Gennyland's Modest Financial Tidbits

I have been thinking about money more than usual lately. Partially because I returned to work, with all of its attendant costs, and tried desperately to figure out if we could ‘make it work’ on one salary, and partially because we made the sudden decision to buy a new, not-so-cheap car, but mostly because the financial news these days is all doom and gloom. Between the business in Europe and the Occupy this-and-that movement, hubby and I have been thinking and talking about money quite a bit.

The other night he admitted to me that he was a bit worried, that he was afraid of the future. It’s the first time he’s told me this, and the first time I’ve kind of had to talk him down from financial worry. And here’s a bit of background info on the financial life of gennyland and Mr. gennyland: money is something we never, ever, EVER fight about. We see 99% eye-to-eye on all things financial, even though we may fight like cats and dogs at times about how the household recycling is managed. When we set out on this shared life together, hubby wasn’t doing so hot financially (bad student loans, terrible credit, had never had a credit card, wasn’t really 100% employed) but I was ok. I had a safety net, whereas he never had, and I had a job that paid me a decent amount for my lifestyle – living at home driving a crappy old car.

As soon as he got some solidity in his life, things really turned around for Mr. gennyland. He surprised me by becoming the better of us at saving money, at managing debt, and at figuring out how to work the system to our advantage. Add to that the windfall that we got when his aunt passed away, and I have to say (and remind him) that financially we are doing sort of ok.

In talking him down from the ledge the other day, I really started to think about what it is that we do to keep ourselves afloat. I am always fascinated when I am able to talk with people about how they manage their finances, especially couples, and what systems people put in place to make sure things are equitable and the bills get paid. Turns out, everyone does it differently. Everyone has a different balance of financial responsibility within their relationships and what works for one couple may not work for another. People are often surprised when they find out that Mr. gennyland and I keep all of our expenses separate. We have always done so; when we moved in together, he was less gainfully employed than I was, had some rotten debt that I wanted no part of, and our relationship was relatively new. He had just returned from six months in Thailand and we moved in together (partially) out of practicality, so we wanted to ensure that we didn’t become too complicatedly entangled in case things went funny. So every two weeks, I recorded our expenses and listed our purchases (keeping receipts is essential to our system) and balanced them against one another. Since I was the better of us two at remembering stuff and figured out internet banking faster than he did, I paid the bills, so usually what ended up happening is I’d balance all of our receipts and bills against each other and he’d have to pay me whatever I was owed.

Thirteen years, a house, an inheritance, five cars and a baby later, we still operate on the same system. Sometimes I go “are you sure you want to keep going this way?” because it is admittedly a lot to manage and sometimes we slip up, but the answer is always yes. I think we believe that since we make quite different salaries, someone would feel slighted if we shared an account. Bad blood might arise, and this system we’ve got going now works and keeps things neutral.

Anyway, onto the point of this overlong post, which is to share my modest financial wisdom with those of you who might be looking for alternative ideas, or starting out in a new co-habitation situation, or on the brink of a large purchase or life change. Humour me. This is more about recording my ideas for my own future reference than for educating the masses, because I am hardly a banking wizard or a millionaire:

1. Live within your means. I mean duh, right? In stating the obvious here, I am thinking of those people who stretch themselves to live in a certain kind of house or drive a certain kind of car. I bought my house when I was 26. Would I have rather had a larger house with radiant floor heating and three bedrooms? Yes. Would I rather have had a large kitchen with a breakfast bar, a window seat and butcher block countertops? Yes. But we didn’t have the money for it, so we bought a house built in 1976 that cost us $112,000 and had a kitchen I like to refer to as “pirate-chic”. We capitalized on timing, meaning that the real estate market in our area boomed just after we bought (18 new houses have gone up on our road in the 9 years since we moved in) so we were able to get in while the getting was good. Also some bad experience to draw from: we drove crappy second-hand cars for years believing that they were cheaper overall. What we learned (and continue to learn) is that you really do get what you pay for with cars, and while they are initially cheaper, it’s not worth the stress and ongoing expense of constantly repairing a shitty old car. It’s just not worth it, so unless you are a mechanic, and have that kind of money and energy, it’s not within your means to buy an old jalopy. A good compromise is to buy a used car from a reputable dealer, as they’ve been vetted already. Our 2005 Vibe has so far given us zero hassle, apart from regular maintenance.

2. Keep an emergency fund. When we bought our house, hubby and I agreed that we’d keep the two-party financial system going BUT that we would get ourselves a savings account that is shared. That way we both have online access to it, and we set up an automatic deposit system so that on each of our paydays, an agreed-upon amount went automatically into the emergency account. And it racks up. This money was to be used for all things house-related, major purchases, emergency expenses and such. We also use it as a bounce-over account for when hubby pays me his balance owing every two weeks – he transfers it in and I transfer it to my account.

3. Double-pay where and when possible In 2008 when the markets crashed and the banks yanked the interest rates down, we were able to capitalize on our variable rate mortgage. Since our day-to-day salaries and expenses didn’t change, yet our mortgage went down to like 2%, we decided to start paying it as aggressively as possible, to get a leg up for the future. We approached the bank and asked if, in addition to making our payments bi-weekly, we could increase the amount paid. Turns out we couldn’t just bump up the amount BUT there was a little-used rule that said we could double-pay, meaning that each payment is mirrored every two weeks. It’s an easy way to do it because if the rates go up again, we don’t have to negotiate a lower payment amount, we just cancel the doubling. Our mortgage is so low (see the aforementioned note about the $112k house) that after two or three years of this double-paying, we are set to have it paid off within the next two years – 11 years after buying the house. Sometimes I feel badly for capitalizing on a bad situation (the collapse of the global financial markets) but personally, it has worked out fine so far, enabling us to pay a 25-year mortgage in 11 years.

4. Balance your savings against your debt This would also seem to be a no-brainer, but somehow I have a problem with it. Like, I have a Tax-Free Savings account racking up a not-very-impressive 2% interest, yet I keep spending on my line of credit which sits at 4% and WORSE, my credit card which is like 19%. There’s a mental leap to be made in using your savings to pay off your debts, but it makes zero (maybe less than) sense to keep paying 19% interest when you’re only making 2% on your savings. Better to be at zero overall I say. Zero savings, zero debt. Then avoid the credit for awhile so you can rack up your savings again.

5. Tuck money away into hidey holes. To amuse nobody but myself, I opened a savings account with a separate internet-based bank, and have been ferreting money away into it whenever I have a bit extra. (This works best in our two-party financial system, as it could otherwise raise trust issues). I don’t use it much, and I often forget I have it. I never check it, but sometimes I will delight myself by remembering it’s there and then looking and being surprised that hey, I have a couple of thou saved up and I didn’t even feel it. I buy Canada savings bonds through work and don’t feel that either, but they’re there, which I always forget until I get a statement in the mail. Now it’s a bad idea to REALLY forget these things, as they’re all a part of your overall portfolio and personal worth, but it’s good to have some places to hide money from yourself.

6. Maximize free opportunities to save Hubby’s work has this great system where they don’t have a pension plan per se, but they have a great really terrific (as in, how do I get a piece of that action?) group investment plan. They make crazy interest. It comes off of his paycheque in agreed-upon amounts, and all contributions (up to a certain amount) are matched by the company. So it’s relatively painful, doubles your original investment, and gets an awesome rate of return. His investments through this company in the ten years he’s been there have climbed just about as high or higher than my RRSP has, and I’ve had it at least 3 years longer, much of that time in a quote-unquote “aggressive” portfolio (read: they make more money off of me for some reason) through the VERY USELESS Investor’s Group. (I do not recommend Investor’s Group. Go with a bank, they’re much more reliable). As well, he has signed up for a cash-back Visa, which gives him 2% cash back on specific purchases. It carries a monthly (or annual?) fee, so he ensures that he A) pays his balance off right away, and B) spends enough on it that the cash he gets back more than covers the annual fee. So he’s winning and the credit card company’s losing, because he makes sure to pay it just in time to never pay interest. This is the relationship you want with your credit card, though you do have to be on top of it. I am not that good, I am sloppy with my card, racking up interest and then paying it off in bulk when I can.

7. Compartmentalize this is more of a mental trick than a financial tip. Hubby gets easily overwhelmed and will sometimes indicate that we can’t, for example, order a pizza for dinner because we just paid $700 for firewood or some kind of thing like that. I like to compartmentalize my spending into everyday small cash-type amounts and large purchases. As long as one doesn’t completely overshadow the other, I feel pretty comfortable ordering that pizza. It keeps me from feeling cheated.

8. Minimize bad investments Examples of bad investments include cars (though see above, sometimes you have to bite the bullet. Just know that it’s never a moneymaking venture), technology, RVs, and things like gardens and other ephemera which you might think raises your property value but in fact unless you’re selling your house, are just an expense. Not to say that you shouldn’t have one, just don’t go into it thinking you’re making an investment, because a crappy badly-maintained garden has less curb appeal that flat grass in my books. This is obviously a sore spot with me lately. Examples of good investments include bathroom renovations (for the same reason, only not), land, your house, and anything that will make you comfy in the future. I would say art for obvious reasons but so few people are aware of ins and outs of the re-sale market that the chances you will actually re-sell it someday on anywhere but ebay, or through some shuckster auctioneer, are slim unless you are a professional collector or very rich person.

9. Want to donate money, but you’re not that flush? Try Kiva (www.kiva.com). These are microloans, so while you might be out of pocket for a bit and you don’t get a tax receipt, the money is repaid in installments and you get to feel great knowing that you’ve helped, say, some poor Nicaraguan single mother put a new roof on her house. It also helps very much to put things in your own life into perspective.

10. Speaking of perspective, a friend of mine posted this link to his facebook page last week, in light of the recent “Occupy Wall Street” and copycat protest movements. It’s sobering. http://www.globalrichlist.com/

So there, I babbled for four pages about money and now I feel so cleansed that I’m gonna go out and treat myself and a good friend of mine to a fancy lunch. Food is never a bad investment. See? Compartmentalize!

Feeling kind of itchy.

Every morning that I send her to daycare, I feel like I'm throwing Nora into a cesspool.

Don't get me wrong; Sue's place is relatively clean (as clean as any place which is overrun by toddlers every day) and Sue runs a fairly tight ship, making sure dishes are washed and anything that goes into mouths is scrubbed regularly. I've seen her confiscate soothers and I've seen the pile of toys sitting by the sink waiting to be cleaned. There are no untoward smells and Sue is very keen to change Nora's clothes at the first sign of a mess. Often she undergoes two wardrobe changes in a day, which is two more than I would give her at home barring a catastrophic event (i.e. barfing, shitsplosions, etc).

But the very nature of a daycare ensures that the children will get sick. And oh they get sick. Since starting daycare a mere 5.5 weeks ago, Nora's had a stomach thing, a terrible cold, and now she's got a mysterious nighttime cough.

Not only do they get sick, but there are also the unexpected (by me) side consequences of all this wonderful socialization; today Sue told me that the older sibling of one of the toddlers came home with nits. Lice. Head lice. And Sue said that she has to make sure to check all the little ones. Since we are in a relatively small community – which has definite benefits – the threat comes from three sides: Nora's in daycare with this little gal's baby brother (who is so far nit-free) but the poor little one with lice (J) is also in the same class as two of the other little girls who go to Sue's on Mondays and Fridays (V +E). One of those little girls (V) has a baby sister (C) who is with Nora at Sue's every day. And then we move up a generation: the little gal's (J's) father drives in with us some mornings, us being myself and the mother of the two sisters who go to Sue's (V +C).

So this is how it happens. This is the community illness effect. I never realized it until I had kids, but someone said to me "oh yeah, one person sends their kid to daycare sick, and hundreds of people end up catching it" and it's true, it's really true. Take a cold, for instance. You send your kid to daycare sick but maybe you didn't know it yet, maybe it was only a little sniffle when you dropped her off in the morning, but by 5 pm it's a torrent of green snot. That means that even if you keep her home the next few days, the rest of the kids could have already caught it, passed it to their siblings, their parents, classmates, the daycare provider, etc. Meanwhile you're thinking "I'm not sick yet, I can leave her with someone else and go to work" but then oh – by 5 pm you are a wreck, your skin hurts, your head is stuffed up and you have to squint to see clearly. Even if YOU take the next day off, you've likely given it to all of your close coworkers and smeared it all over the phones and keyboards, so there it is. Hundreds of people are sick. It's even worse in diseases with long, contagious incubation periods, like chickenpox.

Argh. It takes a village, but sometimes that village is beseiged by illness and needs to batten down the hatches.

That brings me back around to head lice. I hope to god my Nora doesn't get lice on her sweet little beautiful-smelling head, in her golden silky hair. My (bald) coworker told me I could always just shave off her hair but oh that thought nearly made me cry and cry. No way. Nuh-uh. If I have to buy a gold-plated lice comb and take a week off of work so I can comb her hair 12 hours a day, I will do it, but I will not shave her head. Nor will I dump pesticides all over it. I would rather quarantine her for five years than treat a baby for head lice, so I'm really not too sure what to do at this juncture. I am going to try adding a few drops of tea tree oil to her shampoo and see if that prevents them but that's not really a proven scientific method, I don't think.

My mom tells me neither my brother nor I ever had head lice. I see this as a positive by-product of being kind of a loner – maybe I never got close enough to other kids' heads to catch anything from them. And since my brother and I are 6 years apart, we didn't really stick our heads together much either. Small blessings.

I have to go now. Writing about this is making my head itchy. Tonight I am going to wash and boil everything our heads come into contact with, just in case, and spray my house down with tea tree oil.

Mama’s got a new ride.

I used to be the kind of momma who drove a pickup truck. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but I just know that it felt kind of cool to hoist the baby into the carseat and take off in our powerful truck, maybe with a bed full of cargo in back for some project or trip or something like that. It felt kind of rough and tumble, safe, powerful and kooky at the same time. Not your average baby-mobile.

Last week a mechanic told me not to invest more money into repairing my truck. This news came at a particularly bad time, as I have recently (as you know) re-entered the work force and started commuting to the city with my girlfriend. We share the driving – two weeks on, two weeks off – and we were just coming on my weeks when the truck noises led me to the mechanic's door.

There followed approximately a day and a half of research, comparison shopping, asking around and scoping out every car on the streets. Hubby and I came up with a list of vehicular requirements which included:

• Safety
  


• Cargo space
  


• Freedom from worry (i.e. a new model)
  


• All-wheel or four-wheel drive
  


• Power
  


• Towing capacity (for the fishing boat etc)
  


• 
  
  Fuel efficiency
  
  
  

  
  

And after filtering out all of the too big, too expensive, too weak, too small, and too ugly options, we came up with the idea that we'd go for a Hyundai Tucson.

When we got to the dealership a couple of things happened. Firstly, we looked at the Tucson and realized that the 2012 model is quite a lot like a large Pontiac Vibe, which is what we already drive. The car had been subtly redesigned so that the back end is less boxy, which means the 2012 has a hatchback that is more rounded than straight up-and-down, which means that the upper area of the cargo space is limited. There is no way we'd fit coolers, backpacks, fishing equipment, Nora's porta-crib, bedding and potentially our dog in that back space. If we ever decided to have a second child and the back seat space became occupied, we'd have a pretty hard time fitting our 80-lb Labrador in there let alone all of the necessities for a quick weekend at the cottage.

In the end, we allowed ourselves to be up-sold a bit. Coming in at just a hair over the price of the 2012 AWD Tucson was a 2011 AWD Santa Fe, which had all the cargo space we'd ever need in the interior of a vehicle. They just happened to have one on the lot that they wanted to get rid of (yeah right, I believe nothing) so we were able to negotiate the inclusion of a nifty cargo mat, a gas card, a tow package, four winter tires on rims, and 10 free oil changes.

I picked it up three days ago. It's black. It has bum-warmers in the front seats, and I can control my radio on my steering wheel (which I strangely find much more distracting than doing it the old-fashioned way). If my cellphone has its Bluetooth activated, I will be able to make phone calls simply by speaking loudly into the car. I have a remote lock on my keychain that goes "Woop woop!" so I no longer have to pretend by actually yelling "woop woop!" when I approach my car in parking garages. The seats are comfy and the engine purrs softly. It is AWD and has a v6 engine so it's nice and perky to drive – indeed, this car wants to go fast. Sorry officer! Not my fault. My car wants to go fast.

Now I am a mom with an SUV. I have a ginormous top-of-the-line carseat in the back seat – rear facing, natch – and when I blow-dry my hair and wear my pressed work clothes, and drop my toddler off at daycare with her little lunch baggie of wholesome breakfast food and overpriced bottles, I no longer recognize myself. At some point in the last year I became a full-fledged yuppie without even realizing it, but oh well, I see how it happens. My urge, when choosing a car in which to drive my baby around (and everything else to do with baby, of course), was to get the biggest protective bubble I could possibly find.

Today I wore my black converse sneakers as compensation. I may have to go out and get an edgy haircut and some funky sunglasses to disguise my newfound yuppiedom. I am avoiding Starbucks at all costs.

But I am now a momma with a hot new ride, no doubt about it.

Week Two.

Back at it, week 2.

This morning I dropped a very-unhappy little Nora off at daycare. She was fine as I unstrapped her carseat - she was even ‘whistling’ at the birds she saw on the power lines (going ‘ooo ooo ooo’ with pursed lips it’s the cutest thing) – and even as we entered Sue’s house. She started giving Sue the stink eye a minute later, and when I handed her over I got the baby chimpanzee clutch and the earfull of protest. When I waved bye-bye and left, I closed the door behind me and listened for screaming, and it was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep walking towards the car.

I just called just now (9:39) and apparently after I left, she sat down and barfed up her breakfast yoghurt, and then was fine. Hm. This is the second time Nora’s been to daycare, and the second time she’s barfed on Sue’s rug. Methinks she’s going to get herself a wee reputation. So not only is she no longer in the totally adorable outfit I put her in this morning (brand new t-shirt, new purple stretchy pants), she’s been changed into the emergency outfit I brought along – the shirt that’s covered in tomato stains that I noticed too late and pink pants that don’t totally fit anymore. Then she spilled water on herself in the highchair and Sue mistook it for a leaking diaper, so she changed her pants into daycare-issue hand-me-downs. My little urchin is now playing happily, dressed like shit, and this seems to be all I can focus on.

Let it go momma, let it go. She’s happy and playing with the other kids. So she doesn’t eat so well three mornings out of the week; she’ll make up for it at lunch and again at dinner, and then eat her fill at Oma’s on Mondays and Fridays. I don’t like the barfing but I’m not surprised; neither of her parents can stuff our bellies immediately after waking up, so why should she? I have to figure out this breakfast thing though. It’s not her favorite meal at the best of times, when we leisurely cruise in for breakfast at 9 a.m., so to expect her to wolf it down at 6:45 is asking a bit much.

What I really can’t take about this whole back to work routine is the mistrust. She now looks at me with a look of mistrust that breaks my heart. It’s a look that says “are you staying with me today, or are you leaving again? Where are you leaving me today?” and I can’t dwell on it as much as I do because it renders me non-functional.

Last week during my many moments of desperation I did all of the circular thinking around this change; I calculated how much it costs me annually to go to work ($12,000, including food, gas, parking, and a wee clothing allowance to be realistic) and figured out that it’s not financially worth quitting. I read a very interesting article about how Dutch women are doing exactly what they want to do, which usually includes working part time and spending the rest of their time being with their families or friends, and the ridiculous feminist hand-wrenching around the issue. I thought about our expenses and our revenues, and whether or not we could make it work on one salary and delay our dream of building a cottage until a time when Nora goes to school and I can re-enter work life with a more clear conscience, but that’s not quite do-able or right either. I considered whether or not my own job could be done from home or part-time (obviously it could, here I am writing this blog entry) but it would never fly with my boss or HR department. While my workplace is friendly, they are remarkably inflexible when it comes to arrangements like that. I thought about having a second child, so I can take another year off and spend it with Nora (and whassisname too, obviously). What my thinking exercise came up with is this: I am going to grow out my hair, so that I can just clip it up every day, and spend my blow-drying time in bed with Nora. There it is: I gained an extra 5 minutes a day and will look 8% crappier. And! I will save money on haircuts.

Which doesn’t solve my main problems, which are thus:

1. I miss Nora. I miss her so powerful much that it’s almost a physical response, like my guts are missing or something really dramatic like that.

2. It feels wrong to drop a one-year-old baby off at someone’s house for the day, as though all three of us are off to our respective locations every day. Like it’s her baby job. I drag her out of bed before she’s really ready and she’s all like “what the hell man?”

3. I have a hard time with the idea that for three days a week, Nora is on someone else’s routine, and ours is out the window. I have worked so hard to set a routine that works, and now it feels all loosey goosey and wrong. I worry about her food intake and her nap timing, and I worry about these things all day long. I try to impress upon Sue the importance of my routine and of jamming food into Nora, but all this barfing is leaving her unconvinced I’m sure.

4. Regarding said routine, I have a really hard time figuring out what to do about breakfast.

What I have to remember is what the Doctor tells me: she’s no longer a tiny baby. I no longer have to count millilitres of formula and tablespoons of food, I have to let her regulate what she wants and trust that she will get enough. I have to let go and realize that she’s big enough to make her own way in the universe a little bit, to hang out with other kids and develop socially in a way that she just doesn’t get by hanging out with me and the dog all day. I don’t want her barking before she can talk, after all. On Thursday she spent the day at daycare with 5 other little ones and on Friday, at Oma’s, she decided to try to walk all day. I also have to think that we avoid a lot of anguish when it comes time to start school, as she’ll already be used to a morning get-up-and-go-somewhere-else routine.

Deep breaths, deep breaths. When I had the baby, it was the most difficult thing I’d ever done in my life. As it turns out, leaving her is a hundred times harder.

Rationalization Exercise

Benefits of returning to work:

- I can wear nice clothes again. I mean, I could’ve worn my nice clothes while on mat leave, but why bother cleaning barf and dog hair off of them unecessarily?

- I can go to the washroom all by myself again, and take my time. No longer do I have to watch that the baby doesn’t fall headfirst into the bathtub while I’m on the toilet (if you saw me, I’d be sitting there leaning over holding onto the back of her pants), or listen for sickening thuds from the other room.

- Today I wrote a note with a pen and nobody was grabbing it while I was writing. Also, all the keys on this computer are intact because nobody has flicked them off with their little fingers. Yet.

- I ate a portobello sandwich with goat’s cheese on a ciabatta bun for lunch, and someone else made it for me. Disadvantage: it was $8.

- I get to ride with one of my oldest friends. Today we talked about pig slaughtering!

- If I need to buy something, I don’t have to dress two people, carry one out the door while she’ s grabbing my sunglasses off of my head and sticking them into my eyes, buckle her into the carseat, and do the same thing in reverse on the way home. I just grab my wallet and step out of my office for a minute.

- Grown-up talk.

- My mom/daycare lady gets the morning poop.

- Nora eats really well at Oma daycare so I worry a lot less about her intake on these days.

- I don’t have the dog whining at me all the damn time.

- There are some pretty fun people working here. Part of me looks forward to the office craziness and missed all of the gossip.

- They give me a substantial amount of money to be here.

Disadvantages of returning to work:

- 5:30 a.m. wake-up.

- I am expected not to smell badly.

- Public washrooms.

- There will be days when I have to work late, or even travel for short periods. I am not looking forward to those days.

- I feel like I’m handing the parenting of my child over to someone else.

- I am worried that Nora will not be happy at daycare. When I left her there last week she cried and cried, until she fell asleep.

- I have to stay awake all day long, and interacting with humans all day is exhausting. Last night I fell asleep on the couch before 9:00.

- Some colleagues are still annoying after all this time.

- Nora is tired by the time I get home, so I don’t get her at her best. She falls asleep at 7:30 so I really only see her for two and a half hours a day.

- Dear god I miss that child.

Happy Birthday to Us

Yesterday my little muffin turned one year old.

I can’t explain to you exactly why that had me feeling maudlin all week. Part of me is excited that she’s a big girl now and is becoming more and more self-sufficient, but the rest of me is worried that I’m losing the baby bit by bit. Also, the one-year mark means that all the fun is over in terms of time spent at home with Nora – in a week I have to hit the pavement and get back to work. I feel like it’s the end of it all, even though I know evenings and weekends will be just as fun as they are now, and that we’ll still have plenty of snuggles and playtime.

Another thing about the one-year birthday is that back when I had a tiny baby, like when Nora was four and five months old, it felt like one year was a million miles away. I really thought that by the time she is a year old my worries about feeding, weight gain, all of that would be solved, and I could just sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labours. Not so. Just when I think we’ve got it all figured out, something happens (gastro, teething, general malaise) and we get set back again – like walking in snow: two steps forward, one step back. She still only weighs barely 19 pounds, which I think is just fine but according to the numbers game, she’s on the small side. She has a delicate frame. It is however true that I can now feed her almost anything. The other night, at her birthday party, she kept helping herself to the basket of baguette slices on the coffee table and I think she put back half a loaf without my noticing. She was standing at the table wearing a Hawaiian lei (would not remove it) with hunks of bread hanging out of her mouth, playing her new casio keyboard. She is a funny one, my kid. On her actual birthday hubby and I took her out for lunch and ordered off the kids’ menu for the first time ever – a pita pizza with mozza and sauce, which she liked quite a lot (she ate about 1/5 of it. The dog helped herself to the remains later on).

Anyway, all to say, I guess when you’re a parent you’re never out of the woods. My new thing is making sure she doesn’t fall and hit her head too much. The other day I made a call to the emergency health line (a fabulous service if you are a parent) which went something like this:

“Hi, I’m calling about my one-year old daughter. She fell off of a cooler and hit the back of her head on the electric baseboard heater and I’m wondering if I should be worried about head injuries.”

“Okay, well, is she bleeding?”

“Well, not from her head. You see, about two hours later she was sitting in my knitting basket and as she made to get out, she smacked her face against the leg of my ironing board and bled everywhere. Now she has a fat lip and I think her gum may be cut.”

“Alright (the nurse said slowly while typing, undoubtedly a quick e-mail to Child Protective Services), does she have any bumps or bruises?”

“ Weeeelll (sigh) not from that fall. She also fell while standing at the edge of the sofa, looking at the dog. She just fell over randomly, and hit the corner of the footstool on her temple. So there is a bit of a blue bump there, yeah.”

And on and on. That was one day. Turns out, after four days of carefully watching her, that she likely doesn’t have any brain damage. My intrepid baby is a bit too fast for her slow-witted mommy, and often I will watch helplessly, slowly, as she falls and injures herself right in front of me. The cooler incident happened as I ran upstairs to get a t-shirt. I was gone thirty seconds, and had left her in the back room (the play room, full of her toys) while I bounded upstairs to change. I heard a horrible BANG and then screaming and there was the scene laid out before me: the cooler on its side, Nora laying across the hallway with her arms out to her sides and her head up against the heater, bawling. Man alive. And she doesn’t yet learn from these mistakes, because while she may not climb that particular cooler again, she climbs everything else within range. I am beginning to see some real advantages to having wall-to-wall plush carpeting in one’s home. Hardwood and laminate are not forgiving. The biggest hazard is footie pyjamas – if they don’t have rubber dots on the bottoms of the feet, they are dangerous. Forget the flame retardants in kids’ clothes, just make sure they have rubberized feet.

Nora has a few new quirks. She has decided to be a stylish lady now, and she motors around the house in her sun hat and random necklaces. Yesterday she put on one of my necklaces and draped it around the back of her neck, so hubby did it up, and she wore it all day. We went out for lunch and I didn’t realize why people were kind of giving us the side-eye. I assumed they thought me negligent for ordering my tiny baby a cheese pizza, but really I’m sure it was the large splashy beaded necklace that got their attention. The other night she was wandering around in her pjs, wearing her orange sun hat and her pink heart-shaped glasses. This was really really cute, but not as cute as when she picked up my camera and made as though she was looking through it and taking pictures (upside down). She looked like a damn tourist. Like a crazy lady tourist. I love it. The real irony of it, however, is that I bought the sunhat to use as an actual sun hat, and while she loves wearing it around, she refuses to wear it outside.

Another quirk: if Nora decides she doesn’t want to eat something, she makes like she’s dramatically barfing, then hands it to me quietly. It’s quite funny. She’ll fake-retch, then gingerly pick up the offending item (either off of her t-shirt or the tray of her highchair) and hold it out for me, as if I should now eat it. Then she will not eat another one of its kind in that meal. When Nora is finished eating, she will mechanically hand each bit of food to the dog, which waits eagerly beside the chair. They are perfect for each other because Rosie is very gentle with baby fingers in her big mouth, and Nora finds it hilarious to jam her hand down Rosie’s toothy gullet.

She got a baby dolly for her birthday. I recommended it as a gift idea to my sister-in-law and she came through with the perfect one, though it had this horrible noisemaker inside that sounded like Chewbacca and scared the crap out of Nora. It actually sounded like a baby screaming and then choking to death. So babydoll had its first surgery after Nora went to bed last night. It has a soother attached to its neck, though, which confuses Nora as she’s never had a soother of her own. She tries to suck the doll’s, which is tiny, and the resulting look on her face is like “what the hell?” Yesterday (day 2 with the dolly) she decided dolly was hungry and fed it a bottle. Sometimes via its mouth and sometimes via its eye, but still – genius right?! She likes to hug the dolly and try to wear the doll’s clothes on her own body, like the doll sock that ended up on her toe. It’s watching her do things like that that makes me realize that while she doesn’t yet talk, she is picking up on everything and understands more than we think.

Speaking of talking, we’ve had some successes in this department but also some regression. There was a time when I swore she said “asha” for the cat and “tick” for stick, but now she is focused on making O sounds. She will pucker her face dramatically and go “OOOOOOOOowwwwww” over and over. She said “atcha” again at the cat this morning (the cat’s name is Sasha) so that’s good, but right now she mostly points – points at everything. And is very very good at making herself understood by pointing. She’ll point at the patio door to go outside, so we go out, then she points at the hanging tomato basket, so we walk over to the tomatoes, then she wants to pick all the green ones. I don’t let her and the she screams. Every day. I let her pick the red ones, which she holds tightly in her hand until her grip gets so tight that she pops the tomato, and then she eats it, seeds and juice dripping everywhere.

Anyway, one year old. Fastest year on record. I have enjoyed most of it and the rest of it made me stronger. I am a different person now – more grey hair, sharper reflexes, etc. I am mother to the cutest little monkey around and I could not be more in love.

All Growed Up

Recently we passed a couple of minor emotional milestones in Nora's continuing progression from baby to toddler. We went to visit Sue, Nora's new daycare provider, to check out the scene and get the ball rolling on paperwork. Sue is a very nice lady from the area whose three girls I used to babysit (they are now aged 26, 29 and 33 – I didn't really babysit that last one per se, she just wasn't old enough to do it herself), and Nora seemed to enjoy being there. Sue's got some fun toys that we don't have, so now I'm off the hook a bit where that's concerned. The other kids were all pretty sweet, though man boys are rough, and I feel pretty good about bringing Nora there three days a week. She will spend Mondays with Oma and Grandpa, Tuesdays to Thursdays with Sue and the gang, and then Fridays with Oma and Grandpa again. She seemed so tiny when I brought her in there to play with the other kids but she keeps up in her way, and found her footing pretty quickly. Sue didn't foresee any problems. I will bring her one more time before heading back to work, and I'll leave her for a few hours to see how it goes. Fingers crossed.

Later on that same afternoon, my good friend came over to take some of our baby things off our hands. She is due in November and we offered up all of Nora's old equipment (the Bumbo, the carseat, the beloved Jolly Jumper, the excersaucer) for the new little guy, with the agreement that if Nora ever gets a baby brother or sister, or cousin even, we will take it back. She also took a good pile of baby clothes, and the process of going through every piece was bittersweet. It felt like so long ago that we used them, yet so recent as well. Some of them are unbelievably tiny, but others look like they still could work today (I know they won't – I bought some new sleepers last week which are already tight in the toes). My friend said she'd write my name in them all but I told her I will remember them, and I will. I will remember every single piece, fondly.

Also in the past week Nora started misbehaving. Up to now she has been a perfect sweet angel. She has a bit of a temper but it passes quickly, and she's usually fairly compliant and reasonable. Lately, however, she has decided she does not want her cereal at breakfast, and spits it out at me. I am not impressed. I reprimand her and let her know it's not acceptable behaviour but I think she thinks she is all hilarious. I hope it's not a trend. Her other misbehaviour is more of a developmental inevitability – she now climbs everything, and is FURIOUS when you pull her off. She can climb her wee chair (she has stood up on it, not a great idea) and the Rubbermaid in the kitchen, and is working on climbing the bread maker and the sofa. She is unstoppable in her determination. It would all be fine, except for the fact that she doesn't know how to get down, and is indignant when you try to teach her to go down backwards. Someday, under closed conditions (i.e. a short distance, pillows on the floor), I'm just going to let her fall to see what happens. Maybe then she'll decide for herself that going down on her tummy is a better idea.

Before supper tonight, I had a headache and lay down for 20 minutes in the hope it would pass without Tylenol. While I was upstairs, apparently Nora and her dad were in the kitchen, where her forehead just reaches the lower sill of the open window. She was hollering nonsense out the window, in the baby version of 'HEY YOU THERE! GET OFF MY LAWN!' - to nobody in particular. Hubby said all the neighbours likely heard it - wee Nora telling them what's what, loudly. Who knows, maybe she was yelling at the cat? Birds? Passing cars? She has found her voice for sure – once she learns to speak English, I'm sure I'm in for an earful. She kind of talks constantly, to me, to Rosie, to the cat, to herself…she's trying it all out for sure.

As of tomorrow I am no longer on maternity leave; I am on vacation. Technically I should be returning to work, because I took a bit of extra time at the beginning of my leave, but I just could not bear to go back just yet. I know it's only another three weeks, but every one of those days is important to me – I need to adjust the daily routine quite a lot before I can subject myself, and Nora, to the new reality. I had to take a bite out of my vacation stockpile, if only to get the landmark first birthday out of the way. Emotionally I am not prepared – either for going back to work OR for my baby to be one year old already.

Anyway, I don't want this post to become maudlin. Before I go back to work, I still look forward to time at the lake, hubby's two-week vacation, a roller derby, a party with some of my favourite people, a wee birthday party for Nora, a possible trip to Montreal with my sister-in-law, a new deck outside of my bedroom, and quality time with my babe.

I am going to wring everything out of this three weeks that I possibly can, before we all have to grow up and get moving.

50 Days

That's the amount of time I've got left at home with Nora. I am awaiting this deadline with dread, because not only does it mean that I will have to separate from her for the majority of our days, but it means that I have to get my head back into work. It seems unfathomable to me that I am choosing to spend 47.5 hours a week away from her (including travel time), when currently I find it difficult to steal even 5. It seems unbelievable also that I will be expected to jump into work mode, as though this past year never happened. The people with whom I will be interacting won't have a clue what a magical year I just had, and I will resent them for it. It might be immature but mea culpa. Nora is the most important thing in my world, bar none.

I know some mothers who have suggested that in order to maintain sanity it is essential to take breaks from motherhood, to leave the baby with someone once in a while and have some time to yourself. My doctor insists upon it, and other people seem to enjoy it too. I don't. Once in a while I'll do something with my husband that Nora wouldn't appreciate, like downhill skiing or a Soundgarden concert, but during those times I'm picturing her tiny face and her wee clapping hands. I can't wait to see her again. And I have had to go to appointments and left her with my mom throughout this past year, which has been ok. When I'm without her, I walk down the street all preoccupied thinking "I am a mom. I have a baby. I have a baby daughter at home. I am her mom" over and over in my head, as though I have to remind myself that nothing is the same as it used to be. I enjoyed Soundgarden, but we're buying baby earmuffs and bringing Nora to Jane's Addiction.

And I know that it will all be fine, that Baby Nora won't be a wee baby forever and that daycare will be good for her. I know that. She's social and she's going to a trusted place, in the care of a very kindly woman I've known for years, spending her days with the children of my good friend. Parents I trust rave about this daycare and I'm really lucky to have won a spot, even though we're only using three out of five days of it. Nora will have two days with Oma (grandma) and then weekends, holidays and (cough cough) sick days with us. She will learn things by leaps and bounds. She will come home at night with new words and new illnesses and new skills. She will have her own set of friends and her own life, independent from us. She will grow and change from a baby into a little kid, and I will just have to be very observant during the two or three hours a day I will spend with her so I can catch her Nora-ness whenever I can.

I miss her already.

She's become such a little monkey. New skills include: eating (certain foods) by herself without choking, clapping her hands, cruising along the furniture, and dancing. She loves to smack the dog lightly on the nose and giggle and play with her CD player and eat anything she finds on the floor, including dead bumblebees and unidentified plant matter (the bumblebee never made it down the hatch). She has lovely soft golden curls and a very mod short little hairdo. She's long and slim with perfectly-shaped ballerina legs and slender piano fingers. Last week we survived our first serious illness – she went from a cough to a spotty viral rash to high fever for three days to a possible double ear infection to an all-over body and face rash and still the cough. It was a rough ride for about a week there, but now she has emerged unscathed and unmedicated. The bottle of amoxicillin sits unopened in the fridge – my week-long insurance policy. Nothing heavier than Tylenol was required. I'm sure this is all just practice for when she starts daycare and gets every single thing that flies around.

There are certain aspects of going back to work that I am looking forward to. I like my co-workers. I anticipate some fun lunch dates and gossip. I can't wait to go out for lunch – the luxury of being able to choose a different kind of cuisine every day will blow my mind for the first little while, as I've been surviving on lunches of crackers and baby food for the past several months. I look forward to dressing like a grown-up again, and I want to go on a wee shopping spree before my return and pick up some basics, because my wardrobe is a bit played out and I am (ahem) a little bit bigger 'round the midriff. Throughout the process of preparing for these renos, I have accumulated two truckloads of stuff to bring to Value Village – and I am being brutal, so I hope to have a sharp pared-down wardrobe when I hang it all back in my new closet.

I have to keep thinking of the silver linings. And the paycheque, always the paycheque.

This Year’s Loot

Well Great Glebe Garage Sale, once again you did not disappoint. Hubby and I left Nora with Oma and off we went, without our child, into the wild yonder on a semi-rainy day. We had been worried that the rainy weather (it was sort of drizzly, to be fair) would keep people and sellers away and cast a gloom on the whole adventure but oh no, it was as much of a zoo as every other year.

Over the years we seem to have developed a strategy, which I will generously share with you here: we park the car at the north end of the Glebe, where the quieter more well-heeled houses seem to be, and we work our way in from there. Since it's a bit quieter, the crowds are sparser, parking's a bit easier, and we get at the really interesting finds before the hordes make it over. There are much fewer students in this part of the neighbourhood as well, so the stuff is of a higher calibre. Each year we seem to find our most memorable treasures in this quadrant and since we've just gotten there, the cash flows more readily as well. We're not yet overburdened or fatigued from looking at too much junk. We are fresh and raring to buy. It's so far been a great strategy.

Herewith is a list of this year's finds:

• A petite brass antique fire extinguisher. We realized when we got home that it's still full of carbon tetrachloride – a nasty chemical that now needs to be properly disposed of.
  
• A wrought iron triangle and accompanying iron stick – a 'come and git it' bell for the cottage. "Clangalangalang! Dinner's ready!"
  
• An old duck decoy for my brother-in-law.
  
• A game of 'Clue' for my brother-in-law.
  
• A fully-equipped Spirograph set. The pens are dried up but otherwise it's perfect.
  
• A very old Milton Bradley cribbage board.
  
• Very old chicken-and-chicks salt and pepper set.
  
• Very old 'asian couple' salt and pepper set (every year I buy some kitschy old ceramics. I love them).
  
• A wooden-bead-on-curly-wires toy for Nora, overpriced. It's not old – it's from Ikea.
  
• A bag of magnetic letters and numbers for the fridge.
  
• Four very cute little board books for Nora.
  
• Some wonderful wooden pull toys for Nora – a snail and a snake, articulated, and they wiggle when they are pulled. Made in Thailand and very very colourful.
  
• A plum tree.
  
• Chives.
  
• Two little bowls from a chinese food restaurant.
  
• An old (1959) Tintin 'Journal des jeunes'.
  
• A red and black mid-century modern-looking enamel squirrel brooch.
  
• A great little turquoise wooden lamp for Nora's new bedroom (I have a problem – I cannot stop buying lamps).
  
• This neat set of make-your-own paper toys, from Germany. It appeared unused but on closer inspection, I discovered that one of the toys had been made. But there are about 6 or 7 left and they are cool.
  
• A book called "Vivre en fôret" which I bought because of a funny illustration of a man fighting a lynx in his lean-to. It was a quarter.
  
• Hubby bought a jigging rod for ice fishing and a gang troll for lake trout fishing.
  
• Two horrible cookies sold to me by two adorable little girls. Hucksters.
  
• A very old U.S. postal scale. Not sure what we will use it for but it's pretty cute. The crazy lady who sold it to us told us it had crossed two oceans so we spent some time trying to figure that out as we walked away. Did she move to Japan and come back the other way?
  
• A game called "Carrom" (sp?) which we spotted from the truck on the way out.
  
• Hubby bought a fridge magnet that says "Let's Eat Out!" from a church lady.
  
• An old creel.
  
• Two hot dogs from the Boy Scouts (one for each of us).
  

While garage saling, there are some categories of items that I rarely if ever buy: clothes (it'd have to be something really special), kids' stuff (broke my rule this year for obvious reasons), CDs and cassettes, novels, and appliances. I generally go for the old esoteric things, things that I think have a story behind them, things that would go well in a cottage or in my garden. I usually look at the plants, though it makes me laugh to see the ladies in tilley hats out there trying to foist their invasive perennials on people. I saw so much lily-of-the-valley for sale yesterday it was hilarious; I guess if I could turn a profit from ripping out my weeds I'd do it too.

Every year there's also a category of items that stick out in our minds – the things we almost bought but left behind. This year that list includes a cute set of square teak or teak veneer nesting tables, a crazy-looking houseplant that I've never seen before, a gas-fueled space heater that looked like a space ship, an old framed picture of a saluting boy scout, an offensive sculpture of a very curvy African-american woman with her thong hanging out, from Cuba (hubby wanted this – I used my veto on it), an old gumball machine (it was overpriced at $55), a ceramic vase of a woman's head complete with real dangly earrings, a neat old wall-mounted shelving unit that had a subset of tiny cubbies, a book of pervy obscure symbolist art (Felicien Rops – look him up it's crazy stuff). I am still haunted by things we didn't buy in past years, like the church pews one guy had stuffed into his garage. But that is the glory of the Great Glebe Garage Sale – some other wacko will come up behind you and snap up that stuff, because in a crowd like that there's bound to be someone else with your taste. You have to make fast decisions.

The people-watching at this event is top-notch. Everyone is in a great mood. You overhear hilarious conversations, like the one hubby caught the tail end of "….that's really cool – oh wait, is that blood on it?" and the father I heard warning his children "walk straight ahead. Don't touch ANY ceramics." A guy picked up and tried to buy hubby's travel mug, coffee included. Last year my husband bought a mannequin leg and was the talk of the town, but this year every single person asked him if he was going fishing (raincoat – check. Creel – check. Jigging rod – check). I took one picture – of a guy walking around with a basket on his head, a lady's apron on backwards, carrying a blue baseball bat (I can't figure out how to get it off my phone). I could have taken more. I was nearly run over by a man on a bike carrying cross-country skis and poles.

So Great Glebe Garage Sale, even though it was drizzy weather, you did not disappoint. The people of the Glebe put on a great show and we are sated until next year. À la prochaine.

                                                            

Spring is in the Air

Do I write a post with that title every year?

Well it's currently about minus 40, but there is something about the light out there that tells me that true spring is right around the corner. The weight is lifting in all respects: I see a little patch of grass showing through the snow on my lawn and it is green. The light is rich and warm, no longer the harsh blue light of winter. The birds seem happier. And it looks like 1982 at the end of our laneway, as my husband has agreed to discard a number of things from our basement in our first movement towards spring cleaning.

Big plans are, as always, afoot; I was slowed by the baby for a little while but I'm back in fighting form. The only difference is that I am now using my poor husband as my arms and legs where the heavy lifting is concerned.

I have just completed a mini-renovation of my back office. For years it was the zone that everyone had to walk through to get to the bathroom so it received heavy traffic, yet was the one horribly untouched area of our house. We painted one wall and re-did the floors, but left the nasty barnboard siding on the other wall, threw our big ugly desktop computer back there, stacked up a bunch of junk and never really thought about it again. A few years ago I ripped the barnboard off of most of the wall and realized too late that the nails holding it on were 4" long and tore the crap out of the dark-purple drywall underneath. It was a mess. Spider webs covered the ceiling, the baseboards were long gone, there were holes all through the plaster, and we'd for years just stuck thumbtacks all over it indiscriminately.

So over the past month I tore the remaining barnboard off of the arch, patched the holes, painted the ceiling, bought the craziest light fixture off of ebay, painted the wall a lovely deep plum/chocolate colour, bought, painted and installed new baseboards, painted the light fixture pumpkin orange, bought and installed some shelves from Ikea, and bought a bunch of new officey storage containers in bright colours to hide my junk. It looks marvellous if I do say so myself. Makes me want to sit at the desk and play office.

Next up, we are re-doing our basement, switching the bedroom (currently holding my project-type stuff and baby things from other people) and the main room (currently hubby's fishing room). Hubby will install his stuff in the bedroom so the door can be closed to contain the spread of fishing stuff throughout our basement, and the main room will become a kind of rec room where we can do crafts when Nora gets older and hang out when it's too hot outside. As well, it can be used as a spare room when and if people ever visit us again, since there's an adjacent bathroom. We'll see how this goes.

Before all that happens, this week I am converting the space in our kitchen where our wall oven used to be into a proper pantry with six shelves. I can hardly wait. I've bought shelving material, new doors and hardware, but the first step – hopefully completed tomorrow – will be the demolition. I am taking away the cupboards above and below the oven hole and making it a full-height pantry, so we'll see how it goes. Oh I am so excited by the prospect of new storage space you have no idea.

About two weeks ago, Nora and I planted this year's crop of veggie seeds, and now we have a little garden going on in the grow-op – two varieties of tomatoes, hot yellow wax peppers and basil are up. Thai basil didn't happen this year, and I haven't started the squash etc. yet. Before all of this goes into the ground, I am going to till the entire veggie garden – scraggly perennial plants be damned – and add in some compost and peat moss. I do the compost/peat moss thing every couple of years or so and it seems to make zero difference; my soil is still hard clumping clay. I don't know where it all goes.

And then onto the big kahuna of projects. When Nora was born, I laboured under the impression that her crib would stay in our room for the first 6 months, and then she'd move to her room downstairs on the main level. We decorated it and moved the t.v. out and have been hanging out back there all day every day since. However. The reality is, I'd like her to be in our room for a year or so. I still reach over and check her about 4 times a night. After that year is up, I have discovered that I'm just not comfortable having her on a different floor, for a number of reasons: fire, intruders, I can't hear her down there, and it's just too darn far for night terrors, potty training and other after-dark needs. So. We are considering turning our large master bedroom and two large walk-in closets into a smaller master bedroom, small nursery-style bedroom, and powder room, all on the upstairs level. We would have to live with a normal closet (shared! The horror!) along one wall of our room, and we'd lose some circulation and furniture space, but I have been dithering about it for a few weeks and I just don't see another way around it without breaking the bank completely and changing the structure of our house. If we weren't planning on building a cottage next year, we'd probably sell and buy a larger house, but that's not currently in the books as we wouldn't be able to do both financially. Funny thing is, my childhood home is for sale and it would be close to perfect. Its pros include having four bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office, a dining room, a large sunken living room and a separate garage, not to mention the comedic value of buying my childhood home. Its cons include the Vietnamese-run grow-op in the condemned house next door, a crazy woman who I would rather avoid living down the street, and the house possibly being haunted. Hm Hm. I think we're going to just go ahead and live with a smaller bedroom.

Also on the books this spring: mapping out the placement of our cottage and starting to cut down trees, probably fixing up our trailer a little bit, doing a bit of work around the brother-in-law's cottage (planting wildflowers, rescuing his errant dock), pruning the apple trees in front of our house, and getting rid of the old Saturn in our yard. Holy mac we are busy. The advantage is: I am home full-time, so I can manage the gardening and act as project manager for the upstairs reno. People yet-to-be-hired will do the work upstairs. Hubby can do the cottage stuff on the weekends and between fishing trips. Nora is going to learn that her mummy and daddy are active, and there's always some kind of project on the go.

I have one more big project in the wings, but I'm saving that post for another day. Suffice to say, it is a very busy spring for all of us, but now that the grind of winter is over, everything seems doable.

Bad Momma

The other day I was working on some financial stuff when I looked up to find Nora on her stomach victoriously clenching Rosie's disgusting stuffed soccer ball in both hands. This is one of Rosie's most repulsive toys – it's crusted in dog slobber, the stuffing is slowly being ripped out of about three different holes, and it's been dragged outside, downstairs, upstairs and all through all manner of dirt. I suspect Nora may have had it in her mouth two seconds earlier.

Nora's seven months old now, and she's become pretty mobile. She can't crawl forward yet, but she does a kind of rolling/pivoting/backwards crawling hybrid that manages to get her around the room, including underneath furniture and towards the dog and her gross playthings. I realize that I need to keep a much closer eye on her, even if I think there's nothing around she can get into – I can always be foiled by the dog. It was one more incident that made me give myself a sidelong glance and ask "am I a good momma?"

I know that I am good at a bunch of things that make me a good momma: I give Nora a lot of love. I hold her. I respond to her cries at night – not so quickly that she learns to yank my chain, but quickly enough that she doesn't feel alone. I have thereby managed to get her to sleep from 9 p.m. through to 6:30 a.m. or so. I play with her and talk to her constantly. I am happy to let her roll around on the floor by herself but I step in if she's struggling too hard or falls over – I'm never too far away. Hopefully she knows all of this.

But there are a few things that I need to improve upon. They include:

- I let the dog babysit. I know they say "never leave a baby alone with a dog under any circumstances" but this is Rosie we're talking about. Most of the time she lays on the couch sleepily observing Nora at play, and once in a while she'll come close and lie beside her sort of protectively. The most she's ever done is lick Nora on the face. Nora, on the other hand, is intent on harassing the dog – she screams at her, grabs her paws (the other day I walked in and she had the pad of Rosie's paw in her mouth – they were being watched by their father at that particular moment), pulls chunks of her fur, grabbles at her ears, sticks her wee fingers into her gums and nostrils and other atrocities. She genuinely loves Rosie, and I think Rosie knows it, because the most she ever does is move away or give me a pleading look. I wouldn't ever leave the house or even have a shower with Nora under Rosie's supervision, but I am relatively comfortable leaving the room for a few minutes.

- I am too eager to introduce new foods. Last week, poor Nora had an all-over body rash, probably attributable to the peaches I fed her for the first time two days before. However, when I called the public health line, I admittedly was unable to narrow it down to which new food it could be, because in the past three days I'd given her peaches, blueberries, garlic (to jazz up some boring green beans) and a little bit of my oatmeal (laced with a bit of milk) for the first time. I didn't fess up to the garlic or the oatmeal (who's allergic to oatmeal? Ok milk maybe…), and the nurse said it's unlikely to be the blueberries, so I blame the peaches. Really, I blame myself. I am too excited to feed her new things – I need to reign it in a bit until she's at least 8 months or so. And then hoooo baby watch out. Thai food here we come.

-Nora has received a rather varied musical education, including rap, rock, etc. etc. I had great intentions of playing classical music for her, but the house is gloomy during the day while we're here alone, and I feel like we are a couple of girls who need dance parties. She really does prefer Bob Marley and Lady Gaga, I swear.

-Nora knows the theme music for the Ellen DeGeneres Show, and cranes her head around to the television whenever she hears it. I feel horrible about this but after a long day of singing the itsy-bitsy spider and propping her up so she can play with her toys, and feeding her endlessly, by 6 p.m. we need some outside entertainment. Ellen is family-friendly. I try to read her books during the show but all she wants to do is smack them and rip the pages out, so for now anyway, television it is.

-I let her take naps in my arms. Bad practice, I know. For all my bragging about her night-time sleep, I am horrible at regimenting her daytime sleep. She falls asleep in my arms while I'm feeding her and I have a tendency to just leave her there, because as soon as I put her down in a bed she wakes up and stays up. I use the time to read books or send emails, quietly typing with one hand. I recognize that I have to get her to sleep in a bed for her naps, I do, it's just tempting to snuggle her warm little body while she's not squirming and wrenching herself away from me.

- I put her to sleep with a quilt in her bed. I know I know, but it's tucked tightly at the bottom of the crib and she can't get it loose. If she ever squirms down far enough for it to be a problem, she'll encounter the end of the crib before her head is covered, and it's stiff enough that it will form a little cave with a decent opening. Amazingly though, she squirms upwards every night, so that in the mornings I find her way above her quilt, on her stomach, in her sleep-sack. I added the quilt because there's no heat in our room, and she was waking up a bit chilly. I used to swaddle her but that stopped working around 4 ½ months, so now she has a tight quilt and a light sleep-sack. I also used to worry about her sleeping on her stomach but she flips herself over and seems to be good at it, and also seems most restful that way, so I let her be and I just wake up every 20 minutes from 5 a.m. onward to check on her breathing. Ha ha.

There are other things: I never remember to use a bib so most of her shirts are stained with sweet potato or squash, I stick her in her exersaucer for short periods so I can do housework (even though I swore up and down I'd never have an exersaucer in my house), I let her drink my club soda a couple of times because the resulting face she pulled was hilarious, yet she actually seemed to like it, the little weirdo. I still swear quite a lot. We have taught her to stick out her tongue, blow raspberries and shake her head but she to date can't get the hang of waving hello or goodbye. She kind of waves randomly throughout the day. I don't allow her to explore/play with her food, even though some say it helps them learn to eat. Blech. I rarely put mittens on her because she hates them so much – I prefer to just bundle her up with blankets and hope that the hands stay in there. Once, I forgot to buckle up her car seat (I was horrified to tears when I discovered it, trust me). She has been scratched by the cat – once; the cat was justifiably punished and now avoids the baby. The other day I was standing her up against something and in a moment of distraction, her legs buckled and her head hit the floor ever so slightly, and (drumroll) I let her stay up until 9 or 10 p.m. every night, just because she's fun. Oh my god I'm a monster. Please do not call Child Protective Services on me.

All this being said, she's our kid, the product of the two of us, and we are raising her to be part of our family. Truth be told, we are the kinds of people who eat a lot of different things, watch t.v., swear occasionally (especially her father – hi Mr. Gennyland!), stay up late, have dance parties from time to time, think it's funny to blow raspberries, and have a dog that's a complete undisciplined pain in the butt, but sweet and trustworthy. I make it sound like I am negligent and cavalier about these things but in reality, I am not. I am constantly aware that at all times I am likely screwing something up. However, she remains the sun around which I revolve. We have tiny adventures every day and I believe these are good for her – she will hopefully have a great sense of humour, be confident in the knowledge that we are here for her and love her, be comfortable with and kind to animals, appreciate all kinds of music, and have a well-developed palate. Hopefully she will be the type of kid to roll with the punches. And hopefully I will be the kind of momma to roll with the punches too.

Goodbye Auntie Medela, Farewell Uncle Domperidone

My darling baby girl is five months old, and I have decided that she will not perish if I feed her formula.

After much arduous back-and-forthing about the guilt, the routine, the difficulty in juggling tiny amounts of milk, the advantage of this over that and blah blah blah and kvetching to everyone I know, I'm finally weaning Nora off of breast milk. Veeeeerrrrrry sloooooowwwwly. As of this writing her diet is still mostly breast milk – I would say 56% if I had to assign a number to it – and the rest is the most easily-tolerated formula with the best probiotics and omegas and junk in it that I could find. She doesn't seem to care. Also, a decent part of her diet is now solid food: rice cereal, banana, squash, avocado, pear, apple, sweet potato and carrot have gone down the chute so far. I jumped the gun a month ago when the public health nurse said "you could start her on purees at 5 months" I took it to mean "start NOW!" so she's been practicing the spoon for a few weeks now. No harm no foul. My doctor said I can experiment and even jump to chicken and other meats if I want, and I do, because feeding her is a lot of fun. I can't wait to share the world of food with Nora.

When I started with our breast milk routine, I diligently pumped 8 times a day under the advice of a lactation consultant and the constant gnawing fear that my milk supply wouldn't come up. Around October I allowed myself to drop one pumping session, usually late at night, so I went to 7 times a day. That fell to 6 in November and before Christmas I was doing it 5 times a day. Now I have bumped down to three, partially for my own comfort. I continued to take Domperidone, not because I believed I had to keep my supply up, but mostly because I paid for the bottle and I will damn well get my money's worth. Today I took my last pill. Three times a day is pretty do-able – I pump in the morning with my coffee while Nora is playing in her crib, around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and then before bed at 11 p.m. or so. That one's the kicker, because I am spoiled now and I just want to hit the sack. Nora has been sleeping through the night (fingers crossed) so when I crash at 11:45, I'm down until 6:30.

Nora grows a bit slowly. Nothing that I do seems to change this fact. She gains weight equally slowly on breast milk as on formula, though I have to say that since upping the formula amounts, I believe she has started to visibly fill out a bit and her cheeks are much rosier. Her development is not affected by this slow growth in any way, and I actually attribute the snail's pace to the fact that she is, as Dr. Spock describes it, "a wiry, energetic baby." She never. Stops. Moving. When you hold her on your lap she needs to be standing, or wriggles her body around to face whatever noise or action is going on in the house at the time. If I lay her flat on the floor, she can very quickly rotate herself around like a clock or flip over. She grabs everything in sight, including my hair, which she will take hold of and use it to pull my face towards hers, manically going after my nose with her mouth (I call them baby attacks). Her feet are going, her mouth is going, her hands are scratching at everything within reach, and she's chatty to boot. She is a little dickens already, at five months, but little she is – she is not yet as heavy as my cat, who well exceeds Nora's 14 lbs. - though she is tall for a baby, at 26 inches.

I worry about this a lot. The public health nurse who gave her her last shots told me that a baby her age should be drinking between 30 and 32 ounces a day, but I literally can't pour any more than 28 down her throat without resorting to a feeding tube, which I feel is a bit extreme. She's got chubby cheeks and a perfect little body, and she's sharp as a tack, and if I moved around as much as she does I would weigh a lot less as well. Quebec's CLSC system is pretty handy and relatively efficient but they really have to stop measuring all babies according to one standard. I have learned that babies are as different as the adults they become.

So I have decided that since she is a super-healthy baby with no medical issues as yet, she will be as healthy on formula as on breast milk, and perhaps might even pack on a bit more weight so as to shut up the public health nurses. I will not renew my prescription for Domperidone. I will wash my pump parts and sterilize everything and carefully pack them all away into my cute/handy black tote bag, and store them in the basement in case I have another kid or someone else close to me is crazy enough to use it. I will put away my femmebot bra (the black one with the holes cut into it for the pump horns), my copy of "Making More Milk" that I never really read, the extremely optimistic breast milk freezer storage bags I bought the day my doctor first prescribed Domperidone and never once used, and I will once again start wearing nice bras. Ones without clips on them. I will expand my wardrobe to include shirts with difficult buttons, put this whole weird and wacky chapter behind me and not look back. I never want to live with that sickening Medela yellow again.

I have all new equipment now – a can of formula, a thermos of pre-boiled water with a cute "Nora" sticker on it, ice cube trays full of fruit and veggie purees, a box of rice cereal, some tiny wacky Japanese bowls I bought in San Francisco when Nora was the size of a grain of rice, and some delicate little spoons that were used to feed me 35 years ago. Tonight Nora sat in a high chair beside me at dinner, and ate some of my carrots all mashed up. She loved it, and so did I.

Onwards!