Mind of Emme

Blogs Dump

2012-01-21T15:15:00.002-08:00

I haven't really felt like blogging much but I have reading new blogs and have found some entries I really identify with. I know most people are now using pin interest... but I haven't brought myself to. So manually... these blog entries are ones that have stuck with me:

Friendly Fire - About women debating about staying home or going to work.
Don't Carpe Diem - For the days I don't enjoy "every second"!
Teaching the Art of Accepting Crappy Gifts - Christmas has come and gone... I dread the day I need to teach this to Adelaide.
While Mama Was in the Bathroom - Adelaide has become obsessed with "Daddy's Coffee"... I wonder if she'll try it one day.

That's the short list!

Adelaide's Problem Solving & Language

2011-11-14T22:33:00.009-08:00

Now that Adelaide has learned a lot more, there are some interesting and cute stories to tell:

1 -- Adelaide always runs into Tai Poh's (great grandma's) room and grabs something (usually something she's not supposed to have like TV remotes) then RUNS!

2 -- The other night, Adelaide went into Poh Poh's (grandma's) room to scope out the place and show grandma the sticker that was on her face. Afterwards, she came back outside to the living room to get her duck. She returned to poh poh's room and asked to trade her duck for a ruler on the bed. Poh poh said no since she still had to use it. Adelaide threw down the duck, grabbed the ruler, and RAN!

Yes... Adelaide knows that if she has something she's not supposed to and then runs - usually people are too lazy to chase after her for it. :) My mom's ruler is still missing.

3 -- Adelaide found some fuzz on the carpet and came to ask me to open the gate so that she could throw the fuzz away. I was comfy on the couch so I told her to go to the room and ask daddy to throw the fuzz away in his garbage can. Adelaide happily takes the fuzz into the room calling "Deh deh!" I hear her in the room going "hand, hand, hand" and a few seconds later, I see her holding P's hand dragging him out to open the gate for her to throw the fuzz away. If I had known she was going to drag him out of the room, I would have gotten off the couch!

4 -- In the mornings, my mom usually takes Adelaide so that I can sleep in for a couple more hours. Since I'm in the room, Adelaide's first diaper change is usually downstairs on the carpet at the base of the stairs with one of the diapers from the "going out" bag. One morning, P saw Adelaide take a teddy, put it on the carpet at the base of the stairs, and go into the "going out" bag for a new diaper - then attempted to put a diaper on the teddy!

5 -- I stand at the bottom of the stairs and call up to P to ask him to get me this or that or let him know that we're heading out. One day, I had just yelled up to P to let him know we were heading out and went to get something from the mudroom. (Usually the conversation goes as follows: "Hey P!!!" *wait for response, then get a response* "We're going out now!") When I'm in the mudroom, I hear Adelaide yell "P!!! P!!!! Pee-tah!!!!!!! P!!!!! Pee-tah!!" - I come back around the corner and she's looking up the stairs and yelling, exactly how I do it. I've been trying to get her to call out "Deh deh" so now the yelling is a mix of P, Pee-tah, and Deh deh.

6 -- The other day, Adelaide went to visit Timothy next door. In the report from P (since I wasn't around), it turned out Tim and Adelaide were jumping in the living room. Tim would actually jump and Adelaide would just crouch and stand up straight again while saying "One, Two, JUMP!"

7 -- The other day, I was in the kitchen and Adelaide brought in a ball of yarn. I noticed that the yarn had a tail behind it so I asked Adelaide for the yarn ball and started winding it up. I followed the yarn trail all the way back to the sweater grandma was sitting in her room knitting! It was a good 5 or so meters that Adelaide had brought the yarn out!

Not quite stories but are interesting is Adelaide's take to language.

I have taught Adelaide to say "door open" so now every time she needs something open, door/gate/can/lid on cup, she says "dorpen!".
We have a nursery rhyme book from the library that we've been singing with her and lately her new favourite is "5 little monkies". The way she asks us to start singing it is "mama? doct?" (As in "mama called the doctor...")
Another song we sing together is "Itsy Bitsy Spider". (I sing itsy bitsy, P sing incy wincy - close enough!) Her prompt for this song is moving her fingers and say "itsy bitsy peter". I can never understand the first 2 words but the "peter" is quite clear - it's cause she know's P's name.
Teaching manners to Adelaide has been kinda fun! We've taught her to sign and say "thank you". So far she'll put her hand to her mouth and say "Thanks" softly. It's very cute.
I've also taught Adelaide to say "please". If I prompt her with "What do you say" or "How do you say that nicely" after a request, she signs and says a very sugary "Pwease?". If it's something she really wants, she'll say "*item*? Please? *nods* Yea. *nods*" Basically giving our response with her request :)
Adelaide has definitely grown to like Timothy. Everyday, she'll usually ask for him or want to go visit him. We've taught her to say cuw foo (uncle) but she calls him "foo foo!" It's very cute watching Adelaide say "hand hand hand!" when she wants to hold his hand to walk somewhere. Though, Tim usually ignores her. :( He has yet to figure out how to fully interact with her.
Depending how shy she feels, Adelaide usually waves and says "hi" to strangers. Now she's also gotten to a point where she'll say "bye" when we're leaving. It's usually a string of "bye bye, see you, *blows a kiss*" AFTER someone has already left... We're working on the timing thing.
She's learned some of her numbers. Right now her counting goes like this: One, Too, Three, Five (she hasn't figured out four), Five (at which time, you need to give her 5), Six, Seven, Ten!

Those are the few things that have stuck out lately and are very fun to share :) Now time for bed and a big day of POD packing tomorrow. The new snow really sucks because it'll make it just that much harder to move stuff out to the pod.

Cheery

2011-10-23T21:18:00.003-07:00

Just a quick update on life for us. After my post about a week ago, life has gotten better. Sharing our experience has definitely given me some closure. We've received P's passport and will be sending it off for a VISA for work. Then hopefully, we can turn around and apply for the US VISA that we tried to in the beginning. (And NOT lose it this time)

I had an interesting epiphany today during service at church. The pastor was talking about how they arrived in Vietnam for one purpose but a year later they are still there but for a completely different purpose - the overall idea is that God can bring you from point X to Y to eventually get to point Z. I was thinking about where we 2 weeks ago and I was wondering if there was a reason everything happened to us. I don't know if it's me trying to find reason in nothing (which is quite easy in hindsight) but I feel that everything happened for.a.reason.

The trip to Vancouver, through the Rockies, into Calgary, then back to Edmonton was one that I really needed. As frustrating the events leading to the trip was, the trip itself was an awesome time for our family to be and play together. We had not been by ourselves as a family since our big Australia trip for Adelaide's first birthday. Just taking the time to visit old friends, enjoy nature, and taking a break from the normal routines was refreshing and definitely helped me get to where I am now.

So overall, we're doing well and everything is moving along quick. The house possession date is nearing and we're just packing and making good progress. We're chugging along well :)

Precious Angel

2011-10-13T19:57:00.000-07:00

My Update

As of October 15, I was supposed to be 3 months pregnant. It would have been a joyous time spreading the news to family and friends. Sadly, things have not gone as planned. I am sharing my story because I feel it will help me heal.

Overall, this second pregnancy was an exciting time for P and me - yes, this one was planned. It was such a good pregnancy too, I didn't have any morning sickness... which is absolutely amazing. I felt very not-pregnant since it was nothing like having Adelaide. It was cool to think that our kids would be close in age.

P was away on a business trip when I went in for my first ultrasound by myself - thinking nothing of it. The ultrasound technician noticed that I didn't drink enough water (or early enough, anyways) and then was unable to find a fetus. It turns out I had a condition called "Blighted Ovum". Basically, it means that there's a gestation sac (where the baby is supposed to develop) but the egg never grows - usually from a chromosomal abnormality. In terms of me, my body thinks it's pregnant but eventually realizes that there's no baby and naturally miscarries.

I found out about the condition on Sept 27th (9 weeks 3 days preggo) and the wait to actually miscarry was/is excruciatingly annoying and frustrating. I'm in a state where I know I'm not really pregnant but I have no control over when my body will miscarry - do I plan to stay home the entire time? I don't know! Not only is it hard to lose a baby mentally, emotionally and physically but waiting weeks for it to happens has really taken a toll on me.

On the emotional side of things, there are a lot of things I didn't realize were big for me. I never noticed how much I wanted kids to be close together in age - both to get the sleepless stage over with and for them to grow up close and play together. Seeing other families with children close in age also adds a bit of pressure - though fully self inflicted and subconscious (until I reflect on it). I also realized that I took my pregnancy with Adelaide for granted. The pregnancy with her was "easy" (without many scares) and quite textbook. Other than a lot of morning sickness (to remind me that she was growing big and strong), I loved growing her.

There are times where I feel an overwhelming feeling of loss and other times that I feel that I've accepted how things have turned out. I love everything about our little (or big, depending how you count) family. Adelaide is cute, learning, keeps me busy and smiling. I struggle with people who talk about babies/pregnancies and there are days I want to shout at the world. But other days, I'm just happy to see the joy that all babies bring. It doesn't help that Adelaide has developed a fascination with babies now and peeking into every infant car seat and stroller we pass. The world will not stop because of what's going on with me, no matter how much I want it to :)

The Trouble Continues

So on the note about the world continuing to spin... I found out about the baby (or non-baby, however you think about it) on a Tuesday. On Thursday I had to go to the airport to pick P up to head down to Calgary. We needed to apply for another US Visa for P since he hasn't received his permanent residency approval yet (almost two years and waiting!). While walking towards the consulate building, we realize that we cannot find P's passport! Knowing that we left that morning with it, we wander around downtown Calgary for 5 hours (by foot) retracing our steps with no luck. So to add onto our horrible week, we have an added stress of needing to deal with a passport issue!

The more we wander around, the more I lose hope of finding it. We were told by the people in the buildings we approach that no one (including them) would want to go to a police station to return it. (It was too far and out of the way) By the end of the day, we realize that to replace P's passport, we'll need to go to an in-person interview at the Australian Consulate. The closest one is in Vancouver. We gave the police a few days in hopes that someone returns the passport but in the end, we knew that we'd need to get a new one. We made the decision on Monday evening to head to Vancouver but how? With it being last minute, flight prices were incredibly high and points were ridiculous.

Travel Plans

I had to decide whether I wanted to stay home since I wasn't bleeding yet or we drive as a family to Vancouver. In the end, I decided that staying home waiting without P around would be harder for me. So P made an appointment for the interview on Thursday morning and we would drive to Vancouver Wednesday bright and early.

So on Wednesday, we started the drive at 6 am in the morning and with a couple stops here and there, we were in Vancouver by about 10pm. We got settled and went straight to bed (after the mandatory email checking, of course). We were able to get everything we needed to get done on Thursday - including visiting my old workplace and a few friends so we decided to leave Vancouver on Friday morning.

We traveled from Vancouver to Calgary over 3 days (2 sleeps). Hung out in Calgary for a bit and on my couple of hours alone with Adelaide while P was in a business meeting, I drop her stuffed monkey - which I've grown a particular connection with and Adelaide likes using it as an ice breaker. I've basically reached the conclusion that downtown Calgary eats things that are important to our family and I really don't want to go back there... :) I'm sure Adelaide's monkey is in a good new home and looking online, there are no replacements since it's an older model monkey. I'm happy Adelaide hasn't attached to it as much as I have.

Conclusion

It's been a very long time since I've blogged and having a super long, depressing one is probably not a good way to start up again. Things have been hard in the last few weeks, which gives me a stronger reason to vent but during the past year, there just hasn't been much interesting happening.

On a completely separate note, the new house stuff is coming along well and we'll most likely move in December (ack - it's supposed to be a record cold year). Whatever, I think we've dealt with worse :) Now I just need to take this blogging time and go pack stuff.

Afterword

P posted with this note and I find it very true...

This blog entry from Emily is written after-the-fact, and I think it is better to read it as "how we're all feeling now". The last couple of weeks were harder for our little family than she says.

Chinese Canadian

2011-04-30T13:30:00.001-07:00

So we arrived at the Sydney airport today and I ended up chatting with the security check guy while waiting for our bags to go through the scanner. This is the conversation we had:

Him: Ni Hao... Is that how you say it?

Me: Yea, that's right. Though I'm from Canada, we say "Hi" in English.

Him: Oh, you're from Canada?

Me: Yup!

Him: So were you from China originally?

Me: Um no... I'm from Canada, born and raised!

Him: Oh... wait hang on! You're Canadian?!?!? AND you're Chinese?

Me: Yup, I'm Canadian!

I proceed to walk through the metal detector. :) Should I also have mentioned the Canadian flag I have on my MEC backpack which was right in front of him?

World Traveler

2011-04-16T02:08:00.003-07:00

One thing I realized today is that Adelaide has been quite the traveler. I received an email saying "Your baby's 50th week" and I can't believe she'll be 1 year old soon! In her less-than-one-year, she has:

Been camping for a couple weeks
Done one big move from Vancouver to Edmonton
Visited Disneyland for a week
Survived an Edmonton winter with some -30C temps
Taken a 15.5 hour flight from Vancouver, Canada to Sydney, Australia (After a 1.5 hour plane ride from Edmonton to Vancouver)
Petted a koala
Fed an emu (kinda)
Taken two 6 hour train rides to/from the South Coast, New South Wales, Australia for amazing beaches

She has a couple more weeks until her first birthday and there is plenty more to do!

Back to Work?

2011-03-17T23:45:00.003-07:00

It's mid-March already... when I have always been thinking "Oh, my maternity leave doesn't end until April. That's far away!", mid-March is here WAY too fast. With our Australia trip coming up really soon, I decided that I should start applying for jobs in mid-Feb just to get my feet wet. I would have to say it's a lame attempt because I am not searching hard for job openings. Just if I knew about a job, I'd apply - even if I didn't think I'd qualify.

One of the jobs I felt completely under qualified for actually called me on Wednesday morning and arranged for an interview on Thursday afternoon. I had two issues that stopped me in my tracks once I agreed and hung up.

Issue One --> I HAVE NO CLOTHES TO WEAR!! One thing I did after giving birth was to go through my entire wardrobe and give stuff away. This was mostly done in a "I'm so fat" mood about 2 months after giving birth since I was panicking about having too much to pack for the move back to Edmonton. Now, almost a year later, I've lost a lot of weight and the clothes I do have are mostly too big. In the end, this issue was resolved by trying on everything I had and a trip to Goodwill. But if I do end up getting an office job, I have to go and do some MAJOR shopping.

Issue Two --> I haven't looked at code for almost a year. That was really my fault. P offered to let me help him with some of his programming such that I would continue to practice my skills. Being 10 months now that Adelaide doesn't sleep well (for the most part), I favoured all my free time to sleep and if I wasn't sleeping, I was too tired to try to learn his code. Added on to the point that I'd have to look at his code while watching a very awake Adelaide made it all the more unappealing.

The hours leading up to the interview and really during the interview itself, I was so completely nervous. I should backtrack to say that with our current family arrangement, it is my decision whether I go back to work. I feel very blessed to know that this is a decision I get to make. Therefore, I don't and didn't feel any pressure going into the interview because I needed the job... The nervousness I felt the entire time was because I didn't want to be wrong.

When the interviewers asked technical programming questions - ones that I felt should be easy to answer - I had so much trouble phrasing a response well. I had such baby brain, my English just stopped working. I call it baby brain just because it's what I felt when I was pregnant and I couldn't thinking as fast as I'd like due to morning sickness. Now I had no excuse to stumble over my words and for my brain to blank out.

After leaving the interview, I tend to go over questions in my head. I either look up my answers or ask P to clarify certain questions that stick out. Today, all the questions that stand out in my head, I answered wrong. I know I'm going to keep kicking myself until I figure out a way to turn my brain off. Hence, this blog. I find my mundane rambling seems to calm me down. I should note that Adelaide has been asleep for an hour since her last wakeup and I really should be sleeping too... if I could.

So until the day I can finally stop kicking myself for being wrong, I can't go to bed because someone was WRONG at an interview.

New Flower Donut

2011-02-23T09:53:00.002-08:00

I have been a fan of the awesome flower donuts from the beginning. Today, I found that they had a *new* one in association with the Roll Up The Rim contest! It is quite yummy! Nice bit of sour from the lemon and the awesome sugary goodness of the raspberry jelly!

YUM!

Family Day

2011-02-21T10:13:00.004-08:00

Today is family day - the first time I ever felt that "Hey, let's do something family-oriented on Family Day". So far everything's been off to a slow start. My mom took Adelaide early this morning so that P and I could sleep in. Sleeping in is such a luxury and it was very nice. I woke up in time to put Adelaide down for her first nap of the day and we'll probably head out once she's awake.

There's not much to add in the last 2 months. It seems to have flown by super fast. Adelaide is getting big very very fast. I notice her growth in terms of how many shelf levels she tries to pull stuff down in. Her crawling skills are becoming 1337 so she's super quick. You can hear a Doppler effect as she goes by or comes towards you. She's also climbing stairs lightning fast - we're in the middle of teaching her how to get down... Just yesterday, I saw her climbing on top of a box to get to an even higher level of shelf to attack. This is going to be fun and I'm SO glad our new house plans have changed so much to not have too much "open to below" sections from the upstairs. I can see Adelaide hopping over. We have noticed that she is afraid to fall now (thank goodness) so she'll stop at the end of the bed. Though it doesn't mean she doesn't fall backwards off the bed if she's not paying attention to where she lands her butt.

Adelaide is talking now too! First, we all weren't quite sure but she says a few things - not all totally useful. If anyone is carrying her down the stairs, she says "down!" (or what sounds like it). I've taught her to put things away in a toy box and so each item she puts in, she says "dehw" (throw in Cantonese). If she bashes things together, she says "dup" (means hammering in Cantonese). Seems like she may pick up more Cantonese first before English. We'll see. I speak fluent Chinglish to my mom so she's probably going to learn different words and mash them all together. In terms of signing, I know that she signs for "milk/nai nai", "sleep", "more" and "all done" sporadically. So she's most likely going to be a talker (in the "will they walk or talk first" question)... no signs of standing in sight.

We'll be heading to Australia for Adelaide's 1st birthday (April 30). I'm both excited and scared for the trip. It's 15 hours of a plane trip and I know how active Adelaide can be. I just hope we don't disturb other people on the plane too much. We're slowly planning what to bring and how we can possibly keep her entertained. It'll be quite the adventure - hopefully one that we can still enjoy in the long run.

I decided to register Adelaide as an Australian by Descent - thinking that I will be able to avoid the $20 visa Canadians have to pay to enter Oz. So I filled out the paperwork, spent $125, and she is now a Can-Aussian. (It's slightly funny to note that Adelaide is now a CITIZEN of another country in about 2 weeks and has never touched Australian soil... P is not a permanent resident in Canada as of 5 years.) When I called the embassy to check, they told me that it was "unlawful for an Australian to enter Australia without an Australian Passport". So Adelaide needs an Aussie passport... to which we find out that they need to "interview" Adelaide since it's her first passport. (In reality, they need to see either P or me... they don't have to see Adelaide at all.) Australian passports are also much more expensive than Canadian ones... Her Canadian (3 year) passport was $22 and the Australian (5 year) is about $150. So what I thought would avoid a $20 fee now costs us A LOT more. (Not to mention a trip to Vancouver - though seems like it'll only be P going... we were going to drive but the roads look a bit scary) On the positive note, as an Australian citizen, according to the current rules, Adelaide can get a "free" university education at an Australian university!

Starting the New Year

2011-01-02T14:21:00.007-08:00

First, I wanted to thank everyone for their comments on my previous entry. It was one of those moments when I could pin down how I was feeling and getting it out helped. It's nice to have other people who understand - mommy support groups should be mandatory! :) I've taken the last few days very easy. P has made a special effort to help me with Adelaide and it has given me some mornings to sleep in. He should receive an Amazing Daddy reward for taking care of Adelaide ALL day yesterday while I was a bridesmaid for my cousin Pauline's wedding.

Yesterday was a good day - it was the first in a long while where I could decide what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be (to a certain extent). I didn't have to stay in one room keeping an eye on Adelaide either picking her up or watching her crawl around. I could run around, up and down stairs to find empty cups and make coffee for others, etc. Not to mention, I got to get my hair and makeup done - which is rare to begin with but also a nice little pampering. I'm kinda excited to see what photos are like, I know I did not really stand in on any if at all.

I had gone to Pauline's early (6:30am-ish) leaving Adelaide with P such that I could get my makeup and hair done. When Adelaide and P caught up with me at 9 am, I had my makeup finished and my hair had been curled. Adelaide was still sleeping in the carseat. She was a bit upset when she woke up so P brought her into a room so I could feed her. She looked at me and was about to start sucking, then BIT ME! She started crying and wanting to go back to P. After she was in P's arms, she just kept looking at me with a puzzled look. Finally she has this "lightbulb" moment and smiles and wanted to come to me. For the rest of the morning, she will be in P's arms and I would be about to take her and she'd complain only for a moment then "Lightbulb! That's mommy!" again. She was fine by the afternoon.

My favourite comment of the night: "You look so pretty that I didn't even recognize you!" haha Excuse me, aren't I normally pretty? :P I know what they meant - those statements should be separated but it sounds funny!

The hardest part of the night was when we were prepping for the entrance of the bride and groom. The bridal party was to walk out first and the bride/groom comes in after us. The issue was that my mom, Tim, and P were going to park the cars while Grandma was sitting in the lobby and I was supposed to be carrying Adelaide. Grandma gets very tired holding Adelaide since Adelaide is always moving around so I'm always very careful about leaving Adelaide with Grandma for too long. The wedding couple were running late so I kept checking back on Adelaide. About the time we were lining up, I see Peter, Tim, and mom coming into the hotel, but something was wrong. Tim was gagging and vomiting as he was walking (it happens every so often when we make him walk too fast or we're going into a new place). I rush to the bar to try and get Tim a cup of juice, where this stupid (sad to say) asian waiter was like "bar is closed" and I'm like "I need a cup of juice for my brother right away. Can I just pour it?" *indicating the pitchers of juice on top of the bar and the empty glasses next to it* He's like "bar is closed". A few more times of this and Peter comes over, yells at the guy ("We have someone who is vomiting - *try to demonstrate vomiting* - we NEED juice!"), pours a cup of juice and we walk away. So I'm running back and forth between trying to figure out if my family will be okay (people thought I was impatient looking for bride/groom) and back in my space in line for the entrance. Do the entrance and run back to see my family coming in. For the circus my family is, this is a relatively small issue!

All in all, I am so VERY proud of Pauline and so happy for her. My eyes totally welled up (and one ugly cry) possibly more times than she did. Pretty good for me, being a known total waterworks! I am excited for the future of Podd (Pauline and Todd) and I hope to watch them grow together. Adelaide was a charmer and cute as a button, I'm proud of her being such a good girl for everyone yesterday.

To quote P: "Overall an awesome start to the year"!

Burnout

2010-12-29T19:46:00.003-08:00

Emily has mommy burnout. I'm cranky, tired, and generally just grr. This should pass - I hope! I'm sorry P, Adelaide, and mom!

Santa, Don't Eat Me!

2010-12-16T22:22:00.001-08:00

Dressed up people give me the creeps - Halloween is one of the worse times of the year in my opinion. Whether it's Santa at Christmas or Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, I think it's just wrong. Think about it, random old men dressed up or a 6 foot mouse! Does no one else see an issue here? Now that I have a little one, I have been making decisions on what I should expect from her. (P and I are still deciding on whether Adelaide receives gifts from Santa once she can understand.)

We went to a Christmas Party where Adelaide had her first chance to meet Santa. Sadly (or luckily for her) to say, I wasn't able to get her reaction about this weird old man since she fell very asleep. She got her gift with no stress involved.

When we went to Disneyland, Santa was also there and since the line looked small, we decided Adelaide can meet Santa - awake. This time, there wasn't even a gift involved either! She was happy and playful as we stood in line but once it was her turn on Santa's lap, her mood changed 180. She was wailing! We picked her up afterwards and she was alright again. The whole upsetting ordeal took about 60 seconds.

P feels a bit bad that we put Adelaide on Santa's lap and made her cry that badly. I don't feel quite the same. If you asked me to pin down my proudest mommy moment, I would say - without hesitation - it was that Adelaide realized how creepy Santa is and knew not to go near this strange old man! I think the most appropriated response any kid should have is, "Santa, don't eat me!"

Good girl Adelaide!

Travelling Circus

2010-11-09T21:19:00.002-08:00

Our household is a bit of a zoo when we travel. It's never carefree and guaranteed not to be boring! Everything takes planning, which has its pros and cons.

Take a dinner outing for Tim's birthday. We head to Peter and my favourite place ever - Red Robin. Also, Tim gets a free birthday burger. We arrive at the restaurant with Adelaide, Me, Tim, Peter, Mom, and Grandma. That's 1 infant who babbles in her own language, 1 senior who doesn't speak English, and 1 person with special needs who has limited vocabulary.

It's a weird train to go to the table as the waiter/waitress walks WAY too fast. Tim can walk faster than Grandma but slower than Peter. That leaves P to go to the table making sure Tim is following him while mom is making sure Tim isn't gagging (if he's forced to walk too fast or smells something weird, he gags) and I'm following behind while making sure Grandma's not lagging too much.

We settle into the table, though this takes a couple of attempts. Does P sit next to me and help me hold Adelaide or does he go next to Tim so that mom gets a bit of a break. Does Grandma sit in the booth where she has more room or out on the edge where there are people coming in and out. Do I sit in the booth with Adelaide so that she's in a protected corner or do I sit on the outside so I can walk with her in the CuddlyWrap? Does Tim sit in the booth so that he doesn't run away or does he sit on the outside so he has easy access to the washroom?

Time to order, what do we order? We all don't eat too much so we should share the burgers. Who should share with whom? Peter and Grandma can share the spicy one. Me and mom can share one while Tim gets one to himself. Or, Tim and mom can share and I get one to myself. After figuring that out, the poor waiter has to come over and know that 2 burgers are to be cut in two, maybe some fries are changed to salads...

Once we have our food, eating commences. Mom is trying to keep Tim clean since he tends to not focus while he's eating. P's trying to give Tim new experiences so he's trying to let Tim eat on his own. It's a constant balancing game on mom and P figuring out what Tim can/cannot do. I'm either trying to eat my burger or keeping Adelaide from grabbing my food. Sometimes she gets handed off to another adult while I snarf food down. Grandma doesn't like cheese or meat too much so she's yanking her burger apart and giving it over to P's plate. A lot of reaching across the table happens in all directions.

We finish up and prep everyone to leave the restaurant. Some need to go to the washroom, others need help with their jackets, while others will help carry bags that we've brought in. Finally our little windy train leaves the restaurant - usually together and in good spirits.

Going out may be a bit of a hassle but we all enjoy our time together and we're getting to know each other as a family. Next trip is Disneyland - minus Grandma, she doesn't want to do the walking. Now we gotta plan as this trip is Adelaide, Me, Tim, Peter, and Mom. There's possibly 2 baby carriers, 1 stroller, 1 wheelchair, 2 large luggages, and 2 backpacks in this mix. This circus is ready to go!

IKEA SALE

2010-11-09T21:17:00.001-08:00

You know how I noted that we have tealights galore? 100 tealights are on sale at IKEA for $1.99 this weekend. Can you say DEAL? :D

Reconnecting

2010-11-01T15:54:00.004-07:00

One of the goals that I had in returning to Edmonton is reconnecting with people. After our time in Vancouver, I realized how much I had missed just having friends around and just knowing how everyone is doing. I realized that I had lost contact with friends slowly over the years but it got worse around the time I was in university.

For those years, I was dealing with depression and shutting off felt like the "right" thing to do at that time. Now being on the other side, I have a desperate need to reconnect. Coming home seems like a good enough "excuse", though I assume that excuses aren't needed. It helps to get back in touch with people now because Peter gets a chance to meet people as well. Two birds with one stone! P gets to meet new people - hopefully renewed friends for the future.

I loved living in Vancouver because P and I were able to decorate and set up our apartment. We could have guests visit and though we didn't have the most space, I felt happy to invite people over. In the end, we didn't have very many people over though I hope that every place I live from now on gives me that feeling.

Fast forward to moving into mom's house again, it's back to not wanting anyone to come over because of the mess. As I had mentioned before, it's of no fault of one person. We're a household of pack rats though I'm hoping to change my spots sooner rather than later. Updating this house to a state that I feel comfortable with inviting people over means that we have a lot of work ahead of us.

So back to why I'm babbling, I have learned that it's easier to visit with people at home or at someone's home. Adelaide is very fidgety and sitting at a restaurant or coffee shop is manageable but hard. The one thing I think I crave most is being able to invite people over to catch up... to have that, means a lot of cleaning and it surely is taking forever.

So for all the people who I have said I wanted to meet up with - I really really do! Accept my apology now but I shall be in touch as soon as I can. :)

Half Year!

2010-10-29T12:08:00.005-07:00

Tomorrow is Adelaide's 1/2 year birthday... 6 months old feels so crazy! That means it's been 6 months of constant tiredness for me :) I can't even remember life before Adelaide was around! The only thing poopy about this half birthday is that Daddy is off on a business trip. Though, I don't think we would have done anything special.

On that note, it's been a bit of confusion in this house when it comes to titles. It must totally be confusing for Adelaide. I'm mom when I'm talking to her... but I call my mom "mom" when I'm talking to my mom... though I call my mom "grandma" when I talk to Adelaide. And then I call my grandma "grandma" when I talk to people and they're not sure whether I'm talking about my mom or Adelaide's great grandma. Does any of this make any sense? You think it confuses us, think about Adelaide - who's trying to figure it all out! The easiest is P. He's the only male in the house so he's Daddy. If Tim is visiting, then it's "cuw foo" - chinese for uncle or "uncle Tim".

With 4 generations of females in our house, I'd like to go get a family photo of the 4 of us. Sadly, most of the family is sick. My mom got sick first, gave it to P (who is on a business trip and sick, which doubley sucks), and now it's be passed to grandma. Adelaide and I have stayed relatively healthy - *knock on wood*!

In terms of development, Adelaide is sitting awesomely. She's reaching out to grab toys - not just the ones closest to her but ones that she seems to want. She loves using our fingers and pulling herself up into a standing position. Once she's on her feet, she always has a giggle or a bit of a shout. She really does not like tummy time so I don't see how she'll ever crawl. If she's ever on her front, she rolls onto her back. It's a cute little roll, she looks like a sea lion... She'll be on her front with two hands propping her up. She'll drop one hand and lift the second up to turn over.

There's one thing that's been on my mind lately... There's always these things saying "expose your baby to this, expose your baby to that!" - much like when I was pregnant and the books mention that baby should be sung/read to. I realized what my ultimate fear is - I don't want Adelaide to turn around when she's older and go "you should have done *blah*". If we make a decision to do something, we're the one who has to suffer the consequences. When it's for our kids, they have to suffer the consequences. Let's say I don't cut Adelaide's fingernails fast enough - she'll scratch herself and end up with a scab here and there. (It happens, I'm just happy they're temporary). That's a small example, but what if one day I don't move a pot handle to face the inside of the stove and she grabs it and burns herself. That's a lifetime scar! Ahhh... I guess I can only be so careful. I just hope I don't do something she'll regret.

And ending on a mommy note, I saw this as someone's status one day and I decided to change it a bit:

PROMISE TO MY DAUGHTER: I will stalk you, freak out on you, lecture you, drive you crazy, be your worst nightmare, embarrass you in front of your friends, hunt you down like a bloodhound until the day you understand why I do it. (That day is probably when you become a mom yourself.) It's all because I LOVE YOU! You will never find someone who loves & cares about you more than me!

P had said that my relationship with Adelaide with be smooth and happy. I truly doubt it - but here's to hoping!

Say My Name

2010-10-03T15:29:00.004-07:00

One of the weirdest things about having a baby is the realization that I needed to name her. This name will stick for the rest of her life, if she so chooses. (I'm assuming the times she becomes Princess Adelaide doesn't count.) I suck at naming things... My stuffed animals never got names. Even if they did, I would never remember what I named them and even then, they weren't very creative names. (I had a teddy bear named "Teddy")

Adelaide did get a name that I quite like but I have stuck to my pattern of "renaming" her as I see fit. At this age, the parenting websites say that a baby can recognize their names when called... it hasn't happened yet. Here is a list of her other names:

Wiggles - This nickname started from the first day home from the hospital. Whenever I had her in my arms to breastfeed, she just kept wiggling. If she's lying down on the ground or in someone's arms, she wiggles around. Her arms and legs are ALWAYS moving.
Wobbles - This is a relatively new name she aquired once she started sitting. She's not completely stable as she still working out those neck/back muscles. Whenever she whips her head from side to side (to track things) her head does a bit of a wobble.
(Potentially) Waddles - I have a feeling once she starts to walk, I'd be calling her waddles... but we'll see about that.
Babbles - There are days that she's very vocal. She just goes on and on making noises, babbling, shouting, humming. She doesn't stop and doesn't matter if she gets attention or not. She'll just keep on going.
Spitz/Bubbles - This is for the times that she's blowing endless bubbles.
George/Curious George - Lately, she's been realizing there's actually a world around her. Whenever she's supposed to be feeding, she'll pop off and stare at any sound or person that is near. There are times that she'll turn her head away, then realize that "hey, I'm still eating" and start feeding again. Feeding has now become an endless cycle of pop on, pop off, pop on, pop off! I need to find isolated areas to feed her and even then, it doesn't always help. The ceiling seems waaaay too interesting.

Thinking about it, when you're only 5 months old and you have at least 5 names, I can understand why she doesn't respond to "Adelaide".

TV/Movie Land was Right!

2010-09-29T18:54:00.006-07:00

For all of you who have watched TV... imagine this. Take a movie like "The Joneses" or tv shows like "Desperate Housewives", you see these picturesque houses all in a row - perfect lawns and expensive cars in the driveway. People drive into their driveways and wave at bypassing neighbours... Now keep this image in your head while I give some backstory information.

So we're building a home for us (me, P, Adelaide, mom, grandma, and Tim) in Edmonton. We signed the contract last month and are supposed to break ground, hopefully, before winter - though the speed the builder works... I think it's iffy. We (P especially) likes visiting our muddy plot of land so we go at least once every time we visit or now after the move, at least once every 2 weeks. The newest development is that we've had surveyers on the land and they've marked out our boundary line - woot! We were visiting our plot of land today and mom, grandma, and P were walking around. I was in the car with Adelaide since she was asleep and we really don't want to wake her up. So here I am sitting in the car on the street of our future home and looking out the window. This is what I see:

The dad (it's a family with 1 daughter - we visited their home since it was the old show home so I know it's a dad) pulls up into the driveway in his BMW convertible and gets out of the car. He's wearing a polo shirt with a Blackberry clipped onto his belt. He walks toward his garage to punch in the code to open the door (apparently he doesn't have a garage opener). Before he makes it to the keypad, he's looking on the road and a neighbour drives by that he waves at. He keys in his code and as the door opens, a dog runs out to greet him. He brings the dog to the doorway and gets the dog to sit as he gets back into his BMW to drive it in the bottom level of his car elevator - yes he has one in his garage. Side note, the top level holds his sports car! The garage is nothing like normal people garages - there are no lawn mowers or shovels or any other crap... there's just a stroller, a little kid's wagon and a sports bag. He pulls his car into the lower section, gets out, goes to close the garage door, and turns to enter his house...

It felt so ridiculously surreal. Are we seriously moving into this neighbourhood?? Have I mentioned that my family (me included) are compete packrats and we have enough supplies to make it through Y3K. We should totally start just lighting the entire house with tealights... because we have hundreds, if not a thousand. Who wouldn't go to Ikea and see "100 tealights for $4.99" and think, "Bargain!" We go to Ikea every week... :D Yea, I'm not sure how we'll fit into this new community but it seems to have many families - Adelaide will hopefully have plenty of playmates.

Where's the Hair?

2010-09-04T20:24:00.003-07:00

This is a quick blog as I just wanted to make note of a new discovery (there are many these days, but this one is blog worthy)

Post-pregnancy, I have noticed that I have had *A LOT* of hair fall out. Everywhere I am, every time I run my hand through my hair, I end up with about a handful out. Some may know that my hair is super super thick to begin with so I am not worried about my hair getting thinned out. (As my mom has noted, braiding half my head is about the same amount as most people's entire head) It's just annoying, strange, and slightly concerning when I will take a shower and end up with handful after handful of hair in the shower strainer thing. P finally looked it up for me here and here's an interesting article:

http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-normal-to-lose-hair-after-giving-birth_1335883.bc

Basically, during pregnancy, my body says "stop dropping out" to my hair. Right after, my hormones fix themselves and say, "Alright, everybody out!".

Anyways, not much I can do about it other than irritate my entire family by leaving hair everywhere... but hey, what's new!

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire! (and other stories)

2010-08-22T21:32:00.004-07:00

P made a comment about this earlier, but Adelaide is out to make a liar of me. It seems that every time I talk about her new skill or something about her temperament, she does something completely different!

About 2 weeks ago, Adelaide rolled over for the first time (from her tummy to her back). She did it multiple times that day - probably about 10 times. The next day she did it twice but when we tried to show P's dad on webcam, she just stayed on her tummy. From that point on she didn't roll over for weeks! I think she forgot how to. A couple days ago, she rolled over again so I quickly got the camera to catch the evidence. We recorded a few rolls and she promptly "forgot" how to roll... We have yet to see this skill actually stick around.

And you know how I mentioned that we have a napper in the last blog? Yea, we don't anymore. The 1 hour long naps are a thing of the past. She's been hitting the 40 minute mark or shorter. *sigh* Let me sleep! Oh well, she's more fun now-a-days so that makes things a bit better. She's a bit too cute for me to get frustrated with :)

There was a PNE parade near our house on Friday night so I brought Adelaide down to watch. I was able to see other small babies around and I was comparing with them. Mostly about how they acted. There was one baby with just one bald spot on the back of their head. Adelaide on the other hand is mostly bald on the sides (from looking sideways on her back, I think) plus one strip of baldness on the back because she keeps turning her head side to side.

The other thing I noticed is that Adelaide constantly licks/sucks her fingers. I watched the other babies and they don't seem to do the same thing. They seem to be very content just watching the world. Straaaaaaange.

There have been many more instances that Adelaide gets identified as a boy. I think it's because we chose gender neutral/boy colours - yellow, green, and a bit of blue. We were having lunch somewhere and an old lady came up to see Adelaide. She's like "Wow, you have such a strong boy there!" "Um.. girl." "Oh... She's a very beautiful girl!"

One thing I'm realizing about growth and development is that it feels super slow. In watching Adelaide day to day, I don't notice her growing. It wasn't until P and I went through our old photos and short video clips of her that I finally noticed how much she's grown! Gone are the days of her being a little scrunched up ball and now she's stretching out and kicking crazily. She continues to live up to the nickname I gave her: Wiggles.

We've been weighing Adelaide on the Wii Fit and P attempted to measure her length today. According to our measurements, she is 6.5 kg and 57 cm. When P put these numbers into the "average baby growth chart" thing. (Side note on how to read these: depending on the percentage you get, it's percentage-wise how many babies you're heavier than or longer than) With those numbers, Adelaide is in the 60-some percentile for weight and 6-ish percentile for length. Does this mean Adelaide is short and stout? We'll get proper measurements tomorrow at the doctor - it's her 4 month immunity shots!

Our move to Edmonton is at the end of the week. I'm a bit stressed though slightly excited. I actually just want our new house to be done so we can move in. I have a lot of donations to prepare though - I truly have way too much stuff!

We Have a Napper!

2010-07-30T12:11:00.005-07:00

When I first got home after our visit to Edmonton, I realized one thing. Adelaide was a catnapper - this means that she slept for less than 40 minutes each time I tried to put her down for a nap. After I got comfortable with the CuddlyWrap, I could get her to sleep in spans of up to 3-4 hours. For my sanity, days were spent with her in the wrap and me learning to nap sitting up.

In the last couple weeks, Adelaide has been organizing her sleep patterns a bit more at night. At this point, I am able to sleep 4 hours stretches before the next feed. With this new development, we have attempted to keep Adelaide out of the wrap to see if we can get her to nap. I've noticed in the last couple days that if she goes down for a nap, she can sleep for about an hour! Woot! Very exciting.

On a completely unrelated note:

We discovered a new reflex that babies have a couple days ago. If you blow into Adelaide's face, she inhales (quite audibly)! We looked it up online, turns out some people use it teach babies while swimming. You blow in their face then dunk them under water. Basically trying to teach them that they need to take a deep breath before going under! It's quite neat. Contrary to what P tries to tell me, babies are toys! Whenever I'm bored with her, I just blow on her face :D Much fun!

And again, on a completely unrelated note:

When P and I went camping with Adelaide, we tried co-sleeping for the first time. I didn't want to put Adelaide in a separate area because I didn't know how colds the nights got. I was glad we did end up co-sleeping as nights were down to 10C and having P and I on either side kept Adelaide warm. One night, when it was pitch black (no moon) P quickly got up and started searching for something. I asked him what he was looking for and he said that Adelaide had spit up a lot and he needed to wipe it clean. We turn on the flashlight and I didn't see anything around Adelaide's mouth. I told P that there was nothing to clean up but he was dead convinced that we needed to wipe the spit up away. Eventually he went back to sleep but didn't seem to believe me.

On a second night, I was feeding Adelaide and P bolted up again and said that Adelaide had spat up. Adelaide was feeding so I knew she hadn't spat up. I told him there was nothing and again he went back to sleep but didn't seem to believe me.

The other night, again, P bolted up in bed in panic. He then proceeded to search through our blankets. Slightly freaked, he asked me, "Where's Adelaide?" I told him she was in her bed and she was sleeping fine. When we talked the next day, he admitted that he had thought that Adelaide had thrown up and when he woke up to check on her, all he could find were blankets. He was scared she was under all the blankets.

It's so cute that daddy cares so much about Adelaide. :) Now if only he'd do it without waking me up! *ahem* :D

Flashback

2010-07-17T22:08:00.003-07:00

One of the topics that keep reoccurring in my mind (and possibly this blog, though I can't be bothered to check) is the reflection of the last 2 years of my life. I would never in a million years have even dreamed of where I'd be today. These feelings usually arise when there's an important anniversary that I come across - today being our first year wedding anniversary!

Let me recap, in order, of what has transpired in the last couple of years:

I found my first industry job at the start of my last year of university. (And they waited 7 months for me just so I could graduate and have a bit of a vacation before I started)
I graduated from university.
I went on the China trip (with mom and grandma) that my grandma has always wanted to take me on.
I moved to Vancouver and in the same process, moved away from home for the first time.
P and I were finally in the same city after about 4 years.
I started my first job.
I got engaged.
I got married.
I got pregnant.
I gave birth to a beautiful little girl.
I'm now finding time to blog while breastfeeding Adelaide and putting her to bed.
I will be moving, with my new family, back to my original home (that I moved out of in step 4) in about 1 month.
We will "soon" (depending how slow this builder is) be moving into a new house designed by my husband and scoped to be our home for our child(ren) to grow up in.

This whirlwind keeps me on my toes but I can't say I want it any other way. Whoever said that life is a highway was greatly misled... life is really a rocket taking off when you're born and if you don't take the time the appreciate where you are, you may miss something and there's no turning back.

So back to my thoughts on this being our first wedding anniversary, I have been finding similarities between today and exactly one year ago.

1. I woke up at 5 am.

(Last Year) With pure excitement that it would be my wedding day!

(Today) Adelaide needed another feed.

2. We left the apartment at 10 am for photos.

(Last Year) Our first stop was the museum for the start of our wedding day photography.

(Today) We had a family photography session. P and I had opted out of engagement photos before the wedding stating that we'd do a couple photography session on our first year wedding anniversary. We didn't expect it to be a full family photo session!

3. We went to Red Robin.

(Last Year) Our lunch break during the day was at Red Robin.

(Today) We went because we wanted to!

4. We handled a high stress situation.

(Last Year) It's a wedding, need I say more?

(Today) We played super mario brothers wii and handled and completed quite a few hard levels!

5. We winged it.

(Last Year) There was a lot during the day we did not plan, and didn't plan to plan... It helped us keep our expectations low and enjoy the day.

(Today) We did what we felt like. I felt like eating a lot of blueberries... keep it simple! I really didn't want to go through each anniversary thinking "how do we do it better this year" or "what gift can we can give each other this year".

6. I'm in love. :) =:) =:) :)

(Last Year)/(Today) I need to say no more.

Now I wonder what my update next year shall be...

Evolution of Pocket Contents

2010-06-21T19:11:00.002-07:00

I love pockets, in both jackets and bags. I fish around in my pockets and I can always find random stuff. From little margarine tubs (which for the record can melt, explode, and cause a big mess) and plastic fork/knives to candy.

I distinctly remember once my mom and I were walking together. She had a hat that constantly kept getting blown away in the wind. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a shoelace. She used the shoelace to tie her hat down and we were good to go! (I've always had a thing about shoelaces... I loved tying them to things or tying things together)

I was walking along the seawall to meet P after work today and reach into my pockets. A thought crosses my mind - my pocket contents have really evolved. Now I reach into my pockets and I have the following:

Bus Tickets
A baby toque/hat
Pacifier/Dummy/Binky (Whatever you wanna call it)
A pair of pink baby socks
Keys
Phone

Mind you, the amount of stuff have really decreased over the years as my pockets have gotten smaller. It's just interesting to note the transition.

Productivity

2010-06-21T18:52:00.002-07:00

In both school and work, I had tracked my productivity level by how many assignments I finished or how many projects got completed. I would work on an assignment/project, deploy, fix minor bugs, then put it away. It was a very nice sense of "I have done it" at the end of each one.

The other night I was watching the news and they were interviewing stay-at-home dads. One dad mentioned that when his wife was home alone with their new baby, he would get home after work and think, "You've been at home all day, why isn't the house cleaner?" He was laughing at the fact that now he's the one at home, he finally realizes how taxing a new baby is!

That got me thinking about how I have been feeling lately. I can say that I think the way the dad thinks, of myself! "I'm home all day, why isn't the house cleaner?" Or to anther extent, "Why do I not feel productive when I'm at home?" I know I take care of Adelaide and she seems relatively happy most of the time. But to me, that doesn't scream "productivity". I do things around the house and yet that doesn't seem to give me that sense either:

I do the dishes and everything is put away, then I realize I need to drink or eat something and now there are more dishes to do.
I get all the paper recycling together and throw it out. Then I receive another flyer or piece of mail.
I gather all the garbage in the house and throw it out. Then Adelaide poops/pees and there's a new diaper in the garbage can.
I run around the apartment finding all the dirty clothes and put them in the laundry. I return to the apartment and Adelaide spits up on the clothes she's wearing - more dirty laundry.
I go buy groceries just to find that 2 days later, most of it has been eating and the fridge is empty again.

It feels like one big cycle that never finishes. I guess that's why hobbies are so important...? If I finally complete something, it might put me more at ease. Until then, I'm back on the hamster wheel.

3 week update...

2010-06-21T10:52:00.003-07:00

Wow, time passes quickly and I can't say I have gotten much more sleep! Though I'm happy I've survived until now. To backtrack, I was mostly able to meet my 5 goals I set out for myself on day one :) Very proud of that. I just take day to day as a new challenge. Adelaide has not gotten into much of a routine yet so I'm waiting for that to happen. We're just experimenting more with each other everyday.

Yesterday P had a cold so he had to stay a distance from me and Adelaide . It was hard having no break from her for an entire 24ish hours. I hope he gets better soon - this stubborn cold seems to come back every time he's tired. I just hope he can fight it off for good. I was suggesting that he might need some of my antibodies from my breastmilk (as that's how Adelaide's staying healthy) since I don't seem to be affected by his cold. Though knock on wood! :)

I thought I'd just give little updates on things that have happened in the last few weeks and stories from before that I had forgotten about:

We (Me, P, and Adelaide) went to the chiro and Adelaide was sleeping in the cuddlywrap. There was a little boy there waiting for his appointment and came to look at Adelaide and the first question he asked was "Has she grown eyes yet?" That was *very* cute :)
Adelaide was 10lb 5oz at her 6 week checkup. She was only 9lb 5oz 1.5 weeks before that. 1 lb per 1.5 weeks. No wonder I'm starting to struggle to carry her for long periods of time!
It's hard to be too frustrated with Adelaide even with the lack of sleep. When I feel most tired at 5:30 in the morning and am holding her wishing she'd sleep - she will look up at me, smile then coo. My heart melts - then remind her that it's still sleep time!
We went and bought a sun hat for Adelaide on Saturday. 2 hours later I had already dropped it and we couldn't find it. I guess that's the first hat to go missing of many. I was just kinda sad that we lost it. :(
Went to an infant massage class (to learn how to) one day. There were 5 other babies and it's so hard not to compare. We came out thinking "Wow, Adelaide is a lot cuter than those babies!" The runner up cute baby was another mixed couple.
There was another mother that was at the massage class complaining that she was only getting 3 hour stretches of sleep... *ahem* Excuse me, I've only gotten 2 hr max at that point but mostly it was like 40 minutes.
We have realized that girls, big and small, are very attracted to tiny babies :)
We were at Canadian Tire and the sales person is like "Aww, your baby is very cute! Is it a boy or a girl?" "Girl" "Oh, she looks like a boy *pause* I mean that in a good way" uh huh...
We applied for Adelaide's passport and waiting for it to arrive sometime this week! We will grow a traveler out of her yet!
Adelaide found her hands - kinda. She tries to suck on it because it comes in contact with her mouth. Did you know it's kind hard to suck on the heel of your hand? I've watched her try.
We think Adelaide's first word will be "hello" because that's the only thing we can think of to say to her everyday.
The only time Adelaide will sleep long periods of time is in the cuddlywrap. I have now learned to sleep sitting up!

In future news, Adelaide will be going for her 2 month immunity shots on Wednesday - I cringe at the thought.

Bleary Eyed, Home, Happy, and Alone

2010-05-30T20:06:00.004-07:00

The title basically sums up how I feel right now. Adelaide is exactly 1 month old today and the past month has been a whirlwind. Many times this past month P and I would just lie in bed in awe that "Adelaide is only # days old!" and before we know it, it's a full month. Upon reflection on month one, I realized that I have had quite a good babymoon and now trying to develop a rhythm with baby.

First things, having mom here has been such a blessing. During the first little while just getting out of bed is a bit of a pain because of stitches and such. It's nice having her around to just help out with *everything* around the house. When she's not doing the dishes, laundry, or cooking, she's taking time helping to settle Adelaide while I try to get a few more hours of sleep. P and I have been so lucky having her around - I don't think the words "thank you" can ever be said enough.

This past week, we made the journey with Adelaide through the Rockies back to Edmonton. What usually takes 1 day (one looooooooong day) was split into 2.5 days of slowly making our way on the road. We'd drive for about 2 hours-ish and feed for an hour or so. We would turn in early every evening to just give Adelaide a break from the car seat and stretch our nights a bit longer so we can settle in. As much as it was nice to be home to see family and friends in Edmonton, I kinda wish we had more time to ourselves with just mom, me and P. Grandma always had a comment about how any three of us did something. There were times her comments, though she doesn't mean it, hurt.

Over the last week and a half, my sleeping amount has been shorter and shorter so being increasing sleep deprived and having Adelaide's crying increase (normally), I've been having more time where I'm feeling a bit down. I am very scared of post partum depression so I carefully monitor my moods. If I feel anything getting me down, I make sure I talk about it and make sure it doesn't sneak up and get worse before I realize. Upon leaving Edmonton, I have a lot of fears about coping with baby on my own for an entire day (tomorrow's the first test). I've always had help either from P (who is currently completely crashed out for a much needed sleep) or my mom. We'll see how I manage. :) I'm very optimistic right now but that could be because I got an whole 2 hour nap while P was keeping Adelaide comfortable this afternoon. (And he did the laundry and bought food to fill our fridge).

My goals for my first day on my own tomorrow:

Try to get Adelaide to nap so I can get a bit more sleep.
Go to a midwife appointment (first one that P can't make it to)
Go buy juice (as an outing and I have a craving)
Eat (When I'm tired, I don't eat. This is bad)
Drink enough liquids (Same as above, when I'm tired I opt to sleep instead of pour myself some liquids)

Will probably update how successful I am! (We'll see when I get another quiet moment...)

On a completely unrelated note, Adelaide was amazing on the plane ride from Edmonton. I was so scared she would be crying because her ears felt weird or were popping... but we had none of it. The only time she was a little fussy is when we had stopped and waiting for the plane to be de-iced before takeoff. She fed and yawned like a seasoned pro and stayed very content. I'm not scared of flying with her - now only if those plane ticket prices were more reasonable...

PEAs

2010-05-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

I have always been fond of acronyms. Before we even found out about having a baby I would talk about naming our child some cool representation.

Option 1: Make the child's initials spell something.
Eg. Adelaide Sarah Harvey would be ASH.

Option 2: Make their initials spell out their first name.
Eg. Kathy Adelaide Tammy Harvey-Yeung would be KATHY.

As you can see, we didn't end up doing that. (ABH) Instead, we can find the acronym in our family names. Peter, Emily, and Adelaide makes us PEA! One day with child number 2, we can name them with a C name... Peter, Emily, Adelaide, C_____, Harvey. Guess what that spells! :D

SHE'S NAMED!

2010-05-16T11:13:00.006-07:00

Just a quick note, we have finally decided on a final name for this baby girl:

Adelaide Brooke Harvey

Her Chinese name is:

頌恩

Mandarin PinYin: Sòng ēn
Cantonese attempted translation: Jong Yun

I have been tracking baby's progress since the beginning. Now that baby is "complete", here is our baby white board!

Week 1 With Adelaide

2010-05-08T06:14:00.001-07:00

Adelaide Ninja Harvey.

We wanted an exotic middle name so you pronounce Ninja as "nin-ha"... where the "ja" is like jalapeño! Actually... no. :D We're just struggling to think of a middle name that fits her. Ninja sounds just so right for now!

An update on how she's growing:
- She does something called cluster feeding. This means that she feeds like crazy for some period of time then sleeps for a long stretch. This has made the nights easier than I had ever imagined it could be. I get in nice length naps.
- After baby is born, she loses a bit of weight due to water loss. Since she has been feeding so well, all the weight has been regained by day 6! This is quite good. We had been told weight gain is at least 7g per day... She gained 100g in 2 days. At this rate, she'll be huge soon!
- She doesn't cry much. For the most part she has a soft cry if she does. The midwife compared it to a lamb bleating.
- She gets gas (aka "wind", just air in her system) while feeding which is the main reason she complains. Just needs a lot of rocking and changing positions. I imagine it like an air bubble in her system. One time the wind was so bad, after I rocked her a few times she let out the loudest burp I had ever heard and farted at the same time! Like a trumpet!
- She has a bit of diaper rash already. :( We're working on clearing that.
- She really likes the right hand side of her bed... I put her down in the middle or the left and she wiggles and scoots until she's back to the right. It's weird. I need to think up more experiments like this...

There are a few things I have learned as a mom and how to take care of her.
1) You spend all this time getting taught how to breastfeed and how hard it is. One lesson they forgot is that once baby can feed, they need to be burped! That was our biggest issue on night 1. She just kept crying and we couldn't figure out why.
2) Babies smell nice... Like really nice.
3) If I'm feeding and she gets hiccups, she sounds like a sqeaky toy!
4) Once the milk comes in, your boobs become a leaky faucet. I didn't quite realize this until I was just sitting one day and felt something drip on my lap. I spent the longest time staring at the ceiling wondering if we had a leak from upstairs... Until I finally looked down and realized it was me!
5) I feel fine for the most part if I take things slow. It takes me time to realize that my energy levels are still a bit low. We had visitors and I feel like I failed at trying to "host". I have accepted that I just need more rest and things will be fine.

I'm enjoying my days now. I know that this time with Adelaide is short. She'll probably grow so fast.

Funny note, my favourite quote from P so far, "You should appreciate your mummy, though you won't now or even when you're 16. You'll figure it out once you're 25 and have a baby of your own."

Our Little Angel

2010-05-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today is Adelaide's due date but she is 4 days old and a pro at baby-ing!

Before I could even start getting impatient for baby to come out or really contemplate what would happen if baby was late (statistically, first born children are about 10 days late if there are no complications) - I now have little Adelaide Ninja Harvey in my arms. (At times literally, this blog has been a work in progress... So apologies if things are choppy - writing this all in bits of awakeness)

Starting at week 37 (around April 13th) I had already started signs of prelabour, aka "false" labour. Basically meaning that contractions would start, be painful at times and sometimes not. I had a couple of nights where the contractions were quite painful and kept me awake but then fade away during the daytime. No pattern established but my body was priming itself. There were some nights where I would think "tomorrow's gotta be the day!"

The following is a reflection of April 30, 2010 - a little icky maybe as I am "remembering" my labour experience... It's kinda remembering as the hormones has really taken away some of it, esp helping you forget the pain - necessary if you want more than one kid!:

I woke up at 5 am and found my underwear quite wet. I knew labour would start within 24 hours as that, my friends, is my water breaking! I was a little excited and woke P up. Went to the washroom and put on a pad - the water does not gush out, it actually takes time and slowly leaks out... But something is wrong, there's not supposed to be any colour... When looking more closely at the broken water, P noticed that it had a greenish/brown tinge. (I know he loves me when he's willing to stare at my bodily fluids...) This means that sometime during the pregnancy, baby has pooped and that is *not* a good thing. The baby could possibly inhale or swallow some of the poop during labour/delivery so I had to go straight to the hospital. Baby needed to be immediately monitored for any sign of distress. This was very unexpected. If there were no issues I would have stayed home and waited for labour to go naturally - up to 24 hours before the regular and intense contractions would start.

We went straight to the hospital and got hooked up to monitors. The obstetrician basically recommended inducing labour as we needed baby out sooner rather than later. P and I are not very interested in getting meds (au natural please!) and according to the OB, most of the people who get induced also went on epidural because the pain would be sudden and extreme. (Rather than labour slowly building up and you adjust to the increasing steps of pain). We asked if we could just see if labour progresses on its own - I really don't like needles! (Induction and the major pain meds require needles) Thankfully, the OB said yes. Start off point = 2 cm dilated. (Aiming for 10cm for birth)

So off we go... waiting. I get wireless monitors strapped to me so I can get off the bed. I walk around the room as walking helps progress labour. I had tried walking around the hallway but it was short and people just watched me... and I watched them. I decided to wander around my room. Fast forward a few hours, they check again and I'm 4/5 cm. Yay progression means no induction and hope things get rolling. Fast forward a few more hours and my contractions are irregular and I'm only about 6 cm... things weren't going fast enough so it means I'm going to get induced. :(

Induction starts and things are STILL really slow. I remember 2 hours of things not really happening. The contractions were starting to get more frequent but were irregular. The pain was bearable, nothing too severe. The midwives change shift... I was with the first midwife since I arrived at the hospital. When the second one arrived, she got filled in and recommended that I get up. I did and that's when everything just escalated! 1.5 hours later baby was out! So imagine what usually takes 5 hours to slowly progress jammed into 1.5 hours - things were not fun. In the end I used laughing gas during the pushing stage - technically no extra needles!

I remember that once baby's head was out, she was already crying - good sign. Had an issue as her shoulders were stuck and everything went into high alert. I just remember them yelling to pull the panic string... But soon enough she was out, checked, and perfectly fine. P had turned to me right after and said that I didn't have to worry about and ugly baby. :) She came out perfectly pink and cute - kinda like in the movies!

I don't remember much of the intense part but one thing for sure, when you're in pain, selective hearing goes *way* up. Two times with this:
- I heard P telling someone not to move me just yet as I was in the middle of a contraction. All I heard him say was "don't move". At that point I tried not to move... but couldn't do it. After the pain passed, I told him I didn't appreciate his comment - he said he didn't mean me!
- When I got into the pushing stage of labour, they needed the pediatrician to be around in case something went wrong. The problem was, the ped was at an emergency forceps delivery (baaaaaad thing) and needed me to slow down. I just heard the word "forceps", freaked out, and started pushing harder!

And that is how I recall baby's crowning moment!

Side note, nesting never happened... until now, AFTER baby is out! It's weird, I've been cleaning...

DING!

2010-04-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

As of today, baby is officially ripe! We have hit week 37 with baby!!!

Now, I'm just sitting around waiting... and I actually turned MSN on... What is the world coming to???

Today + 1 MONTH!!

2010-04-04T23:00:00.001-07:00

Today is a significant day for me. It is April 4th - and today + 1 month = May 4th <-- baby's due date!

I evaluate where I am now and have read back over the last 9 months of blogs. I have gone through ups and downs and have noticed that my blogs have gotten more and more humourless. I'm not trying but I also don't feel like there have been many cheery thoughts going through my head. More worries and stresses depending on the day.

My last day of work was April 1st, sadly I did not pull a pillow out from under my shirt and yell "April Fools! I'm not actually pregnant!" at my colleagues. (Though they reckon that would be be best joke ever) It would have taken *a lot* of planning just for that - planning that I'm sad to say I didn't consider. :) I'm sad to say that I'm going back into work on Tuesday because I realized on Thursday's bus ride home that I forgot to check in my last code changes. I'll head into the office and get that sorted. I can only blame myself - and I lost sleep over it on Thursday night.

At this point, I can't say I feel any stress or worries. For this landmark day, I have just spent time to reflect what happened in the last 9 months. Morning sickness hit with a vengeance... lasting quite late into the second trimester. Heartburn started, but very minimal and only right as I'm trying to sleep. Other than that, I can't say I have any major "pregnancy symptoms". We went to a prenatal class last week and the other mothers were saying how they're always hungry, how they have pregnancy cravings, how they're having trouble sleeping... I really don't have any of that - not that I'm complaining.

We've spent this weekend taking down and re-arranging furniture. We actually have gotten a lot done. Everything is completely different, almost like moving into the apartment again. But this time with stricter criteria on what stays and what goes. We have so much recycling that it leaks over to other containers until our recycling gets emptied. Watching P's facebook status, there was a question of who really instigated this massive cleanup. I will have to say P, I was quite happy chilling in bed all weekend!

There's one more pregnancy "symptom" that I have yet to display - nesting. Though I'm not sure if it'll appear. I still have a bit of time for this feeling to kick start, I'll probably blog if it happens. I've never found being clean/organized was a very high priority - ever. This'll be something quite new.

I have stated to my mom and P that I have trained myself to be messy. You see, when I lived at home, my grandma and mom tended to make trips up to my room and comment on (what i felt was) *everything*. I then learned that if my room was messy - so messy that you couldn't come into the room unless you knew the little path that I made - they COULDN'T come in and therefore, comments were made from afar and generally about the "mess" and left it at that! Now I'm very fine with mess - much to P's dismay. He often comments that he's tripping over stuff. I just think he hasn't found the path yet - he has much to learn. :) On a general note though, I hope baby learns from P as it seems more socially acceptable.

May I Have Your Seat?

2010-03-26T10:07:00.002-07:00

I take the bus every morning to work and a lot on the weekend to go out. Since the beginning of the pregnancy, a lot of the reading I've done mentions that I should try to sit down on a moving bus. There are two main reasons for this advice: 1) My joints are loosening to accommodate baby coming out, I can injure more easily. 2) With my growing belly, my center of gravity has shifted. I have to be careful actually standing and holding on as things are a bit different.

I have great difficulty asking people for a seat on the bus if the bus is packed full. My biggest fear is asking someone who has a relatively hidden disability if I could take their seat. I don't want the awkwardness of them explaining why they need a seat, and me feeling like possibly I could just suck it up and stay standing. My second biggest fear is asking and them just thinking that I'm lazy - it's more of a perception thing. At that point, I would also explain that I was pregnant, blah blah blah and that just takes effort. I categorize my need for a seat as lower as I could possibly stand with no problems, it's more precautionary to sit.

I rely more on the fact that I hope that people *see* that I'm pregnant. That was a bit hard during my "beer gut" looking days early on. I can't say it's hard.. it's impossible. I really just look like I put on a bit of weight. Nowadays with a larger tummy, I can tell that people look at me and aren't really sure. My jackets are usually a bit poofy as those are the only ones that really fit.

Standing is hard on me now though, basically the constant active tightening of ab muscles to stay balanced (small shifts) - belly gets very achy on longer rides. Pain usually goes away once I lie down and I don't think it's detrimental. On that note, there is a seat most mornings on the bus and I have had people give their seat up for me. Though, yesterday I stood.

Take It Easy

2010-03-19T04:22:00.001-07:00

Those are words I keep hearing from my midwives since our false alarm last week - "take it easy". It has honestly got me thinking about what that really means! Is there a recipe for this "easy"-ness? Maybe it's the logical/compy side of me needing steps 1,2,3 that I can follow. What is easy? Do I still spend my full 8 hours at work? Do I walk home at the end of the day as exercise?

I am lying in bed tonight unable to sleep just thinking. And really trying to work out how/if I need to change my habits. Here are a few on my todo list:

- I know I need more water - I am always dehydrated... It has to do with my fear of needing to pee out in public - some of those washrooms are so gross!
- I discovered last week that my fresh fruit allergies have disappeared! I had been avoiding fresh fruit quite well thinking if I go into anafelactic (sp?) shock, it might not do baby well. I finally craved to a fruit craving last week and TADA! I had no issues! I've increased my fruit intake considerably. Now that fruit intake is up, midwife suggests that I eat less fruit and more veggies - that's where the minerals live. So much for my minor success, I feel like I'm back at square 1 in "eating healthy for baby".
- What about work? I spend most of my day there and I can't say I feel much stress. I enjoy what I do. Maybe I enjoy it a bit too much. There is a lot of "eat smaller but more frequent meals" suggestions... I do eat slightly smaller meals but don't eat more frequently - I find myself way too frustrated with choosing *what* to eat so I just don't. I only have 2 weeks of work left but I will need to spend a bit more time in the morning prepping more snacks for me.
- Exercise, how much is too much? My most consistent pregnancy exercise is walking home with P every night. (30 min+) There are days that after sitting/standing all day, my tummy and back get a bit sore. Either way, sitting/standing is not quite exercise... There are evenings I have go straight to bed because everything just hurts after my walk home. I'll have to figure out a way to figure out when to just bus home.
- SLEEP! Something I wish I was doing right now. Overall, sleep has been easy and awesome for the entire pregnancy. For the most part, no trouble sleeping. Tonight is a bit different. Awake since 12:30 am, though went to bed at 10. 4:10 am right now. Decided I'd be productive and thinking that this inability to sleep is just me needing a brain fart. Next time I should just post earlier. :)

Those are my 5 points that I will aim to work on as the baby day nears. Though with the rare contractions I still get, my thoughts now are prepared to meet baby early. Week 33... hang in there until 37 baby!

On an unrelated side note, I know that P's stress levels have changed. In the last couple of weeks he's talked in his sleep twice! Full coherent sentences which is kinda neat. The last time was about chess and some strategic position... I don't remember the first one but it was something just as abstract!

False Start

2010-03-10T16:40:00.004-08:00

One of the things P and I have been doing lately is going out to buy what we may need for the baby... Just the basics, nothing extra. (Well, maybe a LITTLE extra...) Most of this has been done during the Olympics since we took this opportunity to run away from the crowds in downtown. I didn't want to be stuck at home or stuck in some scary riot that was a little too close to home. We spent almost every weekend heading over to Metrotown or North Vancouver.

Our time spent out was quite productive! We now have a pack of newborn diapers, receiving blankets and 3 sizes of baby sleepers. Our biggest purchase was a car seat! We wanted a bit of practice using it so a teddy was our baby for an evening. It was an awesome deal... Originally $170ish, marked down in clearance for $119 and all clearance items were 30% off!

I'm totally strapping in for this ride that baby will be putting us on - I can't think of much but to just stay relaxed, watch, and wait. Though this morning we had a bit of a false start. 4:30am-ish I start feeling a couple painful contractions... I start panicking a bit - baby is not done cooking! We're only week 32! I wanted excitement... this would be it?!?!? I start having these insanely scary thoughts.. not of labour but of what we still had planned. Will I get to see the Paralympic Opening Ceremonies - if not, will we sell them?? Will we be able to go watch the sledge hockey game? We hadn't even gone to the pre-natal course yet! Fast forward, P starts helping me time my contractions and we give the midwife the update. I'm told to drink more liquids and monitor contractions for another hour.

After the hour things slow down and contractions are not as frequent as they were before. I've taken the day off work just to rest up and monitor contractions on and off. All seems calm again. I'm not ready for baby to be out just yet... but if it does make an early appearance, that's how it'll go!

One of the odd facts, preterm labour (baby coming early) can happen at anytime. There are "high risk" type groups but you don't actually have have any of the risk factors. Some websites even go as far as labelling "You are short" as a risk factor - which I find just random. (I know, take everything you read with a grain of salt.. but really now.)

I'll be taking each day slowly now. We'll make sure this baby stays cooking until the timer dings properly.

Pregnancy Alphabet

2010-02-17T10:12:00.002-08:00

I've been thinking about weird analogies I can make between pregnancy and something I have experienced in life. The last one I talked about was Pregnancy and Homework. Today I thought of a second one just about where I'm at now.

You know how when you sing your A B C's, the beginning is clear (A... B... C... D... etc.) ... and the end is clear... (W........ X.. Y... and Z). But have you ever noticed what happens in the middle? At "LMNOP"? It all gets jumbled and you say it very very fast. Most kids just make some nonsensical sound.. or "LMLMP!".

I have hit the "LMNOP" part of the pregnancy. When I started, I would be able to know *exactly* how many weeks along baby is, each week having a new little milestone. I'm sure near the end I'll be counting down to the due date, week by week. The "LMNOP" span started at about week 27 and I think it'll probably continue for at least another week (when I hit week 30). I can't tell one week from another!

So I say now, "LMLMLM.... P!"

A Little Overwhelmed

2010-02-15T09:14:00.004-08:00

The Olympics are here!!! There's lots going on and P and I are watching *a lot* of TV. We're facebooking all the neat things we see but other than that, Olympics seem like such a small thing right now - for me. There are a lot of shows and free things we can go see but I'm not really in a mood to do much walking (as tummy is starting to get big) and am slowly getting too tired to stay up/out late.

The bigger thing on my head is baby/future. The following is what's currently on my brain (in brain dump format):

I know there are mothers who feel completely normal talking or singing to the baby in their tummy. I'm not one of those... I can get as far as talking about the baby, but not *to* the baby. Mommy suggests finding a song I can sing to baby such that it can recognize me. I have yet to figure out what song, though Mario Kart Love Song (http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/s/sam_hart/mario_kart_love_song.html) is a top contender. For those who don't know, that was the song I walked down the aisle to for the wedding! :)
My co-workers who are parents have mentioned that there are classical songs that they kept playing to their baby/tummy. One of them actually brought a baby tummy stereo system to work and had it hanging around their neck while they were at work. My baby is not going to get this classical music education. The best it'll get is when I listen to the Glee soundtrack at home.
I was watching a documentary on hyper-parenting. (http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2010/hyperparents/) I really don't want to hyper-parent... I'd rather my kids learn on their own and not need to sign up for 20 bazillion lessons. My greatest fear is that I may be setting baby up for failure. For the most part, I know my impact isn't that great but it's just a lingering fear.
When I watch movies and walk into any baby store, I find all the new moms saying "we need this, we need that, etc." With the impending move in our future, I don't want to buy ANYTHING. I'm not excited about baby purchases. The only thing I really splurged on was a new CuddlyWrap (http://www.peapodcreations.ca/cuddlywrap2.html). I like the idea of babywearing. P and I were standing in a baby store yesterday trying to make up $100 of purchases such that we could use a $20 off coupon. I was standing in the store almost in tears not knowing what was needed and what is excessive. I just wanted to buy stuff we *needed*.
For some reason ;) , P has this great urge to talk about the new house. Paint selections, flooring selections, tiling selections, exterior selections, etc. We're just in a state where the builder has passed the designs to the architect and we don't start house selections until the first draft of drawings are done. At this point, selections seem to be lining up with baby birth time. I understand the need to figure out what we want with the house so once baby is here, we can focus on taking care of baby and the selection process will be quick. I just feel that it is/was all too much... After the baby store, we headed to Rona and I just fell apart before we arrived. (Yes, imagine me bawling about a block from Rona - honestly, I usually like adventuring through hardware stores) Yay pregnancy hormones!
The last couple of weeks has been jam packed. We have been talking about buying a 2nd car once P and I arrive in Edmonton - hence my interest in the Honda Fit. My mom had been thinking and realized that if she was driving on her own to Vancouver for the baby's birth, driving the gas guzzling van is probably not worth it. The car purchase got fast forwarded by 6 months! For the last 2 weeks P has been researching different cars, reviews, opinions, etc. Last Friday, my mommy made the leap and we now have a Fit! (My definition of "we" is very loose... it's really mommy :) ) I'm happy that step is over... I'm sick of hearing/reading about cars.
I'm supposed to go get a gestational diabetes test since my last midwife appointment (1 month ago). I haven't gone... It will just take so long and I'm not in the mood. Not to mention the Las Vegas + Edmonton trips in the middle. Steps: I show up, they give me a sugary drink and then I sit for 1 hour. They'll take my blood after that. Ugh... blood tests :( I know... it's for baby. Midwife again tomorrow, I'll ask if it's still worth going to get it done or whether I'm too late.

End brain dump!

Third Trimester

2010-02-05T15:14:00.002-08:00

Just started my third trimester this week.. therefore, there are 3 pregnancy months (12 calendar weeks) until baby is ripe! I would have to say that pregnancy months and calendar months are a little different and very confusing. I think I figured it out though:

Each pregnancy month consist of 4 weeks. A full term pregnancy (from last menstrual cycle to due date) is 40 weeks. When you do that math, there are 10 pregnancy months. Though these 10 pregnancy months translates to about 9 calendar months. Calculation gets more and more hairy near the end of the pregnancy because the extra calendar weeks start to factor in. For example, I already hit 6 pregnancy months last month.. but in terms of the calendar, I was only about 5 months along. Why does this matter? It doesn't.

Interesting story, so on Tuesday I was waiting for P to arrive at the Vancouver airport. I ended up at the airport early but I waited at arrivals anyways. During that extra time, I saw part of Team France standing at the baggage carousel. It was a little surreal because I thought the Olympic dudes would get their own section, etc. There was a lot of fanfare... as in a lot of volunteers blocking off certain doors that only the athletes could go as that's where their transportation was. But it's just funny seeing this group of Olympic dudes standing there waiting for their luggage like every other passenger. On that note, it was nice to see that they're not all high and mighty :)

After they got their luggage, they went off to get their oversized baggage (skis/snowboard/etc.) for a group of about 5/6, they had close to 20 bags for their equipment. I never thought about that... I would guess they'd have practice equipment, backup equipment, and possibly different good equipment for different snow conditions! It's just something that that clicked.

Either way, it finally hit me that "Hey, the Olympics are really coming!" at that moment. Now all I have to do is start researching all the free events/venues P and I can wander to. :) The actual Olympic events are few but the number of tourists are quite high... there has to be more things to see other than the events itself. I wanted to mention though, I've seen a lot more angry people around... most of them being tourists. Maybe they're not angry and they're just always that abrupt - you know, culture-wise. This will be interesting!

Show Off Baby

2010-02-01T20:17:00.002-08:00

I spent this past weekend in Edmonton looking at our potential house lot and a potential builder. On Saturday, we were leaving the Superstore parking lot after filling up with gas and got into a small fender bender. No one was hurt and our car (structure) didn't get any damage. We lost the bumper - it snapped into about 4 pieces - and that's about it.

This morning my mom was in contact with the insurance people and they said that I should just go get checked out to make sure me and baby are fine. I booked an early chiro appointment (all is fine there) and called the midwife to just ask what the best protocol is. She suggested that I get a non-stress test for the baby. Very non invasive and the only major risk is a false positive. It's supposed to take about 20 minutes... sure why not! No harm checking if baby is okay. I'd like to note now that I was a little disappointed... I kinda wanted an ultrasound so that we could find out baby gender (or at least try again). Oh well.

When the midwives called the hospital to set it up, they were told that the hospital does not do this type of test but since I was in a MVA (motor vehicle accident) I should go into the hospital for a 4 hour fetal monitoring session. I went to work to turn off my computer and took the rest of the afternoon off sick and marched off to the hospital for the monitoring.

This is the first time in my life that I had to go to a hospital for me. (I usually had to go visit other people) I got registered as an outpatient and got strapped in. The monitors consist of one at the top of my fundus (where the uterus is up to - exactly the right size!) and one on the belly to monitor baby heartbeat. I was given a little button to push every time I felt the baby kick.

I had brought a book with me to kill time but I forgot how fast I could read... as I was finished the book in about 2 hours. For the other 2 hours, I just laid there playing with my ipod (Yay Crayon Physics!) and listening to music. A very bored 4 hours - which as an afterthought is very good. Got checked on every hour or so and nothing is really wrong. By the end of the 4 hours the obstetrician/nurses reviewed the results and apparently everyone agreed that baby was a show off. At 27 weeks, the baby is as reactive as a 30+ week baby. (In fetus lifespan of 40 weeks, 3+ weeks is a big deal) Reactive means how much variation is in the baby's heartbeat. Either way, baby is a-okay.

I have come with some conclusions about hospitals though now that I've had my first taste:

Other than being a little confusing with all the people running around, it's quite a nice little atmosphere. When I first got there, the nurses were slightly arguing about lunch time... but I guess that's expected when you need at least a few people around at all times.
The wall colours are calming.. kinda. My room was pink and I had the room to myself. Just very peaceful. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I had more people in the room.
Icky detergent they use on the sheets... I think I'm going to not like apple juice for a while. There's an apple-y scent which is not very pleasant. Or at least I didn't like it. I tried not to sniff the sheets.
I was at the hospital from 2-6ish. In that time, I encountered a shift change. It's nice to see nurses in action... but then I realized that my mom has been nursing me all my life! These people reminded me of mom - "you need this, eat/drink it now - I won't let you off the hook". A lovingly bossy type of personality! :) (It's nice, I think)
Hospital food isn't horrendous, the airplanes have worse. I was there at supper time so I got a tray just to stay fed. It was mashed potato, chicken, corn, a little tray of cantaloupe, containers of milk, juice and hot water for tea. All very yummy though I couldn't finish... and P wasn't there to finish for me!

Good experience I think - I don't dread going there for baby birthing. At this point, it's a debate between two hospitals for birth, this one being the "less specialized". I wouldn't mind going to either. I walked away with a souvenier blood pressure cuff too! (which I should bring with me so I can reuse it.)

Selfish

2010-01-21T11:58:00.002-08:00

I feel selfish when the following thought crosses through my head: "I wish P and I had more time of just the two of us... without the responsibility of another little person." We have a planned trip to Vegas this weekend... I'm hoping that this little trip will get the feeling out of my system.

I felt a baby foot today... baby didn't kick, it used its foot to push. Very very cute. (For now...)

Weight Gain WIN!

2010-01-18T16:10:00.002-08:00

Hopped on a scale at the midwives today... 5 lb weight gain! I am now 2.5 lbs from my original weight!

BABY WIN! Grow grow grow!!

Though I have to mention, tummy is starting to be sore because of all the stretching. Gravity is starting to work against me. For interest sake, I will post a tummy picture once I lose my belly button. :)

Gift

2010-01-15T14:25:00.004-08:00

In appreciation from our customers, our team received 4 little trees (as representation of us helping them "go green"). The tree is currently about 6 inches high and in a tiny little pot. One of them sits on my desk. It's supposed to grow quite big and we're supposed to water and re-pot it as needed. This is a live plant... I wish we just got a thank you, it'd be less work. :)

Also, I don't need another dead plant on my conscience. Thank goodness I only have a few more months of responsibility of it.

Routine?

2010-01-13T09:06:00.005-08:00

Near the end of my family's visit, P and I had been discussing how life will be. The pondering question really was "will we get back into the pre-visit routine? Hang on.. Was there ever a routine??" And by routine, it's leaning more towards a 'married life' type of routine.

Let's breakdown our life since the wedding:
July 17-Aug 5: Wedding rampdown and P's parents leave.
Aug 5 - Sept 18: Family situation and P rushing to finish his thesis before we leave for the Australia trip. That's not a routine yet - I have to keep myself entertained and P works like crazy.
Sept 18-Oct 12: Oz Trip
Oct 13-Oct 23: I spent a lot of time with morning sickness so I was sleeping a lot. P ramped up his thesis work again.
Oct 23-Nov 8: Mommy and grandma are in town.. if there are others in the apartment, routine isn't really possible.
Nov 8-Dec 9: P is winding down his thesis. He was able to finish a few days near the end of this length of time. So for about 4 days, we had a routine!!! Until...
Dec 9-Jan 11: Family came for Christmas! Our house was a bit of a zoo.

So after my family left on Monday evening, P and I were ready to start our routine together! We brought the family to the Greyhound station and after we said goodbye, we went to McDonalds for a celebratory Chicken McNugget snack. After eating the McNuggets, P got a tummy ache. We go home, play some super mario bros, surf the net, and head to bed early-ish. P's tummy is still hurting all night. Over the course of the night, P got up to vomit about once every hour. By about 5 am, he called me because he wasn't keeping water down and he was getting light headed.

It's this scary feeling where I stand there and not know what I can do. On most occasions I would have called my mom - but she was on the Greyhound. P reminds me that there's a healthlink phone number we can call so I quickly go find it (Just FYI, in BC it' 811) and we get to talk to a registered nurse. She gives us some basic information and lets us know that we can find it on the bc healthlink website. We have none of what she talked about at home (Gravol or Powerade/Gaterade). I find out that Safeway doesn't open until 7am... Regularly, I wonder why it opens that early, who would go? At that point I wondered why they weren't open 24/7!

On an interesting side note, I heard/saw P puking a bit and amazingly, I did not get nauseous myself. That's *very* rare for me. I wonder if this is how it'll be with the baby - I just love/care so much for this other human that the fact that what's happening is icky just disappears! Though, I get nauseous when I saw my brother vomit... what does that say about how I feel? :)

I wait and wait until the clock hits 6:55 and I get dressed and head off to Safeway. If you look at what I'm buying, you can probably immediately tell that I have someone sick at home. I was planning to head off to work soon but just seeing the state P was in, I couldn't let myself go. Let work know that I'd be late and I stayed around the house getting P to drink a bit here and there. (All of which he couldn't keep down). Eventually, he headed to bed to get sleep and I headed to work.

I come home and settled down. Our wedding photos arrived!!! Though I could care less at this point... Check the clock and it's 7 pm and P has fallen asleep on the futon. I'm tired as I woke up multiple times and got up very early... so I head to bed. P wakes up and moves to the bed as well and we're both sleeping by 8. We sleep sleep sleep until this morning. P is feeling better today (I think) which is happy news.

So overall, I think we'll try our routine attempt number 2 in a couple of days - after P gets better. I have concluded that I really don't like the feeling that I can't do anything to make P feel better if he's sick - though, nothing I can do to change it. Also, no more chicken mcnuggets for a very very long time.

Baby Survival Rate

2010-01-11T14:11:00.016-08:00

So starting this week (Baby is at the end of week 23, starting week 24), the baby has a much higher chance of survival if it is pre-maturely born. I'm just having fun watching the stats change week by week. Here's a neat little breakdown (Note: these are just averages and depends on many other factors):

This baby is coming no matter what! I've finally finished reading about 2 of the maternity books and though fears are still there... there are some "funny" stuff. For example, things I should look for after the birth are blood clots the size of lemons (or larger) come out of me. Can you imagine if it happened? LEMON! They aren't small! And a stretched tummy/uterus that will take time to shrink again (I'm assuming exercise is the key). I think my tummy will be weirdly flabby... right now it's quite rigid because of baby/fluid/etc.

The general consensus is that there is probably nothing that can prep me for the amount of pain that's in my imminent future... I guess the best solution is to just play it by ear. It's good to know that the fears I have aren't out of the ordinary. The books talk about having a birth plan - basically a list of things that I feel is most important to me. (This can include not having one as well). So things I can start thinking about is do I want music, medical intervention, etc. Oh so much to think about!

Latest news breakdown:

I was very sick (small fever/sniffle/cough/sore throat/hurling) last week (made it to work 2/5 days) and with preggo, it means no medication. It's not that I take a lot of meds for when I'm sick, but a cough drop here and there are helpful.... which I couldn't take.
I had gained about 2 lbs around Christmas, I think I have lost that weight during the cold... so time to restart my weight gain counter.
Baby kicks.. and likes kicking. And I like feeling it kick. Life is interesting there.
My family is leaving for Edmonton tonight... it's bitter sweet. I'm happy to have room in the apartment again, but I liked having them around to chat/play with.
House development plans in Edmonton are shooting ahead (http://harves.blogspot.com/2010/01/project-edmonton-committed.html) - we have placed our lot hold (fully refundable so we're not contracted yet).
On the note about Edmonton development, if plans move the way we're going now, I will be moving to Edmonton before the end of my maternity leave. At this point, my company knows of the possibility of me going - though not confirmed.
On a vain note: Oh I so hope this baby will be cute!

Confinement...

2010-01-05T17:09:00.002-08:00

I have been doing more reading about maternity/paternal leave as I only have a couple of months to make sure everything is in shape at work and so I have one less thing to worry about once we get to "Baby Day". I was reading Government of Canada's information about parental leave (http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/lp/spila/wlb/wfp/12Parental_and_Adoption_Leaves.shtml) and came across the following phrase:

On the occasion of the birth of a son or daughter, a male employee shall be granted special leave with pay up to a maximum of one (1) day during the period of confinement of his wife.

My goodness.. confinement... I would call it period of excruciating pain...

Work/Parent Dilemma

2009-12-26T05:43:00.001-08:00

Ahh time for another issue to crowd my little brain... This is about working after having the baby.

So background, I have been working for my current company since July 2008. By the time I have my mat leave, I will have worked just shy of 2 years. (My first job right after graduation) Last September during my review, I was told by my manager that I was doing very well and if it were any other year, I would possibly have gotten promoted. With the economic climate right now, there's not much we can do. Our team is short handed yet we aren't even allowed to hire, even if it means turning projects down. I understand the situation and I have worked hard to do well. Hearing this is was honestly very uplifting.

Fast forward to now... The baby is baking in my tummy faster than I ever expected. (it kicks like a maniac! I watch my belly ripple each time!) We (mom/P/me) are also in discussions about the future with Tim and the baby. I want our baby to grow up with Tim. Such that they can learn and grow together. It would be hard to see introducing Tim into baby's life a couple years down the road. But this means we'll be building the house and moving to Edmonton in a short-ish time period. This time period includes, possibly, during the maternity/parental leave.

That leads me to my internal dilemma. I have a job that I've worked hard at and truly enjoy now. I've gotten into a nice little rhythm with my co-workers. I'm on the borderline of getting a potential first promotion (a very exciting part of a first job, I feel). And then I may need to leave. Not only leave for a year for this baby but leave this team - possibly not the company if I can transfer to the Edmonton office. If I transfer to the other office, I still need to relearn the people, job, environment, etc. It would be no different than any new job.

On the other hand, I know that parenting is itself a rewarding thing to do. I know I love this little baby on it's way, no matter how much pain it puts/will put me through :) I'm more than excited at the prospect of meeting him/her.

Am I selfish to say that I want my cake and to eat it too? I don't want to start off new again - at the bottom of a huge learning curve. I know I could do it, just don't want to.

On a side note, I moved away from home. For the first time - for this job. My future plans say I'm moving back home... I was really enjoying my little spurt of independence. Home isn't necessarily bad and I know my mom is not trying to be "bossy", but I value her advice and I always tend to listen... What she doesn't know means she can't give her two cents :). This could be the reason why I have a marble race set now!

Like always, I know I should just hang on tight and enjoy the ride. I know the future I see is very short sighted. It's the feelings now that bug me, though. My inner bits wants a good healthy family and to succeed at work, at the same time.

My q now is how do other moms cope with their decision?!?!?

Weight

2009-12-22T23:03:00.002-08:00

My weight fluctuations have been one of the things at the top of my mind. With the morning sickness until last week (when I can honestly say my appetite returned), I have lost at least 7 lbs. Everytime I check my weight on wii fit (constant scale) I weigh just a little less.

The ultrasound with baby measurements all turned out normal so the baby is growing fine... Not much to worry about in that regard. But I do know I need a bit more fat in my system for proper baby growth and development.

During the last midwife appointment, this issue was brought up. She suggested that I go get myself some shortbread cookies or if I drank skim milk, switch to homo for a bit. I know this isn't a ticket to just eat unhealthy but the occasional snack is nice! :)

I think of myself as being on the Homer weight gain program. I can eat it if it makes the napkin see-through!

First gluttony food I am now snacking on are Oreos... Bring it on!

Little Nagging Fears - Pregnancy Related

2009-12-22T11:55:00.002-08:00

Lately I've been feeling a bit bored as work has slowed down and my family has taken over a lot of the apartment. I don't really want to do much so I sit around and do Sudoku or just think. Baby reading has been shelved a bit as I'm nearing the middle of my second trimester. Everything with baby is healthy - even the lack of drama adds to the boredom. Early in the pregnancy, I had to deal with morning sickness and my own feelings/emotions about the unexpected arrival. Now it's just watching my body grow and change.

On that note, I have to mention that I have noticing a lot of weird things going on with my body. Being pregnant is like your body is taken over by an alien... But it also means I look at the changes at my body and I'm disassociating myself from it - which causes me to laugh at the many weird things it's doing. For example, extreme hair growth. I don't know if I just have never stared at my tummy this much, but I never noticed so much hair on it. It's not the monkey-thick type hair.. but there's still little hairs everywhere! Is my butt getting hairier too? My goodness! Boob growth is a little disappointing though - I read the baby books about massive boobs get now that I'm starting to produce milk! Yea, fail, no. They got a little bigger.. this is all one girl can hope for I guess.

Another reason why baby reading has been shelved is that I've passed the midpoint mark where you're trying to keep the baby inside, and now need to start planning for it coming out. I have to say this is scarier than anything that's happenned so far. Here is a little summary of my fears:

Labour - It's going to be painful, gauranteed. Will it be pain that I can handle? I'm not one to say GIVE ME EPIDURAL! I've been slowly doing my research on possible side effects of getting it... Though as they say, nothing is conclusive - everything is "might happen". I don't usually like to take drugs no matter what, any foreign substance must have some side effect...
Labour Complications - We're hearing stories about if the baby is too big or if I have missed some type of exercise or really anything, there'll be the possibility of a broken pelvis, weird tears that should not be mentioned.. and a whackload more "fun" stuff.
"Fresh" Babies - Birth is hard, baby does not come out looking like they just had a bath. I'm slightly fearful of dirty/peely looking babies. What if I just have a hormonal "my goodness! it's scary!" reaction?
Breastfeeding - The question that seems to be right after "Is it a girl or boy?" and "When's the due date" is "Will you breastfeed?". A lot of the articles out there are of people struggling to breastfeed. The nagging fear in this case is just.. I want to know if it'll work! Not wait and see.
Breast Pumps - http://www.expressathome.com.au/elite_large_175xx_485.jpg Need I say more? *shudder*

So yes, my views to the future don't really want to extend past the end of the 2nd trimester because it means I have to fully stick my head into all the reading about birth/labour/blood/goop/pain!

On a completely seperate note, I have asked P if we can consider going on a babymoon. It's not so much a "last hurrah" as some people put it, just a nice little vacation as I'm not sure what the future holds. I'm also getting a trapped feeling... we havn't gone anywhere.. even to Edmonton! We're thinking Vegas...

No Olympics Volunteering

2009-12-17T10:15:00.002-08:00

I have made a decision last night that's kinda hard to make. I am not going to be an Olympics/Paralympics volunteer.

I was very excited about volunteering and whatnot for the Olympics. Before finding out about the pregnancy, I turned down a position for curling again in hopes to get a different position. In the end, it turns out no other position for me. I don't really regret it though...

A couple days ago, I got an email informing me that I was offered a position up in Whistler as a Helpdesk Technician! I was excited... until I sat down and calculated baby growth time. By the time Paralympics comes around, I will be starting baby's 8th month... the month that baby will balloon in size. Logically speaking, I will really struggle getting up to Whistler everyday for my shift.. and possibly trouble just getting around.

Unless I get some last minute Olympic position, I believe I will just be a spectator.

As P says, Olympics (summer/winter) happen once every 2 years. Baby happens 2/3 times in my entire lifetime! I have to figure out my priorities :)

Sibling Brain Dump

2009-12-16T13:39:00.003-08:00

I had someone ask me if I had ever wanted a sibling in addition to Tim. Here is my response, mostly a brain dump of my thoughts/fears at this point:

I have always swayed back and forth about wanting another sibling. I asked my mom at one point if I ever played with Tim – her response was “yes, until you outgrew him”.

I also come from a situation that my dad wasn’t around. He was diagnosed with liver cancer when I was 6 months and passed away when I was 2 years old. From the talks with my mom, most likely I’d have another sibling if my dad was around longer. But if my dad was around, I feel things would have been very different as well. With one parent and Tim’s disability, I always felt that Tim got most of the attention. In terms of going out, it would be where Tim wanted to go because he can’t understand compromise. For selfish reasons, I would say I’m happy without another sibling. I didn’t have to fight more attention.

On the other hand, I would love to have someone who is in the same situation as me – someone who I could relate to completely with our situation. Lately, I’ve been doing more reading more on siblings of people with disabilities. (http://www.amazon.com/Isnt-Fair-Stanley-D-Klein/dp/0897893336) It’s nice to know that some feelings are similar but for the most part, I could hear myself screaming “But that’s not my situation! Tim is different from that!” I think being able to have someone who knew how frustrating it could be would be very nice. It’s easier to fight the world’s (sometimes very skewed views) as more than one. I’m just thinking of all the nasty comments I hear strangers utter about Tim sometimes when they don’t know. If I had a partner in crime, I would be a lot more verbal about how unpleased I am… though maybe having that restraint makes me look less like a maniac.

The long run is what we’re facing right now… With this baby coming, we’re planning out how our family will be. I want to be involved in Tim’s care in the long run and I want him fully integrated in our family. In my entire lifetime, we’ve been finding that everyone just steers clear of Tim – even extended family. Tim is very social and I know he would love more interaction. With our new family, both Peter and I are hoping to “start over” in a way. Get Tim more involved in everyday chores/living/playing with the kids. To do so, we’re thinking of moving to a house that can hold my family (Tim, mom, and grandma) as well as our newly starting one.

Current floor plans are of my family living on the main floor, possibly a separate suite for Tim – he would still need staff around, and my family upstairs. We’re working towards getting Tim a bit more independent from my mom such that she doesn’t have to worry about his future care. At the same time, Tim is visiting now and we’ve gone on a few outings as a family. Being away from home, I had forgotten how hard it was to look after Tim. (Especially when he’s sleepy/grouchy). In those times I wish that I had someone who would share the “load” with me. Maybe also someone who could confirm that my “stuck” feelings at times aren’t me being selfish but just part of the process. I think I would get that with a sibling and I wouldn’t feel that I’m the only one who can do it for Tim.

P and I had a conversation of we’re in the odd situation where if I passed away, we wouldn’t know what would happen to Tim in the long run. It’d be weird for P to hang around at our “dream” home… If he were to ever meet another woman, how could he explain that he’s living with his deceased wife’s family and taking care of his brother in law, mother in law, and grandma in law as well as any kids we have together. I have this insane fear and it always sounds bad but I hope Tim dies before I do… I wouldn’t want him to be left alone in the world and I don’t want my kids to feel “obligated” to take care of him. I think I would have less of these fears if I had a sibling who could be there.

All this depends on the type of relationship I would have with another sibling. I watch other siblings and sometimes they seem like they’re from different worlds. I read of siblings who don’t want anything to do with the disabled sibling. All these evaluations are with my ‘idealized sibling’. If I honestly had a sibling that didn’t care much, it would hurt me more.

I Watched TV Happen!!

2009-12-07T21:14:00.001-08:00

Today P and I were catching up with Fringe season 2. We were watching episode 7 and I am watching the openning sequence. I saw a scene that looked EXACTLY like what I saw filming this past summer.

On watching more carefully I recognized the text in the background and on another shot, I saw our office building!!! In other round shots I see buildings I see everyday including the BC Hydro building! I could have seen the Fringe actors doing their thing... If I didn't focus on work that day. :)

Why I Don't Have A Hamster

2009-12-07T20:20:00.005-08:00

I told a couple of people this story already.. I thought I'd share:

[Situation: I was sitting around one day doing my baby reading. I came across a section that talked about pregnant women not being able to get good sleep if the baby is active during the night.]

Me: You know, I don't think this baby is going to be active during the night... I spend all day poking and prodding it because I want to feel it move.

P: This, is why you didn't get a hamster...

So far I've been drinking either a hot chocolate (sugar rush) or shining a flashlight on my tummy. (Apparently baby can sense change in light now). Go Baby Go! The other day, I was resting my hand on my tummy while holding my iPod. I got a little *push!*. It was cute.

Baby really is just a toy that I can't forget at home :D

Rocker Baby

2009-11-29T01:25:00.001-08:00

Tonight was the Starfield concert that I mentioned in yesterday's blog. The evening started a bit icky because our trip home from IKEA took longer than expected. I basically drove the car 1/2 hr home for our tickets and turned right around and drove almost 1.5 hours back out to Abbotsford because the traffic was quite horrid.

Sitting for long periods of time with minimal movement always bugs my pelvic joints. With that in mind, 2 hours of driving did not do well. By the time we arrived, I was not happy - not to mention that we were late too.

Got in just as the opening band was finished and Starfield set up. Concert started and we found ourselves some seats in the pews. Pretty good, at that point!

To begin with, I was absolutely horrified at what I saw. My fave band had turned their amazing music concert into a cheesy light show that blinded each and every audience member! By the time the band was in their third song, I was in full onset bawling with tears. Nothing was the same from my memories! And I was also reminded of the last time I saw Starfield... I just missed that time a lot.

I'm standing there next to P and absolutely emotional. I think he worked out what was wrong after a few sobby words and a quick text.

Fast forward in the concert, I finally settle down and am sitting and listening to Tim (Starfield lead singer) talk about stuff when I feel a weird sensation in my tummy... Then I feel it again, best described as a flutter. I believe the baby was doing a little dance! P put his hand on my tummy and thinks he felt something too.

My only conclusion, this baby is probably going to be a little rocker :) hopefully! Though I hope it never turns into what I think Starfield turned into... noise and cheesy lights. I loved the original, it's about a simple concert where they sound more awesome live. Not for how loud they can be or how flashy the lights are.

Besides that, we're one step closer to baby!

Blog Digest 2

2009-11-27T10:03:00.003-08:00

I tend to have so many little brain farts lately, here's a second digest:

In grade 3, it was the first snowfall in Edmonton and it was snowing wet snow. These big wet blobs but it melted once it hit the ground. I remember looking up and it looked amazing. From that point on, I have always wanted a see-through umbrella. Two days ago, P came to walk with me home and he surprised me with a NEW UMBRELLA! It's completely see through so when I walk under it, I can still see everything including looking up. I'm waiting for the first snowfall in Vancouver so I can test out my cool memory again. On an interesting note, while P and I were facing each other under the umbrella, there was a guy behind P that got hit by a car... We heard the bang but I couldn't see past P and he wasn't looking behind him. Therefore, you can't see *everything* when you have a see through umbrella.. but good enough!
I found out that Starfield was coming to Vancouver.... kinda. They're performing in Abbotsford! I wonder if that's the same church that fell apart last time. Either way, I was looking at all the facebook status' changing when the Edmontonians got to go to Starfield and I got a little twinge... I started liking Starfield when I got my first Starfield CD in grade 10. That was.. almost 10 years ago! Yea.. Starfield has certainly been around for quite a while! Anyways, car is rented and P is coming with me to STARFIELD!!!! Early in the relationship he already said no to having a Starfield poster up over our bed... I guess that's okay.
On the bed side note, I don't think I ever mentioned that P helped me set up my dream bed when I moved here. I have always dreamed to have a canopy so he made it happen! It's very simple, from IKEA. (Image here: http://images3.souq.com/getthumb.php?fromfile=uploaded/1107/71621195667235.jpg&w=120) Either way, I feel like a princess when I'm under it! Usually we don't have it actually open and for use because it gets a little hot under there. I like it in the summer when we leave our window open and weird bugs fly in!
It's the time of year where Christmas music plays 24/7. I miss being in Edmonton and listening to the songs all day long. Now with work, no car, and not much awake time at home, I don't listen to Christmas music as much. I'll try to work on that in the next few weeks... P and I are setting up a little surprise for my family and I've turned on the music for that!

Those are all my updates for now!

Week 17 Mommy Update

2009-11-25T13:21:00.005-08:00

Two days ago, near the end of the day at work, I felt a sharp pain in my lower back and then referral numbness/tingling down my right leg. It sounded strange to me but P jumped on it. He has heard of it regularly through his physio appointments - though never experienced it. We contacted the midwives and was recommended to a chiropractor. The condition is known as sciatica. (Sounds kinda like "gattica") Not crazily common but happens in pregnancy.

Basically what's happening is that since my joints/body is trying to adapt to fitting this baby, it ended up adjusting to a position such that my spine is actually pinching the sciatica nerve. The sciatica nerve leads from my lower back down to my legs and feet. This condition is nothing serious but a bit painful and annoying. This is slightly scary and interesting as I've never been to a chiro.

Yesterday, I had my first chiro appointment in the morning. They did two interesting scans.

Infrared - This is a basic scan that measures the heat of the muscles around my spine. If it shows up red, it means that those muscles are constantly working/tightened. The result of this scan has the entire area around my stomach really red - which the chiro says is indicative of my nausea. The other red areas are around my neck - due to my computer posture... and around the lower back - near where I have pain.
EMP? EKG? ECG? Electro something - This measures the strain the muscles are under.. there was a better explanation at the chiro but basically the points on my spine that are getting pulled. All the pulling points are actually on my left one at my neck, in the mid back, and lower back.

From these results, the chiro came up with this diagnosis: My pelvis is tilted to far forward (like the front is lower than the back) and also a little tilted too far down on the left. The too far forward explains the pinching of the nerve in the back, and the sideways tilt probably attributes to why I have more issues on one side than the other - namely the right.

I guess I'll be going to the chiro more often now as hopefully this issue will be fixed if not minimized.

Thump Thump Thump

2009-11-23T21:32:00.001-08:00

I was taking a bath tonight - they help with the joint soreness. I was on my back so my ears under water. I first heard my heart beat then if I was very still, I could hear a faint thumping that was about double my speed... I think it may be the baby....? Or I was getting excited about nothing. Either way, I got P excited and he attemped to put his ears in the water too! His head was upside down and got hot bath water up his nose! Sad to say, he hasn't heard anything either.

Epic Fail, Mommy!

2009-11-19T22:56:00.001-08:00

Yup! That's my mood today. Not thinking of my mommy... It's the thoughts I'm thinking for this baby.

We had a midwife appointment today. Nothing interesting happened - everything is normal and I'm healthy. I just left feeling a bit down. During this entire pregnancy I've just felt like I struggle with food. Keeping food in, that is. It's getting frustrating - though the notes I got from the last post has helped a bit. Also reminding myself that this baby is working hard to stay in and growing... Even when it gets jealous of food in the vicinity and pushes it out... :)

I haven't really found the courage to take my prenatal vitamins as they seem to make the nausea worse. This includes not taking my folic acid... Reading about vitamins and whatnot - that's a very needed one. Epic Fail #1, mommy.

Was talking to the midwife, she suggests that since I can't get much food down, what I put in should be nutrient filled. I keep forgetting to think about what I eat, just that it stays down. My diet now mainly consists of salsa, cheese, and tortilla chips. That seems to stay happy in my tummy. Nutrients? Epic Fail #2, mommy.

H1N1 is all rampant and people are getting their vaccines. I have been waiting for the unadjuvanted one and never quite sure when it arrived. Talked to midwife today - turns out I need to ask my family doctor... The one who up and left for a year this past May - to the UK. How long have I been missing out on the vaccine? I dunno. I need a family doctor or find myself a way to get this thing. Epic Fail #3, mommy.

Is it three strikes I'm out? Bah, I'll try to find healthy food tomorrow. Until then, let's go find these prenatal vitamins... I guess I have to do something and not just whine about it... Though it feels a bit better. :)

Sicky

2009-11-18T09:57:00.001-08:00

3 pukes this week already... I'm not eating. Back on the little white pills I think :(

Small Notes

2009-11-12T09:23:00.008-08:00

I have noticed little things that I can't fill up a full blog with.. so I'll just list each small item:

We live with a silverfish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverfish but looks like http://publish.uwo.ca/~dspanner/silverfish.jpg) *shudder* It makes me think about cleaning our room - get my clothes off the floor.. bah, nevermind. Too lazy.
If you have an iPod Touch and you haven't scratched up the back (mines is all scratched up, it's well loved), you can use it as a mirror! I saw a girl putting on makeup using the back of her touch.
My nausea is directly related to how tired I am. On days that I can sleep early and wake up late, I can eat a lot more. On days, such as work days, I have to wake up at a set time and most days my appetite is gone. Yesterday was good appetite, today so far is really really bad.
I went to Starbucks today to get myself a cup of warm fuzzy (Caramel Apple Spice) and the lady in front of me was weird.. She ordered a Grande (large) expresso/black coffee and then when the barista turned around, she stole the tall (small) display cup... I thought you asked for one.. not steal it off the display... That was weird.
I got into bed and dislocated my butt. P had to wiggle my butt bone back into place before the pain would go away. Who knew a dislocated butt hurt so much!

Updated Nov 14, 2009: I found a new resident last night: http://entomology.unl.edu/images/centipedes/gardncnt.jpg We asked it to leave by me squealing, P picking it up with a sheet of paper and deposited it on our balcony...

Pregnancy == Homework

2009-11-09T13:08:00.004-08:00

In discussions with P this weekend, I have realized that I am reacting to the pregnancy like I would with homework or an exam. The flow is always like this:

I find out that we will have a homework assignment - the initial requirements are given out. At this point, I get very excited and I start doing research on how to do the assignment. If it's code I will start a skeleton code version of it. I get very excited and am even dreaming about it. Always thinking that this time, I will be on top of EVERYTHING! Be ahead in readings, etc.
Middle of the assignment/term, the due date is quite far away so I stop thinking about it... Just go everyday. I might look at it for an hour or so but that's tops.
Assignment is almost due. I start to scramble to get it done. Testing, reading, whatever I need to do. Catchup work really.. It's the last minute stuff that *has* to be done.

Now relate that to the pregnancy:

We're pregnant!! I read and read and look up information and make a white board chart of what is happening each day. I blog about it thinking I'll update about everything that's happening. My thoughts and the things that P and I are doing to prepare. I will be prepared! What's the baby name going to be?? Dream about the baby.. think about the baby...
Right now.... I'm pregnant? Why isn't the baby growing? Whatever, I don't want to read anymore. It's not going to happen for a while. Pfft, I can put stuff off.
What I foresee: THE BABY IS COMING WITHIN THE NEXT MONTH!! WE DON'T HAVE A NAME!! WHERE IS IT GOING TO SLEEP! I HAVN'T DONE ANY READING!!

And there goes my thoughts for the day :)

"We're Working On Our Marriage..."

2009-10-30T12:02:00.004-07:00

One thing I am learning is that each person acts and reacts to comments differently. You can say the same thing, in the same tone, and each individual will react to what you say. I had heard that the Laugh Your Way (to a better marriage) seminars were coming to Vancouver - at a church near our house. I had seen clips of it which were quite funny so I decided this is something that P and I should check out.

I registered us even before the Australia trip so when it came near the seminar date, I had to remind myself (and while I'm at it, P) that the seminar was coming up. In my head, I call it the "Laugh Your Way" seminar but to P, I called it the "marriage seminar". (I know it sounds horrible, I thought it was funny). In the afternoon before the first session, P was quite tired so I was like "You have to pay attention dear, we're working on our marriage tonight!". Little did I know, P did not take this well.

When we got to the seminar we sat down (1/2 hr before the start) and P finally asks "Do you think we need to work on our marriage already? Is there something you're unhappy about?" Then it hit me, the comments I was making were not being taken in the way I had intended... I have much to learn.

Through this seminar, the speaker introduced something called "The Flag Page". It's not about what you're good at.. or what your spiritual gifts are... or what you should be when you grow up... It's actually about what motivates you in life. In other words, what gives you warm fuzzy feelings if you hear it/do it/feel it.

P and I bought licenses to do our tests and we got our results. P has his results posted on his blog. I look at it.. and think about my previous comments.. and realize that the comments I made about the marriage thing would have hit most of targets in his top 5 treasured items... possibly everything but creative - though mostly "competent". He wants to be good at all he does.

So on my end, here are my results. I'm not sure P learned much... but it emphasized what he already knew. My top 5 are as follows:

Deep Thinker
A Born Leader
Thrives on Encouragement
Thoughtful
Sincere at Heart

So these are the aspects that motivate me most in life. I can honestly say that if something comments on any of these - either positive or negative - those comments go straight to my heart.

One big thing that the speaker mentioned was that the world may not see these things. These are *internal* motivations so it's very easy to accidentally have one of these items stepped on. I think that's one thing nice about this quiz... it's aimed at looking you on the inside, not just qualities you've either learned or think you have. It's what drives you to get up in the morning.

Just a funny note for me though, I get warm fuzzies from the "A Born Leader" trait... but another trait that drives me is an "Easygoing" one. This means that though I like leading in the opportunities I do get to lead, I don't always go around finding ways to lead. I'm a little too lazy for that :)

All and all, I think I agree that these are my motivations in life. Now that we both know them, I'm curious to see how we encourage each other from now on. I also know where I need to watch my tongue around P.

The full results are here: https://www.flagpagetest.com/index.php?flag=EBWG-B6ZY-7MTC-XZ7Y

Switch Flicked!!!

2009-10-26T15:31:00.002-07:00

So I do all my reading and it says "Morning Sickness will fade after the first trimester". I was hoping and wishing for the day to come. My 12th week came (start of 2nd trimester), and nothing. I feel just as sick as every week before it. By this point, I was just getting annoyed at feeling dead so I just stopped the pill taking. No groggy head and constant gagging - I can handle it!

I did 2 days of work that way... then I got sick for 2 days and stayed home. Made it through the weekend with one minor "upheaval" event... but today... oh today... It's like a switch got flicked! I've only gagged twice (once eating a banana too fast, once walking into the fishy smelling lunch room). I feel very very good right now.. AND I CAN WALK QUICKLY!!! I haven't been able to do that for a couple months! Part of waddling is that you walk so slow, all you can do is waddle.

I'm just excited at this moment. I feel good and not sick. Let's see how I go tonight!

On a side note, I'd have to say I'm very unimpressed at the rate this baby is growing. I'm showing just a teeny tiny bit... but so little that it just looks like I'm developing a beer gut. My pants still fit and all that fun stuff... I just want this thing to balloon so I don't feel so "I'm pregnant but no one can tell". Just my thoughts for the day.

"It Exists!!"

2009-10-22T14:49:00.005-07:00

That, my friends, is what I exclaimed today... Lemme backtrack a bit.

So I'm inside week 12... the week where *hopefully* the nausea will go away. I stopped taking my happy pills this week (Diclectin) because I'm just frustrated being to groggy at work. Mind you, I'm off work sick today - woke up with runny nose and a bit of a cough. With a bit more water and rest I should be fine for work again tomorrow.

This afternoon was our first official midwife visit. In the last couple of months we tested out a couple and we decided on this one. I thought I would go slightly into what midwifery was as well since I had never heard of it before either. In BC, midwifery care is covered by our provincial healthcare. When you're pregnant, you have a choice to choose a doctor (who then needs to agree to do deliveries) or a midwife. For the most part, doctor appointments are about 10 minutes long.. and midwife appointments are 45 minutes long. You get to spend a lot more time talking to them - asking questions, getting advice, etc. Another option that midwives offer is the ability to do home births - though hospital births are perfectly fine too. P and I have decided to go with a midwife as they'll probably give us more "holistic" care. (Will give birth at a hospital too) They can prescribe meds and all that fun stuff - so even during the labour, pain meds and all that are not off the list. Think of midwives as a specialized doctor that just focus on birth and have a limited number of patients.

Going back a little furthur - I was watching Glee the other day (to see what the hype is about) and reached about the second episode. In that episode, the wife of the teacher finds out that her pregnancy is fake! She wanted to be pregnant so badly that her body just kinda acts it out! With that little seed planted, I started to wonder. Is my nausea fake? Am I *really* *really* pregnant? Is there actually something there? Am I suffering for a reason???

Leads me to now. During the midwife appointment we got to listen to the heartbeat. With the neat little doo-dad, you put the mic up to the tummy and "thud thud thud" we hear it! The little thing's heart is having a field day - it beats 150 times per minute - but it's there! It's really there!

On a slightly sad note, I was hoping for twins so I won't have to go through the nausea for again... no such luck. One little racing heartbeat in there. Oh well, back to the land of normal. I think my stomach is doing flip flops just thinking about the second time around... though I'm getting too ahead of myself.

Future plans: We're going to get our one and only ultrasound later on in the pregnancy. They usually don't do one early on unless you don't know the age of the baby (therefore, the due date) - ours is quite solid. The ultrasound is usually done at 18-22 week point but if we want to find out the gender of the little bub, we'd have to do it between the 20-22 week point. P, being desperate for information, (and apparently a little jealous I'll be getting a full physical exam next time I go to the office - he likes information) is keen to find out the gender else he'll explode. So expect that we'll know whether it's a boy or girl in exactly 2 months time. Mind you, that's around Christmas! Will be quite the Christmas present.

Umbrella Condom

2009-10-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

Being in Edmonton, I truly felt there was no need for an umbrella. The rain would never last long and you can get to most places by running to and from your car or indoors.

Once I got to Vancouver, I realized this was not the case. I needed a good umbrella. One thing that I learned is that all umbrellas have this case thing. On some umbrellas you have this cute little case bag thing. On others it's a tight thin cover that just covers everything but the handle after you close the umbrella.

Most days I leave the cover off as I would need to use the umbrella again shortly. Today the clouds cleared up in the afternoon so I decided to pack the umbrella fully away.

As I was trying to put this tight covering on - more struggling to wiggle it on - I couldn't help but think that this cover really just felt like an umbrella condom. Someone should try to market some "roll on" covers to snugly suit the closed umbrella.

Just my brilliant idea for the day!

Adventures of Finding Out

2009-10-18T12:35:00.003-07:00

I wanted to add another blog just to mention the joys we had in finding out that I was pregnant.

It was September 1, and my period was late for about 6 days. P and I had been joking about me being pregnant but usually my period isn't regular if I've had a bit of stress and things have settled down. I reckoned it was the stress of the wedding and my period was trying to get things back on schedule. Either way, we were walking home and P mentioned that he did some reading on home pregnancy tests. This was something I had not considered... since he did the research I thought we might as well go check it out.

We head into the Safeway near our house and wander to the pharmacy department. Standing in the "family planning" section - above are condoms and below are the pregnancy tests. I stare at these little boxes and my goodness! They are expensive! So I'm doing my normal consumerism thing. Do I buy it in bulk? It's always cheaper in bulk.. but how long do they last? Will we need that many tests in a short period of time? Do we buy the one on sale? Which one do we choose? Eventually we chose the bright pink one that was on sale - $2.99 off. I have never been so confused while shopping - usually this debate is over 2 for 1 bags of chips.

*******Note: it gets a little icky around here... don't read if you're eating.****
*******Skip down to the next comment.*******

We get home and read the instructions. You have two options.
1) Pee on the stick for 5 seconds, straight.
2) Pee in a cup and stick the tip of the stick in for 5 seconds.
I did not have to pee at that point so we just kinda left it. We have dinner and sit around and then I feel that, yes, I need to pee. But not badly enough that I think it will last for 5 seconds. So we have to take option 2.

Staring at option you, you don't realize the questions that come up. Okay, pee in a cup. What type of cup? Not a cup that you'd want to drink out of afterwards - no matter how clean it got. How about an old ice cream container? No, that's too big. Eventually we're going through our kitchen trying to find a "cup" that we could use. We settle on a jello container (those little snack pack tubs).

Eat the jello, wash the cup thoroughly. I head in and pee. All is good.

***** You may continue to read at this point **********

Do the stick test. Leave the stick on the counter. Rush into bed because I am really scared to watch this stick. You have to wait for 3 minutes and I really did not just want to watch it. P and I are lying there thinking about the options... what if I was pregnant.. what if I wasn't... bah.
P: "3 minutes is up"
Me: "I don't wanna see"
P: "We have to go look before 10 minutes or else the result is inaccurate"
Me: "Fine.. let's go..."
We stare at this little stick... with a faint little pink line. I burst into tears! Prob cuz I'm hormonal. But partially from disbelief. P and I can't keep plants alive and we are to raise a kid?? Who is playing this eternal joke? Also, I was going to get my pet hamsters after our Australia trip. (to teach me how hard it is to care for another life) and now my dreams of being a hamster trainer is gone for life!

Eventually I calm down and start getting a bit excited.. and then it's like "Oh, do we tell our parents?" We make this brilliant plan to take a picture of the pregnancy test, stick it in an email subject "Surprise!" and leave it. See the reactions. But then after we sent it, we realized this isn't a good idea. What if they don' t understand? What if they start telling people? Nonono, this can't happen. We end up calling our parents. P's parents seem tame and cautious - we'll have to wait for the doctor's confirmation. My mom (on the other hand) tells us she can't open the attachment. So much for "surprise!" We end up teaching her how to open it - she looks at it - and we can't tell if she's excited or not. Later we find out that she's not sure if we're excited so she didn't want to overdo the excitement.

Family knows. We know. Kinda. We'll wait to go to the doctors.

The World Knows...

2009-10-18T12:18:00.003-07:00

One day post-announcment of my pregnancy and I actually feel a little more relieved. Both P and I have been wanting to tell the world since we found out but there were also little precautions that we were taking. On finding out, we also looked at statistics. It seemed like within the 1st trimester (about 12 weeks) there was a 75% chance of miscarriage. I know it's just a stat but it also drove me to keep our tidbit of information to ourselves until a later time.

There are a lot of things that you totally don't consider until you do get pregnant... it's one of those cliche terms... you don't realize something until it hits you like a freight train. As many "plans" I may have thought I had beforehand - they're completely up in smoke. Everything from which city to live in - to bring up the little baby for the first couple of years/do we move before the baby gets here - to can I even volunteer for the Olympics? Is it going to be too close to term? Will I be able to be on my feet for that long?

So many baby questions :) I have happily just spent another birthday lounging at home. But I'm realizing that I feel old.. yet young at the same time. I was getting used to the idea of being called "wife" and now contemplating that a little bub will be calling me "mommy" (eventually)? It's amazing how many labels just kinda hit you once you hear them.

In terms of the pregnancy, once I hit week 6, I got a full blown hit of morning sickness. Though it's actually just all day sickness and it feels like your stomach is rearranging itself constantly. After about 2 days, I realized that I was having trouble keeping food down and the general horrible feeling was not going anywhere - no matter what little remedies I could think of. Off to the doctor we trek and come out with a med called Diclectin. A happy little white pill that makes me feel like I'm the walking dead - but I don't actually need to hurl anymore!

It's always a debate for me when I want to take it, esp when relating to work. Do I go to work and just work really slowly because my brain is groggy... or do I just suck up feeling sick and make a dash for the washroom when I feel my food coming back up. It's a choice that I still have to make daily. They say that this will go away (hopefully) or dramatically decrease in the next week or so... Or I could be unlucky and just have it all the way until the baby is born (in 6 months). I'm hoping for the first option. Until then, walking too fast, getting up too fast, or walking around the apartment too many times will set me off. Even sitting still in bed at times doesn't help. P thinks I have the pregnant waddle down pat. My hip/pelvic joints are so sore, i just tend to waddle... Whee :)

I reckon the baby doesn't like me much... P says the baby does like me but hasn't figured out the right way to show it :) Yay baby! Though on a funner note, P has now gotten empathy nausea. It's cute but also kinda annoying :) (sorry P)

That's the whole baby update up until this point. Life is slowly turning on its head (and that's not just me in the washroom). There are so many things to read/learn/hear about until the fateful day when a massive object is supposed to pop out of me. :) Ah... the joys of childbirth.

Pinching Pennies

2009-08-26T09:29:00.003-07:00

People were very angry today. I understand that it's a Wednesday and hump-day is never fun - but does it require yelling at the people serving you?

I was on the bus today. There's construction at a normal stop therefore the stop was moved a block up. Apparently yesterday, a bus driver let people off at the "disabled" stop because they were stopped at a green light there. Today, the bus driver had a green light and kept going to the official stop and there was a couple people - one lady especially - that just YELLED at the guy.. like not a grumble grumble.. it's like the "When Hitler is mad" type of yelling. "WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP ON GRANVILLE?? THE BUS DRIVER STOPPED YESTERDAY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" Bus driver - who needs to take the abuse - goes, "If you want to be dropped off exactly in one location, go call a taxi. Stop yelling at me". I was angry at that lady for him.

I then proceeded to the post office because I needed to mail some forms. Standing in the post office line, there was a lady trying to BARGAIN with Canada Post to try to get a better price to mail her ginormous package. (It was a big box). Body language was confrontational and language was... colourful. Eventually, she threw her hands up in exasperation and said "FINE! I'LL PAY IT!" My goodness lady - this is Canada Post! It's regulated! You can't bargain with these people!

I come to work and mention to a co-worker that the world is a mean place today... he said one phrase that rang a bell in me - "People are very worried about their money". That would - for me - explain both situations. The first lady probably is used to driving or taking a taxi before and now is frustrated when it's not going to *exactly* where she expected. The lady at the post office, needless today, wanted to save money.

I know I'm a snot when I say this - but I'm glad I'm not in a service job. I would take all these angry people personally... That is, take their yelling to heart.

Scared

2009-08-18T10:25:00.002-07:00

So yesterday, August 17th, was P and my 1st month anniversary! I can't believe I'm here - the past month has gone past so quickly. The Oz trip is quickly approaching and I know we need to plan. Anyways, during work, P finds two movie ratings.. He's been told that District 9 is good (as well as been rated highly) and I've been wanting to watch the Time Traveler's Wife (after I read the book). The TTW was rated moderate (http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/timetravelerswife). District 9 rated higher than many movies (http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/district9). It's not often that P is very excited to go see a movie so off to District 9 we go after work! We rush to catch the 7 pm - sold out show.

Fast forward 2 hours (1 hour waiting, 1 hour watching) and I'm hunched over in my chair, covering my ears, closing my eyes, and crying. I havn't been that scared in a movie.. ever. Never enough to cry. I only cry with some main character dies and everyone else is sad. At first refusing to leave because I know I have paid for this movie.. (but to think of it now.. I paid for entertainment.. I can stop anytime - it's not a commitment). Eventually P convinces me that it's okay to go and we leave in the middle of the movie.

So here I am.. the day after and not curious at all about how the movie ended.. P says he'll watch it on his own another time - probably after I go to sleep.

Happy 1st Month Anniversary, P! I'm sorry I dragged you out of the movie...

Sydney

2009-08-16T21:47:00.001-07:00

Uh oh... gotta check our flight details, again.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090814/odds/odd_us_holiday_sydney

"Real" World

2009-08-13T15:32:00.003-07:00

P introduced me to the world of Sims 2 days ago. I've been playing it nightly since. I dunno why I'm so intrigued.. I made a character of me.. and P... and Tim.. and mommy. To begin with, we spent about 1.5 hours trying to get the perfect likeness of us. P reckons I will start being irritated at him for something his Sim character does.

So yesterday, I was playing my Sims and at one point, the P Sim burnt a hamburger and set the stove on fire. The smoke alarm went off and it was a bit of chaos. A little while later, while my Sims were watching TV and going to the washroom, a fire alarm goes off. I needed to think for a sec then it's like "wait... we have to leave the building.. NOW!"

P's like "Wait, that's our building's fire alarm?? I just thought that was the Sims and the sound was just that good!"

So yes.. had to evacuate yesterday.. nothing important.. false alarm. P and I went for McD's while we waited to be let back in.

Bloomin'

2009-08-10T13:19:00.003-07:00

I've been finding an odd fascination with Tim Horton's new line of donuts... I would like to call it the "Bloomin' Series". Since Feb this year, they have come out with interesting bloom type donuts. I have never seen them before. I will proceed to show all of the yummy creations:

Cherry Chocolate (my first taste of the bloom)

Strawberry

And now... BLUEBERRY! oh yum! Eating one now.

Wedding Reflection

2009-08-09T01:21:00.002-07:00

Now this coming post will only be understood by the most 1337:

On my first day back at work after the wedding, my coworkers asked how the wedding went. I had to stop and think and could only reply with:

"Chaotic good"

Olympic Car Rental

2009-07-31T13:25:00.002-07:00

Now if you were planning to come to Vancouver for the Olympics and rent a car while you're here.. well.. I'd advise that you better get a second job. Or just buy a car now (in Vancouver) :)

I was standing in line waiting to return a rental car and overheard a conversation at the desk. Just a ballpark range.. they are charging $120/day (at least) for the smallest car - economy size.

My goodness. P, let's go buy a car so we can rent it out during the Olympics! We'd make a killing!

Mrs. Emily Harvey

2009-07-29T11:23:00.001-07:00

I've said this over and over again.. though it never gets old for me. Now that I'm married, I'm more Canadian! My initials are "eh" :) It's so bad.. yet so good! It's okay, I know I'm the only one laughing...

Wedding Music

2009-06-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

So P and I have spent the last many many hours trying to find music for the wedding... I am sick of going through all my songs :) I know that some of the lyrics suck for "wedding" theme... For example, did you know Viva la Vida (an awesome song) is about going to Hell??? yea, not going to play that song at the wedding!

So for all those who read - can you suggest some songs that are wedding safe? No other bad meanings... :)

Padded Ego

2009-06-22T10:33:00.002-07:00

So this weekend was uberly busy. I barely had time to be at home.. The only time at home was to sleep. Each day was just filled with errands and the time in between was to hang out with people. It's nice to be around friends.. I miss people while I'm in Vancouver but I also run out of time to keep in touch.

So anyways, during one of these errands, P had gone with Herman to West Ed and I was driving home to pickup my mom and brother. (We needed to go to the mall to suit up the groom/groomsmen). I had just left the parking lot of where we had lunch and noticed that Andy was driving behind me. Eventually I had stopped at a red light and Andy stopped next to me. I waved but noticed out of the corner of my eye... the car to my left (not Andy's car) had pulled up to a stop.. then started backing up.

I turned to look at the car, wondering why... There were to guys sitting in the front looking at me... They were two really nasty dudes.. cigarette hanging out of their mouths and was like "ooo someone's looking hot today!". I turn to Andy and make a (what I think is an) "oh my goodness" face. I hear them saying "The guy on the other side is looking at her too".

I guess getting checked out pads my ego.. but oh my goodness! why not cuter guys at least!

Forever

2009-06-16T11:31:00.001-07:00

The other day, it hit me.... I'm going to be with P forever. Forever is such a.. long time! I'm not saying that's anything bad.. but it's like Tim is my brother - forever. P is going to be family. Stuck for good.

I like!

4 Days 'til I get to see my dress!

Wedding Dress

2009-05-29T15:24:00.001-07:00

There's so much about the wedding I want to blog about yet I also want to keep a lot of things as a surprise... One of these things is my wedding dress... I really love it :)

The only note I will say is it has finally arrived in Edmonton. I will meet it for the first time in real life in June. *sigh* Can't wait!

Mommy's Here

2009-05-29T15:21:00.002-07:00

My mom and grandma are here to visit. It's nice to have them around but I also feel like the house has been non-stop visitations :) Maybe with the wedding coming up, I just want to take things muchly slow. Spend lazy afternoons watching Farscape and prancing around the house.

This morning, I went with my mom to get a temporary parking permit. I think since I havn't been home, my mom hasn't been able to complain about things... Lately it's my grandma's stubborness.

To this, I have achieved one conclusion: No matter how old anyone is, daughters always complain about their mothers...

Flower

2009-05-29T15:15:00.004-07:00

So I was shopping the other day. Grocery shopping because my house had absolutely no food other than coke and chocolate. P was having a down day so I thought I would go buy him flowers.

I head into the asian grocery store (as that's where all the cheap plants come from) and buy one with many small bright coloured flowers - a plant he mentioned he really liked. I go inside to pay with my plant and the cashier was making small talk with me. The conversation went like this:

Him: Are you Japanese?
Me: No...
Him: Are you Korean?
Me: No, I'm Chinese. :)
*pause*
Him: Ahh Chinese... They're like flowers.. that bloom into Japanese and Koreans.
Me: *smile.......*

How am I supposed to respond?

Movie Making Magic

2009-04-19T21:36:00.002-07:00

So after Marriage Mentoring classes one Wednesday night, P and I made our trek back to his apartment. Grandma was staying over in Vancouver and she was waiting for us. As we got out of the skytrain station, I noticed that there were weird lights across the street. Ignoring that, we keep trekking up the street and realize that an entire road was being blocked off and it was wet! Then both P and I realize we had just walked to a movie making set! SUHWEET! I've never seen them make movies.. Let's stay and watch!

So we join the little crowd of about 20 people or so standing around and staring at people... standing. Something's gotta happen soon! 15 minutes of standing.. we're told to move towards the middle of the street - clearing the sidewalk for their scene. Cool, it's about to start! WRONG! We're then told to move to the end of the street... So P and I putter off to the end. We stand around to what I realize was about 45 minutes now. I feel bad.. P had been wanting to go home and I was still being a little kid and excited.

Standing.. and waiting.. the 60 minute mark passed and we're still standing. But at that time, we found out they're shooting Tron 2. I have no idea what Tron was.. but IT'S A DISNEY FILM!! I always pictured Disney films like the Pixar studio.. fun... toys.. and the "magical world of Disney". Nope.. no sunshines, butterflies, or rainbows. Just guys.. in poofy jackets standing around. FINALLY they shot the scene.. all 5 seconds of a chase scene where a guy is hanging onto the top of a taxi cab. VERY strapped in. I know this because for the 60 minutes, he hasn't left the top of the taxi cab and he's been looking quite bored.

So there's my touch of movie making magic.

The cool thing is that they do everything to make it look "real". The Georgia and Thurlow signs were changed to 8th Ave and America St.

Punting

2009-04-19T21:33:00.002-07:00

So I walk down the streets of downtown Vancouver and there are a lot of things to see. People bustling around... seagulls the size of smart cars.. and tons and tons of pigeons. Now I don't usually notice birds because by the time I walk near them, they fly away. Smart bird action. But then I realized something... pigeons aren't that smart! I go near them... my foot about 1 cm from their bum... and they DON'T MOVE! They don't seem to care that humans are close. So here's my dilemma: I want to punt a pigeon. Just because I can and because they're kinda stupid not to fly away. Why don't I? Only 2 factors stop me:

There are people watching. I don't want to get caught doing it.
Pigeon poo is everywhere.. if I punt one in the butt, it might poo on me too.

So until the day I can overcome these two fears.. pigeons are safe. But afterwards... you better fly!

Olympic Spirit

2009-03-14T18:10:00.001-07:00

While volunteering today, we got to meet a bunch of Russians. The 2014 olympic is over near Moscow so they're here to check out the operations. It's interesting cuz our guys were telling them our challenges and such. That to me is the olympic spirit. Sharing with other countries.

On a wow side note, the current curling venue holds 1500 spectators. It's about 1/2 built. The done structure will hold 5000. I can just imagine...

Thoughts for the Day

2009-03-14T18:09:00.001-07:00

I'm currently doing my last shift at the curling stuff. It's junior world championships. Kids from aged 15-21. The girls are young and hot and the guys have swimmer's bodies. It's a fun atmosphere with people from all around the world. A shocking difference from wheelchair curling where it's middle aged men and women. Overall good experimce for me as I get to meet new people. Totally doable when Olympic time comes around.

Lately I'm in the mood of waiting for things to happen. Waiting for my dress. Waiting for the wedding date. Waiting for Easter long weekend to bridesmaid dress shop and meet florists. Waiting for a pastor that doesn't have a moral or political reason against P and I... All in good time.

I've been asked, P is my first boyfriend and we're sticking together for life. Do I ever wonder "what if" there's another guy for me or if this is the right guy. I always answer 1 or 100 guys, the what if question is there. I have found a guy whom I know loves me, whom I love, and one who shares the same goal in life as me - to love the people around us. It brings us so much joy to put our time in to help others. That's truly the life I want to have.

The count is 4 months 'til the wedding. Wedding invites are near the door. The hunt for plane tickets begin. I will now proceed to forget such things until July 1 when things should fall into place.

Now back to watching the cute Denmark-ian bend over to curl! :)

Good Luck?

2009-03-03T13:43:00.001-08:00

So I got a new credit card with the new pin/chip system in it. I call the people to activate it and since I'm talking to them, I decide to ask about name changes. I told the dude that I would be getting married in a few months and if I needed to change my name, what I should do. He told me procedure, etc. At the end of the call I got a "Good luck on your marriage!" "um.. thanks..." :)

Faster Than a Moving Vehicle!

2009-02-23T10:46:00.001-08:00

So for some reason the bridge I had to get across to get into downtown had a really bad traffic jam. A ride that usually takes me 10 minutes took 45. We were just crawling along the bridge. As we were waiting for the cars to move, there were people just walking across the bridge. I think they realized the traffic jam a lot sooner than I did. I think they all made it into downtown before I did as well. It was just so interesting seeing that many people walking along the bridge. It looked almost parade-like.

Where Did My Weekend Go?

2009-02-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

So I did my first few shifts for my pre-Olympic/World Cup games as "Print Distribution". It is basically a glorified mailman. It's considered "Technology" but the most we do is press PRINT on a photocopier. I guess they can't expect too much since this *is* a volunteer position. So I did two days of volunteering for the World Wheelchair Curling World Cup. Each shift was from 11:30 am to 9:30 pm.

First things first, wheelchair curling. I had no idea how it would work but it's quite neat. It's like normal curling but instead of throwing the rock with their hand, they have this stick that helps them push the rock. There is also no sweeping - which makes the game uberly harder because sweeping can fix a throw... these curlers need to be quite accurate. I highly doubt many regular curlers could come close to the accuracy of the curlers I saw.

So on my super long shifts, I actually only had to work for a total of... 1 hr? There are two games played per day. Each game lasting a max of 2.5 hours. One day at 12:30 pm and one game at 6:00 pm. As print distribution, we send out the team lineups at 12:00 and 5:30 - which takes about 10 minutes each. Then we send out the results of the game at the end - 20 minutes each game. That's it. The rest of the time we spend waiting around.

I spent my time doing the following:

Getting to know the guys I worked with.
Playing Cards.
Finished Ender's Game.
Played many many pages of my Sudoku book.
Learn exactly how curling is scored/played.
Learn how to photocopy efficiently.

Then I got home last night... to id3 tagged my entire music library. Wow I run an exciting life! Either way, I hope I do get a chance - like everyone volunteering now - to work the Olympics. Even though the job isn't uber exciting, it gives us a lot of time to watch the competition and meet people.

It is Finished...

2009-02-20T13:22:00.005-08:00

Well not quite, but close. All the parts that I was really worried about are all booked and ready to go for the wedding. Not bad, if I say so myself. 2 months of wedding obsession. Now I don't really think about it, for the most part. I have little things like finding a bridesmaid dress and book the flowers... nothing I'm too worried about. Both I am not very picky about.

It's a nice calm feeling now. P and I have had little rile ups about it - not knowing how to work together. Me expecting him to do stuff when he didn't know. As he said, he's in the state I am now. Just a weird calm that I know things are rolling and will happen eventually.

The only thing is that I hope I don't offend people. When it comes to things like the wedding invite list - I feel like there are so many people I can't invite. There's a venue limit of 200 people. That's a lot.. but not when you consider that family takes about 110, my grandma's/family friends take up 60-ish. That doesn't leave much room for all the people I want to share this day with. I'll try to make it up other ways but I am disappointed.

I also hope I'm not disappointed when the wedding day comes. I look at the planning I've done and I feel disappointed. Not because I don't like the choices, but I feel that P may not like them. This wedding is for 2 people. P always points out that I don't take enough to sit on an idea - even after I've chosen it. My approach is that I've been let down a lot by waiting. I find something that I like and make sure the cost is acceptable, then I go for it. Maybe the wrong approach but it means I can be done planning so early in the game.

We will see. I'm steeling myself for the criticisms when the day comes. (Not really from P, but from any opinionated attendees)

End of Message

2009-02-17T13:13:00.005-08:00

I believe those are all the blogs that I've needed to catch up with. Most aren't very funny as they're really just an account of what happened. But that's what I've been up to!

48 Hours of Winter

2009-02-17T13:13:00.003-08:00

For the start of the 1 year countdown to the Olympics in Vancouver, Grouse Mountain had an event called 48 hours of winter. It's basically starting at 9am on Friday until 10am on Sunday, the mountain is open. P and I decided we wanted to go - to try out our new gear, for the most part. I needed a quick nap after work as I was very tired but we headed up to the mountain and got there at 9:30pm. That's when we started snowboarding. We went down the hill a few times and my ears were getting told. I knew that we would be needing a helmet soon.

We hop over to the chalet and to the store. (We get 20% off any purchase because we had an annual membership). We found these really cheap helmets.. which were heavy and ugly. There were also these quite pretty ones and light... but were about $140. The guy who helped us was not pushy at all - which I liked. He was from Australia with a nice accent and on crutches from a bad jump, apparently. We went in but couldn't decide if a helmet for that much money was worth it or to go with uglier ones.. My bike helmet is $20... it's hard to make such a high priced purchase. We left and went down the hill again. On that run I made the decision, my helmet should not cost less than my bindings (A cheap bit of plastic to hold my feet to the board - $110). So we go buy the helmets. I look like a mushroom.. but I don't mind. I spent $25,000 on my brain (uni education) I better keep it safe!

Near the end of the night we were on the dismount from a ski lift. I was going straight as I couldn't decide if I wanted to head left or stop. P decided to stop but slightly wiped out and cut in front of me. I was soon on the ground in a bit of a roll. My legs came up behind me and the side of the snowboard smacked the back of my head.

It was a pretty hard smack... my head was throbbing for a bit. P looked at the point where the snowboard hit it (I pointed to where the throbbing was most severe) and he said it was about 1cm from the bottom of the helmet. If I hadn't bought that helmet earlier that evening, I don't know where I'd be right now... GO MUSHROOM!!!

Snowboarding

2009-02-17T13:13:00.001-08:00

So P has been complaining about the fact that there's nothing really special about Canada - compared to Australia. He's been meaning to go up to the mountains and try out the snow sports. I have had bad experiences...:

It was my first week at a new school in Junior High. We head out to Rabbit Hill to go skiing - I have never been on a hill in my life. I follow everyone else and get my rental skis and then I'm all by myself in the Beginner A group. I look at other people and am too embarrased to ask how to get my ski on. Luckily, my instructor showed us so I was strapped in and ready to go!

A few runs down the little bunny hill and I'm feeling pretty confident. End of lesson I go on my own for 2 more runs then I get hungry. I get to the door of the chalet, then I'm stuck. How do I take these things off? I mill around trying to learn how (looking at them, I can't tell). I try to watch others but they just theirs off so quickly I can't tell what they did. So here I am.. standing there... hungry. Time passes, I finally find someone I recognize to be in my class and ask them. I'm free!

Later in the afternoon I do my bunny runs and at one point I couldn't stop... I go straight into the snowboard rack and all the snowboards fall on me. I shrink into the chalet and stay there for the rest of the trip.

So P getting me on the mountain is a big thing. I go and we take our beginner lessons on how to put on (AND TAKE OFF) the snowboard. 2 hours later we were slowly sliding down the hill on our heels. I have to say - I enjoyed myself quite a bit. Went home with bruises on my bum and knees but I expected it. I was in so much pain for 2 days and I decided, Let's go to hot yoga! I know P had a bad session.. but I liked it. No more pain for me! stretched my joints and muscles out so they were good again.

I can't stand rented gear, I found out. How many people have sweat into the same pair of boots! By the next week I was in Edmonton (surprise vacation from work since they ran out of project budget). I got all new gear and shipped it back to Vancouver. I have my new baby - all shiny and pink and purple... I like it :) K2 all the way! K2 boot, binding, board, bag, and from before, bike! Say that quickly...

I'm ready for more runs now!

P Should be Jealous ;)

2009-02-17T13:12:00.002-08:00

So I went to Disneyworld/Universal Studio with my mom, brother, and P. It was a really awesome vacation. I can't say I had amazing fun at an amusement park - like I did at Disneyland - but just spending time with Tim was a time that I will treasure. During the last few years I have felt like Tim didn't like me at all. Whenever he saw me he was either frustrated or unhappy. I hadn't had fun with him for ages.

This trip was very different. We took turns giving each other kisses. I got to take him on rides and he was willing to come with me to things. When my mom and P were in the front of the car (driving and navigating), Tim would look at me and giggle or be silly. Or he'd look at me and make kissing noises - and continue until I made a kissy noise back.

I love my brother. This trip reminded me of how much.

Muah Tim :)

Night at the Theatre

2009-02-17T13:12:00.001-08:00

I believe the hardest thing to do when you get to a new city - and you're not in school - is to meet new people. It's hard to hang out with work people outside of work - if only because sometimes you're with a group that doesn't have the same interest, live to far away, or are already too busy in their lives. I don't expect to drop into anyone else's life if they are already swamped.

I kept in contact with the dude from the Olympics. If only because he was also new to Vancouver - he wouldn't have the same busy as the regulars. It's nice to explore a city with someone who's also new. At the beginning of December, P went to Denver for a work trip for about a week. I had a few nights to kill on my own. I knew that if I stayed home I'd just go slightly crazy from wedding planning or mope that P is away. I decided to call up the dude and see if we could hang out and go to the local theatre - playing "It's a Wonderful Life". (P didn't seem very interested in going when I asked him the first time).

I soon realized after the plans were made that I may have given a wrong impression that it was a date. I had already gotten the tickets and I hadn't hinted anything to that regard. I decided to go ahead and just act ignorant and react if he took it the wrong way. (It's just hanging out!)

We headed out on the planned night, a nice little meal at Timmy's (of which I couldn't finish - a little nervous that he would make a move). We made it to Granville Island where the show would be. Looking over the little river area at night - the view was amazing. A view I get to see from my house but the different angle was nice. Just a small achey feeling that P couldn't be there.

The evening ended well. I liked just hanging out with the guy. During our conversations, I did bring up that I had a boyfriend - so didn't go in that direction. I'm aching to meet new friends (not that P isn't good enough - but I miss having more in the city). I went home and basically threw the ball in his court. If he was looking for a relationship, I'm not really on the market. If he was willing to be friends, the call was up to him. I wouldn't push to head out or anything in case it felt awkward for him.

So here I am. I've had a few messages here and there but I don't think I made a new friend :(

Elope

2009-02-17T13:11:00.002-08:00

Yes, that has been an idea of mines. I've asked for it many times when I get too frustrated with the wedding planning. We were heading to DisneyWorld (DW) for the Christmas/New Years break.. Why don't we elope there?? I look up these awesome ideas and came up with two problems:

I don't want to be married in the US...
You have to book 13 months in advance for an elopement package at DW!!! Oh my goodness!

Yup, back to wedding planning.

Beginning of Wedding Craze

2009-02-17T13:11:00.001-08:00

I'm a girl... and obviously with my wedding coming up I start to get very very carried away. To be honest, I never though I'd be getting married. With my brother being my tag along, I didn't expect anyone would want to take him and me both on. Then came this weird Australian that chased my heart down.

So anyways, back to point... wedding planning. I start off heading to the bookstore to get a few books (all of which I may have only skimmed). The wedding industry is quite the giant and you don't see it until you need it. Haircuts that are normally $30 will be $110 when you say the word "wedding" not to mention the "trial" session which is another $100 or so.

There are so many decisions.. where it'll be.. who to invite.. who the photographer is.. I'm someone who likes to get things all done asap and then leave it alone. Don't touch it for months until the day that we need it. Last minute stuff drives me up the wall. P on the other hand likes to sit on things.. sleep on options until we think we have the best one. I know this wedding is not just mines, but wow I'm rawr-ing a lot.

I'm trying to find a balance but oh my goodness, let's just elope! Who cares about the planning!

Finally

2009-02-17T13:10:00.000-08:00

I will finally start filling in my missing blogs - most likely a lot of reading. I'll just add updates on things I've done since the engagement. Happy Reading!

Back to Blogging

2009-01-26T19:19:00.001-08:00

I have so much to say.. yet havn't said it. Just a pre-cursor, I will be blogging multiple entries soon :)

My Precious...

2008-11-27T10:39:00.002-08:00

Facebook is probably faster than the speed of light in terms of information. I got *the* ring last night. For those interested:

(Engagement Ring)

(Wedding Ring)

And for those interested in the how:
P got an award through work to have a free meal (max $100). So he decided we would go try out a nice restaurant. We had set to go to the restaurant yesterday night at 8 pm so we have a few hours to get ready after work. I headed to his place after work and hopped into the shower.

When I was finished my shower, P told me I couldn't come out. I knew something was up but I was expecting just another nice night with him. (He randomly has little surprises and I had just thought this was another one). When I was finished getting dressed he let me out and brought me to his room. He had decorated the entire room with candles (awesome for a pyro like me). On the ground were two love heart shaped designs and in between them was a little alien smiley that we send to each other.

He got me into bed and gave me a nice massage then he put blindfolds on me. He had a tray of fruit (ones that wouldn't kill me) and got me to guess each item before I got to eat them (with smell/ touch). It ranged from dried mango, chocolate covered blueberries (which I'm eating now), grapes, oranges, banana chips, etc. Then he started repeating the fruits again. Then came a fruit that I totally couldn't guess what it was. I guessed everything from before and the answer was still "that's not it".

He finally asked if I give up - obviously yes - and he picked up my hand and said "Em..." (I clued in at this point)

And that was it :)

Wall of Wii

2008-11-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

So P bought a Wii when it first came out. (He lined up for a few hours and was number 73 in line). Right after he got the Wii, he brought it to my house in Edmonton. My brother loved it. I had gotten Wii Play which has a game racing cows and crashing into scarecrows. He kept playing it over and over again.

The next game that interested him was GT racer - basically a racing game. He would be driving down the track - eventually he worked out how to go in the correct direction. The next game he liked was Elebits. You shoot these little zappy dudes and they make electronic things run. My brother's favorite thing to do was to turn on the ceiling fan (of course). When it was an outdoor level, he would take any bush or tree, pluck it out and then proceed to throw it high into the air!

My grandma got into the action too. Her favourite game was bowling and there was one night she played so much, her arm hurt after.

When my family came to visit last month, they brought the Wii with them and left it in Vancouver for P and me to play. We ended up buying DDR for the Wii and I loved it. I wanted to bring it home to show Tim. So when I went back to Edmonton for convocation last week, I brought the game and the Wii along. We tried to teach him how to play. "Step step step... Tim, MOVE YOUR FEET!... tap tap tap". By the end of the night, he was still just standing on the dance mat with out moving and I thought we failed in getting him interested.

But... for the next few days he would be coming up to our door asking for "tap tap tap" and doing a little jump/jig thing. Turns out he really enjoyed the game - most likely just for the music and the dancing avatars.

By the end of the trip, I had the resolve to buy Tim a Wii. On the Sunday morning before returning home, P and I roamed south edmonton trying to find a wii. Every store was either closed to sold out. The closest we got was a family in front of us got the last Wii at Walmart. We proceeded to go to church and search all the closed stores afterwards... nothing. I went home disappointed and decided to see if we could pick up a Wii before going to the airport. Having called 5 stores and them saying they're sold out, I was completely dejected.

On the flight home from Edmonton, P suggested we go to the Toys 'R' Us a block from my house to check - just to see. So having put down our luggage we went to look. There were two dirty looking boxes under the Wii display and when I went to pick it up, it was empty. I was getting sad again - they were sold out here? P went to ask if they still had stock. The staff just pointed high up on the wall... They had at about 80 Wiis, just sitting on the wall. Untouched. When we explained our Edmonton searching story they're like "oh, well that? The wall of wii? Has been there for months!"

We now have a Wii - with an extra $20 for PST. And the Wall of Wii is down to 79.

Home Sweet Home

2008-11-17T20:45:00.002-08:00

Going home tomorrow night! Convocation is on Thursday at 10 am. :) YAY!