Notes From Nineteen Months and a Blogcation

This little blog might be on the quieter for the next week or so as we adjust to all this newness and as I figure out where, with new jobs and new schedules, the quiet time for this will be. 

So far things are going well. Really well. I walked the fastest walk I've ever walked home from work today. I wished I were able to fly. I got angry at not being able to fly and walked even faster. I opened the door and no crying. Just babbles and laughs from our silly little duck. I haven't been as happy as I was in that moment in a very long time. She's going to be okay. I was a whole lot more sad than I imagined I'd be yesterday. And anxious and worried. What if she cries the whole time? What if she gets too tired waiting for me to get home? What if she doesn't eat enough? Will this schedule work for her? For me? Is this the right thing to do? Am I doing this for the right reasons? Exhale. If our first day is a sign of things to come, she is going to be okay. 

In the meantime (as we get everything put just right) a few highlights from the last week or so: 

Frances can count to ten. I guess this is pretty standard for babes her age but I didn't think counting came for at least a few more years. Its really kind of amazing.  

She can also turn door knobs to open doors and just about let herself into the fridge. As soon as she does get in the fridge she goes right for the bottle of pancake syrup every time. 

The other day when I said I love you to Frances she said Elmo loves you back to me. #thankselmo

At home, she won't leave my side. As soon as we get to a mall, store or park she is nowhere to be found. 

We've stopped keeping track of the words Frances can say since she tries to repeat most everything now. Just today there was pretzels and you're welcome. So polite when she gets her favourite salty snack food. Most of the time her pronunciation is spot on. But for some reason ice cream, which she requests every time she sees a freezer, comes out as essmins. Took us a while to get this one sorted out. 

Mini German Pancakes

This year, with Christmas Eve on a Saturday, it seemed like the perfect time to find a new breakfast recipe to try (Eggs Benedict has dibs on Christmas morning). Inspired by the photo below, we went with Mini German Pancakes. 

Turns out they are the world's easiest and most delicious breakfast food.

1 cup milk

6 eggs

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. orange zest (optional)

1/4 cup butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Blend first six ingredients (milk thru orange zest). Be careful to see that any flour clumps get well-blended. Blend in butter a little at a time in order to temper the eggs.

2. Grease muffin tins well and distribute batter evenly between twenty-four tins 

3. Bake for fifteen minutes, or until puffy and golden on top.

4. Served with your favorite toppings. 

Ours looked nothing like the photo. They were really, really light and puffy. This didn't however, affect their deliciousness one little bit. I think I filled the muffin tins too full: 3/4 when 1/4 would have been better so that the edges could creep up and form cups. 

Although they're called pancakes, the six eggs makes them more of an omlette-pancake hybrid. We enjoyed them on the sweeter side (with triple berry sauce) but you could definitely go with salt and ketchup if you prefer savory. 

Triple Berry Sauce 

3 cups  (750 mL)  frozen  blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries or a combination 

1/3 cup  (75 mL)  granulated sugar (I used a bit less)

3 tbsp  (45 mL)  orange juice or water (I used a bit more orange juice)

Combine berries, sugar and orange juice in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring often, until the fruit begins to release its juices and break up. Continue to cook for five to ten minutes or until mixture is syrupy. 

Add to pancakes and eat, eat, eat!

Merry Merry Christmas

Our Christmas weekend was lovely. Equal parts slow-quiet and rush-commotion. Frances took her time opening her gifts. Unwrap, examine, play, wander away, come back, play more. Although she learned quickly what to do when she was handed a wrapped present, it didn't occur to her that all of the still-wrapped presents under the tree might be for her and might contain toys. There are still two left to be unwrapped but why hurry. Next Christmas morning is bound to be all haste and scuttle.

And then the less slow-quiet: a beautiful Christmas eve gathering and a delicious Christmas dinner the next day. It's times like these that make me really appreciate the bumble's easy going disposition. Our days usually follow the same pattern: up, breakfast, play, snack, nap, lunch, play, snack, elmo, supper, snack, bed. I like it. She likes it. Then Christmas and everything changes: lots of people, late late bedtimes, extra car rides, different foods, different homes, and of course the excitement of it all. She handles it so well you'd think our weeks were regularly made up of egg nog, pianos and glittery indoor trees.  

Focus.

Action.

Excitement.

Also, wintery holiday lights walk year two versus ...

Wintery holiday lights walk year one.
Someone has been growing but evidently not enough to warrant a bigger hat.

Ho Ho

Frances loved Santa (ho ho) this year. In the parade. At the mall. And at the Santa`s breakfast fundraiser we went to. Minutes before this photo we were taking turns holding on to a wee wiggly bumble, trying to keep her in place so that the four kiddies ahead of her in line could get their proper picture taken. One without a small pink elf trying to climb up on Santa`s lap. Just wait until she realizes that he has a hand in all those presents under the tree on Christmas morning. 

New Years New Things

New years are good times for new things. Great times in fact for great things like new jobs. The day after new years day I will pack my first lunch, wave goodbye to my two favourite faces and walk three blocks for my first full day of not-at-home work in almost twenty-months. I am excited and I am ready. 

I am excited to work for an amazing organization. I am excited to be able to contribute to the work they do and to be part of their creative processes. I am excited to begin to think about new ways to scale old walls  and excited to work at a place that is okay with a flexible schedule and lots of work done from home. I am excited for a new office, a fresh bulletin board, and a crisp white notebook. I am most excited though for work that will be meaningful because that's the best kind. 

And I am ready. Conversations about this job started a long time ago. Well before Miss Frances turned one. Even then it was a wonderful opportunity in a place where wonderful opportunities don't often pick up the phone and give you a call. As much as I was not ready and as much as I could feel my heart breaking in two I said Yes. I can start now. But some things happened. Some things that they had to figure out. Some things that took ten months. Some things and months that let me step one step at a time towards this space of perfect readiness. 

I do still wonder about the day-to-day of it all. Where will these hours for this new work come from? Most days we rise with the sun and fall into bed shortly after the bumble. We're so tired at the end of each one that we no longer care how uncool it is to be this young and this tired at such an early hour. We just want to go to bed. The new year brings with it less time for errands, less time for this self-dirtying house, and less time to think about and shop for and ready tasty healthy foods. It also brings a lot of wondering about how Frances will adjust to the changes. Until then, until we look back on this adjustment with pride and certainty about our success, I will remind myself often that we'll make it. We'll try things one way and if that doesn't work we'll try them another way. And another and another until we find that sweet spot where everyone is happy and everyone thrives.   

As the new year and this new job nears, I also find myself looking back and thinking about how grateful I am for this time spent at home with a small and then not-so-small bean. Grateful for time to just be. To live in a country that does today (although not perfectly and sometimes begrudgingly) value that first fleeting year of life and the bonds and love forged therein. And I am really, really (really) grateful for Rob, who, as the end of her first year approached and I weighed unappealing job against unappealing job, said, take your time, don't rush, you don't need something right now, something perfect will come along. And what do you know, something did. 

You Can Leave Your Hat On

We are still here. Eep. Somewhere. The week before Christmas. I can hardly believe it. Our Christmas cards arrived in the mail yesterday. My first thought was Oh good. They're here and it's only Sunday. I'll put these in the mail tomorrow and they'll definitely get where they're going by Christmas. I know, eh? I woke up and realized that the mail doesn't come on Sunday, that it was Tuesday and that I should probably write um, happy new year? in all of them. Oh well. They were signed, stamped and in the mail this morning - a miracle on par with those other miracles celebrated at this time of year. 

With several comings and goings this year we're getting rather excited around here for more than one Christmas fete. Last Sunday, Christmas eve, Christmas day and then again a few days later. There is so much holiday preparation and anticipation, that this is exactly how it should be. Christmas again and again ad again.

I hope that these extra festivities mean some extra photos. Especially extra photos of toddler unwrapping mayhem and toddler all-dressed-up with other all-dressed-up toddlers mayhem. This is all I have from the last week or so. 

Car snoozing after her first sleepover and a fun-filled morning and afternoon at Nanna and Granddad's (or Nanna and Dot Dot according to Frances). I haven't been able to get my camera fixed yet (though getting it fixed did get onto the do-in-the-new-year list) and only being able to shoot manually while dodging little fingers reaching for the lens is making me pretty camera lazy.  

Thing One and Thing Two

Sometimes I'll walk downstairs or into one of the bedrooms and all I can see is things. Things that are downstairs and need to go upstairs, things that are upstairs and need to go downstairs, things that need to be picked up, things that need to be cleaned, things on top of things, her things, my things, his things. Ack! So many things! I want to gather them all into a giant sack, lay in my newly emptied house, and exhale a great big exhale because at last there are no more things. 

Other times (not kidding) I'll catch myself thinking, do we have enough things? Does Frances have enough things? You know, are they stimulating enough? Is she bored by them? Too old for them now? Over them? Is it time for some new things? 

We try to be selective about her things. We want them to have longevity - to be able to take on new meaning as she passes through different stages of development. We also want them to encourage her imagination and her creativity. Sometimes, toys whose purpose isn't a given can be put to many uses and rendered brand new when seen in a different light. 

Most importantly though, we want her to grow up to think carefully about things. To question the place that things hold in our lives. To question the value we (personally and as a society) give to things and the role we allow them to play in who we are and how we see ourselves. To appreciate and care for the things that we have and not assume that there are always more things just around the corner.

There are, I think, some have-tos that come along with being selective about things. We have to make sure as she grows that we talk about the things we have and want and why we want them and who makes them and how. We (but mostly I) have to make sure that in thinking about her things I also think about my things, namely my pretty deep love for shoes and clothes (and coats and bags and sunglasses and, um, shoes and clothes). Lastly, we have to make sure to fill her days with art and outdoors and music and new and different experiences so that this inclusion of fewer things is a thoughtful and intentional one and imbues in her a sense of all that she has not all that she lacks. 

On the days that she seems exceptionally bored by her things though (and maybe this is just a toddlerism), I wonder if I am living up to these responsibilities. Or even coming close. Will I be able to fill the space left by fewer things with thoughtful reflection, a feeling of gratitude and a love of life's non-things? Or, really, should I just get her some more things? 

O Christmas Tree

Here's to books that are edited, dressers that are painted and trees that are decorated. Such a lovely and productive weekend.

I've been thinking about painting our dressers and night stand for a long, long time. Now that they look so fresh and new I can't believe I didn't do it sooner. It was easier than I was anticipating - an hour and a half to set-up, sand, clean and put on the first coat and then fifteen minutes for each of next two coats. This bodes very well for the heap of dusty (but beautiful) old furniture that has stockpiled itself in the basement.

Helping da with the hinges.

Carpenter.

Ta da. 

Fancy knobs.

Ta da. Ta da.

The Three Little Bears

Before we moved here Rob would tell me, in Cape Breton it always snows on my birthday. His birthday is in the middle of October. I've been here for three years now and we haven't yet had snow (real snow - the this it it, everything is white until March, snow) at Christmas. I never used to be a winter person. I'm not really one now either but those first few snowfalls ... oh. Watching snowflakes fall at night, watching them whirl thick like lace in front of the hazy street lamp, it's as if the world grows quieter and just. slows. down. 

While I wait and hope for a fluffy white Christmas, I'm really enjoying being able to run outside in December. Especially when Christmas cookie recipes make batches of sixty. This morning it was a little before eight, a little below zero and there was frost and sunshine on everything.

I dread having to go to the gym. Having to pack up myself, get in the car, sign in, change my shoes, sign-up, wait my turn, wipe down the treadmill, move to the next machine (twenty minute limit you know) and then do most of it over again on the way home. I like putting on my shoes and walking out the door and then there I am, ready to run.

Last week on the radio they were talking to a lovely-crazy bunch of folks planning to run a half marathon here (HERE) in February. I'm not going to join them but I am going to borrow some of their determined northern spirit to delay my ymca membership for as long as possible. 

These wintery morning runs mean a light at the end of a busy October-November tunnel. A week-ish late I know. I've spent almost every second of free time, when the bumble is sleeping and my other work is done, editing a book about education in Nigeria. I like doing this editing - it's flexible and I learn a lot about things that I'd otherwise have never come across - but man it makes for some long days. I've got just one of thirteen chapters left and so have been taking a bit of time to catch up on other ridiculously overdue things. Like taking photos for Christmas cards (hoping that they arrive here in time for Christmas) and mailing birthday presents (knowing that they probably won't arrive on time for birthdays - sorry uncle josher).

A few of the outtakes from our first time using a self-timer:

Too wiggly.

Too funny.

Too slow.

Just right.