swing low sweet ada

ada's blog video debut, i think she has star potential, what about you? oh and i guess i should warn you, this may cause sea sickness.

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".

on the road again

i went 33 years without a car, hard to believe i know, but it's true. i never wanted one either. i never said "if only", or "i wish" with it in mind. it just wasn't part of my consciousness. it doesn't help that i am afraid of them, or i thought i was, or that i didn't even learn how to use one until i was well into my twenties, and even then it was only because everyone told me that the longer i wait, the harder it will be.

all that ended a couple of weeks ago though when marko and i finally bought one. it wasn't something we had been thinking of really, or even something we thought we needed, although we will concede that it occurred to us that at some point in the not too distant future it might be handy, what with our imagined hockey and soccer practices, art classes and music lessons. mostly it just came about through circumstances, a conversation about cars with a co-worker that led to some investigating followed by driving many cars and then finally settling on the one, my first car, a 1995 volvo 850 turbo. i know, i know, how very family of me, but come on, aren't volvos the new macs?

things that my two weeks of driving have taught me so far:

1. life outside of my neighbourhood, although it is great, is better
2. we can be deep in the forest running down trails, or standing skipping rocks on the ocean in less than thirty minutes
3. no matter how loud i play the music it will never drown out the cries of a disgruntled baby that has had enough of the car seat
4. dance music sounds better when in motion (and preferably without anyone crying)
5. the superstore is like a drug, highly addictive and euphoria inducing. i hate shopping, but i love to just wander the aisles and bask in the sheer volume of it all, especially late at night when the kids are sleeping and no one is around. i have been going a couple of nights a week.
6. gas is expensive, no make that really REALLY expensive
7. anything you want is available to you 24 hours a day if you are willing to drive far enough to get it. this is bad, especially when it involves donuts.
8. having a car somehow makes one feel more free, more capable or something bigger, although i have no idea what that is
9. there was nothing to be afraid of after all
10. i shouldn't have waited so long

for those of you that are sheepishly wondering if i am now going to take back my recycling to the depot, the jury is still out, although i did hear a rumour that they were going to judge in favour of lazy. we'll see.