Oh no he dint

The following excerpt is factual. Seriously.

Says the 41-year-old, childless bachelor to the overwrought single mother, "I sometimes wish I had had a child. It would have made my life much less complicated."

Says the overwrought single mother, "Wh-... you can't be...are you high?"

Epilogue: After much sputtering and sparring it is with great sadness, frustration and can-you-f#cking-believe-it-ness that I must report to you all that the childless bachelor could not be shaken of his convictions.

He is lucky I find him handsome.

Friends

One of the aspects of parenthood that i was pretty confident wouldn't affect me was the whole "become a parent lose your non-parent friends." And by and large, it really hasn't. I know that i went out of my way to accommodate my friends that became parents before we did and we have many friends without kids that do the same for us. "BBQ at your place, sounds good; Yeah, let's skip the bars and come have some beers on your porch; etc." So by and large it hasn't been rocket science to stay friends with people (with children or not) after our bambino arrived.

So, i was a little saddened when my best friend from high school came to visit, the one that i always pick up with where we left off and at the end of her visit i just felt very far away from her. The visit didn't draw us back into each other's lives or renew our closeness. At least for me, it made me feel how much we don't have in common and how she didn't seem to want to try very earnestly to find common ground.

Because that really seems to be the key. I don't talk about Henry all the time and my single friends don't talk about the woes of dating all the time. You pick a few key stories, you tell more if someone is interested, and otherwise you move on to mutually interesting topics. It's this give and take which generally helps structure a rewarding conversation and a good relationship.

I guess i just felt plainly that she wasn't truly interested in what parenting was really like, or what the struggles we were going through were. She was interested in providing her take on them from her own perspective.

I'm sure we'll see each other in another year or so and maybe by then something will have changed in one of our lives to bring us back closer together. But for now, i feel set-apart as a Mother for the first time.

Sick Rian

Worst thing EVER to have your baby sick.

Much as their strong personality is a ton of work (and Melissa O called it, they might not be as fun as we would like... yep, and intense, and difficult, and frustrating)

But Rian got sick and became lethargic and dehydrated with vomitting. My usual chubby guy lost his buddha belly and the chipmunk cheeks. We didn't have to put the gates up as he wasn't crawling.


After taking him to the doctors every day of his illness (love socialized medicine... love being able to freely exercise our universal human right to health care!), he just wasn't getting better.

So off to the BC Children's ER where we were handed a syringe. A simple syringe to get the pedialyte into him (5 ml every 5 min). He was perky again in about an hour!

Here he is - feeling better - with a paper tray on his head!

And don't blame me for these 'tourist' pics - his Nanna thought he was cute! Grandmothers!

... and he's slowly gaining his belly and cheeks back!

My boy, the biped

Sam took his first steps today! Yay!*

Sam woke us up at 5:30 this morning! Boo!

This confluence of events has made me realize that -- not today, but someday -- Sam will wake us up at 5:30 am AND he'll literally hit the ground running. I don't know if I'll survive that day. I'm going to cherish this crawling stage for as long as it lasts.


*We almost missed the big event, too. We haven't been expecting Sam to walk any time soon, since he hardly ever bothers to stand unassisted, so you can imagine our surprise when out of our peripheral vision we saw this little shape stroll confidently by (until he fell on his butt). At first I thought the cat had learned to walk on his back feet. He's repeated this performance several times since then, and you can tell he thinks he's the shiznit every time.

the battle of wills has begun

I've heard of terrible twos, but how come nobody mentioned all the other terribles. in particular terrible 14 months.

book review--Sex Wars

Yesterday, I finished reading Marge Piercy's new book, Sex Wars, which I highly recommend to any mother, or any woman who doesn't want to be one. Piercy weaves together the lives of first-generation U.S. feminsts (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Victoria Woodhull)
with the lives of fictional characters and others (Anthony Comstock, Cornelius Vanderbilt) in a tapestry that covers the suffrage movement and women's fight for contraceptive equity.

For those of us in the U.S., it's a pretty chilling look at what our foremothers had to go through to keep from having a gajillion children, as well as a disheartening picture into the mind of a man that equated all nude pictures--even those in anatomy books--with pornography. Check it out.

Pomp, and also circumstance

Sam is officially one year and one month old today, so I thought I'd finally get around to posting some photos of the festivities. The pomp, as you will see, was matched only by the circumstance.

Trust me, Sam is not all alone in the room. There were many people present, all arrayed safely outside the Mister's sneaky photographic periphery.

What's that? You want a close-up of that rather nifty cake? Why, here you go. If Melissa O lived about 600 kilometres closer, I'd have ordered one of her unbelievably gorgeous creations, but as it was I found a very nice local practitioner of the baked arts who does lovely work.
Sam takes his cupcake eating very seriously. He gets that from me.
Unfortunately, he made a sacrifice to the Dark Lord Grondor to get another cupcake. This is the unfortunate result.

My boy likes a party.

Sometimes, when you've been givin' 'er for hours, you need to take a quick five to rejuice.
Despite the fact that oh my god I'M SO TIRED, this is one of my favourite pictures of me and Sam. I didn't realize the Mister was taking our photo at the time, or else I'd probably have made a stupid face. I'm a bit of a picture ruiner that way.

at our house, on the weekend

Mia was sitting at the desk in the kitchen, working away on something while Ulysses washed up some dishes.

“What’s this music?”
“It’s funk. This is James Brown, actually. You know, James Brown is the Godfather of Soul.”
“Um, [Ulysses]? I just have to say that I can’t take in any new information right now.”

Here she is taking in some ice cream:

History in the making...

Rian and his living Grandparents!

My Dad, Rian, my Mom and Pete's Dad! Together last weekend from Fort St. John, Halifax and the UK respectively. Sadly missing was Pete's Mum, a paediatrician, who passed away several years ago.

Even more freaky was the fact that my parents hadn't seen each other for 19 years about an hour prior to this picture.

So we made it into Rian's b-day and here he is again with the grandparents and a wonderful chocolate cake from Fratelli's (for those who know the Drive - the place you buy deserts from if you really want to impress your guests... if you're in Nelson BC, you go to Epiphany Cakes, owned and operated by BHN's own Melissa O!!)

Gotta love family!!!

Day of Mothers

It's Mother's Day weekend! What are you all doing to celebrate?

Funny, I used to not really care about this holiday -- other than calling my mom and sending flowers, of course -- but I find this year I'm REALLY, REALLY INTO IT. What are your thoughts about this most hallowed of all the invented Hallmark holidays?

And then, he was one.

At last, the little man is not so little anymore.

Today was Sam's very first birthday. We had an amazingly relaxed day with hubby, Sam & I - spent the afternoon at the Aquarium (thanks to Melissa for taking Nile and putting the idea in my head) - Sam loved it! Then had some chocolate cake although in typical Sam fashion (read - pretty cautious and not one for trying new things), he picked the sprinkles off the cake and ate perhaps a morsel of it. Oh well...

He's turning into a real joker lately or maybe I've finally come out of the first year fog and am able to see the humour in him.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the day...

Anne-Marie

I'm number 2! I'm number 2!

Finn: I'm in love.
Me: Really? With who?
Finn: Aleka. He's in my class.
Me: Oh? Does he love you too?
Finn: Well, he loves Bea, but when Bea isn't at school he loves me.
Me: And that's okay with you?
Finn: Yes, Bea hasn't had the chicken pox yet.
Me: Well, fingers crossed.

Yesterday when I picked Finn up from school she pointed Bea out to me. A year younger than Finn, pixie-like with blond hair to her waist - Bea looks an awful lot like a Disney princess. Younger, thinner, blonder...poor kid hasn't a clue that her life will be littered with Beas. Damn you, Bea. Damn you.

Or maybe I'm just pre-menstrual after all

Okay, my intent isn't to egregiously pimp my new blog, Vidiotbox, but can I ask you to please watch this video if you get a chance? I'm touting it as one of the more tearjerking things I've ever seen, but SOME PEOPLE ARE DISAGREEING WITH ME.

Am I crazy? Pre-menstrual? Well, yes, maybe... on both counts. But I still think this video is awesome.

busy body

oh man, Nile has become the busiest busy-body that ever was. he is into everything and i'm absolutely exhausted. Today has been a day of pet-related mischief: repeatedly trying to grab handfuls of kitty litter, swiping milk bones from the dogs (and shoving them into his mouth) and trying to escape to the great outdoors through the doggie door. wish me luck!

rebelle without a cause

Would it be wrong for me to buy my 6.5 year-old a black leather jacket? Because the girl has the attitude to rock this thing, for sure.

I have a confession to make. Before I got pregnant, when landisdad and I were just practicing to make babies, I was sure that I wanted a boy. I grew up with three brothers, and lots of male friends--I was sure I didn't know how to deal with little girls, even though I had been one. But when I did find out I was pregnant, I immediately began hoping for a girl. When we went for the ultrasound, I was certain it would be a girl, and I was right.

But I was also right that I didn't really know how to deal with a girl. Or rather, I didn't really know how to deal with a miniature version of myself. Because that's what the Bee is, a miniature, but not diminished, version of me. And just like I have my bad days, so does she.

There are days when I think, would it be easier if she was a boy? My son is a much more easy-going kid, but is that due to his second child status? His gender? His genetic code? We'll never know for sure. It's the kind of thing you could drive yourself crazy thinking about, and yet I persist. Because surely not every first child says things like, "I hate you!" and "you're not my real mother!" just because you make them do their homework.

Nearly every day, I mentally compose an apology letter to my own mother. I never send it, because I'm still too bitter about our relationship growing up.

You see, she never bought me the motorcycle jacket.

Ask a Bored Housewife: Three questions

Dear Bored Housewives,

Three questions for you:

1. Assuming that, after one year, my body has become accustomed to its default state of sleep deprivation, when can I expect my eyes to stop burning?
2. Despite the fact that I weigh roughly the same now as I did before I was pregnant, why have my fingers gotten so skinny that my wedding ring keeps flying off? Is this a temporary post-partum thing?
3. I've already forgotten my third question. But this raises a new one: when can I expect my short-term memory to return? And as a corollary to that question, how much longer can I expect other people's patience with my memory loss to last?

Thank you in advance.

Your pal,
Doppelganger