeys seem sedate, always singing and shouting, or crying. all the time, except when i want her to. she is that kind of a kid.

so last week when she fell again without warning i decided that enough was enough, never again. sleeping has been a disaster ever since. she doesn't want to be rocked and will pinch your cheeks hard and then harder until you stop with the rocking. cradling is a no go as well, fidgeting and rolling over in my arms is her solution for that one. i tried lying down with her on the living room floor on a blanket but she wasn't going to be fooled, the moment i thought she was asleep and attempted to get up she started to crawl away, smiling. so then what?

crying. that is the cold hard fact here. it is either crying, letting her stay awake all the time, or going for trips in the car every time i want her to sleep. the last one does seem tempting and might even be the solution if cohen wasn't so uppity about leaving the house. so we have been letting her cry to get to sleep. this has worked out ok so far at night, as she goes to bed before cohen, but for naps it just isn't working. she has stamina and conviction, she is, as they say, a tough cookie to crack. so i let her cry and then i go lie with cohen, but then her cries step up a notch and i feel i should go see her and cohen gets up to follow me. this goes on for half an hour or more some days. he can't relax if she is crying and i can't go in and calm her (somehow?) if he is awake and stepping on my coat tales. it is an impossible predicament. napping with two takes impeccable timing, rock solid instincts and significantly more patience than i currently possess. today the process took 2 hours. 2 hours! just when i threw my hands in the air and thought "to hell with both of you, if you don't want to sleep then fine don't sleep, see if i care!" i look in and he is fast asleep, exhausted from his attempts to foil me. today it was 1:45, a decent time. yesterday it wasn't until 3. i guess i should just be glad he naps at all. i know.

right now i am glad to have this moment of silence. i think i will go make myself a cup of tea. of course as soon as the water is boiled one of them will wake up, that is just how it works. until then i will let the fantasy be real.


this is the latest in an installation i like to call "cohen's head wounds". this one was achieved last night when he ran into the car door. ouch.

did you see what just happened?

last night cohen woke up around 11pm. this isn't so unusual. normally he would start to cry or moan, or he would run out into the living room with an exuberant "hi!". it is the latter that you need to worry about. nothing makes him get back to sleep when he's ready to party. last night was different though. we might not have even realized he had woken up had we not heard the faint pitter patter on the wood floor. he went straight into the kitchen, opened the tupperware cupboard and pulled out one of his cups, then with his eyes still half shut he opened the fridge, pulled out the juice container, and walked over to my desk. he stretched both arms out to me and muttered "joosh". i poured an inch or two in the cup and handed it to him. he tilted it back draining the glass, then handed it back with a "tank you". what came next is the crazy part though, he turned around and walked back to his room, climbed into bed and went back to sleep. on his own. without a fight. seriously?

marko didn't see it all happen but knew he was awake, so he said "you want me to go put him back?". when i told him what happened he said, "what?". what indeed. i like to think it was his penitence for the sleeping week from hell, but i can't help but wonder, do you think there will be a day when that happens all the time? it gives me hope.

**i know this photo has nothing to do with the post, but i like it, so i put it anyway. it is the view from our living room window. the tree is almost naked, which means raking is almost done. phew.

hasselhoff? really?

today wasn't such a great day. the sun was shining, and the suggestion was that it may be the last time such a thing happens until spring, so we went to the farm and to the park. it should have been a good day, but it wasn't. something isn't aligning in our house these days. something is just slightly off. cohen is having more and more bad days. i had no idea it was so difficult to parent a two year old. maybe i shouldn't lump him generically into a clump, since so many people before this have said "i don't know why they call two terrible?" screw them. i spend literally hours of everyday battling with the small human. it is has gotten ridiculous, and the rainy season isn't even here yet. at this rate if i make it through to april it will be a miracle.

still, he is doing all kinds of cute things, like singing to songs on itunes, breakdancing at the hip noodle restaurant, and saying "i love you galena, nice kitty" as he gently strokes her head. there is definitely a love hate thing going on over here. the bottom line is that as long as he can do whatever, wherever he wants then he is mr smiley go lucky, but the minute i put the breaks on running recklessly around the vats of apples at the farmers market while dozens of people attempt to buy produce, and he becomes mr hitty grouchy pants. my mom has always said that the cornerstone of good parenting is always being the boss, children don't really want to be the boss, they want someone else to be in control so that they feel secure. i need to work on that. i try, but i almost always buckle under strong resistance. i am thickening my skin as we speak.

the sleep thing with ada came to a head tonight as well. we co-sleep and i think it works great for us, but as we did with cohen, the idea was to transition her to the crib around 6 months, give or take. i would have been happy to keep the co-sleeping up a little longer, but in the last 10 days ada has been waking ten or more times during the night. sometimes just to kick a little, pinch my face and then teeter back to sleep, but every time i wake up and have to lull myself back. the result has been a very impatient and sleep deprived mommy. i have felt half dead most days and quite ill prepared to deal with mr hitty grouchy pants, so tonight i took a stand. i tried to rock her for a bit, but she is quite possibly the fidgetiest baby in the entire universe. i guarantee that she is going to be one of those kids that can't sit still. so then i laid her down in the crib and gently stroked her hair for five minutes, but still no sleepy sleep. it was past her bedtime, she was ready, her eyes were drooping off the edge of the crib, she needed sleep. that sounded like i was justifying, didn't it? i guess i am a little. of course you know what comes next. i let her cry. it took her all of 3 minutes to put herself to sleep and now that is where she is. i know when she wakes at midnight i will probably bring her into bed with me, but until then i can't wait to crawl in to bed and have more than 4 inches at the edge in which to sprawl out. i hope one day soon we all have our own place to sleep that works, and that bedtime isn't a two hour affair.

and yes, i know, i should totally change the name of this blog to "miserable and whiney".

tooth!

my kids are good sleepers, surprisingly so most of the time. this is not to say that they always go to sleep easy, although with ada this would be accurate (if falling asleep and staying that way were an olympic sport, she would likely win gold), with cohen it would not. since he graduated from the cage to freedom the going to sleep has been a crapshoot. still, it usually doesn't take forever (ie no more than 30 minutes) of up and down before he is fast asleep until morning.

then there was last night.

i put him down for the first time at 7:45, he was up again every 2 minutes for an hour and a half. seriously. i wish i could say that those 45 times up and down wore him out enough that he fell asleep at 9:15, but alas i can not. at this point i buckled and crawled into bed with him where he continued to fidget/poke me in the eye/pull my hair and laugh for another 45 minutes. 10 o'clock and i am now mad. the unhappy voice comes out and the finger starts wagging. he breaks out in hysterical laughter. i feel defeated. marko shouts from the living room "if you don't want him to laugh, you need to say it like you mean it". what is this improv class? i do mean it! i had a list as long as my arm of things i wanted to get done and slowly it was becoming clear that none of it was happening. i tried again and it turned out that this time i could find my inner "mean it" voice. quickly his laughter became tears, became my enormous guilt, became a huge hug and a kiss, became the return of his laughter. damn it.

10:30 and the game is still on. this time we are sitting on the couch, him in my lap drinking warm milk with a grin on his face, me on the verge of tears, 7 loads of laundry piled at our feet. back into his room i open the patio door a crack and sit on the end of his bed. the breeze is nice, but it brings with it the sound of voices off in the distance, voices that are enjoying the company of friends, maybe even drinking a beer, laughing. as i sit there all i could think about doing was yelling out into the night sky "whatever you do, don't have kids!"

the next half hour was a blur, i think i cried on the front porch and threw my hands in the sky and whispered "why?" and then marko went in and yelled and then hugged and then there was silence and we thought we were good. we weren't. 11:08 marko hugs him one more time, places him in bed and says "no more!", and that was it, he finally fell asleep 3 hours and 23 minutes after it all began.

he woke up again at 4am.

i got to sleep through that portion of the program, but as it was explained to me it involved a great deal of crying and cajoling and very little sleep until sometime around 5. he woke for the day at 7:30

which brings us to this morning. i tried to get him to nap at 11. i thought it was going to be easy, i mean he only had a handful of hours sleep, but he wasn't having it. for an hour we struggled back and forth, me in the bed and then out, him calm and him crying. there was yelling and hugging. it was essentially a condensed version of last night, until just after noon when he came back into the living room, pulled out his soother and said "tooth!" while pointing into his mouth.

this is an enormous revelation because:

a. it has been determined that cohen likely has a speech delay. we have been waiting to get in for an assessment and have an appointment for the end of the month. he will repeat words back at us but he never uses them to express himself, there have been no shouts of "more" or "down" or "now". mostly he babbles in some african language and points. so "tooth!", although he has said the word many times before, in this context is worthy of celebration.

b. it's his tooth! it had never occurred to me that there might be a logical reason for all the ridiculous fussipotness, i just assumed he was being difficult, testing boundaries, reveling in making my life hell. who knew? sure enough when i looked inside i could see that two of his back molars are on their way out, the gums swollen and bloody. poor guy.

so i dug into the cupboard and found some motrin. he gulped it down like the candy it is and then sulked in my arms for the 25 minutes it took to kick in, and then he fell fast asleep. she is sleeping too, which is a bit of a miracle really, 2 hours to myself in the middle of the afternoon! the question is, do i tackle the list or take a nap...

jumping fences to see what's on the other side

cohen climbed out of his crib tonight. we were all sitting here quietly in the living room when we heard the thud. i knew right away what it was, i had been waiting for it. a few weeks ago i caught him trying to hoist one of his legs onto the railing, but he failed. then a few nights later i saw him try again only this time he managed to get his leg up and onto the bar, but then he didn't know what to do with it and he fell back, resigned to try another day. i wasn't sure if he was ready to make the leap yet, but i was bracing for it. so it wasn't a shock when i ran into the room to find him in front of the crib flat on his back screaming. not unlike the first time he fell off the bed, i was gripped with panic at the prospect of what i would i find when i bent down. now, as in then, as soon as i saw his eyes i knew he was ok though and he stopped crying as soon as we were there, a slight smirk appearing on his face.

i would like to think that it was a one time thing, that we have more time before we have to make changes, but i don't think that's true. now that he has had a taste of freedom and adventure (all at bedtime!) i am guessing that his mission will be to hone his skills silently in the night when we least expect it. given a few more weeks and an abundance of opportunity and he will likely be climbing out with ease. so what do we do? buy him his own big boy bed i guess, as sleeping with us in our queen size bed is no longer a viable option (especially with me 31 weeks pregnant), but then how does that work? do we ask him really nice to stay put and close his eyes, or do we spend the first several weeks lying next to him enduring his fidgeting and poking and prying for an hour or more until he eventually falls asleep and then pray he stays asleep until morning? i guess that wasn't much of a question since the answer is glaringly obvious. and where am i supposed to put this bed? i thought we had time, so much more time. thankfully, despite living in a one bedroom, we have enough room in there for a dresser, our bed, his crib and bookshelf and yes a toddler bed can somehow work it's way into the mix, maybe even a bassinet...sigh. now him and galena can both gang up on me at 3am (which seems to be the magical time for both of them) and secretly sneak over to my side of the bed where they will gently rub their whiskers against my cheek asking me to wake up, and i will because after all isn't that what being a mom is all about?

and then there were three

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!

and now back to our regularly scheduled program

alas we woke to rain again today. it was to be expected i suppose, yesterday simply a treat for all our good behaviour these last three weeks. truth be told i don't even mind the rain, and in fact when pressed as to what i missed the most when i lived in toronto the answer would have invariably been the rain and the ocean. when i was just a me, the rain meant staying in bed with a cup of tea reading a book or watching a movie, the sound of the drops hitting the pain lulling me into a peaceful moment. since cohen doesn't yet drink tea or read (we're working on it!), and can only contain himself for three minutes of peaceful moments at a time, the rain means restriction (yes i have a rain cover for the stroller and i really should be more motivated to step out into it, maybe i will, but it is the lazy rainy day me that resists).

still, the rain seems to make him a little more sleepy, a little more willing to lie his little head down (and stick his butt in the air, feet firmly tucked underneath) for a nap. yesterday he wouldn't. nap that is. thirty minutes in the morning, thirty-seven in the afternoon and then bedtime came like a hurricane, so much twisting and screaming. he eventually did settle, only to wake one hour later and then after that one more hour. thankfully he settled easily each time, a pat on the head and a whispered i love you seemed to be enough. sometime around six this morning he woke again and seeing the rain i decided to pull him into bed with us. we didn't wake up again until nine. this wouldn't happen on a sunny day. after breakfast we went down to the coffee shop in the bottom of our building and sat right by the window watching all the people hurrying by, umbrellas in hand. all the smiling and clapping and grey tired him out, and he is morning napping right now. as for me? i have had so much sleep i feel slightly giddy (and hopefully a little crafty). so there may not be sun today, but things are still pretty bright around here.

lookin' for a place to happen

today was swim day! our trip to prince george and seeing just how much cohen loves the pool renewed my interest in finding a place here in the city for us to go. i found this which it turns out is only one bus ride and a short walk away for us. not only does it have an amazing kids pool, complete with a little river that has a current running through it and an area for little little ones where the water is only about a foot deep, but it is uses an ozone system for filtration which means less chlorine in cohen's eyes.

i was excited to check it out, but thought i should go alone to see how far it was to get to, so one night last week after cohen had gone to bed i made the trek over and had a swim. it wasn't too far, only about twenty minutes on the bus. the pool itself was great, and i knew right away that he would love it, so today we went together. uncle elton and cohen's cousins reidun and kyla also came along. there was a lot of splashing and laughing and then a lot of sleeping. i was able to keep him awake to eat dinner but come 6 he was fast asleep and that is where he has been ever since. i look forward to making it a regular outing for us, so much fun!

now i am off to read the end of my book. it is often sad, but also deeply satisfying to come to the end of a book i enjoy. it will be the perfect end to a perfect day.

monkeys jumpin on the bed

as some of you know, we have been using a soother with cohen since he was pretty little. he never really did take to it all that well. it first introduced as a way to prevent him from gorging and then throwing up (a problem he was prone to as a newborn), and for that it did the trick. for the last couple of months though, it has been used almost exclusively as a tool for sleep, and even that has had a few glitches. you see, he knows that when i bring it out and try and get him to suck on it, it means i am trying to get him to sleep and so if he isn't in the mood his lips become firmly locked. it is how we communicate with each other.

then surprisingly in the last few weeks he has been getting into bed, rolling over and closing his eyes without the soother at all, and so i have started thinking it is finally time to retire it. when he does take it these days he almost always ends up throwing it on the floor or behind his crib anyway. i like to think it is his way of saying "i don't need this anymore mom!".

this brings us to last night when at 3am he woke up and started moaning. naturally i picked him up and fed him and then tried to gently place him back down hoping he would fall into slumber. it wasn't to be, and so i groggily felt around in the dark for the soother, hoping it would be my magic tool so that i could go back to sleep. it wasn't around him in the crib, and it didn't seem to be on the floor. i turned the light on only slightly and pulled the wheeled crib away from the wall to see if it had landed behind, but it wasn't there either. i was perplexed and tired and to be honest a little frustrated and then i finally looked over at him and asked "where is it?", to which he looked me dead in the eye and pulled his hand from his side so that it was straight out in front of him, the soother in his hand, a enormous smile on his face.

be yourself, give your free will a chance

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...

well it was worth a shot anyway

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.

i know the sun's still shinin when I close my eyes

today was a good day.

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.

from the dark end of the street, to the bright side of the road

well another weekend has come and gone. we managed to get the gate up for the kitchen but only after cohen tipped over galena's water dish three times. he is incredibly fast when he has something to accomplish. we still haven't secured the bookshelves but i think we have a little while before that will be a serious concern. he isn't pulling himself up yet (except for once mysteriously pulling himself up in atticus' crib...maybe it was a fluke? *crossing fingers) so pulling things down is on hold.

we also took a trip out to ubc. periodically there are blanket emails that go out advertising staff and faculty housing on campus. in the past we have perused the website and talked about it briefly but it has never gone any farther. last week saw another email though and once again the topic came up. it would be nice to have a two bedroom and all that green space, could you imagine? a place to maybe put a sandbox or at the very least a blanket for some outside time, no homeless people picking up my baby, hardly any crime and the price? more than reasonable it seems. marko had never really been out to campus, other than a few brief trips for work, none of which involved exploring in any way, so we decided to trek out and have a look around.

this building is the one we covet the most. it is building "a" and all of the units are two floors. the one in the picture is an end unit that is two bedroom two bathroom and the one i think we would like the most. this building is pretty tough to get in though, with only eleven units. the other buildings were nice enough and the location was amazing but when we looked in the window of a unit that we knew was vacant we couldn't help but be disappointed by just how ordinary they were. the carpets were the colour of a raw potato and the walls too milky for my liking. the kitchens were uninspiring, albeit clean and newish but the rooms themselves seemed unbearably small. of course there are different floor plans and perhaps even different fixtures but the one we peeked in at seemed like such a compromise to us. it is tough when you live in an apartment as nice as the one we currently inhabit. if we were honest we would admit that we got lucky with this one and resign ourselves to the fact that we will have to step down when we leave, but i am not sure we are ready to make that move yet. the jury is still out on ubc i think.

today found us lazy and lounging most of the day which was nice. it was misty and cold out and we were just as happy to stay in our pajamas and play. i would like to say we slept but it would be a lie. despite being here and lazy all day cohen slept remarkably little. he is going through a transition right now, i don't know if it is a growth spurt, a slow recovery from his recent illnesses, or he is simply too excited about exploring his new mobility, but he has grown an allergy to slumber. it is an effort to get him to take the plunge into dreamland and often it becomes fruitless not twenty minutes later. i imagine him dreaming and in his dream he realizes he allowed himself to fall asleep at which point he wakes up screaming in a cold sweat. he has determination, that is for sure. tonight, in a moment of desperation (although lets call it genius) i thought of plugging in one of our mp3 players to the speakers in the bedroom and pumping out some classical, low and soothing and with a little luck sleep inducing, music. so far so good. we have made it past the two hour mark. i will let you know how it all works out.