me & gee

Mediocre or Magnificent?

2010-07-07T20:10:00.001-06:00

A friend of mine posted this article on Facebook. I think it's a little extreme but it's certianly a good read. I'm wholly on-board with the Free Range Kids philosophy and I think this is central to what the article is getting at (even though it's never mentioned). I want to raise an independent child with a wicked immune system who has a mother who lives her dreams, even if that means she has to spend a fair few hours self-occupying and occasionally eats Cheetos for dinner (not that that ever happens in our house, ahem). I spent many a year working in daycares and felt bad for the kids who had no problem solving skills, cried at the drop of a hat and couldn't even use the toilet on their own. Their parents had become so obsessed with everything that was bad for them I was dealing with 6-year-olds who had never made a single independent choice. Needless to say these kids were in no way prepared for life on the outside. I don't think NOT over-parenting makes me "mediocre", in fact I think it means I'm going to raise someone who can one day function in our less than perfect society. And isn't that sort of my job as a mother?

Thoughts?

Every Can't

2010-07-01T20:51:00.002-06:00

I like to think of myself as a pretty strong person. I’m confident, independent and fearless. Intense, focussed and driven. According to my mother I’m “scary” because I get more done before breakfast than most people do all day. All of this is true when I’m in my element, but if I get pushed outside of my comfort zone I tend to crumble underneath the weight of every ‘can’t’ I hide behind. My world is divided very clearly between what I can and what I ‘can’t’ with the proverbial line-in-the-sand drawn so long ago I don’t ever remember a time I lived without my list of self-imposed limitations... until lately. You may say it’s growing older and more comfortable in my skin, but I’m pretty sure it’s Gaia that’s done it. Being her mother has made me question every ‘can’t’. If I want her to believe that anything is possible, then the very least I can do is lead by example.

For years I exercised half-heartedly, barely breaking a sweat with a half hour on the elliptical as I watched the hardcore runners on the treadmill. I’d look up training programs online before quickly reminding myself “I can’t run”. Still, as my world was falling apart over Christmas in Peru I began running along the boardwalk at the beach every morning. I did it as a way to escape when running in circles for forty-five minutes a day was as close as I could get to running away.

Walk nine minutes, runpantcrydie 1 minute.

When I came home I set my alarm for 6:00am every morning and learned to love the treadmill. These days I typically walk five minutes for every ten I run. One day while I watched Tiger Woods atone for his sins in a press conference booming from the gym TV I ran for the entire twenty-some minutes without even noticing. I’m seriously considering training for a marathon.

Running makes me feel strong, confident, independent and fearless. Running makes me feel brave.

I tried and failed at every attempt to learn the Spanish language in my years in university and beyond. I cried in the advising office and choked out “I can’t learn languages” until they believed the truth I’d created. Still, when Gaia was born I was determined she be bilingual so I enrolled in Spanish 100 at the University of Regina. I went to every class and studied for hours a day. I spoke to Gaia in broken Spanish and read her Spanish stories and conjugated verbs every night before bed.

Yo puedo, tú puedes, él/ella/ud. puede, nostoros(as) podemos, vosotros(as) podeís, ellos/ellas/uds. pueden.

I got an ‘A’ in Spanish 100, spoke the language every chance I got in Peru and enrolled in Spanish 101 when I got back. I aced it too. Last week I received the following letter.

I had officially declared my intention to get a Certificate in Spanish about a month ago.

Mastering Spanish makes me feel strong, confident, independent and fearless. Mastering Spanish makes me feel brave.

I started cooking meals from scratch and looking for freelance writing jobs and lifting weights. I sang out loud in Starfish class and made a monthly budget and applied for jobs that scared me (one of which, I now work at). I started dancing in the kitchen and dancing in the park and dancing at work. When I think of every ‘can’t’ I’ve left in my wake since Gaia was born I feel powerful, which is a very different thing than everyone just telling me I am. Especially when I remember that I did it all on three hours sleep with the very best of me going towards the epic tornado that is my daughter. In essence, sloughing off every ‘can’t’ that’s lurked in the shadows of my past is how she gets the very best of me.

She deserves to have a mother who is strong, confident, independent and fearless. She deserves to have a mother who is brave.

Oh C-Eh-N-Eh-D-Eh! Eh?!?

2010-07-01T09:01:00.002-06:00

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

I love beat poetry and remember seeing this during the 2010 Olympics and thinking how perfectly this represented Canada. Enjoy.

Report Card (Part I)

2010-06-28T22:41:00.001-06:00

Have I mentioned how much I love the daycare G goes to? It's amazing. Period. Each day she get's a little "report card" that outlines her day... input (yumyum), output (numéro uno y dos), time outside (including an timeline for sunscreen application), naps (typically of a questionable length) and a comments section that is pretty much the highlight of my mother/stalker life. From now on I plan on sharing the better comments with you. I particularly enjoy today’s.

"After I put one ponytail in Gaia's hair she asked for more, so I put another one in her hair and she asked for more again. I put a third ponytail in her hair and Gaia said more again, but she had no more hair!"

In other news I’m kind of obsessed with the new tea place in the mall. Try the Mojito. Tell ‘em Risa sent you.

Misty Watercolour Memories

2010-06-26T08:02:00.001-06:00

Two years ago today JM and I were celebrating our half-birthday in Barcelona. I was clean, I had makeup on and I was drinking beer in the streets. Later that night my girl was conceived. Currently it is 8:00am on Saturday morning and she’s throwing a patented monster tantrum because I won’t let her watch her Baby Einstein World Music DVD. I'm forced to make this decision because a month ago she broke the DVD player. Did I mention I was up no less than eight times last night?

I feel like there’s an ad for birth control in here somewhere.

Art Prodigy (Proof)

2010-06-25T20:14:00.000-06:00

I’ve talked before of my daughter as a budding artistic genius here and here. Still, I’ve done so with my tongue planted fairly firmly in cheek. Now that she’s actually started creating art it’s a whole new ballgame.

Take, for example, the following drawing, created by Gaia in Mid-May 2010.

Notice her choice dark, muted colour palette of browns, slate blues and greys? See how her lines vibrate with raw anger in their sharp, staccato placement across the page? Notice how the artist (formerly known as G) has ripped a portion of paper at the right of the page. Was this a way to highlight the artist’s (decidedly negative) take on the state of our broken world or perhaps even confront the viewer with their own mortality?

The day I found this drawing tucked in G’s cubby I was greeted by a baby ball of rage and a daily report reading only “This morning Gaia enjoyed screaming loudly with (her baby BFF) in the aquatic viewing area.” I noticed she also refused to nap, eat or generally be pleasant in any way. This behaviour carried on well through the evening. I wouldn’t hesitate to classify to the day this drawing was conceived as a decidedly bad one.

In contrast take the following drawing, created by Gaia yesterday.

Notice the bright, tonal colour palette of greens, reds, purples and blues? See how her lines flow along the page in rhythmic harmony? See how the artist is attempting to recognise the beauty of nature with the abstract representation to the left of the image? Is it a tree, perhaps a symbol for her own growth or simply a rush of frenetic energy reaching skyward?

Yesterday when I found this drawing tucked in G’s cubby I was greeted by a giggly baby and a daily report that read “Gaia coloured with so much enthusiasm today! She had a crayon in both hands and moved them quickly across the table.” She took two naps, played outside and ate two servings of meatloaf at lunch. Her behaviour was such that kissing her on the forehead as I gathered our things caused her to laugh so loudly it set the other babies off in waves of glee. I’d say it’s clear that the day this drawing was conceived was a decidedly good one.

My point? My daughter is a true artistic genius, in touch with the very deepest corners of her soul with the ability to capture her emotion on her chosen canvas (scrap paper – ever the environmentalist) that I have no doubt the world will take notice.

I told you so.

Blame it on the Rain

2010-06-24T22:02:00.002-06:00

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” – Bob Dylan

Gaia’s been sick the last few days. An invisible ear infection that in turn caused a bit lip to fester into some weird, swollen, oozing sore that made my baby girl smell like an old man whose finally given up on hygiene. Meanwhile I somehow managed to log thirty working hours in three days while still taking a whole day “off” to stay home with my little geriatric. Hmmm. Anyway. Antibiotics, a good night’s sleep and a sunny walk to daycare this morning and we’re (almost) good as new.

But the sunny walk to daycare? By the time I left work I was faced with no less than a torrential downpour with the occasional sharp burn of pelting hail and wrath of thunder and lightning. Regina, like everywhere in the world it seems, is a little confused. I’d like to take a moment to point out, should Mother Nature read this blog that it is, in fact, SUMMER. But I digress. My point is not to complain. I feel like everyone else in this waterlogged town has got the complaining thing covered. Plus, it’s not my style.

So I braved the fifteen minute walk to my car with only a brief desire for the umbrella tucked safely in its backseat. By the time I got over the initial shock of going from dry to soaking wet in under a minute I realised there’s something beautiful about the rain. The way it smells (cliché, I know) and how it washes the city clean, blurring the steel and glass and making it shimmer like a Matisse painting, all brushstrokes. The way the dark clouds look ominous and lush all at once, a study in contradiction. Strolling stoically past the masses huddled under awnings with my dripping face turned up to the sky I enjoyed the rain like I had as a child (standing in wet pyjamas, barefoot with my brother on the grass in our yard, watching as my father checked the rain gauge). I even justified jumping in a puddle when I realised I couldn’t get any wetter. When was the last time you jumped in a puddle? I highly recommend it.

Small rivers dripped in my wake as I let myself indoors to pick Gaia up from daycare. She laughed when she saw me and stuck out her tongue to catch the beads of rain that dripped from my hair. I didn’t bother with her jacket, just held her close as we ran out the door, past the growing crowd attempting to wait-it-out at the entrance. The minute she felt the rain on her face she looked and me and smiled, then held her hands up to the sky to catch it and screamed with joy. We let the car’s seats be our towels and sang along with the raindrops on the windows. She clapped every time we drove through the puddles that splashed up in waves on her window.

How can you stop yourself from loving the rain? Besides, it’s only water.

169 Days

2010-06-20T16:33:00.005-06:00

It’s been one hundred and sixty nine days since I posted about my inner dialogue and the vacation it took without me. Since then a lot has happened.

In brief: Jose Miguel and I separated. Mi familia y yo had an amazing/awkward/perfect/painful last week as a family in Perú. Two-thirds of mi familia flew back to Canada. One-third of mi familia screamed for over an hour on a flight from Winnipeg to Regina. A gorilla, a robot, some long-lost members of Jem and the Holograms and my Dad met us at the airport. Saskatchewan, as always, proved cold and somehow comforting. I made some bad choices, obsessed a little and lost twenty-five pounds from the stress of it all. I’ve never looked better. I started Spanish 101 and found myself in a level of hell only verb conjugation can create. I started reading and writing en español at a level I never thought I’d reach. I felt proud of myself. Jose Miguel was approved as a Permanent Resident of Canada after well over a year of waiting. We were told our paperwork was some of the quickest of anyone in our situation. I still want to burn Immigration Canada to the ground. Jose Miguel moved to Canada. Turns out the full three-thirds of mi familia in one house is amazing. We vaguely looked into filing for divorce but then something came up. Gaia learned to walk after an intense session with her personal Phys Ed teacher while Canada was winning an insane amount of gold medals in the Olympics. I finally went to Salsa night. I didn’t dance. I bought a car. I actually won’t own it for four years. Semantics. I tried snowboarding for the first time and I was amazing, even if I couldn’t move for almost a week after. I applied for a job, got offered a job and turned a job down. I’m glad I changed my mind. I love my job. Jose Miguel stayed home with Gaia full-time for almost a month. He’s an amazing father and still the most handsome man I’ve seen up close. The fact that we’re horrible at being married remains. I started running every morning at 6:00am. It made me feel strong and powerful and brave. We celebrated Gaia’s first birthday with a big party and a cake only my Dad could create. Jose Miguel took one last contract on ships. He left. Gaia got a spot at a home daycare. Gaia got kicked out of a home daycare. Gaia got a spot at an amazing, reputable, government subsidised daycare. I was reminded that everything happens for a reason. Gaia and I went to Vancouver for a visit. She made a lifelong friend in a big black dog, had her first experience with finger paint and was the star at her second first birthday party. She did this while wearing an excessively large tutu. I got to catch up, tell my story and celebrate the thirtieth birthday of one of the most amazing people I know. I felt like I could breathe again. We went home. I started a passionate love affair with coffee. Gaia started a passionate love affair with making friends. We are all very happy. I bought an iPhone. I took a week off Facebook. My Dad started cooking family dinner on Sunday nights. I got to dress like a grownup every day. It’s been said, by my boss, that I could take over the world all while wearing six-inch heels. She’s a smart lady. Gaia was exposed to every germ in existence. One day I caught her licking the floor at daycare. She was sick a lot. She stopped sleeping through the night. I talked to Jose Miguel on the phone almost every day. Who would have thought? I got my hopes up for spring and then it started snowing again. I questioned my decision to live in Regina. I started dating, realised I was bad at it and quit. I cut over ten inches of hair off my head. I was relatively unmoved but I’m pretty sure my stylist cried after I left. I had a picnic with my Mom. Gaia enjoyed her first ice cream cone... and her second... and her third. The sun came out and we got a big plastic pool shaped like a shark. Again, I got my hopes up. It was grey and rainy for a month. I cleaned my bathroom. Gaia proved she is a budding genius through a series of events I relayed to anyone who would listen. She started running everywhere. I finally sorted through all my old boxes, found I’d saved every piece of paper from university and threw it out. Now I have a whole extra room in my house. I’m planning on setting up a studio space for me and my girl. Gaia still doesn’t speak save for “Mama”, “Dad-Dad” (what she calls her Grandad) and “Uh-Oh” but she is the best non-verbal communicator I’ve ever met. She now knows the signs for “please”, “more” and “all done” thanks to the wonderful women at daycare. She has a genuine best friend who makes her laugh like no one else. They have perfected the best friend high-five. She climbs up the stairs, up the couch and up the walls. I’ve taken to telling strangers she is NUTBALLS when they look at her picture in my iPhone. She is. I drank many glasses of red wine and got drunk for the first time in a long time. I went to a lot of BBQs, playdates, dinners and a gala. I had my picture taken by Regina paparazzi one night with my boss. Apparently I’m Regina famous (or rather, employed by someone who is). A good friend came to town. We ate the best burger I’ve ever tasted, hosted a BBQ, drank a lot of Big Rock Lime Beer and bought fifteen dollars worth of jellybeans. I redesigned the blog one night while I watched Whip It. Jose Miguel and I made some decisions. We're still not divorced. This weekend the sun started shining. I got a tan while logging working hours and danced on the grass with Gaia when I was finished. Last night I took her to the park. She slid down the slide on her own for the first time. She perfected the art with at least eighty more solo slides before I could get her back home. As a result I think I developed an arm muscle I didn't know existed. This morning I felt like writing.

I make no promises, but... I'm back. Did you miss me?

Pretty Little Girl

2010-06-20T10:31:00.005-06:00

Almost every night before going to sleep I lie in my bed and cuddle up next to my iPhone to Facebook creep*. It’s a bad habit and one clearly not conducive to slumber but so it is. Last night the last thing I saw before calling it a night was the following video, posted by an old friend from university.

When Gaia was a wee one, about 3 months old, a mama-friend and I discussed the ramifications of constantly praising our “pretty” babies. We discussed gender politics. We discussed theories in education. We discussed our own hopes and fears. I confessed I found myself hastily adding “and smart” to the tail end of every “you’re pretty” even in the days when Gaia could barely hold her head up. I later found I did this even more in the days when she was making choices like eating out of the garbage can and running head first into the walls. My mama-friend confessed to throwing in a “and hard working” lest her babe be giving the impression smarts alone were enough. God forbid our infants rest on their laurels.

Two baby girls lounging lazily on the floor – “You’re pretty... and smart... and hard working.” Their twinkly baby gazes gave little indication that the message was getting through.

Since Gaia was born there’s a whole portion of my brain that’s dedicated to raising a teenager. I fear it in a way I never expected and one that at times consumes me. Somehow I grew up with a healthy dose of self esteem. I’d always been a “pretty little girl” all big eyes and dark lashes. My big teeth turned into a perfect smile without the rite-of-passage that is braces. I hit puberty hard, and early, but even that only slowed me for a second when in the back of a car while I pretended to sleep my parents talked about the relief they felt that their “pretty little girl” had a new layer of fat to protect her from dangers I didn’t fully understand in grade five.

“Thank God she’s a little bit chubby because with that face we might have been in for trouble.” I stored it away in a place I don’t often visit.

I’ve always dressed and acted how I wanted. Always got what I wanted, in school, at work, in life, with men. When I look in the mirror I see so much more then my reflection. How could I waste time on my muffin top when it's so hard to see among what I’ve accomplished and what more I have to conquer? The real question then, is how did that happen? I am the minority among my friends who use their reflection as an excuse to forgo the life they long for, who poke and pinch and prod and one who did such damage to her body with years of grasping at straws to keep those bones that jutted from her hips that she struggles, nearly ten years after recovery, with the most basic of bodily functions. Nagging me constantly is the story that has burrowed into my brain about one friend who refused to have her picture taken for years because she couldn’t stand her own visage. She wasn’t even ten years old. Growing up my house was filled with fad diets and low-fat recipe books and Weight Watchers magnets and still, I have never defined myself on being “pretty”. When a car accident in 2004 left half my face scarred and broken after countless stitches that closed the gaping hole in my forehead and ran down my cheek I used the settlement money to pay debt and buy a laptop. The thought of plastic surgery receded with the reality of what the money could do. The scars, which are so faded already they’re almost invisible remind me pretty isn’t everything and that life doesn’t stop when pretty is compromised. I love them. I don’t want Gaia to define herself on being “pretty” and still I watch her play and can’t stop myself from scooping her up and whispering in her ear that I know... I KNOW... she is the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen.

One little girl laughing at the playground – “You’re SO BEAUTIFUL. No one. NO ONE is as beautiful as you.” She smiles and hands me a fistful of sand.

Of course what I really mean is that no one has her personality or the way she twists her face into a myriad of expressions that make her a little baby pantomime. The way she stubbornly problem solves, refuses help, runs ahead to assert her independence only to cautiously wait for me to catch up and tickle her round Buddha belly. When I say she’s beautiful I mean that the very inside of her emits such a stunning light that sometimes I am blinded in wonder of her... all of her. That she is the very best parts of me and her father and that every time I see her she helps me remember everything that’s good in the world. That the parts of her that are hers alone and that shock me every day with how much of her own person she already is are the most amazing parts of the most amazing human being I have ever met. And yet, I praise her with words like “pretty” and think she’ll catch the subtext.

I’m nowhere closer to knowing how to raise her to be who I hope she’ll be. She’s my “pretty little girl” all big eyes and dark lashes. My “pretty little girl” with wild hair and a dirty face with runny nose and sticky hands and skinned, chubby knees. Pretty isn’t a disease, but pretty isn’t everything.

---

* For those of you not familiar with this terminology please see here. I feel I’ve raised it to an art form.

Feliz Año

2010-01-02T20:46:00.001-06:00

When I was in high school I wanted to be a writer. To travel the world and drink wine in the wee hours and spend weeks with lovers who I didn’t understand all while wearing really expensive shoes. I wanted to weave stories about life and love and adventure that I’d seen with my own eyes. Some throw away words from a teacher about how often I became “wordy and a tad self-indulgent” gave me doubts. When I went to university, fully enrolled in the Creative Writing program, the thought of sitting through classes where my peers critiqued the words I’d poured over turned my doubts into fears. I quit. I focussed on someone else’s art. Years and years of someone else’s passion. I poured over it and let it fill me up. Still, with every step I take a story weaves itself in my head until my thoughts are full with a rich inner-dialogue from a narrator to the story of my life who sounds just like me. Last year I jumped fast on the overflowing Mommy-blogger bandwagon. It was an excuse to write, a way to feel less alone and a place to find the overwhelming peace that has always come with telling my story. I thank you all for listening. I hope that soon I can find something worth your attention again. It’s been too long since I’ve had a story worth telling. I pride myself on my love affair the silver linings of life and for the past few months those silver linings have receded so far my narrator got lost in the clouds. My inner voice went on a vacation with happiness, passion, self-respect, dignity. I could go on forever. They must have chartered a jet. Rented a whole hotel in Vegas. Like no other this year has been full of the most epic highs and the most devastating lows I hope to ever encounter. There is a story here I’m sure, but not one I’m willing to tell and certainly not the one I thought I’d be writing. The moral to this untold story? Today, for the first time in months I saw the silver lining and the briefest glimpse of my narrator through the clouds. I hope her travelling companions aren’t far behind.

Tomorrow would have been my first wedding anniversary. Instead I’m choosing to let it mark the beginning of my new life. My new year. My new chance. To promise myself to search around every corner for the pieces of myself that went missing until I feel whole again. To stare at the sun and play in the ocean and buy myself a pair of really expensive shoes. To make myself good again. To be myself again. The truth is, if it were just about me I could wallow in the darkness indefinitely, but this year has brought me the biggest reason to always find a silver lining. She’s been the best silver lining I’ve found.

The icon of my fresh start. Wonder. Adventure. Beauty. Gaia.

FUN Theory

2009-10-12T20:30:00.002-06:00

So I know this is just another painfully clever gimmick from the marketing geniuses at Volkswagen (or rather DDB Stockholm) but seriously... SERIOUSLY... it is awesome. Mission accomplished VW. You sick bastards.

PS. I also think this whole “Fun Theory” business, while clearly having an agenda, is an interesting social experiment resulting in some fantastic food for thought. Discuss.

Giving Thanks

2009-10-11T23:38:00.002-06:00

Music Credit: Thank You by Led Zeppelin

Walking the Tightrope

2009-09-20T08:55:00.006-06:00

On what a parent looks like:

"You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see he's really just hoping he makes it all the way across?"
-- My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

In spite of the emotional avalanche that was reading this book the first time around, I'm now re-reading it in the hopes of avoiding looking stupid at my new bookclub this week. I'm also studying for a Spanish quiz, trying once and for all to get my house organised and unpacked, reading over one hundred pages of art history essays on the culture of exhibiting and making appropriate discussion notes (which have to be submitted weekly thankyouverymuch), organising an oral presentation on Emily Carr at the Vancouver Art Gallery (or should I do something less entrenched in Canadiana... hmmm... perhaps I should spend another two hours online researching blockbuster exhibitions), going to the gym five days a week (and baby yoga and stroller fitness and Starfish lessons), doing never ending amounts of dishes and laundry and seriously considering moping my floor. Oh, and I'm also taking care of six month old on my own. The last few weeks it has also become a serious goal to get at least four hours of sleep a night. Here's hoping.

Art Prodigy (Blow Your House In)

2009-09-16T13:26:00.005-06:00

If you're a regular here you might remember this. Well, Gaia and I spent this morning at the MacKenzie Art Gallery and as always she came home with a lot to say. Perhaps I need not state the obvious but come on, clearly she's an artistic genius. Foisting my dreams on my child - who me?

G – Mama, I wanted to talk to you about the exhibition we saw today if I may.

Me – Of course. Did you enjoy it?

G – Well, it was nice to go to the gallery, as always. I do so enjoy contemporary art. But I’m left troubled by some of the issues being addressed by Vernon Ah Kee.

Me – Was it the faces? They are a little scary.

G – Don’t patronise me. While the faces were a little disturbing I wouldn’t demean them by referring to them as “scary”. Please. I thought they were a very appropriate and moving depiction of the artist’s view of how others see the aboriginal community. The hollow, black eyes and mouth offering a clear vision of a silenced, disrespected people. I found them moving.

Me – Oh.

G – I also enjoyed the exhibition title and how it suggests a re-examination of the story of the Three Little Pigs from the perspective of the wolf. I’d never thought about how we only hear one side of the story and how Ah Kee encourages us to consider different perspectives such as the pigs as colonisers taking the land from the wolf and the acceptance of a villainous characterisation and the validity within that construct.

Me – How do you know the story of the Three Little Pigs? I don’t remember reading it to you.

G – You know I do read when you’re not around. Seriously mother, can you focus? As I was saying, I just think his point of view, as an Australian aboriginal has so much resonance here in Saskatchewan with our own aboriginal community being as large as it is. He really spoke to some universal issues. The work has brought up a number of troubling issues in my mind, ones that I think are important to bring to the forefront. My hope is that exhibitions like this one might get people talking about their own biases so they can eventually be deconstructed.

Me – Wow. That’s a great point. You know, I thought it was really interesting, at the artist talk on Friday as Ah Kee was explaining his point-of-view, how he noted perhaps the wolf was trying to warn the pigs about a meteorological phenomenon (the wind that eventually “blew their house in”) or perhaps it was all just a misunderstanding because the wolf and pigs spoke a different language or came from different cultures.

G – Yes, well I would comment on that but you chose to attend the event on Friday on your own. Ahem.

Me – Gaia-bear we talked about this, it was an evening event and you know you get cranky if you’re not in bed by 8:00pm.

G – Whatever you say.

Me – Can we move on?

G – I suppose. Beyond the content I also found the presentation of his work quite striking – the row of faces and the large, bold words on the walls. In fact, the text reminded me of the work of Jenny Holtzer, who I know you enjoy, and the use of simple but evocative text to convey a message.

Me – Yes, I had made that connection as well.

G – Oh? You didn’t say. That’s convenient. Anyway. I also thought the large portrait of his grandfather was beautiful. It’s my understanding the artist does a number of these of his family members and that they have some correlation to the black and white archival photos of the Australian aboriginal community. I think it’s moving to take something used to classify or rationalise a people and transform it into a media that offers some dignity and respect.

Me – Speaking of portraits, did you enjoy the student exhibition we went through? You know, that’s the project I was working on last year while you were still in my belly.

G – I know, I remember.

Me – Oh do you...

G – Of course. It really was amazing though, to see two years of work from students up there in the gallery. I’m so looking forward to meeting the artists at the opening this weekend.

Me – Yeah. Me too.

Vernon Ah Kee: Blow Your House In is on at the MacKenzie Art Gallery until January 3, 2010. The exhibition is a culmination of the work he did as a artist-in-residence with the gallery this summer.

Looking In, Looking Out: Qui suis-je maintenant? is on until Februrary 28, 2010. It’s an exhibition of work by students who took part in an incredible bridging project which aimed to bring youth from different 'cultures' within Saskatchewan (specifically École Monseigneur de Laval, Sacred Heart Community School, Scott Collegiate, Michael A. Riffel High School and Chief Kahkewistahaw Community School) together to explore their identity and the identity of others through engagement with the variety of work displayed at the gallery from 2007 to 2009. Students got the opportunity to tour the exhibitions and respond to them with the help of a number of talented artists. Their finished work ranges from three dimensional plaster masks to Warhol-esque portraiture to video screen tests to beadwork and more. They also had the opportunity interact with each other, facing preconceived notions of their differences and breaking them down as they recognised all the ways in which they could relate. I feel incredibly lucky to have been a part of this amazing adventure while working at the gallery last year and am so looking forward to celebrating in the achievements of these students at the opening on Sunday, September 20th (1:00pm-4:00pm). If you’re in town I highly recommend you join us. It’s truly a unique and inspiring exhibition.

Decir Adios

2009-09-15T20:56:00.007-06:00

Tonight I had fully intended to finish an epic post about just what G and I had been up to for the month of August when posting was nearly non-existent. Yup. That was the plan. Except I've just arrived home from a particularly confusing Spanish class and I'm currently in engendered-language-conjugation hell and suddenly I feel like what I actually need to do is sit in front of my already well-worn copy of ¡Hola, amigos! and hundreds of flashcards until I can miraculously speak enough Spanish to a) quell my increasing level of panic and b) pass a quiz on Thursday. And before you say it, I'm well aware that we're in week TWO of THIRTEENEFFINGWEEKS of classes and inevitably it's only going to get harder from here but if I feel obliged to mention that should you bring this up I might (read: will) respond with a swift kick to your manjunk/ladybits.

In liu of my epic post please enjoy this:

"Y la verdad es que me siento solo pues nunca te podre olvidar/Y la verdad es que me siento libre aunque las noches sean de soledad/Y la verdad es que te llevo adentro pues ocupaste tu lugar/Y por tu bien espero que no vuelvas pues la vas a pasar muy mal."
-- Decir Adios by Amen (from Lima, Perú)*

I had wanted to include this song in my favourites from my Sad Bastard playlist but I couldn't find it online (turns out I had the title wrong in my iTunes which clearly only adds to my level of I'LLNEVERLEARNSPANISH panic). It was one of the first Spanish songs Jose ever played for me and it remains the saddest. I don't think I'll ever forget what it felt like to listen to his voice translate the lyrics for me as the song played on a loop in the background and I sat on the edge of his bed staring at him, smelling him, melting into a virtual puddle of semi-pathetic-woman-obsessed-with-Latin-man goo. Did I mention things we're a little rocky in the beginning. Um... yeah. Enjoy.

* The title, in English, is Saying Goodbye and the lyrics (translated roughly by me with the jist of the meaning given more weight then a word-for-word translation) are "And the truth is I never feel alone because I can't forget you/And the truth is that I feel free but the nights are lonely/And the truth is I carry you inside but someone will take your place/And I hope that it is not you because you are bad for me."

Easily Irritated?

2009-09-14T21:09:00.009-06:00

Note to Readers: This post contains the word vagina and a brief nod to the fact I might have had sex once before and plan to do so again in the future. If this seems like it might be verging on TMI then please avert your eyes. Dad, I'm looking at you here.

In addition to sorting out my iPod I thought I should also give birth control some consideration now that I'll be in the same country as my husband. Not that we don't love Gaia but somehow I don't think the "what are the chances?" form of contraception is gonna cut it anymore. I know, I know, you'd think I was sixteen*. Anyway. Apparently birth control is a hot topic at the moment because not only did I read a topical post from my favourite Mommy-blogger this morning but I also had a chat about NuvaRing with a friend the other day. The fact that her doctor suggested it knowing she, like me, hates the pill was enough to warrant giving it a little of my google time before seeing my own doctor this Wednesday. As far as I can tell it seems pretty similar to the pill except you don't have to remember to actually take a pill every day (which was never my issue). Then I stumbled upon something I've never seen before, among the list of conditions that might make NuvaRing a not so great option was a warning for women who suffered from "any condition that makes the vagina get irritated easily." Hmmm.

Well I'll tell you, its not real happy with Immigration Canada either. I guess NuvaRing's not for us.

* Seriously. I'm obsessed with MTV's 'Sixteen and Pregnant' and every single girl is like "well, we used protection about half the time but he didn't really like it and then we just thought it wouldn't happen to us" and I simultaneously judge them while attempting to feel superior because COME ON, the doctor told me I probably wouldn't get pregnant without fertility therapy. I say attempting because by the end of the episode I'm always hit with the realisation that the only thing that separates me and these girls is the fact that I'm twenty-seven and they're still in highschool.

Sad Bastard

2009-09-13T21:31:00.003-06:00

In the quest to get my life organised before I head off to Peru for a length of time yet to be determined I’ve set to the task of cleaning out my iPod. Unfortunately there are far too many annoying one hit wonders from my club days and an alarming amount of weird yogic chats which I can only imagine must have been snuck on there when I dated an organic masseuse/art auctioneer for a few weeks during my first contract on cruise ships. Anyway, the point is, putting my iPod on shuffle is risky to say the least. And it’s not just crappy songs I’m getting rid of, the overhaul also includes a revamp of my playlists, deleting such gems as ‘Music to Distract You from That Creepy Guy on the Skytrain’ and ‘Pretending to Study’ (both actual playlists on my iPod, thankyouthankyou) and replacing them with things like ‘Tunes for my Baby Rockstar’ and ‘Spanglish – Songs Jose Will Listen To’. As you might have gleaned, I’m a big fan of playlists and had well over fifty of them at one point. Anyway, today I stumbled upon a playlist called ‘Sad Bastard’ that I’m pretty sure came to being circa mid 2007 when Jose and I were just starting what would become the year long on and off again soap opera known as our early dating life. Clearly I was full of pain and angst and if I remember correctly the playlist was on a constant loop in my cabin for a solid three months before my roommate gave me a particularly harsh ultimatum as I lay on the floor and wept. That being said, it’s full of beautiful, haunting songs and while it was created in the spirit of relationship drama I listened to it today and it fits my mood of rage over the whole “absence makes the heart grow fonder” fodder perfectly. Plus there are a few small rays of hope that snuck into the playlist proving that somewhere deep down I knew it work out all along. Just in case you’re in the mood for a good wallow I highly suggest these depressing little nuggets...

And yes... I'm aware this post smacks of highschool angst but it's good to languish in your own self pity now and then. Try it. You'll like it.

"You are a china shop and I am a bull/You are really good food and I am full/I guess everything is timing/I guess everything's been said/So I am coming home with an empty head."
--You Had Time by Ani Difranco

"If I was my heart I'd rather be restless/The second I stop the sleep catches up and I'm breathless/This ache in my chest as my day is done now/The dark covers me and I cannot run now."
-- Wake Up Alone by Amy Winehouse

"Haven't laughed this hard in a long time/I better stop now before I start crying/Go off to sleep in the sunshine/I don't want to see the day when it's dying."
-- Twilight by Elliot Smith

"You are my sweetest downfall/I loved you first, I loved you first."
-- Samson by Regina Spektor

"You don't have to lie about where you've been/We both know you've been schemin'/So why don't you give your little voice a rest/Climb on up inside my bed and just pretend you need me?"
-- Stay by Coal

"And I'd be inclined to be yours for the taking and part of this terrible mess that you're making/But me, I'm the catalyst."
-- Catalyst by Anna Nalick

"I drink good coffee every morning/Comes from a place that's far away/And when I'm done I feel like talking/Without you here there is less to say."
-- I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You by Colin Hey

"I want to be a good woman/And I want, for you to be a good man/This is why I will be leaving/And this is why, I can’t see you no more."
-- Good Woman by Cat Power

"Don't know why I'm still afraid/If you weren't real I would make you up now."
-- Honey and the Moon by Joseph Arthur

"Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth/Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs/Speak no feeling no I don't believe you/You don't care a bit, you don't care a bit."
-- Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap

"And I don't wanna hear you tell yourself/That these feelings are in the past/No it doesn't mean they're off the shelf/Because pain's built to last/Everybody sails alone."
-- Heal Over by KT Tunstall

"I am stil dreaming of you face/Hungry and hollow for all the things you took away/I don't want to be your good time/I don't want to be your fall-back crutch anymore."
-- Santa Monica by Everclear

"Mess up my bed with me/Kick off the covers I'm waiting/Every word you say I think I should write down/Don't want to forget come daylight."
-- Paperweight by Joshua Radin (with Schuyler Fisk)

"Leave me out with the waste this is not what I'd do/It's the wrong kind of place to be thinking of you/It's the wrong time for somebody new/It's a small crime and I've got no excuse."
-- 9 Crimes by Damien Rice (ft. Lisa Hannigan)

PS. I’m also keeping ‘Shake That Ass’ which is probably the best workout mix ever made. Bar none.

The Half Birthday of (Big) Baby G

2009-09-12T08:28:00.000-06:00

Gaia is six months old today. Well, as my mother pointed out, technically she's six months old today at 9:30pm. Still. I made her this video (and yes it's for her... I have dreams of her watching it when she's away at university while she weeps over how much she misses me). Six months may seem like nothing to you but wow... it's been a lifetime... Gaia's lifetime. The video is as long as a primetime sitcom with commercials and it's my first ever attempt so there's one point near the end when the music just stops for about fifteen seconds. Sorry. I don't expect too many people to watch but that's okay. I didn't make it for you anyway. I guess what I'm trying to say is this...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY G!

Music Credits: Lullabye by The Dixie Chicks/Hold You In My Arms by Ray LaMontagne/Upside Down by Jack Johnson/My Girl by The Temptations/Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison/Better Together by Jack Johnson/(Big Girl) You Are Beautiful by Mika

Carefree Wanderings

2009-09-09T13:26:00.004-06:00

Speaking of Jaydeen...

Do you remember how excited I was when she and her man started a joint blog? Then you can imagine my excitement now that she’s started a blog of her own. It too is chock full of photos, this time from her extensive travels. As if the photos weren’t reason enough to check it out she pairs them with travel tips and memories that will have even the least adventurous homebody itching to get out an explore the world. Enjoy.

PS. I especially love the details she's captured and puts up in the top right corner of the blog... "bubbles" from Greece... an "abstract rainbow" from Vancouver. Genius.

It Takes a Village

2009-09-09T11:20:00.006-06:00

Yesterday afternoon I got a package. A gigantic, excessively weighty cardboard book filled with books. Thirty-one individually wrapped Spanish children’s books to be exact. That’s a little over two new books per week until Gaia and I temporarily relocate to Perú in December.* The name in the return address? Friend extraordinaire and G’s Fairy Godmother Jaydeen. Of course.

No matter what life throws me and how down I get I can always count on one thing. I have amazing friends. Like we-should-be-on-Oprah-sobbing-about-their-greatness-while-a-video-montage-of-our-friendship-plays-in-the-background kind of amazing friends. The thing about the books isn’t just the generous gift (although I do love presents). Jaydeen took the time to find thirty-one Spanish children’s books. She showed support in our quest to raise Gaia in a bilingual home. Then she took the time to wrap each book individually and leave instructions to open them slowly over the course of four months. It’s a gift that keeps giving not just to Gaia but to me as I wake up each morning painfully aware of how far away December is (97 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes and 44 seconds until we board the plane in Regina). It’s also a show of support for my own Spanish education which began formally last night.**

And it’s not just Jaydeen who deserves the friend of the year award. There’s Katy who ordered a gigantic package of mindless entertainment to be shipped to me in my first barfy, unemployed months of pregnancy. Katy who took almost a month off work to cook for me and clean my house and hold a newborn G at 4:00am so I could get some sleep. There’s Robin who drops everything when G and I are in Vancouver to make sure we have what we need – his house, his car, his time, you name it. There’s Rachel’s who had an extensive baby starter kit filled with enough clothing to outfit G well into toddlerhood and all of her favourite books delivered to my house while I was in Perú for Christmas. Rachel who calls me weekly and listens to me gush about G. Who gets up at 3:00am to produce a morning radio show and still spent her afternoons with us in Vancouver, playing on the swings and drinking coffee and gossiping about nothing important at all. There’s King who visited me when I was pregnant and made me start preparing and looked at the stroller and car seat combo in Babies-R-Us and said “let me, let us, we can afford it”. There’s Oz who pores over Gaia’s photos and comments and makes us feel like the most special pair in the entire world. Then there’s their parents, a never-ending network of pseudo grandparents who send gifts and give advice and cuddle G while they tell me stories of their children that make me see the world a little differently. The fact that one day I will have an adult child seems so surreal but they remind me, without saying it, that Gaia will grow and eventually, hopefully, I’ll sit on the floor with my grandchildren (related and otherwise) and ahhh... the circle of life. Right.

If you think I couldn’t possibly be luckier, just wait! I haven’t even mentioned the new friends I’ve made in Regina and the old friends I’ve re-connected with. People who make sure (consciously I suspect) that I don’t go too crazy alone in the house with G all day. Who call with invites for walks and play-dates and barbeques and dinners and gallery openings and coffee. A mommy-friend who accepts my phone calls and councils me on solid foods and toxic toys and sleep (or lack thereof). A childhood friend-of-the-family (more like a sister really) who reminds me not to lose myself in the task of being a wife and raising a child. They are my new community and I’m in awe of how they’re building themselves up around me, helping to hold me up.

I’ve always believed that friends are like the family you choose for yourself. The people you surround yourself with to fill the voids of care and support that might need filling. That’s not to say my family isn’t wonderful, but it takes a village to raise a child and Gaia is lucky to have such an extensive network of “aunts” and “uncles” who love us, not because they have to, but because they choose too. And, not to be too self-congratulatory, but I have to believe it wasn’t just luck that brought all this amazingness into our life. Gaia is also very privileged to have a mama with such impeccable taste in people.

So thank you. Thankyouthankyouthankyou. Big love to you all.

And back to the exciting package that got me all appreciative in the first place. This morning we opened our first two books, one fittingly titled Very First Words in Spanish (Mis Primeras Palabras en Español) and another called Cinco Pequñas Mariquitas which I translated (on my own thankyouverymuch) to Five Little Ladybugs. Clearly Gaia loves them.

* Oh did I mention we’re moving to Perú? More on that later.

** I didn't mention I’m going back to school? No? Sorry. I’m a horrible blogger.

All Apologies

2009-08-28T21:05:00.005-06:00

I'm sorry. I really am. I make promises I don't keep. I'm inconsistent at best. I know. I know. If I were you I'd stage a dramatic blog break up with me, I would. I just don't have the patience you do. But I really do plan to get back to blogging regularly soon. In the meantime read this. It took me awhile to warm up to Dooce but with this post I'm officially in love. Power to the people. Damn the man.

PS. If I post a video of G laughing her little baby ass off will you forgive me? Yeah... I thought so.

Welcome to Crazy Town

2009-08-25T21:44:00.003-06:00

You know you’re going crazy when you leave your daughter’s toys in the sink to soak and when you walk by them a minute later you’re struck by a brief wave a panic thinking “Oh SHIT, Periwinkle’s drowning... Gaia’s going to be so upset”. True story.

Another sign of madness? The fact that each of her toys has a name and personal history. Periwinkle Penguin is one of her favourites. He’s BFFs with Allister. Allister is a crocodile. The joke goes like this:

A: “Nice to meet you, my name is Allister.”
New Guy: “Oh, I get it. Like Allister Alligator right?”
A: “Um no. I’m a crocodile.”

Gaia thinks I’m hilarious. There’s also a sordid love triangle going on between Gaia, Marv and Ellie. Marv and Ellie are colourful spiders that hang off her car seat and as for the love triangle, well, I’ll save that for another post.

PS. Regular posting to commence tomorrow. Seriously. I almost promise.

Gaia 1, Shadow 0

2009-08-13T21:30:00.004-06:00

If you frequent my blog you’re well aware that the Jolly Jumper is pretty much Gaia’s favourite thing of all time. Tonight she was bouncing when suddenly she became irate. Her little eyebrows knotted into her patented death stare and she began to shout what can only be described as the baby talk version of obscene four-letter words, her little fist shaking above her purple face. After a few seconds I noticed her gaze was fixed steadily on what appeared to be a random spot on the floor. Confused I called in my father for reinforcements. It was he who noticed it was Gaia’s bouncing shadow that was causing all the fuss. Trust me, I thought he was crazy too until he turned off the light casting the shadow and Gaia promptly stopped her tirade and gave me a look like “don’t worry, he won’t be bothering us again” before returning to giggly jumping for joy.

Of course when she went to bed I googled* baby + shadow and found these:

I have to admit I am currently swelling with pride that my daughter isn’t some sissy afraid of her shadow. Nope. My daughter showed that shadow who’s boss.

* Frankly I could write new blog every day that consisted only of the things I Google and the answers I get. It’s both sad and ridiculously entertaining.

The Catapult

2009-08-12T21:37:00.006-06:00

Jaydeen (one of my BFFs who I write about frequently) and her main-man-Myles have started a blog which promises to be chock full of amazing photographs. Both have a wonderful and unique way of seeing the world and Jaydeen's photos in particular leave me wanting to wax poetic about life and art and travel and beauty. I've been begging her for years to get her shit together for an exhibition in Miami (where she currently lives) but for now this will have to do. A professional by no means her photos are simply a momentary glimpse of what life must look like through her eyes. We should all be so lucky to see what she sees.

If I haven't convinced you yet then have a look at some of my favourite shots she took while she helped me survive in the two weeks after Gaia was born.

Like a Weed (You Know, One of Those Really Pretty Ones)

2009-08-12T20:52:00.008-06:00

In honour of my (big) baby girl's 5 MONTH BIRTHDAY:

G in her birthday suit!

For those of you interested in those sorts of things Gaia weighs 17 pounds, 14 ounces as of this morning at 8:54am. That makes her an even 11 pounds larger then this very day 5 months ago. I would make a joke about gaining 11 pounds in 5 months but I've been there... I like to call that my first year of university (ahem*40poundsin8months*ahem). Anyway. I'm not the best at measuring a squirmy worm baby but I believe she's about 26.5 inches tall. I eyeballed her head and can confirm it is still gigantic.

Dear Gaia,

2009-08-07T15:15:00.007-06:00

I’m sorry to have to write you this letter. If I was a bigger person I could say this to your face but frankly I’ve never been great at confronting the people I love and I always find a passive aggressive letter or (in these days of modern technology) a strongly worded email is just the ticket. See, if I tried to talk to you one-on-one you’d inevitably be adorable and flash me your toothless smile and I’d forget all about what I had to say and cover you in kisses and no, I refuse to be distracted this time. I am a woman on a mission. So here it goes. Gaia. G-Bear. My little Gaia-Roo. You. Are. Driving. Me. Crazy.

There. I said it. See, I’ve done my best to be patient and ride the rollercoaster that is our life together, but here’s the thing, I need a little consistency. Please. I beg of you. Joy is what I felt the first night I let you “cry-it-out”. Joy tinged with sweet relief. You had me going for a week or so but perhaps you heard me bragging about you on the phone last night and thought you better knock me down a peg or two. Clearly waking up every two hours at almost five-months old is inappropriate. I don’t need to tell you that. You and I both know you can do better. Now, I’ll try and accept that maybe you were having a rough night. I’ve been there. Was it the two little teeth just begging to pop though your lower gums? Your body’s insistence on continuing to grow? Was it something new and exciting that neither of us knows how to deal with yet? The possibilities are endless. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and happily and promptly got up at the sound of your cries. But here’s where things really started to get me down. Was it totally necessary, when I finally gave in and put you in my bed at 5:00am to a) continue to refuse to sleep and b) pry my unprotected mouth open so you could projectile vomit into it while I tried to catch some sneaky Zs? I mean COME ON. Now I’m sure you’re well aware that your delightful baby vomit tastes shockingly like battery acid (and before you get distracted with semantics yes, I DO know what battery acid tastes like having been convinced once by a babysitter to taste the coppery stain on my dresser... which reminds me... if I ever leave you with a high school kid who lives down the road don’t trust her, she’s just in it for the money), but beyond the horrible taste it is just disgusting to vomit into someone else’s mouth. I know I’ve taught you better than that. And as for your behaviour so far today, well, I know you’re tired but I’m tired too and frankly, I’m not the one who waged a war on sleep last night. I’m just sayin’.

My point, if I can make one here, is that I’m doing the best I can. I’m all alone here kid and my whole world revolves around you. If you could just spend a minute in my head you’d see I’m your official stalker, so consumed with you I have trouble thinking about anything else. My days consist of funny faces and tickles and bottles and wiping your poopy bum and cuddles and baby board books and developmental games and lullabies and, well, I could go on forever. Clearly I’m in love. When you break out your baby laugh and you’re in a good mood you’re friggin' gorgeous. Like seriously, seriously cute. More importantly, I’m pretty sure you’re a genius to a Stephen Hawking degree (what with being able to roll over and hold your own bottle). So please, don’t ever doubt my love for you. Here with you is exactly where I want to be. I’ve got a lot of years of steady inclines and shocking drops and loop after nauseating loop in me yet but seriously Nugget, throw me a bone. If you could just talk to the picketers campaigning to abolish naps and get your evening slumber down to a solid routine and do your best to keep your extensive bodily fluids to yourself I’d really appreciate it. And if not, well I guess I’ll deal with it. You’re worth it.

Big Love, Your Mama

Sushi and Iconic Tees Please

2009-08-05T21:21:00.009-06:00

I just felt the need to declare my love for the new book G's Fairy Godmother (AKA: Jaydeen) sent us from her trip to NYC.

Miso in my sippy cup,

tofu in my bowl.

Crab and Avocado fill my California Roll.

We've read it at least once a day since it arrived. Add to that the stylin' I ♥ NY onesie and G is officially the raddest littlest hipster ever. There are definite advantages to having a globe-trotting Godmama, which is not to say we wouldn't really love it if she moved back home too (hint, hint).

Gratitude: Family Edition

2009-08-05T14:12:00.008-06:00

Yesterday’s post was a bit of a downer. I’m aware of this. In fact I went to bed feeling guilty for writing it because frankly I have a lot to be grateful for. I’m big on gratitude and although I don’t pray and my feelings on a higher power are undefined and find myself silently giving thanks throughout the day. I blame it on my mother who has always shouted “THANK YOU” to the heavens when she finds a good parking spot or a cart that doesn’t wobble. Anyway, at the risk of getting all Oprah early-two-thousand-and-something-ish I thought it was about time I got back to focussing on the good things.

1. Co-Bear

The dinner he made for my Dad and me. He came over with a cardboard box full of ingredients and left us with full tummies. Only my brother would serve the largest greek salad of all time, chicken with a mango-chipotle rub and orange ginger sauce and pasta with chickpeas and tomato sauce as a unified meal. It was delicious. When we were all finished he took Gaia for a walk while my Dad and I cleaned up. If I didn't know better I'd swear he was becoming a grown-up.

2. Kare-Bear

Our water week in which Gaia went for her first swim in the pool,

followed two days later by her first swim in the lake.

Even more exciting is our plans for more adventures to come. My mother makes sure we get out of the house to avoid us both going entirely crazy.

3. Ger-Bear

Watching the news with my Dad when the following commercial came on:

My normally deadpan father simply muttered “I hate those kids” and I laughed so hard things shot from my nose.

(Note: I love those kids and those commercials, but then again I can also do everything they can do and more while it still takes my Dad twenty minutes to send an email. You know what I’d like to see? How about “I’m a PC and I’m sixty-two”. That would be far more impressive.)

Going to the Farmer’s Market on Scarth this morning. We picked up a delightful broccoli-cauliflower hybrid that I’m fascinated with. Clearly Gaia is oblivious to its greatness.

Make It Work

2009-08-04T22:13:00.001-06:00

So, I know. Every time I commit to hopping aboard the post-a-day train again something happens and I find myself derailed. To be honest I’m just not quite myself lately and I keep waiting to wake up feeling better so I can get back to posts about poop. The culprit? My MP was looking into the immigration situation for Jose since apparently the federal government doesn’t actually believe in communicating with its citizens and showing genuine concern for their unique situations. Anyway, long story short, it would appear it’s going to be a minimum of fourteen months until Jose has even a glimmer of hope for getting into Canada. Yeah, so there’s that.

Now, before I go on here’s the thing you need to know about me (if you don’t already). I’m the most capable person you’ll ever meet. I’m the girl who goes to university full time and works thirty hours a week and volunteers here, there and everywhere and stays up until 4:00am to bake cupcakes and craft whimsical greeting cards because so-and-so’s smile looked a little off over coffee the other day and it is clearly my job to cheer them up. I have itemized, prioritized, painfully organised lists and I generally get more done before breakfast than most people do all day. Like I said, I’m the most capable person you’ll ever meet, until of course suddenly I’m not. For the most part I go through life always able to find a positive spin. Like Tim Gunn I’m always finding a way to “make it work” and “carry on”. The downside to this in that every once in awhile I find myself overwhelmed with everything I’ve tried to be positive about, usually spurred by some epic failure or disappointment and then, predictably, my facade comes crashing down and my world begins to unravel. When your only coping mechanism is to look on the bright side and you suddenly find yourself devoid of positivity, well, you can imagine the results.

When we got the immigration news I tried to take it all in stride. I immediately started a mental list of reasons why the news was good. It went something like:

1) Well at least now we know! Now we have a concrete timeline to work with! This is good news actually! Great news!

2) I might get to live in Peru and that’s cool! I’ll always be able to say “oh yeah, that was the year we lived in Peru”! Plus Gaia will get more time with her other grandparents and uncles and cousins! Yup! This is gonna be great! GREAT!

3) I... um... well...

And that’s about as far as I got before I gave in and every disappointment Jose and I have faced for the past year started pressing against my chest. The pain I’ve been pushing aside in favour of silver linings, yeah, it sucks, especially all at once. Our multiple visitor visa rejections and the fact I went though all but three-weeks of my pregnancy alone. The memories of feeling Gaia move inside of me for the first time and looking around excitedly only to realise I had no one to share it with. The way I was terrified and had no idea if everything was going to be okay and how there was no one there to reassure me. How I used to lay in bed alone and whisper “everything’s going to be okay” and pretend it was Jose just so I could fall asleep. How I gave birth with the support of someone who, while amazing, was not my husband and how all I wanted in the world was to share it with him. How much I hated feeling bitter or anything besides joy on my first night with Gaia because it wasn’t her fault Jose wasn’t there any more than it was his, or mine. How much I regretted those tears when she was only a few hours old. The pure and poisonous envy I feel every time I see families intact and want to pull them aside and shake them and ask them if they really appreciate everything they have and if they know how much harder it would be if they didn’t have the physical presence of each other regardless of how difficult just being together could be sometimes. How I spend hours when I should be falling asleep just wondering how much easier it all would be if there were two of us, especially since that other person would be Jose. Yeah. I could go on for hours about all the bitterness and bile that’s spilled over in the past week but that’s exactly why I haven’t been posting anything in the first place. See I fear and loath pity in equal amounts and try to avoid it whenever possible (an easy feat when one places their whole existence on a positive point-of-view). Still I thought maybe if I just wrote it all down (or at least scratched the surface) I might be able to let it go and get back to those longed after posts where every once in awhile I’ve even been known to make a funny.

Cry-It-Out (To Clarify)

2009-07-29T20:35:00.004-06:00

It felt irresponsible not to mention that “cry-it-out” isn’t actually plopping your infant in her crib and letting her cry herself hoarse regardless of her needs because, you know, you’ve got shit to do. It's an established sleep training method a la Ferber and the like. Gaia’s had a solid bedtime (within a thirty minute time period) for well over a month. She also makes very clear signs when she’s sleepy such as tugging on her ears and rubbing her eyes. When she shows signs of getting sleepy in the evening we have a solid bedtime routine (bath-massage-book-feeding). With “cry-it-out” that all stays the same I just let Gaia soothe herself to sleep instead of me bouncing/rocking her when it’s all over. Ideally I was planning to go into her room to comfort her every twenty minutes but so far I haven’t had the opportunity (which is a good thing).

For those of you eager for an update, she put herself down for two naps today (her third was in my arms) and is currently asleep in bed without a single wail. I know this could all go sour any minute as babies have a talent for flipping the switch when you’re feeling nice and secure with their routine, but for now G is all about sleep... ahhhhh... glorious sleep.

Cry-It-Out

2009-07-29T11:25:00.005-06:00

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts since I’ve been back in Regina. To blame is the fact that the last three weeks have been filled with tears, nervous breakdowns and only the very occasional glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel. I mean really, who wants to hear about me curled up in a ball on my bathroom floor weeping because my daughter won’t go to sleep and has gone back in time to be a four-month-old newborn? Anyway, it all came to a head last night when, after trying to get Gaia to sleep for over two hours, I finally succumbed to the lure of “cry-it-out”. I cuddled her until she was calm but awake and then put her in her bed, tucked a blanket around her, told her I loved her and left the room. After a mere fifteen minutes of crying she was fast asleep. It was 10:15pm. The rest of our night looked like this:

10:15pm-11:00pm – Sleep
11:00pm-11:07pm – Eat
11:08pm-11:13pm – Cry
11:13pm-4:56am – Sleep
4:57am-5:05am – Eat
5:06am-5:09am – Mildly Protest
5:10am-8:24am – Sleep
8:25am – Wake-Up Laughing – Eat Breakfast

Did I mention I’m in love with “cry-it-out”? What’s even better is when I got Gaia out of bed this morning I swear she looked proud of herself. The look was all “Geez Mama, this is so much better than you bouncing me while you weep! Clearly I am the Queen of Sleep and now that you've finally let me deal with my shit I am prepared to take over the world.” That being said, there is no way I would have been ready for this before this week. Like a junkie I needed to hit rock bottom before I could let all the attachment parenting stuff go and try a more moderate approach. In fact, I probably would have never considered it if not for my Mommy-friend who struggled for months with her daughter’s sleep habits and has written about it here. She is my personal pioneer in the field of "cry-it-out". She also wrote a post about the notion that letting your child ”cry-it-out” is about teaching them “who’s boss”. I get the impression she finds that as ludacris as I do. In our house one thing is for sure, Gaia is the boss. I’m just the head of continuing education.

Happiness...

2009-07-26T21:05:00.005-06:00

... thy name is Jolly Jumper.

Pop Quiz

2009-07-21T21:06:00.004-06:00

It’ll be two weeks tomorrow since Gaia and I have been home from Vancouver. In the last two weeks which of the following things have happened?

a) Gaia moved into her own bedroom marking our first night apart. I left both our doors open and slept with my head at the foot of my bed so I could see into her room lest she panic. She didn’t. In contrast I’m not sure I slept a wink.

b) I took Gaia in to get her four-month immunizations. After seeing how wiggly and active my child is the nurse proclaimed “Well it’s a good thing you’re married because I sure can’t imagine taking care of this little one on my own!” Ahem. Perhaps I should have asked if she’d call the embassy in Lima on my behalf.

c) I checked the Immigration Canada website (as I do every Tuesday) for any updates on our case. Not only were there no updates (nor have there been for three months) but the estimated wait time for Peruvian cases has jumped from five to eight months to nine to fifteen. Whoopie!

d) Gaia went from sleeping a successive nine to twelve hours through the night to waking up every hour, on the hour for ten days straight. She also began a campaign to abolish naps and more than thirty seconds of independent play.

e) One sunny morning in a winding Tim Hortons drive-thru line up I finally learned what a “double-double” is. The teenager in the window looked at me like I was crazy as he explained then (judgementally I feel) asked me where I was from.

f) I started a quest to fold one hundred paper cranes to hang from the ceiling in Gaia’s new room. Over fifty cranes in and it started to seem more than a little foolish. The box of cranes in the corner taunts me and guilts me into making ‘just one more’. I should be done by the end of the week.

g) During a particularly hellish night Gaia peed on my bed while getting her diaper changed at 5:00am. Too tired to change the sheets I simply piled towels on the puddle until the urine stopped soaking through and the two of us slept on said towels for the remainder of the morning. For six successive nights I simply added another towel or blanket to the pile to mask the smell of pee and continued sleeping on the soiled sheets. I am disgusting.

h) I joined a gym which (thankthelord) has a daycare. Friday marked the first time I have ever left Gaia in the care of a stranger. After a quick hour of cardio I went to pick her up and found her smiley and nuzzling up against one of the staff who proclaimed “I just love your baby... she’s so sweet and cuddly!” The shock on my face was hard to deny as I coldly responded “Well... that’s lovely for you.” (PS. Have I mentioned my daughter still won’t cuddle with me?)

i) I officially decided that caring for a four-month old is more difficult than caring for a newborn. The honeymoon is over people.

j) All of the above.

Perhaps it goes without saying that the correct answer is j). On the bright side things are looking up. I had a wonderful day visiting with friends at a beautiful farm where Gaia got to catch up with her BFF and meet chickens and horses and sheep and, oddly enough, a llama. When we got home she was in such a great mood she rewarded my weeks of endless patience with her first real giggle. Until now her laugh consisted of a high pitched, open-mouth scream. Tonight she laughed like a big-girl without pause for almost five minutes straight as I pretended to eat her legs. At least somebody thinks I’m funny.

Woof

2009-07-17T21:14:00.002-06:00

It's true that I take an exorbitant amount of pictures of my daughter. She's four-months old and there are almost two thousand pictures in my Gaia Favourites folder which accounts for less than half of the total pictures I've taken. Sigh. More ridiculous still is that I feel compelled to post the majority of these pictures on Facebook. I think I have a problem. If I were Facebook friends with myself I'd be seriously annoyed. In fact, I'd probably delete me from my friend list. Still, at least Gaia's a human baby who shot from my loins. If you put me up next to my friend Jaydeen whose dog not only has thousands of headshots, but is also the star of her very own website that includes an increasing number of snazzy videos I look positively sane.

PS. Just kidding Jay. You know I loves me some Keelah Cornbread!

Crisis Averted

2009-07-16T20:36:00.006-06:00

Katy (one of my BFFs* who I've written about here) just sent me the following from her BlackBerry:

"Quick, tell people you know where Gaia is or we may have a crisis on our hands!"

This is why I love my friends.

* I used to call my besties BFFs in a way that was sort of tongue-in-cheek but now that Paris Hilton has a monopoly on the name for her never ending serious of reality shows I hate myself a little everytime I use it. ARG.

Her Future's So Bright...

2009-07-16T09:36:00.002-06:00

Well... you know...

Raising Tomatoes

2009-07-15T22:07:00.003-06:00

Imagine if you will the following scenario. You’ve always loved tomatoes. They are juicy and delicious and the best part of a salad. You’re at a store in early spring and you notice a tomato plant amidst the plethora of gardening options. You think “Hmmm... I do enjoy tomatoes... maybe I should grow my own. How hard could it be?” So you buy the tomato plant and stick it in some dirt in your backyard. Since you’ve never grown tomatoes you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing. The abundance of gardening books and fertilisers and advice from old ladies seems overwhelming so you settle for an apathetic approach, watering the plant occasionally and feeling guilty when you forget to protect it from the frost. Then, out of nowhere, you go into your garden one day to discover the most beautiful, round, red tomatoes have sprouted on your semi-neglected plant. Are you proud of the tomatoes? Of course. But you feel a little guilty. You invite your friends over for dinner and offer up dish after dish of tomato-based goodness. Your friends are in awe. “Those are the most beautiful tomatoes I have ever seen” they gush, “you simply must tell me your secret.” Part of you longs to shout “Secret? What secret? There’s no secret you fools! These tomatoes are a fluke! A FLUKE!” That same part longs to confess you have no idea what you’re doing but a bigger part of you relishes the attention and loves that by some chance of fate you managed to grow the most beautiful tomatoes in town. So you say nothing and smile politely and thank everyone humbly for admiring the fruits of your (apathetic) labour. When you go to bed at night you are consumed with thoughts about the tomatoes. You live in constant fear that any future gardening failure might out you and people might find out the truth – you have no idea what you’re doing. Worse still is that you might lose the tomatoes forever and that, well that must be avoided at all costs.

See, that’s how I feel about parenting. I know there are a lot of people whose experience differs from mine but I got pregnant with Gaia out of nowhere with no plan and no experience with infants. Did I like infants? Sure! Who doesn’t? But did I have any idea what I was getting myself into? Not entirely. Here’s where I think our society fails new mothers. When you get pregnant you’re overwhelmed with a barrage of advice about carrying the baby and its eventual eviction. There are nutritional guides and hospital tours and birthing classes and specially made vitamins in pink bottles with a glowing pregnant woman on the front (you can’t miss ‘em). Frankly, if you’re informed enough to avoid the big no-nos chances are the cells in your womb are going to grow into a healthy baby (barring what I believe to be unavoidable tragedies like miscarriages). An even greater sure bet is that once the baby’s ready to come out it’s going to do so, regardless of whether your prepared with labour mix tapes and breathing techniques and the perfect scented candles. Yet all the educational focus for new mothers is on the before without any assistance in the crucial after (which if you ask me you need a lot more guidance for). Just like the gardener and their tomatoes with little effort on my part I woke up one day with a perfect baby girl. Am I doing the best I can? Absolutely. Do I have any idea what it is I’m supposed to be doing day by day? Not a chance. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here and it’s terrifying. In fact, if not for Google and my solitary mommy friend I’m not entirely sure I’d be equipped to problem solve at all.

Last night is a perfect example. Gaia had her four-month immunizations yesterday afternoon. They are for the same diseases and in the same doses (in proportion to her higher weight) as her two-month immunizations which had absolutely no effect on her at all. Still, from the time I put her to bed at 9:00pm to 1:00am she woke up crying on the half-hour and needed to be soothed back to sleep. Finally I realised she felt a little hot and took her temperature. It was just over one hundred and one degrees. I didn’t panic. I reached for the unopened Infant Tylenol and gave it to her as directed. Then I tried to get her back to sleep and waited. Over an hour later when she hadn’t gone to sleep and her fever hadn’t gone down I realised I had no idea what to do next. The photocopy I’d been given claimed the Tylenol was a fix-all and offered no advice beyond that. Add to the situation that Gaia was getting alarmingly overtired and her nose and throat were so mucusy she was breathing in laboured, raspy breaths and I was at a complete loss. Eventually I stripped her down to her diaper and bounced her on the ball for two hours straight while she slept with her hot face curled into my neck. If I shifted her in any way or stopped bouncing for a second she was wide-awake and crying again. By 5:00am her fever was down to what seemed like a more manageable ninety-nine degrees, but she was still tired and cranky and clingy and I ended up spending the rest of today trying to manage her fever and my exhaustion without falling apart while my heart broke for her.

Maybe they don’t prepare you because there’s no way to prepare. After over ten years of work experience and university and travelling and challenges so great I felt like nothing would ever be that hard again this is easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I have never taken on anything I put my mind to that I wasn’t instantly good at. When the doctor handed me Gaia it seemed simple enough. Bluntly put, my job is to keep her alive. Like the Tamagotchi I had in elementary school I feed her and change her and keep her clean. I give her lots of love and attention and do my best to make sure she’s reaching all her milestones. Unlike the Tamagotchi I can’t press reset and start again at square one if I make a mistake and that is terrifying. The pressure I put on myself, like the pressure I’m sure every mother feels, is immense.

See...

2009-07-15T09:01:00.005-06:00

... it's not just me.

Although I've been firmly pro-natural childbirth since my teens it was Your Best Birth and The Business of Being Born that sealed the deal in the months before Gaia was born. Seriously. If you're pregnant or may ever (EVER) be pregnant in the future please at least consider alternatives beyond the induce/epidural/vaccum-my-baby-out-of-me route. I did it au natural and it was awesome.

Need a little more encouragement? A friend was blogging through labour yesterday and posted this quote on her Facebook: "There is a secret in our culture. It is not that childbirth is painful, it is that women are strong." -- Linda Stavoe Harm

Unfinished Thoughts

2009-07-11T22:24:00.003-06:00

I’m sorry I’ve been so lame on the blogging front lately. In Vancouver I simply didn’t have time. Since I’ve been home I’ve been feeling so gross I actually thought I might be pregnant again... which I’m not... unless the three tests I took today are wrong. Add to the lack of time/energy the fact that Gaia is struggling pretty hard to give up naps entirely and I’m longing for blogging time. Still, I have so much on my mind. Here are a few things that may or may not get written about if I can ever find the time again:

How it seems that even if I were dress my daughter up in a pink tutu she’d still get mistaken for a boy. It’s not that I mind so much just that I’ve been spending an extravagant amount of time obsessing over why everyone thinks my daughter is so butch.
How I was a little sad when I got married that I’d never get fall in love again (well, you know, ideally) and how wrong I was. Since Jose and I got hitched I have not only gotten to fall in love with our baby girl, but also with Jose again and again in so many ways. I don’t think there’s anything else in the world like falling in love with your husband as a father. It’s pure magic.
How rattled I am by the whole Jon and Kate divorce. I hate myself for caring, but I do. Last week I imposed an official ban on gossip magazines to not to participate in feeding the media fire. Today at the grocery store I noticed Michael Jackson has officially taken over the headlines but frankly I’m not interested in feeding that fire either.
How amazing Gaia is in her new Jolly Jumper. I know a lot of people think they’re death traps but it makes her so happy it’s insane. I swear she thinks she’s learned to walk and jump and dance free of outside intervention but with a snappy new belt (obviously a big girl accessory).
How Gaia and I slept in separate bedrooms on Wednesday night for the first time ever and how she did so well that I moved her into her big girl bedroom permanently which has resulted in me making over a hundred paper cranes to hang from her big girl ceiling. Crazy? Slightly. But also beautiful.

And those are just a sampling of the things I’ve been itching to write about should I ever find the time. Anything in particular tickle your fancy? Let me know and maybe it’ll give me the motivation to expand on it.

Free For Chubbies

2009-07-09T21:40:00.005-06:00

I had planned on writing about how everytime we go out everyone thinks Gaia is a boy, but then I was alerted to THIS and decided it deserved some attention. Enjoy.

(OK... the truth is I'm tired from spending all day turning my house into a home but truly, the link above made me laugh and feel uncomfortable in equal measures. You'll like it. I swear.)

Dear Vancouver,

2009-07-08T06:19:00.000-06:00

I know in the past I might have given you some reason to hope that someday I’ll leave Saskatchewan and settle here with you. I’ll admit it’s tempting. You are the very picture of a perfect place to live, all ocean and mountains and tall trees blowing in the breeze. Amazing shopping and eclectic neighbourhoods and an arts community I would give my right arm to be a part of. I had a good six years with you. Please don’t ever think I won’t cherish those memories forever. The last month, while a brief affair, has been a whirlwind of fun and excitement. I’ll give you that. Still, when it comes right down to it Regina is just better for me. I’m sorry. Really though, it’s not you, it’s me.

See, while you provide an exciting escape from the ordinary, Regina has always been there like an anchor keeping be grounded. While Regina might not be as attractive or fun or charming, it’s got a lot of really wonderful qualities that grow on you and grab hold when you least expect it. While you and I have overpriced martinis and overpriced shoes and an epic university experience together, Regina and I have shared so much more. I hesitate to go into the details that would only hurt you but you have to admit, you always knew this was coming. I was born on the prairies and grew up there and I hope Gaia will too. While you hold the majority of my urban family, Regina holds Gaia’s grandparents and her fun Uncle Cody and our friends who have babies just her age. I know it almost doesn’t seem fair when I put it like that. Regina is friendly and pleasant and easy to get around. I’m learning to love the Riders almost as much as I love the Canucks and someday soon I plan to learn to bake a Saskatoon Berry Pie. Now that I’m a mother my vast list of martini recipes just doesn’t seem as practical as it did three years ago.

Really though, it’s been great, it has. But if we’re gonna get right down to it. I hate the traffic. There, I said it. I hate sitting in the car for forty-five minutes with a screaming baby in the back seat while I wait to get onto the Lions Gate Bridge. I hate that it takes me over two hours to visit some of my friends. See, it’s not that they live two hours away, just that the insane traffic congestion means I’m idling for hours. How can people live like that? And seriously, would it kill you to improve your mood a bit? I mean, the sun shines everywhere else in Canada, do you think it’s a coincidence that dark clouds always hang over you? I’ve had it with the rain. I’ll take blistering cold winters in exchange for breezy, beautiful springs and blazing hot summers and crisp, colourful autumns any day. And another thing, are your Cheerios really so superior they need to be almost a dollar more expensive then on the Prairies? How can anyone afford to live here? How can anyone afford to raise their family here? I’ll tell you one thing. It’ll be a cold day in hell when I pay three hundred dollars for a pair of jeans for my twelve-year-old so she can fit in at school. Just like those jeans sometimes I feel like you’re all flash and no substance. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Plus, I know it’s vain, but it’s been bothering me all month that my new haircut has been hanging limply in my face and my skin is breaking out in protest to your summer humidity. Frankly, in contrast to Regina, I’d have to describe you as balmy. You’ve got to do the best with what you have and I’m sorry, I just can’t do balmy.

But I digress. I didn’t write this letter to point out all your flaws or make you feel like less of a city. For some people, people I know and love, you’re just the right fit. Still, I’m the type that likes to root for the underdog and find the magic where very few see it. And you know, sometimes I want to get groceries in my sweatpants and not stick out like a sore thumb. I want to build snowmen with my daughter in the winter and take pictures of her lost in a field of wheat and watch the way her face lights up the first time she sees a prairie sunset. I’m afraid if I stay with you I’ll miss all that and more while I’m leaning on the horn stuck in another traffic jam. The bottom line, if I can find one here, is that Regina makes me want to be a better (wo)man. It reminds me that life isn’t about how much you own or how much you spend or how big your condo is. When I’m with you I get all wrapped up in the details and forget the big picture. When my daughter is twenty she won’t care that her first lip gloss was Bonne Bell and not MAC or that we bought her clothes from Superstore instead of Aritzia or that she drank her first beer in a pickup truck in some field instead of sneaking into an overpriced club. She’ll remember that her family had a house full of big dogs that she chased in the back yard and looking out the window on a White Christmas and the vacations we’ll be able to afford because we won’t be living from paycheck to paycheck.

Oh Vancouver, you’re all glitz and sparkle and you get me every time but I’m a grown up now and I need to stop being distracted by shiny things. So there it is. I’m sorry. I hope we can still be friends. If not, well, you still have the Olympics and you know, that’s cool I guess.

All the Best, Risa

If They Could Just Spend One Day With Us...

2009-07-06T23:44:00.004-06:00

Of everything I’ve done this year there is one thing I am especially proud of. It’s not growing a baby, or successfully helping that baby exit through my body or caring for her on my own once she was out. If I had to narrow it down to my single greatest accomplishment in the last year it would be that somehow, inexplicably, I’ve managed to stay positive through the back and forth of mine and Jose’s struggles with immigration. I hesitate to write about it, fearing it might result a verbal avalanche of self-pity and pure hatred towards the government. Still. With every disappointment we’ve found hope.

Hope is a beautiful thing but today I felt a little bit of my hope slip away. I feel defeated.

“If they would only spend a day with us they would let him in” I think.
If they could see the way Gaia smiles at him. It’s a smile I see every morning when I get her out of bed. One not seen by the public and too precious to be photographed. A smile that wouldn’t be forgotten anyhow. That smile is the first time my daughter said she loved me. That smile says she loves Jose too. I wonder if she remembers him from the three weeks she spent in Peru in the womb. Does she remember the way he slept with his face right next to hers? The way he called her Gaia and kissed her and told her all of his stories through my bellybutton? I wonder if the way he smells has become a part of me, if he runs through my veins and she thinks of us as a set. Her parents.

How can we be somebody’s parents and still be kept apart by wait times and proof of relationship forms and immigration hotline numbers? Does that seem right to you?

I wonder if she knows why he’s rarely with us and if she cuts the desperation by living off a steady diet of hope. I wonder if maybe that’s just me.

For the last year we’ve always had something to buoy our hope. When he was denied for the first Visitor Visa we got through by perfecting the applications for our second shot. We rescheduled flights and consulted lawyers and crossed our fingers extra tight. The second denial stung the most, it was the rejection killing our hope, until we realised hope was the only thing we could count on and clung tight to the pieces we had left. Quickly decisions were made and I had a trip to Peru and Christmas with my in-laws and a marriage to focus on. Then it was applying for Permanent Residency. Complicated forms and letter upon letter and triple checking everything before our twenty pound package was on its way. Before I knew it there were the last months of my pregnancy. Prenatal yoga and nesting and fights over baby boy names. It was anything to avoid thinking of Jose not being there for the birth. Anything to not want to fly to Mississauga to let Immigration Canada feel the extent of my rage and distract myself from thoughts of burning that mother down. Anything not to think about how a country that preaches equality and fairness in opposition to the red-white-and-blue downstairs could take away that experience from us both like it didn’t even matter. Like we’d ever be able to get it back. When people ask if labour hurt I want to tell them that nothing could hurt as bad as not having the person you love there with you. Nothing could burn like that loneliness. I just say “nope” and smile instead. It’s the hope that covers the bitterness. Then it was the baby who became our hope in human form. It was two hours a day on Skype and stories about our child and learning to be a family when countries separated us. Didn’t I always say that there were all different types of families? Then it was a countdown to a new job for Jose, one that would bring him to us twice a month. It was packing and preparing and excitement. It was three days. Twenty-six hours of being a family. The best twenty-six hours I have ever spent. Every. Single. Second.

Today was our last day. Jose won’t be given anymore Vancouver days off. We have no plan for the future. No idea when we might see each other again. Ship work means two hour conversations are condensed into a ten minute phone call and one email a day. No one at Immigration Canada will talk to us and we know our paperwork sits near the bottom of the pile at the embassy in Lima. We have no end point. No magic date to count down to. We are exhausted from the hope. There’s only so long that you can let hope feed you in place of the dreams you rest it on. I hate myself for complaining. All my life I’ve known that nothing is ever as bad as it seems. That there are millions in far dire circumstances then mine. I try to save a little hope for them too and let the emotion I focus on myself be gratitude. I am grateful. For a husband who loves me and our healthy baby. For the way I know that nothing could make him as happy as watching me and Gaia for hours. For the way she smiles and him and he smiles at me and I smile at her. For the way that we share the smiles that no one else ever gets to see. Now that I’ve exhausted my hope I think I’ll focus on my gratitude. Maybe we’re just too lucky to be together every day. Like meteor shower or Canucks playoff victory maybe we’re lucky enough to have something so beautiful we can’t experience it every day because it’s rare and worth the wait.

That being said, if anyone has some connections with Immigration Canada feel free to pull a few strings for us. If you can get Jose into the country I promise we’ll make an effort to find something to fight about like who has to take out the garbage or why I refuse to change the toilet paper roll (I mean really, it’ll just run out anyway).

O Canada

2009-07-01T10:51:00.004-06:00

Happy Canada Day from Me and Baby G!

(See Canadian government... we love Canada... can you let my husband into the country now please?)

We're roadtripping to Seattle for the afternoon to rescue Gaia's Fairy Godmother (currently en route from Miami) from the Americans and bring her back to the homeland to celebrate. WOOO HOOO!!

Unicorn Rainbow Sprinkle Baby

2009-06-30T22:54:00.005-06:00

About a week ago Gaia finally found her feet. She caught hold of one of her toes and hasn’t willingly let go since. I, of course, beamed with pride and gushed “Ooooooo! Good job baby girl! You are the smartest, most wonderful, most talented baby in the whole wide world!! You. Are. A GENIUS!” It’s true. Minutes later when she managed to roll to her side unassisted I thought the neighbors might come over to check I wasn’t having a mild seizure. The sheer volume of my praise sent the dog into a barking fit that lasted almost five minutes. Am I logically aware that these are pretty average milestones in the life of an infant? Yes. Did that stop me from documenting the occurrences with hundreds of photos in mere hours and passing the momentous news on to my husband, my parents, my in-laws and Gaia’s Godmother? No.

Working in a variety of childcare settings I’ve grown to hate those parents. You know, the ones who chalk every instance of good/bad/ugly behavior up to the belief they cling to blindly…

“Oh,” they proclaim proudly “my child is gifted.”

Alas I can feel myself quickly becoming one of them. I have visions of Gaia standing at the corner of the stage during a ballet recital sucking on her tutu and picking her nose while the other little girls pirouette around her.

“Isn’t she wonderful?” I’ll say to no one in particular. “I’ve always said she had her own sense of rhythm that’s just sooo above the other girls.”

I hate myself already. Or, you know, I would if my daughter wasn't genuinely gifted. Obviously. Ahem.

To make matters worse it’s not just milestones met that send me into a frenzy. At numerous points throughout my day I find myself consumed with staring at Gaia in awe. “There’s just no denying it,” I think to myself “I have given birth to the world’s most adorable baby.” Desperate to maintain to my last shred of sanity I’m always quick to give my head a shake and remind myself that all mothers feel the same about their children. Still today I woke up to a message from a friend that made me feel slightly less crazy. Apparently she’d been showing a friend pictures of Gaia when the mere sight of my baby caused him to proclaim “SHE’S SO FUCKING CUTE IT’S LIKE SHE FELL OUT OF A UNICORN’S ASS AND IS MADE OF RAINBOWS AND SPRINKLES!”

HAH! I KNEW IT!

A Mental Vacation

2009-06-29T21:57:00.003-06:00

Consider this an apology for three whole days without a single post. I have a lot to say but as yet have not found the appropriate words to say it. Soon. Or maybe I just need a few days to not have the appropriate words so I can just pick up where I left off and leave these last three days a mystery. We'll see. I'm fine. Gaia is fine. Jose is fine. My family and friends are all fine. Well. More or less. My life? My life is beautiful. Still I wait for the other shoe to drop. I'm always waiting. I teeter on the edge of having everything I never knew I always wanted while I cling to the fear that it could all be taken away. Just like that it could all be taken away. I like to think of myself as a pretty realistic person. Good and bad. Black and white. Right and wrong. I'm big on fairness. On karma. On the golden rule. A number of things have happened this week that have reminded me that life isn't always fair. Bad things happen to good people. Good people who don't deserve the sadness or shock or loss. Good people who don't deserve the struggle. I'm taking a week off from the news, from the media, from the gossip magazines and CNN and from the fiction. It's become clear that now is not the best time to read My Sister's Keeper. I'd say it's apparent the movie can wait awhile too. I'm taking a week off from the deaths and the injustice and the broken hearts and publicity stunts and tragedy that seems to be taking over my mind this week. I'm taking a break.

Come Here Often?

2009-06-25T19:55:00.006-06:00

Today while waiting with Gaia for a friend at a Starbucks the following exchange took place:

Moderately Attractive Man : Your baby is adorable.
Me : Thanks.
M.A.M : No really. She has your eyes. They are beautiful.
Me (looking away awkwardly) : Oh. Um. Thanks.
M.A.M : How old is she?
Me : Three and a half months.
M.A.M : Oh WOW. She’s only a few months old? You look great.
Me (still avoiding eye contact) : Oh. Um. Thanks.
M.A.M : So, um, Daddy’s at work?
Me : Yup.
M.A.M : And you and Daddy are...
Me : Married.
M.A.M : Alright then. Have a good afternoon.
Me : Will do.

I’m not sure what’s more shocking, the fact that there’s a man out there who trolls Starbucks looking for potential single mothers to scam on or the fact that apparently my no makeup, messy ponytail, wedding ring, baby spit-up on shoulder combo screamed “CHOOSE ME! HIT ON ME!”

Baby Fat

2009-06-24T13:48:00.005-06:00

Although Gaia was average at birth she quickly dropped to a dangerous weight. The Public Health Nurse was alarmed, friends and family made jokes about how “she definitely doesn’t take after her mother” and even I had to admit my newborn was a tad gangly. Instead of a plump, rosy baby, I had one who was long and lean without a discernable ounce of fat on her. Her skin even sagged like that of an anorexic actress, bones jutting from her hips, ribs clearly visible. At her four-week check up she was in the fifth percentile for weight. I was more then a little concerned. Of course she made her way to a healthy weight eventually and now it appears she’s on track to tip the scales in the other direction. Just last week I noticed her BabyLegs were cutting off circulation in her ample thighs. I simply shimmied them down below her knees and didn’t think much of it. Of course I’ve noticed she’s getting harder and harder to lug around and that she’s rapidly growing out of her three to six month clothing but it wasn’t until last night that it really hit me. I put her in the Bumbo while I made myself dinner, as I always do. I was shocked when I went to pick her up a few minutes later and found her baby thighs firmly wedged in the Bumbo leg holes. That’s right ladies and gentleman, her thighs have grown to such an glorious size she’s getting stuck in a baby seat designed for infants exactly her age. Turns out she takes after me after all.

Gaia's Thighs - Four-Weeks Old (in a Premie-Sized Onesie)

Gaia's Thighs - Fourteen-Weeks Old

Birth of the Narcissist

2009-06-23T17:00:00.004-06:00

On the shortlist of Gaia’s favourite things to do looking at herself in the mirror comes a close third to licking inanimate objects and making fun of babies in strollers. She comes by in honestly, Jose and I spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the mirror ourselves. But I digress. Vanity aside I find it fascinating that simply seeing her reflection causes Gaia to calm regardless of her emotional state. More interesting still is that everything I’ve read claims there is no way she connects her reflection to herself. Initially I just wondered why seeing another baby on the street doesn’t have the same effect as the mirror but now my musings have become more complex. If it’s true that a) Gaia does not recognise her reflection and b) Gaia does recognise me and c) I’m holding her ninety percent of the time she is exposed to a mirror then I can’t help but wonder the following:

1. Does she ever get jealous of the baby in the mirror being held by her mother?
2. Does she think said baby is a sibling? A friend’s baby? An apparition? Does she wonder why the baby doesn’t try to play with her?
3. Does she ever wonder how I can be holding both her and the other baby simultaneously? Does she think I’m magic?
4. Does she assume I have a clone or identical twin or the like and if so does she ever wonder why this other mother is only with us when we’re in the bathroom (the lone place in my house where I have a mirror)?
5. Will her mind be totally blown when she meets Jose’s identical twin? Will she wonder why this duplicate Daddy lives outside of the mirror? What will happen if all three of them look in the mirror resulting in four Daddys? Will it cause her baby brain to short circut? Should we avoid this possibility at all costs?
6. Does she ever notice that the baby in the mirror makes the same gestures as her or does she think “Wow, that baby sure spends a lot of time sucking on her hands, what a moron”?
7. Since she talks and laughs most when we’re looking in the mirror I can only assume she finds the mirror baby hilarious. Is that the case or is she just observing social norms and laughing to be polite?
8. When she finally does realise the reflection is her will she feel silly for not making the connection for so long? Will the realisation cause a little baby existential crisis that will result in her questioning her reality for the rest of her life? If so how might I prevent the inevitable breakdown?

Seriously. I think these things and more every time we’re looking in the mirror. Perhaps this is a sign that I need to go back to work or further my education or at the very least start reading books that aren’t about babies again. Or maybe we should just stop looking in the mirror so often? It's a tough call.

Oh and I thought I should explain why Gaia makes fun of babies in strollers... I’m convinced she thinks she’s moving of her own volition when she’s strapped in the sling, the smug look she gives stroller babies says it all.

Daddy's Girl

2009-06-21T13:40:00.003-06:00

My father is one of my favourite people in the world. He is the standard I set for myself. How I know that a quiet soul should never be mistaken for an empty mind, that being powerful is not the same as being feared and that everyone is flawed but deserves the right to be accepted. I like to think I was born understanding him. Knowing he is funny and caring and generous if you just have the patience to see it.

My father is lazy mornings in the water bed when I was a baby. Days spent reading stories and getting groceries and eating cheerios (mostly me) while we cooked (mostly him). By all accounts I was bossy and demanding and always in his arms. I have memories of colouring books and games of checkers and walking across the road to visit him in the shop. Elaborate birthday cakes and handmade wooden toys and custom bedroom furniture and lying on the floor while he cut my toenails. He is quiet in the chaos, time with my father like the stillness in the eye of the storm. He’s goodnight whisker rubs that replaced goodnight kisses and left me with tingling rosy cheeks from his five-o-clock shadow. He’s the smell of wheat and gasoline that will always make me feel safe. His is a pride in me that hides behind gruffness and awkward hugs but that shows every day, in every way, in all the ways he’s lived his life so that mine may be better.

When I got pregnant he was the family member I told first. I knew his calm would be reassuring. He opened his home to me and went out every day to get me Booster Juice because I was too nauseous to keep anything else down. When I didn’t know what to do he built a home up around me. Just another example of the way he’s spent a lifetime calmly helping me put the pieces of my world back together when the rug’s been pulled from beneath me. A father’s greatest trick. To say I’m lucky doesn’t begin to describe it.

I feel luckier still now that now that he’s a part of Gaia’s life. Her granddad is silly songs and sounds and faces when he thinks no one else is looking. He’s tirelessly bouncing her on his knee and cautiously knocking on our door when she’s been screaming for hours so he can help. He’s always there to help, has always been there, cannot imagine a time when he will not be there. I refuse to believe there will be a time when he will not be there.

Happy Father’s Day.

You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring

2009-06-19T10:00:00.005-06:00

I can't take credit for finding this as I justthissecond read it on a friend's blog. Still, when I finished I immediately printed it out to be put in Gaia's baby book. This is something she needs to hear someday and more than once. In fact, I suspect I'll read it to her in place of The Belly Button Book when she wakes up from her nap. I hope you feel as inspired as I did.

Commencement Address to the Class of 2009 at the University of Portland
By Paul Hawken, May 3, 2009
When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." No pressure there.

Let's begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poison the water, soil, or air, don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don't touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice," is Mary Oliver's description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world. Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown -- Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not "out there" somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can't print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a "little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven."

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn't stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

I took the speech from the Charity Focus blog. To find out more about Paul Hawken check out his website here.

Poo Fountain

2009-06-18T19:03:00.004-06:00

I hesitate to write anything more about my ongoing struggle to find a formula that doesn’t make Gaia

a) fussy
b) gassy
c) have excessive diarrhea
d) constipated
e) break out in a rash
f) all of the above

until we’ve finally locked down a bonafide solution. For the purposes of this post all you need to know is that our current formula seems to have solved the majority of our concerns save for the fact her diarrhea is so excessive it’s like her baby bum is a rusted tap in an old farm house that persistently sputters out brown water. Don’t worry, you don’t have to thank me for the visual. Today she was sitting in her Bumbo, happily playing, when she let out a series of farts. As I always do post fart I stopped what I was doing and approached her to survey the scene. The smell seemed to confirm a poop, but I picked her up to be sure. Instantly my hands felt wet. I turned her around to see a gigantic skid mark that traveled up her back and culminated in a diarrhea splatter on her neck. I can only surmise that the force of her farts caused her brown water poo to shoot up and out of her diaper like a glorious, disgusting baby poo fountain. Needless to say the damage control was extensive and included anti-bacterial soap, a washing machine, no less the twelve wipes, a shower nozzle, a wash cloth and an entirely new outfit. On the plus side the dog saw fit to lick the Bumbo clean for me while I was washing myself and Gaia. Like a revolting and hairy Mother’s helper she is. Now if I can just remember to be extra diligent in my attempts to keep the dog’s mouth away from the baby for the next few days we’ll be just fine.

Oh and if reading this post made you feel uncomfortable or cause you to mutter a serious of judgmental “ewwws” at any point please take a moment to remind yourself… this is my life.

Baby Weight? (An Update)

2009-06-17T09:36:00.004-06:00

On Saturday I posted this.

A few hours later I got an email from my official Mommy Friend enthusiastically outlining an idea she had for losing her own "baby weight" and suggesting I get onboard so we could support each other. I was going to write about it today but she beat me to the punch. Check it out here.

While my meals aren't becoming uber-healthy I am considering portion control. So far I have resisted the temptation to snack on multiple occasions. Eating a bag of Doritos at 8:00am seems less cute when I have to take a picture of it and send it out for public scrutiny. I know, I know. My Mommy Friend isn't exactly the public en mass and would never judge but still, she's holding me accountable for my choices. Antoher good thing about this new experiment? Last night at 11:00pm I was exhausted and moody and so ready to eat icing straight from the jar but I didn't. Why? I'd already emailed out my food dairy signaling the end of my daily munching of course.

Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes.

Planet G

2009-06-16T23:33:00.010-06:00

Two days before I found out I was pregnant I bought two pairs of the most indulgent six-inch heels. I traded them in exchange for over three hundred dollars, my entire bank balance. I fell in love with them the moment I slid them on my feet at danced around the store with glee. One pair was outrageous in purple patent shine and smooth grey suede with a stripper-worthy platform. You know, a classy stripper of course. The other pair was only slightly more wearable. Luxurious caramel leather with multiple wide straps that crossed well past my ankles. They were finished in the perfect teak without a hint of that shine that makes a wood heel look cheap. Oh. My. Goodness. I’m drooling just thinking about them now. They were exquisite. The evening I bought them was spent trying them on with every article of clothing in my closet, stopping periodically to bat my eyelashes at them admiringly.

The first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant was return them both. Before I told Jose or my family or saw a doctor or dealt with the news in any emotionally mature way I did a final lap of my house in the gorgeous shoes, placed them delicately back into their boxes and took them back to the store. If you’re not a shoe person this may seem ridiculous to you, but that was the first time in my life I had ever returned a shoe. It was like giving away a child (my two hundred and forty seventh born). I think about those shoes every day. Not because I miss them or because I wish they were in my closet today, but because those shoes will forever represent the moment I became a mother. For a girl like me those shoes were my first act of sacrifice and I didn’t think twice. I had no idea what I was going to do after I returned those shoes, but I had an inkling that three hundred dollars might come in handy.

Since Gaia was born we’ve gotten pretty much everything we’ve needed with the help of a variety of generous friends. I can’t stress enough how lucky we are to have so many amazing and generous people around us. It chokes me up to think about it. Still there was one thing, however unessential, I felt we were missing. I wanted a baby gym and I wanted one bad. One sure sign of Gaia’s maturity seems to be that we’re finding it harder and harder to fill the gaps between feedings and naps. The bottom line? She’s been getting bored. Today after a quick look at my finances it appeared I could afford diapers, food and a little something extra so we headed to the mall. Gaia was fast asleep when we arrived so I figured I could sneak in a little shopping for myself. I perused Vancouver’s finest. Shoes and handbags and dresses and more. I should have been in shopping heaven, but like growing apart from your best friend in high school, my favourite old stores just didn’t hold their same appeal. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but somehow shopping just didn’t seem satisfying and I didn’t buy a single thing. Gasp!

When Gaia started to stir I steered us full speed ahead for Babies-R-Us. There amongst the aisles was the very thing I’ve been coveting while struggling to keep Gaia entertained for the past few weeks – a Fisher Price Precious Planet Deluxe Musical Activity Gym. I scooped it up and I felt that familiar stir. On my way out I grabbed some three to six month bottle nipples to replace the newborn ones we’ve been using and a Spanish speaking Baby Einstein Octoplush. Paying for my purchases I felt it. The supreme satisfaction of buying something you really, really want. When we got home Gaia watched me eagerly from her Bumbo as I constructed her new world (a world I’ve appropriately coined Planet G). We spent the next hour lying on the floor together listening to a plastic Polar Bear sing us songs as we swatted the dangling animals above our head. At one point Gaia caught a glimpse of herself in the sunshine mirror hanging above her and regardless of whether she recognised it or not she promptly welcomed the reflection with a barrage of coos and giggles. My heart swelled with the same consumer satisfaction I’d felt eleven months earlier with the shoes.

Becoming a mother wasn’t as jarring as I was expecting. I was ready for the sleepless nights and often overwhelming responsibility and letting my whole world revolve around someone small enough to fall asleep tucked comfortably in my arms. But the fact that I’ve happily given up designer duds and six inch heels for Fisher Price baby gear, well I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

I'm With The Band

2009-06-14T23:18:00.003-06:00

When I was a teenager I thought I was pretty rad. I had black hair with ruby tips and pencil thin eyebrows and a tattoo in senior year. In the way only a teenager can I decided who I wanted to be and committed to it. My persona? “I’m with the band.” And I was. For a whole decade of my life I only dated pseudo wannabe rockstars. I started with guitarists (too shy) and moved on to drummers (too crazy). In the end I settled exclusively on lead singers. I revelled in the idea that I was their muse. I established an air of superiority as I sat, casually disaffected, in a corner booth at some local Battle of the Bands. “That song... it’s about me” I’d say. And it was. Of course the inevitable drama of screaming late night fights and tearful wordy apologies and the rampant infidelity eventually got to me and I moved on from tortured artists to a little more stable fare. As I grew older it seemed obvious that there was only room for one diva in my relationships and clearly I preferred that diva be me. Still, before I saw the light I spent the entirety of my formative dating years drinking beers at band practice and imagining my name in liner notes. It wasn’t all wasted time though. If I got anything from my rockband boyfriends it was an absolutely amazing musical education.

I used to be that girl. The one who isn’t quite a groupie because her knowledge of all things rock and roll is so extensive you don’t dare whittle her commitment down to some childish desire to sleep with someone famous (or, you know, almost famous). I didn’t come by it honestly. Instead, I listened. I poured over CD collections and read music magazines and mentally noted every observation made in casual conversation. When I moved to England at sixteen my musical education deepened. I became consumed with Nirvana. I wanted to play guitar and be Courtney to someone’s Kurt. I listened to the Foo Fighters on repeat for weeks. Dave Grohl was my soulmate. That much I was sure of. Concerts were my cocaine and I attended them en mass and collapsed into bed each night exhausted from mosh pits and stage dives. You’d never know it look at me now but there were two weeks of my life where I dropped everything to follow Weezer and the Foo Fighters as they toured the West Coast. I frequented music stores and diverged from band guys only once, for a crush on a guy I still call HMV Phil. I can recite the lyrics to every song from the alternative/grunge era with ease. On a good day I can tell you the year songs were produced, original line-ups and the realities of the rise and fall of fame. I will never know anything as well as I knew that particular era of music and that’s the way it should be. It’s the only it way it can be when you fall in love with something in high school.

Somebody told me once that the bands you listened to when you were seventeen will remain your favourite for life. I didn’t put much stock in it. Still, this morning I got in Robin’s car and was happily surprised when I stumbled upon a plethora of mixed CDs I’d made in senior year in the glove compartment. Somewhere along the way I’d left my vast collection of CDs behind and being the scavenger he is Robin simply adopted them all. Driving through downtown Vancouver at 9:00am singing along to Blind Melon I felt like my old teenage self.

“I just want suh-uhm-one to say to me... oh oh oh oh... I’ll always be there when you wa-ake....”

You couldn’t pay me to trade in my happily-married-career-and-mommy-life for the crushing awkwardness and angst of those days but I can’t deny I loved the little piece of it. For a minute it felt like dancing with my eyes closed in the middle of Jenks (my favourite Blackpool club) with a Strobe (a delightful combination of strawberry vodka and caffeine) in one hand and a mohawked manchild in the other. Like the first time I lined my eyes with black or peeling off the eyelash glue I used to stick craft store glitter to my lids. Like catching a lift from some guy I just met because I spent my taxi money on 4:00am pizza. I may be ten years older now and infinitely wiser. I may have been driving out to explore the Ladner market on a Sunday afternoon with my baby asleep in the backseat. I may have given up on backstage passes and guys with ironic facial hair. I may never feel exactly like I felt when I was seventeen and got so close to the stage I could smell the rocker sweat. But this morning, this morning I got close.

Baby Weight?

2009-06-13T19:21:00.012-06:00

I can’t remember a time when I wore a single digit size. In fact, part of me suspects I was born a size ten and the numbers have been slowly climbing since then. I know why I gain weight. I have a passionate love affair with good food. I blame it on my father who introduced me to a world of culinary delights as a child. Plus I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like. When I started university in 2001 I thought I was gigantic. Looking back I was actually on the healthier side of average. My jeans were a comfortable size ten which is nothing to scoff at for a girl with hips like mine. By the time I completed my six-year-degree and finally graduated (finally) I was going through a gymnastics routine every morning to get my size sixteen jeans to do up. I refused to bite the bullet and buy a size up. At size sixteen I could still shop at The GAP, if I gave in and went to a ‘big girl store’ I was afraid it’d be a slippery slope to Mom-Jeans and muumuus. I knew the fact my jeans left permanent impressions in my belly was a little ridiculous, I just pretended not to care. I left university sixty pounds heavier then I’d arrived and I’d finally pushed the scale over two hundred pounds. Things were getting excessive.

Leaving for university in 2001

Leaving for ships in 2007

When I came home from my first contract on ships I was inextricably fifteen pounds lighter. I chalked it up to a strict diet of Corona and controversy. Sustenance was placed on the backburner as I became consumed with living a life of excess and melodrama. Somehow I managed to keep the weight off during my two months of vacation. Even more shocking was the additional thirty pounds I lost during my next contract. Having gotten a promotion, it wasn’t a beer and drama diet that did it this time, it was sixteen-hour workdays and repeatedly jogging up ten flights of stairs to get from my cabin to Adventure Ocean because I’MJUSTTOOBUSYTOWAITFORTHEELEVATOR. Neither strategy was the healthiest but I felt good. I was still fifteen pounds away from where I’d been completely healthy and thirty pounds from my ultimate goal, but I took pride in my size twelve jeans. In my last months on the ship I started eating well (not just eating very little) and Jose and I went to the gym almost every day. I even found myself turning away dessert (my favourite part of any meal). I had big plans.

A few weeks after signing off of The Navigator of the Seas - Almost 3 Weeks Pregnant (who knew?)

Then I got pregnant. Determined not to succumb to the “I’m pregnant so I can eat what I want” trap I tried my best to stay on the healthy eating bandwagon. Sweets were my major vice, but I rationalised that eating an entire sheet cake in one sitting was probably not going to kill me. Right? I did everything I could to stay active. I did yoga three times a week and went on walks and never let the pregnancy be an excuse at my often active job. I felt proud at my six month check up when I’d only gained seven pounds. My ultrasound showed the baby was just the right size and developing perfectly. I decided all my best efforts must mean that I was losing weight while my fetus took all the nutrients. This suited me just fine.

Then I went to Peru. To this day I’m not entirely sure how it happened. It might have been the Inca Kola, the cookies or the ice cream bars I consumed in bed every day pre and post-nap. Or maybe it was the fries I had with every meal? Regardless when I got back to Canada and back to my doctor for my seven month check up I had gained a whooping ten pounds. “Okay. No big Deal.” I thought. “Seventeen pounds is nothing during pregnancy.” And it wasn’t.

Two days before Gaia was born.

Then I gave up. By the time I hit seven and a half months I was so sick of being pregnant I ate whatever I wanted, mainly to make myself feel better. I started sleeping through yoga and gave up on walks and I even took the elevator up one floor at work more than once. By the time Gaia was born I had gained a total of almost thirty pounds. I still weighed less then when I’d graduated university but just barely. I hadn’t expected miracles but when I weighed myself for the first time post-pregnancy I was down over fifteen pounds. “At this rate,” I thought “I’ll be back into my old jeans in no time.” Sigh. Not only have I not lost a single additional pound since then, I’ve actually gained five more. Not to mention the fact that my belly, which even at my heaviest had been reasonably flat, is now sad and droopy. Distantly reminded of squishing a sleeping bag into it’s too-small casing every time I tried to get into my jeans I began living in yoga pants.

Last night I went to dinner with I friend. We were chatting when I looked down and realised I was casually rubbing my belly. Even more shocking was that it appeared to be about the same size it had been at around the five-month mark of my pregnancy. Sure I haven’t been watching what I eat. The aforementioned meal had a caloric content I don’t dare think about. Still, I just had a baby right? Ummm... sort of. The’ just’ in ‘just had a baby’ is getting to be a bit of a stretch and somehow I don’t think the excuse holds much weight anymore. It’s gotten to the point that continuing to refer to my extra chub as “baby weight” is laughable. Instead of blaming the baby, perhaps I should face facts. I think the real culprit might be the gigantic cookie and frappacino I had for breakfast this morning. Or maybe it was the quesadilla oozing delicious cheese I just snacked on. Hmmm. It’s true that the moments I actually find myself able to cook are rare. Also true is the lack of opportunities to go to the gym. Still, I know I could be taking better care of myself. I’m choosing not to.

Weight is such a sensitive topic, one I’m especially aware of now that I have a daughter. The last thing I want is for my struggles with weight to have any impact of Gaia’s view of her own body. Still, she deserves a healthy mother. My husband deserves a confident wife. Hell, I deserve to feel what it’s like to zip up my pre-baby jeans again. I’m not planning on getting obsessive or anything but it seems clear that now that I’ve found myself in yoga pants on a Friday night, rubbing my belly while I casually eye the cheesecake at the table beside me I’m sliding down the aforementioned slope that ends in Mom-Jeans and muumuus. It may seem vain, but there’s no way I’m I going to nab MILF status if I keep wandering down that slope. And you can deny it all you want but don’t pretend you don’t want to be a MILF too.

Blog-Lazy and a Baby Birthday

2009-06-12T21:30:00.002-06:00

The beautiful weather in Vancouver is officially making me blog-lazy. As in, I spend every spare second outside exploring my new summer neighborhood with Baby G so when we finally come home to sleep I’m far to tired to string together sentences in any coherent fashion. I promise I will try and rectify the situation tomorrow. In the meantime today is Gaia’s three-month birthday. How it’s even possible that I have a three-month old baby is beyond me. I wonder if I'll still feel like that when she's thirteen?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY G!

Homosexual Ties and Other Reasons To Be Friends with Robin

2009-06-10T09:18:00.000-06:00

Lots of you know Robin. I’ve also blogged about him here. Being the fantastic guy he is he’s opened his home to me and Gaia for the next month or two. Just to make things crystal clear I’m talking single-guy-scrapes-pizza-crusts-off-floor-cleans-toilet-moves-out-of-bedroom-onto-couch-walks-to-work-so-we-can-borrow-his-brand-new-car-completely-shares-everything-with-a-ONE-for-me-TWO-for-mama-and-baby-attitude opens his home. His generosity knows no bounds, nor does my gratitude. I just thought I should put that out there.

Plus I'm pretty sure when we're hanging out each of us is just that much funnier. Case in point - last night Gaia fell asleep on my chest on the couch. Not only did I make Robin turn off the TV so she would stay that way, I shot him a series of death glares every time he made the slightest noise (baby sleep is not something I take lightly these days). Suddenly, devestatingly, I knocked the remote control off the couch with a shift of my ample ass and cringed as it crashed to the ground. The following transaction took place in barely audible whispers...

Roberge - WHAT!?! Are you serious?
Me - What?? It wasn't me. It was my big ass and you better believe I'm going to give it a stern talking to.
Roberge - Yeah man... you better cut that thing down to size... (cue rimshot)

I'm pretty sure we're the only people who think we're funny but I laughed so hard the baby almost ended up on the hard wood floor beside the remote control. I'm happy to report she slept through the hilarity.

PS. I decided the homosexual ties story might not translate thus omitted it from the post as originally written. The title stayed. Just trying to throw you all for a loop.

Tick. Tick. BOOM.

2009-06-09T15:30:00.012-06:00

The way they locked eyes the minute they met and barely looked away until she was tucked into the backseat of the car. TICK.

The way I could see his heart breaking as she cried in her car seat on the way to the hotel. TICK.

The way he told her stories while he fed her a bottle and she smiled so wide the milk ran right out of her mouth. TICK.

The way he seemed to have a never ending supply of gifts for her, like a magician with a bottomless hat. Finger puppets, toys, a new alpaca sweater for every month of her infancy. The thought of him picking them out. TICK.

The way he never took his eyes off her as we walked with her in the carrier. How he put his arms around us to protect us from the world. TICK.

The way he took her from me when she fell asleep at dinner and how she relaxed against his body without protest. TICK.

The way they played in the hotel room for hours and she laughed and he laughed and I laughed. The way we finally got to laugh together. TICK.

The way she knew him, right away, and stared at him all night, enthralled by his face... his eyes... his voice. The way I know that feeling... how easy it is to love him. TICK.

The way they are the same. Their eyes... their noses... their toes. How they raise their eyebrows in matching expressions. The way he dances and she wiggles and the way they never stop moving. TICK.

The way they sat in the bathtub together and he pulled her through the water and washed the bubbles off her back. Our little naked baby against his chest. TICK.

The way he watched me put on her pyjamas. Goodnight feet... goodnight knees... goodnight belly... goodnight arms... goodnight Gaia. TICK.

The way he looked at us like we were his favourite people in the world as I bounced her to sleep. The way I know we are. TICK.

And then it happened. TICK. I’d felt it coming. TICK. Through family hugs and family kisses and family cuddles. TICK. Through silly songs and tickles and Gaia soaring through the air in his arms. TICK. Through dinner time and nap time and bath time and bed time. TICK. We watched her sleeping. TICK. Could not tear ourselves away, we watched her sleeping. TICK. He held me close. TICK. He whispered in my ear. TICK.

“Me and Chancho-Mono, we are so lucky to have you." He said. "This is the best day of my life.”

Tick. Tick. BOOM. My heart exploded. Just like that... BOOM... my heart exploded.

Later when he fell asleep and I was surrounded with the sounds of their matching sleepy breathing... their matching sleepy snores... the sound of the ocean from her Sleep Sheep... her favourite thing to fall asleep to... his favourite thing to fall asleep to... they slept and I snuck around the room collecting all the pieces.

(Almost) Everything That Didn't Fit On Facebook

2009-06-08T14:10:00.005-06:00

Like too many people I know I spend a large portion of my day pondering how to turn my daily experiences into interesting Facebook status updates. This is sad. I know. This is also why I refuse to join Twitter. I’m positive it would become all consuming. This morning I had so much going on in my head I had trouble nailing down just one status update. These were the frontrunners.

Risa is scraping little pieces of her heart from the ceiling… it exploded over how amazing Jose and Gaia were together…

Risa is pretty sure she has the most adaptable baby ever… in the last forty-eight hours she’s been on a plane, met a never ending supply of strangers, waited at the airport for a flight delayed for over an hour, met her father and fallen asleep in no fewer then eight locations (naps included)… and she didn’t break down once…

Risa is surrounded by a consumer’s utopia… the super stylish urban shopper in me is in heaven… the hippy-dippy, crazy broke, brand new mama in me is silently weeping…

Risa is drinking Inca Kola and watching 'Monstruos vs Aliens' en español... toxic yellow pop and pirated DVDs... I missed you Peru...

Risa just realized last night was a full moon… her mother says this is when all the crazies come out… her father-in-law claims amorous adventures under a full moon are how he ended up with four sons… we didn’t come across any crazies last night and somebody’s got to be right…

In other news yesterday was perfection beyond words. Still, I’ll try to put in into words soon. For now I’m exhausted and drunk with memories and planning on crawling into bed with Gaia for a nap.

Best Day Ever

2009-06-07T12:58:00.004-06:00

After one hundred and fifty-one days apart I’m picking up my husband at the airport this afternoon. We have almost fourteen hours before he ships out (literally) to sail the Alaskan coast serving drinks to geriatrics. Fourteen hours to make up for one hundred and fifty-one days that included the birth of our baby girl and what seems like a lifetime spent chatting on Skype. Do I wish he was coming here for good? Of course. But today there’s nothing in the world that could make me as happy as those fourteen hours. As far as I'm concerned today is the best day ever. Seriously. Gaia’s excited too... obviously. As always she’s appropriately dressed for the occasion.

Like I said... BEST. DAY. EVER. Take it away Spongebob.

I’ve been singing this song all morning. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t one of my favourite songs of all time. I blame years spent working in childcare.

PS. Immigration Canada if you’re reading this please let Jose come here forever. Every second Monday is better than nothing but honestly, I want my husband please.

Baby On Board

2009-06-06T23:28:00.001-06:00

In the list of things I love to do most travelling is close to the top. I don’t think there are many experiences more valuable than seeing the world. Of course I want Gaia to be intelligent and beautiful and kind, but most of all, I want her to travel. I want her to have a sense of adventure, a confidence in her independence and empathy that is deep rooted. I know that traveling is what brought those skills to life in me. There’s nothing like realising that there are landscapes dramatically unlike those you are used to and people whose experiences differ so greatly from yours. I want her to eat pizza with fresh buffalo mozzarella in Italy, to ride camels in Egypt, dance the night away at Carnivale in Rio, swim with the jellyfish in Palau, wander the Turkish market, visit every art gallery in New York and drive along the coast of South Africa. I want her to visit every place I’ve ever been and more and I want her to fall in love with them all.

They say every great adventure starts with single step. I helped Gaia take hers the day we applied for her Canadian passport. I felt like I was giving her a gift – the beginning of a lifetime of globetrotting at just two months old. Today we took step two as we boarded her very first flight. Sure it was domestic. Sure it was only two hours long. But it was a big deal. She immediately proved herself by facing a huge check-in line up with ease. She quietly hung from her carrier on my chest and sized up her fellow travellers. She brushed off the coos and tickles of strangers with polite indifference. She was on a mission. Security was a breeze once she charmed the surly guard searching her stroller. In the hour and half from the time when we got to the airport when we boarded she didn’t fuss once. As we slid into our seat I could see her survey the scene. The baby crying in the seat behind us was obviously not a kindred spirit. That much she could tell. When the flight attendant made me promise to hold her facing in against my chest for takeoff and landing I could see her balk but she took it all in stride. Obviously she has a sophisticated understanding of the fact that not all aspects of travel are pleasant. She silently looked out the window at takeoff every once in awhile glancing at the seatbelt sign to ensure I wasn’t sneaking extra cuddles. For the rest of the flight she bounced and giggled and laughed at all my jokes. She was the ultimate travel companion. She dozed straight through the landing, but woke up just in time to hear the accolades from our fellow adventurers.

“Wow,” they said “she did such a good job!”

“Thanks,” I replied, beaming with joy they probably misread, “she loves to travel.”

Yellow Poop and Other Reasons Why Life is Good

2009-06-06T08:22:00.002-06:00

Given the horribly depressing mood of Thursday’s post I thought I should write a little something to perk things up around here. List format seems best as I’ve got a million and one things to do this morning.

1. I opened my email yesterday to find an amazingly supportive message from my official ‘Mommy Friend’. It made me feel like someone understood, like somebody cared and invariably made me feel like a better mother. Plus it made me laugh out loud. If you have a baby but don’t have a ‘Mommy Friend’ you should go find yourself one immediately. She won’t be as great as mine of course but we can’t all be so lucky.

2. I bit the bullet and started Gaia on soy formula yesterday to see if it made a difference to her demeanour, skin and poop (I’m a mama and an excessive portion of my mind space revolves around baby poop... deal with it). I know they say it can take up to two weeks to notice a difference but she drank the first bottle without stopping, without fussing and without tensing her entire baby body for the first time during a feeding in almost two weeks. She eagerly consumed three more bottles in the late afternoon and evening, each followed with a dainty burp, some big smiles and quick cat-naps. When I went to take her diaper off for her bedtime bath it was filled with the most glorious baby poop I have ever seen. Not only was it the perfect soft consistency but it was... wait for it... YELLOW! Gaia officially had her first appropriately coloured baby poop. I almost kissed the dirty diaper I was so happy, but I settled for kissing Gaia instead. She acted nonchalant but I know she was excited too. I also feel it’s important to note that the reason I hadn’t noticed she’d pooped was that she didn’t clench up, stop breathing, turn purple and grunt while pooping, but rather hummed the little BM song I’ve heard from all the breastfed babies I know. I still have a nagging worry that the fact the formula is iron-fortified might be a problem but overall I feel the experiment has been a success. Did I mention I put her to bed at 10:00pm and she’s still sleeping? It’s almost 8:30am. Yeah.

3. I have amazing parents. I moved far away from home in my teens and while brief instances reminded me of this fact overall I think I grossly underestimated them. If they weren’t so fantastic there is absolutely no way I could be doing this all on my own. Plus they’ve been divorced for almost ten years and when I came home from running errands yesterday they we’re tag teaming a screaming Gaia, trying to get her to sleep. This is the kind of civilised behaviour everyone should expect from two people who chose to have children together, even if they later chose not to share their lives. Unfortunately I know lots of people who aren’t so lucky. Thank God for Grandparents. Especially Gaia’s.

4. In a few short hours Gaia and I will be boarding a plane to Vancouver. Not only is Vancouver my official ‘happy place’(the ocean, the mountains, the trees and the sky... oh my... not to mention the shopping) but it’s also jam-packed with some of my best friends in the world. I don’t care if it rains all summer... I love it there.

5. In just thirty-two hours I get to pick up my husband at the airport after one hundred and fifty-one days apart. Better still, he gets to hold his daughter for the first time. Words can’t express my excitement.

Mommy Guilt

2009-06-04T22:47:00.003-06:00

I admit it. I have a serious and prolonged case of ‘Mommy Guilt’. I feel guilty when I take Gaia out without a hat on. When she wakes up in the morning hours before I’m ready to get up I feel guilty for wishing she’d just go back to sleep. I feel guilty when I choose to make myself supper and let her to amuse herself in her swing, even though she’s usually laughing. I feel guilty when I wish for extra-long naps so I can have a few hours to clean. I feel guilty if she sits in poop for more than thirty seconds. I feel guilty if I don’t anticipate she’s about to get hungry/sleepy/playful and haven’t got a bottle/nap/structured play prepared. I feel guilty that I miss working. I feel guilty when I call her chubby, lest she get a baby complex. I feel guilty that I bounce her to sleep every night instead of arming her with the skills to fall asleep on her own. I stay up at night with guilty dreams of a co-dependent three-year-old dancing in my head. Sometimes I feel guilty for considering how well I would handle the guilt if I stopped bouncing her to sleep at night and let her cry-it-out. I feel guilty when I take her out and I feel guilty if we stay in. I feel guilty about the fact I have to use the bathroom and shower and sleep. I feel guilty about just about everything I do and I can’t help it. I especially feel guilty for feeling guilty because by all accounts there should be no room for guilt amongst all the joy. Still, my guilt knows no bounds. Why is my guilt topical you ask? I’ll tell you. After twelve-weeks as the happiest baby I’ve ever met, Gaia has spent the last three days in the worst baby mood I have yet to experience. Tonight my guilt came to a head as she screamed herself hoarse and I lay beside her crying and repeating “I’m sorry... I don’t know how to help you...I’m sorry...” When she stopped screaming and put her hand on my chest I felt guilty that she’d noticed my breakdown. Like a loyal dog who lays beside their dying owner, Gaia quietly laid beside me like that for twenty minutes and all I could do was feel guilty.

I pulled myself together eventually, as I always do, and got her lulled into a fitful sleep. Since then I’ve been doing some research on the internet and am starting to suspect she might be developing a milk allergy (which coincided nicely with what I think was her twelve-week growth spurt). She’s got the inconsistent, greenish poop, the sudden fussy and erratic behaviour and the small dry patches on her cheeks have turned into full-on scaly rashes. My guilt knows no bounds. Did I mention I had to diagnose this myself on the internet because there isn’t a single family doctor or paediatrician in Regina who is accepting new patients? Inevitably I feel guilty about living in a province with a shortage of doctors. Now I’m faced with the predicament of finding a lactose-free formula that isn’t iron fortified (since the iron has given her rock-hard poop in the past). From what I can tell this might be impossible. Of course this whole evening just has me sinking deeper into the thing that gives me the most ‘Mommy Guilt’ of all.

The ugly guilt-monger who’s taken up residence in my head keeps repeating “if Gaia was breastfeed we wouldn’t be having these problems.”

I knew absolutely nothing about infants when I got pregnant but I did know this... I was going to breastfeed. My breasts have always been on the smaller side of average. Never in a place to flaunt them for fun breastfeeding was going to be their moment in the sun. Sure they’d never draw eyes the way some breasts do, but they were going to feed a baby and frankly, that’s what they’re there for right? Gaia took to breastfeeding like a pro. She latched in mere seconds only minutes after being born. The nurse watched in awe, ready to jump in and fix the inevitable problems that never came. It seemed I was a pro as well, if I do say so myself. I never experienced a single pain, crack or blister. Even as we made our way from the hospital to home and Gaia began cluster feeding my breasts never complained. I was worn out and sleepy and achy but my breasts soldiered on. They were the heroes in our epic first days. Unfortunately about a week later my milk still hadn’t come in. Gaia was undeniably starving. I made an appointment with Regina’s own ‘Nipple Whisperer’ – the crème de la crème of lactation consultants. We were all confident she would have me lactating in no time. She took one look at Gaia at my breast and determined we had a good latch and adequate suction. Save for a few pointers on positioning (which did make me much more comfortable) she didn’t have much to say. She told me to ignore the Public Health Nurse and her insistence I begin supplementing and wait it out. She assured me my milk would be in by the following day. By this point Gaia had dropped over fifteen percent of her birth weight. I gave it a day and began supplementing with formula, offering each breast for a minimum of fifteen minutes before giving her two ounces of formula per feeding. Nipple confusion be damned, Gaia accepted both with ease. In the moments I had my hands free I pumped at least fifteen minutes per breast. For over two months Gaia took both breast and bottle. Her weight improved and she began thriving. My milk never came in. At one point I went to see a doctor who prescribed me a stomach acid drug whose side-effects included an increase in milk production. I can count on one hand the times I’ve agreed to take pills for anything in my adult life and I took pills for this. I was breastfeeding regularly (day and night), pumping a minimum of five times a day and taking two pills every four hours for almost a month. My milk never came in. Gaia was a trooper but it soon became apparent my breasts were more soothing device then sustenance. About three weeks ago I gave up entirely.

In the time I was struggling I read a number of books and articles on breastfeeding. All of which inevitably made me feel like if I formula fed exclusively I would end up with a lethargic, obese baby who, would have serious trust and attachment issues, drop out of high school and have a string of abusive relationships as she searched for the love she never got from her mother. The mother who didn’t love her enough to breastfeed her in the first place. And that was just if she didn’t die of SIDS. But as everything I read warned me, she probably would. Every mother has their cross to bear and breastfeeding is mine. The guilt damn near crushes me and I find myself soul-shatteringly jealous of every breastfeeding mother I know. I tried to tell myself there was a time (AKA: The 1970s & 80s) when formula was thought to be superior to breastmilk and we all turned out okay, but I remain unconvinced. After weeks of searching I finally found a website that assured me that my loving attention, and not just my breast was the most important thing I could give my baby. I turned a blind eye to the fact it was a website written by makers of a name brand formula. My breasts may be faulty but love, I feel confident I’ve mastered that.

On Saturday Gaia and I are flying to Vancouver. Of course, I feel guilty for going ahead with the trip when she’s obviously distressed. If I didn’t worry about the wife-guilt I’d feel over not going we’d probably forfeit our ticket. I know, I know. With all this guilt piling up around me you’d think I was Catholic, but no, I’m just a mother.

For those of you who know where I live please don’t worry. You don’t need to put me on post-partum-suicide watch or anything. I’m fine. Gaia’s fine. We’re going to be just fine. It’s just been a bad week. We’re strong, hearty, Saskatchewanese women and if nothing else we’re both due for a pretty serious family hug on Sunday. I can’t imagine any better cure for ‘Mommy Guilt’ then a hug from a man who tells you every day how lucky he feels to have found the perfect mother for the baby who means the world to him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you’re having trouble breastfeeding there are a number of support systems available in the Regina area. To get started check out La Leche League Canada or call Linda Cheston (AKA: The ‘Nipple Whisperer’) at (306) 586-4930.

This is My Brain on Exhaustion

2009-06-03T20:40:00.005-06:00

Apparently Gaia’s still growing. As a result I’m too tired to pee much less write a fully formed blog post. Instead I’ll leave you with this...

0-6 Months My Ass!

If anyone knows where to get a baby sun hat that meets the following criteria please let me know:

a) Does not include design elements such as flowers, happy faces, butterflies, bows, ruffles or lace.
b) Is not pink. Well definitely not baby pink, but frankly Gaia’s not into wearing pink’s rebel cousin fuchsia either. At least not on her head.
c) Is not more commonly seen on Little House on the Prairie (curse you bonnet... and all your frilly friends too).
d) Is not a ridiculous (if adorable) designer baby hat that costs thirty dollars or more. And yes, I have seen a number of these hats around the city.
e) Is actually made to fit a baby head. And not just those humongous baby heads (you know who you are) but an average three-month-old head. You would think there would be a size between teeny newborn and gigantic toddler... no?

Until then I’m that bad mother who takes my baby for daily walks in the sun hatless. I know. I should be shot on site.

Speaking of pee (and I was... just up there at the top). I love asparagus. It’s one of the only vegetables I choose to eat. I think I love it mainly because it’s like a wacky science experiment. You eat it for dinner and the smell of your evening pee leaves you initially puzzled until you realise the culprit. Oh asparagus... you got me again! I had asparagus for dinner the other night and finally took the time to learn just why it makes your pee stinky. Enjoy.

WHY DOES YOUR PEE SMELL WHEN YOU EAT ASPARAGUS?
Asparagus contains a sulfur compound called mercaptan. It is also found in onions, garlic, rotten eggs, and in the secretions of skunks. The signature smell occurs when this substance is broken down in your digestive system. Not all people have the gene for the enzyme that breaks down mercaptan, so some of you can eat all the asparagus you want without stinking up the place. One study published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that only 46 percent of British people tested produced the odour while 100 percent of French people tested did. Insert your favourite French joke here______________.

From Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, MD, specific excerpt found here.

Speaking of Google (which I wasn’t directly although how else do you think I found the information above). What did people do before the internet? Seriously. I know I don’t have a book on asparagus pee in my house. Do you?

With that I really should go to bed. This is getting a little ridiculous. And yes. I’m aware it’s not even 9:00pm.

Growing Pains

2009-06-02T13:01:00.006-06:00

I’m pretty sure Gaia is smack-dab in the middle of her twelve-week growth spurt. She was wide awake and starving yesterday morning at 5:30am. She spent the rest of the day alternating between pathetic whimpers and full-blown screaming. Too tired to calm down enough to eat and too hungry to get any sleep. We went through countless half-drunk bottles and I managed to get her to sleep upwards of forty times only to have her wake up less than five minutes later. Of course I felt for her. Her little baby body stretching to make room for the next version of her baby self... Gaia 3.0. But I also felt for me. Exhausted and frustrated and becoming increasingly prone to fits of tears as the day wore on. While she suffered through her baby growing pains I was dealing with some serious Mama growing pains myself. Finally in the evening before I put her to bed, she stopped crying long enough to indulge me with over an hour of lounging lazily on my chest.

That smile... oh THAT SMILE and the way she looks at me. It’s worth a million or more sleepless nights and years made up of three hundred and sixty-five exhausting days.

Regina Famous

2009-06-01T08:21:00.005-06:00

About a month ago my friend Carey Shaw photographed and interviewed me and Gaia for the CityLife section of the Prairie Dog, a local alternative news and entertainment magazine. The interview, as published, is below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WHO: Risa, Arts Educator and Baby Mama to newborn Gaia. WHERE: Home. CLOTHES: H&M Top, 13 Euro, bought in Barcelona, Spain ; Blue Jeans, $79, The Gap (Cornwall Centre). SHOES: Steve Madden Gold Flats, $50, bought in Miami, Florida. ACCESSORIES: Wedding Band, $15, from a shop in Peru; Silver Rings, one from the MacKenzie Art Gallery Shop (3475 Albert St.), the other from a street vendor in Barcelona; Nixon Watch, a gift from Mom. HAIR: Fidela at Studio 13 Salon and Day Spa (2937 13th Ave.).

Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico, Venezuela, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Bermuda, Caribbean Islands, and almost everywhere in North America. This long list proves that Risa definitely has a little bit of a travel bug inside her. Something passed down from her parents, perhaps – farmers from Rouleau who took the family on vacation for a few weeks every year. Start with a student exchange in England, add in working on cruise ships, sneak in an arts degree from Vancouver and Risa now has a Peruvian husband, is the new mother of a hermosa niña and sports a really big grin daily. Sounds like it all worked out.

Thinking about style in your travels, where has been the most inspiring?
I think going to England when I was 16 was really good for me, having grown up in a small town, because everyone has their own individual style. I definitely took that from being in England. Whatever you looked like was OK, and whatever you wanted to wear was great too. Lately I’ve fallen in love with Spain. In Barcelona the women take pride in the way they look, and that makes it such an interesting city.

Favourite thing you’ve picked up in your worldwide adventures?
Jose, my husband!

What in your life haven’t you done yet that you hope to do?
A lot of things. I think it is really important to have things in your life that you haven’t done but want to, because that’s what keeps your life interesting. I’ve done so many things for myself, and done so much travelling, that I’m pretty excited to have my daughter grow up and share experiences with her. I took every opportunity when it came. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything, so now I am excited to settle down and start my “grown up” life!

If you could hold on to something from your closet for Gaia to see what you were like when you were younger, what would it be?
When I was a teenager, I had this gigantic [hole-filled] t-shirt that had a roller skate on it. I thought it was so cool. I wore it all the time. So that, with my dad’s old work jeans, and skate shoes. When I was a teenager I thought I was Courtney Love. I wanted to be her. I don’t think I had any style but I guess that was they style. I had teeny short little bangs that were never even and really thin eyebrows. I thought I was just the coolest thing ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What Carey doesn’t include is the fact Gaia screamed for the entire three hours she was at our house. I bounced Gaia on the exercise ball for the twenty minutes she interviewed me in an attempt to calm her for the photoshoot. The photo she eventually used was chosen simply because we felt Gaia’s screams could possibly be interpreted as squeals of joy as I lifted her into the air. Not to mention the fact her face is partially obscured because it’s in profile. In her brief history that day was the worst she’s had. Last week Carey sent me some of the photos that didn’t make the cut. Have a good look at Gaia’s face in all of them. That’s a baby that doesn't want to be photographed if I’ve ever seen one. Canada’s Next Top Model ~~here we come~~ I’ll let you know about baby number two?

After Carey left Gaia continued to cry for upwards of seven hours. She refused to eat and got alarmingly overtired. As her waking hours reached a consecutive sixteen I was reaching the end of my patience and tearfully at a loss as to how to help her. Suddenly Gaia let out a series of adult sized farts and pooped the most gigantic baby poop I have ever seen. She then promptly fell asleep.

Interview and all photos by Carey Shaw. Check her out at here.

Cómo Se Dice...

2009-05-31T12:56:00.004-06:00

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked “Hablas español?”

It’s always the same. “Un poquito” I hesitantly reply secretly praying that whomever I’m speaking immediately gives up on me so my limited knowledge of Spanish isn’t put to the test. Most of the time I say it so quietly I’m surprised I‘m heard at all. Speaking Spanish I’m adorably shy, a far cry from my often brash and boastful English speaking self. I desperately want to be fluent. To feel the beautiful words roll off my tongue and see a light of acceptance in the eyes of a Spanish speaking native (instead of the polite giggles I tend to receive courtesy of my poor grammar and inability to speak in full sentences). You would think this desire was born of my Peruvian husband and recent love affair with Spain, but the seed was planted long ago.

As a child my family travelled extensively. What started with roadtrips across North America quickly became exploring the rainforest in Costa Rica and swimming in the ocean in Mexico. Together we were clearly tourists, my mother with her platinum hair and my brother peeking out under thick dirty blond curls, a fanny pack securely at his waist. But in the rare moments I found myself alone with my father we always managed to blend in. Although my features are clearly my mother’s I inherited my father’s mysterious cultural ambiguity. In all of our travels, both together and alone, we tend to be at home anywhere in the world. Of course this is ultimately worth the number of times I had to explain to old women speaking to me in rapid Hindi on the bus in Vancouver that I wasn’t actually Indian, or Greek, or Italian... you get the picture. Wandering through market stalls in Mexico people would approach my father and me with a barrage of Spanish lets-make-a-deals. Shortly after perfecting a lilting “Hola!” I quickly learned to say “Lo siento. No habla español” but I was always embarrassed by my inability to further communicate in the way everyone assumed I could. You don’t have to be a psychologist to see that Spanish is a obviously a signifier of my need to feel exotic and a reminder of the way it felt when people assumed I wasn’t just a farmer’s daughter from small town Saskatchewan. Yet in spite of my best efforts I find it impossible to make the language stick.

I dropped French in Grade Ten opting for whatever bird course was being offered in its place. To me French seemed terribly pedestrian. Who wanted to speak our country’s second language anyway? Of course, the fact I couldn’t grasp the concept of conjugating verbs and my French mark was consistently pulling down my average seemed minimal next to my developing high standards of cultural exclusivity. I had vision. I haughtily claimed I could see beyond Quebec and what I saw was sand and sun and salsa (the dance and the dip). I had a straight from the tourist brochures view of me with a permanent tan, a margarita and a mysterious dark-haired cabana boy. Spanish was meant for me. I could feel it with all the passion and naivety of a sixteen-year-old dreamer.

When I started my Bachelors at the University of British Columbia I was faced with the reality of my unfulfilled language requirement. I was sure this was my chance to really learn the language I knew was somewhere inside of me. I enrolled in Spanish 101 and predictably dropped out after just two classes. Undeterred I enrolled in the same class every semester for years. On my third try I made it to the midterm only to find the words swam in front of me, completely foreign. I failed. In fact I’ve never failed at anything as spectacularly as I failed at my academic attempts to learn Spanish. While I aced pronunciation and even managed to lock down an impressive amount of vocabulary, it was the sentence structure that inevitably tripped me up. Of course my failure caused excessive frustration and eventual surrender. It had become me against the Spanish language and the Spanish language was winning.

When I met Jose we made a deal that he’d help me with my Spanish if I always corrected him when he made mistakes in English. Unfortunately, Jose will always be a better language student than me. He eagerly devoured new words and grasped the random assortment of English language quirks with ease. Eventually he got so frustrated with my lacklustre attempts at learning that he started writing everything he said on post-its which he stuck above my bed. Of course, when I looked at his post-its all I could see was his beautiful face. It feels so horribly predictable to admit the brain space I’d reserved for new words became preoccupied with plans to make him fall in love with me.

Last Christmas, while visiting him in Peru I felt actual shame at not being able to speak the language. Not only did it feel disrespectful to be unable to communicate with my new family-in-law but I was driving Jose crazy with my constant insistence that he translate everything being said around us. I hated being left out of the loop and managed to conveniently forget it was my own fault. Obviously we have big plans to raise Gaia wholly bilingual. When Jose speaks to her he does so only in Spanish. Given that he’s not here I’ve been trying to do my part too. We read Spanish storybooks, my favourite being Margaret and Margarita/Margarita y Margaret where two little girls who speak Spanish and English respectively meet in the park and learn to play together in spite of their differences. “I like you. Will you be my friend?” Margaret says. “Tú me gustas. Te gustaría ser mi amiga?” Margarita mimics in my slow and accented Spanish. When talking to Gaia I use as many words en español as I can. “Say good morning Granddad, beunas dias abuelito” I say as we visit my father over breakfast. “Say Hello Daddy! How are you? Hola papi! Cómo estás?” I say as we greet Jose on Skype. Even something as simple as a baby sneeze is followed with a quick “Bless you baby girl, Salud niña.” At this rate Gaia may go through life thinking her every thought needs to be communicated in both English and Spanish.

Part of me feels like I should abandon my current attempts lest she end up with an accent as poor as mine but I have faith that Jose will be with us by Christmas which seems early enough to fix any bad habits I’ve placed in her baby subconscious. Although I know my Spanish is getting better all the time the progress is much too slow. I live in panic of the day I walk in on Gaia and her father making silly Spanish jokes and find myself left out of the world they’ll share. The more I come to terms with the fact I will likely never be fluent the more I find comfort in the notion that at least one part of my life has come full circle. While I was stuck in Saskatchewan wishing my father and I were exotic as everyone assumed, Gaia and Jose really will be. I know her Spanish will come as easily as her English and she’ll have the benefits of summers in Peru with her cousins where she doesn’t just look like she belongs... she does.

Actual Conversation

2009-05-30T14:30:00.003-06:00

For those of who wonder what Jose and I talk about for two hours a day on Skype...

Me – Gaia and I went for a two hour walk this morning. It’s so nice outside baby... like 24 degrees.
Jose – Wow!
Me – I know! I had to cover Gaia head to toe in sunscreen just to sit in the stroller.
Jose – Baby? Is she very white?
Me – Yes baby, about the same colour as me or maybe a little lighter.
Jose – I was looking at the pictures of you both and she looked like a beautiful chubby vanilla ice cream.

Now you know.

I Am Mother... Hear Me Roar!

2009-05-30T09:28:00.009-06:00

Gaia and I talk to Jose every day on Skype. It’s inevitable that at least once in our conversation she’s going to do something adorable. It’s also inevitable that when she does this adorable thing I’m going to proudly proclaim... “Look at her baby! Isn’t she beautiful/cute/smart/funny”... you get the picture. I like to gush. It’s become our routine that whenever I gush Jose responds with “Yes baby, she is sooooo beautiful/cute/smart/funny. Thank you.” For months I’ve vainly assumed his thanks were based on some belief that Gaia’s adorable babyness was in some way linked to my outstanding genes. As she grows older and starts to resemble him in every way imaginable I've been beginning to feel a bit guilty about these thanks. Last week I finally bit the bullet and said something.

“Baby,” I said “You don’t have to thank me... she’s really more like you anyway.”

“No baby,” he said “I thank you because you are the one taking care of her. You are feeding her and playing with her and making her happy every day. She is growing and healthy because of you baby. You are doing such a good job with her. So thank you... for that.”

Of course this got me thinking and you know what? He’s right! At this stage Gaia’s happiness is completely dependent on the care I give her. If she’s hungry I feed her. If she’s sitting in poop I change her. If she cries I soothe her. If she’s tired I help her fall asleep. I take her for walks and sing her songs and play games and teach her important things like how to cultivate a unique sense of style. I mean, it’s not as if those delightful baby outfits appear on her by magic.

See that smile?

I did that!

And this one...

All me!

I’m not just a grown woman sitting around in her pyjamas all day... I am Gaia’s mother! I have the most important job in the world! I’m the most important person in the world! I am the world! Gaia’s world. And with that I’ll leave you with this video... pregnancy is just the beginning.

Bye Bye Baby

2009-05-29T11:56:00.010-06:00

Last night when I was putting Gaia to bed I noticed she didn’t quite fit into her Pack n Play bassinet the way she used to. “Hmmm,” I thought, “I don’t remember her feet hanging over the edge like that last week.” And it’s not just her bassinet that has me puzzled. It seems that I’m confronted with the reality of her growing up every day. A couple weeks ago I tried to put her in one of the stripy newborn onesies that were the only thing that fit her for the first month of her life. I should have seen it coming when her head could barely make it through the neck hole. Perhaps that was a clue they’d gotten a little small. Of course it wasn’t until she was snapped in with a killer baby wedgie that I gave in and dressed her in something else. The way she spills over the edges of the newborn hammock in her bathtub, the fact that she sits up and grabs for toys and makes noises... on purpose. She’s even wearing the second size of diapers already. Sigh. Frankly this rapid rate of growth has got to stop. I know, I know, it’s completely normal. Of course I know. But the fact that it’s normal isn’t the least bit comforting when I feel like I’m watching Gaia’s babyhood slip away only eleven weeks after her birth.

Logically I know I’m being silly. Logically I’m glad she’s growing up. Logically I’m proud of every accomplishment and encouraging of her development. Emotionally I wish she’d stay a baby forever. Every time I notice how much she’s grown her whole unlived life flashes before my eyes. Talking, walking, her first day of Kindergarten, boyfriends (or girlfriends... whatever), broken hearts, homework and soccer practice and art class. I see her grow up and I see her leave me and then I cry, which of course makes me feel ridiculous.

The funniest thing about these new emotions? I’ve always been terrified of newborns. I’ve jokingly stated more than once that I wish I could give birth to a three year old. I think I’ve even claimed I’d go through the process of carrying and birthing a toddler to not have to deal with a newborn baby. Of course, you know, I wouldn’t because that’s just weird. Anyway, after mocking them for years I now understand the women who keep having babies every time their youngest starts approaching toddlerhood. Last week I even tried to convince Jose we should have another one, like, tomorrow if possible. Of course his valid points about focussing on a) getting him into the country, b) us both finding full-time jobs and c) finding our own place to live hesitantly dissuaded me. Not to mention the fact Gaia’s not even three months old. Seriously people, what’s happened to me?

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: “Kids... (sigh) ... they grow up so fast.”

Now I’m off to take the bassinet out of the Pack n Play and weep.

Stupidhead Sillypants

2009-05-28T16:59:00.013-06:00

Have you ever seen that episode of The Simpsons where Homer and Marge are trying to come up with a name for their unborn son? Marge keeps suggesting perfectly respectable names and Homer repeatedly shoots them down as he fires back possible playground taunts. The anticipation is palpable when Marge finally suggests Bart. I waited for the punch line that never came as they agreed on the name and left me screaming “FART... FART YOU JACKASS... BART RHYMES WITH FART!” Of course I realise the fact they completely missed something so obvious is the punch line but I never thought I’d find myself the butt of the same joke. I’ve worked in a childcare setting for the majority of my working life and if I’ve learned anything it’s that children are cruel. It’s true that at some point in life all children will be mocked, regardless of their parent’s attempts to prevent it. Still, I wanted to do what I could to insure my daughter was not an easy target. Unfortuntely it seems I have failed her.

When we finally settled on the name Gaia I racked my brain for months trying to figure out any possible associations or childish rhymes. The worst I could think of with was GAY-A (which she’s already been referred to by pretty much everyone who’s only seen her name in print). Frankly I’d like to believe she’d respond to something so unoriginal and inoffensive with the same casual eye roll I perfected after years of being called Reese’s Pieces. It’s a move that clearly states “is that the best you can come up with?” Then last night I was tickling her and calling her by the various pet names she’s becoming known as. It was all Gaia-bears and Gaia-roos when it came over me in a wave... Gaiarrhea... the kids at school are going to call my daughter Gaiarrhea. How could I not have realised sooner? That combined with her dramatic, if short, history of gastrointestinal distress and I’m more than a little concerned. I guess all I can do now is prepare her for the possibility and hope she doesn’t end up pooping her pants at her first day of Kindergarten. Although I guess if she’s a five-year-old pants pooper I’ll have bigger problems to deal with than her classmates realising her name rhymes with diarrhea.

"Gaiarrhea!?! OH SHIT!"

As far things go Gaiarrhea is pretty rough, but nicknames have special place in our family. I can count on one hand the number of times my husband has referred to me as Risa in the last year. As far as he’s concerned my name is Chancho. For Jose nicknames are the way he shows his love. The way you know you’ve been accepted into his world. Calling me Chancho seems cute when it was just the two of us, but when we were in public situations I can’t help but notice people cringing. For those of you who have no idea why, I’ll enlighten you. Chancho is Spanish for pig. Of course it doesn’t help that I’ll always be a little bit chubby. I’m sure most casual observers think Jose is being mildly abusive, but it wasn’t my ample hips that inspired the nickname, it was Nacho Libre.

TV on cruise ships is a funny thing. In addition to the regular circulating programming for the guests, the crew has three extra channels, my favourite being one that plays the same movie in a constant loop for weeks. Shortly after Jose signed onto our last ship Nacho Libre was this movie. I’m pretty sure he watched it upwards of two hundred times in the course of the month we finally became a bonefide couple.

For anyone who’s seen Nacho Libre you might remember Chancho, the chubby little orphan who looked up to Nacho. The nickname began innocently enough over an inside joke about the similarities between Chancho and me in my Adventure Ocean uniform. Shockingly the one-style-fits-all board shorts weren’t so flattering on my big-girl thighs. Not to mention the way my overstuffed jacket pockets made me look as if I had an oh-so-becoming beer gut that sagged over my waistband. I consider the fact that I wore this uniform day in and day out and Jose still managed to fall in love with me a testament to my awesomeness.

Before long the joke had morphed into an intellectual character study where Chancho’s ultimate belief in Nacho became a symbol for mine and Jose’s growing connection. Of course, I know it’s a little ludicrous to let two comedic characters from a ridiculous (if hilarious) movie be symbols for our love but so it is, and now that the name has officially stuck, so it always will be. That’s the thing about nicknames anyway; the good ones are always born from inside jokes and secrets and walk the line of appropriateness. Plus as far as I’m concerned Jack Black is my own personal cupid. In Jose’s mind things were rocky between us when I was Risa, and then he got to the Navigator of the Seas where I was re-born as Chancho and suddenly it was all rainbows and roses.

And it’s not just the nickname that’s stuck. Jose and I now celebrate Chanchoversaries and give each other Valenchancho presents. We share in the joy of a Merry Chanchomas and blow out the candles on our shared Chanchoday. We even have a Chancho theme song (in its original form and a dance remix). It’s been over a year since I’ve gone to bed without hearing him sing “Eres mi Chancho, mi unico, unico Chancho.” When we got married we automatically started referring to ourselves as Mr. and Mrs. Chancho. When we found out I was pregnant we were having a Chanchito or Chanchita of course. Now that Gaia is no longer a fetus as predicted he rarely calls her by her name. She started out as Gai-ita, a nod to Jose-sita, his mother’s pet name for him no doubt, but lately he’s been calling her Chancho-Mono, our little pig monkey, and I know it’s going to stick. Chancho because she’s ours, and Mono because of the way she bounces in continuous motion as we talk to him on Skype.

I’ve grown quite attached to being called Chancho and I hope our baby girl always feels as special as I do as an object of her father’s nicknaming quirk. The truth is, when you grow too old for childish playground rhymes that special feeling is the point of a true nickname. And if nothing else let’s be honest, anything’s better than Gaiarrhea. Can I get an Amen?

Art Prodigy

2009-05-26T17:34:00.006-06:00

Lately Gaia has been talking up a storm. It’s all coos and goo-goo-gah-gahs of course but I like to think the prevalence of this baby talk in the last few weeks is indicative of some serious intellectual action going on in her little baby cranium. In reading about language development I’ve learned it’s important to encourage this baby talk and enthusiastically respond so Gaia learns about the art of conversation (speech patterns and the like). Given that I spend twenty-four hours a day with her and very little time with anyone else I feel pretty stoked that talking to my ten-week old makes me a good mother and not some crazy lady who has conversations with her baby. I started out simple, offering the occasional “Oh really?” “That’s interesting!” and “Tell me more.” Today I decided to go for the gusto and attempt some more meaningful dialogue. We went out this afternoon and saw the new exhibitions at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. Our conversation in the car on the way home went a little something like this:

Me – What did you think of the work we saw today at the gallery Gaia-bear?

Baby G – Well mother, I particularly enjoyed the Ted Godwin paintings. The pieces were so animated and intense. I can certainly see why he called the execution of these works “the big attack”. I think that phrase can have so many meanings... an attack on the accepted art forms of the day and a look towards innovation obviously, but also an attack on the senses, a nod to the experience of the viewer as they look at his work. I found they had great emotional power.

Me – Wow.

Baby G – Indeed. I also think it’s so inspiring, as a child growing up in Saskatchewan, to be exposed to such an important Canadian artist and see the work he produced right here in Regina. It makes me feel encouraged and reminds me that I don’t need to live in a major metropolis to make an impact on the world around me...

Me – I agree... I was thinking about that too and...

Baby G – Umm mama, I wasn’t quite finished.

Me – Oh. Of course. Sorry.

Baby G – As I was saying I think it’s so important to remember that you can be a part of something innovative no matter where you live. I look at the Godwin paintings and think about the Regina Five and I just feel so optimistic. It makes me think of Regina’s important place in Canadian Art History and about the gallery and what an integral role it plays in community education.

Me – Well yes. I’m glad you realise that. It’s just a shame that more people don’t take the opportunity to go to the gallery when it is such a great resource.

Baby G – Of course. I felt that went without saying.

She’s napping now and I’m left marvelling at the level of her observations. She’s obviously an art prodigy.

Ted Godwin: The Regina Five Years, 1957-1967 is on at the MacKenzie Art Gallery until August 30, 2009. Douglas Morton – Re: Surfacing, For Emily and Dana Claxton: Buffalo Bone China are also on for the summer. Please go see them. Admission is free and they really are inspiring.

Teen Mom

2009-05-25T18:42:00.008-06:00

Today I was getting diapers at Superstore when I was approached by a woman with a clipboard. “Excuse me,” she said “I’m sorry to bother you but would you mind answering a few questions about your experience as a teenage Mom?”

That’s what I get for bringing back a hairstyle I abandoned shortly after my high school graduation.

Me at 18 - Not a Teenage Mom

Me at 27 - Still Not a Teenage Mom

My View

2009-05-24T12:27:00.004-06:00

I admit it. I watch a lot of daytime TV. Let’s call it a personality quirk that’s developed since Gaia was born. Ellen is my favourite, obviously. I mean, who doesn't love Ellen? Oprah’s hit or miss and lately I find myself frustrated more than entertained. Occasionaly I tolerate Dr. Phil... barely. I tune into The View mainly because I love a good bitch fight. Yeah, I said bitch fight. I’m fully aware that last statement violates the very principles the show is founded on by trivialising the opinions of a “diverse” group of woman. Still. You gotta love the faux drama and the way a heated political debate ends with smiles as these woman, who obviously despise each other, come together to promote the latest mass market audience giveaway. But I digress. I promised myself I wouldn’t write about daytime TV, but here it is. I found Friday's episode of The View extremely interesting. It probably helped that Barbara wasn’t there. That woman drives me crazy.

Most interesting was Kirby Dick and Mike Rogers who were on promoting Outrage, their new documentary. I had a number of problems with their point of view. Firstly, I am a huge supporter of equal rights for all. My general belief is that I don’t have any right to tell another human being how they should live their life nor do I want to. It comes down to the golden rule really. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. Live and let live and so on. In that vein I have a major issue with people being ‘outed’ without their consent. Although I eagerly consume the trashy celebrity gossip posted by Perez Hilton, it has never sat right with me when he goes after closeted celebs in passionate attempts to get them to claim their sexual orientation. Frankly, if someone chooses to keep that very personal aspect of their life private I feel it’s their right to do so. As far as I’m concerned ‘outing’ them without their permission is at best a gross invasion of privacy and at worst a case of full blown harassment. Now, I understand that the makers of this film and many others who call for closeted public figures to out themselves are concerned primarily with the message their staying in the closet sends. I understand the arguments around creating a perception of shame through secrecy and the like. Now I do generally agree that the more people who publically claim their sexuality the more accepted sexual diversity will be. I absolutely applaud figures like Ellen* who make a choice to be public with their personal lives and I have no doubt that she continues to inspire people every day to be true to themselves and live their lives unashamed. I just don’t think that anyone has the right to force someone to be that kind of public figure and make that kind of statement. In the case of Dick and Rogers the justification for this invasion of privacy is the journalistic intent to expose the hypocrisy they felt was inherent in the often anti-gay policies of the closeted politicians. This included policies against gay marriage and votes against gays in the military. In all my years watching The View I never thought I’d say this, but at one point in the interview I had to agree with Elisabeth. She notes that politicians really shouldn’t be making their decisions based on personal preference. Isn’t the point of having a representative in government that you believe your elected officials will do what’s best for the country and not what’s best for them personally? All I kept thinking throughout the interview was I’m straight... does that mean I should be persecuted for believing, quite passionately I might add, in gay rights? Criticised for not having a “straight enough” point-of-view? Were I politician, should I be making decisions based on my sexual orientation or what I really believe is right? What I find troubling about Washington politics is not the abundance of gay men voting against gay rights, but the fact that gay rights are being voted against at all. By anyone. Perhaps journalists should be attempting to get to the real root of the problem and discover why a country and a large portion of its people seem so content to repeatedly deny people their basic rights as citizens and human beings. A very large part of me believes that these public witch hunts just set the gay rights movement back by continuing to make a person’s sexuality an issue. While sometimes I do wish that every public gay figure would have the courage to proclaim their sexuality proudly and publically in the hopes of both acting as role models and bringing awareness part of me also wonders if focussing on a person’s sexual orientation at all is the problem. Perhaps if society could truly make sexual orientation a non-issue by allowing people to live as they choose (gay, straight or otherwise) without feeling the need to declare it then gay rights wouldn’t be an issue at all, instead rights for all would just be a given and sexual differences less sensationalised.

Sarah Symonds, a serial mistress, was also on promoting her book Having an Affair? A Handbook for the Other Woman. I found her extremely articulate and intelligent, especially in the face of some serious push back from the hosts. Frankly I applaud her, although I do find the fact she wrote a book a little trite. I feel for the “other woman”. I’ve never been with a married man myself but I do have friends who have. At the end of the affair these friends are always left crushed by the emotional minefield they’ve been in and seem to be universally hated and judged. As far as I’m concerned, no one has any right to judge the mistress. Sometimes I think people forget who they took their vows with. I know it’s easier to hate a stranger then someone you love, but the mistress didn’t really do anything wrong. She’s made no promises and broke no vows. I’d like to think that if my husband ever cheated on me I’d be strong enough to place the blame on him and not villianize his mistress. I’d also like to think that I’d take a look at myself and the role I might have played in his affair. I can’t help but wonder what goes on in a marriage where one partner feels the need to look elsewhere for companionship. All the men I know who have cheated have been with women who ran the gamut from emotionally distant to manipulative to just plain mean. I also know more than a few women who withhold sex at the drop of a hat or forget they have a partner at all as soon as their children are born. Now I’m not saying anyone deserves the kind of betrayal implicit when one partner cheats or trying to trivialise the pain that affairs cause. I just feel that there are two sides to every story. Or three sides I guess, in the case of an affair.

Finally, Sharlene Azam was on talking about her book and film Oral Sex is the New Good night Kiss. I don’t think I need to say too much on this except that it is extremely upsetting, as a new mother to a baby girl, to hear about the prevalence of young girls becoming sexually promiscuous. I’ve been seeing more and more stories like this in daytime TV and reading up on new trends like sexting. It absolutely breaks my heart. Like many of society’s ills I feel it all comes down to a lack of self-confidence in our youth. I want to believe that I'll raise a truly confident daughter who will not engage in this type of behaviour, but I can’t stop worrying about the fact that she will grow up in a culture where overt teenage sexuality is the norm.

If you’re interested in watching Sarah Symonds or Sharlene Azam on The View you can see the full episode on ABC.com or specific interviews here.

* Speaking of Ellen, her commencement speech at the Tulane University in New Orleans was equal parts funny and inspiring. I love her.

Two Things

2009-05-23T23:04:00.004-06:00

Firstly, today was one of those beautiful days where I felt sure I made the right decision in moving back to Saskatchewan. The sun was shining and Gaia and I met some friends for the Cathedral Village Arts Festival. It reminded me that Regina really does have a thriving arts community and that the city is full of interesting and inspiring people. Of course it helped that I ran into a counsellor from my years in summer camp who had a booth set up to promote the new alternative school she’s opening. I don’t remember ever reading about a school in Vancouver that meshes so perfectly with the way I want to raise my daughter. I can’t imagine a better educational model to encourage self-esteem, empathy and a sense of community responsibility (locally and globally) – all things I feel are sorely missing in the mainstream schools I’ve looked into. All I can hope is that the school gets enough support in the next few years to continue to be operational when Gaia is ready for kindergarten. If you’re interested check out their website here.

Secondly, on Friday Gaia and I got a package in the mail from Jose. Among the items in the package was a CD he made of his favourite Spanish children’s songs. Frankly, it’s amazing.

Being the true Canadian I am I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Raffi. Lately, when we’re all alone at home I’ve been singing Baby Beluga to Gaia. I don’t know if it’s the song or my terrible voice, but I always manage to get a smile out of her.

Peru’s answer to Raffi is Yola Polastry. Mi Ranchito is Jose’s favourite of her songs and he’s been singing it to Gaia since I brought her home from the hospital. He and his brother have big plans involving this song, costumes and choreography for Gaia and her cousin (due September 2009).

While I don’t think any comment on the inherent cultural differences as showcased by these songs is necessary but I will say this, from now on every time I get frustrated about immigration hassles or the distance between us and wonder if it wouldn’t have just been easier if I’d fallen in love with a Canadian I’m going to remember how lucky Gaia is too grow up in a family where she’ll learn to sing both Baby Beluga and Mi Ranchito... my little Latina-Canadian.

Postcards From the Edge

2009-05-22T09:52:00.006-06:00

I met Jaydeen working as a counsellor at a summer camp when I was fifteen. We bonded over our mutual love for men, babies and questionable situations. When I got pregnant she was among the first people I told, mainly because she always knows the right thing to say, but also because she was my boss and I needed to know if I was going to have to resign from ships. In the nine weeks between the time I found out about the pregnancy and finally found a job I had a lot of time on my hands to harass her at work via email. Below are some of my favourite conversations.

July 30, 2008 (5 Weeks Pregnant)

Jaydeen – OK, so I am reading a book and there is a character named Venice because that's where she was conceived. So I was thinking... Celona?

Me – Haha! I was actually pondering Estrella as the middle name regardless of gender. That would be the infamous Barcelona "street beer" we got smashed on pre and post-coital. Tacky? It means star. We'll see what Jose thinks of that. I think the name conversation will take months.

Jaydeen – Estrella for a girl, awesome. I don't think Estrella will fly for a guy's middle name. Too feminine, especially with the "ella" at the end. Jose won't go for it... you might as well name your future son "Fairy". Dear future baby - If she goes with Estrella, I tried to help.

Me – Keep in mind though Jay... it's Spanish right so the double 'l' is pronounced as a 'y'. I think it makes it a million times less feminine. Besides... it's a middle name. No one cares about the middle name. It's true. Plus, if it's a boy he's going to be WAY more attractive than all the other little boys anyway so having a girly middle name can only serve to give him perspective.

Jaydeen – I speak español, I know the pronunciation... just throwing it out there. I do agree a boy would be beautiful, as long as he doesn't get Jose's ginormous head. Man Risa, I'm so excited. I already love this baby so much!

Me – I know you speak español... I was just reminding you lest you forget. Jose's head really isn't that big... I don't think. What about Rambla or Ramblas for the boy middle name? I don't think it's nearly as cool but the significance stands. Just keep your fingers crossed that all your little God babies don't get named after characters from Nacho Libre. If it was up to Jose we'd have little Chancho, Nacho and Ramses. Think on that. We shouldn't get too excited though Jay... I haven't even gotten my first ultrasound and gotten a viable heartbeat yet. Anything could happen at this stage. Anyway... now that I've been an official Debbie Downer I think I'm going to go eat some Mac and Cheese.

Jaydeen – You made me laugh so hard! In Barcelona for the next two days so I’ll have to be careful of roaming sperm attempting to impregnate me. And I understand the point that you're at with the pregnancy. Most people don't share news until three months so I am with you this whole way!

Me – Watch out... Barcelona is tricky. I think not having sex with your Latin boyfriend while you're secretly ovulating might help. We were asking for trouble really. Just keep those legs crossed.

August 28, 2008 (9 Weeks Pregnant)

Good Morning!! I just wanted to let you know that since we talked about two and a half hours ago I've thrown up no less than three times. The last one was the best... I didn't notice the chunk of regurgitated apple pie in my hair until it hit me in the face when I tried to get back in bed. Whoever said pregnancy was magical must have also been on meth.

September 1, 2008 (10 Weeks Pregnant)

Hopefully I'm not speaking too soon BUT... I DIDN'T THROW UP TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just so you understand the magnitude this is the first day since early July I haven't barfed at least once. I'm telling you Jay... this pregnancy thing blows hard. Does that make me a horrible person? Seriously though... don't do it.

September 7, 2008 (11 Weeks Pregnant)

Me – So I've been watching old episodes of ANTM and Project Runway so the baby comes out FIERCE. I know... I'm brilliant.

Jaydeen - That is oh so clever. Did you see the brand new one that started last week?

Me - Yes I did. That episode was great because it'll teach the baby tolerance should he or she ever decide they're transgendered or have to stand up for someone who is. Oh ANTM... it should be on TLC (the LEARNING channel) really.

PS. Did I tell you I`ve started calling the baby UBER-FETUS because it's already far superior to other spawn??

Jaydeen - Are you keeping a diary of this shit? Honestly.

September 24, 2008 (13 Weeks Pregnant)

I'm freaking out. I didn't know that this happened once the baby starts kicking. It's like an alien trying to escape. It doesn't look pleasant. EEK. Not pleasant. Seriously... why don't people tell you your baby is going to try and escape through your tummy prior to birth?

Finally, just for kicks, and because I`m enjoying this little stroll down memory lane, here`s a favourite from the week leading up to Gaia’s birth.

March 10, 2009 (38 Weeks Pregnant – 2 Days to Delivery)

Me – I took the day off today because I'm exhaustamified and now that I'm all napped out and bored I just wanted to remind you that you'll be here in FOUR DAYS.... Woot! Woot! You better be excited bitches! I may be gigantic and tired and boring and living in a house with only two chairs BUT we're gonna have good times!! Oh and I made some cupcakes that look suspiciously like boobs... I didn't realise until it was too late. Whoops. If you're lucky there may be some boob-cakes left when you arrive.

Jaydeen – Save me a BOOB-CAKE! Or half a boob-cake. I am OK with half because I am majorly dieting. I have this image of me coming back to work and telling everyone that I didn't go to Saskatchewan, but in fact went to fat camp.

Me – I hate you tell you this Jay... but I think visiting your pregnant friend is the exact opposite of going to fat camp. Today for lunch I had a protein smoothie, three boob-cakes, numerous scoops of icing and an entire box of Kraft dinner (extra creamy). Oh, and I added some cheddar to the KD.... and by some I mean two handfuls. When I got your email I was seriously considering getting off my ass for the fudgcicles in the freezer. Seriously.

Water Baby

2009-05-21T22:11:00.001-06:00

One of the perils of having a baby with a partner who lives four thousand, six hundred and twenty five miles away is a decided drop off in personal hygiene (thanks again Canadian government). Back when Gaia was napping for a solid three to five hour chunk every afternoon I was managing to shower regularly. Now that she’s abandoned napping almost all together I’ve had to get creative. Lately our routine has me putting her in her chair at the bathroom door and playing peek-a-boo behind the curtain as I frantically wash. Alas, yesterday she was in such a cranky baby mood that I knew our routine was a no go. By the time her bedtime hit I felt disgusting so I did what any inventive new mama would do. I ran a bath for two. Until now I’ve been too scared to bathe with Gaia. I learned quickly that wet babies are slippery and always felt it best to have one of us with two dry feet planted firmly on the ground. Still, I decided to take a chance.

I lowered us both in the water and I waited. Gaia looked up at me, obviously wondering what the big deal was. Before I knew it I was bouncing her and pulling her through the water and she was positively giddy with delight. Then it happened. I got sloppy. In my co-bathing bliss I let my guard down and lost my grip on Gaia. I watched as her happy little face slid under the water. It only lasted a second but panic washed over me in waves. Of course I knew she’d be OK, but I was sure that in one moment of carelessness I had just ruined my high hopes of her loving the water. Perhaps I was being a tad melodramatic. I pulled her back out of the water and apologised as earnestly as I could. I expected a pouty lip and tears at the least, full blown cries of course and obviously a look of deep seeded mistrust in her eyes. Instead, she blinked for a minute, blew a few raspberries and sneezed. Little streams of water poured from her nose and she smiled as if to say “that was fun... let’s do it again!”

Now I feel justified in the fact that my ten week old baby owns three bathing suits. 2028 Summer Olympics here we come.

Muffin Top

2009-05-20T18:16:00.018-06:00

Domesticity is not my forte. Before I married Jose I made sure he was fully aware of the strict no cooking, no cleaning, no mending clause in our vows. Lucky for him my talents lay in other areas. Still, since I’ve been at home with Gaia I’ve been thinking more and more about what type of mother I want to be. Turns out I’d like to be the kind who serves homemade muffins, fresh from the oven every morning as I prepare my babies for their day. Who knew?

Not to fear, I haven’t completely mutated into some 1950s housewife. I still plan to toss said muffins at my children as we run out the door on the way to school (them)/a super satisfying career (me). Luckily a good family friend and secondary mother figure passed on a recipe for delicious muffins that even I feel I can master. Yesterday I got together with some Mommy friends and made a huge batch. From what I could tell they looked pretty easy to make. Of course, I took a backseat in the actual prep opting to measure the ingredients that most closely resembled candy (raisins and craisins and dates oh my). On my own away from the real action I operated on a strict one for you, one for me policy. I have hopes for domestic competence but feel baby steps are best.

Take it from me, normally I hate anything with bran on the ingredients list, but these muffins are super tasty. And the best thing about them, the batter can save in the fridge for up to six weeks, thereby stretching my once monthly attempts at baking and creating the illusion that I’m domestic goddess. When Gaia’s old enough to appreciate it (and you know... eat solid foods) I have big plans throw a batch of these in the oven a few mornings a week. Until then I’ve got a stockpile in my freezer to enjoy.

6 WEEK BRAN MUFFINS FROM LANA'S KITCHEN

6 cups combination of Bran Flakes Cereal, All Bran Cereal, Natural Bran
2 cups boiling water
Place cereals and water in bowl and let stand.

1 cup margarine/butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
4 cups buttermilk (can substitute 1% milk)
1/4 cup molasses (optional)
Cream butter, add sugars. Beat eggs in one at a time. Add buttermilk and molasses. Stir in cereal mixture.

5 cups flour
2 tablespoons baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups raisins
2 cups combination of craisins and chopped dates
Mix thoroughly and add to batter.

Fill muffin tins lined with greased paper muffin liners. Fill full to top and some above (this batter does not rise up as it bakes). Bake 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes.

In honour of our adventures in baking Gaia debuted her own muffin top in her first pair of jeans. My muffin top was also in attendance but thankfully remained unphotographed.

I ♥ BabyLegs

2009-05-19T23:13:00.007-06:00

If you have a child and haven’t heard of BabyLegs you must check them out immediately. The idea is simple enough. They’re essentially mini-legwarmers for the infant to elementary school set. What makes them so fantastic is that they’re tight enough that they stay put on a newborn but stretchy enough to grow with your child well into the school aged years. They’re way cooler then tights, which are ridiculously hard to put on a baby and make diaper changes a breeze. Plus they can be worn as armbands should the mood strike you. I love them because they give the illusion that I’ve dressed Gaia for an outing, when actually I’ve just added a pair of BabyLegs to the onesie she’s been wearing all day at home. Lately, if I’m feeling especially ambitious, I’ve been putting them under the shorts and dresses I bought her for spring and she couldn’t look more adorable. They’re the perfect answer to Saskatchewan’s multiple weather personalities. Can you tell I love them? And the fun doesn’t have to stop this summer! They just came out with a new line called BabyLegs Cool. They’re made from breathable mesh and offer SPF 50 sun protection. Don’t pretend you’re not impressed.

If you’re living in Regina you can find BabyLegs at Hello Baby (2561 Quance Street) and Groovy Mama (3100 13th Avenue), but the selection is limited. After scouring the web for a Canadian supplier to order from I eventually got mine from Baby’s Best Design because they had the most styles availible. They cost the same as in store and they didn’t charge me shipping. Plus I got a bonus pair for free. If you need further incentive my entire shipment arrived less than a week after I made my order. I wish all online shopping was that hassle free.

Tomorrow I promise I’ll go back to writing about something that doesn’t make me sound like a walking, talking (blogging?) infomercial, but for now heed my word and at least go look at the ridiculous array of styles. You won’t be sorry.

Testing. Testing. One. Two. Three.

2009-05-18T22:32:00.005-06:00

Is anyone out there? It seems I’m making a real go at this blog thing, but part of me wonders exactly who, if anyone, is intrigued enough by my average life to be reading. Who are you? What do you like about the blog? What do you hate? What would you like me to write about? If you’re out there let me know. I’d love any feedback you have! Oh but if you’re going to tell me I’m wordy and a tad self-indulgent don’t worry... I know. I’m pretty sure after twenty-seven years of much of the same that’s not about to change.

In other news I finally took a picture of the super creative baby gift we received from “Mahi Mahi”, a good friend and one of the sweetest, most adorable Royal Caribbean Youth Staff I met in my travels. Moulded from Model Magic, an Adventure Ocean staple, it’s an adorable version of my little family. Until life can imitate art I guess I’ll have to make do with the fact that at least the Crayola version of me gets the two people she loves most in the world in the same country (and living quite a happy life on my shelf I might add).

What's the Opposite of Cuddly?

2009-05-18T17:59:00.008-06:00

* UPDATED MAY 19, 2009 (10:41PM)

If it’s true you get what you deserve then I must have done something really special to deserve Gaia. I jokingly tell people she’s my reward for everything Jose and I went through in 2008. My reward for staying positive and not falling apart while struggles were casually and repeatedly tossed our way. She really is a wonderful baby. After the initial “getting to know you” stage and a few rough nights she’s barely cried in the past month and a half (save for a few isolated instances of gastrointestinal distress). She loves long walks and shopping trips and chats over coffee. She’s also super social and seems to thrive on the outings where she’s passed to someone new to be fussed over every ten minutes. Her personality is such that if she wasn’t my baby I’d secretly wish she was. Finally, the piece de resistance, for the last two weeks she’s been... dare I say it?... sleeping though the night. That’s right. In just two months I have stumbled upon the holy grail of all new parents. Of course I fear that saying it out loud might jinx it but every night, without fail, she’s fast asleep by 10:30pm and doesn’t wake until around 10:30am for more than a single fifteen minute feeding at the seven-hour mark. Some days I feel drunk with rest. Add in the fact she’s been waking up laughing and frankly, I feel almost guilty for having it so good. I’m not actually naive enough to believe her demeanour has to do with anything other than luck but there is one crucial area where it seems I truly am getting what I deserve. Practically perfect in every way, sadly my newborn hates to cuddle. Sigh.

Of course I know I’m being “rewarded” in this instance for a lifetime of refusing to cuddle with my own mother but honestly, it’s devastating. Who doesn’t want to cuddle with their soft, sweet-smelling baby girl? If anything it’s a mother’s right and one that Gaia repeatedly denies me. After her first week of indulging me by napping lazily on my chest, Gaia quickly began refusing to be held close. My attempts at co-sleeping were laughable as she did everything but say “seriously Mama, you need to back off, I’m trying to sleep and you gazing at me lovingly is beyond annoying”. Her rolled eyes said it all. My excitement is palpable when she falls asleep during a feeding. I wait for her to go limp stretched out on her back across my arm and carefully, ever so slowly shift her to my chest so I can hold her close. I barely get a sniff of her perfect baby head and she’s wide awake, doing her best Stevie Wonder impression* as she frantically turns her head and tries to come up with an escape plan. In the morning while scooping her out of bed I almost get close enough to kiss her chubby cheek and she’s pushing me away. Didn’t think a two month old baby had the coordination or drive to push her mother’s face away? Mine does. And it’s not just cuddly naps and morning kisses she detests, she’s also doing everything in her power to prepare her little baby legs for walking, surely so someday very soon she can walk away from me. Pumping and kicking in continuous motion she reminds me of a wind-up toy being held above the ground. If I let her go I secretly fear she’d zip across the floor. Baby carriers that warn against the forward facing position for the under three-month set have obviously never met my child. I have to shirk the warnings in fear of her little baby wrath should I make her turn in towards me and miss the big wide world she’s so eager to explore. The list of ways she desperately tries to be independent doesn’t end. If I didn’t know better I’d swear I gave birth to a seven year old in the underdeveloped body of an infant.

* Just in case you needed a visual on the Stevie Wonder reference... enjoy.

I know some of you might find my heartbreak more then a little annoying. Even I wonder what right I have to complain since a newborn who isn't clingy enough is my biggest baby issue. Not to worry though, if I get what I deserve in the teenage years I’ve got a lot of sleepless nights ahead of me.

UPDATE: I just got an email from Momma Pants, my first (and thus far only) Mommy-friend. Apparently Gaia’s Stevie Wonder impression might be a sign she’s overtired. Thankfully it’s not just invaluable advice she’s doling out, I’m also the proud borrower of a magic swing that put Gaia to sleep for over three hours this afternoon. If you’re not lucky enough to have friends like her (or even if you are) make sure to read her blog – By the Seat of Mom’s Pants – I can’t imagine a more informed mother and, just your luck, she’s funny too.

A Rose By Any Other Name (An Epilogue)

2009-05-16T00:29:00.014-06:00

This long weekend Gaia and I are lucky enough to have a visit from Rachel, one of my favourite Vancouverites and official auntie/baby stylist. Being around Baby G seems to have sparked a pretty solid case of baby fever in my previously anti-baby friend which, of course, led us to spend our evening poring over The Baby Name Bible. Amongst debates over the validity of colour names (both for) and a struggle to imagine what type of person would name their baby Bran, I found myself thinking of our battle to name Baby G. Here’s how we finally came to our conclusion.

GAIA (GUY-ah) ~ Greek, “Earth Mother” ~ The name of the Greek mythological earth goddess and universal mother.

My heart broke a little the day Jose put an official vito on the baby name I’d been coveting since my early teens. From that point on I couldn’t imagine any suggestion he made standing a chance. Call it selfish, but I dare you to feel differently should you ever find yourself in the same situation. On my first night in Peru, while sitting in the sand and watching the moonlight on the ocean I finally asked Jose what he thought we should name the uber-fetus. He suggested Gaia without missing a beat. In his mind, her name was Gaia from the start. Depending on his mood when you ask him his likely to give you one of two versions of the official name story. The first one has him waxing academic about mythology and his time in Greece. The other has him extolling the virtues of a video game he was obsessed with in the months of unemployment he went through while we made our first attempts to get him into Canada. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one sounds more plausible.

It took a lot of convincing, but in the end I gave in to his beautiful accent and the way he looked when he called my belly Gaia. Plus it just seemed right to tell the baby her papi had chosen her name. It provided a kind of proof that he loved her from the start, even though he was so far away. My concerns about mispronunciation and spelling errors, while valid, seem silly now that I’ve met the baby who was on the inside for so long. She was always meant to be Gaia. I’m sure of it.

CELONA (suh-LOE-nuh)

I fell in love with Barcelona the minute I stepped off the boat with Jose on our first overnight stay in the city. I walked around entranced with the energy of Las Ramblas, drinking “street beer” and listening to locals shout in lispy Spanish. It was our first official date, almost a year after we met. We spent two months exploring Barcelona every chance we got. Port Vell, the gothic quarter, Parc Guell, the Aquarium, La Sagrada Família, the marketplace and of course Las Ramblas, the place that started my love affair with the city – we loved it all. We spent our last night in Barcelona after a week apart, when the ship’s second overnight visit coincided with my European vacation. It was “street beer” and people watching again, but this time fate saw fit to bring us our baby girl. In my life story the night of her conception is among my favourite chapters.

Months later I was telling the story to my friend and Gaia’s eventual Godmother, Jaydeen. About a week later she emailed me this:

“OK, so I am reading a book and there is a character named Venice because that's where she was conceived. So I was thinking... Celona?”

I think it was a joke but frankly, I couldn’t have come up with anything more perfect.

We went Latin with her last name taking the paternal surnames from both sides (no hyphen thankyouverymuch) and saddling her with a double dose of unpronounceable fun (only seven syllables long). You’d be surprised how hard it is to try to explain to people that you, your husband and your baby all have different last names. Call me naive, but I thought it was pretty commonplace these days? Naming the baby was no easy feat but I’m more than satisfied with our choice. If nothing else I’m just glad we didn’t have a boy... if that was the case it’s likely the poor little guy still wouldn’t have a name.

PS. Here’s a pic of our little trio enjoying the sunshine this afternoon.

Baby G

2009-05-14T09:22:00.005-06:00

The G is for Gangsta...Obviously.

Potty Mouth

2009-05-13T14:13:00.006-06:00

I used to swear. Ahem. I used to swear A LOT. As I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to tone it down a bit and while it’s not uncommon to hear me drop a f-bomb in polite company I’d say I’m getting pretty good at keeping up appearances as someone with a touch of class. Yes indeed, I’m one classy bitch. Unless you happen to catch me in the driver’s seat that is. Sigh. I know it’s cliché but I have a serious case of Road Rage. Of course moving to Regina didn’t help. I think the worst drivers in the country all come to Regina and hop in their cars as soon as they hear my garage door open. Merging seems to be a lost art here, as is efficiently changing lanes. I can’t take the Ring Road without being prepared for the inevitable hoarse voice that comes after shouting “THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING... YOU FUCKING MORON” over and over again as I speed by on the right. Aggressive driving seems to have no place here. It breaks my heart to see three cars turn on a green arrow where sixteen cars in Vancouver would have been and I swear I tense up at the very sight of a four-way stop. Note to all the drivers out there – politeness has no place at a four-way stop. To make matters worse everyone drives at or below the speed limit. I know it only takes about fifteen minutes to get anywhere in the city but I don’t think that’s any excuse to be so blasé with your time (or more specifically, mine). Besides, aren’t those “limits” a little arbitrary anyway? Driving anarchy, that’s what we need. Now who’s with me?

Gaia, that’s who. It seems that while my daughter snatched the majority of her good genes from my husband, she managed to inherit the Road Rage gene from me (I of course got it from the foul-mouthed road warrior more commonly refered to as my mother). For the last few weeks Gaia has started screaming the minute I snap her car seat into place and not stopped until I snap her back out upon reaching our destination. A few days ago, after a particularly long journey across the city, nearing the end of my patience for baby screaming, I flipped on my signal light and began plans for a quick lane change en route home. I checked my mirror. The coast was clear, save for a sporty black car a good ten car lengths back. Mere seconds later the same black car was purposefully accelerating to close the gap and deny me my rightful place in front of him. This seems to be a Regina specialty. I couldn’t help myself. I shook my fist with fury and screamed.

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! THAT’S RIGHT... YOU! YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE! ASSSSSSSSSSSSHOLE!”

Suddenly Gaia got quiet and, I kid you not, she laughed her little baby laugh and promptly fell asleep. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Wasn’t I concerned that my newborn found my screaming obscenities calming? Mildly. More concerning still was the brief moment I seriously considered screaming obscenities as a valid soothing strategy.

Between Womb and World

2009-05-12T11:48:00.009-06:00

Baby G is officially two months old today. Last night as I crawled into bed I couldn’t help thinking that only two months ago I was still pregnant. Sometimes it’s hard for me to look at Gaia and believe that she used to live inside me. I find the whole thing completely surreal. Anyway, in honour of our anniversary and because I’ve been promising it to people for so long, here it is... our birth story.

The day before Gaia was born I had my last appointment with my OBGYN. Everything was good, except for my blood pressure, which, normally very low, had spiked since my last visit prompting him to finally insist I stop working. Anyone who knows me knows I hated being pregnant. I spent the first three months sleeping next to the toilet as my days became a blur. I was so sick I actually lost five pounds. When the sickness finally dissipated I spent the next six months growing at a rapid rate. I stopped sleeping and struggled every morning to turn my normal wardrobe into maternity gear (if you’re pregnant and feel horrified at the thought of maternity clothes the Bella Band is your new best friend... I wore it until the day Gaia was born... and about a month afterwards). By my last month I was so uncomfortable I couldn’t sit for more than five minutes without wanting to cry and standing wasn't much better. If I hadn’t been distracted by working every day at a job I loved I would have gone crazy. Work and prenatal yoga made me feel like a human being and not just a baby factory. Thank God. Still, my labour was awesome. If I had the choice I’d give birth over and over if it meant I’d never have to be pregnant again. Unfortunately the two go hand-in-hand. But I digress.

After a standard night of fitful pregnancy sleeping I woke up around 7:00am on Thursday, March 12th with what felt like mild cramps. I lied in bed for awhile trying to get back to sleep and noticing the cramps were coming at fairly regular intervals, about fifteen to twenty minutes apart. Since it was still ten days before my due date I was pretty sure the cramps were Braxton Hicks. I even managed to get a little excited about the thought of my body finally “practicing” for the arrival of Baby G. After about an hour had passed and I realised I wasn’t going to get back to sleep I got out of bed and set to work on the gigantic pre-baby checklist I’d made. I cleaned the house, washed baby clothes and finally opened the Pack n Play I’d bought for Gaia to sleep in. As the cramps continued I casually thought they might be the early stages of labour, but I was still relatively unconvinced. I even remember mentioning to my Dad that I might be in labour but not to worry about it since I was probably overreacting. All I kept thinking was if I was in labour I’d be in a lot more pain than this... wouldn’t I? At about 2:00pm I made a trip to Wal-Mart. I still find it amusing that my priorities lay with buying a door hanger so I could finally organise my scarves. By the time I got to Wal-Mart I found myself having to stop and focus on my breathing every five to ten minutes as the cramping got stronger. At this point you would think I’d realise what was going on, but no. I stopped at McDonald’s for a McNugget meal. Just a note to all pregnant women out there, if you have any inkling you might be in labour, don’t eat McDonald’s for lunch. In fact, I’d give it up about month seven, just to be on the safe side. Regurgitated nuggets swimming in a pink milkshake sauce are not what you want to see in the hours before your baby makes their entrance. Trust me. I got home around 3:30pm and took a break from ‘nesting’ to talk to my husband on Skype. Not wanting to alarm him, since, and I can’t stress this enough, I was POSITIVE I wasn’t in labour, I didn’t mention anything about the cramps or the way that the tightening sensation had travelled to my lower back and was, if not painful, getting increasingly uncomfortable. By the time we said goodbye the cramping was much stronger and coming pretty regularly every five minutes or so. My plan was to have a bath and then finish the rest of my checklist and call it a night. By this point I think subconsciously I must have known what was going on. Consciously I was still in denial. I called Labour and Delivery at the General Hospital just to be on the safe side. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi. So sorry to bother you. I’m 38 weeks pregnant and... ummm... how would I know if I was in labour?
Nurse: Are you having contractions?
Me: Oh... well... umm... some cramps I guess. But I’m sure they’re nothing. I’m probably just being silly.
Nurse: Did your water break?
Me: Oh... well no. So it’s probably nothing right. I’m sorry I bothered you. It’s probably nothing. I’m just being ridiculous.
Nurse: Well we’d be happy to check you if you want to come in.
Me: No. No. I’m sorry. You’re probably really busy. I’m fine. I’m really sorry to have bothered you.
Nurse: Are you sure? Why don’t I take your name a number and give you a call to check on you in a few hours?
Me: Oh God no! I’m fine. I’m probably not in labour. I’m fine. OK. Ummm... right. I’m going to go now. Thank you. Oh and so sorry, again, to have bothered you.

Then I hung up.

I assume the nurse thought I was a nutcase. Now, I feel I should explain something here. I was a huge hypochondriac when I was a child. I pitched a fit over even the smallest scratch. As such, as an adult I’ve developed a pretty stiff upper lip when it comes to instances of medical need. My worst pregnancy nightmare would be arriving at the hospital only to be sent home for thinking indigestion was advanced labour. Oh the shame. Still, I think I might have taken my fear of judgement it too far. By the time I called my doula at 5:30pm, I was having trouble standing and walking and I finally admitted to myself that maybe I should start packing my hospital bag. My doula and I played the same phone game I’d played with the Labour and Delivery nurse, although she seemed far less convinced by my attempts at being nonchalant. After calling me every ten minutes to check-in, I finally agreed to track my contractions with an online tracker. After a half hour I was finally coming around to the idea that contractions less than three minutes apart and lasting about a minute might actually be labour... maybe. At 6:30pm I called my Dad. Anyone who knows me and my Dad can imagine how the next fifteen minutes went.

Me: Um... Dad... can you help me pack my bag? I think I might be in labour.
Dad: Oh. Yes. Um... do you want to go to the hospital?
Me: Um... well. I’m not sure. Should I go to the hospital?
Dad: Do you want to?
Me: I don’t know. Should I? I just timed my contractions online. They’re pretty close together, but my water hasn’t broken. So maybe not? I don’t know.
Dad: You timed your contractions online. What do you mean?
Me: It’s this program... it’s really cool... you just press the space bar and... (pause for contraction)....
Dad: Are you OK?
Me: Yeah... that’s what I’m talking about though. It happens every three minutes. Weird right?

We carried on like this for awhile. We were like the blind leading the blind. Eventually he packed my bag for me while I sat on the toilet leaking what I can only assume was amniotic fluid and periodically throwing up into my garbage can. I kid you not, I was still sure I was overreacting and I’d be sent home once we got to the hospital.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, I prepped for the labour with Hypnobirthing classes taught by Marie Berwald. The basic idea behind Hypnobirthing is that our bodies are made to give birth and that painful, stressful births are a product of fear which causes you to work against your body. The point is to learn to trust your body, and your baby, and relax through the birth process by practicing self-hypnosis. The goal is a healthy, natural (ie. drug-free), pain-free birth. Initially I was a sceptic but the classes made sense to me so I thought I’d give it a go. I completely credit Hypnobirthing with my calmness throughout the day and through the birth that was to come. The erratic screaming and mass panic of movie births had no place in my day and I managed to get through each contraction, even in the latest stages, by quietly and calmly focussing on my breath and my body. If you’re pregnant and looking to have a natural birth I highly recommend you look into it.

We got to the hospital at about 7:00pm and I finally made it up to Labour and Delivery by 7:30pm. My doula met me there and we waited at the door to be officially admitted. My nurse, an absolutely amazing woman named Linda, went over my admitting sheet with me and I gave her my prenatal records and carefully thought out birth plan. Then she led me to a bed in the assessment room. At this point I’d told my Dad not to bother parking since “I’ll only be a minute” so he quietly milled around the waiting room, assuming I’d be right back out to let him know if I was staying or not. After a quick pee-in-a-cup I stripped down and hopped up on the bed where Linda checked me and calmly announced I was fully dilated. All I could think was that maybe I missed it when my water broke. And then my water broke. Trust me... you’ll know when it happens. Frankly it’s almost comical. I felt like I should push pretty much immediately so I focussed on my breathing and bore down. In the walk from assessment to my delivery room I periodically stopped mid stride to squat and push. This was probably the first indication that all privacy and poise goes out the window in labour. By the time I got onto the bed it was close to 9:00pm. Linda started monitoring the baby’s heart rate which was extremely low. Throughout the pregnancy it had been consistently around one hundred and fifty... during labour it was closer to fifty. I should have been worried but I wasn’t. By this point I really felt like me and the baby were a team and I swear I knew we’d be OK. Linda called in a resident to get an internal heart rate monitor in place (which is not in the least bit as uncomfortable as you’d think) and calmly told me I had to push, as hard as I could, as fast as I could, to get the baby out as quickly as possible. I briefly thought about how contrary to Hypnobirthing philosophy her instructions were, I think I even said “no pushing, I’m just going to bear down and let my body birth my baby” but frankly, I’m a do-er and pushing felt right. So I did it. I tried with every bit of my being to keep breathing while I pushed, which worked about half the time, and before I knew it my doctor had arrived and I was crowning.

Just a note on childbirth... I have what I would consider a regular threshold for pain and there was no point where I felt like I couldn’t handle it. If anything I was exhausted (punctuated by the moment I declared “I’m too tired, I can’t do it anymore” and was promptly told that wasn’t an option). Labour is absolutely hard work, but pain isn’t the right word for it at all. I don’t judge anyone who’s had an epidural or plans to and I feel like everyone is completely entitled to be proud of whatever birth experience they have. I’m just saying if you’re pregnant and interested in a natural birth it is one hundred percent possible. Exhaustion? Yes! Pressure? Absolutely! Pain? Not so much. Oh but if you’re one of those people who’s in labour for days get an epidural and get some sleep. Seriously. Moving on...

Once the doctor announced I was crowning I gave one strong push and the head was out. The mystery of her low heart rate was solved when he announced the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and asked if he could cut it before we continued (I had made a huge deal about wanting delayed cord clamping/cutting but in this case I feel medical need dictated otherwise). Focussing on holding the baby halfway between world and womb while the cord was cut was not entirely desirable but before I knew it I was being told I could finish the job and with one final, monster push Gaia came into the world. It was 9:30pm.

Because she had been in distress I wasn’t able to hold her immediately after birth. Luckily the nurse from the NICU unit came to the delivery room so I could watch as they checked her vitals and made sure she was breathing regularly. I watched her as I delivered the placenta (which made me think of jellyfish) and stitched me up (I had some minor tearing, probably due to the rate at which I pushed her out). About ten minutes after she was born I finally got to hold her. The speed of the delivery caused me to go into shock, so I was wrapped in warm blankets and if you ask me that was the perfect way to spend my first moments with Gaia. Warm, with my new baby on my chest and distantly reminded of the days when I used to come home from swimming lessons to be wrapped in towels fresh from the dryer by my Mom. My doula, who was amazing through the entire experience and who I could not have done it without, snuck out to tell my Dad what had happened. Presumably he was still waiting to see if he should go park the car. Somewhere in the hour and a half I was in active labour my Mom and brother had also arrived and they all came to the delivery room to meet Gaia. As soon as I could I called Jose, who was asleep, and told him about the baby. Needless to say he was shocked (maybe I should have given him some indication when we were chatting in the afternoon, but when you’re pregnant and your husband has no option to be with you, you do what you can not to worry him).

Before I knew it I was wheeled to the Mom and Baby unit. I said goodbye to my entourage, made a few more phone calls and spent the night with Gaia beside me, too much in awe of her sleeping face to get much sleep myself. The next morning Jose called me to tell me about a dream he’d had. “Baby,” he said “I had a dream that you had our little chanchita last night... so maybe she is coming soon?” I laughed as I told him it was real. That's what I get for trying to tell him news that big while he was sleeping. Then I told him about her perfect face... perfect eyes... perfect little feet that looked just like his. Two months later I think Jose had it right. Sometimes I feel like it was a dream. One morning I woke up pregnant and the next morning I woke up next to Gaia. The time in between is just details.

All The Hopes I Hope

2009-05-10T23:28:00.010-06:00

It seems crazy that this time last year I had yet to meet Gaia. Crazier still that I didn’t see her coming now that I’m sure she was meant for me all along. Now I have trouble imagining who I would be without her. Mostly, I’m full of anticipation for the life she’s beginning and feel so privileged to bear witness. Someday I’ll be able to say “I was there all along”.

I hope she grows up to be a force to be reckoned with. I hope she always speaks her mind and that her mind is always full. I hope she reads more than she watches TV and learns to think critically. I hope travels the world and really sees it. I hope she never stops making mistakes, so that she can always learn from them. I hope she is always quick to smile and that she’s funny, like, pee-your-pants funny. I hope she is honest, especially with herself. I hope she learns to swim and play an instrument and takes on every challenge that comes her way. I hope she really likes art, and that if she doesn’t that she finds something, anything, that she really likes. I hope she is never ashamed to ask for help. I hope she doesn’t take herself too seriously and tries not to get embarrassed if she accidentally farts in a business meeting. I hope she is wise beyond her years. I hope that someday very soon she learns to give me baby kisses since the current kiss tally stands at Mama – 7,324,174, Gaia – 0. I hope she is a strong, capable woman who can take care of herself but knows when to let herself be taken care of. I hope she is empathetic and kind. Empathy, yeah, I really hope she has that. I hope she tries to see the good in every person and the silver lining in every situation. I hope she is proud when her father speaks to her in Spanish when he picks her up from school. I hope she learns to listen to herself and trust her instincts. I hope she never says she hates me, and even more that she never means it. I hope that when she looks in the mirror she likes what she sees and always sees what matters most (which, of course, you can’t see in the mirror). I hope she has pets. I hope that she finds someone to fall in love with and that they love her back. I hope every night when she goes to sleep she can think of one thing she’s done that she’s proud of and all the ways she is blessed. I hope she always knows that whoever she is is always okay to anyone who matters. I hope she never stops telling me “about her day”. I hope she always demands respect (that’s right, DEMANDS). I hope if she’s scared to try something new, she does in anyway. I hope she is humble. I hope she is confident and never lets the man get her down. I hope she is affectionate and greets people by kissing them on the cheek even though we don’t live in Peru. I hope she always, ALWAYS knows how much her papi and I love her. NO. MATTER. WHAT. I hope she doesn’t like mustard.

Since the day I peed on a stick (or three) and saw the line(s) turn blue my head has been filled with all of the hopes I hope for her and only one for me...

I hope I am always strong enough to raise the type of woman I hope she will be.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Wipeaholic

2009-05-10T00:26:00.009-06:00

I know there are worse offenders then me, but in my circle of friends I’m pretty much an environmental monster. For starters, my intention of having a ‘green’ baby went totally out the window when she arrived early and caught me unprepared. I quickly waivered on my insistence on using cloth diapers when I managed to fall in love with disposables in mere hours. Same goes for the sample of wipes that came free with said diapers and leave her tush smelling of springtime. Wait, make that newborn babies in springtime. You’d be surprised at how pleasant a chemically manufactured smell can be. Each day I repeatedly thrust the potent diaper/wipe combo into my clever little Diaper Genie without so much as a passing thought at the environmental consequences. Furthermore, her formula is neither organic or soy and I’m pretty sure my quest to keep her adorable is causing far more laundry then is entirely necessary (does a baby really need to change clothes three times a day?). Unfortunately that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Every appliance I own is plugged in twenty-four hours a day and there are certain light switches in my house that have never seen the off position. If I’m honest I don’t understand the concept of composting and I’m not entirely sure what is and is not recyclable. I mean, I throw my cans and bottles into boxes under my sink, but that’s about the extent of my effort. I wash my hands about a hundred times a day, which is good, except for the fact I dry them with paper towels, which is bad. More often then I’d like to admit, while running errands in a gigantic SUV, I lengthen my journey by miles to avoid the stop lights that may startle my baby from her mid-afternoon nap. Yesterday I kicked a tree... for fun. (OK, so that never happened. I love trees and you know, all that nature stuff, even if I’m not too great at showing it.) Sigh. I know. Really I do. But all of that is nothing compared to what I believe to be the worst of my environmental sins. In the name of convenience and the fact I really, REALLY hate to clean, I go through at least twenty Lysol disinfecting wipes a day. A DAY. And that’s just for everyday cleaning like wiping the counter after making a meal. On the rare days when I go all out and clean, say, my bathroom I’d say that number doubles, if not triples.

My name is Risa and I’m a wipeaholic.

Today while having coffee with a friend I shared my dirty little secret. Isn’t admitting you have a problem the first step towards recovery? After her initial judgey shock, which she made no attempt at hiding, she offered up a challenge. I’m never one to back down to a challenge so tomorrow I’ll say goodbye to my wipes once and for all (after using what’s left of course... I wouldn’t want to be wasteful after all). With my newly acquired environmentally friendly cleaner in one hand and rags (made from recycled t-shirts no less) in the other I’m going to clean my bathroom wipes-free for the first time in my life. It’s all about baby steps.

Lullaby

2009-05-09T00:03:00.010-06:00

Sigh. I know. After a promising start I went and had a baby and let the blog thing slip away. It’s funny because from what I can tell the first months of motherhood seem ripe for reflection. I’m back though and committed to trying to get all these thoughts in my head out onto the screen. I have big plans people so bear with me. For tonight, I’ll be brief.

This afternoon was spent, as is most of our afternoons, talking to Jose Miguel via Skype. We’d chatted through a feeding and the consequent burping, a bounce in her chair and an adorable online game of peek-a-boo when suddenly, inexplicably, Gaia started crying. She started crying with the full-on, high pitched wails of a baby girl who’s seriously distressed about something (although what it was is anyone’s guess). I offered her a pacifier. I bounced her. I held her close and whispered into her ear. I kissed her. I rubbed her back. I rocked her. Nothing was working. I almost forgot Jose was watching us until I heard him start to sing softly in Spanish. Just as suddenly as it had started, Gaia got quiet. She looked at her father, singing to her through my glowing laptop screen, smiled a little and fluttered her eyelashes then promptly fell asleep. Jose finished singing while I watched my baby girl settle into my arms and her heavy sleepy breaths. There’s nothing quite like the moments when you notice that the man you married is exactly the man you hoped he’d be. Lately I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of those moments.

I’m going to sleep now and if the Gods are good I’ll be dreaming of the way my daughter looks while my husband sings her sweet lullabies. In my dreams we’ll all be in the same country.

A Rose by Any Other Name...

2009-02-12T12:30:00.007-06:00

At the risk of sounding like a complete freak I’m going to share something about myself here. As a child, I had imaginary children. Now, I know a lot of kids have imaginary friends but I was the six-year-old who had imaginary pregnancies, imaginary births and a whole houseful of imaginary spawn. At one point it got so bad that my favourite pastime was to pour over old catalogues until I found models that could possibly be my future children and collage them into family portraits and eventually timelines that stretched across our living room floor and scanned over fifty years of births, deaths, weddings and graduations. My imaginary children had personalities, hopes and dreams and, always a stickler for realism I’d throw in the odd genetic disease or stint in rehab just to keep them on their toes. More important then their imagined life though was their imaginary names. I even went so far as to name my imaginary husbands and practice the potential surname choices (should I use a hyphen, take his name, or, as became common practice when I hit grade three, abandon the whole husband concept and go the route of immaculate conception ending up a functioning single mother of ten / paediatrician / artist?). I found the concept of naming children fascinating. The power! The influence! The sheer fun of combing through baby name books! It was like a drug and I was hooked.

Fast forward to today and the thought of naming a baby has become the bane of my existence. Of course, I had my favourite names long since chosen and had always assumed they would just be given out in some methodical order as spawn actually starting shooting from my loins. Somehow though, the minute I found out I was pregnant, I became panicky about having to actually give the baby inside of me a name months down the road. I mean, what right did I have anyway? Thus began a long existential debate about entitlement and imposing my personality and choices on a baby who might become someone completely different then I imagined. I went in circles. I had nightmares about birth certificates and baby announcements. What if I unknowingly saddled the kid with a horrible name? What if I didn’t realise possible associations or rhyming words? What if I offered up a smart kid name and ended up birthing a jock? The possibilities for disaster were endless. Then I realised, before I got too far ahead of myself I should probably talk to Jose.

In one of the many naïve assumptions I have made throughout my life, I assumed Jose wouldn’t care what we named the baby. However, after presenting my top girl and boy name choices and waiting for the expected casual agreement, I was shocked to hear the utter disgust in his voice. It became clear immediately that this was going to be tougher then I thought. At my twenty-week ultrasound the doctor surmised that the uber-fetus was most likely a girl. Not seeing any “boy parts” he promised me confirmation at my thirty-two week ultrasound and sent me on my way. Again naively, Jose and I spent all of our time focussing on names for our little chanchita (the thought of a chanchito now firmly out of our minds). After literally going name by name through a thousand page baby book and looking at no end of online sites we finally settled on a name he put forward the first night I arrived while we were walking along the beach in Punta Hermosa. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t love the name, but I got sucked in by his accent and the way he smiled every time he called the baby by it when he talked to my belly. Plus, the name we finally chose matches the picture I have in my head of the baby. It’s not what I’d always imagined, but somehow, it fits the baby we made together… I think.

Of course, the end of January hit and I went in for my final ultrasound and the response to my eager insistence on gender confirmation was a chuckle and the response “the baby is being shy today”. So of course, it was back to the drawing board. As tough as choosing a girl name had been, choosing a name for a boy is certifiably impossible. Thankfully, throughout all the baby name drama, we both agreed that the name should be short and unique (no Jose Miguel juniors here). However, beyond that, Jose and I couldn’t have more different opinions. You can blame a difference in culture, since it is true that a surprising amount of the names I came up with sound like dirty words en español, or the difficulties of long distance, but the truth is we’re just different. As it stands today, if the uber-fetus does end up with an uber-penis, he will not have a name and yes, this stresses me out. Unfortunately, the choosing of a boy name happens to be coinciding with my ultra-sensitive-emotional phase so that’s just the way it goes. Worse case scenario I might have to pull out my old timelines and gaze into the eyes of my imaginary children until a name jumps out at me. Until then, I stand firm in my assertion that if nothing else my son will not be named Thor. Jose may have been half joking when he suggested it, but don’t pretend you’re not all on my side now. Ahem.

PS. The Baby Name Bible by Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rozenkrantz is amazing. Go buy it. Now.

Buddha Belly

2009-02-08T17:30:00.006-06:00

Last night while I was waiting for my Chinese takeout a toddler cautiously approached me while her mother paid their bill. After staring at me for a solid minute she giggled, pointed at my belly and then waddled over to the Buddha statue in the corner and pointed to his. Anonymous toddler 1, Risa 0.

An Ode to My Bitches

2009-02-06T10:25:00.011-06:00

I’m not going to lie, I got a little charge the day after my wedding when I changed my Facebook relationship status to ‘married’. It’s sad to say, but somehow, in a way that the vows didn’t manage, the public status change and resulting flood of wall posts made it all seem real. The truth is the majority of people I know Facebook creep to a shameful degree. I’m no scientist but I’d say a solid percentage of the population’s knowledge of their friends, coworkers, people you met at the bar (you get the picture) comes from sitting alone in front of a computer and obsessively browsing photos, status updates and wall posts. But I digress. The point is that there is one area where Facebook seems to be lacking.

This leads me to the bridesmaid. In the past I’ve seriously wondered about their value. What are they really but the bride’s handmaidens? Modern day slaves who shell out big cash and commit to months of oohing and ahhing and gushing over just how “special” everything is. Now, I’ve been a bridesmaid and yes, I was honoured, but it never occurred to me that not having bridesmaids at my wedding might someday strike me as a little unfortunate. If anything I thought my friends might feel relieved (and I’m sure some of them do). Here’s the thing though, until Facebook figures out how to appropriately honour those serious plutonic relationships that sustain us, parading down the aisle before the bride is like confirmation, to you and everyone else you know, that your relationship is serious. And you’ve got to admit, confirmation that you’re a long-haul friend and not some casual acquaintance shouldn’t be important… but it is. So, for denying the true loves of my life the quiet superiority afforded to the bridesmaids, I apologise. I know it’s not much, but please enjoy your moment in the sun.

Rachel Goldman – Rachel is my stereotypical Vancouverite friend. We shop in expensive stores, like expensive coffee and go to expensive events. She also happens to be incredibly strong and has seen me through some dark days (as I have her). I spent an entire summer just getting by lying on her couch and drinking Crystal Lite Slurpees. She’s considerate in ways you didn’t expect and has become a truly outstanding woman in the last few years (I don’t consider this sentence condescending because regardless of the fact she and sorority went through a shameful brake up, she will always be my little sister). Plus, she’s one of the only people who will actually go to all the arts events I try to drag everyone to and, shock-horror, I’m pretty sure she enjoys them. When she thinks nobody is looking she’s also pretty damn amusing.

Robin Seims – Yes, Robin and I dated. Lived together even. Hell, we share custody of a dog. Still, any romance that ever existed (did it ever exist?) has long since past into hazy memory to the point where I think both of us sometimes forget that dating was how we got so close in the first place. Robin drives me insane. He is forgetful, sloppy and almost brutish. On the upside he is also one of the most selfless and giving people I have ever known. There are whole years of my life that I can say with certainty I would not have made it through without him. Plus, I find him hilarious in ways only we understand and for someone who has seen me at my absolute worst, he puts up with me in ways I know no one else ever will. Oh and out of all my bridesmaids he’s the only one I might have considered putting in pink. For a pale dude, Roberge can really rock the pink.

Katy Short – Katy and I consider our “friendiversary” the night of Gamma Phi Beta formal in her first year when I forced myself into her bathroom stall and declared my love for her. Was she a bit freaked out? Probably. But somehow she’s managed to put up with me for the last six years. Katy is ridiculously neurotic, sensitive and awkward and I love every second of it. She’s as close to a husband as I ever thought I’d get, in fact, I secretly suspect her mother is not the only one who assumed on one occasion or another that we were carrying on a secret affair (could it be that we were “Facebook married” for well over two years?). She’s hilarious in ways I don’t think she understands and stronger then she will ever know. Even Robin, who knows me better then anyone, get freaked out by our friend language in inside jokes if he has to spend more then a few hours with us. She is one of the smartest and most capable people I have ever known, which might sound lame but is actually quite inspiring. Plus I’m pretty sure her Mom is my icon.

Jaydeen Williams – Jaydeen and I met at summer camp when I was 15. She somehow managed to balance vulgar and adorable in equal measures, which remains a huge part of her charm to this day (and of course made her my insta-role-model). She is, without question, the most thoughtful person I have ever known and I am constantly holding myself to the standards of friendship she sets. When I went to UBC in 2001 she took me under her wing and I consider her responsible for some of the best experiences I had there. In fact, if I really think of it, she had a part to play in everything exceptional in my life. I certainly never would have gone to work for Royal Caribbean without her. She has a sense of adventure that makes even me less boring and a way of always knowing the exact right thing to say.

Oldooz Zandiyeh – Oz is that girl who everyone loves. She’s been a bridesmaid more times then I can count and it’s easy to see why. She’s adorable to the point of being sickening, except you couldn’t possibly be sickened by anything she does. She’s funny and sweet and unbelievably genuine. She somehow manages to maintain close relationships with hundreds and yet always makes you feel like you’re the one she really loves best. Attached at the hip for my first year of university, Oz will forever be a part of my inner circle. You just don’t let girls like that go (you hear me men?).

So there you go. You were all there in spirit ladies (and Roberge).

Oh, but I’m still not sold on the whole maid-of-honour thing. It’s like choosing a favourite child. We all know you have one, but isn’t it just tacky to say it out loud?