waiting day

Today I'm waiting around for Sam to get home. We dropped off my mom this morning and then had another hibernating day of playing at home. I may be a wuss, but I just don't like to go through all the work of bundling up for a walk when we'll both be frozen after a few minutes and come right back. But I think I am done hibernating now, so I'm glad it's supposed to be warmer tomorrow. Hopefully I can convince Sam to take his recovery nap while Lucy takes hers so I can go out for a bit.

Make music, Grandma!

Sam's flight is delayed until 11:30, and that's frustrating. My mom and I spent our evenings all week watching the BBC's adaptation of Bleak House, and we had to stay up till past 11 to finish it last night. After almost 9 hours, we couldn't just leave it! But thus I am tired and not excited to stay up past midnight. I'll go to bed with the phone, I suppose.

Have pockets, Grandma!

I probably should have left the house today, since we have a drop of milk, one egg, one banana, and a few apples in the fridge. That's possibly not the best welcome. Alas, it is too late now. But I might be able to scrounge up all the things to make this for breakfast, so perhaps I will be forgiven.

It's a tea party, Grandma!

It was fun to have my mom here this week. She was a Very Useful Engine and I have a vacuumed house and a SPARKLY kitchen. I also finished knitting Sam's toque and started on some legwarmers. We went to the conservatory and the quilt shop; she got her McNally Robinson fix while I was at my mom's group, and I got the chance to go to my midwife and chiropractor WITHOUT Lucy and sometimes that is just plain awesome. I'm really glad she came, otherwise this cold week would have been much longer. And Lucy (as you can see) had a great time with Grandma Plenert.

Learning free throws, Grandma!

So tonight I need to do something other than wallow in misery and eat chocolate chips. My pelvis/back/hips have been really REALLY bothering me still so I should try to loosen them up. I hate not being able to go for long walks. I should make popcorn so I don't remember that we buy chocolate chips in Costco bags and therefore have LOTS. I should probably watch a movie (maybe not a 9-hour one) and knit.

Have a nice weekend!

birthday scarf

For Sam's birthday I made him a scarf. He wanted it to be super long, so I didn't get it finished until a week after his birthday.

Suspicious Sam is Suspicious. 

And lo, it is super long. 

He requested a toque for Christmas, but sadly it's still a work in progress. Hopefully I'll have it done when he gets home from Florida, to help ease the transition.

one of those posts with no point

That weird looking thing is our brown sheepskin from Norway. It was put outside a week or so ago to air out and then neither of us brought it in. Now winter has arrived properly and it looks cold and frosty, sitting on our balcony covered in snow.

Last night Lucy was done sleeping at 5am so today is not full of lively boisterous fun. We went to our mom's group (first one of 2012, hooray!) and then to the chiropractor and then it was OVER. IT WAS OVER. Putting on her boots was wrong, putting on her coat was wrong, the sun was wrong, sunglasses were wrong, EVERYTHING WAS WRONG. She insisted on wearing pyjamas for naptime (do you really think I was going to argue with her at that point? Not so much) and we read a story and she got all tucked in with Maddy Bear, and not two minutes later the noise that erupted from her room was "NONONONONO MADDY BEAR NONONONONONO" so not even Maddy Bear was treating her properly. On the one hand, I know how she feels and I sympathize. On the other hand, oh my goodness child just get over it. On that third hand that I mysteriously grow in these circumstances, HAHAHA. Temper tantrums are hilarious. Really? You're mad because your hand is wet and slimy YET SIMULTANEOUSLY because I took your tomato away? 

She's soundly sleeping now and hopefully it will be a nice long nap to make up for last night. I took a nap yesterday so I've probably used my quota for the month, but since yesterday I also cleaned out two closets and overexerted myself, I am not doing anything this naptime anyway. I will drink tea and read or knit or something. 

Tomorrow my mom arrives for a week while Sam The Lucky Bum goes to Florida. To the Epcot Center. But it sounds way cooler than it is to those of us who don't work in his field because IN FACT he is going to Lotusphere and will be in sessions and things from 7:30am till 10pm with one night off to see Sea World. So, not like a vacation then. And he's really looking forward to learning all sorts of technology things that he will try to explain to me and I will try to understand.

Finally, it is grapefruit season and this pleases me immensely. Mmm grapefruit.

The Joy of Books

A bunch of my friends shared this on Facebook, but I'm blogging it for all you guys that aren't on FB and will LOVE this (especially Mom and Meribeth!). It makes me all happy in my brain parts.

The thing that sucks the most about depression/anxiety/mental illnesses of any kind is that they don't have an end date. It's worse than pregnancy, where the "due date" is such a laughable farce that groups of moms can go on about them for hours (for reals). Coming through a dark time is never quite as awesome as it could be, because even when you know all the coping mechanisms and you have all the strategies, you know that someday it will slip, you'll crack, life will change and throw you that one extra stupid little challenge that you weren't expecting and you'll be back sobbing on the bathroom floor with your personal poison swirling through your mind.

I read this today, from the Bloggess (she is kind of potty-mouthed and a bit crude in other posts, just so you're warned), and it really resonated with me. I'm not in the same place she is, I don't have the same issues, and I can promise you that self-harm is not on my radar at all. I don't consider my personal mental struggles to be that severe compared to a lot of people, but they're enough to make things pretty difficult some days. I've mentioned before that the post-Christmas season is always a struggle for me, whether I'm still a kid and the end of Present Season is just too hard to handle, or the lack of sunlight triggers Seasonal Affective Disorder. This year I'm finding it extra challenging because everything is exacerbated by these wretched pregnancy hormones, and I lost my groove and my giant list of coping mechanisms over the Christmas week. I'm so desperate to avoid a complete breakdown that I want to overhaul my eating AND my exercise AND my schedule AND my project list AND my house AND my social life all at once. Not helpful. But I've never been very good at putting one foot in front of the other; I sprint for a short spurt and then collapse in a heap of cramps.

But in the last few years, I've started to learn to take smaller steps. Running in a non-metaphorical sense helped a lot. I actually miss it right now and I'm looking forward to getting back into it once my body is ready postpartum (that gleeful whooping sound you hear is my dad). I know FOR A FACT that eating sugar, especially in candy and other high-processed forms, triggers anxiety for me, but that it's really difficult for me to cut back once I've been slacking. All my "challenges" (I'm running out of euphemisms here) have been around long enough that I can remind myself that the bad times pass and I can get out of bad habits. It's just that sometimes, like in January, the work involved seems too great and I feel trapped between misery and a mountain and I fall apart.

The deal with this stuff is that it's always in flux and always changing. I felt like the world was ending last night and this morning, but then the day was great. Then this evening I tried to do yoga but I'm pretty sure I have to give it up - it's just too painful this time around. I can't come up with a way to wrap this up nicely - I've been trying all afternoon and evening. I guess that's reflective of how it is. Depression never wraps up nicely with a "healed" label. It just hangs around, sometimes in the background, and sometimes it's the only thing in the picture. So there you are.

change

Oh January. Why do we always end up like this? I get ready for you, always hoping that this year will be different, but a few days in I feel the same as ever. Overwhelmed, disappointed, and wishing you were over. I have a big list of things I want to get done while you're here but I'm just sabotaging myself with all the bad habits I reinstated over the festive season. You just let it happen. What's with that? What I need is for you to say "Stop that. You're being foolish. It's not like chocolate chips even taste that good outside of cookies. Close your laptop and play with Lucy. Go for a walk, drink some tea, and cut yourself some slack to read Hunger Games and play Zelda during naptime. And for pity's sake, go to bed at 10 and not 11. You're exhausted."

Oh, alright. I get it. You're just a month of the year. I'm blaming you for my own follies and that's not fair. I need to say all those things to myself and recognize that the benefits of staying healthy far outweigh the momentary satisfaction of being a slacker. I've kicked my own butt before and I can do it again. Okay butt. Let's do this. January doesn't have to suck this year.

it's 2012, you say

The internet is full of recapping last year and looking ahead to next year and resolutions! and resolutions are stupid! and taking down Christmas trees and whatnot. Allow me to join the fray!

I actually didn't do that badly in 2011, even though the first half seemed rough. I started running and got in reasonable shape, did some fun travelling in the BC direction, gestated a second baby two-thirds of the way to birth, got a bit of a sewing/crafting habit back, and started my doula training. Plus, of course, continued to raise the best toddler in the history of toddlers.

That would be the pink one. Although the grey & orange one (Cousin Judah) is pretty awesome too.

I have lots of things that I hope will happen in 2012 - I hope I keep making stuff, because it makes me happy; I hope I continue to improve at eating healthfully, because I've made good progress there; I hope I get a good yoga practice going and start running again once I'm able to. But really, those can't count as resolutions because it would be unreasonable to have expectations beyond 2012: THE YEAR OF BABY2.

Check it out. There's a baby in there. Also, those are the jeans I SEWED while Lucy was away last week. They are my new favourite thing.

Today, right this very minute, I am super excited for Baby2 to be born, because heshe is plaguing me with the deadliest hip/back pain that not even my lovely chiropractor can fix. Oh boy am I not excited if this keeps up for the next three months. (FYI: since the third trimester tends to stop being "oh yay, pregnancy is fun and cute and happy" and is instead "this is really uncomfortable, awkward, and I feel like a whale" so expect more complaining, or just fewer posts.) Hence the hopes of getting on the yoga wagon, as mentioned above. 

So those are my thoughts on the year end/beginning. To close, I'm going to post some pictures of Lucy and Judah's completely awesome game of crokinole. TECHNICALLY, it should be played by taking turns, gently flicking the pieces (always sticking with your colour) towards the middle, and possibly some adult displays of disappointment when your piece doesn't drop into the 20-point circle, or your awesome shot is squarely removed by the other player. What actually happened was wild arm flails with pieces of any colour, squeals of glee, and this:

Happy new year, friends.