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November 30, 2005

Yeah I'm lazy, what about it?

I want a Roomba. If there is anything about our place that I hate it is the speed at which cat hair accumulates. And I'm sorry Swiffer, but your sad 2 square inches of dirt-adhering space is no match for the cat hair in even our tiny apartment. All I end up doing is pushing a big pile of crap around the apartment. Somehow, relocating dirt was not my desired effect.

Come to the rescue Roomba! You just turn it on and it goes about it's business slowly keeping the floors clean all the time. Yay! Though I don't know when we would ever be able to part with $300 for a vacuum cleaner when we already have one. Bummer.

Posted by leah at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2005

Weekly Dose of Cuteness

This week's cuteness showcases Liam's latest trick: sitting all by himself. Though only for short periods before he topples over. He is so incredibly happy when he sits up by himself and we are so insanely proud. He's pictured with one of his Baby Einstein blocks from Jeff and Autumn which he loves to play with and, of course tries to eat.

Posted by leah at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)

If only naming it were half the battle

I have learned that Sam is a hypervocalizing cat. We have long suspected that Sam and Twitch have some sort of Oriental breed in their mix, so I guess that makes them prone to being noisy.

Seems like not letting them nap in the evening and playing with them seems to help. Who knew?

Posted by leah at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2005

Aging Population

People are waiting longer in life to have children. I know that this is true for me, but according to a number of articles and Stats Canada it's true for the general population as well. The article that I've linked to kinda irks me though, I mean aren't PEOPLE waiting to have kids, not just women? When I was pregnant, I wasn't having a baby, WE were.

Anyway, people are waiting longer to have kids and it's mainly that people want to feel secure financially and/or establish their career before they take on the responsibility of a child. I get that, we really struggled with whether we should start a family yet when we are still struggling financially and we really had to weigh my age versus when we could realistically expect to be in a comfortable financial position. My age won the debate. While I'm sure that 33 doesn't seem that old, it's such a crap shoot when it comes to fertility and to be completely honest, I suspected that I couldn't get pregnant - obviously and thank goodness, I was wrong.

Which makes me wonder, why are we essentially one of the first of our friends to have kids? I have two other girlfriends who have babies and they weren't that far ahead of me. On Steve's side of our circle of friends, we are the first - with one couple soon to join us in the land with baby. Yay! But every one of us with or thinking about being with child is in their early thirties.

This means that for the most part we are going to have fairly small families and we're going to be a lot older, on average, than our parents were when our kids hit the teenage years. Is that better or worse or just different? Will we be so old that we don't relate to what they are going through, or will we be more mature and therefore better equipped to parent and have less of a need to be best friends with our kids. Which, for the record, I think is inappropriate - your job as a parent is not to be popular.

So, us GenXers are finally having kids just when the Baby Boomers are (hopefully, come on for chrissakes) giving up their power. I don't think that is coincidence. I think it is very telling that the Boomers are FINALLY being forced to retire and the GenXers are finally starting families. It takes time to work up to a position that pays a salary that will support a comfortable standard of living including children. There has got to be a connection between the Boomers holding onto these positions longer that the generation before them and the GenXers waiting longer to have children.

In BC, K-12 school enrollment has been on a pretty steady decline since around 1999. I'm sure there are other contributing factors, but partially, all of our waiting is contributing to a falling birth rate and the already aging population. Which leads to all kinds of tax-base issues and a reliance on immigration to maintain our population base. Nothing wrong with that really, but it sure isn't giving any of my friends incentive to start having babies and isn't that what this post is really about. Me wanting to have more people to have play dates with during the week? 'Cause I am nothing if not COMPLETELY SELFISH about wanting my friends to start pumping out babies.

Call me crazy, but maybe the government should start giving us incentives to have kids, like free child care or larger baby bonus payments or base-level maternity pay for women who weren't working full-time before getting pregnant and higher pay for those were - couldn't hurt. Don't they want to ensure a higher tax base for the future? Don't they want me to have more people to go for coffee with and commiserate with about sleep deprivation and dirty diapers?

Posted by leah at 06:33 PM | Comments (2)

November 25, 2005

You need these meds.

There was a discussion on Blogging Baby about the increase in prescribed antidepressant medication in children and adolescents where I suggested that part of the problem was rampant drug advertising and subsequent demands from doctors for the quick fix by the consumer. As a result I was directed to this parody site - guess I'm not the only one who thinks that. Be sure to check out the link to their cafepress store, the Corporate Control t-shirts are great. Thanks to Matthew for the link.

Posted by leah at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2005

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I saw me a moving picture today! How sad is it that I am so very happy to have seen an afternoon movie? Steve took the afternoon off work and we went to a Famous Babies showing of the latest Harry Potter flick.

This is the second bring-your-baby-along movie I've gone to and so far they are pretty good. The sound is turned down a bit to save little ears, and you get some crying and other random baby noises now and then, but otherwise it's seeing a movie. OUTSIDE OF MY HOUSE. On a great big screen, with artery clogging popcorn and insanely expensive beverages. Oh yeah, it's OUTSIDE OF MY HOUSE. Can you sense the source of my excitement?

The movie was pretty good - though, as long as it gets me out in the real world doing adult things, my standards are pretty low. I won't spoil it for you, but I will say that I especially liked a part with a dragon, Harry and a roof - you'll know it when you see it - very cool. I really enjoy seeing these movies knowing the story two books down the road, I think it adds a whole 'nother layer to the things they choose to show in the movie.

Liam was great, he was very patient and sat nice through most of the movie. He didn't fall asleep like he did when I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but he didn't cry... he did do some fake coughing, but it being his new favourite thing how could he resist. An audience for crying out loud - he loves attention any way he can get it. Two and a half hours is a lot to ask from a baby, so I'm pretty impressed with how well he did.

I'm taking advantage of it while I can cause once he starts crawling, I know that my days of going to movies with him in tow will be over. Until then, you can expect to find me at Movies 4 Mommies on Wednesday afternoons.

Posted by leah at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)

Ahem!

Liam has attained another star on the developmental milestone chart. The much acclaimed fake cough stage. Look away from him for only a second and you'll hear this ridiculous cah-cah-cah-cah-cah-cah! noise. One look and it's grinning baby again. Once in a while it's the fake laugh ha-ha-ha, but usually the fake cough.

Of course I'm reinforcing the behaviour by looking at him and laughing pretty well every time he does it, but how can I not. My baby is using a form of communication OTHER THAN CRYING to get my attention. I'll take the incredibly transparent faking of a biological need over the awful crying or squawky baby anyday. So, cough on Master Liam, you have my complete attention.

He's also mastered the imitation of a tea kettle to tell me when he's tired. Remember when I wanted a kid display to figure out when my baby was ready to meltdown, well I guess I kinda got my wish.

Posted by leah at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2005

Ohboyohboyohboyohboy!

Man, am I ever tired. Not sleepy tired, but tired out from having to listen to squawky baby all day. I'm not sure what Liam's deal is, but ugh, my patience is officially tried. He hasn't napped for longer than 45 minutes today and that does not a happy baby make. Lucky me, Steve has hockey tonight, so no throwing the baby at him the minute he walks in the door and running for the hills - or the nearest bar.

His age is tough 'cause there's only so much you can do with someone who just stares at the ceiling. But as of today, he can sit for short periods of time by himself before toppling over. So, soon I will be able to play with him face to face or sit him down with some toys. And the cats better beware 'cause he's showing more and more interest in them. I can just see the cogs turning - his little brain trying to devise a way he can get a fistful of fur to pull on.

I went for a run last night and I don't have a lot of energy today - strange 'cause usually exercise makes me feel much better. This lack of energy leaves me pretty unmotivated and I'm kinda dragging my ass. Okay, wait a minute, you know how I said I'm not sleepy tired? I take that back.

Posted by leah at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2005

Daily Dose of Cuteness is Now a Weekly

As much as I like the sound of Daily Dose - alliteration is good - the task of doing a photo a day is onerous. Partly cause, well, Liam's a baby and he's cute and I love him to death, but he's really pretty boring. He doesn't do alot and it's challenging to get different looking pictures. The other part is that I am using Steve's work camera and while I have had it for the last little while, it is going to have to go back sometime - dammit - so I think a weekly photo is more feasible. So, here is the first installment of the Weekly Dose of Cuteness to be seen every Tuesday:

Here's Liam in his new exersaucer. He loves it so much - he can bounce in it all by himself. But most of all, he loves that he can eat it - plastic is his favourite food group.

Posted by leah at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

Thankful for my Family

Since I became a mom I've read about and heard from other moms that parents and in-laws can be really annoying and intrusive regarding your parenting style. When I am witness to this type of conversation I just smile and nod and try to be understanding, but to be completely truthful I have no idea what that's like. I think that I can imagine what it's like, but like most things when it comes to parenting, I'm probably way off on how it makes you feel. Angry and inadequate come to mind.

I have somehow lucked out and my parents and inlaws are very accepting and for the most part have not voiced any opinions on how we should raise Liam. I don't do very well with people telling me what to do and I'm sure that is part of the reason that my mom doesn't insert her opinion into a situation unless I ask her. Growing up I'm sure she got tired of hearing from me, "I was going to do [insert random task], but now that you've told me to, I'm not going to." Like I was angry with her that now I couldn't do [said random task] because she'd mentioned it. I was an awful child.

I'm very glad that I don't feel like I have my family critiquing my every decision and I am grateful for their help and support when it is asked for. I guess I just felt like saying thanks today.

Posted by leah at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)

November 19, 2005

Blah-blah-blecky-bleck-blah!

So, I guess Sam Sullivan is our new Mayor dammit. My picks have not been doing so good at the polls these last couple of years.

If there were politics pools like there are hockey pools, I would so not win top prize. Wait, I guess there are, they're called elections. Sadly, it's not just me losing out, it's everyone not in the top tax bracket in the Province. Check out the Mayor Race by Voting Division to see the split geographically between the haves that voted for Sullivan and the have-less and have-nots that voted for Green. It's quite striking, right down to the same distribution we saw with the Provincial election where the "ring" (not really a ring, truly, but that's what they called it) of high-priced condo areas in Yaletown and Coal Harbour voted NPA/Liberal and the rest of downtown voted Vision Vancouver/NDP.

Oh well, at least, according to the Georgia Straight, Sullivan is more likely than Green to work to keep St. Paul's hospital downtown. Just in case you are the type who likes to look on the bright side. I'm not, but just in case you are.

Posted by leah at 11:27 PM | Comments (1)

Daily Dose of Cuteness

Today's cuteness is a bit different. The rest of the small onsies are in the wash, so instead Liam in his awesome t-shirt from Lauren:

Posted by leah at 10:11 PM | Comments (2)

Why can't I be the one in France?

This morning in bed (NO, it's not THAT kind of story!):

"You can go get the baby if you want."

"He's awake?"

"Yeah, well he's made some noises, anyway."

"He has? I haven't heard anything. You totally have Mommy hearing. You'd hear the baby if he was in France."

"If he was in France. That is SO totally going in my website."

Funny thing is, Steve went to get Liam and he wasn't awake at all. Mommy hearing my ass. More like auditory hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation and constant fear of the baby waking up.

Posted by leah at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2005

On With the Bloody Show...

I can barely breathe from laughing so hard after reading finslippy's birth story. So much of it is spot on and she tells the horrible truth of it in such a comedic way that it doesn't seem so bad.

I am inspired and have set an Outlook reminder to write my own birth story on Liam's first birthday, so y'all check back on May 21 and I'll have a treat for you. While Steve wrote his version of the event, I'm sure you can imagine that his impression of labour and delivery is much different than mine.

Posted by leah at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)

Daily Dose of Cuteness

Today's cuteness is brought to you by Emira. I think it was nice of Liam to give me a little smile and channel his inner product placement whore before he put the foot in his mouth.

Posted by leah at 10:22 AM | Comments (1)

November 17, 2005

Exercise Your Civic Duty on November 19 , 2005

If you live in Vancouver, make sure that you get out to vote this Saturday. Other municipalities in the Lower Mainland too, but I really only know Vancouver stuff.

If you need more information like where and when to vote or to read candidate profiles and decide who to vote for, check out Vancouver Votes.

On further thought, I guess you exercise your rights and perform your duty, but... enh.

Posted by leah at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)

Daily Dose of Cuteness

Before Liam was born, Jessica and Jocelyn had a baby shower for me where our friends hand painted onsies for the then proto-Tannock. They are of various sizes and Liam is about to grow out of the small ones. So, as he wears the different ones I will display the art here for all to enjoy. I will be sure to credit the cuteness to the artist who created the onsie, but if I get it wrong, PLEASE correct me. They were made more than 7 months ago when my brain was very fuzzy - not that it is much less fuzzy now, I just have less hormones running rampant through my system.

So, without further adieu, behold the cuteness with artistic stylings by Justin:

Posted by leah at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

Sheepish Grin

Well, there's nothing the gods like better than to make you look like an overreacting lunatic.

Last night there was no baby waking and no cat meowing and am I ever in a good mood today. I did wake up a couple of times in the night, but like a normal person, I just flipped over and went back to sleep.

We left our bedroom door open last night. I don't know if that made a difference, or the cats just took a break, but I don't really care. I'll take it.

I feel a bit silly for all the expletives I subjected you to yesterday, but oh well, I'm sure you can take it. Just shows the difference a good sleep can make on your outlook.

Posted by leah at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2005

That Darned Cat (or If You Don't Shut Up Already and Let Me Sleep I am Going to Throw You Off the Fucking Balcony!)

In the last year I have had 3 nights of uninterrupted sleep. THREE NIGHTS!!! Oh again with the drama, you say. But no, I am serious, seriously. Toward the end of my pregnancy I woke up from pain in my hips, being too hot and having to pee every night but two and then since having the baby I have had to nurse him in the night every night but one (he slept through the night after his 2 month immunizations, so did I - BLISS).

But wait, you're thinking, he just started sleeping through the night, surely you have been treated to nights of divine slumber by now. No. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Every single night I have been jolted awake by awful, evil meowing - specially designed by my cats to wake me and the baby and not Steve. So far about half of the time it wakes the baby - which is a fucking nightmare. (By the way, if swearing bothers you, you may want to skip over this post cause I am pissed off and I may resort to saying fuck - A LOT.) Of course if it wakes me and not the baby, I lie there and get increasingly worked up as I strain to hear if Liam is waking up and praying that he won't. I also pray to the gods that they will hit the god damned cat with a lightning bolt already, but they are still waiting for the blood sacrifice I promised and my prayers go unanswered. If the cats keep it up, they may just get it.

Last night before I went to bed I made sure the cats had lots of food and water and hoped for the best, but no. First I was woken up by Liam at 1:30am and I am assuming it was the cats - I have no proof, but we'll go with that. Then at 5am they start up and I listen to Liam starting to stir, making noises and moving around. He didn't wake up and the last time I looked at the clock it was 6 am, so I probably fell back to sleep shortly after 6. I ended up in tears in the morning telling Steve that I can't take it anymore. We need to come up with some sort of plan to make it stop cause I AM GOING CRAZY AND I AM SORRY I WILL ALLOW MY SON TO MAKE ME CRAZY BUT NOT MY CATS. I don't know what to do, he doesn't know what to do, but I don't care I want him to fix it but he doesn't seem to understand how absolutely fucking horrible this is for me. I said I was pissed off and sleep deprived - nowhere did I say that I was thinking rationally.

Knowing that I could now be getting sleep cause Liam is sleeping, only to have that taken away by the cats is, I think, the HARDEST KICK IN THE CROTCH I HAVE EVER GOTTEN. Steve said to go see what the cat wants - actually he said go pet him. WTF!?! I am not getting up in the middle of the night every night to pet the cats. You get up and pet the cats - I feed the fucking baby. Also I worry that if I start going downstairs when they meow to shut them up that they will do it more because they are getting attention and I think that either they want attention or they want outside. They are indoor cats, but they seem to really want to go outside. Right now letting them be outdoor cats sounds really good to me.

So, there is the lasest chapter to my never-ending stupid sleep saga that I hate and just want someone to make it stop. Any suggestions? Anyone want a couple of cats? They are very well behaved - honest.

Posted by leah at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2005

Sleeping Like a Baby

First off I gotta say, whoever coined the phrase sleeping like a baby in reference to sleeping well obviously has never had a baby. 'Cause it is the rare baby indeed that sleeps like the proverbial baby (Jocelyn). Having said that, I have some very happy news on the sleep front and I hope I am not tempting the gods to smite me in my cockiness by publishing it here, but I'm going to take my chances. If later I need to perform a blood sacrifice to get on track, so be it. I am willing to go to those lengths to brag about my baby on a public forum :)

Since we last talked about Liam's sleeping habits, or lack thereof, I started a new naptime routine with him that does not include the once beloved but more recently bemoaned swing. Rather than taking place in the living room, which in retrospect seems REALLY STUPID, we go up to his room, we dim the lights and he goes in the crib with his pacifier, I read him a story, then we turn on his Fisher Price Aquarium music (Thanks David!), turn off the lights and I nurse him to sleep.

We've been doing this for about a week now - 2 or 3 times a day for naps and then a longer bedtime routine that Steve does (except for the nursing part, sadly that is my domain only, but if there were a way that he could do this part, I would be ALL OVER IT!) - and, oh my god, the difference it is making in my day is so amazing! He knows what is expected of him when we go into his bedroom and he goes down for naps much easier and regular now. I don't dread naptime anymore because usually he is easy to get to sleep and occasionally he is hard to get to sleep rather than the other way around. And... AND...

He has suddenly slept through the night! THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW!!! Two of those nights for 11 hours straight! There are just not enough exclamation marks in the world to adequately describe the joyousness of this development. All the happy that has ever been has descended upon my house. ALL OF IT! I'm sorry that you can no longer have the happy, cause it is mine. Last night was only 9 hours 'cause he tried to wake up at 5am, but I'll take 9 once in a while - 9 kicks ass on 4. Yay for 9 hours - HELLA YAY for 11 - but yay for 9 too!

Now I know that "they" say that starting solids does not affect sleep or help a baby to sleep through the night, but I don't think that it is a coincidence that we started solids a few days before he started sleeping through the night. I suspected that my gigantic baby needed more than breastmilk to get him through the night, and though there is no way of knowing for sure, I think that it was a big part of reaching this milestone. "They" think that "they" have all the answers, but "they" don't know my baby like I do :P

Since I have flaunted our success, I now expect the gods to take away the sleep and therefore all the happy, but until that happens, I am basking in the glow of my good sleeper. Way to go Liam!

Posted by leah at 11:15 AM | Comments (3)

November 13, 2005

Currently Reading

I'm reading the new Neil Gaiman book Anansi Boys:

Which is good, but sadly not as good as Neverwhere:

I didn't expect it to, but I hoped. I'm not done yet and I am starting to suspect that there is a whole 'nother layer to the book which is more like Neverwhere that has not been revealed yet. I fully recommend the reading of both, especially if you like alternate reality stuff.

PS - You'll see the little Amazon.ca links here and there when I'm talking about books, music, dvds and gaming stuff that I'm either currently engrossed in or want to be. There are two entirely selfish reasons for this: 1) Steve knows what to buy me if he wants to get me a present for being such a great mom and wife and 2) if anyone clicks on the link and actually buys anything from Amazon that I recommend, I get a tiny credit and might be able to get a free book in, oh I don't know, a couple of YEARS or so.

Posted by leah at 05:40 PM | Comments (2)

November 12, 2005

What!?! Yams? I have no idea where the yams went!

We have started solid foods and it is fun. Though it means I am preparing his meals, my meals and then cleaning up after said meals for a large part of the day. Between that, nursing and operation face-up baby there's not a lot of extra doing stuff time. So far, yams, squash, apple sauce, peaches, and oatmeal cereal get a thumbs up. Rice cereal and barley cereal, not so much. And peas get a big HELL NO.

Actually the peas event was SO FUNNY I took a video on my phone and sent it to Steve right away. Liam made this horrible gag face when I gave him a spoonful and then refused to close his mouth on it. Though he wasn't quite with it enough to spit the stuff out, maybe he was in shock. He just sat there with his mouth open, peas visible on his tongue make this NEVER-ENDING aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... noise (that's aaahhh as in bats, not wall - sorry that's the best I could think of). I couldn't stop laughing - dude, if it's that bad, SPIT IT OUT! So we aborted the peas attempt. They say that it can take 10 times offering a new food until it is accepted, so I'm gonna offer it to him once a week until he will swallow it or I run out, whichever comes first. I'll wait until I could use a good laugh cause if not for my own entertainment, what did I have a baby for?

And, isn't he cute? He's just so damn adorable.

Update
I have been informed that my description of the aaaaahhhh sound is really bad - which I already knew - I'll try again. The "a" sound he made was "a" as in ack not all. Is that better?

Posted by leah at 11:50 PM | Comments (3)

November 11, 2005

Ppppbbbbbbbbttttttttttttthhh!!!

For the last few weeks Liam's new trick is blowing raspberries. He greets me in the morning with raspberries, blows rice cereal raspberries at me at breakfast, blows them at his toys, stops while nursing to blow a couple my way. Always with the raspberries. It's very cute, but it makes for a lot of wet shirts.

And speaking of wet clothing, because he has discovered his feet and I insist on putting socks on him, he is often leaving a trail of soggy socks around the apartment. He'll go to play with his feet, discover his socks, pull them off and insert into his mouth. Frustrating when you want him to have dry socks, but also really cute.

In related news, Liam has learned how to roll over - consistently. I mean, he's rolled over now and again before, but now it is all the time and he doesn't need to pull on anything to get all the way over. Problem is he can't get back and he has never been a fan of being on his belly. I now spend a fair portion of the day rescueing him from the face-down position. I feel bad for him cause he is obviously excited with the new skill, but then once he does it he's like, "Hey cool. Wait a minute... Oh crap, now what? MOM!" This seems to happen now EVERY nap and I fully expect to be getting the call in the middle of the night. UGH!

Posted by leah at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2005

Me, I Like the TV

I admit it, I love television. I watch entirely too much of it and quite frankly I don't care if it's bad for me, etc. I am a bit concerned that Liam is destined to be addicted to the moving pictures in the little box too, but I do what I can to limit his exposure. But I'll get to that. First, TV: programs I like and programs I watch.

Shouldn't those be the same, you ask? Well, not exactly. There are programs that I love and look forward to - Lost, ER, Veronica Mars, Medium - and then there are programs that I watch cause they are on - Dr. Phil, Regis & Kelly, CSI, Without a Trace, Law & Order. Some of the latter, I used to thoroughly enjoy, but lately, not so much (CSI, L&O).

I know a fair number of people who choose to not watch TV and I wonder why. When I didn't have cable for a short period about six years ago, I got a lot more done. I guess gaining many hours a day previously spent staring at an appliance will do that for you. My increased productivity, however, was not enough for me to resist hooking up my beloved companion once again and my hiatus was short-lived. Growing up I watched a lot of TV - it really was a good friend to me and sadly I saw the movie versions of many classic children's novels rather than reading them. Something that as an adult I am remedying. I wonder if the non-TVers are this way because they don't like the mindless distraction of TV, or did they have less exposure to it as a kid, or maybe a bit of both?

I often have the TV on while I am doing other things, thus dividing my attention, but I feel this is going to have to come to an end. I choose to have the TV on, but Liam doesn't, and I don't want to make that decision for him. I keep an eye on him while he is independently playing and he rarely looks at the TV while it is on, but I worry I am leading him - by example - into a life of TV dependency. I am going to have start dusting off the CDs and start listening to music while I do other things now - sigh.

What we really need is Tivo so that we only watch the programs we record and can watch them when he is sleeping. Mmmmmmmmm... Tivo.

Posted by leah at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2005

Full Meal Deal

I love Vancouver. Seriously. There is nowhere I would rather live and I feel so very fortunate to call Vancouver home. We have everything here. I love the ocean and the mountains and the 24 hour stores (even though I don't use them during late night hours anymore) and the parks and the Seawall and even the bridges and the rain. Especially the rain.

I love this time of year in Vancouver when the air is crisp and my baby gets bright red cheeks when we go out for a walk before lunch. We get to watch the boats from the beach and see people playing with their dogs.

Vancouver is small and I like it that way. I mean it is much bigger than where I grew up, but as far as major cities go, it's pretty small. I like that about it - when walking down Davie Street, it's possible that I'll run into someone I know - it's a charming feature in a city.

Did I mention how much I love living here?

Posted by leah at 01:33 PM | Comments (3)

November 06, 2005

Procreating Kitchen Utensils

This is such a romatic tale of sweet knife love. I need to encourage more utility items to couple.

Posted by leah at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)

Fresh New Look

I finally got around to revamping the site to be more my style. It is still a little simple and there's more in the works, but IMO this kicks ass on the last version which was just a stock template. Nothing against preset templates - they provide a valuable service, I just didn't want to really tell anyone about the site until it looked a bit more the way I wanted to.

Because I am unique and special snowflake, you know ;)

Come and visit often, Dear Internet, I will be attempting to update daily - and therein lies the challenge. I can't believe I dared to say that out loud.

Posted by leah at 05:51 PM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2005

Denied!

What the hell? I googled Showtime Weeds to get some additional info on this great show that Steve and I have been watching about a woman whose husband dies and she starts selling pot to support her family. While looking, I came across a link to Showtime's Webpage for the show which takes you to a page that states: "Sorry - We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however, these pages are intended for access only from within the United States." What, are they hiding State secrets for chrissakes? What could possibly be their reasoning for not allowing their content to be seen outside of the US? It's not like I even wanted to see the stupid site, HBO wannabee.

Posted by leah at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)

November 01, 2005

For the love of God, GO TO SLEEP!

So, I've learned a tried and true parenting lesson. If at anytime you are feeling comfortable and in control and think "hey, I can do this." WATCH THE HELL OUT! Because the fiery pits of hell are surely around the corner. What brings me to this conclusion today of all days you ask?

Liam has decided that sleep is an unnecessary construct created by the parental class for his oppression. He wants none of it and he isn't interested in my explanations that it is a biological need. The little dude would happily drift off to sleep in his swing until a few weeks ago when he started getting fussy and it took progressively more work to get him to settle into sleep. Now it is just ridiculous. His eyes are little red slits that he is trying rub right out of the sockets and he constantly takes out his pacifier that sadly he cannot get to sleep without. He will then, instead of putting it back in, gnaw on the side of it all the while make this long gutteral groaning noise which seems to say, "why? why are you doing this to me again? make it stop." Right back at ya, dude, right back at you.

And he suddenly will not go back to sleep after feeding in the middle of the night. For a couple of weeks I was able to put him down and he would just settle back into sleep on his own. Now, as soon as his head hits the mattress his eyes spring open and all appendages head for his mouth. About half of the time I have been able to hold down his arms and legs and he would settle back into sleep, but last night all percentages were off. I had been up way too long with a very awake baby when I gave up and took him to bed with us - even then he furiously fought the sleep. I think he finally drifted off after about two hours - two hours at 3:30 in the morning means I was up from 3:30 - 5:30 am. I am often incredibly angry in the night these days. Angry with Liam for not going to sleep, angry with Steve for sleeping through Liam not sleeping, angry that Steve can still easily go out with friends and I can't cause my boobs are tethered to the child and then of course I'm angry with myself for being angry. It is a crazy cycle of anger.

I am not good at being angry. It comes out in bitchiness that I cannot control, yet am completely aware of. And I name it, but don't know what to do with it. I'll yell at Steve, "I'M ANGRY." To which he says, "I can tell." And we both sit there helplessly because neither of us are good at anger - any suggestions Dear Internet, about what to do with anger? I don't like it, I want none of it, yet still - there it is. Grrrr...

Oh yeah, sleep, I was talking about Liam and sleep. I know that it is time to start weaning Liam from the swing so that he is put down in his crib to go to sleep, but oh my god, the thought of the nightmare that is going to be makes me dread the coming weeks like the plague - no, more than the plague. I think I would take the festering plague over teaching a baby to sleep anyday. Those of you without children are right now saying, "Oh my god, stop with the drama already!" Those of you with children are thinking if only, if only we could choose the cute, peaceful plague.

I'm holding out hope that this sleep regression that we are currently going through is due to some impending developmental milestone that Liam is reaching - like tomorrow he'll start walking and the sleep will return to normal - well, return to being easier anyway. But I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, or for the plague either, as nice as that would be.

Posted by leah at 10:29 AM | Comments (2)