Do you remember that baby?

(March 2007)

Well, I do.



He's starting school today.

One of our first conversations

F, 21 months, has been sleeping in our bed a lot, lately.

Me: "As-tu fait un beau dodo?" (Did you sleep well?)

Her:"Ouiii...!"

"Tu (ne) voulais pas dormir dans ton lit?" (You didn't want to sleep in your bed/crib?)

She stops smiling... "Non".

"Pourquoi?" (Why (not)?)

"Paace que". (Because).

"Mais pourquoi, cocotte?" (But why sweetie?)

Slightly whiny: "Aimes pas ça..." (Don't ike it).

Not busy enough already

M and I are participating to an Instagram Rallye, which starts tomorrow. We have 9 days to post 30 pictures, each on a random theme. The themes are only revealed at the last minute. 42 teams, lots of which are PRETTY good photogs.

(I am marieevel, he is tormentor).

Go!

Mystery

This summer, with everything else going on, we didn't do much gardening. On moving day in March, several big terracotta pots were hurriedly placed on the patio, some with soil from last year inside, and they just stayed there.

In one, a 3-foot tall sunflower grew, despite no one having planted it.

Last night

I put F in the stroller, gave LP his scooter and we went for a walk. At one point he took off and I gasped for air as I watched him go down a pretty steep, long, sinewy hill. He gained a lot of speed but managed well until the end, when he saw a Stop sign and tried to brake with his foot. The scooter went flying. It took me several minutes to join him, which tells you how fast he had been going. He was sitting on the grass, crying. "Are you OK?", I asked. He showed me his knee, seriously scratched with some blood oozing, and of course at this very point it seemed to hurt a thousand times more because he started screeching. We were two kilometers away from home, so I had him stand on the step of our stroller, piled on the scooter, and began pushing that 100+ pound load up the hill, doing my best to distract, reassure and console him, telling him tales of all the times I hurt myself so as a kid.

We finally made it. LP realized that his elbow was very scratched too, worse than his knee, and at that very point you could have swore that he was critically injured. We settled in the bathroom, where I slowly undressed him amidst the yelling, then handed him a stuffed toy for squeezing. I delicately washed the wounds, and applied oinment. His body was stiff and shaking at the same time from pain, and he was choking from crying. I went to fetch bandages, and when I turned back F was yelling too, because in five seconds she had managed to grab the Polysporin tube and stick some in her eye. I delicately wiped her eye, then went back to a still yelling LP. F couldn't take her brother's yelling anymore, and started crying desperately from pure empathy -the neighbours were probably very close to calling the cops then. I just dropped everything and hugged them both, for a long minute, kissing their wet little faces and wispering.

They calmed down. LP's face went from 911-red to pouty, and the yelling became silent sobbing. Then he wiped his tears, and declared that he was fine, it was just little scratches. I told him he had been brave, and I probably shouldn't say this was but he had been very good out there, down the hill, fearless. I laid him down on our bed and let him watch videos on the iPad. I went back to the adjacent bathroom to run a bath, at which point F had taken off her diaper and peed on the floor.

Five minutes later M came back from his bike ride, flushed and smiling. I had put the bloody washcloths away and everything was back to calm in the house, with F giggling in the bath. More like a statement than a question, he asked, "So everything went fine?"

Juice

Homemade Nutella cupcakes

...we're bringing to a barbecue hosted by a neighbour, along with a third family from down the street. The aim of which is for LP and the two little girls who are also starting kindergarden to become friends.

All is well

One of the more underrated perks of working from home is definitely being able to listen to Radio-Canada (the french CBC radio) all day long. Suddenly I'm much more au courant of everything that's going on the local cultural scene, for instance promising young new indie artists. And wonderfully, there's a lot.

Best goody bag ever

From the party unveiling the new 70s inspired design (by Alexandra Champalimaud, who was there and incredibly inspiring) of the downtown Omni:

-Set of 3 70s inspired wrought iron wall tiles

-One night at the hotel, including breakfast and two drinks at the bar.

Mom, I have BIG news

Simple pleasure that never gets old

Receiving an email from my 81 year old grand-maman, especially as it says: "Sent from my iPad".

Late summer madeleine moment

This house has the same type of fragrant hydrangea my childhood home had. When we came back from our vacation, they were in bloom. For half a second, I was right there in that airy kitchen with my hair in pigtails, blissfully unwrapping and labelling school supplies.

Bathrobes in our room at the Donovan House, DC

Life is going on...

...largely outside of the online realm.

We had a great, altough not very relaxing vacation, driving 6400 km on the East Coast in two weeks. Hope to be able to post pics soon... It was fun, and also a little crazy. The kids were real champs.

I'm settling into this new life of ours, which does not yet completely feel real. I'm working a lot, and it will continue being this way for the next few months at least. Works starts first thing in the morning when I monitor the online community I manage (which I have to do in short bursts throughtout the day, every day), then after the kids are dropped off I work all day, mostly for my technical client. When the kids are asleep I then take the laptop to bed for a few more hours. I've started blogging in 2008 and moonlighting back in 2010 (both things which prepared me for this), so I guess I've gotten used to this kind of schedule and commitment, altough sadly right now it has intensified in a way that the thing having to give was this blog...

And yet, everything is different. We sleep in are are much less rushed in the morning. Despite me working (more than) full-time, the kids spend two fewer hours a day at daycare, which I guess is pretty much the balance I've been looking for from the start. The domestic grind, which used to be a huge burden I seemingly could never master, is suddenly not really a problem anymore. No more huge piles of laundry on weekends; clothes can be folded during conf calls or while I'm rehashing concepts. I can pop a chicken in the oven to roast, instantly taking our weekday dinners up a notch.

My jaw does not seem to be clenched all the time anymore (my dentist says my teeth are damaged like a 80 year old's; I guess that's where my stress goes). Is this perfect? No. The perfect life doesn't exist. There is worrying that I can make enough money in the long run while doing this, there is Michael Pollan who seems unreachable while I'm on a tight deadline and I really don't want to sc*w up this amazing chance a magazine gave me to interview him... There are the multiple projects, gigs, deadlines, invoices to manage while getting everything right. There is having zero time to read, to check in with my online friends and social media, to be part of the conversation -apparently something has been going on in London, lately? :-) There is staying in the house all the time and never having a chance to dress up. But I'll take that! I'll gladly take that.

There are still so many things I'd like to post about here, every day, but it doesn't look like it's going to be possible for the next little while. So I'm trying to think of ways that I could keep this blog alive. Just little snippets, perhaps? Pictures, thoughts, little things the kids said and did, so I can remember them later?