astronaut boots

shanno, éamon and i went for an adventure at the mall today. we rode the bus and spent the afternoon as mall rats and ate dinner in the food court. my plan was to buy a swimsuit, but ended buying éamon a pair of jeans.

we looked at baby clothes, sat on the floor in sears while i breastfed, tried on shoes and went to target twice. shannon bought socks and one of the employees from new york fries told me about how often he changes his bedsheets. that part was awkward; otherwise, it was a fun day.

now i'm stuck looking for a swimsuit online. shannon recommended that i order two of the same suit in different sizes and return the one that doesn't fit properly. that's what her mom used to do when they lived in the country. i think that's very clever!

i have a swimsuit, but i want to buy a 1-piece. especially since i want to start infant swimming lessons in a few weeks. the disappointing thing, is that a couple weeks ago i found a really beautiful 1-piece suit on the sears website and now it's not available :S pickings are slim. i hate how expensive swimsuits can be.

have you ever heard of a joggertini? apparently that's a thing. i can't even imagine what that's supposed to be!

there's part of me that is drawn to the idea of a tankini – they're aesthetically pleasing. but i like the simplicity of a 1-piece.

ok. i need some opinions. which do you prefer. this 'swimdress' or this 'halter suit'. my housemate has no opinion on the matter and i need some feedback.

on a completely separate note, i just want to say that no one is defaming anybody.

AND i find it disappointing when people copy my creativity on facebook. hmph!

don't dismiss it like it's easy.

uncentered

this wednesday brendan installed our dryer. i love it. i feel like washing every thing just for the fun of it. not only that, i've started éamon in cloth diapers, and i get a real kick out of watching his diapers bleach clean in the sun. ah, it's the little things :)

i've been moving some furniture around the exile, and am pleasantly surprised at how spacious our den feels. it almost echos. i get a great deal of satisfaction out of maximizing space in a small house. it's also a nice reminder of what we can do without. i'm thankful for our basement, even if it's pretty disorderly down there. it's nice having a place to put things.

i'm really enjoying my mat leave. i feel like i'm especially enjoying it since i know it's temporary. that makes me appreciate it more, but it also helps my sense of identity to know that i'm returning to my previous role. shari painted my belly cast for us. it turned out beautiful, and i love seeing it hang on the wall beside éamon's crib. for some reason it makes me feel like a full fledged mama to have my finished belly cast. it feels similar to having my college diploma in the wall.

though there was a time when you and i were friends.

brown vent

it probably wasn't until i was pregnant that i really thought about what it's like to be a next kid. it's definitely a distinct thing, like being part of a family. i like that éamon belongs to a community beyond our family that care about him, enjoy him and watch him grow. nexters, myself included, get the privilege of watching these kids grow up. i like that as a group we can recall things about them, remembering quirks or things they did when they were smaller. i like that they're all different and that they're diversity reflects the diversity of the bigger world. they make us laugh, and often make us wonder.

my dad asked me the other day "did you know him well?" and i said "as much as the other kids at next. they're all like nieces and nephews". i love my actual nieces and nephews in a different way than the next kids, but i enjoy having them as part of my life just as much.

next weekend, we're going to echo lake for this year's next retreat. i'm really looking forward to it. these days it's easy and convenient to spend my evenings at home alone (or with b). and while i am enjoying this as a novelty, i am looking forward to long conversations with a variety of folks, spending time doing dishes together, eating together, sitting around on couches together, playing games together. connecting. i think it will do us all good <3

we are like windows,
stained with colours of the rainbow.

vanilla

last sunday evening, shannon hosted a surprise belly blessing for meghan. as part of the gathering we played madlibs with a story crafted by shannon. it was really funny. in hearing the humourous fictional birth stories over and over, it got me thinking about my birth story with éamon. and afterwards i concluded that i'd live that experience over again in a heartbeat. every part. in spite of the disappointments and twists and turns, it was a really great experience and i wish i could live it again as simply as re-watching a favourite movie. and just like with watching a movie for the second time, i'd know the outcome, so i'd be more relaxed and i'd be able to enjoy every small detail with deep appreciation. looking back on an experience and wishing "again, again!" is always the mark of cherished life event.

yesterday, b, éamon and i went to toronto for a jays game. i haven't been to a baseball game since i lived in TO, but i came up with the idea to go to a game since i figured it would be a good activity to do with a baby. it was really fun. we took the GO train and arrived earlier than expected (i'd anticipated multiple stops, but we didn't need any). we had really nice and close seats. AND we had 50 bux burning a hole in my pocket. we're participating in this queen's study on first time parents, and we decided to use that money for our trip to the ballpark. everything went really well. éamon was a little fussy when we first arrived. a lady sitting close to us asked if it was too loud for him, but i told her he was just grumpy, and he soon fell asleep. we actually thought the noise level was good since it drowned out his cries and didn't disturb the people around us. that said, he only fussed for 5ish minutes, then slept through the rest of the game. there were these two girls behind us who where there with their boyfriends. they just yapped through the whole thing and were super annoying, but seemed to talk less as time went on. b thinks they were picking up on the fact that everyone around them were trying to watch the game. i haven't watched a lot of baseball since the early 90s, so i was surprised to discover that all the honoured players who's names were on display were people i knew.

i bought a hot dog from a vendor after the game. he was yelling something to attract customers. it sounded like he was saying "i love the ladies" over and over.

this is how we do it.

pierce

i'm pretty sure someone is living in their car out front of our house. it has american plates, a makeshift bed in the back, and a pair of jeans draped over the roof of the car. i wonder if there's something i should do. drop of a box of crackers or something. it seems like a temporary living situation.

when my parents sat us down to tell us that my dad was thinking about leaving, i didn't really know what i felt. it was confusing and upsetting. i remember that my stomach ached. i remember running after him and hugging him around his waist and telling him that i still loved him. i don't remember if i cried. i didn't cry two months later when he did eventually leave – very abruptly. i didn't talk about it with anyone. i withdrew. i'm an introvert who deals with her feelings surprisingly stoically. i say surprisingly because i'm someone who expresses feelings of joy very openly. no doubt, i would've eventually talked out my feelings if there had been a safe person who knew how to draw me out. but instead, it took over ten years before i took time to process my feelings and cry. thinking back, that only happened because someone gently asked the right questions and made me feel safe enough to let down my guard.

this probably goes without saying, but i'm someone who writes. i write so i can process. i can say things in writing that i can never articulate out loud. i don't know if i'm emotionally stunted or if it's just my nature, but i don't respond to sorrow the way other people do. i don't cry when things are sad. i don't want to be with others and share the sadness. i withdraw because, for me, pain (any kind of pain) is private and requires space.

i'm struggling right now because my response is so different than everyone else's. i know that my feelings are just as deep and complex as everyone else's, but i process and cope much differently. i guess i'm just not sure if i'm normal (healthy, well adjusted) or if there's something wrong with me.

when i cannot sing my heart,
i can only speak my mind.

sudden

sometimes when awful things happen in life, i distract myself. like right now.

b and i watched a documentary on netflix last night called "the other f word" about punks and fatherhood. it was interesting. i have to admit, there's a much larger punk underground than i was aware of. it mostly featured guys from punk bands who now have wives and families. i was surprised that most of the wives just seem like regular soccer moms. anyways, it seems that all those dudes are committed fathers. it also seems like they all had really rotten fathers themselves, but were determined to be the kind of dads they didn't get to have. it was hope-inspiring. it was also disturbing that there wasn't a single one of them that had a healthy relationship with their dad. i would ask "what does this tell us?", but i already know.

it's hard to be distracted for long. i just feel sick to my stomach. i'm eager for brendan to get home. i just want him near, even if we're silent.

everything's gonna be alright
rockabye, rockabye, rockabye.

familiar

there's nothing like a pair of jeans to prompt someone into being mindful of what they eat.

now that the chillier weather is upon us, it occurred to me that the only pair of pants i fit into are yoga pants. so éamon and i took the bus to the riocan yesterday to go jean shopping. it seems to me that baby weight hits the middle and the face, while the rest of me feels pretty normal. now that i'm wearing these unrelenting pants (i made sure to get some that were slightly snug, knowing that they would loosen with use), i consider myself on the road to weightloss. not that i'm in a major hurry, but i feel that i've reached my statues of limitations for eating random things. it's just tricky being allergic to the most convenient of fruits :S oh well, i'll find a way around that as usual.

the bus was fun. for a few moments i thought i'd like to be a city bus driver. but then i changed my mind and decided i'd like to get paid to ride around on the bus all day people watching.

brendan has wednesday afternoons off, and i've been enjoying his company all summer. i'm glad that we'll continue to have those afternoons off together even though it's september. this afternoon we bought andrew and shannon a new refrigerator :D it felt funny walking into a store and telling the staff "we'd like to buy a fridge" because i've never done that before. it also felt funny that they staff treated us like adults with the means to buy a fridge. we also bought a dryer, which we'll pick up next wednesday (it had to be ordered in because it's a compact drier).

hard times ain't gonna rule my mind.

soap

brendan and i love going camping. it's the perfect get away from regular life. as we anticipated having a baby, we kind of wrote off doing regular summer activities (except for wolfe island music festival). but once éamon arrived and we'd started getting into the swing of things with him, we'd started giving camping some consideration and decided on a one night camping experiment. the logic was that he's small, non-mobile and is nursing, so in some senses that makes camping easy.

so we went to our favourite site at bon echo. everything went really well. éamon slept as we got set up, just hung out while we ate dinner, and slept perfectly at night. i was worried that he'd cry and wake people up, but he didn't make a peep until 7 am. i nursed him three times in the night and he slept right through them. i'm pretty proud of him :)

one surprising thing about becoming a parent is that i've become more easy going about things that would've previously made me mad. as evening was upon us, brendan went to find the flashlights and quickly discovered they'd been left behind. he'd intended to pack them – he had them at one point, but they didn't make it into the car. since there was nothing we could do about it, i didn't get mad at him, it wouldn't have changed anything. instead i just told him "don't worry about it. these things happen. we'll manage somehow". and we did. we used the screen from our camera as a light source. i'm thankful everything worked out and it didn't becoming a big thing.

my only "regret" about our camping trip was that it was so short. i wish we'd gone for longer, BUT there was no telling how éamon would be. and really, there's no guarantee that he would've been as easy going for a second night. i'm glad we quit while we were ahead.

no time left to start again.

deflect

whenever i see someone, specifically a woman, with dreadlocks i have this sense of camaraderie. inwardly i tell them "i had dreadlocks too!!", but say nothing out loud. instead i just seem like some regular person starring at someone cooler than myself :S