Good things on Thursday night

I'll just start by stating for the record that I thought Grey's Anatomy was good tonight. I know, I know, they threw in all that singing, and sometimes it was a bit irritating, but I think they pulled it off. I'm always a sucker for a storyline that involves either babies or Callie and Arizona, so maybe I'm not the most objective judge. But I'm guessing nobody actually cares what I think about Grey's Anatomy, so I'll continue with favourable reviews. Actually, that's not true. Matt cares very, very much because tonight Grey's interrupted the first night of baseball season. He is now finally able to finish his game.

I don't have much in me right now. It's been a busy couple of days. Did you know that tomorrow I can start declaring, "next month we're moving!" This time last year I would have been saying, "next month I'm going to give birth to my second child!" A lot happens in a year.

But I couldn't go to bed without sharing two great things with you.  I love the internet. I love that I open up my reader and discover that some really smart people have left a message just for me (and maybe a few other readers). Yesterday I stumbled across this post. There has been a lot of talk lately about what it means to make your family vulnerable in wave of oversharing, first-person parenting blogs (like this by Katie Granju), and I think Alexa over at Flotsam has nailed it. I could read her blog all day long.

I also found this post, over at The Leaky Boob, and yes, it might be the greatest blog name of all time. If you have a thing for breastfeeding (like I do), you might want to check this out. It's a nice reminder that sometimes breastfeeding is just breastfeeding. Not a parenting philosophy, just feeding your baby. Honestly if were more than just food and time spent with a delicious baby, I might have given up long ago. Plus, it's called The Leaky Boob.

Sorry, Monday, but Sunday had it going on

So that was big news. I had been thinking, very quietly, about picking up and moving back to Canada for a little while now, but I hadn't really said it out loud. But when I mentioned it to Matt it took him all of three seconds to say agree that it was a gone idea.

But more about that later. If I don't stop talking about moving I'll never get to tell you about the amazing Sunday I just had. In the rank of Sundays, it was definitely in the top two or three, after our wedding and maybe that really amazing Sunday brunch I had this one time. It was looking to be a good day from the minute it started, since it was only the night before that we had decided on Canada. I certainly awoke with a bounce in my step. I started the day by taking Alyce out for pancakes, just me and Alyce, and it doesn't get much better than listening to her chatter with a mouthful of pancakes. It was seven in the morning and the 24 hour IHOP that just opened up down the street (presumably to cater to hoards of drunk students at three in the morning) was completely empty. The food was terrible, but the company was divine.


My breakfast date was quickly followed by my escaping to Philadelphia for my first sewing class. All by myself. Without children. Just me. I can't remember the last time I drove for more than five minutes without a child in the backseat. Being the party girl that I am, I picked up a coffee and cranked NPR. My sewing class, inspired in part by one of my mother's thoughtful gifts, was incredibly fun. How could it not be at a store like this:


This is the fabric I chose for the reversible tote we're making over a two-week class. The walls of this store are lined with bolts of the most beautiful fabric I've seen, and we were given the task to choose any fabric we wanted for our first sewing project. I know I've faced some difficult decisions lately, but this was one of the toughest. I think I made a good choice. The class was taught by a woman with years and years of experiences sewing and designing textiles, and in addition to her being a very patient teacher, she reminded me of a wonderful friend I haven't seen in three years. She had the not only the same mannerisms, but seemed to possess the same general bad ass-ness as my friend. It was a lovely treat. I even bought the pattern for a dress I'm going to make for the Children. I'm sure it's way beyond my skills at present (that is, if it requires more technique than threading a machine), but by summer I'll be all over this pattern. I think you'll agree that this dress is adorable:

Image from Spool

Sunday got even better after my trip to Philadelphia. We had booked a sitter and had planned a date. An actual date. We don't do this very often (usually only when my mum is around to look after the girls), so this was a real treat. Alyce was over the moon at the possibility of showing off her room and baby sister to Carrie, our sitter, and Matt and I were over the moon about leaving the house alone. Everybody was winning! Dinner was fantastic, but my date was even better. We spent two hours making plans for our move, making each other laugh, and only talking about the Children for a few minutes. It was one of those nights we used to have all the time and that I had been missing lately. This needs to happen more often. It's good for me to be around such a handsome guy.



Like I said, it was a great Sunday.

Return

If you've been reading around here lately, you know that we're in the middle of an enormous transition. I left my graduate program and a potential career as a professor, Matt's three year postdoc is up here, and he has also decided to leave academia. And we've always planned on not staying in Delaware (we've never been on good terms). So what to do? Anything, we decided.

So we've decided to move back to Canada.

Unfortunately I can't continue this post because I'm too busy flying over the moon with excitement. I'm too busy celebrating our return to my family, our good friends, and universal health care. Alyce is also excited and has confirmed that she'd like to bring The Cats. And her toys. And Shira.

I'm sad to say good-bye to a few wonderful people I've met here, but this is the best decision for our family and I can't wait to figure out all the details. And there will be details, lots of them. Immigration for Matt, moving our household to another country, and, of course, finding new careers. But now that the decision has been made about the where of our family, figuring out the how seems much easier.

You'll be hearing more about this. I'm sort of excited.

I'm Not the Only One Feeling Rested

I hope your weekends are treating you well. We have had a great day and we've made some decisions about the shape of our future. I'll be sharing some of these (I think very exciting) details soon. All I can say is that I feel lighter, as though I might just float away.

For now, I offer you my youngest:






I can't be the only impressed by that flexibility.

Getting Ready

Reset. I love Friday nights.

Shabbat Shalom, everyone. I wish you the best of weekends!

I Know Some Good People

This week has been hard. Work-hard, family-hard, Alyce-hard (thank you, Shira, for deciding to sleep this week). Everyone say it with me: being a grown-up can be really annoying some days. I mean really annoying. Like having to realize that I'm the grown-up and can control my emotions better than my three-year-old, so that we can get along better. Sometimes all I want to do in the moment is collapse right along with her on floor and have a meltdown, but I'm not having much success with that reaction. So I'm trying to pick myself up and model some patience for her because the alternative might involve sending her to live with her Nana in Canada, and then I'd really miss her. Since I miss her one hour after she goes to bed at night, shipping her north isn't ideal.


Do you know what also works in place of side-by-side meltdowns? Jumping in puddles. After a long afternoon of whining and general tomfoolery (and not the good kind), I escaped into the rain with Alyce in search of puddles. Actually, we needed bread and Alyce needed to get out of the house, but as soon as we started our walk I realized that all of this was just about getting to the puddles. At first Alyce was afraid to fall in, but she quickly realized that falling in was actually kind of fun. But not more fun than getting her feet stuck in the mud, which elicited some of the most restorative giggling sessions I've ever been a part of. Me and Alyce needed those puddles.



That was Wednesday. That night I posted about what was really bothering me and I realized that I'm feeling strained by all this uncertainty more than I had admitted, even to myself. It was all piling up and it was beginning to reach Alyce, who seems still attached to my insides and appears to feel as I feel. Shira's birth has made it so apparent that Alyce and I will always have a relationship that is just for us. Even though Shira's the one physically attached to me through breastfeeding, Alyce and I still often occupy the same physical and emotional space. Some days I swear she's trying to climb back inside me. But then the next second she's yelling at me to leave her alone, so I don't foresee her return to the womb anytime soon, in case you were worried. I wonder how my relationship with Shira will unfold? The first ten months have been delicious (during daylight hours).

It was important for me to realize that the stress of grown-up life was seeping into my mood with the girls. Realizing this doesn't fix everything, but it helps. What also helps is having amazing friends who read my posts and then send me the most supportive, encouraging messages. So much of the past three years has been isolating, and what I'm learning about isolation is how important perspective can be. It's far too easy to be hard on yourself when there is no one else around to tell you differently. Of course I've had my best friend with me here, but sometimes he's too close to the situation for me to hear him clearly. So, thank you to everyone who sent me messages. I haven't been able to respond to them all yet, but I wanted to let you how much perspective it gave me. It was a gift I needed.

I'm hoping the weekend brings more restorative giggling, and maybe some restorative movie-watching and napping. I'm taking my first sewing class on Sunday and I'm really looking forward to that. What are your plans for the weekend? Please do share!


***
Passover parley update: still growing. The cats are dutifully supervising, and Pomegranate, if you eat the parsley before Passover you'll not be invited to our seder.

Sleep Happened

Don't tell Shira, but she's slept amazingly, wonderfully, delightfully well the past three nights. As in, only breastfeeding once through the night. This beautiful sleep took place after some crying, yes, but it's working. The first night she cried (and by cried I mean sobbed) for almost 90 minutes. I was just about to start sobbing myself when she stopped crying, around 8:00 pm. She didn't wake up again until 3:15. The next night she cried for one hour and woke up again at 3:00 for milk. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I was doing a special kind of happy dance in the one square foot of free space in our bedroom, which I'll also admit is not very comfortable to do with engorged breasts. But who has time to worry about a little extra milk when celebrating all that delicious sleep?




Any guesses how long Shira cried at bedtime last night? No? I'll tell you. Three minutes. I'll let you soak that in for just a minute before I continue.



It was magical. She woke up for five minutes to yell at me around 1:15, but then waited again until 3:00 before needing milk. I scooped her up and brought her bed to nurse, and if I wasn't so busy falling back asleep I would have celebrated some more. When I woke up this morning I would have given her anything she asked for. Fortunately for me, she only wanted to chew on a rubber fish. Done and done.

Good morning to all and to all a good morning! Or something like that. You get the idea.