Hallowe'en

Olive the lion, Greg as himself.

Funny things that Olive does

The sign we use for the word Juice is the alphabetic sign for the letter 'J', done by sticking out your pinky and hooking it round. In toddler this translates to waving both hands around willy-nilly, and sometimes includes the elbows. We get the idea though. However its a ridiculous sign for a toddler, because when demonstrating to me that she HAS juice its just a half-full cup of OJ flying about. Oh well.

Another symptom I've been having while pregnant is that my mouth tastes like the inside of a battery, or at least I imagine so. So, I spit a lot. Of course that means Olive's been 'spitting' too, no saliva just pursing her lips making a 'pppt' sound. She also pretends to pick her nose by putting her finger beside her nose and twisting it around. Funny girl.

Olive's pregnant mama

Although I am positive that she doesn't have any idea there is a bean in my belly, I know this because when I lift my shirt saying "Olive, mummy's got a baby in here" she pokes my button and says "doooooooooooo", she's definitely reacting to the change in mood and surrounding.
There is an iron tight grasp on me at all times. "mummIE!, mummIE!". If I'm in sight, its mummy she wants. I've turned inwards a great deal, trying to cope with the Overwhelm of late. In Mum + Baby yoga classes, when they are fresh and new, our instructor Michelle warned that as your little one lays in front of you content and the class begins, almost instantly when you close your eyes, breathe, and draw inwards, Baby will notice, and cry for you to come back. It always happened, 6 infants crying on their yoga mats, mums learning to juggle inner peace and belly rubbing. Olive's feeling the same, but more vocal. I dont mind, but appreciate the help I get from others. Pretend naps, where I lay down for an hour and swirl my thoughts.
I can only do one thing at a time. Which sounds silly to me to say because everyone is only ever doing one thing at a time, but I REALLY mean it. I can do one thing in a moment. My brain is SO SLOW. I have to warm up the engine every time I wanna switch thoughts. Mothering is a lot of multitasking, which has become impossible for me. I cannot keep an eye on Olive playing while sorting laundry. Its one or the other. I am writing this solely because Olive is napping.

Along the same lines; we have been doing a lot of nursing. There was a time a couple of months ago where Olive's need for milk seemed to be dwindling. Always at naps and bedtime, but throughout the day most of her nursing would consist of sitting on my lap for 10 seconds, just to check in, and then heading out to play again. These days she sits on my lap and nurses and nurses and nurses. I'll ask "can I have it back now?" and get a quick shake of the head "uh uh". I know from doing it for 20 months that nursing is like the oceans wave, coming and going, she'll take it when she needs it, but I am wondering now if she's having a growth-spurt, or is hungry because I myself dont eat as often (and am thus not sharing), or if she senses her time for mama-cuddles and milk is now, and soon she will have to share? I really dont know the answer. Maybe its all 3!

pictures

Alright, alright, alright, an update, some pictures.....

a new one of us

Over the weekend we were blessed to meet this girl (several times) looking for a home.
She was seen wandering the canal for 3 days before being taken in by our new friends Jonathan and his Great Dane Mustang. We've named her Kolya.

dress ups

When Olive sees clothes she wants to put them on. She wants me to put them on her. This can be dangerous when the drawers are open and full. When she wakes up in the morning, we find her shoes, and put them on, and then maybe she finds her sandals and tries to put those on too. She wants her coats on, she wants her hats on, she wants sweaters after sweater after dress, on, so then we can go outside. Playing dress-up, playing dress-up-an-go.

pictures in spring

 

 

 

 

 

We've been busy in the garden, accompanied by spring. I have a dirt loving child. A worm fearing child. A plant-un-planting child. We've been having lots of fun.
The days pass quickly, and I fall asleep at night, tired.Its wonderful.

I have a walk-walking child:

anxiety out and about

An experience I have been dreading internally manifested itself today. Olive and I went out for a walk down Notre-Dame, stopping in all our usual places, one of which included a local cafe. I'm always sensitive to our surroundings in there. The 'grown up' people having grown up conversations, sophisticates drinking sophisticated coffee, and mostly the busy/stressed/single-minded students, tapping busily, stressfully, single-mindedly at their computers, by themselves, quietly. But I go here frequently, taking refuge from the quiet of my home, and I'm comfortable. So is Olive. The staff even smile when we come in the door.
Today however, I sat down, with my Gibraltar, Olive tapped on things, playing, talking, making noise, and the women sitting next to us loudly hummed and hawwed the.whole.time.
My body immediately soured with anxiety. I've been waiting for this moment, thinking what I would say to someone if they had a problem with Olive. A problem with how I parent Olive (pretty darn freely). A problem with children, and the way they behave naturally. I've been preparing for confrontation.

The woman was clearly a student, or a TA maybe, grading papers, she had a law reference book on hand. She look stressed. And I felt bad, I even tried to accommodate her a little, taking a grate Olive was repeatedly dropping on the floor from her. But I didn't feel bad for our noise or our presence, I felt bad that this person was overwhelmed, and I felt bad that I wanted to punch her in the face. I've been imagining that when this happened I would say to the person "You know she is a child, they make noise, and we're in a public place, if you wanted quiet you should go home. Where I am assuming you don't have children.", or maybe more simply "You know, this isn't a library." I've even thought of explaining to the person that while they probably leave there house to study, escape distraction, and the all too quiet-ness of it. I leave my house, because I otherwise wouldn't see another person besides my daughter, or my boyfriend in the day, I leave to escape the loneliness. In the end, I quietly finished up my coffee, let Olive walk around making her child-like noise, let the women hum and haww, and then left. But not before saying "I am sorry that we were bothering you". Because I was. Then I cried for a block as we continued on our way.

I am happy with how I dealt with the scenario once it actualized itself. I have a couple of thoughts though:
The first is the obvious; that I think its incredibly unfair to be in a world where children are not welcomed. Where they are misunderstood, and their parents feel continuously judged, whether they conform to current parenting ideals or not. I thinks its ridiculous to be surrounded by adults, who feel their needs are priority, and others are to oblige. Which I interpret as a very unadult-like behaviour.
I think that children are children, and should be allowed that for the very short time that they are indeed children. Even in public. And I saying this while knowing that Olive is a very pleasant child, always with a smile, constantly remarked as "Sooooo quiet!", and that I could feel a lot more Judgement as a parent if I had a kid who was even more kid-like.
I think in this situation. I am finally pleased with myself because I didn't let the woman's rudeness go unnoticed, Although my apology was a bit on the passive-aggressive side, it let her know that I was aware of how she felt, and that I felt we had a right to be there, making noise, while at the same time I was sincerely sorry that we were bothering her. I'm glad I didn't say all the things that I thought of because it would have incited confrontation, and I didn't want to fight with anyone, I just want to be allowed to exist in public with my child.

My last thought on this is that later I wondered why I did get so anxious. In the past confrontation wasn't difficult for me, perhaps because I was always feeling anxious, and anxiety and confrontation go hand in hand. Here it was like it swept my body, filled my pores, like the high you'll get after smoking a cigarette if you've quit for a while. That sickening high. I guess its a sort of proof that I've mellowed out a bit. True anxiety makes me sick. And I could allow myself to become reacquainted with it, smoke some of that familiar vice called confrontation, but I would rather not. I'd rather acknowledge my feelings, feel confident in my place and my choices, acknowledge her feelings as an overwhelmed, busy, stressed, student, and accept that as a valid place as well.

recent pictures

car-free, lots of biking together

new rocking chair

ew?

Greg's new bag, big enough for me to sit in.

Shedding Weight

I've had really serious bloggers block lately. I can find no will to type, even though I have many things to say. Olive's been a handful lately. Lots of playing from one thing to the next. Lots of me standing within quick reach of her while she climbs up onto a chair, which she has pushed from the table to the counter, onto the counter, then demanding to be lifted up onto the cabinet shelves. Or similar things. Lots and lots of climbing, and watching her climb. I'm so tired you'd think I was the one scaling furniture. Of course I was no different. I remember climbing things until I was 15 or 16 years old, I still have the tendency. :)

I also am still dealing with thrush, which I haven't mentioned in a while. I have been seen in total by seven doctors, a nurse, a lactation consultant. I've used clotrimizole, nystatin, hydrocortizone, gentian violet, and am currently on a 2 week oral dose of fluconazole, and have an appointment with a dermatologist, oh an I've had blood tests. Its a lot, and on a daily basis I've only been thinking "I  just dont want to be itchy anymore". Its been 3 months.
I'm very determined to persevere through this, but I cannot deny that I've considered that the only solution may be in weening Olive. I'm not ready, and neither is she, so I am very torn.
In all its a yucky feeling issue.

Of course I'm excited about the warm that's been coming, and really eager to do some spring purging/cleaning, but I think I might be jumping the gun if I started now. The most exciting spring purge is that we are retiring our car. retireyourride.ca
Its an adjustment that I've been wanting to make for a while now, but I am glad I held out through tthe winter. St-Henri is a really rich neighbourhood, so really I can get most everything done within walking distance of our house. Downtown is only about a 30 minute walk for anything else. Olive has a helmet and we have 2 rear seats, plus a bike trailer, so hopefully we'll be biking other places. Like my mums or Amy's. We'll see, like I said lot's of adjusting. I'm going to have to learn how to leave the house early enough not to be SUPER late for everything, Which I already am.

I've given a little update to my wishlist here: things we need for anyone interested.

Olive Lately, approaching 15 months

She's been walking, but not. 3 steps, then her legs go crumpling, 2 steps and her feet cross. Up and down, up and down, She can, but she can't. She's excited about it. We walk up and down the hall. To daddy and back, holding on to the smidgenest of my fingers just for safety. She stands on her own, hovering, staring, thinking very hard about taking.that.step.
*****

 

*****

About a month ago Greg and I sat down and talked about Olive's sleeping habit. As we do often, as I am sure all parents, ever, have done often. Its probably one of the ways they grow and change the most, but you can't measure it with a stick, or send the clothes that dont fit off to the thrift. We HAD been doing the mommy nurses olive, then dad puts her to sleep, and that wasn't not working, but I wouldn't say that it was working either. I felt anxious a lot coming up to bedtime even though it wasn't my task, maybe guilty too, like I wasn't sharing something pivotal. Greg kept falling asleep with her, as anyone would do after 9 hours of biking, and he would sleep until 9 or 10, then feel messed up all night. The good part was that Olive was sleeping, and doing so without mum, which is a BIG big-girl step.

I'm uncomfortable putting labels on myself because I think often that leads to self-made pigeon-holing. People get stuck and suddenly see things in black and white. I think this is especially true with parenting. Especially true with terms like Attachment Parenting, Co-sleepers, Cry-It-Out, and No-Cry. I do agree with a lot AP principles, and that's the way I parent, because it feels right, but not because I am an attachment parent. Here's where I suddenly realised we had stuck ourselves. Stuck between the short bridge, a jump, from mothering to parenting. (not that those things are at all done exclusively).

Olive had become ready to take a bigger step towards falling asleep on her own. I didn't see it because I had told myself during this first year that I wouldn't leave her to cry herself to sleep. Something about sleep training infants and small babies really really really bothers me. Something about the term 'Sleep Training' REALLY bothers me. So I didn't want to go there. Infants should have their every cry and need attended to, and I think that simply because their needs are so simple. Feed me. Change me. Love me. Keep me warm. 

Olive isn't a little baby anymore. She's still little, and still a baby, but also a kid, and a toddler. She's grown.

So Greg and I talked, and then here's how it went. (possibly scarier for us parents suddenly abandoned from our role as 'NEEDED' than for Olive) We set up a routine: teeth brushing, potty sit, into pajamas, nursing, maybe some books, lights off. When lights go off I've generally tried to make it No More Booby Time, but that doesn't always workout. We decided to alternate nights. We sit there in the dark with her for a bit, watch her settle herself. Then get up slowly, and leave, most of the time with her still awake. 

I braced myself for a big hubbub, I thought there would be lots of crying, I thought I would fall to pieces. We planned to go in and re-settle her at five minute intervals. Boy how unnecessary. There have been nights where she cries for a while, and almost always we get a little 'Hey! Where you going?" cry, sometimes we have to go back in, but mostly not. She's just ready. Genuine champion sleeper. Sometimes we even hear her singing to herself. or babbling for a while, then it tapers off into silence, and dreaming. About this I am seriously SO PROUD of HER.

*****

She climbed up the jungle-gym at the park today, crawled across the platforms to the slide, turned around, put one foot over the edge, then the other, let her body slide until just her fingers held onto the top of the slide, and then let go, WITH A HUGE SMILE ON HER FACE. then repeated this 7 or 8 more times.

*****

Pottying has gone as usual. After naps, in the morning before bed, a couple of catches during the day. Sometimes she stays dry for really long periods of time. She'll climb up onto the potty herself, but only when its offered. She doesn't go there herself yet. I think we have a really good balance, and i am content until she takes the next step.

*****

Like I've said many times she is a talker. With her hands, and her words. Her thing right now is pointing at things and saying 'Deee!, deee!', she expects me to bring whatever it is she's pointing at to her then. Funny. Sometimes I do it automatically before realising I dont want her to have my phone!

We're doing lots of signs. many for eating and drinking, and lots of animals. I now try to pick up things during conversations with her that I think are key. I'll be saying "can I HAVE that" and then go look up the sign for GIVE or SHARE or HAVE. I'm putting it more naturally into the conversations and allowing her to pick up whatever she does. I try not to overwhelm her though, we dont really do consecutive signing yet. Except "KITTEN EATING". Because those are her favourite words, AND our cats happen to eat, and she enjoys feeding them.

Limbo

So many things have been passing through my brain to blog about, but it is a truck stop, a very busy space station of thoughts that move quickly back to where they came from; the final frontier.I just haven't instead.

I'm in limbo. And don't we never realise how we get here? Or when.
The other day another blogger was talking about the transition from standing on your solid mothering legs, the ones you've stretched and strengthened all the months since pregnancy, labour, and birth, to finding your parenting legs. Ones that are so new and so different. That's where I am with Olive. I am a great and confident mother to Olive, who is just now really coming into her own person. With needs and wants, and the ability to say so. Greg and I are learning where the boundaries are, and where they need to be set.
Parenting.
Along with learning to be a parent, I am finding myself with a lot more free time. Olive gains autonomy, and so do I. I can go out. I have to remind myself. I'm thinking about what comes next. Where can I focus my efforts. Here lies limbo.
We want another baby. And I am happy to wait until they come to us, but reluctant to throw myself into any committed endeavor such as going back to school, part time work, upping my sewing game. I know when I am pregnant that I will be tired, that I will need rest, that I will only want to prepare to mother again. Mothering that I know now is intensive and singular for at least a year. I dont want to start something and stop again. So I'm reluctant to start anything at all. Limbo, and a little bit of anxiety along with it.
I think the solution might be to jump in anyway. Like lighting a cigarette while waiting for the bus. Here comes the bus! What an obnoxious phenomenon.

IN mums overalls

Stoop Sitting

Today we had some of my favourite good weather activity, which is stoop sitting. We were out not even ten minutes and Olive met 2 of our neighbours that I didn't know. She's good for that. Always making friends..

 mama feet, babe feet.

 Big girl, standing.

citizen

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh. Cute, right.

I'm expecting this hairstyle she's got going to catch on pretty soon. All the rave. Not just short in the front, party in the back, but thin in the front, curly in the back. What a hipster. ah ha ha ha ha.

Speaking of, while Greg was working on the 'zine in the picture, the Citezen, which is a bike messenger 'zine, the 'editor' wanted him to remove a logo alluding to Critical Mass because he said that "Messengering and Critical Mass dont go together". Greg was puzzled, because well messengers ride bikes, and Mass is about bike power. The editors reasoning: Critical Mass is for hipsters, to which Greg replied "You think we're not hipsters? Me, you, our courier friends, riding on bikes how we dress. We're hipsters"
Oh how I love the freedom of not giving a shit. The word Hipster is designed to make people who care about being so cool feel awkward about it. So really the only way to not be a hipster is to not fucking CARE if you are a hipster. Even if you are. Cause obviously we are. Us with our pants an our hair and our bikes, and oh fuck. "we're hipsters"
Not only that but we're breeding. Just look at that striped sweater she's wearing!

letting baby be baby

A crucial thought that I try to maintain is that children are CHILDREN. There is a goal in parenting that you will have an end result of a grown up mature adult, who has a sense of right and wrong, polite and rude, appropriate and not, and can navigate through those scenarios. But that is the end result. The means to getting there are a little tricky. Kids are loud, they are annoying, they are honest about their feelings, everything they do that isn't 'creature need' fulfilling (eating, sleeping, eliminating, cuddling), is PLAY. Even a lot of their basic needs involve play.
At home, we make a lot of loud noises. Singing, banging, yelling, talking. I try to keep our house organized in a baby friendly way. I feel like if I spend 3/4 of the day telling Olive not to touch something, then maybe its best to just move that something to an Oliveless place. We spend a lot of time in the kitchen because I don't want to be pulling Olive off the record shelf all.day.long. I purposely look to avoid situations in the battles of wills, because when I do say no, I think its just as important to follow through, and who wants to be battling all day long?
At the same time when my automatic NO comes on, I have to ask myself, 'why can't she do that?'. Will she get hurt? Is it only because its annoying? Am I worried what other people might think?
That last one is the big one. When we are out and about, I find myself hyper aware of Olive being a kid. I mean why can't she just sit still, eat her snack neatly, play with the toys I brought.....? 'Those poor people on their laptops trying to study!' I think to myself. I kind of imagine how wonderful it would be living somewhere that children, and the behaviour that goes along with them, is accepted. I am not sure where this is, but I meet people on the street, obviously raised somewhere else, who come and kiss the baby, ask if they can take pictures of the baby, smile at the baby, people who are happy to see a beautiful healthy child, and I think 'wow, how foreign.'

What can I do about these feelings? Mostly I start off by realigning everybody's place in my head, and what I expect of them. Olive = child. Me = adult. People staring = other adults.
I expect Olive to play, and make noise, and explore, for her to be a child. I also expect her to obey me when I do say No. I expect her to test my boundaries as well. And I realistically expect that those tests wont always happen in the privacy (read embarrassment safe zone) of our home.
From myself I expect P A T I E N C E. A lot of it. I expect myself to follow through, and I expect that I will help Olive safely navigate through her playing, exploring, meeting new friends. I mostly expect myself to be able to recognize when we are being bothersome, and judge whether that is warranted (like the library), or not (like the grocery store, who cares if she's loud in the grocery store!?). Most importantly I expect myself to set an example of the polite, mature adult I hope she'll grow into. Which means I pick all the food off the floor of the restaurant, put the chairs back, and leave a good tip for our family foot print.
From other people I just expect understanding of what children are REALLY like.

socks and sneakers

Wearing my new knitted socks.