More party, less business.

- I promise to no longer use a certain Bon Jovi song no matter how relevant it feels in my post titles. I'm sorry. I overdid it. I will try better to be better. Thank you for your forgiveness and understanding as I work through this character flaw.

- I hate walking down hallways at work. When you're walking down a hallway and someone is coming towards you, where are you supposed to look? At your feet? At the wall? The ceiling? Directly into the person's eyes and, by extension, their soul? If it's a colleague you know, what is the reasonable distance to acknowledge them? When you first see them at the end of the hall? When they're close enough to touch? As you're passing them do you go for the high five?

I think, for the sake of lessening the mental load, all work spaces should be rejigged to no longer include hallways and simply have more corners and walls instead.

- Molly is getting a mouthful of teeth and woke up shortly after 5 a.m. twice this week. Never, ever has one of my children been up for the day at 5 a.m. before and she did it twice in a row. Because she loves me.

- I wore my hair in a half bun half down the other day and got a bunch of compliments on it at work. I'm not even sure I like that hairstyle because it's basically the millennial's version of a mullet. Even though I'm on the fence about it, I'm trying to let go of the full mom bun (too much business, not enough party) but am too scattered to do my hair every day when it's down, so I'll just get my validation from others and the style grow on me.

- I started watching The Let Down on Netflix. It's an Australian comedy about a new mom and her life with a baby. I was really excited about it but had to stop watching halfway through the second episode. It was too painfully accurate about some of the hard things of motherhood.

- I started watching season two of Santa Clarita Diet instead. I remember enjoying the first season of it but I watched it when Molly was in the hospital at a couple weeks old so it's all a bit of a blur.

I am loving season two. I don't remember season one being this good. Nathan Fillion only adds to the brilliance.

- We looked at a house yesterday that had vinyl plank flooring and it blew my mind how nice it looked. I'm curious if it actually lives up to the hype. Anyone know?

- The house hunt is still slowly going along, but we've officially looked at two houses with our realtor, been to one open house, and driven by two others. That's like a 500% increase in the last eight days. I'll take it.

- Skinny jeans have their place, but I bought a pair of Gap "sexy boyfriend jeans" from Value Village the other day. For $10 they're like the sweatpants of jeans that I can wear to work on Fridays. The only thing I don't like about them is that I think"sexy" in this case means that they don't go to my belly button, so I think I might need to get a belt or something.

When I was in high school I used to cut the waistbands off my VV pants and move the belt loops down to make my own low rise jeans. Now I'm wishing I could do the opposite. They call them mom jeans for a reason. My hips were not only made for birthing children, they were made to hold my pants up. Motherhood humbles you.

- It's Canada Day tomorrow. I haven't gone to the fireworks in years, but Karl and I are going to go with a friend and I feel like I'm 17 again. Ask me how I feel at 6 o'clock Monday morning when Molly wakes up. That's a problem 17 year old Anna certainly never had to deal with. Does anyone else remember when waking up at 9 felt early on a day off?

The parade of shame.

On Tuesday morning I packed the kids up and took them to the library down the street for Toddler Time. I'd never been before, but have several friends that go on Fridays so knew it was a popular destination. Because I'm a terrible mother, I'm not particularly fond of cheesy mom and tot programs. I find the singing awkward and all the feigned enthusiasm makes me wonder if switching away from decaf and adding a healthy swig of Baileys might make me fit in more. Surely there must be a reason all those stay at home parents are so painfully chipper and involved after spending every single day with their toddlers.

We showed up five minutes late despite my best efforts to the contrary. We were in the parking lot three minutes before it was set to start, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most parents are actually early for these sorts of organized things, even though that flies in the face of all parenting logic I've ever experienced. It certainly doesn't happen with any of the play dates I've been to.

Getting out of the car involved nothing short of bribery on my part and a near tantrum on Parker's. I'm pretty good at not giving into his terrorist demands, but we were short for time and he wanted to bring his snack cup in. I was not about to waste all the effort I'd gone through of putting makeup on for a Shreddies fuelled throw down in a rainy parking lot.

Because Toddler Time was in a room in the basement and Molly is still in her bucket seat, it took us a full five minutes to manoeuvre ourselves into the building and into the elevator. It's not that I'm necessarily afraid to lug an 85 lb bucket seat down a flight of stairs while holding my toddler's hand, it's just that we were already late and I didn't want to add a trip to the ER to our list of things to do that morning. I threw my hip in August after getting stung by a wasp on my baby toe (makes sense, right?) so I was already a little off balance to begin with.

Getting into the elevator itself was an adventure as, apparently, I don't take Parker out of the house enough to know what the outside world looks like. He was enamoured with the buttons that opened all the doors, and that was just to the building. Once I wrangled him into the elevator, after missing the doors to it twice, it was all I could do to block him from pushing the emergency and alarm buttons all at once. I wish elevator designers had seriously reconsidered putting those buttons at toddler eye level.

When we finally made it to the room, a mere five minutes past 10, Toddler Time was in full swing. The room was full of singing children and parents, all wiggling merrily as they sat on the carpet. All of them, naturally, turning and looking at us upon our tardy entry.

Parker, like me, doesn't do incredibly well in new situations. I'm finding that, as the supposedly mature adult in our relationship, I have to resort to faking it more often than I'd like. While a large part of me wanted to back out of the room mumbling about that not being the bathroom, I'd been spotted so we sat down and acted like we belonged.

Parker flat out refused to surrender his snack cup or take his boots off in order to sit on the carpet, so we hung out on the floor, as close to the door as we could and faked it like our lives depended on it. I sang the songs, did the actions, and pretended to care about the story that I could barely see from across the room. Parker eventually got tired of my enthusiasm and shushed me every time I participated. I couldn't really blame him. All the other kids bounced around enthusiastically and Molly just sat in her bucket seat, still in her pyjamas, ready to make a getaway at a moment's notice.

At the end of the half hour session, the kids all got to take a "musical instrument" and march around the room singing. This is clearly a highlight of the entire morning and eagerly anticipated by parents and children alike. It's true, nothing sounds like more fun to me than watching a bunch of toddlers stomp around in a circle making as much noise as possible. Okay, I'm a little envious. Someone give me a maraca.

I got Parker some bells to shake and encouraged him to, at the very least, stand up and let loose. Instead, we stayed seated at the edge of the carpet circle shaking our bells while the other stylishly dressed children and parents paraded around us. The parents, bless them, seemed to get it and tried not to look directly at me. The kids, however, were looking at Parker and I like we were some sort of interesting stain.

"Why isn't that little boy participating, Mommy?"
"Well, Timmy, some people just don't understand fun."*
Not an actual conversation I overheard.

After Toddler Time there's some free play time. In our case, it was back-out-of-the room-as-quickly-as-possible-and-pray-to-God-that-Parker-doesn't-press-any-alarm-buttons-in-the-elevator-time.

I think we'll just stay home next Tuesday.

Potty is a four letter word.

Yesterday I turned 29 years old. I feel like that can't be right, because I'm pretty sure the second I gave birth to Molly I entered my mid-thirties. That's how those things work, right? Either way, I was born allegedly 29 years ago.

I celebrated the lead up to my birthday with a weekend of strep throat and a couple trips to the clinic. Karl had plans to go away this weekend so when I woke up feeling like death warmed over on Friday morning I asked him to take the day off work so I could have an actual sick day. Because I wasn't feeling any worse when he left Friday night I told him to go and hopefully my antibiotics would work enough to bring me back to life. Praise the Lord they did, and I only missed out on one night of blissful time to myself. Because I love my husband but I also really love an evening all to myself.

I celebrated my actual birthday with a toddler that only napped for 20 minutes then woke up screaming and raging as I was halfway through a piece of cake. His mood did not improve.

I strongly suspect I will be gray by the time I'm actually 30.

This morning while I was getting ready to take the kids for a photo shoot for a friend's Etsy store I noticed that Parker was playing with the toilet brush. He had put my actual hairbrush in the toilet brush's holder. It's fine, I probably needed a new one anyway.

You know how they say to be careful what you wish for? I have long wished that my son would potty train himself when the time comes. We're going on holidays next week, starting with an 18 hour road trip, and guess who has decided that he's completely in love with the potty? I won't go into any details, aside from saying that I'm utterly traumatized by it all, and that mine and Karl's efforts to downplay any potty interest are not working. He's not even two and a half yet.

Because I've been strong armed by a 30 lb child into potty training this week I took the kids to Superstore to buy him underwear today. Did you know that Joe doesn't make underwear in Parker's age size? That's because normal two year old boys do not potty train this early. I had to buy him size 3T and hope to God that they won't fall down every time he stands up. They were, however, days of the week underwear (I am so deeply jealous) and 25% off. I'll be going back for more tonight because something tells me that seven pairs won't be enough.

I had a few other things on my grocery list that I completely forgot about after Parker started pulling shoes off the shelves and slapping all the displays. I checked out with the underwear at the self checkout, thinking I could make a quick, clean getaway with enough energy left over to stop at Booster Juice on the way back to the car for my free birthday smoothie.

I learned something new today. Life is all about learning. This weekend I learned that Americans and Canadians have different flour, and today I learned that self checkout scanners have buttons on them that only toddlers can see and push. I also learned that it takes three store employees, including one manager, to set that scanner right. I also learned that when you push the wrong buttons on the scanner it will shame beep at you loudly, repeatedly, and it will just add to the impending trauma of potty training a week before 18 hours straight in the car. But at least someone told me about a car seat insert to contain any system failures.

If you think of me tomorrow, send prayers and cleaning tips.

Too hot to handle.

Karl's parents came to visit last week. They were here for five days. Karl's parents and I don't really have a lot in common. That's a lie, actually. We all really enjoy time to ourselves and watching TV.

Their visit actually went better than expected. Karl's mom and I went out together a couple times to run some errands and do a little shopping. We've never done much together, so it was fun to go to Old Navy and contemplate buying matching shirts. (It's cool, we live two provinces away so our paths don't cross very often. We can get away with. Except that once she realized we were looking at the same shirt in the same colour she was no longer interested. I choose to believe it's because she didn't want to be hampered by the comparison of who wore it better. Just roll with me on this.) We went to Chapters, Michael's, Winners, and we sat outside the closed knitting store and wept bitter, fibrous tears that we couldn't go in. We had a really nice time.

My father-in-law got a minor bout of stomach flu that I refuse to call food poisoning and take responsibility for so he missed out on the morning we went to the farmer's market. It was a very authentic experience and culminated in buying deliciously overpriced apple bread and my MIL getting excited about Saskatoon berry jam and hemp hearts. I even bought myself a homemade marshmallow for $1. It was delicious, but I'm thinking the lemonade I washed it down with may have induced Type 1 Diabetes.

The only downside of the visit, aside from the possibility that I unintentionally poisoned Karl's dad, was that, as you may recall, our air conditioner decided to call it a day. Thankfully, it chose the middle of a heat wave to do so and timed it perfectly for their visit. We got it fixed the day after they left.

The thing about extreme heat is that I hate it. I do not do well in anything but moderate temperatures. I was not my best self. We were all melting. My coconut oil was so liquid I thought it might turn into a gas. I was worried about the physical well-being of the chocolate in our house. Did you know that if your chocolate starts to melt you have a solemn duty to eat all of it? That's not actually true, but I decided that I'd pretend it was anyway. Thankfully things never got that dire, but it was touch and go for a while.

I was really looking forward to showing my in-laws how good a house I kept, cleaning the kitchen every night, baking delicious desserts, and meal planning like a boss. Instead my energy level was akin to a sloth and we just barbecued everything. Even using the microwave felt like it warmed the house up and let's not even talk about the necessary evil of using the coffee maker.

Not only did I fail to impress with my domestic abilities, our fridge decided that it, like the air conditioner, had lived a good life and just couldn't handle it any more. It was a hard week for our milk. I'm also glad that Parker doesn't fully understand how horrible the milk I accidentally gave him yesterday was.

Karl's parents left Tuesday, my mom flew in 13 hours later, and we got our new AC unit installed the next day, a week earlier than anticipated. I'm not saying I screamed "God bless you" into the phone when they called to ask if they could come a week early, but I'm not saying I didn't. But I did make them cookies.

We went to a memorial/family picnic yesterday in honour of my great uncle. It was a big day that involved little in the way of naps for either kid, so they were both in bed and asleep an hour earlier. It was magical. Naturally Karl and I celebrated by leaving Mom with the sleeping babies and my Netflix password and went to Lowes, where we bought the cheapest fridge they had. We date night so hard.

The new fridge is currently sitting in its packaging next to our table waiting for its moment to shine. Apparently it needs to sit upright for 24 hours after being on its side or it might spontaneously combust, so it's just taking up space like a fancy new conversation piece that's very big in Europe.

We were lucky enough that our tax returns this year worked out to be almost exactly what we needed to cover the costs of the new AC and fridge. There was just enough left over to include the $100 in steaks we splurged on ordering from my mom's cousin. God provided for our needs before we were even aware of them and He said, "Let them eat steak."

Two thoughts.

First, I'm going to a girls' night with some former co-workers tomorrow. I was only planning on going for a couple hours and using the pregnant mom card as my excuse. It starts at 6 so getting in some socializing and being home shortly after 8 felt like a win-win. I was also planning a productive weekend which isn't going to happen now, so I'm hoping to hammer some projects out once Parker's in bed today and tomorrow. Friday and Saturday nights will be dedicated to Gilmore Girls and chocolate chip cookies. (Side note: I contemplated pop-tarts, but can only have un-iced ones and they taste like cardboard anyway.) (Side note #2: NEVER MIND. I just realized that with some puff pastry and jam I can make my own pop-tarts.)

The problem is, yesterday our host texted us to let us know that she needs help bagging and labeling what sounds like clothing donations for seniors so we'll be doing a lot of that. When I told her I'd likely be a little late she said they'd save me some work. It's like that time I was invited to a wedding and then informed I was on set up and tear down for the whole event. How do you say no to charity/brides when you've already said you're going? I don't mind helping out, but feel a little hoodwinked. All I can say is, there had better be potato chips.

Second, I'm really enjoying being on the Goodreads party bus. It's motivating me to finish reading Today Will Be Different which I'm currently in the middle of and not enjoying at all. It's a quick read which is why I haven't bother putting it down. I liked Where'd You Go, Bernadette? but I listened to the audiobook and I'm wondering if that had some sort of impact. I've read this author's other book and hated it, too, which leads to the ultimate question: Does listening to an audiobook count as reading it?

I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I find listening to them an excellent way to get housework done during nap time, kill time while travelling/commuting, or knit along to. I don't consider audiobooks "reading," however, because they're listening. I'm still consuming the book, though, so does it count? The problem with audiobooks, too, is that it's all about who reads them. When I listened to Stephen Fry read Harry Potter it was actually magical. On the other hand, the fellow that reads the Song of Ice and Fire series kind of butchers it. Both are book series I love, but the audiobook experiences are night and day. I'm currently listening to Yes Please and I can tell you that it's a totally different experience than just reading it would be. I mean, Patrick Stewart reads part of it. That's definitely not in the paper version.

So do audiobooks count as Goodreads books? Yay or nay?

Homemade puff pastry pop-tarts. Yay or nay?

Leggings as pants. Yay or nay?

Who would win in a fight? Justin Trudeau's hair or Donald Trump's?

Things I've decided to stop doing.

Making plans with people. I've heard some really good excuses in the past year when I've asked someone to hang out. My personal favourite is from back in February when I asked a friend if she wanted to get together for coffee sometime to tell me all about her super awesome vacation she just went on. (Side note - no one really cares that much about your vacation, it's just an excuse to hang out.) She told me she was busy until April then hung out with our mutual friend the next day. We still haven't set up that coffee date. That's my bad for dropping in the "sometime." Being vague makes it more awkward for people to shoot you down. I haven't had much luck with the actual set dates either, though.

The problem with being a mom is that it's hard to maintain those great friendships with your non-parent friends because you run on totally different schedules. I'm pretty flexible, but being 6 1/2 months pregnant means I have a sizable to-do list, an early bedtime, and can't be farther than 100 feet away from a toilet at any given time. (Side note: I just realized why my dirty base boards are causing me serious anxiety. I'm nesting. Thank God there's a legitimate excuse for my insanity.) I used to really like being the childless friends, because we could go to our friends' places and play games once their brood was in bed, stay up late, and drink beer. Now no one wants to come over. Maybe our house smells like diapers.

The mom friend struggle is real, too. There are always kids to take into account, and we don't have many babysitting options outside of regularly scheduled working hours. I am morally opposed to paying a stranger to snoop through my things while my child sleeps. I just can't do it.

Trying to understand why the only ad I ever see on YouTube is for All Bran chili. When I think chili, I definitely think about all the fiber that I need to add on top of those beans. I can't even imagine feeding something that filled with fiber to Parker. Oh, the horrors! I also don't think my taste in music is that antiquated.

Figuring out what to talk to my hairdresser about. I love him. He does magic things to my hair for a good price. We just have nothing in common. The only things I have to talk about are my kid(s) and maybe Westworld, but I don't think he has cable. And he's 21 and gay, so no kids at the moment. I almost asked if he was excited for Gilmore Girls but I didn't want to stereotype.

Mopping my kitchen floor. If we ever send Parker to boarding school this will change, but until then I'll just spot clean between meals. What is even the point? A good vinegar spritz and a hot cloth should be just as good as a quality steam clean. It's not like there won't be more unidentifiable food smeared on the tile in 15 minutes anyway.

Coveting my mother in law's needle collection. So much beautiful colourful wood. I need to ask her to leave them for me in the will.

Expecting good things from a Starbucks. One would think that allergies being as common as they are, baristas would know which basic syrups contain dairy and which don't. Also which toppings to avoid putting on a dairy-free drink. One would clearly be expecting far too much.

Complaining. Anna out.

What's my name again?

It's Monday. I can tell it's Monday because I've already mispronounced my name once already. I told someone on the phone that my name was Awna. With two syllables you'd think I'd be all over that.

I'm working full time this week because I'm the only person in the office. My lunches are huge. I'm still not confident I won't be making 3 o'clock snack runs, though. I haven't worked a full work day in over 15 months so I'm just not confident in my lunch preparing skills. 

We have a sign on our office door that says to knock loudly. This really isn't necessary since a normal volume knock will do, but today someone BANGED on the door like he was checking for survivors in a burning building. I almost cried.

A few weeks ago I developed a weird rash on my eyelid. It looked exactly like leprosy. I had eye leprosy. I didn't make any friends that week. Except I finally made my doctor laugh for the first time in two years when I him about it so that was progress. It's gone now, by the way.

It's supposed to go below freezing tonight. We're busting out the duvet tonight and I am beyond excited. I bought a new cover for it in March and we never used it, so that might have something to do with my eagerness. I got some new boots in the mail on Friday, too, and am enjoying the actual opportunity to wear them. Can I just can an amen for sweater and boot weather? I wore tights to work under my dress last week and wanted to dance a jig. I love you, autumn.

We had family around on and off for a full month. I love my family and having them around, but I really, really enjoyed this weekend without them. Karl even went away, so it was just Parker and I until Sunday afternoon. It was glorious. For the most part. I got to watch what I wanted on the TV, eat whatever I wanted, and no one judged my extreme pumpkin scone consumption. 

I had the girls over for breakfast on Saturday to celebrate surviving last week (it was a doozy) and it was marvelous. Parker had two temper tantrums in front of everyone, to keep me humble, but it was still good because I got to put him down for a nap and eat cinnamon buns in peace. I will not negotiate with terrorists.

I watched a lot of The Office this weekend. I had a dream one night that I answered my office phone with, "Dunder-Mifflin, this is Pa-Anna." I'm pretty sure it was a dream. 

And now it's time for round two of morning snacks. Pray I don't starve to death later.

Free hugs.

I woke up yesterday morning with pink eye. So good, right? If Parker hadn't had it last week I would be so humiliated I'd hide my head under my incredibly infected pillow and never come out because of all the shame. What kind of 27 year old gets pink eye? I know how hygiene works, I swear

So that's been fun.

My sore throat from last week morphed into a full fledged day of aches and moaning, followed by an extra strength headache due to lack of hydration from pain of swallowing. I also got into a fight with our glass door and have a 3" long gouge on my heel and got blood on my TOMS. Then, just to be more fun, I got the hacking cough from hell that only appears when I'm trying to sleep, or occasionally breathe like a normal person.

Do you know what happens when you go to the clinic and have an inconvenient sporadic hacking cough? You get to wear a SARS mask and people move away from you like you have the plague. Do you also know what happens with pink eye when you cough a lot? It oozes. Basically what I'm saying is, I made a lot of friends yesterday and strangers kept asking me for hugs.

On the plus side, aside from being a germ-ridden freak, good things have happened, too. I've had a couple interviews, had a couple job opportunities come up, and have accepted a part time position. I also came to an agreement with my former employer as to what a fair severance settlement looks like, and it was remarkably painless. Thank you, Jesus.

I dread the prospect of having to brush my hair and put on pants every day, but I'm really looking forward to sending Parker to daycare so he can realize he isn't the king of the castle all the time. I'm also looking forward to getting off at 3, like some sort of high school kid. Cha ching.

I'm going to go throw out my pillow now and burn all my makeup.

When mom solidarity puts you on someone's kill list.

Mom solidarity is a real thing. If there's one thing being a mom has taught me about other moms it's that we need to stick together. We don't know what we're doing 90% of the time and the other 10% of the time is feeding the child or they're asleep so it's pretty easy. Food + sleep (but not at the same time) = living, breathing child. Sure we all have our parenting methods, but when it comes down to it I feel like we all just need to get "You go, Glen Coco" tattooed on our foreheads. If your kid isn't being abused or neglected you're doing it right. Fact. It took me a little while to figure that one out, but now I just want to fist bump half the moms I see out there for just being moms. But I abstain because I don't want anyone to think I'm trying to assault them.

We painted our hallway a couple weekends ago. It went better than expected (minimal swearing, no tears) so I offered to do the weekly grocery shop solo while Karl finished up. Grocery shopping is pretty low on my list of favourite activities so I usually make sure we do it as a family.

While at the grocery store, there was a fellow mom there with her two daughters, around the ages of eight and 10. As I wheeled around the produce section I could hear her telling one of her kids to get mushrooms. Her daughter started ranting about how gross mushrooms were and how much she really didn't want to get them because she really didn't like them and really didn't want to eat them because gross! You could tell this mom was having a long day as she, only slightly hysterically, declared that the mushrooms were for her and no one else would have to eat but could her daughter just please get some mushrooms.

Enter mom solidarity. I chuckled to myself as I pushed my cart, containing a jumbo box of Pampers and clearance baby clothes, and gave her my sympathetic mom smile. It's the smile that says hey, we've all been there. I can't even reason with my kid so when he starts to freak out Iso  just have to give him something to put in his mouth to shut him up.

Sometimes mom solidarity backfires. Maybe she didn't see the diapers in my cart or the bags under my eyes. Maybe she missed to stack of baby/toddler clothes in my cart. She might have missed those things on me, but I did not miss the dead-eyed stare from her.

I moved away from the mushroom section as quickly as I could, making the most of my calming grocery shop. I almost bumped into her and her kids later on, and I smiled, hoping that maybe my understanding just caught her off guard last time.

I'm not sure I've ever had anyone give me an actual death stare in Superstore before (except for my husband, of course). I ran away before she could corner me and slip a razor blade into my apples.

It's a good thing I didn't go for the old fist bump.

On watching other people's kids when you have no idea what you're doing.

A few weeks ago my neighbour asked me to watch her kids while she dealt with a bit of a family emergency. I love spending time with Parker, but I'm not very confident with other kids. I never really got over being intimidated by other pre-teen girls, and I constantly need to remind myself that I am so much older than them that they might even think I'm "cool" or something and probably aren't judging me anymore. Hopefully.

The point is, I'm not great with other kids. It's not that I don't like them or think that they're little wonderful blessings that are the future of our world and blah blah blah, but I just don't have a freaking clue how to relate to them. That, and the neighbour boy, not quite two months older than Parker, hates me. His two year old sister is delightful and is quite fond of me (or at least she used to be), but for some reason her brother cries every time he sees me. Every. single. time.

On the rare occasion that I'm asked to watch someone else's kids I always say yes, with the caveat that the worst that can happen is that we'll all end up crying. Like every good health nurse will tell you, though, tears aren't going to kill anyone so just don't shake the baby and it'll all be fine.

Parker was napping so we decided to hang out at our place. When my neighbour dropped her kids off her son started crying when he saw me, right on cue. As an expert child minder, I know that there is very little (with the exception of bodily injury) that can't be cured with a bottle or some cuddles when it comes to young children. It turns out that hatred for me also falls neatly into that category.

He didn't want to cuddle (I think my touch is fire to him) but he didn't want to be put down. He didn't want more than half a bottle. He didn't want real food. He didn't want to read a story. He didn't want to play with toys. He didn't want his soother. He didn't want to go in the exersaucer.

You know how they say misery loves company? His normally mellow sister started crying and following me around while I vainly tried to calm her brother down. When I asked her what was wrong she didn't know. When I asked if she was hungry she didn't know. When I asked if she wanted to read a story she didn't know. I understood, though. I'm a girl, too, and sometimes our feelings just get the better of us and we need a good cry. She didn't want a glass of wine to go along with it, though. I just don't get kids.

I couldn't hear him over the symphony of tears, but I could tell from the angry red colour of the baby monitor that my own child had woken up from his nap early and was none to happy about it. It could have been a really good teaching opportunity with the two year old if I'd taken advantage of it. "Your brother's crying, you're crying, and Parker's crying. How many crying kids is that? And how many crying kids can I reasonably cuddle at one time? And how pathetic is it that you've only been here five minutes and I'm calling your mom asking for advice on calming the angry baby beast?"

Anyway, all attempts to help out in a last minute moment of need failed when their dad had to rescue me after a half hour of tears. I'm proud to say that none were my own, unless you count those of laughter and maybe relief when he showed up to rescue me/his children. I am also proud to say that I did not request help, it just came. I did, however, take a couple group pictures to commemorate the occasion because, hello, memories. I learned that two year olds can apparently judge just as well as twelve year olds but don't have as much of an appreciation for group selfies.

I have to say, Parker was a real champ through the whole ordeal. That kid's a rock. Once he was up and got a bit of a cuddle he was fine (SEE?) and kept looking at the other crying kids with great interest. My son, immune to my terrible parenting skills even though I never had a chance to take him out of his sleep sack until I was the neighbour kids were rescued by their dad.

A few days later I told this story to a good friend with three kids, the same friend that will be watching Parker when I go back to work in June. I apologized for never offering to watch her kids and she assured me she understood. It's one thing to be good with your own kids and another completely to deal with someone else's.

Anyway, guess whose kids I ended up watching last minute for two hours Tuesday morning?

I'm a survivor.

When there might be something wrong with your antisocial baby.

My internet dating friend has a little guy ten days older than Parker. I'm happy to announce, that she and I are still good friends over five months after our first date. There's nothing like a little public nudity to bring two people together. We see each other once a week or so and go to the same mom group.

Her little guy did everything a lot faster than Parker. He held up his head better, rolled over first, sat up better, chatted more, and figured out solid foods while Parker was still giving me the death stare. Parker is still pretty unsteady when he sits, but he's caught up with almost everything else. I am perfectly content for Parker (Mr. Big Head) to do things on his own time and, as far as I'm concerned, the slower the better.

Going to a mom group we get to see other kids the same age as our boys and what they do. Now that we're around the eight month mark, the next big step seems to be crawling. Most kids their age are moving in some way or another. Parker's just starting to scootch himself unintentionally backwards and I'm afraid that crawling will happen before we know it. His little friend doesn't crawl yet, either, unless there's food in front of him or a mirror to ogle himself in. It seems to me like he's got it all figured out.

My friend took her son to the doctor for his check-up and mentioned that he wasn't yet crawling while some other kids his age were. (This is the same doctor I saw when when I first found out I was pregnant and he had to phone a friend to find out whether pregnant women should get the flu shot.) (They should. He said they shouldn't.) The conversation she and I had afterwards was too good not to share.

Friend: The doctor says that G doesn't get up and crawl because he has no friends.

Me: Did you tell him that his friend is a judgemental jerk?

Friend: I told him that he has one friend that ignores him and they just spin on their tummies on the floor. He said he needed new friends.

Me: Understandable.

Friend: He also said that there's still time for G to get friends and learn to crawl before we need to worry.

Me: Like when he starts school.

Friend: He suggested I put him in a corner and put out toys for him to crawl to but if I do that he'll just lay there and play with his feet. He's just lazy. And his head is really big.

Me: You won't find me crawling. My head's too heavy to hold up all the time.

Friend: Yeah. And it's hard on my hands and knees.

Me: Way too much work.

Friend: And I have no friends to crawl to.

Our kids are screwed.

I survived.

I survived my date with my internet mom friend. It went so well I think we'll even be seeing each other again, probably for a walk later this week.

What didn't survive was my dignity. Sometimes coffee dates with new friends go well enough that you need to feed your baby while at them. We were thankfully sitting in a corner booth, and I had my back to the whole restaurant, but Parker was ready to eat off the side that was facing the room.

We've been having some latching issues lately so, while Parker's still getting enough to eat, it's a messier and more awkward process than it used to be. Naturally the side that was ready to feed was the one that we have the biggest challenges with.

I've learned something about myself recently and that's that while I'm a pretty modest person (as much as I can be with mom boobs), nursing covers just don't work for me. It takes longer, it gets messier, and Parker gets more frustrated. What does that leave? A mom with the serious nervous sweats, a hungry baby, and a feeding mechanism that is just more efficient when out for the whole world to see.

So while I survived my first foray into internet dating, my shame and dignity certainly did not. They say you never forget your first time, and I'm certainly not about to forget the first time I saw a nipple in Tim Hortons. Especially since it was my own.

It's so easy to pick up the ladies when you bring along a baby.

I thought I would blog like crazy once I was home with the baby. I mean, aren't naptimes good for that? Apparently staying home with a baby makes you kind of... boring. Go figure. I mean, I could give you a play by play of what goes on in Parker's diapers but I'm not sure I want to attract that kind of blog traffic.

The thing is, if you spend enough time with them babies are kind of interesting. Parker's two months old and terrific. Not only are we starting to understand each other more, but he's starting to be interactive without the inevitable back talk. It's great. He can also entertain himself for up to an hour at a time, just laying on the floor cooing away. And sometimes, if I'm very lucky, he'll even fall asleep down there. Glory, hallelujah. 

Babies are funny. They'd make excellent secret agents because they could withstand any interrogation. They'd just sleep through it all. You beat them on the back and they just fall asleep. It's like the most relaxing thing ever for them. Take them on the bumpiest road imaginable in the car or stroller and it's like chloroform. They're passed out and drooling before you know it. 

They can be little jerks, though. The other day Parker kept waking up from his nap every two minutes so eventually I pulled him out of his crib to try and lull him to sleep. Instead of falling asleep in my arms like a little angel, he gave me a big gummy smile and giggled. The only reason I didn't lock him in a cupboard is because he's so darn cute. And he has my gorgeous gums.

Babies seem to have the highest standards and like nothing is good enough for them. Not the floor, the bouncy chair, the play mat, the swing, or their crib. Other times, their standards are are so low that they're content to roll around in their own puke and poo stains up their backs. I wouldn't know, though, because Parker's potty trained and eats with a knife and fork but so I hear.

Sometimes I catch him giving my outfit a critical eye. It's hard deciding what to wear these days because nothing fits the way it used to. When he gives me that look it's like he knows I haven't worn pants that aren't stretchy in months. What a hypocrite. 

What's that? Stretchy pants? Just saying...

Parker and I are spending a lot of time at home just the two of us these days. I keep thinking I want to go for huge long walks, but then it's either too hot, too windy, or my ankles/knee/feet are bothering me. Seriously, my body feels like it's been running a half marathon without stretching. At least, I imagine that's what it feels like, having never actually done one.

Because my body's falling apart and making it harder to exercise (thanks, Parker) I've decided I should probably cut out carbs to lose the baby weight. I've heard that the high protein and low carb route is the way to go. Cut out all the carbs and the pounds just melt right off of you, much like your will to live. Parker and I are going to Victoria in three weeks and I really want to make sure that my extra 20 lbs is gone by then. In case you're wondering how that's going, cookies don't have carbs, right?

I bought some diapers off Varage Sale last week from another mom whose little guy is just a couple weeks older than Parker. In an effort to up my creepy factor and have more adult conversation during the work day, I sent her a message when I got home and asked if she wanted to get together for coffee or a walk sometime. No doubt she looked me up on Facebook to see if I'm a psychopath first, but she said yes and we're planning to get together tomorrow afternoon. My first foray into internet dating was a win! 

My co-workers are giving me a complex.

There’s university co-op student in my office. She makes me confused about my age. I know I’m not old. I’m young, I’m hip, I’m still a mid-twenty-something. She does weird things, though, that make me feel a lot more than five years older than her. She says things like “You’re not that old” that leave me shaking my head and wondering how old she thinks I really am. Chances are, we watched some of the same cartoons growing up and both liked Britney Spears.

 

She never used MSN for anything other than emojis in high school (whatever that means). We use the newer Office version of it, and I tried to explain to her that it’s just like MSN. I’m not sure how she can consider herself a well-rounded individual if she didn’t spend her formative junior high and high school years chatting with her youth group and school friends online after school and on weekends via instant messenger. How did she communicate then? Texting? Snapchatting (whatever that is)? Instagraming her lunch? Facebooking or MySpaceing?

 

She wore a romper to work in her first week here. And she pulled it off so well that for a nanosecond I thought that maybe I could wear a romper. Because she didn’t look like a child, she looked like someone who knows how to dress and can somehow make a bodysuit/romper look like office appropriate attire. And all the while I’m trying to make tank tops and sandals into work clothes because they don’t constrict the bloat.

 

Regina doesn’t have any official standalone Starbucks locations. This is important because neither the student nor I are actually from this city. We both come from places where Starbucks are like seagulls; yhey’re everywhere and always in eyesight. Here they’re only in certain grocery stores, Target (may it rest in peace), and there’s one at Chapters that’s considered the “real deal.” I used to work at Starbucks so I know that Chapters Starbucks locations are not the “real deal.” At least they never used to be and I’m carrying that bias with me because I’m a Starbucks purist/elitist. And there’s actually a coffee shop close to my work that makes better iced Americanos (it’s a big deal) than Starbucks and has amazing peanut butter cookies. But I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about the fact that Starbucks is hard to find here and a quality beverage from one of the poser locations in this city is even more rare.

 

So. Our co-op student saw that I had Starbucks after lunch one day and, being from the civilized Starbucks-are-like-seagulls world, got excited and asked where I found a Starbucks. She then jokingly commented about us “basic” people getting so excited about Starbucks. And I chuckled along because I’m young and hip and totally cool (minus the internal space heater currently bbqing me from the inside) except I totally didn’t get it. What does “basic” even mean to the university kids these days? I asked one of my other co-workers if she understood the lingo and she was just as stumped as me.

 

I’m deeply concerned that I’m now too old for the lingo. But at least I can interpret “fleek,” which I think is just the new basic generation’s version of “fetch” but don’t tell me if I’m wrong. I just want to be as fetch as possible.

Four weeks.

There is less than four weeks until my due date. I'm not keeping track, but it's 26 days. I also have 14 work days left. If I survive.

In the past week and a half my body has changed. Sleeping is so much more uncomfortable, standing is hard, walking any distance greater than that of the nearest bathroom is basically impossible. When I do end up having to walk anywhere, it's very slowly. Too much speed jostles the baby who is firmly implanted on my bladder. More so than ever before. People with walkers could do laps around me.

My hips have started to ache and it makes getting comfortable in bed really challenging. Then, when I've finally gotten comfortable enough to fall asleep, I'm guaranteed to wake up in the middle of the night. Every time I wake up in the middle of the night I'm guaranteed to be awake for an hour. It was really bad last week. I'd wake up, use the facilities, crawl into bed utterly exhausted, then lay there for an hour while my brain ran a marathon. I would think about work (which has been way more frustrating than I'd like it to be right before I'm off for a year), the baby's room, why I wasn't sleeping, the laundry, the kitchen, my hips, feel the baby roll all around, and freak out about the general state of our house's cleanliness. I would plan all the things that needed to get done over the next couple days and write mental lists with deadlines. It was very stressful.

Then it would be time to get up and I'd be so tired. I went to bed at 9:15 one night and still woke up exhausted. Being this pregnant is no fun, I'm telling you.

I started writing myself little to-do lists that I thought were totally reasonable. Then all of a sudden my body was like, NOPE. I can be about half as productive now as I could a month ago. I just get too tired/sore/emotional otherwise. Last weekend was a hard one.

This week I did better with my to-do lists and basically dominated them. I even enjoyed myself. It helps that I put menial things on there that I'd be doing anyway, like "laundry," and more important things like "don't panic." It's good to have goals. And I can honestly say that when I cross off this week's "don't panic" I'll only be fibbing a little bit.

I took before pictures of every room in our house so that I would have proof for myself that I was productive. Even if that just meant doing the dishes in the kitchen. 

Our office (aka overflow guest room) is now cleaner than it's been for months. I like to just stand in the doorway and look at it, basking in the bright cleanliness of it all. It's a beautiful sight to see. The baby's room has a new light fixture, closet doors that aren't 1978 poop brown, and the carpet is on the floor, not in the crib. All that needs to be done is a mobile made and hung, and pictures to be put on the walls. There are even teeny tiny diapers in there.

This upcoming Friday I'll be full term at 37 weeks. I have it in my head that he's going to come before my due date. I know, I'm probably delusional, but I think it's first time mom paranoia. I'm amazed that he's still in there. How have I managed to grow a human inside of me for this long? How has he not gotten sick of me yet and tried to escape?

Knowing that Friday is full term and I'm almost ready is helping the anxiety. We finished our prenatal classes last week and have our hospital tour tomorrow. Once we actually know where we're going I'll be emotionally ready. I may not have a bag packed yet, but my body's tired of pregnancy and we bought a man diaper bag today, so what more could we need?

We had dinner with our neighbours earlier this week. They have two kids, and their son is just a month old. I got to feed him a bottle and get some serious newborn snuggles in. It's hard to believe that in a month I will have my own baby to look after. I had to suppress my urge to give him back every time he fussed because, oh dear, I'm going to have my own to deal with any minute/day/week now and I won't be able to pass him off. It was okay, though, because after he ate and burped and fussed a bit, we got our snuggles on and he only puked on me a little bit. And I totally soothed him. Like a boss.

I didn't always having neighbour kids right next door when I was growing up and I love that our boys are going to be the same age and get into all the trouble together. And by trouble I mean reciting poetry and learning to speak French. Our neighbours also have an awesome play set in their backyard that makes me wish I weighed less than 100 lbs so that I could play on it. We need to build some sort of ladder/zip line from our place to theirs.

And speaking of weighing only 100 lbs, after my co-worker so lovingly pointed out my swollen feet last week, my doctor informed me that he's never seen me look so swollen. So, you know, I'm just getting better looking every day. This is why I think leggings and flip flops count as business casual attire for pregnant ladies.

I also made a trip to the dentist last week. The hygienist commented on how she couldn't believe how much my gums were bleeding and that it was making her hands slippery. I was unapologetic and blamed the baby. If they want to clean super pregnant ladies' teeth they need to live with the consequences. She then commented on how it makes sense, since everything else is really swollen, too. I wish this story ended with me biting her. Let's pretend it does.

And now I'm going to eat waffles.

How are your feet?

I have a real post sitting half written in my draft folder. Coming at you sometime in the next seven days, I promise. Until then, you'll have to live with this little story from today. Because I have to eat my dinner and leave the house within the next ten minutes to get to a pre-natal class where they're going to traumatize me about breastfeeding, just like they traumatized me about medical interventions last week.

My co-worker and I are sitting at my desk today, frantically stuffing envelopes for a mailout that needs to happen first thing tomorrow morning. Thrilling, I know. She casually asks me how my feet are feeling. I say fine, thank you, and yours?

She says hers are fine, mine just look swollen so she thought she'd ask.

I look at my feet. They're a little warm looking, but they don't look particularly puffy, pudgy or engorged. They just look like my feet but red.

My co-worker thinks I have fat feet.

I'll be wearing winter boots to work tomorrow.

Welcome to my head.

Now that I’m pregnant people ask how I’m feeling all the time. All. The. Time.

We had a new receptionist start and I’m technically her supervisor but not because I’m going on mat leave and what’s the point, right? So even though I’m kind of her supervisor and she’s never heard me complain about anything on her second day she still asked how I was feeling. Tired, like a whale, and a little hormonal, how about you?  Or how about, like there’s a bag of rice sitting on my bladder at all times so can we keep this conversation short? Oh wait, the bag of rice is kicking my delicate bits and if you don’t move I might pee on you. I’m also gassy, so don’t breathe too deeply. But my hair is super thick and shiny, just don’t mind the GRAY I pulled out of there yesterday morning. It’s still sitting on the bathroom counter awaiting further inspection. And don’t look too closely at my eyebrows because now I no longer have just one light coloured hair in there, but about eight. And I’m too afraid to rip them out to see whether they’re blonde or white or grey because I’ve done the over plucking thing before and never fully recovered, physically or emotionally. Just thinking about it makes me queasy.

And don’t come too close because baby muffin top is a real thing and nothing makes me feel more like trailer trash. As much as I appreciate the one person who said, via Skype, that “it’s all baby!” it’s so totally not. It’s every bad food choice I ever have or ever will make in my lifetime. And there’s a little boy in there somewhere, too, playing patty cake with my insides, but he’s the least of my worries.

The baby usually moves around like crazy at bed time when I’m just laying down to read. The other day he was kind of lazy so Karl thought it would be great to poke him and wake him up. The kid sure showed us and moved preeeetty much all night long. Every time I rolled (which is becoming more and more now that I’m bigger and bigger) he rolled, too. And our bed squeaked its new squeak. And I slowly lost my mind.

When we moved into our house our bed frame picked up a creak. It drove me nuts at first but I eventually got used to it when I realized there was nothing I could do. Well now it has a metal squeak. All I can say is, I haven’t gained THAT much weight that our stupid IKEA bed shouldn’t be able to maintain our girth. If I didn’t have this bowling ball attached to my abdomen I would totally tear that bed apart, throwing the mattress against the wall, beating the frame with a screwdriver and swearing at it until it caved into silent submission.  But I do and tying my shoes is getting harder so my mattress throwing days are probably over for now.

I had an intern at my doctor’s appointment the other day. She was very nice, but very thorough. I probably should have showered beforehand. I’m now worried that there will be a doctor, an intern, and however many nurses and what have yous delivering my baby when the time comes. And maybe their intern friends. Maybe they’ll have their cell phones out, too. And then… Oh, no, the possibilities are just  too traumatic to go into.

I always said that I wouldn’t let myself become a teaching opportunity. Sorry guys, go learn on someone who’s done this a couple times. Now, though, I just know that if Dr. Intern wants to see how it’s done and/or deliver my kid I’ll probably let her. Because I’m too frigging nice. And I liked her well enough. And did you catch it? She’s a her. I didn’t even know women wanted to deliver babies in this day and age.

I have a craving for Fruit Loops. I had a lot of cookies this weekend, but some Fruit Loops with unsweetened almond milk sounds like nectar from the gods rights about now. Some smell in the parking lot made me think of them and now I’m flashing back to summer vacations watching Grey’s Anatomy and eating dry Fruit Loops alone on my mom’s living room floor. Except now I’ll be watching Friday Night Lights with my husband and my unborn child auditioning for Stomp and there will be almond milk in there to cut back on the SUGAR. Which, let’s be honest, I don’t really need any more of. I got weighed on Monday. I’ve gained 23 pounds. And that’s not counting the extra 5-10 lbs of holiday weight I was packing right before my birth control stopped working. Thus the unsweetened almond milk. Also, sweet almond milk is vile, except for maybe in a latte or something.

So, in case you’re wondering, I’m kind of hoping this little boy weighs about 30 lbs when he comes out at this point in time. Probably by c-section if that’s the case. Then with all the extra birth stuff that comes out I can finally get started on my six pack. Hey, a girl can dream.  Or maybe he’ll weigh seven lbs and my placenta will make up the difference. I still want him to be snuggly, after all.  Yeah, I’m going to go with that. Or maybe my leg will just fall off and I can be all, baby weight? What baby weight? I woke up like this!

I had my first fender bender on Tuesday. Well, the first one in traffic where it wasn’t just me versus a parked Mercedes. It was stressful. I’m stressful. What was even more stressful was the fact that I wore a dress to work. Why is that stressful? Because I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon just in case. When you’re growing a baby the doctor always checks the heartbeat at every appointment. That means that pants are a good option. Well, it’s not like the guy isn’t going to deliver my baby or anything, but does he really need to see me in my maternity tights? The answer is no, nobody does.

Thankfully the damage to my car is minor, and the fellow that hit me seemed okay if a little stressed himself. I was a stress case all day, though, and of course I almost got rear ended again this morning by some goon. I would have had a full on melt down and refused to get back in my car until Karl came and picked me up. But I swear I’m not the problem. Regina drivers are the worst. And my doctor telling me that typically car accidents mean you go to the hospital (even if you’re feeling fine?) and that my baby is – and this is a direct quote – “still alive” didn’t help me feel much better about things.

In case you’re still worried, I’m fine and baby’s fine. The guy that hit me was going sideways when it happened so he was clearly attempting to at least stop. My neck was a little stiff yesterday, but that might have had to do with my ridiculously high level of Tuesday-related stress. I got paper cut from a file when I got to work. Then the screen protector started to come off my phone. I so should have stayed in bed yesterday.

It’s been a weird up and down and down then up kind of week. Part of that is 110% the fault of the baby hormones. Monday was good, Tuesday was just terrible, and today started off with me thinking that I seriously should have considered calling in sick because the terrible Tuesday feelings hadn’t really dissipated. Then things started to pick up a little, I got my hands on some dark chocolate peanut butter cups and an iced Americano, finally made it to the post office, and all was well. Plus, my huge stress cloud started to disperse. That thing was no joke. It made me want to crawl under my duvet and cry for four hours. That’s baby hormones for you, making you feel like an irrational teenager all over again.

I have no idea how pregnant teenagers do it. I have a lot more empathy towards them now. I mean, I think I’ve done pretty well with the crazy hormones but when I get stressed, especially where the baby‘s wellbeing is potentially concerned, things can go sideways pretty quickly. Which clearly doesn’t help anything ever but that’s the way it is.

I also think that my stress level has a negative impact on how much the baby moves. It’s like he’s already learning to stay out of my way when I’m in a bad mood, but it kind of has the opposite effect. What I really want when I’m losing my mind is to feel the little sea monster tell me that he’s okay. I mean, I’d rather it come with a jab in my abdomen than my lower regions, but I’m not going to fault the little guy for at least trying.

Anyway.

I want an ice cream maker. And a bigger crock pot. And better food processor. These should be my 2015 goals. My current food processor was a hand-me-down from my mother in law. It works well enough, but it’s got a crack in the bowl and it’s only a matter of time until it doesn’t do its thing anymore. I also feel like I could get something that works better.

My crock pot and I are really working on our relationship. When we moved to Regina I tried using it again for the first time since we were newlyweds. I mastered one recipe. I’m trying to branch out a bit but I lack a lot of motivation. I made beef dip this week for the first time ever, though, and it was life altering. And there were leftovers. Crock pot meals that come with leftovers are like heaven smiling down on me. So easy! Anyway, our crock pot isn’t very big and I want to be able to start freezing some leftovers. Thus the need for a bigger crock pot. I need to be a super mom, after all.

And an ice cream maker. I hear there’s an attachment you can get for your KitchenAid. How amazing would that be? I really like ice cream (because I’m a human with a heartbeat) but I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t as sweet as it always it and maybe had more stuff in it. Like muffins, I don’t need my ice cream to bring all the sweet. I’m happy to just eat coconut whipped cream plain or with a little vanilla. Make it a little colder, and add some fudgy or doughy bits in there? Sorry, my rumbling tummy just woke up the baby. With some beef dip beforehand? If I got hit by a meteor after eating that I would die happy and accomplished. Some sort of ice cream making tool would really make my life better. Just saying.

I should mention that when I have a baby shower. Sure, baby stuff is all well and good, but I would definitely be a better mother if I had an ice cream maker, bigger crock pot, and superior food processor. The crock pot could even double as a baby bath. Minimalism at its finest.

In other news, I want to be a hat person. I think I pull of a toque reasonably well, but I really want to be able to pull off those straw fedoras that are like what Bruno Mars wears. At least, I think he might wear hats like that. I want to be that cool. I keep trying, too, but every time I try one on either my mom or husband laughs at me. And then I get offended, look at myself in the mirror, and realize they’re right and that I do look absurd. Then I pout about it because why can’t I wear cool hats like that?

Karl and I are going to look at a glider tomorrow night and I think it might be “the one”. Most gliders are micro suede, which we hate, and cost as much as a small car. They may or may not come with the coveted foot stools. This one isn’t micro suede, doesn’t come with a foot rest, and costs less than a bicycle. Initially we wanted it all, and I was willing to recover/replace cushions if possible. But then I had a reality check and decided that it’s okay to settle sometimes. The thing is, I don’t sew. At all, really. I would attempt a no-sew cushion cover if I had to, but in my perfect world I could just bust out the staple gun and have my way with things. I still could, I guess, but the results would likely vary. This glider we’re looking at is dark wood, so it’s going to get painted an actual colour, but the cushions are oatmeal and they look like they’re in good shape, plus they don’t really clash with the whole ambience of the room. They’re also the kind of thing that could be easily replaced or (maybe) recovered the no-sew way. So probably just replaced. And foot rests aren’t really that hard to figure out or critical.  

This is my life. Trying to figure out baby room furniture, art, what not. We need to pull the room’s closet door out of the garage and paint it white, make sure it has knobs, etc. I also need to find some baskets and itty bitty coat hangers for the closet so I have something new to cry over. Aaaand I need to look at all the clothes we were given and figure out what else we’re going to need. We have some big decisions ahead. Stroller brand? Baby wrap brand? Bottle brand? Do we have any blankets for him? Mesh bumpers for the crib? A mobile? Am I the worst mother in the world that the blinds we’re hanging aren’t anywhere close to blackout  and I refuse to use a sound machine? What about a video baby monitor? I know it’s like spying on your kids, but he’s so young he won’t even know. He’ll grow up in a world where he has a cell phone by the time he’s three (JUST KIDDING) and 20,000 Facebook friends so being on camera 24/7 will totally be normal. Besides, I don’t want to be the mom that goes into her kid’s room twenty times a night to make sure he’s still there. I’ll just check my video monitor even more. We’re also not planning on keeping him in our room for long because we want him to get used to neglect at an early age. Also, our bedroom is small and whatever he sleeps in (crap… something else to figure out) will probably be right in the way. So I feel like getting our kid used to constant scrutiny is the best choice for us. Although have you seen how much those things cost? Might as well just get him an iPhone and be done with it.

FYI, this post took three days to write. I bet you’d never guess that by the paltry 2,500+ word count but I totally tricked you. Is it Friday yet?

My subconcious might be insane.

I have been having crazy dreams lately. Some of them have been pretty epic and going to sleep has been like embarking on a crazy adventure (most of which involve me looking for hard to find bathrooms at some point) but I've had a couple less than fun dreams the past couple nights. I'm going to take it as a sign that my body is finally ready to go back to the gym after over two months. I need to tire my brain out before it can come up with any more terrible situations.

So some backstory. I had a really awful teacher that taught me French immersion from grade nine until I graduated. Yeah, four years of the guy and I never liked him. I was probably a judgmental teenager and he was probably an okay dude, but I did not like him. I don't think many of classmates did. He was kind of softs spoken and wore socks with sandals and gave off a bit of a creepy vibe. I mean, how could he not?

A couple nights ago I dreamt that I was in university (this happens way more than it has any reason to considering I graduated three years ago) and was going into my French class with my high school French teacher and we had a test that I had completely forgotten about on something I didn't have any understanding of. To make matters worse, I had just found out that one of my coworkers had died so I was having a hard time focussing. Eventually he cancelled the test so we could grieve, but it was a very upsetting moment.

And it was weird coming to work yesterday and seeing my alive coworker that my subconscious had totally killed. I almost mentioned it to him, too, but didn't want to make things weird.

Last night's dream took the cake, though. I was supposed to go to my French class (again with the high school French teacher but in university) but got distracted looking for a bathroom and ended up playing with some babies instead. Then I had to get my wisdom pulled (which is weird, because that ship has long since sailed) without anesthesia in a chair that looked like a torture device. My blood was spraying everywhere and Ellen DeGeneres told me they were going to have to shave my head for the operation. I lost it and started yelling at her that they couldn't shave my head, didn't they know how long it had taken me to grow my hair this long and I'd just gotten a haircut two days earlier and NO I didn't want to waste money like that. And who the heck needs to get their head shaved for dental work?

Then my boss came up to me and told me they were going to give me some anesthesia for the impending nausea (I puked in Costco twice after getting my wisdom teeth pulled for real so it's no joke) but I said no because it wasn't  safe for the baby. Then my boss looked at the other people there and acted like he wasn't going to give me the drugs while really he was. Then I really lost and it started screaming about denying their care and he backed off and they carried on without the anesthesia. But Ellen still took the cuticle scissors and trimmed my bangs on one side of my face and cut a chunk out of my hair because it was "in the way."

So anyway, it was really fun getting out of bed this morning and having to see my boss at work, but thankfully no Ellen DeGeneres, and knowing I have to go to the dentist in a couple hours to get my second ever filling that they said I might not need freezing for.

I blame the hormones.

#marriedpeopleproblems

One of my friends from work and her new boyfriend came over for games and a possible lunch on Saturday. I got up early enough that I'd have enough time to have a leisurely breakfast before tidying the place up. Nothing big just dishes all over the kitchen, knitting all over the living room, and some hardwoods in need of serious vacuuming. It didn't take long to do and I had time to go to the grocery store for some fresh baked croissants (thanks, Dough Boy) and strawberries. Because nothing says "I'm a freaking homemaker" like having fresh baked goods and fruit on the lazy Susan.

They ended up being significantly later than anticipated so I puttered around, not wanting to get into the serious productivity like turning our office back into functional space after last weekend's painting extravaganza. I didn't really mind because it was a chance to take it easy which I haven't really done around the house on a Saturday since May.

When they showed up, my friend asked me if all I'd done today was clean the house. I know that her intention wasn't for it to come out the way it did, but I was worried my house wasn't clean enough to justify the several hours she was assuming I spent cleaning. If it was 2 o'clock and we could reasonably assume I'd been cleaning since 10, how dirty must my place have been? Also, how boring is someone who spends her weekends painting and cleaning and unpacking and no I still don't know where a lot of things are but I have ideas, okay?

It's a married people problem. My friend with her new boyfriend do about fifteen things a day, including starting the morning off with a trip to the blood clinic. So while they're off saving lives and going for breakfast and being in Corner Gas movies I'm just cleaning my house. And you know what? I didn't even clean the toilets. I faked it.

When you're single your life is so much more exciting. You go out for dinner, you go for drinks, you volunteer at childcare centres, you go see football games, you go see baseball games, you go to the club and paaaaaarty. When you're married and a new home owner, especially in a city where you don't know anyone, you spend your weekends painting spare bedrooms, unloading the dishwasher, watching movies about zombie love stories, knitting, going to bed early, and getting SO EXCITED about the clearance section at Superstore. That $9 basket is on sale for $3.44? I'll take three and come back for more next week. It's a married people problem.

One of my coworkers lives the good life. He knows all the people in town, and everywhere you go his friends own it. He's got so many friends that he was triple booked for birthday parties last weekend and I'm not actually sure he has time to sleep. My idea of a triple booking these days is which movie on the PVR I should watch. His problems are single people problems.

The funny thing is, we like our problems and we keep them and we snuggle them while we're at home watching Despicable Me 2 and eating naked popcorn. At least us married people do because we're so exciting that we need naked popcorn to keep us grounded. Single people probably take their problems to play Quidditch in the park.

Next time, just stab me with the scissors instead.

Last time I got my haircut in Victoria it was a bit shorter than I was used to, but it was really cute (if I do say so myself, based on the amount of positive comments I got, anyway. Except I'm pretty sure people will comment on my hair whether it's good or bad out of a sense of obligation to make me feel better about myself. At least I know I do that sometimes, but never to you, obviously) and didn't actually look like mom hair when I styled it myself. I'm not sure what my stylist's problem was, but she always, always gave me the mom under-curl with the round brush and then flat iron. Um, 25 and childless. Make me look hip, please. And not for the daycare scene. Thanks.

The problem with my cut was that the back was so short that when it grew it GREW and all of a sudden I had this weird little flippy ducky taily thing at the base of my neck that I couldn't really do anything with except try to style upwards and outwards in an attempt to keep it off my neck and looking mullety but, whatever, Anna, no one really cares about that. Long story short, I've desperately needed to get my neck hair trimmed for the past month and finally got a chance to get it done yesterday.

I'd tried to make an appointment at a hair salon a five minute drive from home, but it had ended up coinciding with our house hunting appointment. The salon couldn't reschedule anything else for the same day so I ended up asking one of my co-workers if she could recommend anywhere for me to go. She informed me that her sister cuts hair at one of the malls on my side of town and that she'd tell her about me. And just like that, I was committed to a mall haircut. I didn't mind, though, because I buy other stuff at the mall so why not a haircut? And, golly, my neck hair was growing fantastically long and freakish.

I hadn't gotten a mall haircut since my late teens. I'll never forget the itty bitty "but, you can gel them!" bang debacle that was.

I rolled into my afternoon appointment tired after a busy morning of house hunting and mortgage rate applying (glamorous, I know) ready to relax for an hour.

Yeah, no.

Mall salons have that perpetually rushed feeling to them, kind of like an overpriced Magicuts, and there's nothing relaxing about the tight space they cram you into in the back, behind all the products they're trying to sell you.

My stylist was elbows deep in a dye job when I showed up for my appointment. The woman she was working on was in the process of having her rather yellowy blonde touched up. It didn't take her long to get her other client under the hair dryer and get me seated.

As soon as I had her attention I knew that this woman was only going to be cutting my hair once. Ever.

I apologized for having gross feeling hair. I went to the gym this morning and had dry shampooed my hair to a barely passable in public level, anticipating my professional wash. She asked me if I wanted her to wash my hair then.

Uh oh.

While she washed my hair, we made stilted small talk (normal with everyone). I figured I wouldn't get my usual head and neck massage from the mall salon, but I wasn't anticipating the bonus side of face wash I got. Or the tugging scalp massage and aggressive neck lifting exercises I was treated to in the process of my hair washing.

As she cleansed my nasty hair, I watched a long blonder hair dangling from her sweater sleeve. A newly dyed blonde hair, perhaps? It certainly wasn't her shoulder length red hair... Well, it was hard to tell by taste when it ended up in my mouth the first time, but when it travelled its way across my face during the rest of the washing period I tried not to think about it. Even as it poked me in the eye repeatedly.

When we got back to the chair she wrapped me up in a too-short bib (robe?) that left my knees uncovered (don't worry, they got covered in hair later to make up for it). She started snipping away at my hair like she had a real vendetta against my split ends, tugging here, tugging there, checking on her dye job at regular intervals while cutting my hair out of the corner of her eye.

Would you mind cutting my bangs fuller than that? I don't wear them light.

Oh, um, how much length did you take off on the sides?

No, sorry, I already told you twice I don't part my hair on that side of my head.

Could you get the long mullet neck hair as short as possible, please? Oh, you're cutting in the middle of my head to fix that problem at the bottom? Well, you're the professional. Oh, you're not going to show me what that last update did to the back? Well, as long as it's shorter, I'm happy.

Holy cow, your hairspray smells like death, no wonder your brand of products is the cheapest line out there.

I found myself actually scowling at my reflection at one point in the process, completely unhappy with massive mom hair I was getting. I tried to fix my face before she saw me, because that's really mature, Anna, and I think I got away with it. Maybe that's why she poked me in the eye while drying my hair.

I've never had someone cut my hair with such efficiency before. I looked at the floor, unsure how much hair actually came off. Had I even seen her cut the front bit? Thirty minutes from start to finish, one dollar per minute.

When I left I gave her a $3 tip, more out of a desire for it not to get back to my co-worker that I'm cheap than anything else.

I got home, swearing up and down that NEVER AGAIN would I get my haircut at a mall. Never, ever, ever.

Like all haircuts I've gotten for the last year, I headed up stairs to check out the damage and flat iron out the mom under-curl. And that's when I realized something profound. Well, profoundly disappointing at least. I still had my mullety bits and they were now uneven. UNEVEN. In an attempt to make sure her dye job was sitting happily while her hair dried., she had cut my neck hair crooked.

I called Karl upstairs to get a second opinion, and he confirmed that it was crooked. KARL noticed that my neck hairline was uneven. Clearly, it was bad.

I called the salon back, almost in tears. There is nothing I hate more than going back to get my hair fixed because you do NOT want to insult the person standing next to your head with scissors. Or worse, a razor. Nothing says red shirt and expendable quite like insulting your surgeon. Or hairstylist.

I called and explained my situation. Yes, I had told her what I wanted, clearly, and I'd even asked her to fix it before I left. I don't want to spell it out for someone, so I usually go home and figure out a way to deal with it. If this were Victoria and I had anyone I trusted to come near my hair with scissors (sorry, Karl, but never) I wouldn't have even bothered. I would have just gotten a friend to fix it. But this is Regina and I'm afraid that if I cut my own neck hair I might bleed out.

I told them I was going to come in after 5, when her shift ended so I could get it fixed. They were open until 6.

We had a date to look at a car (I NEED ONE SO BAD) that was a gong show unto itself and we left with no car and a very disappointed and lack of second car frustrated me.

When I got back to the salon, the girls behind the counter informed me that my stylist wasn't there and I'd have to come back tomorrow when she was. I explained that the whole point was that she hadn't listened to me while I was there, and that it would take literally two minutes to fix the problem. They told me that there weren't anymore appointments for the night but my stylist wasn't in on Tuesday so I could come back then. I gave them the "look" and firmly told them that I would do it myself if I could reach or that I would get a friend to do it if I had any (whoops). After a few minutes of repeating myself one of the girls caved and took me to the back. Where there was nothing going on, with twenty minutes left in the day. Sorry for intruding, guys.

She agreed that my neck was uneven, and spent five minutes fixing it. She pointed out another part of my hair that was uneven and much heavier than the other part at the back of my head. I gave her the go ahead to fix what she could.

I left the mall in an itchy (hair. everywhere.) rage. Never again, I told Karl. NEVER AGAIN.

And then, because I hadn't eaten enough blonde hair to negate the need for dinner, Karl and I hit up Five Guys. I was looking forward to a bun-less (dairy. WHY?) burger with no pickles. I told Karl in the car that if I got cheese on my burger I was actually going to lose it and I was sorry in advance. It was okay, though, because no bun, no cheese, but pickles everywhere.

I'm trying to think of a good way to answer my co-worker's question of how it went when I see her on Monday.

There's not even enough goat milk in the world to numb my frustration.

But at least my neck mullet is gone. I'll take it.