Strangers in a normal land

Back. And moving.

2010-07-15T16:18:00.000+01:00

So I think I'm finally back. But I'm moving. Over to Wordpress. I would love to give a really good explanation but honestly, it's because they have an app for my iphone and Blogger doesn't. Sad but true. As for where I've been and why I'm back, well you'll just have to hop over to Wordpress and find out. I hope to see you there. I know I look forward to reading your blogs again.

Strangemamma

My new blog

Six Word Saturday

2009-10-10T22:25:00.000+01:00

Baby B is 5 weeks old!

5 weeks

2009-10-08T15:45:00.000+01:00

The medical profession is funny. Even though we've only known about it since Sunday and even though it only happened on the 17th of last month (yes, actually I do know the exact day), if someone were to ask me how far along I was today, I'd be able to tell them, "5 weeks!"

I'll let that sink in for a minute.

I'm pregnant!!!

Okay, so quick preggers math for those of you who aren't as week-obsessed: Pregnancy is considered 40 weeks, not from the whole ~~sperm~~ boy meets ~~egg~~ girl part, but from the first date of your last cycle. Which is weird because it's like being pregnant for two weeks before there was even an ~~egg~~ girl to meet the ~~sperm~~ boy. Science is just fun like that.

But back to the whole miracle thing!

Jeff and I know that it's not really considered good form to tell the world so soon because "something may happen". And we know, we do. I have had too many friends who have lost pregnancies early on not to be painfully aware of that. But here's the thing. I'm pregnant! And that in itself is such an awesome miracle that we can't help but shout it from the rooftops. We did tell a few close friends and family right away (we called the parents at 4 in the morning but that's another story) and asked them to pray for us. We so appreciate you all for doing that and we covet your prayers still. But we realized that, A) we're just not that fearful, certainly much less than last time, and B) no matter what the outcome, we want everyone to know what an Awesome God we serve! I have PCOS. Jeff also had some issues. Those two things together makes Asher a total miracle even with the medical intervention. So to have us, here, now, pregnant, ON OUR OWN!! is absolutely a gift from God.

We're due June 10th, 2010. Asher will be a week (or so) past 26 months when he becomes the big brother we have long dreamed of him becoming. We are very excited, joyful, freaked, ecstatic, hopeful, blessed, amazed, and generally in awe. We can't quite believe it at times, but there it is. I wrote in my journal a few days after we got the news that I was pregnant with Asher, "No matter what, no one will ever be able to take this away from me. I am pregnant." And it definitely feels that way this time as well. I am just so unbelievably blessed. My God is a great big God and He holds us in His hands.

*Okay, we didn't actually call our parents at 4am their time, it was like 8pm and 9pm their time, so stop shaking your finger at me. The day I was going to take the pregnancy test, we were woken up just before 4am by the people across the street declaring their undying hatred of each other at the top of their lungs. I'm not kidding, the windows were closed and I could hear every word. Ugh. Anyway, I figured that that was my morning pee and I may as well get it over with (I'm notorious for being a day or two late, testing, and then immediately getting my period). Only it was positive. Jeff had come down, too and made a mention that our parents would likely be up, so we decided to go ahead and call. There. Happy now?

Why post when you can comment? (and the 2nd installment of a Little Brit Different)

2009-09-30T15:21:00.001+01:00

I should totally just copy what I write in people's comments and put them here as a post. I'm way wittier and I do it more often. I really am working on getting my life in order. It seems like this month has just been a total wash. But new month tomorrow, right? Jeff's birthday is coming up and I'm looking forward to maybe even having a babysitter so we can ~~have a meal by ourselves for once~~ celebrate in style. More on that to come.

And now, for something...

Jeff and I saw this the other day at the grocery store and I wish I'd stopped to take a picture, but I fear I was gawping a little too long to long and the lady had gone into the store. Apparently it's not such a big deal to have an infant in the front seat of a vehicle here. And it's not like this was only a 2-seater, there was more than enough room in the back to put the carseat. And it's not like this was an older child, this was an infant in a rear-facing carry seat thingy. And it's not like this was an older car with no airbag up front, it was a swank, new model, silver BMW. I really hope my jaw didn't make too loud a noise as it hit the ground.

*Okay, so I just looked up UK child seat law and apparently it is actually illegal to put a rear-facing child seat in the front IF there is an active airbag. Who knows, maybe she can turn hers off, or maybe she's just wildly mis-informed. But on another interesting note, with the exception of rear-facing, it is totally legal to put a child in any other kind of seat in the front as long as they're properly restrained. (For non-North-Americans or childless folks, you can't put a child in the front seat until they're 12 years old or a certain height/weight in North America)

**Please don't think I'm saying that people on this side of the pond are all heartless people putting their children in mortal danger (although in the case of a rear-facing child seat in a possible air-bag zone I'm tempted), I actually find it refreshing to be in a place with significantly less ~~paranoia~~ ~~fear~~ caution. And I have to say, given a drive through the country with just Asher and I, I would be tempted to move him to the front seat so I can interact with him more and perhaps be able to give him food and/or drink without completely dislocating my shoulder and trying to watch the road and child behind me at the same time, which, come to think of it, is likely the most dangerous bit right there.

In Memorium

2009-09-21T09:23:00.002+01:00

On friday we got the call, my husband's Oma (dutch for grandma) was quickly declining in health. She had stopped eating and drinking and it was expected to be only a matter of time. Family was encouraged to come right away if they could. We got Jeff a flight out Sunday afternoon and as much as we would have liked to have all gone together, it would have been very costly and Asher has been suffering from a bad cold and I imagine a nine hour flight would have been very hard on him (and everyone else).

As we were getting ready to leave for the airport, we got the next call. Oma had passed away early that morning. My heart aches for my dear husband and his parents who were still on the road, trying to get there to say one last goodbye. I took the call as he was getting Little Man dressed. That is news I never wanted to give. He was crushed, angry at himself for not taking an earlier flight. We had looked at a flight on Saturday, but the plan would have been to stay with my dad in Calgary that night anyway and ride to Stettler with his parents the next day. He still wouldn't have made it. But it's easier to do anything than feel the sharp pain of loss. As for me, I did everything I could to focus on taking care of him and Little Man so that I wouldn't have to look at my own pain at this loss.

Oma was quite the fiesty lady. Her favourite word was 'bullshit'. And it perfectly described how she approached life. Not much was worth fussing over, most of it was just bullshit. She loved to make sure you didn't take yourself too seriously with a gentle ribbing and a wink as she laughed at you. She was the first of Jeff's family that I met. Her apartment was warm and full of mementos of Holland (where she was born) and pictures of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She always offered you a drink and something sweet. And by drink, I mean drink, no matter what the time of day. She loved advocat or a rye and seven. Advocat, for those who may not know (I know I didn't), is a banana liqueur and wow is it strong. My first experience with it was a shot she insisted I take. I think the next time she was more gentle with me and just insisted on some chocolates with advocat in them ;).

*edit: my husband informed me that advocat is an egg liqueur. woops. well, it was yellow and the chocolates with advocat were shaped like bananas. maybe that time it really was banana liqueur. hmmm. all I know is that it was midday, very strong, and Oma was kind enough to simply chuckle at my watering eyes.

I like to think she liked me. Maybe because I didn't treat her with trepidation, I was very close to my Grannie and never felt that generation gap. Maybe because I laughed along with her ribbing. Maybe because I laughed when she used her 'favourite word' and cluck disapprovingly (I hear that happened often). Maybe just because I loved her grandson who she had recently become so close to.

I remember one trip, we wanted to take her out for lunch. So we asked her if there was a place she liked especially and we would take her there for lunch the next day. She told us and off we went. I couldn't remember why it sounded familiar until we got there. It was a chain in a mall food court. At first, we felt bad because we had wanted to take her to a real reastaurant, but it was where she wanted to go and I think maybe she did it on purpose. The food court was a place she went regularly and knew several people on our way and walking through the mall. I think maybe she wanted to be seen out with her grandson.

As much as I wish I could be there to say goodbye and be there for my husband during this time, I am very grateful that he is able to be there. Oma will be greatly missed.

Back on the horse and The Failure of Dr. Google.

2009-09-16T05:00:00.002+01:00

A couple months ago (was it that long? I could look it up, but...nah) I had the opportunity to guest post for cbethblog. I was truly honored as hers was one of the first blogs I started following almost a year ago when all this began (again, wow, has it been that long?). So, as I try to get back on the horse, I'm starting slow and using a guest post from the lovely C. Beth:

The Failure of Dr. Google

Recently Zoodle, my 17-month-old son, got a diaper rash. I think it started as a reaction to his diaper brand. It then turned into hives, and then settled into a slightly itchy, red rash that just wouldn't go away. Then he got red bumps on his tummy, face, and legs.

So I did what any mom would do--I used Google to find descriptions and photos of rashes. Okay, maybe that's not what any mom would do. A lot of moms would go to the doctor. But I really wanted to figure it out. We live in the U.S. and have a high deductible health insurance policy, and I just didn't love the idea of spending $80 to get a rash checked out.

My conclusion from looking at the rash photos was that the red bumps were due to a heat rash. I hoped Dr. Google's diagnosis had been correct, as I looked for treatment information. I read that one thing I
shouldn't do was put any oily lotions on him, since that can make heat rash worse. Instead, I should use baby powder and give him plenty of naked time.

I followed Dr. Google's instructions. The rash persisted.

Finally, I gave in and called my doctor's office. They got him in that day, and I found out that Zoodle did not have heat rash; he had eczema.

Here's the thing--eczema treatment is pretty much the opposite of heat rash treatment. No need for powder, since that can dry the skin more. I was told to use oily petroleum jelly to lubricate the skin. And I got a prescription some fantastic steroid cream to help clear it up too. Soon after implementing our doctor's recommendations, Zoodle's rash was well on its way to clearing up.

That's when I realized--Google can lead me to a lot of answers, but Dr. Google doesn't take the place of our family doctor. Nothing online can replace an experienced doctor looking at my child, hearing his history, and making a diagnosis. It was an important lesson to learn.

Now, I'll still use the Internet when I have medical questions. Sometimes I find great, easy answers to our problems just by doing a quick search. But next time I have an issue that stumps me, hopefully it won't take me quite as long to call the person who actually went to medical school--no offense to Dr. Google.

With any luck, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program shortly.

Umm....yeah....

2009-09-11T09:57:00.000+01:00

You know when you mean to call someone, but you put it off and put it off and it gets later and later and you think of all the reasons you can give as to why it took you so long to call but the longer you leave it the more pathetic those excuses seem and you don't really want to face it so you put it off some more...yeah, it's kinda like that.

I seem to only be able to blog when things are pretty much going okay. When I get overwhelmed by stuff or long buried crap comes up I seem to just kind of shut down and don't want to really talk to anyone. Apparently including all my bloggy friends. And there a few of you out there that I do consider friends, or at least friends in the making. I wish I could say life's just been busy but I it hasn't. I can't even say that I haven't had much to say lately but there's been a ton of crap running around inside my head, but none of it wants to come out. It just all sounds pathetic and self-serving to me.

Even this I didn't want to write, but either I am going to keep up with this blogging thing or I'm not and I have missed it. I do have a lot of non-crappy things that I could have blogged about but I seem to not be able to do fluff when life isn't feeling fluffy.

Most of you, I've kept up with, I just haven't had much to say in the way of comments either. I'll be back soon, I'm sure. Just a little note to say I'm not dead.

Completely derailed

2009-09-02T09:10:00.000+01:00

Okay, so I should really start blogging about upcoming things before they happen that way you know that when I disappear for a week at a time it's because my Dad has suddenly arrived in town and besides the whole stress of not really knowing what to expect on a visit because we very rarely spend time together, Asher is in our room and is very loud at night, and Dad is (unbeknownst to me) totally into the whole touristy thing and I've been run a bit ragged since Saturday and haven't even had the energy to keep my eyes open long enough to read blogs let alone write one of my own. It has been going surprisingly well, though, Asher absolutely adores his Grandpa (mind you, he never gets so much attention from his parents) but I am exhausted. Dad leaves tomorrow morning and then I'm coming home to nap. I'll catch up and post comments soon and be back with you all by the weekend.

In the meantime, Happy Humpday.

Check out the Strange Fit

2009-08-24T17:18:00.000+01:00

I have been mulling this around my brain pan for a couple weeks now and I finally sat down today and set it up (much to the consternation of a certain small child). I have started a new blog. It is called Strange Fit. I've been really wanting to get into shape. Not just talk about it, not just dream about it, not just sigh longingly at clothing stores that don't carry plus sizes, but actually do it. I've realized though that, left to myself, I run out of steam way too quickly. I recently got the EA Sports Active for the Wii and 3 workouts shy of completing my first 30 day challenge, I ran out of steam. I got all blah and didn't do my exercise one day. And the next. And the next. And the next. Insert depression here. I want to get out of this rut. Obviously the way I've been doing things results in, well, not doing things. So it's time for a change.

I have in my mind how cool this site could be, with recipes and tips for eating right and drinking more water and all that fun stuff. I also want to do reviews of different kinds of exercise and how easy/hard they are to incorporate into every day life. Right now, my main source of exercise (apart from previously mentioned small child) is my Sports Active on Wii. I know there are a few of you out there who have this program as well. Whether you're doing the 30 day challenge or not, I'd love to get together and share tips and frustrations. We could even share custom workouts. Eventually I hope to be able to do some fitness related give-aways.

So come on over. Check it out. Tell your friends. I'm totally open to suggestions and guest posters and maybe even team members.

Six Word Saturday

2009-08-22T08:32:00.002+01:00

Birthday BBBQ! Birthday BBQ! Birthday BBQ!

Okay, so I cheated. But only a little. And I do have every right to be excited about it. Especially since I went to bed early feeling poopy and my wonderful Rocket Scientist stayed up until midnight cleaning up and tidying the house. (then to add insult to injury, Asher woke up just as he was coming to bed and because we're trying to go without the paci it took 2 hours to put him to sleep and then, just as he was crawling into bed, Asher came to my side of the bed to see if it was morning yet and it took me another hour before he finally fell asleep for the night. whew. bright side is that he slept in until 7:30 this morning. So I suppose my 6 words could have been 'without paci Little Man doesn't sleep')

On Turning 34

2009-08-19T14:17:00.002+01:00

Okay. Yes. I am now 34. I have never really been bothered by birthdays. Excited usually. It's always been a celebration and on occasion it has stuck out as a 'milestone' year.

Sweet 16.

18 made me legal in Alberta.

19 made me legal in neighboring provinces.

20 was just plain cool. 21 made me legal pretty much everywhere.

25 was another cool one, for a lot of reasons. It was the turn of the century. And I was in Africa. I woke up on the beach in Mozambique for that one.

26 was a little depressing, partly because it meant I was on my way to 30 and partly because I wasn't in Africa anymore and I missed it terribly.

29 was exciting because I was getting married that year.

30 didn't freak me out as much as I thought it would. It was kind of fun. I was starting to feel like an adult, we had just moved to Chicago, I got a ferret!

31, meh, I just didn't think much about it.

33 was my first birthday as a Mom!

And now here we are. 34. Feeling a little old...er. I'm not sure why this year is bothering me. Perhaps because the novelty of feeling like an adult is wearing off. No. That's not right. Honestly I still always feel like everyone's looking at me like I'm 16 when in a room full of women. I have no idea why that is. I have issues. I think The Rocket Scientist has worried that I'll be sad because we're not having a big party with loads of friends. We had that last year, and it was great. It's not really bothering me, though. I mostly look forward to doing birthday stuff with Jeff. Sorry everyone, it's not that I don't love you.

But this year...I'm feeling the year. I'm more aware of time. How quickly it's moving. I'm more aware of how not in shape I am. How it seems much harder to regain a shape that I don't mind looking at.

On the other hand, I may just be hormonal. I am after all, ovulating. Ha! Betcha didn't think I could milk that for more, didja!

But don't let my whinging bother you. I really am very blessed this year. As I am every year. I have a wonderful, loyal, attentive, passionate husband and an adorable, giggling, brilliant, cuddly, awesome son. Happy Birthday to me!

And now for something...A little Brit different

2009-08-17T14:26:00.003+01:00

Okay, I am going to be totally upfront and say that I did not think of that terribly witty turn of phrase on my own. We are big Doctor Who fans in this house and made sure that every cable package we had back in the States included BBC America. I don't know if they said that before every program (that would have gotten old really fast), but they did say it before Doctor Who and/or Torchwood and it would always bring with it a little twinge of excitement because it meant we were getting our 'fix'.

I am now completely unashamedly stealing that phrase for my own blogging purposes. I think I'm pretty safe in this. But if I get several hundred more followers, I may have to change the name as a preemptive strike against litigation. (I have always wanted to idly fit that into conversation).

So without further ado, here is my first installment of:

Everyone asks, "How do you find driving on the 'wrong' side of the road?" Honestly, you get used to it. For one thing, you're expecting it. You know, coming here, that you're going to be driving on a different side, getting in the other side of the car, trying to remember which direction to look when you cross the street. You're prepared so it doesn't take too long to make the adjustment. It's the little things that no one ever tells you about, that you're totally unprepared for, that go a long way towards making you aware of the fact that common language or no, you are in a foreign country.

So here's on thing I noticed that is different on this side of the pond. Light switches go in the opposite direction. In North America, you click the light switch up to turn it on and down for off. Here it's down to turn it on and up to turn it off. I know, right? Who would think to warn you about stuff like that? I would. That's right, I got your back.

By the way, my inspiration for starting this is Brit Gal in the USA and her Brit Word of the Day.

Six Word Saturday

2009-08-15T17:58:00.001+01:00

I am an IKEA queen, yo!

Let's just say our house is starting to remind me just a little bit of Fight Club. Or at least Asher's room does. Bet you just can't wait to see pictures.

What energy?

2009-08-13T11:13:00.003+01:00

So I was pretty sure that I had posted something recently about having tons of energy. I'm still pretty sure I did, I can almost see/hear/feel the sentence I typed but I can't find it. Honestly I didn't look really hard, I just sort of scanned the last few posts and went, 'Meh. Too many words.' and gave up. I'm not really sure if it was just the post about being so productive/busy because I was anxious about my appointment, but I could have sworn I told you about the whole Wii Active thing. Ringing any bells? Maybe? Well, whatever. Let me start again.

When I was in Canada, I picked up Sports Active for the Wii. I love it. Doing the 30 Day Challenge. Some days it's not bad, other days it totally kicks my butt, but every day I sweat buckets so that's gotta be good, right? Anyway, a strange side effect that we've noticed is that I have a boat load of energy lately. I know. Weird. A side effect of all this energy however, seems to be that every time I sit down to write a post, I think of something else that needs to be done/picked up/washed/dried/folded/put away/played with, etc. So I've had all these posts run through my head and then run right out again. Apparently nothing has affected my concentration. Poop.

Oh, well. But I ask for your patience while I figure out how to incoporate all this actual 'doing' and 'keeping up with chores' stuff into my day which was previously filled with 'reading blogs', 'trying to be witty in posts', and 'just one more episode of ~~Thomas~~ ~~Lazytown~~ ~~Pooh~~ Lie to Me'. I will figure out how to do it all. Why are you lauging? Stop that!

I have to say though, that my lack of presence the last few days is because, wait for it....

Asher is sleeping through the night!!!

Yes, it would be thrilling if that didn't come with....

Asher is getting up at 5:30!!!

Yup, every morning. Sometimes, like today, he mixes things up and gets up at 5:05. It does not matter what time he goes down, 6:30 or 8:30 or anywhere inbetween, he is up by 5:30. And thanks to our brilliant idea of graduating him to a big boy bed, he just walks into our room and announces that it is now morning and why haven't you fed me yet?

So we're trying something new. We, as gently as possible, say that Mommy and Daddy are sleeping and would you please go back to your room and play. I even taught him how to turn on his lamp so he could get out his toys and play. Seriously, we should put cameras up and sell it to the networks, the comedy that is us trying gently to explain to a 16 month old that Mommy and Daddy are sleeping and he should go entertain himself.

No. You cannot remind me of this when he is 16 and I can't drag him out of bed in the morning with a team of wild horses.

And really, 'team' of wild horses? Isn't that a bit of an oxymoron? Have I mentioned how much caffeine I've had already this morning? No? Well, that's cause I don't remember. It's been a lot. But now I've got to go get my work out in before Asher wakes up.

I leave you with a reminder of how cute he really is despite his attempts to drive me insane, and a lovely rose from our back garden for us to all stop and 'smell' and relax a little. It is summer after all.

Friends in the Blogosphere

2009-08-09T10:12:00.000+01:00

Last week a friend of mine joined me in the blogosphere. Now she's been writing forever and has had a blog or two in her time, but this particular blog is new. Go check her out, she has a way of looking at the everyday in a new way. I'm also thrilled because today, she quoted from my Mom's book, 'Who's Flying this Plane'.

Hope you all have a good Sunday, and happy reading:

Out of the Extraordinary: Welcome to the family

Slices of Beauty

2009-08-06T14:10:00.001+01:00

I came across this blog today. I think through Brit Gal in the USA. She just left a simple comment and I checked out her blog. She had collections of various photos depicting different kinds of beauty. I liked the posts I saw, she seemed to be drawn to very similar things as me as far as seeing beauty went. So I decided to follow her and see what else she came up with. Just some nice pictures to brighten up my day. And then this post came up:

Slices of Beauty...: A Greek Retreat + A Thank You...

There is now a new standard for beauty in houses as far as I'm concerned. A lot of people commented on Greece and wow wouldn't I like to go there. I've been to Greece, it's fine, but this house is beyond. Just the sense of cool, refreshing, calm that emanates from each picture, made my heart ache just a little.

If my Rocket Scientist is ever asking around for something that I might like for my birthday or Christmas or our anniversary, if he built me this house, he would never have to get me anything. ever. again. for as long as I lived. Which would be a really long time in such a peaceful place, let me tell you.

2009-08-06T12:08:00.002+01:00

Check me out! I'm a guest blogger!

A while back I wrote a blog for Beth and she's finally able to take that vacation so there I am on Musings of happy mommy, with my own musings. What fun!

I actually wrote the body of that post several weeks before she asked for submissions and had it just sitting in my written but not edited or posted box. So I edited it sent it to her. It's actually one of my favourite pieces. I think because I came about it so differently. I wasn't sitting down 'to write a post', I just had some thoughts in my head that I wanted to get out so I could possibly use them later. And of course it includes a picture of my Little Man. Always worth a check.

I hope you enjoy my post and be sure to stick around and check out C. Beth when she returns. She's one of the first bloggers that I started following way back when and she's one of the first I check on when I'm going about my daily read.

As for me, I'm off to chase my ever-increasingly energetic 16-month old. He's had a cold the past few days and is starting to feel better and I think is going a bit stir crazy from the lack of acitivity lately. Me too. Off to find a park.

Brown Bread - It's named after its color

2009-08-05T16:39:00.002+01:00

Okay, I have never done this before. I have seen others do it though, so I'm pretty sure it will be okay.

I'm going to share a recipe.

It's nothing ground breaking. Just bread. Brown bread from back when they named it after the color as opposed to the whole wheat content. It might be more appropriate to call it a molasses bread. I got this recipe from my aunt. I think she may have gotten it from Grannie, her mom. It's handwritten so I don't even know if it was once in a book or not. I'm sure my mom will leave a comment correcting me on its origin, all I know is that it is truly yummy bread. A bit dense, cuts like a dream, toasts wonderfully to go with a nice hot cuppa.

In 1 cup of warm water dissolve 1 tsp honey and then add 2 tbsp yeast. Set aside 10 minutes.

Melt: together 1/2 cup of boiling water and 2 tbsp shortening and pour into your mixing bowl

Add: 1/4 cup honey and 1/4 cup molasses

Add: 1/2 cup milk, 1 beaten egg, 1 tsp salt, and yeast mixture. Stir well.

Add: Flour - approx. 6 cups to make a soft, light dough. Turn out and knead for 8 minutes.

Let Rise: in a greased bowl, covered, for 1 hour (150 degree F warmth)

Shape: into 2 loaves, place in a greased pans

Let Rise: 1 hour covered

Bake: at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
(cover tops with foil if they get too dark)

*Now, I said it was a bit dense, but I think that's because I had two issues with letting it rise. I don't think it was warm enough, and my mixing bowl wasn't big enough. I was having trouble getting all 6 cups mixed in because of the size of my bowl and then I don't think it really let the dough have enough room to rise. Does anyone have tricks to share with me on a warm enough place to let bread rise? I've heard put it over the burner that the oven vents through, but I have a glass cooktop and no vent.

**Second amendment. I am currently living in the UK and I could not find molasses so I used treacle. I only used about 2/3rds of what was called for thinking that it would be too strong, but I don't' think it was. I would edge toward using the full 1/4 cup next time.

***Third note. This is for UK folk as well. Everyone may know this already, but it was news to me. Shortening is Cookeen in this country.

****Final mention. The yeast I use calls for it to be mixed with salt at the very beginning. But since the recipe added salt later, I left it out of the initial yeast mix and it turned out very well. I think it would have been too salty if I'd added what the yeast jar had called for.

I have tried a few bread recipes now and they just keep getting better. This one in particular was lovely to me because it tasted like my childhood. I was very pleased that my Little Man enjoys it as well. He had a slice or two as a snack, no butter, no jam, just the bread and he gobbled it up.

Let me know if you try this. I'd love to know how it turns out for you.

Ovulating? Me?

2009-08-03T19:06:00.003+01:00

Why yes, thank you. I am. Ovulating. On my own. Without drugs. We've thrown around the line, "the best treatment for PCOS is a succesful pregnancy", but now there's actual hormonal proof. Yippee!

That being said, we are still testing everyone a second time to confirm that everyone's works are working.

That was the good news. The bad news is that if things are not working in 6 months or so, IUI's are not covered by NHS. And they don't do Clomid. They do FSH injections. And IVF. Which I don't qualify for for another year and some. That sucks.

We could do the IUI on our own, but it would cost 1400 GBP. That also sucks.

So for now, we are celebrating the fact that it seems I have suddenly gained the ability to ovulate. Thank God!

And now for the sex! Sorry, was that TMI? We're all adults, right? We know how this works.

So, wish us luck!!

With the ovulating, of course.

National Health

2009-08-03T14:28:00.003+01:00

So we have an appointment with our local fertility clinic this afternoon. I find myself quite nervous. I knew I was getting anxious, but as today has worn on, I have become positively beside myself. I've managed to keep myself busy, I got up early and made crepes for breakfast, I've baked some truly delicious honey/molasses bread, and I've just about finished all the laundry I was behind on. I've also finished a unit of my online course and started the next one. And Asher has been nursed, napped, fed, cleaned, and kept happy. I need to be anxious more often. It makes me ridiculously productive.

On the other hand, I'd prefer to go without the stomach ache, slight light-headedness, and general shaky feeling. Sounds bad, I know. But it's all physical. I haven't been running stuff around in my head, I have apparently been suppressing any and all thoughts about it and it's just making me feel like crap. Part of the nervousness is the prospect of starting all this again; the meds, the testing, the not-so-comfy IUI, and the very real prospect of being pregnant again in the next couple months (we didn't have the horrible experience that some have had, I ovulated on the first round of clomid and we got pregnant on our first IUI so I'm kind of expecting it to go just as well the second time round).

The hitch, and I think this is what's really got my knickers in a twist, is that it's not like the US system where we had great insurance and a really great doctor that I had picked out myself. The clinic we're going to is at the hospital instead of a nice cosy office. I'm likely going to have a male doctor, not my first choice for sure. And the real kicker...they can say no. I'm not sure of the rules or waiting lists for these procedures. I know the rules for IVF are really quite strict. If we needed IVF I wouldn't qualify right now. I'm a little freaked. I'm trying not to be. Obviously. I never get this much work done. I'm sure all my worries will come to naught, but of course until I know for sure I'm having a bit of a moment.

Oh, yeah. And if they want to start Clomid, I have to wean Asher first. Yeah. I might actually be ready (although I feel guilty that I am), but I know that Asher for sure is not. Okay, for real now I think I may throw up sometime before this appointment actually takes place. Hopefully it's not as we're checking in. On someone's shoes. That would suck.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Renewal

2009-08-01T13:36:00.002+01:00

A month ago, I disappeared. I was trying to figure out a way of getting to my best friend's wedding back in Canada. I couldn't post about it because of course she reads these posts. And really nothing else was on my mind. So I hemmed and I hawed and Jeff and I went back and forth over pros and cons and logistics and practicalities and it really boiled down to relationship. How much are relationships worth? I've come to the conclusion that they're just about the only thing worth anything. Relationships with family, friends, spouses, children, parents, people on your street, in your church, at work, in your community, on the bus. Relationships are really the core of life. They are why we do most of what we do. How we view ourselves in relation to other people determines how we carry out our daily activites. Sorry. I didn't mean to get so philosophical. Just one of those things you start to get a broader scope of when you actually sit down and start writing. Back to my story.

Every time I talked about the week of E's wedding, I kept saying things like, 'when I get back'. Totally by accident. Jeff was already going to Poland that week for a conference, I was facing my first week on my own with Asher with a bit of trepidation and a bit of excitement, honestly, but everytime I thought of the wedding, I just couldn't imagine not being there. Originally, I was supposed to be a bridesmaid. It hurt that I wasn't going to be standing up there with her. So in the end, I went. We bought the ticket Sunday night and Tuesday we all flew out. Jeff dropped Asher and I off at Gatwick and then headed straight to Heathrow for his flight. We survived our first trans-Atlantic flight on our own (whew), and were able to surprise E Wednesday morning at her home. The wedding was on Friday and was absolutely one of the most beautiful, intimate, and unassuming weddings I have ever been to. I actually cried more at this wedding than my own. I am so happy that I was able to make it.

I spent a lot of time on this trip, reminiscing. Maybe that's not quite the right word. Remembering is a better word. I had been having a hard time remembering what life was like before Asher and I was able to spend a lot time reliving the 'good old days'. The days when Jeff and Iwere first dating, when we were engaged, the early months of our marriage. These were good things for me to remember, important things. I had forgotten an awful lot. About myself. I was already starting to realize that. But mostly about Jeff. And about the things we went through.

To clarify: I am not going down the road of 'having a baby ruined our marrage'. I cannot imagine life without Asher. I don't want to. But adding a member of your family does shift things. I think I did not really acknowledge/understand/get how much time it would take to make that shift. I think I thought it was over months ago and this is how we were going to be forever. It wasn't a place I wanted to be. I needed to remember things that were before because there are so many of those things that I want to be sure to preserve as we go forward, things I want to be a part of Asher's life as well as our own. Things I want to keep in this family no matter how big it grows. Remembering is important. Living life on purpose is important. It's often too easy to just let every day happen as it will and too much gets lost if you don't purposefully hold on to them.

So this is me, holding on.

To my style: to who I am in all of my varied and wonderful roles

To my family: and all the history and growth and future that they represent,

To my friends: new and old, and all that we've stuck by each other through, I'm sure there'll be more to come

To Jeff: my husband, my partner (in crime and in parenthood), my love, my rock, my sheltering arms. Here's to never forgetting again, or at least not for long.

To God: Who created the whole concept of relationship in the first place, to have one with me, He's the reason that I love. Keep reminding me.

Without relationship, there can be no change. We are affected by, and in turn affect, those around us. So make sure your effect is a good one.

Help! I'm in the Great White North without wireless internet!

2009-07-14T17:50:00.004+01:00

Just a quick shout out to say, I am still alive but relatively offline. There is internet here, but the room in which it is located is a) roughly the temperature of a meat locker and can only be survived for short periods of time, and b) very much not child-friendly and since I have a small child almost permanently attached to me, it is difficult to sit here for the time required to write an actual post. That, and, let's be honest, I'm more interested in spending my time soaking up family and friends. Not that I don't love you all, but I'll be back soon. Does anyone want to write a guestpost for me some time this week? I'll return the favor as soon as I'm back on English soil. Drop me an email if you're interested. If not, this will just give you more time to read up on all the other blogs you follow. Oh, yes, I haven't read a single blog since I've been here. I don't know if it's liberating or if I'm going through withdrawal. Somewhere in between I'm sure. But I miss you and will catch up(-ish) as soon as I get back my wireless.

PS. Oh, right! you don't actually know where I went. Part of the reason I stopped blogging for a bit was because all I wanted to talk about was my best friend back in Canada and her upcoming wedding and how hard it was to not be there and how much I desperately wanted to buy a ticket, but if I did decide to go, I wanted it to be a surprise. So we went into stealth mode. Turns out we decided that money wasn't a good enough reason to not be there for one of my oldest and dearest friends. So I bought the ticket Sunday night and left on Tuesday and surprised her at her house on Wednesday and made it to the wedding on Friday. Woot!!

2009-07-01T10:02:00.004+01:00

*lovely animated Canadian flag courtesy of

2009-06-28T19:50:00.002+01:00

Okay, this is me with my undercut in Greece. The ramrod straight back and slightly manic smile is because I am scared to death of heights and that is a long way down. Back to the hair, I don't know that I want to go this high again, but definitely need less hair than I have right now.

Six Word Saturday

2009-06-27T15:36:00.002+01:00

So hot. I miss my undercut.

I've been really missing my undercut lately. I really wanted to get my hair dyed and cut while we were in Chicago seeing as I would pay in dollars there what I would pay in pounds here (I'll save you the math and say that sucks and is way too expensive here). Unfortunately a few things came up that cost more than we'd planned on and I didn't get to have my hair done. Boo. I've resigned myself to not having pink hair anytime soon, but I'm still hoping for some wicked red. Maybe this shade?

And if you're wondering what an undercut is, ~~this is me on our trip to Greece in April, 2007.~~ Okay, I'm having trouble with my external hard drive, so you don't get to see me in Greece with my undercut. I found this lovely example for you instead.

I know Saturday is over for me and approaching over for you but I got distracted by laundry. Loads of it. *hahahaha sorry I couldn't resist* Does anyone know of someone in Oxford who does hair on the side, now that I'm looking at that picture, I really miss my undercut. And is it really a 6 word Saturday if you then take so many other words to explain it?

Have you seen this woman?

2009-06-26T13:37:00.009+01:00

All Points Bulletin - Missing Woman - one strange mamma, about 5'2", dark hair, declined to give weight (be sure not to ask her, she might take a swing at you), last seen heading off to help take care of her son's god-brother. I have no idea what I she was wearing because it was way too long ago. I mean, come on, you'd think that with exciting news like that and truly awesome photo ops she'd be blogging about it by now, bugging all her readers (are there any left? not you, Mom, I know you're still there) with how cute he is and how she got to hold him for two days straight and look at this picture, and this picture, and this...you get the idea.

I wish I had a good excuse, like no internet (okay, well actually I didn't have any internet at the godparents house but that was only two days and that was OVER TWO WEEKS AGO!! This is shameful I know. There is no excuse. So instead of continuing to moan about it, let me catch you up.

Mateo is beautiful. I can't describe to you the honor it was for me to spend those two days with him and his parents. I hove how God's timing works out even the little things that we don't think to ask for. I half-jokingly offered to help out when I saw her Sunday, knowing her sisters and family would be bombarding her with wanting to come over, but as it turned out, she did need help and the others weren't free. So it was a blessing both ways. I tried my best not to gloat too much. (Did I do okay, Myrny?) I took tons of pictures but I'll leave those for their own post.

So what else happened? I got to spend some awesome time with very dear friends. We went to the Zoo with the other godparents. I got to do a lot of shopping at an awesome Carter's sale for my every growing child. I got to visit AG for my Birthday present (thanks, Mumsy). I took part in a Zumba class. (go ahead and check out that video...see the dear heart in the I heart NY t-shirt? put 75 lbs on her and that would be about what I looked like. Ya.) I actually got to go to 3 movies!! UP with Asher and Janet, Star Trek with Myrny, and Terminator with Jeff. I have to say, I'd forgotten what really good popcorn tasted like. They don't actually make their popcorn in the theatre here, they pull it out of great big plastic bags already popped. Ugh. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed all of them and have made it a priority to find a babysitter for at least one trip to the movies a month. They say date nights are important, right?

What else? There was a bridal shower for my former Worship Leader (Congrats again Jenny!!). Saturday was spent helping Myrny run errands and such (really just an excuse for us to spend the day shopping ;) and then helping set up. Asher was a bit done in by the time we got there and decided to crash while the women-folk got things set up. I didn't tell him what he was napping on. I'll save this picture for his wedding reception:

Jeff arrived Saturday night from his conference in Minnesota. We got to share our favourite Chinese food with the couple-to-be after church. Jeff got his man-date with his chocolate bear on Tuesday after a much needed day of just resting and hanging out at our friends home.

Asher loves his Manny and Max. When I played this video he perked up and went running into our kitchen to see if they'd somehow materialized. Asher and I got treated to some Baker's Square as well that evening. Wednesday was organizing our suitcases and packing up so that we would be free to visit with the godparents and Mateo who came to visit us before heading to the airport.

Mary doesn't realize she's not actually tall enough to do that to Jeff.

For the most part, that was Chicago. Greatly condensed, but we're just playing catchup, right? The flight home was not bad, Asher slept most of the way, Jeff and I didn't sleep at all. We very much needed the weekend to recover from the jetlag. Monday, at our Toddle In, Asher fell of the back of a little plastic mini-slide. Very traumatic, but no damage done. Tuesday went into our local drop in play group and had a very interesting conversation with some of the ladies there, but that really needs its own post. Wednesday missed my Women's Group in favour of a nap since I'd been awake since 4:30. Woke up from the nap to find Asher covered in some mysterious blisters. If you followed me on Twitter, you heard about the whole miserable saga of finding out he had hives. Hives! Still don't know what caused them or why they hung on for 3 days. You notice how I'm talking of it the past tense right? Because today, he had a 3 hour nap and woke up almost completely hive free and in the course of writing this post, the last few marks have faded and nothing new has shown up. I'm tentatively calling it a win. If you want to see all the traumatic pictures you can go here. I'm just happy to be breathing again.

And if you're still with me, a comment on the post I wrote a few weeks back. Something else you probably didn't know about me, I went through psychoanalysis for almost 4 years. Honestly, I think everyone should do it. Incredible. Anyway, I always did this in my sessions. Right before either I went on a holiday or my Doctor did, I would get down to the nitty-gritty, the meat of things, those deep, inner angsts. And then my half hour would be up, we'd go our merry ways for a couple weeks and I'd come back and just play catch up for a few sessions. I knew this was my pattern and yet I couldn't stop. I had no idea that I still did it. So I'm making sure my catch-up is all done. I may expound on some things just cause they were fun and I have lots of pictures, but I won't feel like I can't write about anything else in the meantime. Like I said, I don't know where I will go from here, but I don't want to lose whatever was going on when I wrote that blog. I really appreciated your comments. Let's see if we can't get to know each other even better in the future. Which, uh, means, I should maybe stop lurking on all your blogs and actually commenting I guess. :)

Live from Chicago!

2009-06-09T12:43:00.002+01:00

Well, it's 6:45 am, I've been awake for longer than I want to think about. Mostly because as I lay in bed awake, thinking it was quickly approaching 7 and I'd had a nice little sleep in and so had Asher, I was wholly unaware of the fact that it was actually quickly approaching 5:30 and there had been no special sleep in and I would actually be waking up ridiculously early and feeling pretty good about it in a mere half hour. But the good news is, is that Asher did sleep through the night, no fever or coughing or whining or crying. Which means I also slept through the night. Even if that night for me was only about 5 and a half hours long. It's a longer night than I've had for while so I'll take it.

In case you were wondering, there won't be any Monday Meals while we're here. No way I'll be that organized. As you can see. What with it being Tuesday already. And yes, me being happy that Asher had no fever or coughing and all the rest of it is because the night before I got very little sleep thanks to all that going on. I had thought it was a cold, ther was some cloudy snot involved, but now I'm thinking more the snot was just all the recycled air of the plane and the wind and new pollen of Chicago upon our arrival and the fever was from his last molar. Either that or the shortest cold in history as this morning there's no sign of any of those ailments...except of course the molar.

Anyway, I'm very excited today as we are going to go help out Asher's godmamma with her brand new bambino. It all happened so suddenly she didn't have time to hand off her projects at work and so has a lot due this week (happily though she works from home). Then she'll be off on six weeks maternity leave and her husband is a school teacher and is finished as of Thursday. So in the meantime I get the wonderful job of hanging out and helping with the baby. Yay!

So for now, I'm off to pack up for the day, get some breakfast and go pick up the rental car. Will catch up on blogs as soon as I can.

Off to Chi-town

2009-06-06T09:42:00.003+01:00

We are off to Chicago in a few hours. I was looking forward to it before, but now I am completely over the moon. Two of our dear friends and Asher's godparents have been travelling a very long road and on Monday the will meet their new little baby boy. I am so unbelievably ecstatic for them right now. I'm sure they would be picking him up earlier, but she also happens to be walking the Avon 2-day walk for breast cancer starting tomorrow at 7am. I'm sure she'll have a spring in her step for all of those 39? miles.

We love you guys!!
does this make Asher a god-brother?

*Edit: This is not actually a picture of their new baby. Sorry. This is a picture of them as they visited Asher and I in the hospital like the great godparents they are. I'll have pics of them with their baby soon.

We strange, we happy strange.

2009-06-04T21:42:00.009+01:00

So, I never really explained why I chose the title for my blog. Once I got it all set up, I simply took up where I had left off with my family's website blog. I really didn't mean to do that. In fact, in the beginning, I wasn't going to tell anyone I knew about this blog because I wanted to be free to write in it what I wanted without worrying who was going to be calling me up five minutes later wanting to know exactly what I meant by that. Apparently I forgot all about that between the conceiving and naming of my blog and writing my first post. And, as you can see it quickly became...well, a mommy blog (and I don't mean that nearly as sideways as it might sound), essentially a blog to share our family life with, whoever. When I set up the family website and then when I started to post here, I had hoped that my actual family would want to keep up on all things us and would read and comment and we could all keep in touch a bit more through the wonders of the internet. That didn't exactly happen. My mom reads this. And I'm sure my bestest Aunt reads it on occasion over Mom's shoulder. I try not to be bitter. Unsuccessfully for the most part. But I digress. Because I shouldn't really be bitter when I didn't want anyone but the anonymous masses to read this blog anyway. I can still be bitter about the website though. I pay money for that people! Moving on.

So who were the strangers and where was this normal land. I'm sure some people come across this title and think, 'ooh, nice literary reference'. I'm sure it is. I haven't read it. Perhaps others might think, 'ooh, nice biblical reference'. I was pretty sure it was in there but didn't really know where or who it referred to. Turns out it refers to Moses living out with the Midianites after he fled Egypt. Huh. So none of those references are really what I was going for. I just thought it was a nice turn of phrase. Some people might have thought it was in reference to Jeff and I, being Canadians, moving to the United States. If that were the case however, I think I would have kept to the original phrase, 'Strangers in a strange land'. And if that had been the case, I probably would have changed the name when we moved to the UK like I threatened to here. But we're still not there yet. See this is what happens when I'm not simply reporting the goings on of our, or more likely Asher's, day. I get really wordy. Moving on.

So what am I talking about then. Us. Me and Jeff. We are Christian. We are Goth (although some days could argue more punk than goth). We are just a little bit Crunchy. We are Geeks. We enjoy a good musical. We are tattooed. Well, I am. We are pierced. Again, me. We prefer our hair to be anything but a natural shade (although we don't always get our way on that). We have other preferences that we won't mention here because it is a family blog. And because my mother does read this. (There is just so much more that needs to be said on that topic, maybe if I start that other blog, sorry Mum, I probably won't tell you about that one) Us. Me and Jeff. We are strange. We don't really fit anywhere. (except maybe Africa, that was like coming home) We are eclectic in almost every sense. Probably more than really anyone around us realize. We have learned to fit in. We have let a lot of things go. For a number of reasons. Money. Time. Effort. None of them so that we could fit in and yet our goal was never to stand out. Just to be ourselves. Although Jeff probably enjoys the standing out a bit more. So we find ourselves amongst all manner of normal people (who by the way invariably say they wish they were brave enough to be not normal) feeling always a little...strange. Perhaps there is more strangeness around us than we think, we're just among the few who let it show on the outside. Well, when we can afford it at least.

This is what I was trying to get at, wanting to explore, when I thought up this blog. Somehow it didn't happen. I suppose life got in the way a little. But that's not quite right. It wasn't life. We haven't been so much living life as surviving it recently. I don't blame it on Asher, I blame it on me. I had only just got the hang of being me. Suddenly being responsible for someone else kind of threw me. Even if I did have plenty of warning. I forgot how to be me, I was so caught up with being Asher's mom. I still am to a large extent, but I'm starting to remember there's more to me and that it's okay to have more to me. I don't quite know yet, how it's going to look to be...incorporated, because I know that I'm not 'just' me or 'just' mom. I'm me and now being a mom is part of that. But I don't want to just survive. I want to live life with abandon. God knew what kind of mom Asher needed. Me. Not a shell of me, or a watered down version of me, but me.
I am a tattooed and pierced, Christian-Gothic-Hippie-Punk-Geek mom who loves broadway musicals, Funker Vogt, and collecting dolls (did I just say that? not an admission I meant to make) who currently hates her hair and can't afford to get done what she really wants so she'll probably settle for bottle black. Again. Ugh. Spent. Kind of doubt this makes much sense. Probably should draft it and post it later, but later never comes. Right?

So where does the newborn go from here?* Or in my case, the strange mamma? Wherever it is, there will be good dance music, funky hair, more metal, my strange husband by my side and my awesome little man on my hip. And who knows? Hopefully more awesome little ones along for the ride. Hopefully a few more. Oh. And there will be Africa. Somewhere in there, there will be more Africa.

*I will give an actual prize if you recognized that quote. I don't know what, but I will. Of course I would prefer that you actually recognized it and not looked it up on the internet. Is this what they call an honour code?

2009-06-02T17:38:00.003+01:00

This is the life.

Monday Meal

2009-06-01T15:36:00.004+01:00

We're going back a few weeks for this one as a lot has been going on in the house and I haven't been photographing a lot of mealtimes lately. I will update on those things shortly, I just have to sort them out in my own head first. As you can see, we've made some changes around here. A sleek new look to start. A reflection of some of what's been going on with me in that I'm working on feeling like myself more. Ya, it's not coming out right. I'll try again in a day or two.

For now, Asher's Mother's Day Lunch. Believe it or not, this was a first for having spaghetti. We have pasta all the time, but never spaghetti. It was a bit harder to eat on his own than what he's used to. But all in all, he was very good for not having a proper nap and Mom and Gramma both enjoyed his company. As well as our waitress with whom he was quite infatuated.

We cut it up for him but in the end it was just easier to use a spoon.

He didn't buy that this green thing was actually food.

The coloring book on the other hand...

...mmmmmtasty.

As a parting thought, if you see someone leaving a comment on your blog called Strange Mamma, ya, that's me.

Monday Meal

2009-05-26T11:55:00.004+01:00

It's Tuesday?! What? Long weekends completely throw me. Why you ask? I don't work. Asher's not in school yet. Ah, but dear hubby is at home. And that makes all the difference in the world. Especially on a long weekend when he has no deadline or threat of impending doom. It was a truly glorious weekend. We did yard work and housework on Saturday and still had time to go to the park for a bit. Sunday afternoon was spent out on our patio. Asher had his water/sand table out and was having fun combining everything. We discovered a table and umbrella (likely from the 70's but that's okay) and set up for a nice leisurely day. Monday was spent with a nice lie-in (after taking an hour and a half to put Asher back to sleep at around 3 in case you thought he might have actually slept through the night, but that's another post) a bit of lounging and laundry and a trip to the park. All of it with Jeff by our sides all happy and relaxed. Big contented sigh.

Which is why I totally forgot that yesterday was Monday. So here is what I had planned for this week's Monday Meal:

This is not so much a test as a testament as to the totally great kid that I have. Here he is with a plate of fish sticks, chips (fries) and peas.

He loves all of these things. I had thought he loved chips the best, followed by fish and then peas.

I guess not. He's not touched his fish and chips in favour of finishing off his peas first.

Grammy and I are very proud of our little man.

He loves his peas so much he'd like to share.

Even the ones in his mouth.

I love my little man.

2009-05-23T12:21:00.001+01:00

Oh, for a full night's sleep.

It's Monday! Again.

2009-05-18T20:28:00.007+01:00

Okay, so this is quickly becoming less about me getting nutrition into Asher in new and fun ways and more just a topic to get me going on a Monday. So here is Asher having High Tea (I don't know if that technically calls for capitals, but it sounds like it should) at the Ritz. It apparently takes two months to get a reservation here (lucky Mum booked it as soon as she bought her flight) and you can't take pictures because there might be famous people there. So we hid our camera behind the menu and the tea pots and the sandwich tray and tried to take pictures with only Asher in them. Even though there was no one that we recognized.

Asher was very good. For the most part. He did scream for a couple minutes when I pinched his leg in the highchair clips while I was buckling him in. I felt so bad. I felt bad for the well-dressed people who thought there were in for some high-dining and I felt bad for the look of complete horror on my son's face as I caused him pain and then I felt bad all over again when I went to change him after and saw the little red mark I left on his leg. Poor little man. He got a bit restless at the end, but once I let him out to walk around the hotel he was thrilled. And greatly admired as he strutted his stuff in his fancy little suit.

This is the tray of goodies. We had already gone through the sandwiches and they brought us more. Mom loved the scones the best, I found the pastries a bit disappointing. Who knew that the Ritz could make such wonderful sandwiches.

Asher loved the ham sandwiches the best. But apparently he only likes ham sandwiches like they make them there because he's been less than thrilled with them here at home.
There you can see his backup snacks and sippycup.

And the rest of the pictures are really just of him being adorable. Enjoy:(I have no idea what that look is he's giving me)

(checkin' out the neighbors)

This really says it all. Tea at the Ritz is, well, ritzy, but at the end of the day toddlers are exhausting.

Monday Meals...give or take a day...or two

2009-05-05T20:23:00.004+01:00

Okay, okay. Perhaps I should have waited to start the whole weekly blog thing until I knew I would have some actual time on my hands. This week also has a great excuse. My Mum is visiting from Canada. Yay!! It's been very nice to have another adult in the house to talk to during the day. And of course it is truly wonderful to see Asher and his Grandma laughing and having fun. More on that later.

Right now, I have to talk again about cottage cheese. I loved my last comment that perhaps if it's not in this country then perhaps I'm not such a stranger after all. Alas, I found it. Granted it was on the bottom shelf so no one can see it, but still.

I thought I would put some peaches in it to have a familiar and sweet taste to entice him:

I know you can't really tell so much from these pictures, but he was essentially just sitting there with his mouth open, moving the stuff around, trying to not swallow it:

All in all, not a big fan. Which I am totally okay with. So what next? I'm thinking maybe tomatoes. Or potatoes. That's not such a big deal I know, but he keeps steeling them out of their basket and trying to eat them raw. I'm tempted to let him try. But for right now, I'm going to say that next week I'm taking off. It will be Mum's last couple days with us and I don't want to worry about it or give excuses again.

I'll leave you with a couple pictures from a wedding we went to this last weekend. None of the pictures are of the wedding, they are all of Asher in his awesome little suit. Tell me he doesn't look like a tiny little Doctor Who only without the long coat.

*Just to note, I did not get a chance to 'fix' any of the photos which I know isn't bothering you, but it is bothering me so I had to say something.

Monday Meals...give or take a day

2009-04-28T18:55:00.002+01:00

Okay. So much for blogging with discipline. I totally forgot I had decided to do the whole checking out what Asher's eating on Monday. Okay maybe totally is a bit of an exaggeration. I remembered while I was in the grocery store yesterday that I was supposed to try Asher out on Cottage Cheese. They don't seem to have any in this country. So by the time I got home I had forgotten again.

Then I'm reading this blog today, and lo and behold it's a recipe for homemade cottage cheese. I have to say, I found the idea of cottage cheese before rather revolting. Now I really don't know if I'll be able to feed this to my child. I am truly sorry to those of you who make this a part of your daily diet. My good friends Emily and Sam would eat it for lunch if they wanted something light. And I didn't hold it against them. Much. but now that I have such a concrete way of making it myself I don't know if I can go through with it. But I will try. Maybe.

To be fair, we've had kind of a major deal happen. We bought a car. Don't get too excited. It's actually 6 years older than our last car. Which was a '99. Jeff is more distressed by this than I am, it actually reminds me of my first car, which I loved. I don't have a picture for you today, but I will take a before and after (it wasn't cleaned before we got it, but for 150 quid we're not complaining).

Also my Mom is coming into town tomorrow. Yay!!! Well, I should say into the country, or maybe onto the continent, but you get the picture. So there may be more blogging without obligation in the next couple weeks rather than blogging with discipline. But I will more than make up for it with a barrage of pictures of her visit.

Off to get my beautiful son out of the bath.

8 Things...better late than never, right?

2009-04-24T11:33:00.005+01:00

Liz tagged me.

8 Things I'm looking forward to:

My mom's visit
Being pregnant again
Adopting
Our trip to Chicago
Asher's first word
Playing in the back garden with Asher (he's currently afraid of grass so not a lot of playing going on)
Building forts with Asher
Seeing more of the UK and Europe

8 Things I did yesterday:

Bought a slow cooker (crockpot)
Sorted and cleaned out the kitchen thoroughly
Did some grocery shopping
Took Asher for a booster shot
Had blood taken for fertility tests
Did laundry
Met Jeff for lunch in city centre
Watched TV

8 Things I wish I could do:

Fly a plane
Play the drums
Roller blade
Speak Japanese
Make really good bread
Write Screenplays for a living
Play the bass guitar
Play peek-a-boo or swings with Asher for as long as he wants me to without getting bored

8 Shows I watch:

IT Crowd
Big Bang Theory
Supernatural
Lost
Doctor Who
Torchwood
Pushing Daisies
The Mentalist (whenever it makes its way over to this side of the pond)

8 Songs on my music player:

Accidentally in Love
Battu
City of Blinding Lights
Dwell
Emotionless
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
Going Under
Here I am to Worship

8 Favourite warm weather activities:

Going to the beach
Swimming
Exploring
Eating at an outdoor cafe
Going to the zoo
Sitting in the sun, reading
Opening all the windows
Wearing skirts and tank tops and flip flops

8 Favourite Happy Things:

Jeff
Asher
A Clean House
Playing Video Games
New Toys (usually in the form of electronics/small kitchen appliances)
Driving
Reading
Sleeping in

8 People I tag:

Tink's Mom (someone new I'm following)
The Blogess (I know she's got way funnier things to blog about, but really who wouldn't want to hear her answers to Things I wish I could do)
Road Blocks and Rollercoasters (one I've been following for a while)
SciFi Mama (tried to pick some I haven't tagged lately)
Rachel (have been following for a while but never tagged, I don't think)
Maya (would love to know what's on Maya's playlist)
April's Mom (just started following the other day)
Brit' Gal (another new one for me)

I have to say, I don't normally do these things, but in the interest of blogging with discipline, I thought it might be a good way to fill a day. Especially today. Was feeling very blah today. Sad to say I did not have the patience today with the little man that I have been enjoying as of late. Hopefully tonight everyone will get more sleep.

And then it was Thursday

2009-04-23T08:17:00.002+01:00

So all week I've had this and that on my mind but didn't want to post it because it would have been a sentence or two. Maybe a paragraph. I've got to get it out of my head that posts have to be a certain length. I got all inspired by C. Beth's blog the other day and actually put both buttons on my sidebar. And then proceeded to not blog for 3 days. So now I've got a mosh of stuff....

Okay, I've actually forgotten most of what was in my head now because I'm so frustrated with the UK ~~run around~~ health system. It's ridiculously long and convoluted and I honestly don't want to spell it all out again. Although I could, and it would be very witty in a sarcastic way, but I don't want to have it ruin my day and if I continue to dwell on the ~~thoughtless~~ ~~inconsiderate~~ manner in which this was handled I'll just ramp myself up for the entire day. Because this, like everything else is in my Father's hands and He knows the timetable better than ~~those policy-loving pencil-pushing non-communicative presumptive~~ I do. Have you guessed this is about my appointments with the fertility specialist? Yeah. The appointment I was supposed to have on March 30th, can't even be properly re-booked until sometime after May 18th. It took me a month to get the first one. AND getting the appointment isn't even the hard part. The procedure that was performed in my doctor's office back in Chicago has a waiting list here. And no one can tell me how long that waiting list is. I don't see that as a good sign. But what do I know, right? Nothing. Father's timetable. Not mine. Got it. Sort of. Moving on.

I remember some of what I was going to say now. Originally I was going to start off with a lovely little sentence like: The joy has lasted. And it has. Even with this morning's setback. I do feel like crying. But I don't think I'm going to. There are far worse things going on that have brought tears lately. Yesterday we learned that a dear friend's 5-month old grandbaby had just died. Still waiting to hear how it happened and very sick at heart that it was possibly not medical. I couldn't think of it yesterday without being nauseated. My heart aches for this family. So while there is petty disappointment for me, there is tragedy for others and miracles for still others. And yet, the joy has lasted. My only conclusion is that it comes from that peace that defies understanding and I am oh, so grateful.

The other thing that I wanted to do was clear up a little bit of misunderstanding over my introduction to Monday Meals. This is what happens when you edit your blog too much. You don't realize that in the taking out of certain things, if you don't put them back in another form people don't actually know that you've said them. Or thought them. Whatever, they don't know it if you don't post it. First of all, I want to thank you all for the comments left. (And Liz, I just remembered looking over those comments that you tagged me. I'm totally on that tomorrow!) I just want to explain a little further where we're at.

We did a lot of baby-led weaning while we were still back in Chicago. I made most of his food then. When we were moving around so much during December and January it wasn't really feasible to be making our own puree so we did more jars of food at that time. Once we settled in here in Oxford, he had enough teeth that he was mostly just eating what we ate only chopped up into smaller pieces. (Our boxes arriving put a damper on that and I took a couple weeks off and used pre-made toddler food but now we're back to real food) So that's where we are now. He essentially eats what we eat and with the imminence of his molars I imagine there's not much he won't be able to handle within the next couple months.

My issue is this. I don't eat a lot of variety. This is surprising to me more than any of you, because I really like food. However, for the most part, I would prefer other people make that food for me. If I didn't have Jeff to cook for I would eat the same thing all. the. time. I do like cooking. I would love to have a huge kitchen and spend hours creating something fabulous. I just couldn't be bothered half the time. (And I currently have a kitchen the size of a broom closet.) However, I understand that that's not always healthy, especially for growing toddlers. And, I want to give Asher the opportunity to develop a wider range of tastes than mine. For instance, I will probably get him some cottage cheese to see if he likes it. I will try very hard not to throw up while I'm feeding it to him.

I have quite a few cookbooks and I know there's nutrition information and even some recipes I think in Dr. Sears Babybook (which I have just found again in my unpacking!) but I thought it might be fun to try some of your ideas and I thought it might be fun for you to see how someone else's child ~~gets it all in their hair~~ enjoys it. So Monday's Meal, or snack, will be cottage cheese. I really will try to be okay with that.

Monday Meals

2009-04-20T15:15:00.004+01:00

I've been interested for a while by blogs who have themed days (like Monday Micro and Skywatch Friday) so I'm going to start my own. Monday, just because the first one is today, and Meals because that's what was going on in my brain today. Lucky they go together, right?

Monday Meals will be about my pre-occupation with what Asher's eating. You see, lately we've been moving away from pre-made baby food and I have this idea that I should probably try to introduce him to a properly varied diet so that when he's older he doesn't become a picky eater (I know, there are no guarantees, but I have to try). I'm hoping to enlist your help. I'm looking for ideas for easy snacks, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm also looking for new ways to try and introduce milk to my little man who turns his nose up at it so far. Spread the word to any other mother's out there, too. I don't have a give-away (yet) but I will definitely give your blog a plug and if another mother submits an idea and tells me they did so because of you, I'll give you both a plug. You can email any ideas/recipes to lillymercu (at) gmail (dot) com or leave them in the comments section.

So today, we had chicken, potatoes, and baby carrots. I know, not terribly ground-breaking, but we have to start somewhere. For the most part it went well, the only new item here was the baby carrots. He ate the first one I gave him quite well and then I left him to the rest on his own. For the most part, right now he's eating quite well with his hands (until he's more mischievous than hungry and then things start getting tossed around or spread on his shirt/face/hair/whatever). We're even starting to use a spork thingy. I scoop food onto it and help him guide it into his mouth. He's very pleased with himself about this.

I give you the aftermath:

What is that you say? There's something on the floor?

Well, let's take a closer look shall we?

Seems the carrots were not such a great hit. He ate them if they were on his spork, but if he put them in his mouth with his hands, he would just let them slide out again. That was at first, after a couple like that he proceeded to pick the rest out of his dish and drop them over the side.

Potatoes and chicken are always a big hit, but they will invariably find their way into his hair at some point.

And the spork got tossed overboard towards the end as well.

See, Mommy? All done.

Oh, look! It turns over.

Great, now he knows. All in all, a good lunch. What will be featured next week?

Shadow and Light

2009-04-19T19:51:00.003+01:00

For one glorious day I was pregnant. Or at least I could have been. There was a shadow of a line, a hint of pink, in the right light. I felt...well, it was surprising. I wasn't surprised, I'd been tired, feeling yucky, we'd had well-timed relations. What was surprising is that mostly, I just felt free. Free of all the stress/disappointment/anticipation. Free isn't even a good enough word. I felt...light. Dare I say, like my old self, although up until that moment I didn't realize my old self was missing. When I looked at things (things being little pink lines and shadows) objectively, I knew it wasn't really a positive, I knew I was fooling myself, but it was so easy to do, so simple to believe that I really was pregnant. Because then I didn't have to worry about it anymore, I could just get on with my day.

Now if you've been following me for a couple months, you know I've been here before. Recently. But this time it turned out differently. I'm not pregnant. It was just a shadow. Next time I will buy a digital test and never mind all this silly interpretive guess-work. But this time, for a moment I felt hope, I felt joy, I felt light. And I don't want to lose that. I don't have to be pregnant for that, I just have to get back to my old self, not worry about it and get on with my day. Get on with my life. Get on with being Asher's mom and Jeff's wife, not someone who can't get pregnant. Why do I need to be pregnant right now? I know we're going to have more kids. If not from 'well-timed relations' then from well-timed medical interventions. They worked so well the last time that there's no real reason to think they won't work this time. And even if they don't, then we just move on to adoption earlier than we thought. This will happen. I have to stop spending so much of my time waiting for it. It's not going to get happen any faster. Watched pot and all that. And I'm missing so much while I stare at that stupid pot.

I feel like I'm not doing this revelation justice. Like I'm not able to put into words how different yesterday was. And, really how different today continued to be even after taking the second test today to confirm that it was indeed just a shadow. I had more patience with Asher. And I hope with Jeff, too, you'll have to ask him. I played more, smiled more, laughed more, cried less. I was still tired, food still made me feel yucky, but that is kind of my life. I just don't notice it unless I'm late.

I am so happy that today didn't change. Too much. I will admit that I am disappointed. I would love to be pregnant right now. But I also want to get back to really loving being a mom. And not just any mom, but Asher's mom. And today I was. My patience lasted, my playfulness lasted, my smile lasted, my laughter lasted. Changes in plan weren't so bad, feeling a little claustrophobic in the church nursery didn't make me want to just pack up and go home early (which we actually did do, just last Sunday). There were a few tears, but mostly out of awe. Awe for how faithful God is. Awe for how faithful and long-suffering my husband is. Awe for my beautiful, amazing, not-enough-adjectives-in-the-book-wonderful son. Awe for another beautiful boy we saw on TV tonight. Yes, I cried. I could feel that mom's heart in her throat and the pride she had for her son no matter what the outcome.

I will do my best in the coming days and weeks to remember this lightness and to keep it and not take on such heavy burdens again. And then, hopefully, it will become habit again, being my old self. Even yesterday, as I was realizing the difference, I was glad that we thought maybe this time even as I knew it wasn't really. I was glad because I was able to see what I was missing. I was able to see how things could be if I just stepped away from the shadows and lightened up.

Asher's First Birthday

2009-04-15T14:35:00.008+01:00

Okay, so I realized why it's so hard for me to post sometimes. It's because I set myself up by telling you what I'm going to post about next and then I don't want to post about that the next day so that means I can't post about anything and when I want to sit down and write about something I feel guilty because I haven't posted what I said I was going to post about yet. Ugh. In case you didn't know, I'm a little OCD (self-diagnosed, not meaning to offend, I'm no Monk but I do have my moments, just ask Jeff). Anyway, so I'm going to endeavor to not let that be my blogging rule anymore. Well, more that I'm going to try not to actually tell you that I'm going to post about a specific thing next because there's no real chance of me un-making that rule. I'll try to just say I'll post about something soon so if something else comes up in the meantime I'll be perfectly justified in writing about that instead.

Right. So. Now that I have that out of the way, Asher's First Birthday:

We knew that we were having a party for him on Saturday, but we couldn't let Thursday go by unnoticed. Grandma didn't want to either and had actually arranged to go into work late so that she could be on Skype with us in the afternoon while he opened his presents. Yay! It was quite fun and she got to see him get the tricycle she bought him. She also got to see how much he did not dive into his Birthday Cake. Oh well, it was really good cake, Jeff and I enjoyed it very much.

He loved opening up all his presents

I think he's more excited about the paper ripping than the toys.

Except this one, he was pretty excited about this one. (That's his new tricycle that Grandma got him, check out the video at the further down.)

Okay, so this is the cake that I made, I know the decorating job sucks, my icing recipes all turned out like crap and it's impossible to add color to chocolate icing so I ended up just swooping the icing around using a knife. I also know that his name is crooked and you can't really tell that's supposed to be a ship at all but whatever, it tasted way better than the professionally decorated one we got for his birthday. I tried, okay?

He, however, wasn't so sure about that.

This pretty much sums it up.

But then of course he realizes there's a camera there and he's all smiles. The chocolate around his face btw, is not so much from him thinking it was so yummy that he couldn't shove it in his mouth fast enough, but more that he touched it and then kind of freaked out that it was sticking to him and flailed his hands around and got it everywhere. He took one bite for me that was okay, then the next bite had icing on it and he just kind of stuck his tongue back out and tried to get it off with not a lot of success. So we got the mess, without the awesome video of him diving into a sugar rush like a...well, like a kid in a candy store. Instead we have 6 minutes of him pretty much thinking this is the yuckiest thing we've ever tried to make him eat. Don't worry, I'll post that for you, too.

But first, here's the video of his tricycle coming out:

There's Grandma on the computer behind him, watching him check out his new wheels. What an awesome invention that is. But only two more weeks and Grandma can take him out to the park with those new wheels. Airplanes are pretty cool inventions, too.

Okay, that's it for this post, I'll put the cake fiasco on another one because it's really long and you'll probably want to skip it. I would love to tell you what's coming up next, but I just don't know. I do know that soon there will be a much delayed report on our trip to Cambridge and Janet's visit with us. Although I'll be tempted just to point you to her daily posts about it because she wrote a lot more than I'll be able to remember.

Asher's First Birthday Party!!

2009-04-09T09:58:00.010+01:00

Asher turned a year on April 2nd. We did a couple birthday things then (of which I will post next) but we had an actual birthday Party on Saturday with some cousins (several times removed, but who's counting. Family is family!). I thought pictures would tell the story best:

He got quite the haul. Far more than I expected, Jeff and I only got him a couple things. Good thing, too, he was pretty bored with unwrapping stuff by the time we got to some of the clothes and the video. (It's okay, that stuff is more for Mommy anyway) So, Thank You everyone!

This was my favourite part. Not because it was cake, because honestly I made a better one, but because it was an awesome Pirate Cake.

And here's Daddy in his paper pirate hat!

I picked up a little frog pool and put some balls in it for the kids. Asher was especially grateful as he is still not really diggin' the grass.

He and his cousin had great fun throwing the balls out onto the grass.

Here's his other cousin all decked out for the wonderfully sunny day.

The boys had fun taking turns on Asher's new tricycle. That bar on the back for Mom to push is absolutely brilliant.

Finished off afternoon with bubbles!!

Then inside for more cake. We learned our lesson earlier and just gave him little bits of cake to eat with no icing. He enjoyed it much more this time.

A little dazed after all that sugar.

It was nice to see Asher's toys being enjoyed by all the boys.

Getting to know the uncle-type cousins (technically everyone's cousins just removed to different degrees, I think we'll just avoid the confusion and call them aunts and uncles).

The aftermath. I figure the bigger the mess, the better the time was had by all. By the looks of things we all had a very good time.

So now my little man is a whole year old. On the one hand I can't believe how time has flown and it must have been just yesterday that I was checking into the hospital not a mom, only to check out again a few days later, A Mom...and on the other hand, I can't quite remember what life was like before Asher was in it, he must have been here forever (I know it sure feels like I haven't slept through an entire night forever). It seems like he has very suddenly grown up over the last couple of weeks. Taking the stairs like a pro, eating more by himself, figuring things out very intently, throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way, all kinds of fun stuff. I look at his cousins, one two months older and one a year older and I can't grasp how much he's going to grow up in the next few months. It's not that I want him to slow down, because I'm excited about seeing him discover so much more of the world, but I'm just worried that I won't be able to keep up, that I'm going to keep treating him like my baby boy and forget that he's very quickly leaving babyhood behind. I have so appreciated the various mom blogs I've been following lately (C. Beth, Lisa, Liz, Christy, Maya's Mom, Anna, RR and Sci-fi Mama to name a few) and I'm always looking for more. I love the little peeks at what's coming and also some of the insights into where I'm at as some of these mom's have little one's within a few weeks of Asher.

I have more rambling around in my brain but it will have to come out later. DH is waiting on the couch with some popcorn and Supernatural. Aaaah, relaxation.

What do you do?

2009-04-07T16:36:00.003+01:00

A blog I follow had this post today. As I was reading through the comments I was struck by something. We keep referring to motherhood as a job. I agree with what Rachel said in her comment, a job is something you get paid for, get time off from, go to and go home from, can change if you want.

I think it's part of the Western culture to find our definition in what we 'do'. "What do you do?" "I'm a doctor/lawyer/secretary/janitor." "Oooh." We hear what someone 'does' and make decisions about who they are as people. We feel defined by our jobs and so as mothers, especially stay-at-home-mothers, there is this desire to make sure people understand that we still 'do' something, that we have value, that we are still contributing to society.

A friend was speaking at church last mother's day and she brought up some website that calculates what you're 'worth' on the job market. There was an entry for Mother and several aspects that that entailed, cook, laundress, chauffeur, etc. Of course it comes up with something in the $250,000 per annum range. At first she was, like Beth, nodding her agreement, thinking "That's right, I am worth all that." Then it struck her, that this was putting a price tag on what it was to be a mother. That the only way we know how to value something is to put a monetary value on it. To call it 'The hardest job in the world'. After realizing that, it kind of offended her.

I was about to go off on a diatribe about putting a price on a child's laugh, etc. and I realized that that's not even the point I want to make. It's that we feel we need to that I find a bit sad. How does the saying go? The best things in life are free. That statement means something completely new to me today. It's not that they're 'free', it's that their worth, their value, has no monetary equivalent. I have to admit, I'm having trouble saying all that's going on in my head because it's like I don't have the vocabulary to express it without referring to what we automatically associate with money. It's not like these free things don't cost us. Being a mother is very costly, but you could never pay someone else to do the job for you. Take heart in that all you mom's who also have jobs, no matter how great a nanny or caretaker you have, even if it's a relative, even if it's Grandma, even if it's Daddy, they can never be Mom. Being a nanny, that's a tough job, I've done it, I would think long and hard about doing it again. But it's just a job. It is so far from being a Mom.

I have to admit, I'm finding this a little paradigm-shifting and somewhat freeing. I always feel a little awkward when someone asks me what I do. I've said 'stay-at-home-mom', 'domestic-engineer', I've even pointed at my son and said, 'Him, full time'. It was very witty to me at the time. Now I think I will have to say "Nothing" and let them be as puzzled as they want to be. If they clarify that I'm a SAHM or whatever, I think I may have to share a little about how I don't see that as my job or what I 'do' but simply it is my life. In my life, I have a husband, I have a son, I feel that I am blessed to not have a job. I am looking forward to settling into our new life here in Oxford, to getting some projects done and taking on new volunteer work, but I think I will no longer feel the need to put "Housewife" or "SAHM" in the occupation sections of forms. I can be confident that I am a contributing member of society, I am not a lay-about, I have value that is not limited to being defined by what I do. I have no job. It frees me up to spend a lot more time with my son and my husband.

Happy Birthday my Son

2009-04-02T11:35:00.002+01:00

I cannot even wrap my mind around the fact that I. have. a. son. Let alone that he is now passing out of babyhood and into toddlerhood with the advent of his birthday. I will no longer be restrained by months when answering that ever-present question, And how old is he? I'm sure I'll fall back on it at times as I still hear so many other moms referring to 16 months or 21 months, but I can if I choose, say, He's 1 now. Wow.

These last few days I have found myself reflecting on his birth day, remembering the order of events, who was there, what was happening, but all through a bit of a haze. They say that's there so you will actually want to have more kids, but I don't remember thinking at the time This is horrible, I'm never doing this again. In fact I'm pretty sure I was already looking forward to the next one long before the pain subsided (which, in my case, due to unforseen complications was about 12 weeks later).

Even in the midst of my most sleepless nights and days of feeling like I was going to lose my mind from the weariness, I wouldn't have given it up for anything. Not only would I have not given it up, but I couldn't wait to do it again. I have to admit, with a bit of regret and even shame, that I was so focussed on having another that there were times when I forgot to just stop and enjoy my son. Thanks to a conversation with my mom a few weeks ago, my time with Asher lately has been so much richer as I just remembered to revel in the blessing that he is.

So now he is a whole year old! We had a kind of all day Birthday Celebration. We skyped with the Godparents, Titi Mary and Tio Eddie, and Grandma and Oma and even Titi Myrna! We opened Grandma's presents with her and went for a ride on his new tricycle and skipped his afternoon nap (I think he figured since he was One now, he didn't have to have a nap) and tried to eat the cake that I baked (we all succeeded but he wasn't such a big fan). All in all we had really wonderful day of being thankful for Asher. I started this blog this morning while he was sleeping and have added to it little by little all day but kept getting pulled away to take part in the joy of this day and now it is late, I am exhausted, I even had half a beer to celebrate. So I am going to go to bed, a little in awe that tomorrow I will still have. a. son. He will have been mine for a whole year and he's apparently not going anywhere. How cool is that!? I know I've said this before, but really, truly, pictures are coming.

A Fortnight

2009-03-28T20:11:00.002Z

I cannot believe it has been so long. Is anyone still there? If you are I apologize for my absence. In my defense, there has been a lot going on. Janet was here for a week. We survived all our driving around. Yes, we all survived and yes, I did get lost a few more times, but we always had great adventures. There will be stories and pictures shortly.

The day that Janet left, Jeff, Asher, and I headed for Cambridge for 4 days for a conference. We stayed in a lovely little B&B and Asher and I took long naps and spent our afternoons wandering the city. I even got to do a bit of shopping. I'll post pictures and stories soon.

Did I mention there's been a lot going on here? Between dropping Janet at the airport and leaving for Cambridge our boxes arrived. Most of the floor space of our living room and all of Asher's nursery were completely covered in boxes. (Yes, I'll share pictures of that, too) Which of course I had to leave behind to go to Cambridge. I practically itched to get at them. I got a good two days of unpacking in once we returned before my neck made it too painful to move my head let alone boxes. It's still kinked but will hopefully be better in time for me to finish getting the house ready for Asher's birthday party next Saturday.

Asher did quite well being out as much as we were, but he didn't really get a chance to kick his cold so it's now going on past it's third week. I think it's finally on its way out though. At least I sure hope so, there has not been a lot of sleep in this house lately. He has also been teething, what seems like all the rest of his teeth at once, if his drool, chewing, and crankiness are any indication. We're getting ready for his 1st Birthday! Yay! Stories and pictures, of course, will follow.

I am finally kicking my cold (thank goodness) and Jeff has caught his first UK cold. Unfortunately it has hit him much harder than it did us. Of course now that I am finally not sick, something had to happen. I have twisted my neck and flared up an old whiplash injury. I didn't think it was too bad at first but it's now three days of considerable pain and I am not a happy camper. And it couldn't have come at a worse time. But don't we always say that. Don't worry, this is it for that story and there are no pictures.

So that's the fortnight in a nutshell. There are several things I want to expound on and I hope to do so over the next few days, but you'll forgive me if I don't always make it. The pain in my neck has taken the writing of this blog from a few minutes to two hours. And now that my warm rice sock is no longer very warm and it's time for my next dose of pills and my nice warm bed.

Goodnight.

Life in the Left Lane

2009-03-08T21:45:00.002Z

Well, I have now driven on three different continents. Granted in Africa it was once, and probably very badly, but to be fair the truck was almost twice as old as I was. At least it looked like it was. This time, the car was considerably newer and I did a much better job. Coincidence? I just don't know.

No, we haven't bought a car. I know you were all wondering. We joined Streetcar. It's kind of like ZipCar in the US. It's a car-sharing program. You pay a yearly membership fee and you can take one of the several cars around town for an hour or a few days. Significantly more economical for the hour. We're pretty excited about this because there have been several times when we wished we had a car for just a couple hours to do a big grocery shop or get to a larger shopping centre and now we have a way to do that without having the expense of renting for a whole day.

So, my friend Janet is coming out to visit next week. We are renting a car to do some toodling around. Very exciting. But I didn't want my first time driving here to be on my way to London's Heathrow airport with Asher and no Jeff. Perfect way to test out our new Streetcar membership.

Sadly there are no pictures as I was a bit too shaky to take any. I was very happy to find that driving a manual transmission is a skill that comes back very quickly. The only thing that was a bit awkward was of course that the stick was on the left side. Thank goodness the peddles are still in the right order. I only stalled the car once. Technically the car stalled twice, but I'm fairly certain that God did it the second time. See, He knew I was about to turn down a one way street and I didn't. And the brakes work great. There are these little mini-roundabouts that you don't see until you're broadsiding the car turning right in front of you.

That was the toughest part, the part that left me a little weak in the knees after an hour of driving around getting used to things. Not the stick-shift, not even driving on the left side, it was the signs, or lack thereof. There aren't always signs where you expect them and half the time you don't actually know what the sign means, so while you're busy trying to figure it out, you suddenly find yourself on the motorway with no idea where you're going or how to get out of the roundabout up ahead.

Well, I managed to not get lost, not drive down the wrong roads or the wrong lanes, not hit anything or anyone, and not get honked at (but only because it was a very gracious person behind me at the time). I came home after an hour just to let my nerves settle a bit. We had supper and then headed out to an evening service at the local vineyard church. I did feel much better that time for having had the practice.

Now we just have to see how Asher and I survive picking up Janet on Friday. It's his naptime so he should sleep the whole way there. *Please, God, let him sleep the whole way there.*

London. Finally. Warning - this is long (but it has cool pictures)

2009-03-05T21:07:00.007Z

So last Saturday, we all got up with Asher at 6 (instead of the bit of a lie-in I usually get until 7) so that we could be out the door by 7:30 to give us loads of time to get to the train. We got there stupid early, but that's fine, gave us time to chill and have a muffin. The train ride was nice and uneventful. I would have liked to have a forward facing seat as it's harder to enjoy the scenery going backwards, but it was fine. Asher nursed and got a bit of nap before we got into the city. I found it interesting how as we got closer to Paddington station, the area began to look an awful lot like the train ride from New York out to New Rochelle.

Mommy left this attached to my coat, but that's okay, I can make it work.

Some things that we noticed right off the bat. Everything is a lot closer than you think. I'm used to looking at maps of Chicago and what looked like very loooong blocks were in fact very short blocks. What that means though, is that you let yourself walk a lot farther before you realize you've passed what you're looking for. Happily though, it also means that when you think you've gone about 10 minutes too far, you've actually only gone, like, 2.

So we went at first looking for a couple stores, and thinking that we were a ways from Picadilly circus we originally were planning to take a bus or the tube, but it was a nice morning and we thought if we walked instead we would get there around lunch time. So 10 minutes later, we're there and it's not quite lunch time. The restaurants aren't even open for another half hour even though we've been up since forever and are just about starving. Oh well.

We strolled around the circle and took pictures and stopped in a souvenir shop and got a union jack tank top for me and our first fridge magnet. It looks so lonely. I can't wait for our stuff to get here. We did a totally un-London lunch: TGIFriday's. I know, I'm sorry, but it was kind of nice to have something familiar that we knew we liked and that was sure to have a highchair and changing table. Don't worry, the rest of our day was nice and British.

After lunch we walked down to Trafalgar Square and did the whole touristy picture taking there. There was a performer by the steps who was very funny and had a big crowd. Unfortunately we missed most of his gig but were right up front for the big finale. There were lots of people climbing all over the lions despite the sad little railing that I'm sure had at one point been put up to keep people from getting up there. Asher loved the fountains and was greatly disappointed when we didn't let him jump into the pools.

After that we walked across the pedestrian bridge to the promenade by the water and the London Eye. Along the promenade were tons of street perfomers. One group of breakdancers, and the rest were either characters from history/tv or those strange silver painted people pretending to be statues. I really don't know why this is so popular. Some were painted silver, some were painted gold, and sure, the first time you see one you think wow, that person is standing really still, I wonder if their nose itches. But when there are 8 dozen of them it just kind of gets boring. There were 2 worth mentioning. One man actually was painted up in what looked like bronze and his clothes were done really well so the folds were somewhat exaggerated and stiff. I actually had to look to see if he was breathing or if this was a statue. He was the only one like that and he was brilliant. I would have given change to him if I'd had some. The other one that was fun was the 'invisible' one. It looked like the head and hands were invisible with this crown and glasses suspended in midair above a seated figure and no hands coming out of the cuffs. You realize right away that the body is a bit oddly sized and shaped and that it's just a person slouched down int the clothes and the crown/glasses/etc are taped to the chair, but still, points for originality. That is until you walk another 20 feet and realize there's another one exactly like it only painted gold instead of silver. You get no points. There was one other, but it was kind of sad. It was an incredible, I would dare say authentic, Darth Vader. His sign said, "Labourer made redundant in the London work force, trying to support my wife and two kids." It's not an exact quote because I didn't want to take a picture of him without being able to put something in his tin. It was a bit sad.

So then we come to the Eye. The line to get tickets was longer than the line to get on, go figure. I think Jeff was in the ticket office for almost 45 minutes and it took us maybe 10 to get on. But I didn't mind, this was my whole reason for coming to London. I know, there are far older and cooler things to see I'm sure, but for me, it was the Eye. I want to go back now and do it at night. Or maybe sunset. It was an awesome view and we took a bazillion photos up there, half at least of Asher walking around the pod hanging on to the lower railing and charming the pants off all the other passengers (very embarrassing in mixed company). I managed to not freak out too much at the height, I have a mild phobia of heights. I got a bit nauseous in line and had to work at not hyperventilating as stepped onto the still moving pod. But it's big enough inside to not really be an issue.

As I sat on a bench beside the Thames, looking out at Big Ben with the Eye beside us, nursing Asher, I realized how much I missed the big city. London isn't all the skycrapers that Chicago is, but it is a big city, with all the hustle and bustle and traffic and people that that implies. And I miss it. I was instantly more comfortable in London that I have been in Oxford. And it's not that Oxford isn't nice, because it is, and the people are nice and there's nice stores and good public transportation. It just...moves at the pace of a smaller town, or suburb maybe. London has a different energy to it. One that I miss.

So after our stop to nurse and have a snack, oh, and change Asher in the McDonalds basement from hell, A) it was hot, B) it was crammed with people and you could barely walk let alone maneuver a pushchair [stroller], C) it was stupid hot, D) there was only one baby changing room and no place to queue [wait in line] except right behind the door which left you doing a strange dance when the door had to open and you had to change spots with the person on the other side of the door, and E) OH MY FREAK, it was hotter than the bowels of hell down there. Anyway, after all that, we crossed over the river again to take our pictures of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

By this time, I'm looking at my map thinking we have quite a ways to walk to get back to Trafalgar Square to catch a train back to Paddington so we should really get going. And of course, 15 minutes later we're suddenly there. I don't know that I'll ever get used to that. Of course I'm sure I will and then I'll be back in Chicago and I'll be like, oh it's not far, lets just walk, and 2 hours later I'll realize we're still not even halfway there and I'll likely just say screw it and go home.

We got back to the train and would have been in plenty of time if it hadn't been for trying to find change to use the toilet. That's right, 30p to use the toilet in Paddington station. As it turns out, we needn't have searched so vigourously for exact change as the attendant was pretty much letting anyone in if you at least looked like you were trying to find it. Nice bathroom though. Unfortunately by the time we got to the train it was close to departure and quite full. We found a seat for me facing forward but it was next to other people, there was a table, Jeff was sitting across from me, so we were both sitting next to someone strange. The people next to us were irritating me, especially the guy who insisted that he and the person he was saving a seat for sit across from each other and not side by side. I don't know why, he clearly wanted to get into her pants.

The happy part of our trip back was the other couple sitting across the aisle (the people that were sitting over there were nice and let them have their own side of the table unlike ours, but whatever). They were also heading back home to Oxford with their 18 month old daughter. We got to chatting and found we have quite a bit in common. They are also crunchy, baby-wearing, breastfeeding, attachment parents. We talked slings and cloth diapers and playgroups and what neighborhoods were the most fun (ours being on the somewhat 'bleak' end but oh well). Asher and I were going to drop into a toddler dance/play group on Wednesday but then his ear infection happened so I'm hoping to get together with them next week.

So all in all, it was a very good day. We had our moments of starving long before lunchtime and trying to maneuver the bowels of hell disguised as a McDonalds and maybe I had a minor meltdown getting onto the train because it was so cramped and the seats were sucky, but we really did have a great time. And hopefully made some friends along the way. Granted I was pretty sore the next day and the bike ride to church just about killed me, but I'm sure I'll do it again. Soon in fact. My friend Janet will be here in just over a week and we'll likely do a couple days in London, we'll visit Stonehenge, we might even make it out to Cardiff the Doctor Who fans that we are. But I've learned my lesson. Post it right away, while it's still fresh. Maybe even make it stretch over a couple posts. You can always put pictures up later.

By the way, if you're still reading, A) congratulations and B) I'm really sorry the pictures are all stacked on top of each other like that, I couldn't figure out how to make them go side by side and it's now 11:49 and I'm so going to pay for staying up this late tomorrow. And I've totally remembered like three cool things that should have gone in the story but it's too long and too late, so now I'm going to have to do a London II and by that time I'm sure I'll have gone again and will have more cool stories to tell. Ugh. It's now 11:51. Good. Night.

My little man is 11 months today!

2009-03-02T19:16:00.005Z

Yay! Asher is just one short month away from being 1 Year Old! So exciting I don't know what to do with myself. Seriously, I don't, if I think to much about it I'm going to have to put my head between my knees. This is like, epic. Do you realize he'll soon be going off to school and getting married and having my fifth grandchild and putting me in a home just so I stop coming over at 3 in the morning to bake muffins. I know, that's a little extreme, even for me, but I forgot to have my diet coke with lunch today so I thought I'd have it with dinner. In retrospect, that may not have been the best idea. Anyway, on to what we did today.

I'm hoping in lieu of London, you'll settle for a few pictures of Asher at the play center and park. Sadly there are no pictures of Asher playing with actual children because they all left as soon as we got there. Apparently they'd all been there since 9 but the coordinator may have just been being nice. I'm pretty sure I remembered deodorant this morning.

These ladybug things are weird...

Can I ride the puppy instead? (and he did, but with my help so no pictures but trust me it was uber adorable)

And then he discovered an entire wall of fun twisty-turny-spinny things.

Very serious business this, it has to be just so.

And then we stopped at the park on the way home.

Very pleased with himself.

Okay, we slid down this thing, now how do we get back up?

I just adore my little man, in case the numerous pictures I've been subjecting you all to didn't give it away. I love watching him discover new things and interact with people and situations he's never come across before. He is this wonderful mix of brave and cautious, outgoing and shy. He crawled right up onto the couch beside one of the coordinators, bold as you please, and then leaned against the far arm, suddenly shy. He never fails to win people over wherever we go. I can't wait to see him grow into the man God has created him to be.

My son is afraid of grass

2009-03-01T15:16:00.004Z

You know that we are city folk when our little man hasn't really seen grass since the 4th of July. Oh, yes, we are totally urban jungle people. It's not like he's been indoors since then, he played on our deck during summer BBQ season, we would go out for walks to meet Daddy for lunch at the Chinese Kitchen or meet him on his way home from work to play on the swings, but the parks are not grassy, we had no backyard, and none of our visits with friends included yards for the rest of the summer either.

Then winter struck and it struck hard. There wasn't even really a decent time to introduce him to snow with the awful weather we had for most of this winter. Then we move to Oxford where we do have a back yard (garden here), and it has grass to boot. It's not like they really have winter here except for that week and a half of snow that shut the whole country down, but the garden has been wet and it's been pretty cool for the most part so I haven't felt like venture out that way with him. Today was quite warm and even sunny in spots and Jeff thought it might be fun to put him in his grubbies and let him crawl around on the grass.

Great! I'll get my camera.

Now at least I didn't go back and actually take pictures of what happened when we sat him down and let him touch the grass, but you can get a pretty good idea of what it was like on this youtube video. Only it was more screaming as opposed to the whining that kid does. Let me backtrack a bit and set it up for you.

Jeff walks Asher down the little path to our patch of grass in the back. All is well and good until he sees the grass. He does a dead stop at the edge of the path.

Won't move. We manage to coax him a little farther onto the green stuff.

Okay, he hasn't died yet, but he's really not comfortable with how this is going.

We gently sit him down on the grass. There are no pictures of what follows, I couldn't bring myself to. He put his hands down so he could crawl away and found that he was now touching the grass, so he tried the other side of him and there was more grass. By this time he's screaming like those menacing blades are attacking him.

So we scooped him up and promptly began torturing him by waving bits of the frightening stuff in his face.

And touching his hands with it. Poor little man tried to scramble out of my arms at that. So we decided to stop being such horrible parents and try to salvage ourselves from going to hell for cruelty to the innocent and rescued him from the green monster to the indoors where he could feel more secure.

He much prefers helping me do laundry.

"I love you laundry machine."

London! but first...pots and pans

2009-03-01T09:19:00.004Z

We finally did it. We've been living here in the UK for over a month and we finally made it into London. Very exciting stuff. But since I'm behind on posting about a few other things that were happening this week, you'll just have to wait on that. That, and I have to figure out how to pick only a few pictures to show out of the 216 that we took. Ridiculous. You may wonder how you can possibly take so many pictures in just a few hours in London when we only saw a small section. Well, I'll tell you. 200 of them are of Asher. And not like, Asher in front of Big Ben (although we do have one of that) but mostly just Asher. Doin' his Asher thing. Anyway, that's coming soon.

Today we have for you: pots and pans. Yes, my son has finally discovered that wonderful place called the pot and pan cupboard. To be fair, he's discovered it a couple times before but it either bit his fingers and made him cry or everything shifted all at once and made a really loud noise that he wasn't expecting and made him cry. Well, third time's the charm I guess. He has conquered his fear of the cupboard doors that bite and the piles of shiny metal things that make noise (currently terrified of the vacuum cleaner but that's another story) and discovered the joys of taking everything out of the cupboard and banging them around.

Jeff finds this somewhat irritating as our little man can make quite the racket. For me however, it is music to my ears. It is currently a minimum of a half hour where I can sit in my chair, watch him, smile and nod every once in a while as he looks up in pride at some particularly loud noise he has just produced, and enjoy my tea or read a book or a blog or maybe even write a blog or download the kajillion pictures I've taken of him and his pots and pans, whatever. I. want. Glorious. I'll worry later if he's strong enough to actually dent anything or if he's putting scratches in the teflon as he slides a pot lid around my favourite frying pan, it doesn't matter, it's all just stuff. Stuff can be replaced. Time to sit and relax can't.

So without further ado, here are a few pictures I took before I realized I could be sitting down with my tea and my laptop:

Hehe, I have a pot

I wonder what else is in there...

...just gotta get a better look...

...maybe if I just crawl inside...

And then later on that day:

Next blog: London! Actually not really, I'll likely do a little blog about dancing with Daddy first and a few other thoughts...and then, London! I'm actually buying time to go through all my pictures, actually London may take a couple posts if I can't decide which are the most adorable Asher shots, you understand.

Monkey's Music

2009-02-24T22:38:00.005Z

Today, finally, after planning and canceling for two weeks and postponing a third due to 'half-term', we made it to Monkey Music. It's a program at the local rec centre for kids, different groups for different ages, that introduces them to music and rhythm using actions and dancing and simple instruments. We'd arranged a trial visit ages ago but then got sick, and then got sick again, and then the program took a week off. We almost missed it today, too, but Jeff was wanting to go into work early so I was up earlier than usual. It was actually nice to fit a shower in before he left for the day (don't. say. a. word.).

So today, we got packed up (my first time taking Asher and a diaper bag out on the bike), we braved the dreary looking day (not too cold, but damp), and headed out. I grossly overestimated the time it takes to bike into Summertown. We were there a half hour early. Okay, so I didn't need to get up quite so early after all. So we sat in the lobby reading books. Well, I read, Asher watched the people after a few unsuccessful attempts to squirm out of my lap. So really, in retrospect, he'd already been very patient for a good 25 minutes before we even got into the room, I was clearly asking too much that he show the same level of restraint during the program. Especially with all those fun looking pushchairs (strollers) sitting around the room just screaming to be inspected. The program was fun enough. Asher was the youngest there and it was really geared towards one year plus. The director thought he would do better in the older group seeing as he would turn a year before the term ended. Not too sure about that, but anyway.

There are set songs and activities that most of the kids and parents already knew. I guess some of the middle parts were variable and everything was pretty easy to follow. There were actions/clapping/patting knees/waving and shakers to shake and drums to bang on, all really neat and just what I had imagined it would be. And Asher did like those parts, but as soon as the music stopped and the lady started talking, he was trying to get out of my lap and go steal her monkey. We stood and danced for a time so he would stop squealing at me. None of the other kids were disruptive or squirmy, I kind of felt like the uncouth mom from 'the colonies' with my over-indulged child. I'm sure it was all in my head, but still, it took away from the magic of what I had imagined our first mom and tot program would be.

The lady was very kind and offered to give me another trial day if I still wasn't sure. I said I would like that but I'm not now that I'll take her up on it. Jeff made a very good point, why fight with him to enjoy something we're having to pay for if we can just search around a little and find something we both enjoy more. Maybe something a little more active for Asher's part. There are, after all, no shortage of mom and tot programs in Summertown. And you would not believe how many of those things are on Tuesday morning. It's like everyone got together, checked their schedules and Tuesday morning was good so they just decided to book everything then and you could pick one thing to do in the entire week and you would do it on Tuesday morning between 9:30 and 11:00. Which just happens to be the exact time of Asher's morning nap.

He fell asleep on the bike on the way home. Too cute. Definitely have to get out on the bike more often. Fresh air makes for great (and long) naps. Then after lunch we had our own music to monkey about with. I found his African CD and we did our own dancing. I'm very sad I didn't have my video camera ready for that as it was terribly cute. I took the camera to the program today but didn't even think about taking it out once we were there, but I did get some pictures of him dancing at home after.

Whew, that was quite the workout!

Baby's first haircut

2009-02-22T13:16:00.004Z

I must say, I had visions of what Asher's first haircut would be. One of those cute little shops where they have airplanes and cars for the kids to sit in. I imagined he would be fawned over and told how cute he was and what a big boy he was, there would be lots of squirming and maybe some screaming. I've seen the posts of this happening to other people's kids. I was prepared, I would be there for moral support, snapping tons of pictures, trying not to laugh at his misery (cause he really is adorable when he's upset) and then I would leave with a little boy in place of the baby that I took in. Ya, well that didn't happen.

I have searched high and low for such a place in the UK and they don't seem to exist, not in Oxford anyway. I've stopped Mum's on the street asking them where they get their kids hair cut and very few actually get them done by a shop. I even posted on a local mum's website and no one had any help for me. So I decided I was going to have to do it myself.

Now, I have cut hair before. As a teenager I gave myself bangs. A total rookie move on my part (wet hair pulled tight, snip...when it dries it's significantly shorter...picture it). Since then, I began to pay very close attention to what hairdressers were doing and began to understand, in theory at least, the principles of cutting hair. I have since given trims to myself and several friends and have been quite successful. I didn't think it would be that difficult to trim Asher's bangs, around his ears, and the back of his head. That is, if he was unconscious and I had my proper hair scissors. He is rarely unconscious though and my hair scissors are somewhere on the Atlantic. I thought I could wait it out, but it just became too much and so we decided to brave it.

The Tools

Daddy's comb which ended up serving mostly as a distraction.

The only scissors I had, yes, I know they're not meant for hair, I'm hoping you'll give me a little leeway when you see the finished product now that you know what I had to work with.

Before

Very excited, but he doesn't know why.

Look at all that hair in his eyes, something must be done.

After

That's right, I'm stylin'.

You didn't get to see the back before, but it wasn't this straight.

My little man, all set to go.

The Remains

or at least what remembered to gather for the baby book

I love my Mac!

2009-02-21T10:59:00.003Z

I am still sick, so is Asher, but I have made it to the Dr. and I'm off to get some drugs today. I really am so done with being sick. I know I have had days when I'm not, but they seem like pinpricks in time on the days that I am sick. It's been one thing after another since the beginning of December and I'm done. I quite. No more. The office is closed. We are not accepting any more applications. At least that's what one person I know says is the key to being healthy...not accepting that you are sick. I wish. I'll take the drugs please and hopefully I can keep myself rested and well-hydrated and start to build my immune system back up.

Okay, on to the real reason for the post. Well, besides the fact that it's been three days and I really must get more consistent in my blogging. I love my Mac! I have had a Mac for...golly, over 6 years now, and I automatically enjoyed it more than the PC. Can we say no more Control+Alt+Del? But recently, we upgraded our Mac to a brand new macbook. We knew we wouldn't have room for a desktop in our new house so we sold my eMac and Jeff's PC and got the macbook. We call it ours, but mostly I use it as Jeff has his own laptop for work. I haven't had a lot of time to explore the new operating system that came with my fun little computer, so I haven't had a chance to really play with all the new toys. Well, this morning, I wanted to play with some photos to see if I could get them to truly reflect the amount of fluids leaking out of my poor little man's face. (our camera is dying a slow and painful death and has not been taking the best pictures as of late)

So I got to play with the new iPhoto program. It's great! I love what I can do with my pictures. Now I know I am the last person on earth to discover this and if you don't have a Mac, you likely have photoshop which as I understand is a similar program, but let me be excited for a moment. It was so much fun turning my photos from flat images that don't nearly do justice to capturing all the cuteness that is my son into pictures with detail and contrast. I think they sometimes come out a little gritty/edgy but that's mostly because that's the kind of photos I like the best and I just couldn't help it. So I may have to start doing some photo blogs. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to go back and fix up the 734 pictures we've taken since getting the computer at Christmas. And then there's all the pictures on our portable hard drive. Oh golly. Am I in trouble.

Okay, so here's the first entries: Me trying to capture how leaky Asher's face is. Still couldn't quite get it, but I like the pictures anyway. He's feeling better today though, thankfully.

Single lines

2009-02-18T19:31:00.003Z

If I truly believe in the sovereignty of God and that His timing is perfect and that He has my days already recorded and mapped out and knows the beginning from the end and knew that Asher would be and would be ours and when and also knows the fate of of any and all future children, then why, oh why, does that single line feel so devastating. It's not like we've been specifically trying, charting, timing, waiting. But I'm late. Late even for me. And it's not like I have any reason to believe that this time round will be any different than the last. Except that I've been back on the Mommy Boards over at Soulcysters and 4 (or is it 5 now) of the other women who were due with me last March are pregnant again. Without trying. One already delivered. Irish twins. Just like my Mom and Aunt. Do women without fertility problems feel such deep wounds over such a simple thing as a single pink line? I want to go rummaging through the waste bin to have one more look. Just to see if maybe, maybe, there's a shadow that I missed, the last time it was so faint. Part of this is pride, I'll admit it. I feel like I've paid my dues. Done my time. Shouldn't have to go through that again (my heartfelt apologies to all my friends who went through so much more than me, I really do know how lucky I got off). This time, I wanted to feel like a normal woman. A woman who's body hadn't betrayed her. A woman who's God hadn't said 'no' again. Now I really do understand that this isn't likely an actual 'no' but a 'not right now'. And I understand that He has very good reasons for the 'when'. But none of that sinks in tonight. Tonight things feel hollow. Distant. Tonight I feel empty.

Ugh. Sick. Again

2009-02-17T07:11:00.002Z

I often give Jeff a hard time when he's sick because he makes sure everyone knows he's sick and he never takes anything unless I remind him. I'm not a very good wife, not a lot of compassion when he's sick, injured yes, sick no. I may have to be a bit nicer next time round. I'm sick. Again. I feel like I've been sick for months. Oh wait. I have. Granted lately I've had a few days of not being sick, but since Dec. 8th, I've definitely been sick more than I've been well. But I thought I was finally over with it! No such luck. I'm pretty sure it's a sinus infection this time round and I'm miserable. We have no drugs in the house to take and I'm a whiny, miserable, sick person. Thank goodness Jeff hasn't gotten sick much at all these last couple months. Last night he actually got up with Asher three times! The best part, Asher only got up 3 times. Well, best in that I didn't have to get up with him, not so great in that my little man had been doing much better and only waking once if at all during the night. I hope he's not getting sick, too. So today I really do have to go into town and register with the medical clinic. I know, I know, I still haven't and I'm still dumb. But today, really I will. Hopefully I'll be able to see someone today, too and not have to go back in tomorrow. Hopefully my legs won't fall off when I get back on the bike again. Hopefully other sore parts of my body won't fall off either.

Wish me luck.

The Family that Cycles together...takes a lot of pain killers.

2009-02-15T16:59:00.004Z

Saturday saw yet another first. Our first family bike ride. Our arrival in Oxford has left us without a car for the first time in our marriage, and for me for the first time in 9 years. The buses are plentiful and go everywhere here, but they're not cheap and there's still the walk from our house to the main bus route. Not as convenient as we had hoped. So we decided to get bikes. Jeff has had his for a couple weeks and has been using it to get back and forth to work. I love it, it means he can stay a little later in the morning and still get to work on time and he can stay at work a little later and still get home at a decent time. Because of a mixup as to what child seats fit on what bikes, I only got mine this last week. I went out a couple times to test my bike legs as it were and by Saturday I felt comfortable enough to go out with Asher so we decided to take a ride as a family.

Asher did great. Of course he had no reason to think this was a big deal, it's just another seat that he gets strapped into to go places. A little colder though, have I mentioned I can't wait 'til spring. Right around the corner they tell me. We ended up going farther than planned and by the time we got home, I wasn't sure I would be able to stand. Ugh.

So what did we decide to do today? Bike to church. Oh. my. gosh. It's not like Oxford is super hilly, it's more bumpy as Jeff says, but enough that my thighs and knees are quite upset with me. Jeff looked on google maps and figured we biked about 12 miles in the last two days. I've never been one to ease into things. Asher once again was a trooper. His face however is showing a bit of wind burn so I'll have to get him a bit of protection for his face and slather on the Aquafor in the meantime.

I'm totally kicking myself though for not taking our camera today. First of all, the creche (nursery) in the church we went to had a little blue rocking horse which he had fun on. And actually, this was his first time in a room full of children his age. I left him and went to sit with Jeff in the service. That was hard for me, but good for Asher I'm sure. He did great though, playing nicely with everyone, not freaking out when he didn't see me, and didn't cry when I came back, just showed me how nicely he could feed the baby next to him a wooden train track. 'Bless'

After church we went to a pub for a Valentine lunch. It was a really nice place with a real highchair, not the wooden things you get in most restaurants. Jeff had a steak and I had a lamb pot roast with yorkshire pudding and mint sauce. Mmmmmm...so yummy (or scrummy as it is here). Asher did so well considering he had no morning nap. He was enjoying eating all kinds of new food off of Mummy's plate, and then suddenly, in the middle of opening his mouth for a bit of potato, he just kind of...fell asleep. It was hilarious, I'd always wondered how kids fall asleep in their spaghetti, and now I know. If you keep your child awake through their entire nap time and are approaching their next nap time, any place where they are sitting becomes good enough to fall asleep in. Again, kicking myself for not having the camera.

First steps!

2009-02-15T16:12:00.002Z

That's right, you heard it here first, Asher has taken his first solo steps. There are no pictures as yet because he first toddled out on his own while we were getting ready for bed on Friday night. We had been trying to convince him he could walk on his own because he will stand on his own and will walk beside you holding on to just your pant leg or finger but he would just get to excited and lean forward so when you let go of him, he just fell into waiting arms. Which he loved, it was a great game. So Friday night caught him quite by surprised and he wasn't sure why all of a sudden Daddy was cheering and clapping and Mommy was squealing and crying (ya, that's right, I had a tear or two, wanna make something of it?). He's done it a couple times since, but then he gets so giddy he just goes back to running/falling forward. Once he figures out what he's doing, I am so toast, he'll be running within a week. I really hope the weather straightens up soon so I can send him out to the back garden (yard) and let him run around there.

Steps weren't the only firsts around here. He also slept through the night for the first time Friday night. WOOHOO!! Now I know there are many of you out there who were getting good night's sleeps out of your kids much sooner than 10 months, but sleep has always been a struggle for Asher (and yes we tried giving him cereal just before bed). Since we arrived in the UK however, sleep has slowly but surely been coming in line. He started by napping well and long twice a day and now he's getting a good night's sleep as well. Thank God. The day is so much easier when both of us are well-rested.

And what are you thinking now?

2009-02-11T15:32:00.004Z

These are the words that saved my life. Literally. I'm sure you are scratching your head, your mouse perhaps hovering over the 'Next Blog' button, but it's true. Now if I were a certain unnamed scientist that I know, I would leave it at that and smile at you expectantly, assuming you knew just what I meant. But his mind works a little differently than most of us. It has to in order to make sense of the very small wonders of this universe. Let me elaborate.

Almost 8 years ago, 2 years before I met my scientist, I had just come back from Africa and found myself working in secured treatment center for teenage boys. These kids were in a lot of trouble, out of control, their last stop before juvenile hall. It is a very tough job, burnout rate is usually around 5 - 7 months for frontline workers. I lasted a year. Every week the house had group therapy, kids and staff. That was a rough hour, there's nothing like having very disturbed teenage boys emotionally vomit all around you. After, there was quiet time in their rooms and we had our staff meetings. I had a really hard time with group. In part because I'm a very sensitive person and pick up on people's emotional states quite quickly without them actually spewing it in my direction so group was major overload, and in part because I was not that stable myself, just highly functioning. (Not to mention a ton of stuff stemming from my time in Africa that I had not been able to fully process) Our house therapist suggested I seek some professional help, in the form of psychoanalysis. It just so happened that he knew and was able to write me a referral to the best Dr. in the city. I was so there, willing to try anything but especially interested in the idea of therapy that wasn't goal based or pushing drugs.

I found a great definition of psychoanalysis:

"Psychoanalytic treatment demonstrates how unconscious factors affect current relationships and patterns of behavior, traces them back to their historical origins, shows how they have changed and developed over time, and helps the individual to deal better with the realities of adult life."

Let me give you an idea of how this works. They were 1/2 hour sessions (I was 3 times a week at first, ya, a little messed up) and I just talked. There was a couch, but I took the comfy chair by the window. That was it, I just talked. For the first, oh, I would say year and a half at least (by that time I was down to 2 sessions a week), all my Dr. said was, "And what are you thinking now." That's it. I'm not even joking. So instead of someone telling me what was wrong with me and how they wanted me to try and act instead, I was given free reign to explore my own thoughts and feelings and discover on my own what thoughts and feelings and events from my past that they led to and make connections myself about why I was reacting to things in certain ways. Knowing why something affects you is very powerful and takes away a lot of the intensity of emotion, makes it manageable.

After a while, he did begin to say more than just that sentence. I kept waiting to feel judged, (especially since I can't talk about my life and what I'm going through without talking about God and I wasn't sure how that would be received) I kept waiting for him to tell me what was wrong with me or what I should or shouldn't be doing. It never came. I know God put him in my life to work out stuff that needed to be taken care of, and I'm convinced he saved my life.

When Jeff and I started going out, I had been seeing my Dr. for two years. He had a really hard time understanding why I was seeing a shrink, I wasn't crazy (at least not in a bad way). But he didn't understand (at the time) that I wouldn't have been able to be part of a healthy relationship 6 months before, I might not have even been alive. I had gone through a period of suicidal thoughts during my last few months of working at the boy's home. It was not my first time, but this time was different. I recognized what was happening and was able to call out for help. I remember calling my mom one night after I got home from work. In tears because I had been unable to think of anything on the entire drive but killing myself. It didn't even feel like me, it was like having an out-of-body experience. She stayed on the phone with me and prayed with me for what felt like hours. I don't think it was. I fell asleep there on the couch that night, not wanting to move in case the thoughts came back. The last time that had happened though, no one knew until years later. I had gotten as far as taking the knife out of the drawer and testing it's sharpness. This time, I was able to recognize that what was going on and understood that I didn't have to succumb to how I was feeling or the directions my thoughts were taking.

I was not intending this blog to take the turn it has. My original thought was simply that there are times when I miss that comfy chair by the window. The ability to vent stream of consciousness without worrying about hurting someone's feelings or having them think less of you. I think everyone should go through psychoanalysis. I was with my Dr. for 4 years, right up until we left Alberta for Chicago. By then I was seeing him every other week and it was no big deal if I missed one. It's funny, but as I think of how this became different from what I intended, so did many of my sessions with him. I would mull over what I was going to say on my drive to his office and often sit down and talk about something completely different.

I was very sad to hear of his passing about a year and a half ago now. He was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and given 6 months to live. Instead of going through treatment and spending that time sick and hospitalized, he told almost no one and took the time to spend with his family and do some of the things he'd always meant to do. I was especially heartbroken because I was 6 months pregnant and looking forward to sending him a birth announcement. I know he would have been pleased to know we were doing well.

I'm going to take a page from one of the bloggers I follow and ask you: What would you do with your half hour in the comfy chair by the window.
Feel free to write about it in your blog instead of the comments and let your readers know where the idea started.

Soon to be mobile

2009-02-09T15:00:00.004Z

I've been itching to post for the past couple days but I've been a bad girl and staying up late to read the third book in a new series that I've gotten into so I've been exhausted during the day. As soon as Asher goes down for his naps, I either pick up my book again or crash for a quick nap. Today I was so pooped it took him a while of talking away in his crib to actually wake me up. You know how it is when you suddenly realize not only are you hearing something, but you've been hearing it for a while. I still didn't get up, just let him play there until it sounded like he was getting impatient. I would love nothing more, now that he's down for his second nap to go to sleep myself. And technically, I could. I've done laundry today, washed dishes, tidied up the kitchen, but I know if I do, I'll be wide awake tonight and I want to actually go to sleep at a decent time.

Because...things are very exciting right now. Asher slept really well last night. He went down at 8, woke up at 3:45, hubby put him back down in a matter of minutes, then he slept straight through until 6am. No nursing at all during the night, one minor outburst when being put back down to sleep and he wasn't trying to claw through my shirt to nurse this morning. He very calmly took his soother (pacifier/dummy depending on which country you're in) and played with his Curious George and other toys until it was time for Breakfast at 7. Wow! Now I understand that this may not be a big deal for some of you out there, but for us, it's huge.

We have struggled with sleep with Asher especially at night from the very beginning. We are very much an AP, non-CIO family. We co-slept in the beginning, but Asher was such a loud and active sleeper that I never got any sleep even though he hardly even woke up to nurse. Finally we ended up moving him to his crib which everyone told us would reduce the number of feedings. Not so much. On the one hand I had to get up and walk down the hall to nurse him now, on the other I actually got to sleep between feedings. We started using the No-Cry Sleep Solution in September and quite quickly had him down to one feeding a night and only waking up maybe one other time. We were on track. Then he started teething and cut 4 teeth in a week and a half. Once that was over and before we could get back on track with his sleeping, we left for our whirl-wind tour of Canada and lost all semblance of a schedule. You have no idea how happy I am that things are getting back to sanity! I'm realizing, I didn't actually have to get out of bed once last night! Heaven! (watch, now I've jinxed it)

Anyway, the other thing that is exciting, as per the title of this post is that my bike is getting delivered tonight. Or tomorrow if the weather is truly awful. It's been fitted with a super-duper child seat and is ready to take me and Asher out and about to explore all the wonders of Oxford. Yay! Did I mention I haven't ridden a bike in what is frighteningly close to 20 years. Holy Crap that makes me sound old. I'm not, I just haven't had a bike since my very early teens. Is it true what they say about riding a bike? Oh golly I hope so. I will be taking a few test rides to make sure before I strap Asher in there with me. Hilarity and pictures I'm sure will follow. In the meantime, here's one of the little man in his brand new helmet. Too. cute. Or as they say here, "Oh, Bless!"

Okay, I just noticed how loose the strap was on his helmet, don't worry, that will be fitted properly before we get on the bike. :)

Snow, snow, and more snow!!

2009-02-06T14:30:00.004Z

Well, it's official. Snow follows us around like the plague. Everywhere we have gone in our many travels this winter 'the worst winter in decades' is sure to follow. Chicago's winter started off pretty rough, then we went to Edmonton and they were in a deep freeze, then we drove through central Alberta in the worst storm system in years, Calgary was next with just as dire a weather report, back to Edmonton and more snow, back to Chicago and 3 blizzards in a row. We get to Oxford and it was simply 'unseasonably cold' which sounded glorious to us because it was the mildest weather we'd seen in months. Now, however, we are in the middle of the worst set of storms in....well you get the idea. London got hit first (well I guess, we flew in there) and they got almost a foot of snow. I know, not much by North American standards, but it shut the city down. Including the underground trains. Now the storm system has settled over Oxford and while it originally was forecast to get the least amount of snow is now getting hit the hardest. The country (that's right, I said country) has run out of salt for the roads. Ugh. And I was so ready for spring. Which, btw, we were assured was just around the corner when we got here. Oh well. That and I found out our stuff only left the states last week and is on a significantly slower boat than was planned and won't get here until March 10, then it's another 10 days to clear customs and actually get delivered to our door. Great, now I have to go out and buy another high chair, there's no way I can wait another month and a half.

Here's the first snow fall, not bad, kind of nice and fluffy and quaint:

Then that completely melted by the next day and another storm moves in to take it's place:

And before that one got a chance to melt completely, we got dumped on again today. It is still snowing. Have I mentioned that between the snow and being sick I haven't made it out of the house since Sunday. Blech.

All that being said, I couldn't leave you with only pictures of misery and dreariness. So here's one of my little man. He had a bit of a rough night last night and was so tired this morning. I tried to keep him awake until his naptime, but here he is, an hour before, literally falling asleep standing up.

Asher is 10 months old!

2009-02-04T11:40:00.002Z

Or at least he was 2 days ago. I feel like such a terrible mommy-blogger. Not only did I miss it, but I missed him turning 9 months also. At least I think I did, I'll have to go back and check now. I'm pretty sure. I didn't even wish him a Happy 10-month Day. I didn't even realize it until after he'd gone to bed. In my defense I was pretty sick. Jeff calculates that I was awake for maybe an hour and a half total by 5:30 in the evening. And yes, he knows this because my wonderful husband stayed home to take care of Asher so I could sleep. I still feel like crap, not so tired, but definitely crappy. I woke up last night every time I had to swallow. Between Asher having a bit of an unsettled hour around 1 am, me clearing my throat all night long, and our pipes snap, crackling, and popping the more than they've ever done since we got here, I'm amazed Jeff got any sleep at all. I should really go to the doctor, I have a feeling it might be strep but it's just such a pain to get there. And I can't actually make an appointment until I register with the doctor, which I have to do in person, so that's possibly two trips I have to make, while sick, in the cold, with a 10-month old (like how I just slipped that in there?). Ugh. I might see if Jeff can go to work late tomorrow morning and let me try to get down to the clinic early enough that they can register me and maybe see me all at the same time. I hate the thought of leaving it until tomorrow and going through another night like last night. I also hate the thought of having to bundle Asher up and take him out and deal with his fussing while I'm finding my way around an entirely new medical system, all while I'm feeling sick already. Jeff kept saying we should stop in and register and I put it off thinking, "meh, we won't really need a doctor until Asher's next visit at 12 months". Ya, I'm an idiot.

But on a more sentimental note, I can't believe it's been 10 months already. And on the other hand I can't believe he's not talking yet and complaining about not being able to stay up late and watch a movie cause it's not even a school night. I know, be careful what I wish for. I was flipping through some blogs this morning and came across this one. Being a fellow Canadian, I read a few posts and found she does letters to both her sons every month. I of course cried all the way through them wishing I had thought of that and why wasn't I a mom like that. It feels like a cheesy thing to start after the fact but I suppose how things look shouldn't stop us. I don't even know how I would get through a letter like that without bawling my face off, getting my keyboard all wet, and frying the circuitry. And what would I say. Well I know one thing I would say. How amazed I was with Asher and how he reacted to a fight Jeff and I had this morning. It was quite a doozy, not one of my proudest moments. We ended up upstairs talking it through and even though there was some yelling and mommy was crying and the room was filled with tension at times, Asher was intent on cheering everyone up. He went back and forth between Jeff and I, not nervous or anxious, but with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye inviting us to play. And even when we couldn't be brought out of our sorrow and frustration, he didn't give up. Finding himself on our bed he just rolled back and forth giggling to himself. I am in awe of my little man, when some children would have been crying or scared, he was calm and confident that his parents loved him and loved each other. I guess we're doing something right. Right?

Our Last Day in Chicago

2009-02-01T16:56:00.003Z

Now, obviously we are no longer in Chicago and haven't been for a couple weeks now, but I just want to share the adventure that was...Our Last Day in Chicago.

First let me explain some of the stress that had led up to that day. Visas. They are a pain. All. the. time. The visas we came into the UK on were ancestory visas thanks to Jeff's Grandparents both being born on this side of the pond. This offers us a lot of flexibility and allows us to be here for 5 years before we have to worry about anything. Yay. However it is quite the ordeal to actually get them. I talked about the start of it all here.

After going through all the requirements and crosschecking with our calendar we figured at the latest our visas should be ready by Monday the 12th, Jeff had to be in the office at Oxford by the 16th so we booked out flights for Tuesday night, arriving Wednesday so we would have a couple days to adjust before Jeff had to go off to work. It sounds like last minute, but we had been told by everyone who had gone through this before that while it said 5 to 10 days (the 10 would have been Monday) it usually went through in 48 - 72 hours. If you're doing the math along with me, that would have left us quite a lot of time. To relax.

Hah! What no one told us, in our myriad of conversations with all manner of people supposedly helping us get all our ducks in a row so there would be no problems is that because Asher is an infant and cannot have his biometrics taken (apparently fingerprints for a 9-month old don't hold up in court - ya think?) that it would take considerable longer for him and my visa as his mother would be held up for the same amount of time. Weeks possibly.

The problem is, is that we did not find this out until Tuesday. That's right, the day we were supposed to fly out. Not that we weren't trying. When we got no email 6 days in, we sent an email inquiring as to the status. We received an email the next day saying it would now be 5 - 10 days. Starting to panic we thought we should try to get a hold of someone. No phone numbers put us through to the people we needed to reach. We send another email stating the nature of our panic and receive a simple line stating that they were currently processing requests from Dec. 29th. Okay, that's not so bad, ours were in the bin for the 30th, we should be able to show up on Monday (the next day they were open) and pick them up. Not that they've told us that, we just figure if we actually go down there and beat down...er, I mean knock on some doors that they're bound to help us out.

So we show up Monday to find that anyone that we would need to talk to about such things had left at noon (golly, I'd like those hours). And no, our visas were not ready. We could show up at 9am tomorrow (yes, that's Tuesday for those of you keeping track, the day we are supposed to leave) and we might be able to talk to someone and they might be inclined to help us maybe.

Now, I have to interject here that when we were praying about these visas, Jeff thought it would be a good idea to ask God to maybe not have it all happen last minute. I quickly prayed for peace should that happen anyway. And then I just shook my head.

Jeff shows up at 9am the next morning (did I mention that through all of this Chicago is seeing the worst winter in decades both for snow and cold?) and I stay home to pack up the rest of our bags, pretty sure that it would indeed be all last minute. Little did I know...

Upon arriving and finally talking to someone, we finally learn of this problem with infant visas. We are told that they make the request to the London offices and then...wait. They have no idea when someone will get to it or how long it will take them to respond. She said there was one small thing they could possibly try but it was not likely to work and we shouldn't book our tickets until we hear from them. Jeff stays around until noon and arrives just before hoping to catch them before they all leave. Apparently that day they left early.

Jeff arrives back in Elgin, thoroughly dejected, not knowing when we'll be able to rebook our flights or how much it will cost or if he'll have to go on without us (his visa actually was ready) and how much of a bad first impression this might be making with the new bosses. I, meanwhile have stopped packing all our little odds and ends since it would just end up getting taken all out again. We call the airline to change the flights as it has to be done by 4:30 or we lose all our money. After 45 minutes of fighting with a peon that was going to way overcharge us, we demand to speak to a manager. One isn't available but he'll put urgent on the request and have one call us right back. It's now 2:30.

At 3 the phone rings and we breath a sigh of relief, we were about to call the airline back to remind them of the urgency with which we needed to change these tickets. It's the British Consulate. Our visas are ready. All of them. Oh crap.

Jeff starts running around like a madman throwing everything into any suitcase that still has room. We figure we're screwed on the weight allowance anyway, but hey at least we're going to get there. Hopefully. The big issue is how to get the visas and us to the airport by 4:30, the standard 2 hours before the flight. I am on the phone trying to call anyone and everyone I can think of that might be off work, close to downtown, and could perhaps drop everything and meet us at the airport with our visas.

Janet!! The hero of our story. What a great God we have. I managed to do a bit of work with Janet last spring while I was hugely pregnant with Asher and because of that her boss, Janice, not only knows me but loves me. Normally at 3pm Janet would still be at least ankle deep in payroll but they had just finished. Wow! So Janice releases Janet from work early to run down and pick up our visas and hop in a cab and meet us at the airport.

Jeff is pretty sure we're not going to make it in time and phones the airline to see if we can check in over the phone since it wouldn't let us online. We're packed up and in the car by now, having had to say way too quick a goodbye to Mary not to mention having interrupted Asher's dinner. Poor little mite. So Jeff gets a hold of someone at the airline and she says we've been taken off the flight tonight (thanks to the mildly hair-brained person we were talking to previously). Ack. She is in the middle of putting us back on when we drive through a dead zone and loose her. I know right! It gets better though. Jeff is completely convinced that last minute or no we are now going to miss our flight and it won't matter anyway. I phone back just to see if there's anyway we can manage...and I get the same lady. In a call center of how many, after several minutes of panicking in the car, I get the same lady. She's got us back on the flight, she can't check us in though. It's now 4:28, how are we going to get there in time. I tell her this and she says, "Oh, don't worry about that. As long as you're there 45 minutes before the flight you'll be fine." Really!

Whew! I'm exhausted typing all this up. I have no idea how long this is, I'm sure it's ridiculous. Anyway, Janet actually beats us there, we get there at 4:35 and the kind women at the check in counter doesn't bother charging us for the overweight bags, tells us that we actually get an extra checked bag for Asher, so we only end up paying for one extra bag. Praise the Lord! She also changes our seats to bulkhead seats so that we can get a basinet for Asher to sleep in during the flight. (he was a little too big, but it gave our arms a rest for a bit anyway)

The rest of the trip wasn't nearly as exciting. We were a bit delayed in Dublin, but arrived at Heathrow mid-afternoon and Duncan was there to drive us on to our new home in Oxford. The landlord gave us a quick tour of the house and all the little idiosyncrasies and then Jeff and Duncan took quick trip to the grocer for a few supplies. I would love to say that we slept great that night considering how exhausted we were (neither of us slept really on the plane) but Asher was up several times throughout the night. Fortunately though, it didn't take him long to adjust.

Well, I'll leave you with that. If you've made it this far, Cheers!

A new look

2009-01-29T15:24:00.006Z

I finally got around to putting a new look on my blog. I spent entirely too much time pouring over designs and other stuff on thecutestblogontheblock. When I likely should have been working on updating my pictures on my website. Oh well, I'll get there. For now, I'm very pleased that I have a nice new page to look at (I also updated the look of my website, I'm on fire!).

Asher's sleep is all messed up today because he decided to get up at 5:30 this morning. We are not amused. But it means that while he should have just started his afternoon nap, He's been down for a while now and I can hear him working on waking up. Poop. I can't wait to get Jeff a bike this weekend so it will take him 10 minutes to get home at night instead of 40. He thinks that means he can stay later at work, little does he know. So a quick blog for the day.

Some odd things we've noticed...

"What's for tea?" Actually translates as, "What's for supper?" Huh, who knew. I'm glad I found that out before I invited someone 'round for tea. If you want to offer them an actual beverage of tea, you offer them a cuppa. It made for some very confusing commercials on tv until I figured it out.

In this house, at any rate, you have to turn on your power outlets.

Apparently, it is fully recognized in this country that vehicles are much bigger, faster, and can do more damage than people, so they have the right of way. And in some of the more touristy areas, they actually write on the street that you're about to step into which direction to look for traffic.

To ensure that you don't run out of hot water for your shower, it is equipped with an electric shower. That is to say, it takes the cold water and heats it as it's coming out of the shower head. Jeff was very excited about the prospect of long showers until he found out that the bathroom is much too cold for him to be naked and wet in there for any significant length of time. (Sorry for the TMI)

That's all for now. I want to get back to my pictures. I've been reading other people's blogs and realizing that I have been far too selfish in not sharing pictures of my wonderful little man. So here's a quick teaser, more to come later:

To answer a few questions...

2009-01-28T15:54:00.004Z

We have a family website that I have been very lax in keeping updated the last few weeks. The first thing I had to do was update my blogs. Thankfully very easy as all I had to do was cut and paste from here to there. I'm also wanting to get back into keeping up with my blogging more regularly as I want a place to record all the fun and strange and unexpected things we keep coming across here in the UK. First though, I thought I'd post the following 'News' item from my website as it sums up a few things of where we're at currently. I still have to tell the story of how we got here. It's coming, I promise. And I have to go through all the pictures I finally downloaded off my camera. Two months worth. Looks like naptimes are going to be busy for the next few days.

Originally I started writing this great long post about our entire adventure, but it was bordering on the ridiculous in length so I'm just going to save this entry to answer everyone's question: Are we there yet?

Yes, we are most definitely here. We arrived in our little house almost two weeks ago now and are settling in quite nicely. There have been some bumps along the way, but we're getting used to things here and, as they say, getting it all sorted.

Now before you start yelling at me for having been here for two weeks and only just now updating you, remember that we didn't actually have internet for a whole week (I know! how did we survive?). I would say something witty about that being the longest week of my life, but Asher was a week late, so...ya.

Now to answer the other question on everyone's mind: Is it all very exciting and wonderful and all that? Well, yes...and no. It's mostly very surreal, because it's not like being on holiday where you are packing every day with sightseeing and activity because you want to see as much as possible in a short amount of time. In truth, I've seen very little of Oxford. Jeff's seen a bit more because he's been to work. Our first Saturday we ventured into city centre a little bit and then out to the outskirts to hit a Babies 'R Us and then last Saturday Jeff's cousins took us out to a pub in the middle of nowhere and then to the little town of Whitney to look at some shops. Other than that we've seen the same half mile stretch of road that runs from our house to the nearest bunch of shops half a dozen times or so as we keep running back and forth for groceries. (It's amazing how quickly you go through food when you only buy what you can carry!)

But it is very exciting. I mean, dude! We're living on a whole new continent, well, island really, but still. I'm starting to get used to the direction of the cars already. Sort of. They don't look like they're on 'the wrong side' so much now, but I still look the wrong way before crossing the street. I think. I get very confused about that. It's fun to hear all the accents on the street, in the shops, and on tv, but my brain gets a little fuzzy after a while. As for my accent, well, it comes and goes. Mostly comes when I've spent the day with the tv on in the background for company and goes when Jeff gets home and gives me the evil eye for talking funny. Jeff's cousins (who will be referred to as Pam and Duncan from here on out) don't seem to think there's anything wrong with my accent. They think it's charming, a bit muddled, but charming. At least I know I won't be offending people too much.

And to answer the last question (well, usually the first that people ask): Asher is doing great. He's settled in really well, only took a couple days to fully adjust to the time change (thank You, God!). We pretty much stayed in the house all of last week so we could establish a schedule and I have to say he's been napping better here than he was back in Chicago. Two full hours in the morning and a good hour and a half or more in the afternoon. Now we just have to get the night-times back in order. He does sleep, from about 7:30/8 to 7 in the morning (kid is like clockwork with his mornings within 5 minutes of 7am every day), he just wakes up half a dozen times a night. We've given him a lot of grace though considering all the upheaval he's had for the last two months. But all that is about to change. Pray for us, we're weaning off nighttime feedings starting this weekend. If you don't hear from us for a few days (or several) you'll know why.

So I hope that answers some questions, at least for now. I'll try to be better about updating in the future as we settle in.

The Great Meltdown

2009-01-18T15:02:00.004Z

What did we do before internet and mobile phones? What was life like when one had to rely on archaic 'landlines' and 'snail mail'? I really don't know. For as long as it has taken us to get 'back on the grid' I can't even imagine how long it would have taken to reach people with a home phone - which we won't have for a week more or longer - or by post - which, granted we could have mailed a letter exclaiming our safe arrival the moment we set foot on British soil, they might have even gotten it by now. How did people do it back then? I suppose there would not be the expectation of keeping in touch. People would say things like, "Have a safe journey, send us a letter once you've got settled". I suppose they'd be quite pleased to hear something within the month.

As it is, I have friends texting me the moment we've said goodbye saying "miss you already" and others writing on my facebook wall chomping at the bit to hear if we've landed and do we absolutely love it here. I'm realizing when I left Canada for Chicago, I was really ready to leave, ready to put the old stuff behind me and set off on my new adventure. There were a couple friends I was sad to leave, but I wasn't leaving behind a life, I was on my way to find one.

Well, be careful what you wish for. I found one and now I've had to leave it behind. Not that I'm not excited to be on another new adventure, but I'm feeling a bit more lost this time 'round, a bit more...out of place. Granted, there's a bit more in the way of culture shock with this move and there's the having to adjust to a new and drastically different time zone as well, but still. I took for granted how much I did/talked to/planned with/thought about all the other people in my life in Chicago. Perhaps I just had a bit more of a selfish existence in Canada, we'd only recently been married, and with the exception of work there was not a lot of involvement in things. So much has changed.

It's not just Jeff and I this time either. That's the biggest shocker. When Jeff and I moved to Chicago, every night after dinner, we would go wander around downtown, just walking up and down the streets, seeing what was around. On weekends, we would pick a new part of town to go explore and find something to do out there. We got to know the city very well, very fast. We were much more mobile then than we are now. It might be a bit different if it were summer and warmer out. It's such a production to get everyone bundled up and make sure the little man has his sweater and coat and hat and boots and oh dear we've lost his mitts so we'll just put socks on his hands and maybe we should bring a blanket as well cause it's windy and what if it rains. Ack! What I wouldn't give for August. But even so, if it were just Jeff and I we would have spent entire days already just walking all over the city and getting lost and finding our way again and sleeping like logs at night. Not that I would trade Asher for anything but I might go stir crazy pretty quick if we don't find something to do outside the house.

Oh, and something to do that doesn't cause The Great Meltdown. I guess I just assumed that Asher would be mostly unaffected by the change, that he would react to things here the same as in Chicago. Ya, I'm an idiot. Not only is he in the umpteenth strange house for the umpteenth time in what has been a very long month and a half, he also does not have his own bed and hasn't except for a few days around Christmas for all that time. Add to that the fact that he has been teething almost non-stop since the end of November. Add to that he's also learned to crawl and so has many more places he would like to go and is often thwarted in his attempts. Add to the much more frequent falling that goes along with said mobility. Add to that all the myriad of new people that have been passing through his life, clamouring for attention and the absence of a lot of the ones he was accustomed to. I'm sure there's more. What you get is a baby who used to be hailed as "such a happy baby" by everyone who met him to a quite cranky little boy (unless he's getting his way, then, yes, he is quite a happy baby) who gets very upset at being told he can't do something, go somewhere, or put something in his mouth, who won't eat much except for bananas and breastmilk, who is once again waking up every two hours (if we're lucky), and demands to be in sight of mommy almost without exception. I was talking to my mom about this last night and she said, "Ah, so he's entered his terrible two's a little early has he?" Oh God help me. I'm not kidding, please, if you pray, pray for me. I suddenly have no idea how to handle my son and I can't abide the idea of just giving him everything he wants and yet I know that he needs a lot of grace because he's going through as big of a change as Jeff and I are but he has no understanding of what's going on. I have no idea how to balance that. Especially when I'm so tired and stressed myself.

So today, we tried to go grocery shopping and Asher started fussing, and not even that much, but suddenly I just couldn't think straight, couldn't wrap my head around trying to figure out what to buy when everything around me looked so foreign, how to get what we needed without spending too much money, how to cook with things that I'd never used before, and how to do that while getting Asher to sit in his stroller (pushcart here) quietly and not need my constant attention for once. In the end, I couldn't do it, I took Asher and we went home, leaving Jeff to try and buy what we needed but only as much as he could carry because there's still a good 5 block walk from the bus to our house. What a disaster of a day. I suppose I should stop hiding in my room and go downstairs and see what groceries he managed to get home. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to be mommy again.

Okay, so now that that depressing post is done, my next one will hopefully be about our action-comedy-adventure trip to the UK. Full of plot twists, tears, surprises, and chuckles. Stay tuned.

Uh...Happy New Year, I guess...

2009-01-08T03:14:00.002Z

So it's ridiculous, I know, that I haven't blogged in forever and even forever ago was to simply say I haven't blogged in forever. I've had an excuse, really I have. We are finally out of our, staying with our wonderful friends, whose wireless internet I cannot access. Don't ask, long story. So I'm highjacking her internet straight from the modem for this short time so I can let everyone know (my fantasy life consists of a whole boat-load of lurkers out there) that I am still alive.

We made it out of the apartment. It took professional movers the entire day to pack up all my crap. Granted, I had managed to pare it down quite a bit. We got it down from 500 cubic ft in our estimate to 335 actual cubic feet. Whew! I wonder if I'll even remember what all is in there by the time it arrives. It'll be like Christmas all over again.

We spent New Year's Eve in our friends apartment, splayed out on the couch, completely exhausted from that day's cleaning, packing up the remainder of things that were coming with us or getting shipped air freight, and driving out to our friends in the 'burbs. We watched the ball drop in New York and called it a night.

My mom was with us for another 4 days and we managed to do a lot and even relax a little during that time. It was much harder to see her leave this time. Before, it's always been a bit of a given that we'd see her again in a few months, now that we're going to be so much farther away, that's not so sure a thing. Asher will have changed so much by the time she sees him again. I'm just so glad that she was able to be with us during this time and help out so much with him.

Asher had his 9 month check up yesterday and he's still in the 90th percentile pretty much across the board. Apparently he should be leveling out now a bit. I hope so, it would be nice to not have to buy new clothes every two months for this kid.

So now it's 6 days and counting (7 if you look at the day we arrive as opposed to the day we leave). Starting to get excited. The biggest thing for me right now is just that we'll be able to settle down and get my poor little man back on a schedule. This last month has been really hard on him, he rarely gets sick and he's had a stomach bug twice and now has a cold, mostly with the congestion in his chest. Poor little mite. And to avoid keeping entire households awake that have been kind enough to take us in, he's been sleeping with me (did I mention Jeff is on night shifts all this time?) and being nursed a couple times a night. I look forward to getting him back on a schedule and getting him to sleep through the night. We had been doing so well before all this moving around started so I'm confident we'll get back to that pretty quickly.

Last thing before I head to bed: Teeth! Little man has been teething non-stop since the end of November. His bottom teeth broke through sometime in October, then he had a bit of a break, end of November saw his top teeth come through, the fourth while we were in Calgary, and now he already has two more teeth on the bottom (that's 6 in total for those of you keeping track) and now he's working on the 7th up top with the 8th not far behind. At this rate, he's going to have a mouthful by the time he's One. Wow. And I told you about the crawling right. He's getting to be quite speedy, and bold. Yikes, have to do a bit of baby-proofing on the new house. I'm also starting to get a little excited about all the shopping that awaits us, just don't tell Jeff ;).

Insanity!

2008-12-30T05:31:00.002Z

I feel like I haven't blogged in ages. Oh! I guess that's because I haven't. I've hardly had time to read email let alone the blogs I've been following and it's usually in between phone calls or sorting or packing or selling yet another item that I thought I was keeping. Even now, it's 11:30 and in a few short hours (made even shorter by my little man's constant night-wakings...seems the stress is getting to him, too) big, burly men will be coming to take away the scattered remains of my stuff. The most glorious part in the midst of all this chaos is that I don't actually have to pack anything, they're doing that part for me. I've always wanted someone else to do my packing for me (I've done a lot, a. lot. of moving in my day). I have so much to say, I wish I'd been able to keep up with writing more of this experience down, I hope I'll remember enough of it in the coming days to record some more of it cause it has been all manner of crazy. One thing I know for sure: We have too. much. crap. Oh well, I don't have to pack it this time. And I'm kind of looking forward to having it arrive in a couple months, it'll be like Christmas in February, with a surprise in every box! My grammar sucks, it's time to go to bed. More soon...

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T17:26:00.002Z

Merry Christmas!! I have much more to blog about, but that will come later as right now we are in the height of Christmas cheer and revelry and I'm being anti-social by typing away on my computer in the middle of the living room while everyone else is being cheery. I might even try to post pictures on here!

I pray everyone out there has a wonderful Christmas season filled with hope and love and peace and personal revelation of a loving and awesome Saviour.

And the fun continues...

2008-12-19T01:55:00.002Z

The only conclusion I can draw is that in my time away I have somehow developed an allergy to Canada. What else would explain the fact that I have not had a well day since I arrived. Granted I had a cold (or possibly allergies to all the dust being kicked up from moving stuff at home) when I arrived, but it was on it's way out, I was feeling better. And then came the stomach flu which was also on it's way out when last I blogged. But then came the Upper Respiratory Infection and Bronchitis quite literally on the heals of everything else.

I wrote that I had finally felt well enough to have a proper meal on Friday night, that was also the night that this little tickle of a dry cough started. It continued on Saturday but with little enough severity or frequency for me to think much about it. We went to our family dinner and almost at once I started to lose my voice. I needn't have worried about Asher's mood, he did so well, especially considering how many people there were there, but he seemed to know they were all family and charmed everyone to no end. Even fell asleep next to his cousin, I'll have to post some pictures later.

By Sunday morning, however, I had almost no voice and a significantly deeper cough. Fast forward to Thursday now, I still have very little in the way of voice, my cough is now producing great big chunks of green goo, but thankfully Asher doesn't seem to be catching anything from me this time. Jeff is now in Florida (I'm trying very hard not to be bitter and he's trying very hard not to be lonely in all that warmth) and I'm back at my mom's having driven through another terrible storm to get here. I have little in the way of coherent thought with which to blog, all I want to do is sleep and Asher is bound and determined to not allow that to happen with any reliability, and I still haven't gotten to see hardly any of my friends.

The bright spot in all of this is that I got drugs today. My mom and my aunt (who is a nurse) decided that it would be a bad idea to try and wait this out, what with the coughing up of such colorful gunk, and indeed the doctor agreed. He pronounced the verdict, I mean diagnosis as Upper Respiratory Infection and Bronchitis and a Cold and gave me antibiotics to cover the former and said I would have to slog through the latter. I'm pretty sure that's on it's way out though as I have had significantly less snot today and I'm hoping that I'll be feeling better tomorrow so I can finally get to see some friends this weekend before heading back to Chicago on Tuesday.

What a crazy December this has been.

Live to you from the Great White North

2008-12-13T19:42:00.002Z

What an adventure this trip home has been. We were quite nervous about flying with Asher for the first time. And we had to do it twice in one day. He was amazing. Charmed the flight crew and other passengers then promptly fell asleep for the entire first flight. The second flight was a tight connection but only 5 gates away so we had time to change a diaper, grab a burger and get on the plane. The second flight was a little longer so he didn't sleep the entire time but it was not a full plane so we had an entire row to ourselves to let him play and jump on the seat a little. We arrived in style and spent the afternoon with Jeff's best man and his wife and their new dog Togo. I'll have to post pictures later. Made it to my Mom's that night in what was to be only our first blizzard.

Grandma was very excited to have her first grandson in her home and we had a wonderful time visiting and seeing friends for the first day and a half. Then the stomach flu hit. I pretty much spent the night on the bathroom floor. Then the next night it was Asher's turn. Poor little mite. It wasn't until last night that I could finally eat without feeling ill. Asher recovered a little faster than I did, thankfully. So I didn't get to see as many friends as Jeff did and our time spent with his family was good but I didn't have the energy that I would have liked. What a time to get sick. It sucks that I couldnt enjoy my two days spent in a lazy boy with other people around to help take care of the little man (my Aunt was our life saver).

It was a whirl wind tour with Jeff's family in Alix, Stettler, Three Hills, and the cheapest motel I've ever spent so much money to stay in. The highlight was being able to see Jeff's Oma again. She's in a home now and far weaker than when we saw her last. It was hard on Jeff but I'm so thankful that she got to see Asher and that she recognized Jeff and was so pleased to see him. The last day with his family, we saw Oma twice, Aunt Mary and Henry, Jeff's parents and Uncle Wilf and Aunt June and then drove to Calgary. Asher spent most of the day in the car and did really well until the last hour or so. Such a trooper my little guy.

The not-so-fun part of yesterday was the fact that much of that driving was in the worst winter storm southern Alberta has seen in years. It was a very harrowing, largely snow-covered backroad to the equally harrowing, largely ice-covered freeway into the complete standstill of traffic in Calgary. Once we hit Calgary, it should have taken us 30 minutes to get to Dad's, it took 2 hours. Crazy. But we finally made it. It had been so long since I'd been there that we parked in the wrong driveway at first and were about to knock on the wrong front door before I realized. Leave me alone, you could hardly see the road or the houses and they all look alike in that neighborhood.

Today we're just chilling, waiting to go to a family dinner out at Grandmother's. I'm looking forward to Asher meeting her and the rest of the clan. I hope he's in a good mood to meet everyone seeing as he just woke up in a not so good mood.

To Be Continued...

Who needs to pack when you can play tag

2008-12-05T21:28:00.003Z

Sure I'm terribly behind in everything and my house looks like a small herd of elephants came through and randomly spewed clothes and packing materials. Oh, and I leave for Canada in the morning not to return for three weeks, but hey...I can't miss out on a game of tag!

Here are the rules: (I know, I didn't know there were rules either)

Link the person who tagged you. - Thank you Sam for providing me with this little distraction
Post the rules on your blog. - Okay, I think I got that one covered
Share seven random or weird facts about yourself. - Hmm...which seven to share...see below
Tag seven other people and include links to their tags - SciFi Mama, Christy, RR, Anna, Joanna, Shabby Girl, and Lina
Let each of the other people know by commenting on their blogs - Off to comment

I lived in a mud hut in Africa for a time
I'm married to one of those guys that in the b-grade sci-fi movies is responsible for opening up black holes that threaten to destroy our universe (only in real life, they don't actually open black holes) *Edit - my husband informs me they theoretically could open black holes, just not ones that would threaten to destroy the universe - who knew!*
I was a guest speaker at a Leadership retreat for my church back when I had a blue mohawk
I taught Grade One at a Christian school for three years.
My 8 month old son suddenly decided to start crawling today (while I was writing this actually, I had to stop and take some film of it for his dad)
I got my first tattoo at 27 and my most recent one this past August (I have three altogether with the next four already planned)
I've had a reality TV show film me singing on the worship team at my church because I didn't 'look' like someone who would do that (I had a couple facial piercings, an undercut, and blue/purple/black braids in my hair)

Well, that was fun and while it has gone on, Asher has taken a giant leap towards actual crawling and most of my furnitire has gone onto its new home. Time to put my little man to bed and pack for our trip tomorrow back to Canada. I think I'm starting to get excited.

Where am I?

2008-12-04T16:40:00.002Z

To be honest, I have no idea. I realize I haven't posted in what seems like forever, and it's not for lack of things to say, it's more for lack of being able to keep a single thought in my head long enough to type a full and complete sentence. I need to type like Data from the STNG days (that's Star Trek the Next Generation for all you non-sci-fi types). So why am I typing now you ask? Because I'm desperately trying not to do anything actually productive. I had a great post running through my head the other day as a follow up for My Life Costs How Much? and that was, "My life is Worth How Much?". Last weekend I arrived at our church's Worship Team Christmas Lunch and Workshop and nearly broke down in tears at the sight of everyone. I explained that it was just a bit of an emotional day because I'd just finished putting my life up for sale on craigslist. Or at least that's how it felt to see so much of my household goods in an ad like that. My best friend chided me to have a little perspective...that is until she saw my ad printed up on Sunday...then she started crying. We haven't really allowed ourselves to think too much about the imminent departure. The thing that really gets me is that I'm not a particularly sentimental person, especially when it comes to things so why am I completely wrecked at the fact that we're selling our couch and our bedroom dresser and our home theater system (and the list goes on and on and on and on...). My mom keeps telling me, it's not the things but what they represent, ie. the life that Jeff and I had built here in Chicago and I hear and acknowledge the wisdom in that, but I think part of me is always a little surprised when the rules apply to me. And I think, too, I'm a bit disappointed that the excitement of this upcoming new adventure feels so overwhelmed by the sadness of selling and donating and packing and leaving. Just driving home yesterday from the grocery store and seeing our beautiful skyline and parks and people...needless to say, I've spent the last week crying. But we're trying very hard to get as much sold as we can by tomorrow because Saturday we head off to Canada to see family and by the time I get back, it's 2 days before Christmas and 7 days before the movers come. We're actually going to be decorating the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve this year...and then taking it down on boxing day (well maybe we'll leave it up a couple days longer). And no, I absolutely cannot go without a tree for my son's first Christmas. I know he won't know or care, but I will and the pictures will always cause me great pain. So that is me, not really sure what day it is, where I am or which end is up and I don't see that changing in the near future. Please God, let all these myriad of things work out and let the time that I am able to spend with all these people you've blessed my life with be filled with peace and joy and contentment. And Thank You that we live, not as those without hope, but fully confident that in the end, we will all be together.

I really am very thankful....but oh so tired...

2008-11-27T14:22:00.003Z

Today is our first Thanksgiving with Asher. Well, the second really. How is that possible, you say? He's only 8 months old. Well, we have two Thanksgivings in this family. We celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving as Jeff and I are Canadian, and as we are in Rome, we must do as they do. That, and Asher technically is American (we don't have his Canadian citizenship yet). So today, I am a very sleepy, thankful Mommy. I couldn't imagine giving up any of the sleepless nights of the last few months, getting done any or all of the projects I've fallen behind in, being actually on time for so many of the things I've been late for, or missing out on a single precious moment with my son. Thank You, dear God, for the most wonderful gift ever.

My life costs how much?

2008-11-24T20:05:00.002Z

We had 3 surveyors come through the house today to guesstimate how much stuff we had to move so they could tell us how much it will cost. I have to say I'm looking forward to the next move because it will be a faculty position and our moving expenses will be paid so I won't have to sort through my life and decide what I can afford to keep. This has had my stomach in knots for days. I'm waiting for the 'official' estimates, but everyone seems to think we have about 2500 lbs of stuff. And that's mostly boxes, almost no furniture is going with us, how sad is that. The approximation tends to run about $10/cft. and the consensus seems to be that we would have about 400 cft of stuff. So that's about $4,000 just to move stuff, besides the port fees and taxes, and handling fees, and service fees, and packing fees, and losing our stuff fees, and insurance fees, and taking longer than promised fees, and unloading fees, and whatever else they charge for events like this. I'll wait to see what they come back with. (Read: I am taking any excuse to not start the sorting process just yet.)

The Science of Sleep

2008-11-21T01:26:00.002Z

What have I done that has allowed such trauma into my 7 and a half month old's life that he has resorted to such awful screaming fits when he's confronted with the need to sleep but not met with the ability to fall asleep within the first five minutes? Asher, my lovely son, the one everyone tells me is such a happy boy, that even when he's fussing, wizened mothers will note that he really does want to be cheerful he's just tired, is these days having such fits that he sounds like he's dying and he's pretty sure it's me who's killed him.

We have always struggled to a certain extent with his sleep. I discovered very early on that a tired Asher was not an Asher you wanted to spend time with. People at church thought he was such a happy baby because it wasn't really until after lunch that the shortness of his morning nap (he would get a catnap during music practice) caught up with us all. But we made it through, we found a schedule and once I started guarding it a little more carefully our night time sleep started to make progress as well. With the exception of the fact that he seems to think 5:30 am is a perfectly acceptable time to get up for the day, I would say we were doing pretty well. That was my problem, I got complacent.

Lately, there have been times, such as 2:20 (a mere 20 minutes into an afternoon nap) or 5 am (definitely not an acceptable wake up time in this house) or tonight at 6:45 (bedtime is 6:30) where this wonderful little boy that I'm growing so fond of has made me want to pack my bags and move out. Part way through tonight's escapade I realized I didn't have his lovey in the crib and left to go get it. It was only 6:50! A whole hour of screaming had somehow crammed itself into 5 minutes. How is that possible?! My husband is a physicist, I'll have to ask him when he gets home. Yesterday, with the nap, I ended up storming out at one point and slamming my door and screaming into my pillow. Then feeling 100 times the horrible mother I went back and picked him up and rocked him until he calmed down. He never did go back to sleep that day, we just rocked away the rest of nap time and finally gave up and went and watched an episode of Charlie and Lola (more for my sake than his I think).

This morning's 5 am routine I gave up. (Thinking back at the clock display I have a sneaking suspicion it had only been 7 minutes, but I astutely ignored that) I felt horrible because Jeff is fighting a cold, but I just could not stand over his crib rubbing his tummy in what should have been comfort but was swiftly turning into fury and I certainly could not pick him up. For much the same reason. I desperately wanted my son to be comforted, but I was too angry to do it. So Jeff took over and picked him and soothed him back to sleep. It took half an hour and he stayed asleep for maybe 15 minutes once he was put back in his crib. Meanwhile I was up anyway, looking up temper tantrums and sleep in 8 month olds. Turns out they don't really have true tantrums at 8 months, they just have one way to express frustration but at this age, they're suddenly realizing they have a whole lot more to be frustrated about. Great.

Tonight though, something interesting happened. He was throwing his fit, I was standing there, tummy-rubbing. No one home to tag off to, and I was bound and determined not to give into my own little hissy-fit again so all I could do was stay there and try to breath and marvel at the fact that only 5 minutes had gone by. When suddenly, he stopped. He went from full-throated, my-mother-is-a-horrible-person-who-is-trying-to-kill-me screaming to...nothing. Not even the hiccoughs that stayed for so long when I rocked him the other day. If he hadn't been turning his lovey over and over, I would have thought something was wrong. He looked at me, calmly accepted his soother (pacifier for all you Yanks out there) and closed his eyes. I watched for a little while, not even remembering to rub his tummy I was so astounded, and then finally snuck out. I could hear him moving his lovey around a bit longer on the monitor, but it's now an hour later and there's been no relapse.

Maybe God just knew I needed to not come away from another sleep struggle feeling like a horrible mother. We'll see how long that lasts.

Do you remember when weekends were for relaxing?

2008-11-17T16:21:00.002Z

Me neither. I have some vague, foggy idea that at one time, weekends were declared a time to relax, but I cannot bring one to mind that actually was filled with...nothing. And I imagine if I had ever wanted to actually capture such a phenomenon, it might have been a better idea to try before we had a baby.

Gone are the days of sleeping in for one thing. I don't know when, but somewhere along the line, 7am became a wonderful lie-in. Makes me a little ill, to be honest. And now that Asher is much more aware of the fact that Mommy isn't always paying attention and if he grunts enough times in a particularly grating way she will inevitably stop what she is doing and see to him, the only time I have to get anything done is when Jeff is home on the weekends. Then the problem becomes that everyone knows we are leaving soon so they all want to be able to have us over or take us out to lunch. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving all the free food, and to be sure there are some that I would just live with them for the next month to soak up all the time I could get, but it does present an issue when I look at my 'to do' list and I see the days flying by on the calendar and nary a crossed-off item to be seen.

And here is where I would have gone into a list of all the things I meant to do this weekend and how they got curtailed by time spent with friends and me once again thinking I could handle a foster dog for a few days despite all my craziness but alas, Asher has woken up.

Officially Official

2008-11-14T00:44:00.002Z

I discovered this charming little show on one of the kid channels called Charlie and Lola. It's a british children's series that is absolutely adorable. Largely because all the characters have the cutest english accents, but also because it's just a really nice series about a brother and sister that doesn't include jealousy or petty-ness or name-calling (well they did have one episode about squabbling where they called each other 'mean' but in the most adorable way possible), in fact they get along and the big brother is always looking out for his little sister and finding ways to help her. I love it. Anyway, Lola is always overdoing her adjectives and adverbs and I think it's rubbing off on me. For instance there was one episode called, "I am Far Too Extremely Busy" or "It is Absolutely Completely Not Messy". I'm way more addicted than Asher.

And so, in honor of Lola:

It is most definitely completely officially official. We are moving. It is quite a heady thing, buying a one-way ticket for your entire family to another continent. I have to say, it made me a little woozy. I am completely shocked at how this move is affecting me.

When we were first married, and Jeff was looking for his first post-doc, we were considering Japan and Australia among other places. I was all for Japan, Jeff wasn't sure if he could even move as far away as Chicago. And now, here I am, desperately wanting to be jumping-out-of-my-skin ecstatic and instead I'm mostly nauseous. It's not that I'm not excited. It's not that I'm not thrilled. I have always wanted to live in as many foreign countries as possible and I still do. But something else has come into play. I think it is that this feels like the first real home that I have helped create for my family. Now I find that I'm not so quick to run out the door and I'm a little sad at the prospect of having to start over.

And then of course there are the people, our friends who have become more like family. They have seen us through so much, watched us become parents (very literally, a few were in the room and even more were on the phone as Asher came into the world). They have only ever known us as married, missed all the foibles of our youth (haven't missed many of our adult foibles though;) and yet they know us, who we are, what we struggle with, our hearts desires. They have truly become Family, God-parents and Guardians, Sisters and Brothers, the truest of Friends. I can't go any further down that road, not yet. I'm not ready.

After all that, I must say, I really am very excited. I have always wanted to go to England but have only ever made it to the airport between flights to and from Greece. I remember thinking as I looked out the window at the countryside below that it wasn't right that I was going somewhere else. It was almost a physical pull to want to stay there instead of going on to Greece to meet Jeff. I feel so blessed that Asher gets the opportunity to travel as well and grow up in different places. He may not remember much yet, but he will grow up with family and friends on three different continents (we have friends that have just moved back to South Africa) that, Lord willing, will remain good friends and be visited frequently. I have always wanted to expose my children to travel and different cultures and what better way than to actually live there. And if we're really lucky, each of our children can be born on a different continent. (For those of you trying to figure out how many more times we're planning on moving, we'll likely only have one more child biologically and then we plan to adopt internationally) I get all hyper just thinking about it.

So not all my stress that's keeping me from sleeping is bad stress, it's just excitement...a lot of energy that doesn't have anywhere to go just yet. I may have to start packing really early just so I have something to do. Although if I think about it, I don't actually have a ton of time. We're going to be in Canada visiting family from Dec. 5th to 23rd, and we have to be out of the apartment at the end of December (even though we're not actually leaving until later in January). Okay, maybe not the best thing to think too hard about just now. Feeling a little woozy again.

Where to begin

2008-11-11T16:25:00.007Z

Jeff says we must keep track of this saga. I'm not really sure why, my ability to block large segments of my life from memory has served me well in the past. But I suppose he's right, we'll want to share all the excitement of Asher's early life with him when he's older. And who knows, we may even laugh about it all. And if not, I can simply delete all record of it and go back to forgetting.

The first couple days we were just a couple of frantic headless chickens not having any idea of where to begin. The result of course being that absolutely nothing got done. The adrenaline finally wore off I think and we were able to settle down and actually look at what had to be done. The first being our paperwork. Oh, the paperwork.

Jeff's grandfather was born in England making him eligible for an ancestry visa. This gives us a lot more flexibility once we're over there as far as working, living, and qualifying for certain benefits. In order to get that visa, we need to have passports which are valid for the entire term of his contract (which will be 2 years, possibly 3). Ours expire next year. Okay, so off to renew our passports. As we are gathering our necessary documentation we discover that a couple things are missing. Jeff's birth certificate and our marriage certificate (I have two copies but no original). We can order those, no problem, it's just money right? Then we're looking at the passport renewal forms and realizing that we have include our current passport. That means we can't travel until we get them back. We're supposed to be going to Canada to see family in the beginning of December. Not only that but we also need to send our passports in with our visa applications as well. Don't these people know that we need our passports to go places?

After talking with the Canadian Consulate we've decided to have our replacement documents mailed to my mom's address, we'll renew our passports at their office in Edmonton while we're there and just pray that they complete them before Jeff has to fly to Florida for his conference. Oh ya, did I mention Jeff also has a conference that he's presenting at in the middle of all this. And then when I get back from Canada on the 23rd, we'll send away for our visas. 'Our' visas by the way, apparently Asher needs one as well (at £200 each we're exceedingly happy that Oxford will reimburse us for those). I suppose that's good though because then when he gets picked up by a casting agent, there will be no problem with him working while we're over there ;)

We've just found out that Jeff will be taking shifts at Fermilab for Oxford for the first couple weeks of January so that means we have a bit more time to get through the processing for our visas. Thank God! Now all we have to do is survive the trip back to Canada and find favour with all the processing peoples there.

Our other big dilemma is whether to ship all our stuff over there, sell it all and buy new once we arrive, or ship a few things, sell a few things, and store the rest here until we have a permanent posting. I don't see any end in sight for that, I'm so torn about what is best. You can find horror stories on all sides online. I'm really hoping to be able to talk to someone in person about their experiences moving overseas. We have some friends that have done it, but it's always been on the company's dime so that's kind of an easy decision. I'm calling a few companies today to get people out to give us estimates and we'll go from there.

A couple nice developments even from when I started writing this are that we're getting closer to settling on an actual date. Likely the 14 or 15 of January. And it seems that there is quite decent, short-term, furnished faculty houses for rent near the University that we will be able to get into. They are near doctors, pubic transit, and there are several young families in the area that have started play groups. Here I thought I would be stuck in limbo and confusion for at least a couple more weeks and now I'm feeling a bit more settled. It looks like we may even have all our tickets bought by tomorrow or the next day. So I guess I don't need to resort to blocking everything from memory just yet. But stay tuned......

Strangers in a Proper Land

2008-11-08T19:06:00.002Z

So I think that is going to have to be my new name for this blog. We are headed to England, baby! Oxford to be exact. We're not sure how we feel about moving to such a small city, only about 151,000 people. Jeff chooses to look at it as a suburb of London. Whatever helps him sleep at night. We've known for a few days now and I have really been wanting to sit down and blog about it, but there's just so much running around in my head I'm having trouble actually pinning words down. Maybe now that it's out there as an announcement, I'll be able to focus more on all the details and stuff.

Ya, so later then.

Our 4th Anniversary

2008-11-06T16:33:00.002Z

Yay us!! And specifically yay me. I finally got the drop on Jeff without him letting me. I have to admit, Jeff is way more the romantic in this relationship than I am. I'm the one that makes a big deal over him for his birthday and Christmas and what not, but when it comes to remembering 'us' dates, he's got it.

The first few times, he would pull that, "Do you know what today is?" stuff and I'd be all, "Crap!". Then I caught on and started marking things on the calendar and chanting to myself in the days approaching a special event, "happy one year anniversary, honey...happy one year anniversary, honey...happy one....". You get the idea. Then the morning would dawn bright and early, he'd roll over, a big dopey smile on his face, "Happy Anniversary, love." Crap! Okay, so the next year, I go to sleep chanting to myself, "happy second anniversary honey, happy..." The alarm goes off, Jeff rolls over with a big dopey smile on his face. A pause. I blink. He says, "Is there something you wanted to say?" Crap!

So then last year, I've been chanting for like a month now, the alarm goes off, and I yawn and stretch, then it hits me. "Happy 3rd Anniversary, Honey!" I look over, triumphant, to see Jeff with his big dopey smile, chuckling at me, "happy anniversary, love. Crap, the big jerk let me win.

This year, I've found his kryptonite. Have so much else of epic scale going on in life that piddley things like mere anniversaries pale in comparison. This morning...first of all, let me say that Asher gave us the best anniversary present ever! he slept until 7:30 this morning, with only one feeding last night around 12:30 and only one other minor wakening at 4am. WooHoo!!!...okay, so this morning we're basking in the fact that we woke up on our own, no alarm, no crying baby, just that trickle of sunshine peeking around the curtains at 7am....okay, second of all, let me say that the fact that 7am is such a glorious lie-in for me is absolutely disgusting...so we're laying there, basking, and it hits me. "Hey! Happy Anniversary, honey!" A stunned moment on the other side of the bed, then, "crap". HAHA!! I finally won one! And legitimately, too, none of this waiting for her to say it so she thinks she's won. Yay me! (and you, too, honey, I love you)

Where were you?

2008-11-05T05:40:00.005Z

Where were you when Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States of America?

I was watching it all from the comfort of my living room. Although I have to say it was a little thrilling that my living room is in Chicago. Whether you agree with the politics or not, you have to concede (no pun intended...well maybe a little intention) that there's an air of excitement to it all. An historic moment for sure, but it also feels, tonight at least, like this could actually be the beginning of something big. I'm trying desperately not to use the word 'change' so it looks like I'm expressing my own thoughts and not simply buying into the Obama campaign machine.

This is one of those events where people will remember where they were when it happened. For my mom, she remembered where she was when they landed on the moon, when Kennedy was shot. (And of course for her, the wedding of Diana and Charles, but that was because she was at a party with a couple of expats, having samosas at three in the morning.) For me, I know where I was when the Gulf War started, when OJ got off (but only because some yahoo came running through the campus poking his head into all the classes to tell everyone), when Princess Diana died (I am my mother's daughter), and of course, when the towers fell.

Well, when Obama won the Presidency, I was in my home in Chicago, watching the crowds on TV celebrate at Grant Park, a mere 3 miles from where I sat. Our good friend Janet was there to discuss and explain and share in the commotion. Even Asher got in on it, waking up every hour or so just for fun.

It's not like it should really matter to me, we're Canadian, temporary to the US, likely to have moved on by the time he actually takes office. But it does matter, it matters to these friends that we've made here in Chicago that feel like our second family, it matters to a country that I not only have an affinity for, but that really does make a significant impact on a global level.

I honestly don't know who I would have voted for if I could have. I would be a Republican if I were American, and I think that it is unfortunate that President Bush has become the favoured whipping boy as of late, but I do recognize that there are some valid reasons for desiring a change. There, I've said it. Honestly, I very well may have voted for Obama out of sheer curiosity, to see if he really would make a difference or if it would simply remain the same...stuff, different face. Mind you, if I had been voting I probably wouldn't have stopped paying attention sometime back in June and I would have a much better idea of what each candidate was bringing to the table. I very much appreciated McCain's concession speech. I believe that beyond the politics and the speeches and the spin doctors that McCain is a good man with a good heart.

But it's late, and my brain grows fuzzy from having to listen to all the silly little reporters blathering on in order to fill so many hours of airtime. Congratulations to all the winners, 'Good Game' to all those who lost, and may God be with the President Elect and his family, tonight and in the years to come.

Strangers in a normal land

Back. And moving.

Six Word Saturday

5 weeks

Why post when you can comment? (and the 2nd installment of a Little Brit Different)

In Memorium

Back on the horse and The Failure of Dr. Google.

Umm....yeah....

Completely derailed

Check out the Strange Fit

Six Word Saturday

On Turning 34

And now for something...A little Brit different

Six Word Saturday

What energy?

Friends in the Blogosphere

Slices of Beauty

Brown Bread - It's named after its color

Ovulating? Me?

National Health

Renewal

Help! I'm in the Great White North without wireless internet!

Six Word Saturday

Have you seen this woman?

Live from Chicago!

Off to Chi-town

We strange, we happy strange.

Monday Meal

Monday Meal

It's Monday! Again.

Monday Meals...give or take a day...or two

Monday Meals...give or take a day

8 Things...better late than never, right?

And then it was Thursday

Monday Meals

Shadow and Light

Asher's First Birthday

Asher's First Birthday Party!!

What do you do?

Happy Birthday my Son

A Fortnight

Life in the Left Lane

London. Finally. *Warning - this is long (but it has cool pictures)*

My little man is 11 months today!

My son is afraid of grass

London! but first...pots and pans

Monkey's Music

Baby's first haircut

I love my Mac!

Single lines

Ugh. Sick. Again

The Family that Cycles together...takes a lot of pain killers.

First steps!

And what are you thinking now?

Soon to be mobile

Snow, snow, and more snow!!

Asher is 10 months old!

Our Last Day in Chicago

A new look

To answer a few questions...

The Great Meltdown

Uh...Happy New Year, I guess...

Insanity!

Merry Christmas

And the fun continues...

Live to you from the Great White North

Who needs to pack when you can play tag

Where am I?

I really am very thankful....but oh so tired...

My life costs how much?

The Science of Sleep

Do you remember when weekends were for relaxing?

Officially Official

Where to begin

Strangers in a Proper Land

Our 4th Anniversary

Where were you?

London. Finally. Warning - this is long (but it has cool pictures)