Getting to Know You

Baby Dilemma # 7

There are four knitted baby dresses hanging in the closet that may or may not ever actually be worn. There are 12 tiny t-shirts and 7 little long-sleeve shirts, 5 miniscule sweaters, and 3 bitty sweatshirts of varying hues in the dresser draws. There are more pairs of teeny jeans in those same drawers than there are in my own dresser. And yet, I can't stop buying clothes for Kate, because everything is either incrediably cute or totally cool. I mean, who could possibly pass up a black t-shirt that says "I Don't Do Pink" that is made for a baby? Who could walk passed sparkle jeans that are only 7 inches long? Or a purple top that has "SPARKLE" embroidered in crazy lettering across the chest? And then there is the stuff you think you may NEED and the stuff you simply WANT. How do I differentiate between the two? Should I bother? And now I have to decide what snowsuit to get if any...not too bulky, not white, not to bright, not too big, not too small, something with feet, something with mitts, something that matches the cool polar-fleece hat I bought in July (it's soooo cute, it's got four tassles on the top and it's purple and pink and white and blue).

Meanwhile, in six months, I may very well be returning to work completely naked since I don't bother buying clothes for myself.

Anybody Want a Cat? Or a Dog?

Sometimes I just want to get rid of every pet and never think about animals again. I've always loved animals and when I was a kid, I wanted to be a veternarian. I grew up with pets and have had at least one pet almost my entire adult life. At the present time, I have two dogs, a cat and three fish. I've written about my cat before and I can't say my attitude towards him has changed much. I was outside enjoying a smoke (oh, don't EVEN start with the "I thought you quit") and the cat came up, all purry and friendly and we had a nice little chat, he and I. I scratched between his ears and he let me. I thought we were friends. Well. Yesterday, I dared to fall asleep with the babe while watching The Great Muppet Caper. By the time I woke up, the chicken I put out for dinner was gone. Brad said there was a little hunk left on the floor and when I blamed the cat, he said, "It looked like they all had a go at it." Which is probably true, the cat would have dragged it out of the sink and the when he knocked it to the floor, the dogs would have moved in for the kill. And to add insult to injury, because it was raining, Cosmo, the pug, decided that he was too special to get wet and peed on my floor. I swear I slept for a maximum of thirty minutes.

And it doesn't even end there. I stupidly, I admit it, left butter on the counter. We never have butter because margerine is always soft and easier to use, whereas butter needs to be left out to soften and we don't have a proper butter dish. You may ask why I need a proper butter dish when I can use a little plate and I will tell you why: because when you wake up in the morning, the little plate has been licked clean of all that buttery goodness!

Damn the cat!

My Manipulative Little Nut

Sometimes I call Kate a nut. Sometimes I think she is manipulating me, so today I've decided she's a manipulative nut. Just as I sat down to write about how I was actually able to shower today, I heard Kate begin to cry. She used to wake up happy and babbling, but ever since she learned to roll over, she wakes up, rolls onto her stomach and begins to cry. So I hear her cry this aft and sure enough, she's on her tummy. By this time she was sucking contentedly on her blanket and wasn't crying anymore. I laughed at her and said, "Ok my love, it's time to roll back on your back all by yourself" and to my surprise and delight, she DID! I laughed again and told her how brilliant she was and walked out of the room to get some leave-in conditioner to put in my hair.

I had hardly turned my back and she started BAWLING, like I'd told her that I was never coming back and she had to live in the crib forever. You could tell she was using real tears and everything, she was crying so hard. So I come back in, still massaging the conditioner in my hair and I say, "My silly nut, I love you, I'll be one sec and you can get out of the crib!" in a sickeningly bright and cheery voice to show her my sincerity. She continued to cry so I put my face right down to her face and kissed her nose and she stopped crying as abruptly as a faucet being turned off. Then I stood straight again and she started to scream, like she couldn't believe I'd leave her AGAIN. By this time I was done with the hair and I picked her up and kissed her tears and laughed at her and told her she was a crazy nut and she stopped crying so fast, she hiccuped. Then she started to laugh. The tears were still wet in her eyes and she's laughing her ass off.

Now I can't decided if she genuinely needed some mummy loving, or if she's just checking to see how fast I'll come when she cries.

They Grow Up So Fast

This Kate checking out the mirror in my bedroom. She is five and half months old and already practicing how to kiss! She slobbered all over my mirror!

A Little Bit About Me

1.MY FAVORITE BREAKFAST IS? Mini-wheats with the milk soaked in a bit

2. THE MOVIE I'VE WATCHED MOST NUMBER OF TIMES?Forrest Gump, I still cry at the part when he's on the platform talking about Vietnam and Jenny calls "Forrest!!" and they run towards each each through the water. It doesn't matter how many times I see it!

3. SPEND MY LEISURE TIME WITH? Leisure time? What is this thing they call leisure time?

4. IF I COULD HAVE ANY CAR IN THE WORLD,WHAT WOULD IT BE? A red Jeep Wrangler

5.FAVORITE HOUSEHOLD CHORE? None, that's why they're called chores.

6. WHEN I WAS A KID I DREAMED OFBECOMING? A Veterinarian.

7. FAVORITE COLORS? Red, black (and don't comment that black isn't a colour, I'm AWARE)

9. WHEN I DIE, I'D RATHER BE CREMATED OR BURIED? Cremated

10. IF I COULD REPEAT COLLEGE, I'D TAKE? Well, since I'm currently a student, I don't think this question applies, but if I could take anything in the world and it didn't matter how long it took, I'd go back in time and be a veterinarian.

11. THINGS I CAN'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT? My baby.

12. FIRST THING I BOUGHT WITH MY FIRSTSALARY? My first pair of black, eight-hole Docs.

13. I'D LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED AS? A fun person who told good stories.

14. IF A BOOK WAS MADE INTO A MOVIE,WOULD YOU STILL BOTHER TO READ THE BOOK? Yup! I've probably read it before it was made into a movie . Everyone knows the book is almost always better than the movie!

15. SPECIALTY IN COOKING? Um, Chili? Cooking's not really my thing!

16. FIRST CRUSH? This boy named Terry and his girlfriend laughed her ass off when she found out and said WHY?

17. FAVORITE HANG-OUT? My very own house!

18. BEST PLACE TO SHOP? Old Navy (baby section of course!)

19. DO YOU LIKE TO WATCH PLAYS? Not especially. We used to go to Stratford with Brad's parents and once all four of us fell asleep! Alice Through the Looking Glass was pretty good!

20. FAVORITE PLACE IN YOUR HOUSE? My baby's room.

21. BEST GIFT YOU'VE GIVEN? My digital camera from my family (but mostly from Brad)

22. WEIRDEST GIFT YOU RECEIVED? A porcelain rooster. Don't ask.

23. GIFT THAT YOU WANT TO RECEIVE AS OF THIS MOMENT? A new car, LOL

24. WHAT TIME IS IT? 10:23 A.M

25. HOW MANY DIFFERENT CITIES HAVE YOU LIVED IN? Three

26. YAHOO OR MSN? msn!!!

27. LEFT OR RIGHT? Right

28. BLACK OR WHITE? Black

29. BLACK OR BLUE PEN? Black pen

30. SANDALS OR SHOES? Docs!

31. COLGATE OR CREST? Wait a sec, I have to check...Colgate.

32. FLOSS OR TOOTHPICK? Floss

34. ROBOCOP OR RAMBO? Robocop

35. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? Chocolate

36. COKE OR PEPSI? Coke

37. FAVOURITE TV SHOW? Grey's Anatomy

38. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Cory

39. LAST PERSON WHO TXTED YOU? Andrea

40. LAST PERSON WHO MADE YOU LAUGH? The baby

41. LAST PERSON WHO MADE YOU CRY? The baby (LOL)

42. LAST TIME YOU CRIED? I don't remember, last month?

43. YOU SEE ME ALWAYS EATING? Chocolate

A Bonefide Tooth

It happened. I put a finger in my baby's mouth and felt a tooth! We had company last night, my friend  came with her daughter who is just over a year older than Kate, her husband and a couple other friends.

I was so excited about the tooth, I called my mom after Kate went to bed and left a message about her tooth. Today I have all these mother fears about this new development. I have to brush her teeth now! And what if she bangs her little tooth and chips it? What if she cuts her lip on it? Gawd! Motherhood is so immensely satisfying, but it comes with all these crazy questions. Someone once told me the minute you find out you're pregnant, you begin to worry and you never stop worrying from that moment on. I'm not a super-paranoid mom, I think I'm pretty laid back, but it's hard not have a few fears.

Today I went to my friend's baby's baptizism. There were about 12 babies being baptized and it seemed a little assembly-line to me, but whatever. I sat with a mutual friend and we whispered to each other through the service, which seemed a little sacrilegious, but it was so boring. Kate was really good, she had on her little fairy dress and she made a few whooping noises, but basically she sat on my knee and swung her legs the entire time. She also spent a good part of the time flirting with the men!

I don't think, if there is a God, he/she would be so cruel as to doom a child to Purgatory just because its parents didn't get it baptized. When Kate is older and she decides this is something she wants, we will support her, but I just don't believe in baptisms for babies.

My baby has a tooth!

I Made a Quilt

I made a quilt. I'm very happy with it, as it's my first try and it turned out really well. Now I'm going to tackle a big quilt. I decided I'm going to do the whole thing in corduroy, I can't wait to start it, it's going to look so cool!

I would post a picture of the quilt, but I've tried three times and it won't upload, so I give up!

Baby Okay

Kate is fine. The bump on her head went away by the next day and she's acting totally normal. Then, OF COURSE, today, she was on the floor, playing under her 'gym' and she rolled over. She was very proud of herself and I clapped and told her what a good girl she was. Usually I roll her back after a few minutes so she can do it again (and not get too frustrated from being on her stomach for too long), but I left her on her tummy for a bit to see if she would try to roll back herself. Instead, she concentrated on chewing on the side of the gym. Well, the little tyke is pretty strong and she pulled the whole thing right over and the hard toys that are dangling from it hit her in the head! More bumps in the noggin for the poor girl. She started howling, but when I picked her up and walked her to my room, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and smiled. So she was obviously okay, but my, you would have thought the world was ending!

I'm making a quilt based on a style of quilt that a friend gave me before Kate was born. I was going to make a big one (72 in x 72 in) but I decided to start with a small one (36 in x 36 in) and see how it goes. It's going to be mostly light pink flannel with a bit of white flannel or maybe corduroy. If it turns out well, I'm going to make the big one, but I haven't decided what colours yet. Probably dark colours with a bit of black mixed in. Like navy blue, burgundy, dark purple. Mmmmmmm. I like it already. And really rich, soft fabrics. I'll post a pic of the small one when it's finished. I think I can start sewing it tomorrow when my mom drops off the sewing machine.

Wow. What a boring post.

Kate is in bed for the night, but I just heard an unearthly cry from the other room. I'm going to ignore it for the moment. After I put her to bed tonight, she started to cry really hard about ten minutes later, which she rarely does. I think she woke up disoriented because she had fallen asleep while I was nursing her. Imagine how that must feel, to be in the warm and comfortable safety of your mother's arms, with a boob in your mouth and the next thing you know, you are in a crib by yourself. Anyway, I picked her up and held her for a few minutes and put her back to bed and she went off to sleep almost instantly. Crazy kid. This book I have says they should be awake when you put them to bed because then, when they wake up in the middle of the night, there is no shock of "Where the HELL am I?" and they can happily drift off to sleep again.

I talked to my neice yesterday and I asked her if she goes to beach in Vancouver and if she swims in the ocean, or if it's too polluted being in the city. She said, "Yeah, we go to the beach, but no, I don't swim in the ocean, yuck, it's all full of that seawater." How can you NOT laugh at that?

The Very Worst Mother Ever

I need to purge my soul because today I did a very stupid thing. I left Kate on the couch to grab her toy and she rolled off, hit her head on the coffee table and landed on her back on the floor. Thankfully it was in the basement, on the carpet, instead of upstairs on the hardwood, but the results are pretty much the same I think. The poor girl cried harder and longer than she's ever cried before, it took about ten minutes to calm her down. Long enough that I began to think she was seriously injuried anyway. Then she seemed fine, just hiccuping a little the way kids do when they've had a good cry. I had her on my lap, holding her hands so she could watch TV. She seems to like it and it makes her calm. That's when I noticed the red bump on her head and realized that she hadn't just fallen a couple feet to the ground, but had actually hit her little wee head on the wooden coffee table. That's when I started to panic. I thought of the times I had concussions as a kid and how I'd had to go the hospital. Kate's fall happened after the doctor's office closed and I didn't know what to do. Do I rush her to Emergency because of a bump on the head? Can I be too cautious about head injuries? Did she hit her head hard enough to cause an aneurism? Do I watch too much TV? Just how serious is this bump? I called my doctor's office anyway, just in case there was an after-hours number to call. By that time, I think my panic had transferred to Kate because she started to cry again and I couldn't hear the number. I noticed that another mom friend had called on my cellphone when I was looking up my doctor's number, so I called her. She gave me the number of Telehealth Ontario and she was really sweet and told me not to worry and asked me if I needed anything, if I wanted to go there (to her house) and she assured me that it happens all the time and I'm not an idiot and I'm not a bad mother.

But I am. I'm so careless. I KNOW these things happen, but they shouldn't happen to me. I'm an intelligent, caring mother, I know how to do things and take care of things. But I rush and I do stupid things too. I just feel so fricking bad. My poor baby's head.

Telehealth was pretty good. They asked a lot of questions, many of which I was able to answer no (is there broken skin, does the baby's neck seem stiff, is there blood coming from the ears or nose). I felt better after talking to the RN, better in that my daughter will most likely be just fine, but just as stupid in that I let it happen in the first place.

I don't know if I feel better after writing it down. I keep hearing the thud of her little body and seeing her on the ground with this completely stunned look on her face. And hearing her cry and cry with pain and shock. I know kids get hurt all the time and are totally fine, but this time it was from my own negligence and I can't forget that.

I definitely don't feel better.

Kate and the Mystery of the Wasps

I have a friend with an acute fear of spiders. I'm not too worried about spiders particularly, but I certainly can relate when it comes to wasps. Everyone says to hold still and they will fly around you and then buzz off, but everytime one of those suckers comes near me, I look like a marionette gone crazy. Try as I might to keep my cool, I freak out every time.

Which brings me to my story: Last week I was at the baby's change table, changing her diaper when I noticed a wasp buzzing around the window. It was one of those big suckers too, I think they're called yellow jackets. I was almost done the diaper and I hastily finished up, put the baby in her crib and found a board book to smoosh the wasp with. The wasp crumbled and fell behind the change table and all I could think of was Andrea's blog entry about the spider she thought she killed in her daughter's room, only to discover it crawling around again, hours later (minus some legs). I cautiously peered over the change table and spied the wasp curled on the ground and motionless. I stared for a good five minutes, just to be sure, but it didn't move. I gloated a little over my cool-headedness in ridding myself of the terrible little beastie and left the corpse where it lay. I'm a terrible housekeeper at the best of times, but I wasn't picking that thing up until it was an empty shell, if I could help it. The reason for this is quite simple. When I was ten, I was swatting wasps in our houseboat and unknowingly knelt on some of the bodies. I was stung three times in quick succession and after screaming bloody blue murder, my dad came running and when he found out the cause of my freak out, he told me that wasps often sting out of self-defense when they're dying. A last-ditch effort if you will. Anyway, I wasn't taking any chances with this wasp. Let it stay on the floor and dry up. No one can see it behind the table anyway.

I briefly wonder where it had come from, but figured that it got in from the patiodoor being open downstairs and flew around my house for awhile before meeting its fate in the window of my daughter's bedroom. I didn't give it much more thought than that.

This week, I was again changing my daughter's diaper (oh, will the dirty diapers ever stop?) and there was ANOTHER WASP in the window. Unfortunately, I was just starting to change the diaper and Kate's at that wonderful stage where it's fun to twist around while I try vainly to attach a fresh diaper. She recently succeeded in rolling over, back to front, and I think she was practising. Anyway, it took longer than normal to put this diaper on and the whole time, I'm trying to keep one eye on the wasp and one eye on the diaper. This is even more difficult than it sounds, given the squirminess of my kid at the time. Finally I got the diaper on, after a few pleas with my daughter the lay still, and I put her in her crib. I can't say that my heart was pounding, even for theatrical purposes, but I WAS sweating a bit. And not for my own pansy ass either, I was more worried the damn thing would land on Kate and give her a jab. And in this day and age with kids dying at the smell of peanuts and carrying around needles to save them from bees, I have daymares about her getting stung and dying in my arms before I even know what happened. Anyway, I grabbed the same board book and flattened this wasp too. It fell on the window ledge, in the track of the window. I left that one there too. I learned my lesson when I was ten.

Now my question is this: Where are these damn wasps coming from??? I have a small nest in a roof peak at the front of my house, but surely they haven't made their way from there INTO my house, have they?

I Made a Sign

A friend of my mum's bought me wooden letters for a name sign for my kid's room. So I made a sign. It glows in the dark. I need a glass dragonfly to finish it off, but do you think I could find one? I searched the entire downtown St. Jacobs area but nothing. I would have settled for glass ladybugs, but nadda. I KNOW I've seen little glass ladybugs somewhere, but don't ask me where. Maybe Hallmark? Anyway, I'm exhausted.

People Are Weird

My attached neighbours are crazy (although, I'm starting to think I'm the crazy one, since I find so many people strange, maybe it's not THEM, but ME). We moved here two years ago. My first impression of my neighbour was that she was a grumpy, old bitch because I cheerily waved hello to her on my first day in the 'hood and after giving me a dirty look, she completely ignored me. I thought, "Huh, glad I moved out of the ghetto for this." Anyway, she soon improved and has been mostly nice to me and my husband. She has a 20 year-old daughter who is tall, fit and pretty (although only with makeup and she definitely has cankles), she also had a boob job last summer, so except for her ankles, she's a real fox. I jokingly warned Brad not to get too friendly, or better yet, pretend he is blind when she's around. I told the mother that her daughter was so pretty and I'd told my husband to stay away from her, ha ha ha. We've had some uncomfortable incidents, but mostly it's been live and let live.

 For instance, last summer, an hour before we had to leave for my mum's birthday dinner, this neighbour comes over and asks Brad to help her with her satelite. I should have told her he was in the shower, but he wasn't I couldn't lie that fast and anyway, he ends up helping her. I'm waiting inside, getting madder and madder because it's my MUM's birthday and we had to get going. It's brutally hot, so Brad's going to have to shower before we go and time's ticking away here. Finally, I go over to see how things are going and Brad's like, could you stand on the front porch and ask her if it's clear yet, because I'm around the side of the house and I can't hear her. So I tell her that I'm going to relay to Brad and she's like, "Oh, I just took the card out and restarted the system, it's going to take a minute." Oh my God, I could barely contain my anger, but I took a deep breath and said, "Um, ok, well, it's my mum's birthday tonight and we sort have dinner plans and we really have to go and Brad still needs to shower, so um, would it be alright if we do this tomorrow? Or even just, later? I thought it was only going to be a few minutes and it's been 30 and we really have to get going." And she comes stomping out of her house, calls around the side of the house, "Brad, your wife wants you to go, I will just get my friend to do it next week. I can wait for my friend to do it. Your WIFE wants to leave" Like, I'm this horrible bitch for having a life. I mean, she just stopped by on a Friday night and expected us to be twiddling our thumbs. She's just a complete piece of work, this woman. And of course it's "Brad" to him and 'Your wife" to me. Bitch.

So, a few weeks ago, she and her next door neighbours decide to build a fence. Brad was going to help, but he's been working at his shed and he was busy with that and they had about seven people working on their fence, so they really didn't need us. And honestly, when we did our fence last year, she didn't help us or give us money, so why would we help when it's not even our fence? And besides the fact we also have a four-month-old infant to care for. Anyway, after the fence is built, my neighbour and her daughter stopped talking to both Brad and I. We couldn't figure it out, except that we didn't help. We didn't really even care to be honest, she's such a bitch, it was a relief not talking to her. Then I find out from another neighbour that they are definitely mad about us not helping. Oh well, fuck 'em. Life is way too short to worry about keeping people like that happy.

Oh, but wait! That's NOT why they don't like us. The REAL reason? Because, two years ago, when we first moved and I made that joke about Brad staying away from her daughter? She took that as me telling her that her daughter is a slut. Why on earth would I say that to a virtual stranger? Hi, please to meet you, I noticed your daughter is a slut. The neighbour that told me this assured her that I only meant that her daughter was pretty.

Mum says it should be a lesson to me not to joke around with people I don't know very well. But I think it's more of a lesson that if I joke around with someone and they completely misunderstand and take offense, then they are not the type of person I want as a friend. If I can't be ME than why bother?

What JK Rowling Says About Trying to Be Thin

I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter books and one day, while idly searching for the translation to Hogwarts school's motto (Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon), I came across the official JK Rowling Website . There are a lot of interesting little facts there and I have to say, it's quite a fun website. Just what you would expect from JK Rowling, it's got a magical touch. The website has an 'Extras' section where I found Rowling's rant about the Western obsession to be skinny. If you click on the hairbrush, then the Miscellaneous tab and then "For Girls Only, Probably.." Part of it reads: "I mean is 'fat' really the worse thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring', or 'cruel'?...I don't want [my daughters] to be empty headed, self-absorbed emanicated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny - a thousand things before 'thin'."

Well said JK, well said.

I want to look at you again for the first time

So--I'm a wee but tipsy at the moment.
But
I haven't been drunk for over a year and I deserve this, dammit.
My daughter, my four-month-old daughter, is asleep in the next room and I went in to look at her. I felt guilty, being around her while I'm drunk. But I told her I loved her and she woke up a little and looked at me, her eyes closed again, but she grasped my finger and held on. She loves me even if, at the moment, I'm unfit to be a parent. She loves me. That's all that really matters.
She is beautiful and I MADE her. I still can't believe that. If it weren't for me, she wouldn't exist.
Which brings me to my next point. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. Some I regret and some I don't, but I realize, as I look at her, that I can't really regret any of them, because they brought me to this perfect moment of creation. How can anyone regret that?
There is a person in the other room who is small, helpless, perfect. Mine. I can't believe it. Tomorrow I will be the perfect parent and I will wake up (hung over or not) and change her diaper (and maybe her PJs) and hold her and love her and know that it is normal to be this blown away. Tomorrow I will realize that ALL parents feel this way. But tonight, it's mine and it's a miracle.
Who says drunk people don't talk sense?

Soooooo busy

Make that TIRED! On Thursday, my mom, my niece, my daughter, my mom's friend and I went to Niagara Falls to see the falls, Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum and Dracula's Haunted House. We also looked in about a million shops and ate at Boston Pizza. Then Friday it was the African Lion Safari with my Dad, my niece and my daughter. That was fun, but my dad was tired and boring and I think it would have been more fun with my mom, who can be too structured at times, but at least you get to see a lot of cool stuff when you're with her. Then Saturday it was the famous local Farmer's Market and the Market Factory Outlet Mall. My husband came with us that time and he entertained my niece by making jokes and teasing her the whole time. I think she is quite taken with him...she giggles like mad everytime he opens his mouth. He scoffs when I tell him that he is the heart's desire of many little girls, he is sure that at the most, they think, oh he's cute for an old guy. So modest, that boy. Anyway, Saturday night we had a fire in the backyard and my friend brought the stuff for S'mores and the kids made S'mores until they were sticky, smoky, dirty, and exhausted. Then Sunday it was to Toronto with my husband, niece and daughter to see the CN Tower and go to the Eaton Centre.

OH
MY
GOD.
I'm so tired, you have no idea.

But today is my niece's last day and in two hours my mom will be here to pick me and my daughter up to drive my niece to the airport. I'm sad because it will be at least a year before I see her again. She lives in BC and we live in ON, so it's not like we get to just pop over whenever.

A tiny part of me is relieved because I can get my life back to normal and not worry about where I'm going to nurse my baby, change her, travel with her etc. I mean, I'll pretty much whip it out anywhere at this point, but I need to be comfortable and I'm not very good at it, so I need pillows and stuff and there are just times when feeding her is impossible. I did, however, sit in the movie at the Ripley's museum and feed her and to hell with the public! Very liberating.

Actually, I was just thinking of all the weird places I fed her this week:
At the TO airport, picking up my neice, in the Marketplace restaurant in Niagara Falls, at the Ripley's Museum, on the grass in front of the pony ride at the African Lion Safari, on a GO bus, on a bench on the third floor of the Eaton Centre (where, I might add, two women gave me dirty looks and one woman came and joined me with her 8 month old daughter, that was actually kind of cool)and at the TO airport again, dropping off my neice.

Gotta go, I have to shower!

Baby Dilemma #94

It's 8 in the morning and currently 26 degrees celsius but feels like 36 degrees with the humidity factor. The high is expected to be an actual 36 degrees, so what will the humidity make it feel like by that point? I think it'll feel like we are melting. Or swimming in our own lungs. There is actual condensation on the outside of my windows. I felt like I'd opened the over door when I let the dogs outside this morning, a blast of heat so thick and strong struck me in the face, I had to gasp for breath. I hope they don't mind spending the day inside because I don't think they can't pant fast enough to cool down today. Even with the air condiditoning turned down to 22 degrees, I'm still sweating when I attempt even the slightest activity. It's the part of summer were you don't want to have sex, not because you're too tired, but because the thought of touching another human being at this point makes you feel like vomiting. Even holding my husband's hand while lying in bed this morning caused me to break out in a sweat. So what do you do when your child is four months old and can't do anything or go anywhere unless you carry her?

No Rabbits and One Pissed Cat

This morning, thankfully, there were no rabbits, dead or otherwise, in my backyard. However, the cat was perched on one of the patio chairs and gave me what I interpreted as a scathing look. It was akin to the look Brad Pitt's character on Friends gives to Rachel: I HATE YOU. If only the cat had lips, I'm sure he would mouth those exact words. I'm pretty sure he is going to sneak in the house and murder me in my bed some night soon. He usually spends the day inside, sleeping in some corner and then he goes out at night to prowl around and terrorize the local fauna. In fact, one of the rules in our house is that the cat goes out before we go to bed because he ALWAYS decides at about 1:00 am that he MUST go outside NOW and he meows until one of us (me) wakes up and lets him out. It drives me crazy and to those who actually know me, you are well aware that I don't take kindly to being woken up, by man or beast.

Anyway, yesterday, which was hot and muggy, I did not let the cat in. I didn't want his dead rabbit germs in my house or near my baby. He repeatedly came to the patio door and meowed pitiously to be let in, but I held firm and ignored him. I left him out all night too and I'm pretty sure it rained most of last night. Hence the reason I believe he hates me and has become determined to murder me. It's not just paranoia, I saw what he did to those rabbits.

Which reminds me of a story that taught me the dangers of exaggeration. When I was a little girl, I had pet mice. Two white mice named Max and David, David being named after my brother. I'm not sure if this was meant as a dig because my brother was small for his age, or if it was because I hero-worshipped him when I was little, you can decide.

Anyway, one tragic day, David decided that he would squeeze through his metal bars and explore the house. Unfortunately for David, there were also in residence two cats, called Amber and Willow. I tend to think it was Amber who ate David, she was a bit of a crazy cat. I discovered David, or what was left of him, the next morning, sicked up by one of the cats on my kitchen floor. All that was left was a tail, an ear and various guts. I was obviously very upset by this turn of events and I went off to school in tears. I told my best friend, Anna, about what had happened and another girl, Ashley*, overheard and said, "Your cat ate your little mouse David? That's sad, but how did he get out of the cage?" So I explained that he must have flattened himself enough to squeeze through the bars of the cage.

I went home later that day and told my mom about my conversation, but I thought it was kinda boring, so I embellished it a little and said that Ashley actually exclaimed, "Your cat ATE your BROTHER?" and my mom started laughing so hard, she had tears in her eyes and when she could do more than a funny little hiccuping noise, she gasped, "Is Ashley retarded? Does she think we keep tigers in our backyard?" I was satisfied with the result of my lie. I didn't care that it made Ashley look dumb (I didn't like her anyway), I was glad that I'd made my mom laugh. But then, THEN, she proceeded to repeat the lie to other people, with, I might add, great glee at Ashley's stupidity. I used to shrink back when she told this story, feeling guilty because I had knowingly lied to my own mother and in doing so HAD MADE MY MOTHER A LIAR! Well, ok, technically, she wasn't a liar because she was telling the story as she had heard it, but there she was, innocently telling this story, this complete LIE, that I had totally made up and she BELIEVED me. And that, my friends, is where the real sting lay. I had lied to my mom and she believed me because I had never before given her a reason not to believe me.

So now I was facing a conundrum. How do I tell my mom the truth without making her feel dumb for believing me? Especially after she had told about a million people? And in revealing to her what a huge liar I was, would I also become, in her eyes, exactly like my crazy, story exaggerating father?

You know what I did?

I never told her.

We're all much happier this way. Fuck being honest with each other. I mean, I do believe honesty is the best policy and I really do try to be honest most of the time. But sometimes, a little white lie pops out. And most of the time, it really doesn't matter, no one was hurt, it's a little secret for myself, you know, no harm harm, no foul. But other times, well, I tell a little bitty lie and suddenly EVERYONE gets to hear it and poor little girls like Ashley get slandered left, right and centre.

The morals of this story are: Don't keep mice in wire cages because they can become very, very flat and slip through the wire and get eaten by cats. Plastic aquariums are much better. Oh, and don't tell great big whoppers about girls named Ashley to your mother.

*some names have been changed to avoid embarrassment.

Dead Rabbits

My cat is singlepawedly getting rid of all the rabbits in my back yard. Yesterday, there was a full-grown dead rabbit on my back lawn. The head was there and the back legs were there and the middle was missing and there were guts strewn all over the place. It was like the zombie apocalypse with rabbits. Today, there was a baby rabbit on my patio, at the foot of the steps. Only the back half was left and there were once again guts everywhere. It was so disgusting I told the cat that I hated him and to fuck off and never come home. He didn't listen, but I wouldn't let him in the house. Tomorrow, if there is another dead rabbit in my yard, I'm taking a picture and posting it on this blog. Then no one will blame me when I kill the cat.

I only have one more thing to say; how the fuck does he eat the head?

This Kid Makes Me Laugh

As I said before, I know that I'm biased, but how freakin' cute is that?

Ok, am I the only one who thinks it's totally awesome that someone in Italy signed my blog and actually reads it? Sadly, I checked out her blog and it's written (obviously) in Italian so I couldn't read it, but I did sign her guestbook, or leave a comment or whatever Blogger calls it.

I'm hungry.

Today I went to see my dad. He is a little weird. I once said to a Jewish boy that my dad looked like Moses and he said "Oh, he looks like a Jew, does he?" Which flustered me to no end. I was sixteen, had no idea that Moses was a Jew, no idea that Jews had a 'look' and I just knew I had made a faux pas, even if I wasn't exactly sure what it was yet. Any answer was sure to insult this guy and that wasn't my intent. I was horribly embarrassed (and truth be known, I still am, 13 years later) and I mumbled something about, "What? Um, no, I mean, uh, I didn't think Jews had a 'look'." I was trying to be PC, you know, What!? There is no difference between you and I, we are just the same, I see no difference, I am much too liberal to see a difference. And the guy was indeed insulted, and retorted, "Of course Jews have a 'look'!" He was scandalized. I honestly thought that Judaism was purely a religion and that anybody could be a Jew if they chose. I didn't think of them as a "people" or a "race" until I was a little older. My mother looked at me in horror when I told her the story and said, "Well, yes, it IS a religion and anyone can convert, I suppose, to Judaism, but they definitely started out as a seperate race. I mean, my God lovey, what do you THINK Moses meant when he said, 'Let my people go!'?" This conversation did nothing to relive my embarrassment. When I was five, my best friend was a Jew and I didn't think she looked any different than me. But I was five, so what do I know?

That story reminds me of another, when I was 17. I was taking summer school and I was telling my girlfriend a funny story about this guy I hung out with that summer. We were talking about food and he said he'd never eaten bacon before and I was astounded, I asked him what rock he'd been living under to never have eaten bacon. He laughed and said, "Peaches, I'm Muslim, I don't eat pork" and I was, again, embarrassed at my faux pas. Anyway, I was telling this girl in my class about it and I said, "I didn't even know he was Muslim, I mean, he doesn't LOOK Muslim!" And this girl behind me, she gets all mad and says, "Exactly what are Muslims supposed to look like?" and there I was again, totally embarrassed, I had just insulted this girl without even meaning to. And later that day I had another cringe-worthy conversation with my mother, "Well, lovey, of course she was mad, Muslims don't have to LOOK like anything, it's a religion, anyone can be a Muslim." Gee thanks for clearing that up. So there, I thought Judaism was just a religion and had nothing to do with race and that Muslims were a certain race of people and had nothing to do with religion.

And who do I have to blame for all this embarrassment and cringing?

I like to blame my Dad. My Dad is an Atheist and raised us as Atheists. He took it further though and often ridiculed organized religion and painted religious people like fanatics, which made us reluctant to explore religion. I have often lamented this because I'm so very ignorant about religion. I don't think being closed-minded about people's beliefs is any better than being a religious fanatic. It's just closed-minded in a different way. Most of what I know now is just stuff I've picked up from books and class and stuff, but I'd like to take a course on religion, just to learn about the different kinds.

Anyway, I did, at least, know who Moses was even if I never picked up on the fact that he was Jewish (how embarrassing when he's, like, the LEADER of the Jews). I even knew that he lead the Hebrews (Hebrews are Jews?) away from Egypt and across the Red Sea after he miraculously parted it. Which isn't red at all, by the way. I only know all this because my mom liked to watch the Ten Commandments at Easter time. And I always thought my dad looked like Moses. Now I realize that he just looks like Charleton Heston in a wig.

Anyway, my dad and I had a surprisingly nice visit. We went to the local park and walked around and then we sat on a bench near the water and talked about whether the geese would make a good meal. We decided they would. We also decided that everyone should slaughter a Canada Goose on Canada Day and eat it for dinner. Because there are about 80 million of them and only 30 million of us. We'd hardly make a dent in the population and our parks wouldn't be so covered in goose shit.

If you can't tell, my Dad smokes a lot of weed and I used to, so we have strange conversations. K fell asleep in her Snugli while we walked so she was happy too.

I still haven't smoked and it's getting easier, although not smoking makes me feel like I'm forgetting something all the time. Like, I'll clean the bathroom and usually I'd go out for a smoke after (to reward myself on a job well done), now I don't smoke, but I feel like I'm missing something, like the job isn't complete. The feeling eventually goes away.