Monthly Archives: March 2008

P365 Day 84 – March 24th 2008

This is the standard view I have of Thomas these days – a blur of motion. I think it’s the reason I haven’t put on as much weight this pregnancy, even though my calorie intake defies the logic.

My three big indulgences – wine, sushi and chocolate. Two of those are not the best things to consume while pregnant which leaves me with chocolate. And I have definitely been using it as my crutch. Luckily I have a toddler to chase after, carry around and generallly corral on a daily basis. It’s called balance. 🙂

House Renovation Update

Remember this?

 

Now it looks like this.

The second floor of our house is completely gutted. The walls are gone, toilet and sink disconnected, drywall has been removed and the insulation has been thrown away. They have also removed the chimney that vented our hot water heater which will free up a lot of space upstairs. We still have the chimney from the fireplace but that doesn’t cut right through the middle of the house.

The roof is still on but we expect that to be demolished this week and I am hoping that, for once, the rainy northwest doesn’t live up to it’s reputation. Weather reports are not looking great but I have my fingers crossed.

Thomas and I are hiding out at a friend’s house during the day because did I mention that Daycare is closed this week? Yes, great timing. I still have to work so we are asking a lot of favours from friends right now just so Thomas can play and I can work in dust-free peace and quiet.

Yes, there is dust (and there will be more dust), people walking through our house and lots of noise, but so far nothing we can’t handle.

We are one week in with about 15 more to go…

P365 Day 83 – March 23rd 2008

Easter morning. This is the best photo I could get thanks to low light and a moving toddler. We don’t have a lot of room to hide eggs this year thanks to our compressed living conditions so I made a half-hearted attempt at creating a little egg trail that Thomas had to follow to gather eggs to put in his basket. I gave him a few chocolate eggs but also three plastic eggs containing matchbox cars, a book and some Wiggles stickers that the Easter Bunny magically knew to grab before we left the concert.

I hadn’t really built up the whole Easter Bunny thing so I think it was a nice surprise for Thomas rather than something he was anticipating.

The rest of our Easter was very low key spent relaxing and tidying up before the construction chaos begins again tomorrow. OK, part of it was recovering from the Wiggles concert. Being 7.5 months pregnant is not the best situation to be in when you have to carry a 30 pound toddler down about 100 very steep stairs in a concert arena. There’s no nice way to say it – I was knackered.

P365 Day 82 – March 22nd 2008

Saturday was a VERY big day. Thomas and I went to see The Wiggles in concert. Yes, those four middle aged men in coloured skivvies who sing and dance to entertain toddlers. It was so much fun!

Thomas and I met up with three of my friends who have kids the same age. I met most of this group when I was pregnant with Thomas and the kids were all born within three months of each other (the boys within three weeks). My choice for photo of the day is the best shot I was able to get of them all together. They were pretty much done by this stage and ready to go home.

From the moment The Wiggles came out on stage, Thomas was awestruck. He sat on my lap with his mouth open for the first 15 minutes of the show, like this…

I don’t think he could quite believe what he was seeing. And then when Captain Feathersword came out… well, the only thing I can compare it to is if I ran into Robbie Williams on the street. OK, I may not be as composed as Thomas if I were to run into Robbie. Here are some more photo highlights.

You can see how close we were – 6th row on the floor. The best concert seats I have ever had. For Wiggle virgins – that’s Murray Wiggle in the red.

The aforementioned Captain Feathersword. Not sure what Thomas’ attraction is.

Thomas and Ava. She is such a little performer. And I promise Thoams did dance (and smile) during the show. It was just difficult to catch on camera.

Ava decided to sit on my lap and of course Thomas couldn’t let that happen unless he had some part of it too.

The famous big red car and the close of the show.

We had a ball and the kids were great. Not one meltdown during the entire show and, apart from a slight incident where Thomas fell though the back of a folding chair onto the concrete floor, the entire adventure was a success!

We got home at about 7:00 and that’s when Thomas decided that it was all too much. A very tired little boy went to bed crying. Not the perfect end to a perfect day but I think Thomas will remember this for a long time. Well…until he forgets his toddler years anyway. Seriously – who can remember when they were two years old?

Oh and we finished our taxes – see, the perfect day! 🙂

P365 Day 81 – March 21st 2008

Thomas’ daycare has a Friday Fun night every couple of months where he gets to stay at daycare until 10pm, eating pizza, playing with his friends and watching a movie. OK, not as much fun for the kids and the caregivers as it is for Mum and Dad. This is one of the very few opportunities where Kei and I get to spend some time together doing adult things like dinner and a movie.

Since our night is over at 10pm we start early. This time we decided on happy hour at the Sapphire Hotel. Happy hour in Portland means regularly priced drinks but cheap food. Perfect for a pregnant woman with a big appetite. 🙂

Next we stopped for some Gelato and then made our way to the Laurelhurst theatre to see Atonement. We had planned on No Country for Old Men but it seems they changed the movie time on us and we were working to a strict 10pm curfew. We actually bumped into two other sets of parents at the same movie – neighbours with kids in the same daycare. I guess everyone equates Friday Fun with catching up on the movies they missed.

I was a little skeptical about Atonement since I had tried (and failed) to read the book, but the movie was actually really great. Not very uplifting, but a great story and wonderful cinematography. I would give it an A-. The night overall definitely an A. We had a great time.

We picked Thomas up at 10 which was nearly three hours past his bedtime. He was pretty tired and cranky and didn’t actually want me to touch him which was a little heartbreaking. I had to wake him up three hours into his nap on Saturday so I guess he was pretty wiped out.

The Easter Egg Hunt

I am now at that stage of parenting when it is important (or seen as important) to get Thomas involved in some traditional activities around the holidays. Before the age of two it’s really about the parents since the kids have little clue about what’s going on. Now that Thomas is two and a half, however, he fully understands the implications of events that involve chocolate or presents or cupcakes. For example, he tells me at least once a week that it will be his birthday tomorrow. Poor kid doesn’t realize he’s only half way there.

Now I fully support special events like Christmas and birthdays but Easter is another matter. It’s not that I don’t appreciate that holiday itself, it just seems a lot more commercial here in The States than it does at home. Maybe it’s the way we celebrated when I was a child. Every easter we would go camping thanks to an extended 4 or 5 day weekend and the easter bunny would leave eggs around our tent for us to find in the morning.

In America there is no holiday and the easter bunny brings toys (and seemingly anything else) rather than just eggs. The one tradition I thought would be fun was the Easter Egg hunt. Now that is something I can support – very little effort on my part and fun for Thomas. So when I found out about an easter egg hunt at the park near our house I thought perfect – this will keep Thomas occupied for at least an hour. I was wrong.

The eggs were thrown out on the grass so there was really no “hunt” and the whole thing was over in two minutes – no exaggeration! I guess I was a little disappointed. I had expected more time for photos after all… 🙂

I guess I do have to take some responsibility. As you can see from the photos, Thomas doesn’t really look like the catalogue images of toddlers in pastel Easter outfits with little wicker baskets. He chose to wear his “Pirate” shirt and carry a cookie monster easter basket for the event. I did try to dress him in something else but his closet is not really overflowing with pastel colours. It’s not really my (and therefore Thomas’) style.

The eggs were plastic and filled with a variety of little toys, nick nacks and chocolate.. oh and some money which was a little weird for a toddler event.

We went to a friend’s house after the hunt and on the way home Thomas decided to look through the goodies in his easter basket. I had forgotten that there were some Hershey’s kisses in there but didn’t think Thomas would know to unwrap them and eat them anyway. So I was driving down the freeway (not able to stop) and this little voice from the back seat says “Mummy, it’s broken”. I look back and he has managed to peel the foil off one of the kisses and it’s melting in his hand. So I said “you’d better put it in your mouth before it melts than, but no more”. A minute later “Mummy, this one’s broken too”. Needless to say, all Hershey’s kisses were gone by the time we got home. This kids is definitely starting to outsmart me.

Acting way more grown up than I feel

This morning after I woke up… I got my two year old ready for daycare, got myself ready for work and answered questions  the construction workers currently demolishing part of our house. Then it occurred to me. I have a child and another on the way, I have been married almost nine years, I have a “real” job with real responsibilities AND I am paying off a house that is now under major construction that costs money. This is no longer just the house we live in for now, this is our investment.

Oh, and I am 32 years old (OK – nearly 33). How did this happen? I certainly don’t feel like a grown up. I don’t feel much different than the 20 year old university student who felt way out of her depth student teaching high school kids who were just a couple of years younger than me.

So I went to the internet in search of answers – the place for everything that is meaningful and profound.

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I guess it’s official…

P365 Day 78 – March 18th 2008

Another “before” photo. Taken this morning before the work was set to begin. I say “set to begin” because nothing really started today. I think they were running a little late and the dumpster guy is waiting for them to pull down our back fence. Fingers crossed that we will start moving tomorrow and the back of house will begin it’s transformation. In the meantime, we can enjoy the peace and quite before the trucks roll in.

By the way – that little dormer there is our toilet. The more I look at it the more odd it looks.