intimacy

It is hard to believe how much Emma, baby, MrH and I have become our own little tribe.  We are very close.  Particularly since I am at home all day long with the kids, and take them with me everywhere I go, as I was writing before, I am very attached to them, and to the feeling of having them WITH ME, just like during a pregnancy.  (I suspect this is at least partly due to my being a control freak who needs to know all the time what the kids are doing).  This is just our way of life.

Enter nanny, and the option today of leaving the kids with her while I go buy lightbulbs and toilet paper and odd grocery items like cream of tartar (don't ask).  I went without them, mainly because I wanted to see what it would be like.  On the plus side, I went to three different stores and to the post office in the span of less than one hour.  I got to tick off a list of items that had been running on over the past two weeks, I was just strategically trying to do it without having to put the kids through the stress of being in and out of their car seats so many times.  On the minus side, by the time I reached the hardware store (my last stop), I was so lonely and sad that I was jealous of the mothers coming in with three kids in tow.  I mean c'mon, we all know that having to do shopping with kids is universally the stuff of parental nightmares, and yet, I found myself missing my little wingman and my little wing lady.  (Never mind the fact that the woman with the multiple kids is actually working, and she probably had just picked up her kids from school/daycare after being away from them for the whole day).

This is going to take some getting used to.  Having the nanny in the house feels intrusive to both Emma and me.  Today, as I was putting Daniel to sleep with a boob in his mouth, Emma climbed into bed with me, shut the door (the nanny was in the kitchen, putting the groceries away), and she said "mommy, I want to go home".  I wanted to say "so do I". My feelings exactly, little girl.  We don't like change, and this is Big Change to all three of us.  Luckily for Daniel, he is mellow and little and just goes along for the ride.  I am big and anxious, and feel like opposing the change with all four hoofs digging in the dirt.

Anybody remind me where the carrot is?  It is supposedly dangling in front of my nose, but I just cannot see it, tears clouding the view and all... (One would be completely unable to tell that it is I who chose to have a nanny instead of dropping off the kids at daycare, because of the daily grind of having to be in time both for my work start and for the daycare closing time).  Yep, people, it was my choice.

On the plus side, my house has never been cleaner.

Here are some pictures of what my kids look like in the snow.  It was -5C today (23 F), and we had fun while I shovelled the driveway and the patios.  Emma likes to help with her own shovel, and baby likes to sleep on my back (preferably) in the Ergo carrier, or in the stroller if the going gets rough and I have to do a lot of shovelling fast.

mixed feelings

I am feeling quite mixed up at the moment about having household help.  On the one hand, it is nice to have someone else do the sweep/vacuum/mop routine, and to have somebody look after the kids while I am doing the grocery shopping or going to my piano lesson, for instance.  But on the other hand, I am very very VERY used to having Emma and Daniel accompany me everywhere I go, and having them around when I do the cleaning.  Emma even helps out by now.  It is hard, exceptionally hard sometimes to have to carry four piano books, a super-bundled up baby (the clothes have more volume than the baby at this point of winter), and a toddler that is dressed in head to toe snow gear to the point that she needs help getting in and out of the car.  I definitely stress out about not having enough hands.  So that madness can end now...

On the other hand...how sweet to have my two children with me everywhere.  They are part of my life just like the air I breathe.  The post office lady knows them, and is used to me shuffling boxes and baby while struggling to find my VISA, all at the same time as unwrapping the compulsory lollipop that Emma gets whenever we go there (she has learned to expect it, and now she asks the post office lady for it shamelessly!).  The piano teacher is used to holding my baby on her lap, while Emma is sitting on her couch looking at books.  The baby is used to being on the kitchen floor while Emma and I empty the dishwasher.  It is not always love all around, but it mostly is, and we are incredibly close.  Now this bond is about to change somehow, because of the presence of the nanny, and because of the shortened amount of time that I will be spending with the kids.  I feel that we are always going to be quite attached at the hip, if the kids allow it, because that is my natural tendency, but the truth is that we will probably never be quite as close as we have been during this past year.  So much has happened, so much trauma, so many miracles, so much drama, so much love, and while it was hard, it created this intimacy that envelops us at this point, and that I am scared of losing.

As an aside, I am suddenly aware that ever since I have emigrated to Canada in my late teens, it has been just my nuclear family around me and no other relatives or help of any kind.  It was difficult, but  it created a type of enmeshment which I have felt comfortable recreating within my own family.  I love having just MrH, Emma and Daniel around, and nobody else. I feel a bit protective towards this small and dear family of mine, and do not want to share this space and this love with anybody else.  I am pretty sure that somewhere in the past few sentences I have lost all logic and am thinking with my primitive brain, the one that is trying to protect the tribe from intruders.  Even when the intruders are helping me clean the house and make it possible for me to work, earn money and practice the profession that I love.  Sounds terrible, doesn't it?

the nanny begins

Tomorrow the nanny is coming to our house for the first time.  She will be looking after the kids for five hours a day or so, and helping to clean the house for the other three hours.  I am very apprehensive, because I have never had a nanny, nor do I know really what they do.  I have been looked after by my grandparents when I was little, and so were all my friends.  When that was not possible, I went to kindergarden (a big daycare really).  My daughter Emma has been going to a person's in house daycare, and then to a bigger daycare when she reached the age of 2.  She enjoyed it, but I am fairly certain that she has enjoyed being with me a whole lot more.

Daniel is only six months adjusted, and I am apprehensive to leave him, and Emma is very much attached to me, so I am not too thrilled about leaving her either.  However, it is time for me to go back to my work.  I have invested lots of time and effort into my training, and the other day a nice lady I swim with said that I am very good at what I do and it would be a shame not to go back.  I was not even debating the possibility of not going back, but she certainly made me feel better.

Anyway, today, as I was making the beds, I was thinking that this might well be the last time in the next year or two that I am changing the sheets, since I sincerely think I am going to delegate this particular task to the nanny (insert big grin).  Sheets get changed every two days on our bed, because we all sleep in it and if I don't it takes on a nest-like aroma.

I am thinking that I might feel intruded on by the nanny, that my privacy with my kids in the mornings will be decreased, but on the other hand, not having to do all the housework will also be quite nice.  We will have to see how it goes.

Halloween has come and gone

Ohhhh, I have time to sit down and write!  What a luxurious five minutes this is going to be...
I cannot remember when time spent sitting at the computer to blog has become akin to a massage and pedicure at a high end spa, but I guess it must have been around the time I had a baby on top of the toddler to look after, and probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of when our TV fell down from a great big height on top of MrH and broke (the TV, not MrH, he is thankfully ok).

I am a happy happy clam.  Next week I am going back to work, part time in the afternoons, and I doubt that I will be as happy then as I am now, but, staying in the moment, for now all is well.  Winter has come for real here, but the cold is still not too bad.  -6C this morning (21 F), and I went for a run that lasted well over one hour, because some of it was slippery and I had to walk.  I got a pair of shoes with spikes, but they have not arrived yet, and so far I might as well be skating on portions of the forested path.

I am finding that in winter my energy level is not as high.  Waking up at 5:30 am to go swimming, or at 6 am for a run, is quite the chore.  Once I am done, however, my body feels better, more alive and full of energy, until about noon when the BIG SLEEPY hits me.  We used to nap, all three of us, but I am going back to work in the afternoons, so I won't be able to anymore, and Emma has outgrown the need to nap, so she hangs out with me while baby is sleeping.  As a consequence, we now put the kids to sleep at 8 pm and have a whole 1-2 hours to ourselves (!!!!).  This is such a change, that I felt in a state of shock the first couple of evenings that it happened.  I cannot describe how much my kids have become part of my right hip, to such and extent that I am never without them, except for the morning exercise, when they are with MrH.  Now, to have them sleep soundly without us in bed while we can cuddle and talk, it feels like an unexpected gift.  I am slowly getting my husband back!  Yay!  ('cause I like him ;).  Also, as a bonus, I now have time to practice piano, so I have started taking lessons again, and I will have some more time to blog I guess, so I probably will start to post more regularly and to update the background, etc.

Halloween has been a great big party from morning until night.  I have allowed Emma to have enough candy until she did not want anymore (that wasn't even a lot), so that she can share with the kids coming trick or treating.  Here are some cute costume pictures:

Emma as a lion in the evening (a nice costume for layering lots of clothes underneath to keep her warm.  I much prefer this type to the Elsa dresses that made other girls freeze out there).

Oops, this is about half of the amount of candy that I ate.  Double this and you get the idea...and add a few cookies too...

This is little man dressed in the cutest costume ever.  I wish I had the tripod installed to be able to take a good picture of him (he was in my arms the whole time, as this costume made it hard for him to sit).  I at least wish I had bothered to take out the proper camera instead of the iPhone.  But I cannot complain, the iPhone has provided me with many opportunities to take pictures where before I would not have, at all...

 Emma as a princess for the morning Strong Start party (Strong Start is a place parents and kids hang out and do activities for a few hours).

Are there spirits in the forest?

Winter has come by in my neck of the woods.  It is cold, just below freezing, and also it has started to snow daily for the past few days.  The wind makes the temperatures feel like -10C easily, especially when I go running early in the morning.  I usually go at 6:30 am, and it is quite dark at that time.  My trail is not lit, and it does go through the forest for about 3 km or so, which is scary.  Some of the other girls who run say it is all a mind game, as the only thing to be afraid around here is wild life, and I believe that the bears started hibernating already.  It is only moose that we should fear, and perhaps the occasional wolf, although I have not seen or heard of any in town or around here.

A few nights ago I ran straight into a huge deer with gigantic antlers.  I have a flashlight, and by the ghostly white light of my pencil flashlight, the deer looked imposing.  I backed out respectfully and returned home.  To be honest, I am more afraid of the bad spirits that might be lurking in the woods (you know, like the supernatural kind, as in Twin Peaks), than of the real animals.  Those I know how to deal with by now.  Back up slowly and they will usually ignore humans.  The bad spirits on the other hand looked scary on the big screen and I don't want to see them in real life.  Oh, there's also the Blair Witch sort as well.  Good thing I don't watch TV anymore, as my imagination is the wildest beast of all, and I can't slowly back out of its way either.

As for the family, Daniel is growing, Emma is growing.  Daniel likes to smile at everyone, and he is such a social human being, that everybody loves to hold him.  Only occasionally he gets offended, and when he does, he cries for a long time and is upset with me for a bit.  He seems to remember that he is angry with me and gives me the long lip for quite a few minutes.  He is grabbing his toes, and started to roll from the back to the front.  He also loves to listen to me reading to both him and Emma for long stretches of time.  His attention span is actually very impressive.  The funniest thing is when he bangs on the piano with joyful glee, looking like a mini-pianist giving a concert.  Again the look of concentration on his face is really funny.

Emma is saying all sorts of funny things.  This morning she was playing with her toy German Shepherd that looks like a wolf.  She was pretending that the dog/wolf is saying "I'm gonna get you, big bad Red Riding Hood!".  I laughed to myself at the confusion and made a note to re-tell the story, as to get the characters straight.

Winter is keeping us in the house a lot more, although we get out twice a day at least.  We get bundled up, and will continue to add layers as the temperatures drop.  I remember that it was weird to me that the people around here bring their babies out in winter, bundled up to the point of being hard to hold.  I have become accustomed to the bundling up process to the point that I am finally not stressed out about it anymore.  It takes a lot of coordination to dress two kids with hats, mittens, socks, boots, and snowsuits, not to mention dressing myself as well.  As it is getting colder and colder, we will be adding balaclavas to cover up the faces, and also I will probably add a second coat over the first one, as well as a second hat, and gloves plus mittens.  (When we get back into the house, we fill up an entire couch with the clothes that we are removing).  I do think it is important to keep on getting out, just to feel free and not develop cabin fever.  Winter is a 8 month affair around here, so the sooner we adapt to it, the better.

The way of the mother

I suppose that it is a fact of life that I should just accept: the more there is to write about, the less time there is to write. I struggle to find the time for a blogpost that I compose in my head, tweaking it until it reaches a cursive flow of words that will never reach an actual page. I realize that I absolutely must write to my friend in Holland to tell her about my son, and about his baptism, and never get to sit down and do it until the moment has passed. I yearn for a fresh, smooth page in a notebook to analyze, summarize or maybe just record by hand in ink some of my days, but man, finding a half hour somewhere for actual handwriting sounds decadent and unnecessarily old fashioned even to me, who makes bread and cheese from scratch.

I wrote all this on my cellphone with my thumb while skipping a nap, while everyone else is sleeping. Perhaps this is the way of the busy mother. I know that once my kids are all grown up, and Emma's knees will no longed dig into my back, squishing me against Daniel's tummy, I will write at my desk and feel a lot more freedom but a lot more emptiness too. This is the way of the bound woman, with very little time but bursting at the seams with love and fulfillment.

The way of the mother