rose: now that the sun is coming up later, my two little fellas are sleeping much later. often until 7, but sometimes until 8! i love it. sadly, we're changing the clocks back on the weekend, which means that they'll be waking earlier again :S

thorn: i've always been pretty good at turning off my brain and lofting around. when i was a teenager, my mom used to say she couldn't just hang-out like we did, and i felt like "just do it, it's a choice". but for the last week or so, i'm not in touch with my inner relaxer. i dunno if i've had too many projects on the go, too many commitments, or not enough boundaries, but i'm not loving this. i'm hoping that i'll return to normal soon.

rose: i managed to fix a basket that got broken. it was a lovely basket that i use for storing toys in downstairs, so it feels good to be able to repair things instead of throw things out. also, we're getting some work down in our basement today and tomorrow – new flooring installed in the kitchen (currently just painted concrete) and getting trim in each room. the flooring is half installed and look great. i've always wanted a barber shop type of checkerboard floor, so that's what we went with. i'm really happy with it :)

thorn: it's been the kind of day where i have not felt restful. even the free moments that i had to sit and read, my brain kept telling me there are more productive things i should be doing. brendan told me that that's not a good sign. he said people on their way to being burnt out think that way.

rose: on any even week day, i walk between 40 to 60 minutes per day. it's usually 10 minutes here, and 10 minutes there, but over the course of a day, it really adds up. i've been loving having a bus pass. next is close enough for me to ride a bike, but my bike is too small for getting anywhere quickly. in the spring, i'll invest in another one. for our current routine, it makes sense for me to take the bus. the only downside is that my bus ride is only two express bus stops. sometimes i feel like staying on longer and getting lost in thought. i think this is partly because i used to have a 25 minute drive to work each day, but also because in college i had an hour long city bus ride. while it ate 2 hours out of my day, it was some seriously good downtime. i just sat, bundled up on the back of a warm bus, swaying back and forth. i'm pretty sure i fell asleep often.

this morning, éamon got dressed almost completely by himself. and this evening, otis did a lot of independent walking. i can't tell you how much of a relief it feels that my kids are becoming more and more skilled to do things on their own.

thorn: my work computer has this weird quirk. when you turn it on in the morning, the monitor often says "no signal detected". so you have to disconnect the monitor, over and over until it does work. today, it took an extra long time to get it working. i was starting to break into a sweat. i hate it when stuff like that happens. i just want it to work already!

rose: this week, i did a short freelance project in support of a group of christian leaders who are petitioning the government to repeal the corporal punishment laws. this is an action that came out of the truth and reconciliation efforts. i felt honoured to be part of such an important initiative, and i also really liked doing some design work. not surprisingly, since i loved working on hatch in september. val kindly offered to write me a reference letter. so it might be time for me to start working on a website.

thorn: in the spring, i was helping someone work on a press release. i don't know if the file was corrupt, but since then every time i try to use microsoft word, it crashes. it's difficult to know if the problem is linked to that file, but every time word launches, it opens that file, then crashes. i did a bunch of looking online, and found someone else was having this problem, and had identified that it was only on one user profile. so i checked my other one, and Word is working fine there. this is pretty aggravating. i'm confident that given enough persistence that i'll figure it out, but i was really hoping that i'd get it corrected tonight. i'm gonna need it if i get more freelance customers.

my mom is hoping to move into a condo in the next year or so, and while she condo-hunts she's sorting out her belongings to make the move easier. she was going through some old photos recently and throwing them out, so i told her "don't throw them out, give them to me". so today at sunday lunch, she had a stack of photos for me and a stack of photos for joy. i don't think i've seen photos of myself as a teenager in quite a while. it was interesting, because i think i was significantly more broody and sullen than i realized. brendan is very sweet, because he gets a lot of joy out of seeing old photos of me. the more awkward and anxiety the better. it seems funny, but any past boyfriends i had were not interested in old photos of me. but then again, most of them made me feel like they forgot about me when i left the room.

i've been thinking a lot lately (maybe because i was reading the book 'annabel') about gender-norms and expectations. i have never been a particularly feminine girl, although i wasn't quite a tomboy either. seeing those old photos of me, reminded me just how unfeminine i was/am. at one point, b pointed out that joy and i were so different. it's not that i was masculine, but most of the time i went for comfort over style. and still do a lot of the time. joy would be in her flowery clothes with her perm, and i would be in a dark sweatshirt with my straight hair hanging over my face. i was thinking recently about how i wore a grey and dark green hoodie for my grade 9 school photo. it made me think that i'm really well suited to sons. if i'd had a girly daughter, i would not have known what to do with her. i think this is partly why i think gender definitions are so useless. i feel that i am a woman, so therefore, anything i do is something "women do", and not the other way round.

rose: i love when it's my turn to sleep in. AND we got to visit the melles's new house, which was a treat. AND we went to lake ontario park this afternoon, where otis did a lot of WALKING in the playground (<3 <3 <3). AND we went to royal angkor to mark our 8 years as a couple.

thorn: this afternoon, i opened our washing machine, to put in a load, only to find last week's laundry still in it (but it had dried). i was so annoyed. how does that even happen :S

rose: i really like my new haircut. i got a trim about a week and a half ago. not in length, but i got my layers tidied up. it's funny, because usually i get my hair cut, and not just my layers. i don't know if i knew that was possible before. the hair stylist asked me if i wanted some off the length too, and that was the first time it occurred to me that i could keep it at it's current length, and still get my layers cut. anyway, i like it a lot. i'm finding that i've been wearing my hair down more often as a result.

thorn: there were lots of tired children tears around dinner time tonight. but thankfully a few laughs too.

rose: on tuesday evenings, éamon goes to awana at kingston alliance. it's a churchy version of scouts. since brendan has the car in napanee on tuesdays, i have to take him there on the bus, but joy drives him home (since she's picking up her kids too). it gives me roughly an hour to myself in the evenings, and that's been a real treat. i end up doing lame things like plan my grocery list, but it simply feels good having time and space to do that without having to multi-task. and i'm grateful that he is fine when i drop him off. i take that as a sign of healthy attachment.

thorn: as kids get older they have a larger circle of influence. and sometimes that circle exposes them to things we don't want. today a kid from school was telling eamon about the freddy kruger movies. thankfully, éamon didn't really understand what he was talking about, minus the words "knife" and "claws". it left me thinking about how i want to really emphasize anything good, anything lovely, anything admirable, and to keep anything grotesque, anything horrific, anything troubling, away from our general sphere of normal or entertainment. life has enough sad and awful things in it, we don't need to add more, especially in childhood.

rose: no one's childhood is perfect. but i have such fond, fond memories of playing as a kid. whether it was with my playmates (scott or jessica and alison) or with my sister, we played for hours in our basement. we played house and make-believe. we played with barbies, made forts, we rode around and around our circular-designed basement on roller-skates. we also played outside a lot. it was fun, and perhaps more importantly... it was relational. now, i know that things have changed, but, (at risk of sounding old fashioned,) there is nothing i would want more for my kids development than to give them to gift of endless fun and relational play. just like i had in the 80s. over the last week or so, but especially today, éamon and the after-school kids have played really well in our basement. they are making up games (often times silly and nonsensical) and using their imagination. it makes me really happy.

thorn: this time last year, otis spoiled and amazed us with how he could put himself to sleep. that did not last. i woke up very tired today. and it just kind of lingered. even after my nap, i still felt tired.

rose: today was a full day. it's the kind of day that when i look back at specific moments (my first time cooking at 'the next stage', buying the kids a slackline at value village, and that very intense church service), i won't remember that those things all happened on that same day. it was a good day. and even the church service that held many intense aspects (both beautiful and sorrowful) was still good. i felt good about how our team pulled together that meal at next stage. i was proud of brendan's leadership and competence, and of my boys who kept themselves busy.

thorn: i was thinking today about my current level of vulnerability. and i feel like i'm in quite a vulnerable phase of my life. i've recently ventured out into new undertakings, and i feel vulnerable without the regular positive feedback and affirmation of my former boss. i'm excited about doing freelance design work, but worry that my offerings won't match expectations or that i won't price my work properly. without bbd, i feel more financially vulnerable. i'm gladly making sacrifices to be more present with my kids, but worry that it might have a cost on me as an individual. travel is a part of my identity and something that makes me feel alive, what if we don't get to have our regular adventures? will it take a toll? and then there's the vulnerability of simply being a parent. vulnerable to small things beyond my control (like disrupted sleep), and big things (like their well-being). so ya. i guess it's not just today, but it was something that occurred to me today.

yesterday...

rose: it was brendan's birthday, and i made him a birthday gift. he is really into chopping wood for our wood stove, but he didn't have a hard surface to chop on. so i built him chopping block out of 4x4s. I was very excited, and had a hard time containing my excitement until gift time. I did end up giving him his gift early because I saw that he was chopping wood. he loves it and was extremely impressed that I'd built it myself :)

thorn: otis gave us a super hard time in the night. Brendan was deeply troubled by it. I wasn't bothered quite as much, but troubled by how it was affecting Brendan. I hope he gets to sleep late today.

rose: brendan and i have been watching this very well done ken burns documentary about the vietnam war. it's roughly 20 hours long, and is very in-depth. no topic from that era was left unexplored. we are history fans (not quite buffs, but we enjoy learning about history), and this has been highly educational. in addition, i've discovered that if i don't get under the covers on our bed while watching, i don't fall asleep. which is good news because i haven't been able to make it through a 2-hour movie for several years.

thorn: today i had to carry otis from the daycare to the bus, the bus to the school, from the school to our house in the rain, as a blister developed on my left ankle, while the stroller sat forgotten on our front porch.

rose: lately, i've been feeling a little more like a normal person around my house, and less like someone with small children. i think it's because otis is more and more toddler like all the time, and less like a baby. which means that he and éamon are playing together more. he is also napping better, so today, during the rainy part, while otis napped, the rest of us watched a movie together.

another rose: i'm also excited, because i've started planning our next vacation. we're gonna go to new york city next summer, and to find suitable accommodations, one has to start early. i think i've found us a great airbnb, and have been looking for age-appropriate activities, to make this one as great as our last trip (to mexico).

rose: for about two months, the google calender on the next church website has not been displaying. i have emailed the people who set it up, but no one has gotten back to me. so today, i decided i would just keep at it until i figured it out. thankfully, i have learned that if i stick with something long enough, i will eventually figure it out. and i did! i can't tell you how satisfying it was when i got it to display properly. no more error message! yay for tenacity.

rose: now that we're into october, i feel firmly established in our new routine. and i can confidently say, it's a good one. i'm really thankful. i do feel that every hour is occupied until 8 at night. it's full, but a good time of full.

thorn: eamon fell off his scooter the other day, and scratched up his face pretty badly. he's in rough shape. when i was a kid, i fell off my bike and scratched up my face about 4 times. so thankfully, i have personal experience that helps me not to worry when i see his damaged face. it has occurred to me though, that this isn't exactly normal, just because it happened to me a lot. we bumped into anne fisher at the grocery store, and she thought it was just marker at first. she looked quite surprised when i told her it wasn't.

rose: now that otis has adjusted to the care of other people at daycare, he's doing way better with being left with babysitters too. so this afternoon, we left our boys with their nana and papa, and went out on the town. we had lunch at le chien noir, went to the market, and walked around a little. i feel that the thing that characterizes our time without our kids is the absence of noise, movement and activity. it was so nice to be able to sit and wait for our food, making light yet enjoyable conversation.

thorn: sometimes in my weaker moments, i struggle with insecurity. when i'm not feeling confident, i misconstrue people's demeanor and assume that anything less than friendly is a sign of dissatisfaction with me. when i consider this, it's not only insecure, but also self-centred. i don't really know how to change this inner dialogue, but i know i can.