So, 8 months old today. Unfortunately, very crabby, having a lot of trouble putting him down for naps today and still suffering with the pooh. And I had to provide a sample for the GP today, such fun. Only a mother would do it. The GP we saw yesterday thinks it’s likely a virus that he is having trouble shaking off, but if the results don’t come up with that, it’s going to be elimination dieting for Oliver (as in, eliminating dairy to start with, probably).

There was a show on Channel 4 here a few months ago (I think) on extended breastfeeding – basically shock television for the average viewer to go ‘ewww that kid of 7 is still having her mothers’ milk??’. In reality, when you watched the show after the scintillating advertisements got your attention, it was very sympathetic to extended breastfeeding and focussed on all the reasons why the mothers and children were still doing it.Recently, there has been another show on Channel 5 called ‘Honey I Suckle the Kids‘ which again went for the shock in advertising of showing an older child breastfeeding, and parents letting their kids pee and poop everywhere without the use of nappies. Again, when you actually watched the show, it turned out to really be about ‘attachment parenting’.

I did, however, spend most of the show with my mouth hanging open, feeling a mixture of guilt, disbelief and wonder. Basically, the premise is that if you are going to have children, it’s your job to fully FULLY nuture them and dedicate your life to their wellbeing in its entirety – at least this is what I gleaned from the show, don’t shoot the messenger. That means breastfeeding until self-weaning, co-sleeping, no gadgets or other entertainments (e.g. bouncy chairs, seen as very evil) except for slings and other ways to ‘wear’ your baby – basically if they are a baby you don’t put them down. And if they are a toddler, you are still entertaining them 24-7. Oh, and the no-nappy thing is elmination communication - looking for cues that baby is about to pee or poop and taking them outside to go in a bush. Or missing the cue and having them go on your nice wood panelled floor. Anyway.

In theory, there is nothing wrong with the attachment parenting stuff. Of course not. They are probably doing a great service to their kids, and they truly believe they are raising good people. I just think I would actually kill myself if I was in their situation. I feel like I’ve lost myself enough as it is.

Like everything in the ‘mommy wars’, there is something good about a sense of balance, nuturing both independence and dependence, and of nothing being truly right or wrong. Okay, probably there are some things that are wrong no matter what, like using the dog as a babysitter (I haven’t quite resorted to that yet), but the great debates are just about choices.

My friend Kristen gave me a copy of a ‘zine when I was in Canada in July about feminism and motherhood. It brought me back to university, when I took loads of women’s studies courses, and I remembered that the debate over what motherhood meant to women/did to women was still unresolved in current feminist thought. It didn’t mean anything to me back then though. But I just finished reading it (took me a while, of course) and there was lots of food for thought. And lots of feelings that I shared with the writers.

One article really spoke to me.

I was totally unprepared for the culture shock of at-home motherhood. I had expected this to be simply the next logical stage in my life, which I would handle with relative ease, as I had college, working and a new marriage. Suddenly, I faced yawning spans of hours with a short-tempered baby, growing piles of laundry, and a chilling sense of isolation…That I had no idea how to manage the domestic details was becoming abundantly, painfully clear. The last thing I wanted to do with any precious moments of non-baby care was clean.

Mark’s mother believes that no one should go back to work until their kid is at least 3 years old. If I don’t go back part-time when we move to Canada (that sense of balance being achieved – me time and baby time co-existing) I think I am going to walk in front of a bus.

Gotta go – Oliver’s playing by himself and ignoring him for this long induces the guilt!!

Current favourite things:
-Watching flies
-Watching dogs and cats
-Watching and listening to mummy say Woof when the dog is around (belly laughs all around)
-Throwing spoons on the floor
-Throwing anything on the floor and watching where it drops
-Eating remote controls or telephones – anything with buttons are cool
-Super delicious and easy to self-feed Organix carrot sticks (and mummy and daddy think they are pretty yummy as well – they look and kind of taste like cheezies but are practically good for you!)

Evil things:
-Blogger!!! (this is why)
-Having diarrhea for 2 weeks! (I know you all needed to know that!!) (GP appointment tomorrow after getting scolded by a Health Visitor for bringing him to clinic – but I knew he wasn’t contagious, he’s not sick otherwise, and don’t they disinfect the stuff anyway??)
-Going through I don’t know how many extra nappies and clothes (see above for reason why)
-Children’s clothing sizes. Currently Oliver is literally wearing a range of items from 0-3 months that still fit, up to 12 months that also fit. What the??? 12 month size stuff bought in Canada clarifies its sizing as 20 pounds. What baby weighs 20 pounds at a year??? Dude, it’s going to happen before a year. Are babies smaller in Canada? I doubt it.

I’ve got Blogger issues big time.

I was tempted by the opportunity to try Beta Blogger, with loads of new features!, and decided to switch both my blogs over (this one, and this one).

The migration was meant to be easy. For this one, I logged in under my Blogger user name that was used for this blog only, and then it asked for my Google account details which were to be used as my new login. Not a problem, I have a Gmail account (although I don’t use it very often). This one got switched fine – except for losing my template changes. But that’s my fault. Plus the good thing about Beta is that it’s a lot easier to modify your blog and make it your own rather than looking like a bog standard Blogger template.

Okay, so on to the next one. I had a seperate login for Oliver’s blog. I logged in, used the same Google account details as previously, and poof. It’s gone. I mean, the blog is still there. But the details of the blog are not available on my dashboard/Blogger homepage. I can’t login to post using my Google account details or my previous login details. I emailed the Blogger team about it last week and have heard nothing back. I don’t know what else to do other than start again.

So when I have like 50 million hours on my hands, I guess I am going to cut and paste every single post from Oliver’s current blog to the new one. And lose all the comments and such. Sad and annoying.

Unless I suddenly hear from someone and they fix it for me, or someone out there has another idea. I don’t know if I enabled the feature where you can post via email on that site or not, and I wouldn’t know the address if I did. Any good hacks out there who could break into it for me?

Just in case, this is up and running (god it took me forever to find a domain name that hadn’t been taken!!).

In 2 months today, Oliver and I will arrive in Canada, and we won’t have a return ticket. And Mark and Piper and possibly Piglet will be joining us a few days later. The move is real.

A move back to Canada is so much more complicated than my move here 4 years ago. I arrived with 2 very large and heavy suitcases that Air Transat didn’t even charge me extra for – ’cause a nice guy dealt with me at Pearson. That SO doesn’t happen anymore.

What do I return with? Oh, just a little more. A husband, a baby, a dog, a cat, and a household full of stuff even when we ditch most of it in the next few weeks. I am not sure how we are supposed to be ready for it to happen in just a matter of weeks. We’ve pretty much been in denial up until a few weeks ago.

The next few weeks will consist of trying to spend as much quality time with his family as possible so they don’t completely hate me, organising a party for the end of September/ beginning of October to see everyone to say goodbye, trying to sell any belongings that still have some life left in them, and making many many trips to the dump or charity shop to get rid of the rest. Oh, and deciding on how we are going to ship what is left, and figuring out where to store it when we get there. We are going to be staying in my parents’ basement until we sort ourselves out so we can’t really have a lot with us there.

Mark’s permanent resident visa has been done for a while. Oliver’s citizenship application is sitting on someone’s desk in Nova Scotia gathering dust, so the High Commission here is going to grant him a temporary passport which we have just sent away for.

I am feeling the stress. We are both worried about getting jobs. We have a lot of money put away from the house sale last year, but we shouldn’t be living on it for long as it needs to go towards a house there; that was the whole point – move back to Canada for the cost of housing, for not having a mortgage. So if one of us doesn’t get a decent job (how much would I love it if I got the good job and Mark stayed home with Oliver? I would be doing a happy dance) what is going to happen? I guess we still have no mortgage, which is good, but just not a lot of other income if we have resorted to McJobs.

I am also going to a foreign country. I might have been born and spent 25 years living in Ontario, but I still haven’t done basic things there like buy a house, have a real full-time job, buy a car or deal with banking above and beyond having a silly normal account. These are things I know more about in the UK. In this country, I know what to do to sign Oliver up for nursery or school or a doctor. It’s all new to me at home. I called Canada home today, like normal, and then kind of winced because really, I have made this my home and I am going to miss it.

We’ll be back here as often as we can be – all holiday (all pathetic amounts of holiday, that is) will be used to visit Mark’s family, to give them as much time with Oliver as possible. But I am quite sure I can make a long list of all the things that I am going to miss that are different that I have become very accustomed to.

So the adventure begins soon…

We just got back from a lovely weekend in Wales visiting Emma and Mark.

We arrived on Friday night to a warm welcome, and as ever a delicious meal. We visited Tintern Abbey and the town of Chepstow on Saturday.

Saturday night was yet another good meal as they went to Thailand last December and took cooking classes so we were the lucky beneficiaries of wonderful homemade thai green curry. We eat so well when we visit them! And the wine was flowing and it was a good night post-Oliver’s bedtime.

On Sunday we went in to Cardiff, and shopped at the Riverside Market. Mark and I bought some yummy sourdough from a French baker and some Welsh goats’ cheese to go with. I grilled it with some tomatoes for lunch today and was in heaven.

We had lunch with them in Cardiff at a cafe but had to cut the visit short as it was Mark’s last day to fly his plane on his UK license.

Exciting times around here, folks!

He finally sits for a good length of time without falling over:

He holds his bottle:

And he has a tooth! Can’t take a pic as it’s still hidden in his gum but there’s a little nub coming up, at the front on the bottom.

I’ve decided that this is my favourite age so far, 7.5 months. He’s pretty amusing right now. Everything is a game, everything is interesting, and he cracks me up all the time. But as he’s not that mobile, he can’t get into too much trouble yet. Yet.

I just took Oliver and Piper for a walk at Ashridge. And I DROVE us there by myself. God that was terrifying. But we are all alive. I was on strict orders from my driving instructor to do that, and I’m a bad liar, so I had to. And I don’t think I pissed too many people off only going 40 miles an hour on country roads. (only?! people are mental around here!)

This week has been harvest week on the farm. I often forget we live on a farm, renting out an old worker’s cottage, as the farm workers don’t go to this part of the land too much. The most action we see around the outbuildings are the adventures of the family of bunnies that live out there, that get chased by Piper. Anyway, whatever it is they have been growing in the fields around us, like wheat or barley or something, has all been cut down. And it’s like everything that was living in there is coming in to our yard/house, which has meant the biggest scariest spider I have ever seen indoors in my life found almost on my hand when I opened the curtain, and this little creature found by Piper in the garden:

Aww. A baby shrew. I picked it up and checked it out in case it had been cat lunch (Piglet still likes a hunt once in a while) or the dog had played with it but I think Piper had just been sniffing it. It had nothing wrong with it. I briefly considered naming it and keeping it as our new pet but then I came to my senses and released it over the fence hoping that the cat would leave it alone. It came back under the fence. Oh well. Also I washed my hands afterwards in case anyone is really worried about mothers picking up rodents!

I am still sick but slightly better. I don’t feel like I am dying anymore. I have some crazy swollen glands in my throat and my head throbs when I move it around too quickly or abruptly but other than that I am okay. Mark’s mum has Oliver from 11am to 5pm today and what am I doing? Resting. AKA reading blogs and blogs and more blogs (including archives in some cases, just for fun). I think I will have a shower and have some lunch. Watch some telly. But that’s about as strenuous as it’s going to get as I really am meant to be resting, nurse’s orders. And I will try not to feel guilty about all the cleaning/organising/laundry that needs doing. Really, I would love to do it but it will make my head hurt.

So Monday and Tuesday, up until about 5pm, I felt back to normal again, flu or whatever it was over, all well. Then yesterday, while holding Oliver to get him back to sleep during his nap, I started to feel like death again. I got the shivers and shakes, a sharp pain in my lung and a massive headache. Yes I must be dying. Ended up having to get Mark’s mum to come over to take care of Oliver as I couldn’t even really pick him up. Couldn’t get a GP appointment for the rest of the week. Mark arranged a nurses’ appointment for this morning, even though I knew it was viral and there is nothing really that can be done. The nurse practioner gave me lots of sympathy, which was nice, and told me to rest, so Mark has stayed home to do Oliver duty and Mark’s mum will do it tomorrow. If I am not better by Friday, I need to go back in for a blood test. See, I’ve never (in my memory, I am sure my mother will correct me) had a fever I couldn’t shake before. I’ve had a fever I’ve been bringing down since Saturday.

So, on the off chance I’ve got something funny, I’ll get the blood test done. And there is a vague chance as the poor dog has come back from Scotland riddled with ticks. She’s on antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and Mark has this new tick removing plastic tool, which is good, ’cause I just found another one that the vet missed. What if I don’t know I’ve been bitten by a tick and have some crazy tick carrying disease?? Ugh.

Eureka! I have fixed it! Something just up with that post. Starting a whole new one, no problems. Weird. Anyway, let’s move on!

Blueberries seemed like a good idea at the time.

Ahh, food. Food is both fun and stressful. I am still mostly making Oliver’s food and it usually goes quiet well. Except lately he’s just so into everything and wants to hold the spoon and wants to grab the bowl and wants to throw his bottle off his high chair. These are all good things, of course (you know, development and stuff) but they make feeding time hazardous to others (except the dog who benefits).

Baby food cooking means that I often buy us all things I would have normally passed by, like spaghetti squash. Also, his favourite food at all is anything off of our plates, so he’s tried lots of things and enjoyed them all (as long as they are being eaten by others). Including, while at my parents’ house, sucking on a pickled onion!!! Weird kid. We’ve had lemon and just like Kristin said about Nolan, he makes a screwed up face that’s hilarious, even shivers or twitches his body, and then comes back for more. So funny.

I do use the jarred food when travelling, and he normally copes pretty well with that too. Here he is in Scotland in his very useful pocket high chair:

We are doing well with finger food like arrowroot cookies, rice cakes and pieces of toast. He had almost an entire piece of toast with cream cheese the other morning for breakfast. Once they are past 6 months’ old, it’s suggested that they don’t need special baby cereal anymore and they can eat things like Weetabix and porridge for breakfast. Well, I’ve tried, and he hates them. Don’t blame him, not my faves either.

While acquiring a taste for foul vegetables in Canada, he also stopped breastfeeding. Not sure what happened there. We were only doing it once a day (had been reducing to go back to my now non-existent job), and I guess possibly a combination of a big time difference to adjust to (it took a while – he was ready to go at 4:30am a couple of days), and a strange place with new people, etc., might have just put him off of it. Who knows. Anyway, he started refusing it. And I guess it’s good and bad.

In the early days, I never thought I’d still have been doing it at 6 months. I hated it. I didn’t want to be that needed, I didn’t want him on me 24-7 (’cause it felt that way), and I just wanted a shower and some space, dammit (okay, that’s still a problem, but for different reasons). So now I have my body back in its entirety and I don’t have to wear bras with flaps. Although they can be pretty comfy, I am enjoying a new phase of lift and seperate. Who knew there was space between bosom and stomach. Anyway. Too much information.But I was surprised to find myself a little sad it was over. The one feed was used when he woke up around 7am to get him back to sleep for just a bit longer, and we’d doze together. Thankfully I seem to be able to get him back to sleep most days without any feed now (using a dummy instead, haven’t gotten rid of that thing yet, that crutch for me).

So he’s solely on formula and he’s hilarious when he wants a bottle now. He sees it. He knows he wants it. He can almost hold it by himself. He freaks out when it doesn’t to get his mouth fast enough. And then there’s this sigh of relief once the milk starts flowing. I try and give water on the hot days but he’s like, what’s this crap in my bottle that ain’t milk lady??? So I am also trying cups of water, which is fun when it pours down him, but I think he might be a little better at it than before.

If I hadn’t have been made redundant, I would have been back at work today, and he would have just been starting his first day at creche right now. Weird. Instead he’s still lightly asleep and I am in my pj’s about to put the coffee on and I’ve got nothing to do today. It would have been crazy, but I do kind of wish I was in London right now.