Some words from a Silver

Today Lyra turned one. I will do a full update on my thoughts and feelings about this in the next little while, but for now I just want to say that I think she had a great day. She had fun times at Daycare, Adam and I took her out for sushi and gelato, where she got very, very messy. I got her a couple of books about a giraffe named Saffy. She loves giraffes. I love Saffy.

The full party with the extended family and friends is on the weekend. Good times for all. And there will be cake. I've seen it, it's not a lie.

Tomorrow morning I pack up Lyra first thing in the morning and walk her to daycare before heading on to work. I am of mixed emotions about this, as I am sure many others have been before me. There are a lot of random thoughts cascading around in my head tonight. I worry that Lyra's not going to get enough to eat at daycare - she's not all that into food, most of the time. I worry that I'm going to spend my entire lunch pumping milk without having a chance to take a break and eat. I worry that I won't fit into the new format and team that they've developed at my office in the year I've been gone. I worry that my daily two hours of commuting time is going to make me crazy. I worry that I'm going to be exhausted, that getting up extra early and getting out the door is going to be incredibly hard, that I'm not going to get enough sleep to be all that functional, that I'm going to spend too much money on expensive coffee because I don't really like the cheap stuff.

All this worrying is not really something I do much, so it's making me kind of moody. I'm already exhausted and I haven't even gone back yet. We can't afford for me to not go back, and to be fair I really do enjoy my workplace. I should be excited. Instead I'm just kind of worried. I can accept that, tomorrow I'll be at work either way.

Today we went to a mountain bike trail building day on Fromme, which got me thinking more about my relationship with riding these days.

Lately I've also been trying to get back into biking. What I've figured out is my lack of fundamental skill and learning is a problem lately. I'm afraid of momentum, I'm afraid to go too fast or feel like my bike is leaving me behind, which sometimes you have to do to get past obstacles. I'm nervous about riding in general, so I hesitate rather than make plans to get out on my bike - and end up not going at all. I've been out riding twice I think in the past few months, because I don't make plans to get out. I don't really want to ride the trails that are close to me, they're all at a level that I'm not comfortable with, and rather than going out to practice on them and try to develop skills I just feel like crap because I can't ride anything. I get filled with panic and freeze up. It's not fun, and saying I should just keep riding till I get over it doesn't help. I know, I've tried telling myself that.

Plus with Lyra I'm more worried about hurting myself badly. This is a sport where you expect that you will fall, because you aren't always going to ride perfectly, you can't predict changes in the trail, and things can happen that are entirely out of your control. It's part of what makes riding fun.

At least I feel a bit like I've figured out that problem - I need to go back to the basics, to learn beginner skills that I've never really had, and to ride trails that aren't full of technical features that freak me out. I need to pretend like I've never ridden before and start from scratch. I need to ride places that aren't on the North Shore. I really need to get out and actually ride, but I know now that means I have to go out and do trails that no one else feels like doing because they're too easy. I'm not talking Floppy Bunny easy either... I'm not there yet. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. I'm just barely able to deal with riding the Richard Juryn trail, and I still walk stupid little things on that because I panic. I think I need to do some XC.

So maybe with going back to work I'll feel more comfortable spending the money to take out a co-op car and go riding from time to time. I miss the times when I really enjoyed riding. I'm not really interested in going to Whistler, or trying to push my limits by riding on the North Shore. I want to start slow and easy. And I don't feel like joining another club. I barely make it to the rides the club I'm already in does. I guess I should really start there with the weekly XC rides, and see what I can figure out beyond that.

I guess there's a lot on my mind tonight. Hopefully I will sleep just fine - I'm certainly tired enough.

and I like to do what I'm told.

When you see this, take a minute and share five good things of your day with the world, uncut.

1. Lyra is no longer feverish or sick, and has returned to her usual cheerful self.
2. It's been raining for a couple of days, which makes the air smell good and makes me feel happy.
3. Adam is in the bedroom lying down with Lyra who is fussy and refusing to sleep alone, which means I am currently free to sit at my computer unfettered. Sweet, sweet freedom.
4. I'm about to make a cup of tea, which will fill me with contentment.
5. I had coffee and donuts with a friend this morning, which was just awesome.

You may now share your 5 good things with me, if you are so inclined.

... because I'm never self-analytical. Nor am I sarcastic.

As I walked home from dropping off the co-op minivan this morning, baby seat slung over my shoulder, I thought about some of the things that I do and things that I have. Last night, for example, I went out with the MuddBunnies to photograph riders working on various stunts. I've been working on a couple of websites lately, building or managing content or figuring out problems for people. I'm re-visiting my NaNoWriMo novel from a couple of years back, thinking I should really get on the whole 'editing' thing, much as I loathe editing - I'm pretty sure it was a good story, worth following up.

Last week I did a bit of tootling around in the woods on my bike with the aforementioned MuddBunnies. I'm kind of hoping when Adam gets his recording studio all set up again I'll be able to convince him to help me record a few songs for Lyra (a personalized children's album, if you will.) In just over a week, I'm heading back to work at the The David Suzuki Foundation after my year off with Lyra - a job which I was incredibly proud to get, where I feel like I belong and am actually really happy to go to work most of the time. I love to write, and I think much of the time I'm pretty good at it - even if I'm not, it makes me happy. When I want some relatively mindless entertainment, I can happily play video games and geek out on the internets.

At home I have an awesome relationship with my husband, even with the weirdness that comes when you first have a baby together. If anything, we're a stronger unit than we've ever been, I think. I have a fantastic, good-natured, happy, smart, funny, beautiful little girl whom I adore, and who lights up every time she sees me. I am probably among the best-rested parents I know, to the point that sometimes I'm afraid to mention it in casual conversation - I've been getting enough sleep since Lyra was probably three or four months old, and before that I only hit the exhaustion wall very occasionally. I've taken to motherhood well; in fact, I've never really felt more balanced in who I am than I do now.

North Vancouver is a fantastic city to live in, and I love being so close to the mountains. I can get out on a trail on very short notice, and I try to take advantage of that fact whenever possible. If the situation changed and we decided to move somewhere, I'm comfortable with the concept that I could easily re-integrate into a new place; especially if we were staying in BC, since I'm now utterly addicted to mountains.

I know that I have a lot on my plate at any given moment, but since before this I would go bonkers with boredom if I had nothing to do, I think I might be in a perfect place. I have enough to do to keep me busy most of the time, enough downtime that I don't get overwhelmed most of the time, and at this moment I wouldn't have it any other way. I feel like I've got it together for now, and it is an awesome feeling.

It's bound to change sometime, but for now I am not going to worry about it.

The thought occurred to me as I walked home this morning that if I met myself, I would be utterly, hopelessly intimidated, to the point that I would be terrified of talking to me. I would probably avoid talking to this girl who does a million different things and has it all so together, feeling like I was somehow inadequate next to her; that she would never be interested in talking to me. I feel that way about most people I know who aren't me; the ones who aren't quite friends, but who I see or talk to reasonably often. They intimidate me.

Realizing this makes me stop and wonder why I'm so nervous about talking to people. It's a main component of my anxiety - talking to people who I either don't know, or don't know well, because I think I'm somehow not worthy. How ridiculous is that? I'm no more or less worthy of talking to / hanging out with someone than any other human being. Who am I to judge whether or not I'm of a certain worthiness to be allowed to talk to someone? Such hang-ups we acquire when we're young... I think my next personal goal shall be to work through that fallacy in my brain.

Because really, I'm tired of being more afraid of you than you are of me. It's really time for me to just quit being afraid at all.

We went camping last weekend in Tofino, BC, on the far west coast of Vancouver Island. It's almost as far west in BC as you can get. This was Lyra's first camping trip, and she loved it. We were in a tent, and it was chilly, but the bedsharing definitely worked in our favour for it. Lyra was cozy in my sleeping bag with me. She very much enjoyed the beach and watching the waves and stuff. You can check out all the photos I posted from the trip on Flickr, ( but here are a few photos I particularly liked: )

Today I took a couple of videos of Lyra playing around in the living room, showing off some of her new tricks: pulling herself up on tables, and standing around.

I watch my daughter sleeping, just like all the clichés say you will. I can't help it - I'm still so enamoured with her that I can't imagine ever being tired of looking at her. Every time I watch her sleep I marvel over how much bigger she is than she used to be - and every time, she's grown. I don't really remember what it was like when she was smaller. It's hard to believe sometimes that this little girl has ever been any size other than what she is now, and then I look at her again and she's so much bigger than I expect her to be.

Someone asked me the other day if I feel as though I've changed with motherhood. I don't feel like I've changed. I feel a bit like I've grown into myself, like I'm somehow more myself than I used to be, and that feels good to me. I'm still who I was, just more focussed, and more complete. Was I incomplete before? I can't remember, but that's partly because I can't imagine life without Lyra in it anymore.

It's amazing to me how absolutely in love with this little girl I really am. Sometimes when I look at her face I can see the child she's going to be - like I can see shadows of who she'll grow into overlaid on her sweet little face. I can see them especially when she's sleeping, or when she's figuring things out, all lost in thought and serious.

I think about the issues everyone I know has with their parents, and like everyone else, I'm sure, hope desperately that the issues we will have someday won't be too painful. I try not to fool myself into thinking they won't exist... I'm pretty sure even the best mother/daughter relationships have their own quirks and problems. They will exist. I will work to try and keep them to a reasonably sane level. We'll see how that goes.

Occasionally I get hit with a wave of irrational or semi-rational fear, like when I'm driving somewhere and imagine suddenly a car coming from nowhere and smashing into me, or having to avoid something and driving off the road, or walking across the street at the wrong time even and getting run down (apparently I have an irrational fear of cars.) It's practically debilitating for a split second while my brain runs through scenarios of me being killed and not being around to take care of Lyra, or see her grow up; and scenarios where I lose her somehow. The thoughts are physically painful to me, for just a moment or two until I get a better grasp on my subconscious and beat it into submission.

Am I a good mother? The perfectionist in me likes to ramble in my head about what I should be doing that I'm not, and what I should be doing better. That part of me compares myself to other moms, and Lyra to other babies. The realist in me knows that I can't attain perfection, that I often hold myself up to unrealistic standards that I would never impose on any other human being. I'm not a bad mother. I'm willing to admit, on some days, that I might even be a good mother. I'm being myself, and being a mom... and it's actually a lot of fun.

And no, I am not looking for reassurances from people that I'm doing fine. I know I am - Lyra is happy and healthy and awesome, and that's the best indicator I've got.

The trip to Ontario ended over a week ago, but I haven't given you an update yet. I shall now provide you with said update, alongside a few photos I took while in Toronto and New Liskeard.

To begin with, here is a link to all of the photos on my Flickr page.

The flight went quite well. We were up at 40,000 feet for much of the trip to Toronto, and while Adam had a lot of trouble with his ears, Lyra was perfectly happy. She spent much of the trip crawling between Adam's & my laps, and looking around all the weird new stuff. She napped in my lap for part of it as well, and the take-off and landing didn't bother her at all. Adam's ears didn't pop for a week.

Adam's mother & Aunt met us at the airport in Toronto, and there was much fussing over Lyra. We went to Adam's grandmother's home and there was more fussing over Lyra. She loved how much space there was in the living room there, and crawled around for hours. Bedtime was late (Toronto time) but about right in Vancouver terms.



Our first full day in Toronto was mother's day, so after Lyra's morning nap (which she took on the floor) we headed to Adam's Aunt's house to have a huge brunch with a bunch of his family members. There was much fussing over Lyra. At one point, she got put into a broken umbrella stroller which threatened to collapse at any moment so that Adam's grandmother could take her for a walk down the street. We deemed the stroller unfit, named it the crushing stroller, and rescued Lyra from its clutches, only to have another stroller acquired for the purpose of taking her for a walk down the street. It was all incredibly amusing somehow. We rounded out the evening with a Mother's Day dinner at Spring Rolls on Eglinton at Yonge. It was tasty.

The next day was Monday, and we headed in to Toronto proper to visit High Park. We had warned friends in advance that our Toronto visitation times were limited, and they would have to meet us there if they wanted to see us. Fortunately, a bunch of people were able to join us at the High Park zoo & playground. It was a nice afternoon outside.




(photo by Brian Tao, who borrowed my camera to take a few shots)

The next morning we took the long drive to New Liskeard. We took our time, stopping whenever Lyra needed a break from the confines of her car seat, and it ended up only taking us a half hour or so longer than usual to do the drive (about six hours or so, I guess.) It was a lovely, sunny day, and Lyra was once again a superstar considering she was confined to a harness for most of the time.

Our visit to New Liskeard has become a mess of randomness in my brain. I have no clue what we did on what days, but I know that we stopped in to see Paul & Jenn at Chat Noir Books (where they make a fine cup of coffee,) and we spent a lot of time with Adam's mom & dad, handing one of them Lyra at every opportunity. Also, we got poutine at least twice. There's nothing like poutine close to the Quebec border.

We did go to North Bay for a day, as a nice excursion. We spent an hour or so hanging out in a park by the lake, and Lyra crawled around in the grass with her Grandmother (Bubby-T.)



She also went to check out the beach with her Daddy.



Beaches make baby Lyras ROAR:



Grass and sunlight make baby Lyras turn into anime characters:



We also went to at least two Barbeque parties - it was the May 2-4 weekend, after all - and Lyra got to meet a couple of other babies and have social engagements with them:



Nearing the end of our time up in New Liskeard, we took a drive down to Temagami. Adam and his dad decided to take the boat (newly put back in the water after the winter) from the Marina down to where it gets parked at Loon Lodge on Lake Temagami. They needed someone to pick them up at Loon Lodge, so Lyra and I took the Murano from the town of Temagami down the access road to the lake. When we arrived, we were informed that Adam & David had had to turn back due to excessive winds - if they had pressed on, it would have taken them another two hours to reach me. Lyra and I walked back up the trail to the Murano (sweet car to drive down Temagami access road!) and drove the half hour trip back to the Town so we could pick up the boys.

It was actually more fun than perhaps it seems it would be. Adam was pleased to get out on the lake in a boat, I was pleased to spend at least a bit of time at Loon Lodge (although no loon burgers were acquired... and no, they're not made of loons...) and the drive was really quite nice. I didn't see any m00se, however.

We also took a trip out to the Elk Lake Eco Centre for lunch on one of our last days there. It snowed that day. The lodge was quite nice, however, even with the snow.



I'd have to say that the trip was a success. Lyra was a Rock Star the whole time - she traveled well on the plane, she traveled well in the car, and she was so good the whole time. We have an awesomely mellow and happy baby, and we are lucky to have her.

The only really negative things I have to say about the trip are that Adam caught a nasty cold which he promptly gave to me, and we were both miserable for a good part of the trip due to a sore throat/cough type thing; and that next time I really want to spend more time in Toronto, seeing Toronto sites that we haven't visited in a while, like the ROM and the AGO and most especially Canada's Wonderland.

Good times!

We have returned. Adam is sleeping because he's utterly exhausted. Lyra is playing on the floor with her ugly dolls. I did some tidying and am now having a cup of tea; I will do more tidying soon. I may also vacuum.

I will write a proper update when my brain is working properly again. Right now I'm very, very tired and just want to get this place looking a bit cleaner, find something for lunch, and let Adam sleep as long as humanly possible so he stops freaking out about things and has a chance to catch up.

Please, please, please tell me if anything has happened that you'd like me to know about in your life. I have barely been online in almost two weeks.

Nine years ago I mentioned to cyn that I wanted to try online journalling. On May the 4th 2000, I started up this livejournal for kicks, to see what might come of it. Here I am 9 years later, still updating, although a lot has changed since then - the frequency of my updates, the city I'm updating from, my marital status, and most recently, the addition of Lyra to the story. Some things haven't changed - I still get bored sometimes, I still have Dayle & Sera, the kitties who have followed me across the country, and my tendency to write long-winded entries about random subjects that matter to me.

It's hard to believe I've been writing online for nine years. The internets have changed so much since then.

Then again, so have I. If you want to see how much, you could be ambitious and start from the very beginning...

This past weekend was a write-off for me. Lyra started to feel sick on Friday, and by Saturday she was pretty unhappy about it. I started to feel sick on Saturday, and by Sunday I understood why Lyra was so miserable on Saturday. Fortunately she was already feeling better by Sunday, so that was one good thing. This cold is rather short-lived - the worst of it was over in a day. At this point we're both still a bit stuffy and my throat feels perpetually dry, but the headache is gone and I have enough energy to walk around outside again.

It's good that we're getting better now, because being sick when we fly to Ontario would suck, so very, very much. They'd probably quarantine us and refuse to let us on a plane.

I'm trying to sort out what needs doing before we go back east. I should make myself a checklist or something to make sure I don't miss anything. So much to do...

Adam, Lyra & I will be visiting Ontario for a bit in a couple of weeks. We discovered a seat sale that basically saved us 1000$ over going in August as previously planned, so we jumped on it. We fly into Toronto on the 9th in the evening, and will stay in North York for a couple of days at least. If anyone wants to see us in that time, please get in touch. We will be making plans with Adam's Toronto family (I'm leaving that up to him to do) but will try to work around that schedule to see our friends before we head up to New Liskeard.

If, on the other hand, you are in New Liskeard, I imagine we will see you around. It's not that big a place. If there is something specific you want to do with us there, let us know and we'll figure it out.

Tonight I went biking in Port Moody with Maryn and Steve. It wasn't a very long ride, and it wasn't a super difficult trail. I'm out of practice and have lost my biking legs to some degree, however, and I'm still trying to get the hang of my Nomad, so shorter and easier was what I was looking for. Steve, who is awesome to ride with, stayed back with me and led the way, letting me know what was ahead on the trail and waiting up for me when I got freaked out by shadows and such. The trail itself was flowy, and covered in dirt instead of eroded down to the rocks like most of the North Shore is.

Basically, it was awesome.

The weather was perfect for an evening ride - sunny and a bit cool. We started at seven so it was late enough in the day that the sun wasn't intensely bright or excessively hot. We cheated on the ride up - Maryn convinced her husband to drive us to the meeting point with our bikes. I went to the box, and then I felt shame. There was a pleasant, leisurely ride to the trailhead through the forest, which was quite lovely. The trail itself was in a remarkably pretty area. At one point I stopped with Steve and we looked at the pattern of the sun, painting gold through the trees and on the ground like it does in the evenings on the mountainside. It was beautiful, and made me wish I had brought my camera. Steven pointed out that we could see the water through the trees as well - and where in the area could you get that? I mentioned maybe riding up Burnaby, but really, Burnaby Mountain is nowhere near as lovely as Eagle. Burnaby still feels like city to me - Eagle doesn't, even though the city of Port Moody is not far away.

So while I didn't quite reach that zone where riding is the only thing that exists (I kept getting distracted by my brain talking too much... must smack it around a bit and get it to shut up when I ride) I did have a good, fun ride, and I started to feel a bit like I was getting used to my new bike. Finally. I forget, when I'm not riding, why I like riding so much. I forget, when I'm riding annoying trails I don't like, why riding is so much fun when I'm on trails I like. I'm incredibly happy that Adam took care of Lyra tonight and let me go out to Port Moody for a ride. I'm starting to remember how to enjoy it. I want to go back and ride some more.

When I went on maternity/parental leave, I had visions of getting involved in mommy groups, going to baby & mommy playtimes and songtimes and other random groups that are designed to entertain babies and help mothers feel a sense of community, and discover new friends to replace the ones who slowly vanish when kids come into the picture. You know; the friends who don't have kids, the ones you used to go out and do things that aren't kid-friendly with. Kind of like losing a percentage of your single friends when you get into a serious relationship. But I digress.

I imagined that I would get involved in my community, find people to talk parenting with (although it wasn't a side of me I could actually see, I had faith that it would come out), and generally have this whole 'North Van Mom' identity.

It hasn't happened.

My prenatal group of moms makes an effort to get together once every four months or so. We enjoy visiting for an afternoon, but it's not a common occurrence and we don't go out of our way to make it a regular weekly thing by any means. One of them I see more than the rest - she lives down the road from me so we will get together and go for a walk every two weeks or so. So that's something I guess, but I wouldn't call us really close by any measure.

I spent a few months going to the La Leche League meetings, which were interesting and all, but never made friends with anyone through that - I never once talked to them outside the group, I didn't exchange phone numbers or emails with them, and we never planned playgroups and afternoon tea with each other. Or at least, if some of them did, I wasn't involved. I am rather terrible at making conversation with strangers, or approaching people I don't know well and interjecting myself into their conversations. It makes me uncomfortable. At any rate, I stopped going a while ago because reminder emails started going into my spam filter, and I'm fairly certain it wasn't really noticed. I don't have much to say there, really.

I tried to join a baby & me boot camp back in November, and it got cancelled before it even began. Theoretically I could join one again, but really, I don't have the extra cash to keep joining classes.

Lyra and I started Baby Bubbles in January, which was fun. We went through the entire 12 week class, and we talked to the other moms & babies in the class, but I never felt like I had reached a comfort zone of wanting to ask about going for coffee. A lot of them already knew each other anyhow. Again, I don't interject myself well. I signed us up for a second session of Baby Bubbles, which we're now doing. This time I'm not really expecting anything more than going, playing in the pool for a while, then coming home.

So I'm not outgoing and sociable. I enjoy spending time with people, I like being part of a group, but it's not something that comes naturally to me. Never has, probably never will. Most of the time I don't feel like it's missing from my life, but sometimes I really want to talk to a group of moms about our babies, and fish for ideas and suggestions in a group of like-minded parents when I need some advice or alternatives, and give Lyra the opportunity to play with other babies close in age to her now that she's showing an interest in doing so.

But I'm running out of time. I feel like time is counting down, and the end of my leave is rapidly approaching. There are things I wish I had done - vague concepts of things, anyhow - that I haven't, and I don't think I'll fit them in. I guess it's more a sense of loss than anything. Sending Lyra to daycare of some sort means that she will have the opportunity to play with other kids her own age... but I won't be there to see it, and that makes me feel sad. And I feel like I've missed out on something with not having a group, however small, of other moms with babies to confide in, to talk about my problems with, to discuss poop because let's face it, no one wants to hear about poop but other moms with babies understand why you feel the need to talk about it, and will let you.

I'm just running out of time. I wish I could afford to just hang out with Lyra full time. I love doing it, and I can't shake the feeling that if I just had more time these relationships would happen. But realistically speaking, it's not possible. I can't daydream about getting a car at the same time as I daydream about staying home with Lyra for just a few more years... I can't have both. I can't even have one of them. They're both out of reach. I will do the best with what I have, and can do.

That's all anyone can do, right?

A few days ago Lyra turned nine months old.

That's nine months of changing diapers (I was afraid I would get sick of it, but it's just something I do), of washing baby clothes, of staring at you trying to figure out who you look like (you have my eyes), of listening to you scream with delight or growl like a possessed demon at us (or the cats, or your toys, or fish at the aquarium), of wondering who you are, of watching that personality make its way out through the barriers of language you have yet to cross, of taking picture after picture after picture of you...

You're crawling now, although sometimes it seems more like you're trying to walk on your feet and just can't figure out how to push your body and hands up off the ground. You don't entirely have a grasp on space yet - under the coffee table, where toys sometimes go, is a frustrating cycle of reach for the toy, bonk your head on the coffee table, yell for a minute, repeat. You love to upend the cat food & water bowls and play with the computer cables that go around the room - until we figure out how to move or hide those, we will continue to yell "Reset baby!" as we move you back to the centre of the room away from the temptations - which you immediately head for again.

A little charmer, you have fans at the local coffee shop, and walking down the street, and at the stores we frequent. Smiles for strangers are rare, and often require special efforts on the part of the stranger. So many times I've seen you give a stranger a solemn stare while they make faces at you trying to elicit a smile. When you do offer one up, it's like a beam of sunshine after a week of Vancouver winter. Little old ladies have been known to cross the street and cut me off just to talk to you.

Food is adding a whole new level to things these days. It took you a while to warm up to the concept, but you'll now happily chew on cheerios, or feed yourself messily with a spoon - peas and yams and avocados and all sorts of other random foods we try without much rhyme or reason. Sometimes you want a taste of what I'm having - you loved the butter chicken, even though it was spicy, and you chewed on my pizza crust for quite a while. Tonight I made butternut squash soup for everyone - and we all loved it. Tonight was the first time I made dinner for all three of us. It kind of made me wish we had a dining table to eat at, but we make do without one just fine.

You've also started to realize that things happen on screens that are somehow related to real life. Today you saw a PBS HD Special on Patagonia, and your favourite scenes were full of pumas (yay kitties!) foxes (yay puppies!) and Guanacos (kinda like Llamas... yay puppies again?) You especially loved when the Guanago chased the fox through the meadow. That made you crack up into giggles, which set me off, of course. You watched an episode of Pingu on Youtube with your dad tonight and seemed to actually understand what was going on, rather than just being amused by the moving pictures. You got upset when the seal hurt his flipper, and you were happy when he got better. It's a whole new world now.

Tonight playing piano with your dad you realized that the lower keys play low notes and the higher keys play high notes - apparently you had to play both. You also figured out that if you put you head on top of your hands to push down on the piano keys, the sound is louder. Tiny little realizations in your head that we get to see happening - it's like magic sometimes. There are so many new games you're playing with us; half the time we don't even realize it until we're well into it.

What I do know is that you are amused by strange things (much like we are) and that you seem to be plotting something sinister and mischievous much of the time. You are becoming yourself, and I get to watch. It's all so exciting.

My daughter, who crawls rather effectively these days, is a sneaky little girl.

I was putting the washing machine on in the kitchen, and asked Adam, who was playing some Motorstorm: Pacific Rift while Lyra played with her toys in the middle of the floor. I asked Adam to help me out with something quickly, so he paused the game and walked over to the kitchen. In our apartment, the kitchen and living room are pretty much in the same space, so we weren't far. Lyra was just out of our line of sight.

I think she was planning this all along.

Adam walked into the kitchen to help me with the machine. About ten seconds later, I heard the Playstation 3 go "beep... beep" followed by the sound of a disk ejecting. I walked around the corner to check on the little LyraMonster, and there she sat in front of the PS3, brandishing the game disk for Motorstorm. She looked quite proud of herself. I broke down into uncontrollable giggles while I took the disk away from her and reset her to the middle of the room again. She was not impressed with losing her prize, but distracted herself with another toy quickly.

I noticed then that she not only ejected the disk and removed it from the PS3, but she also hit an entirely different button and shut the playstation right down. It took her around fifteen seconds from Adam leaving her sitting in the middle of the room.

I am terribly amused.

I guess I forgot to post the Lyra crawling video in Livejournal. Well, here it is:

I took pictures for the trail day. The set is up on Flickr if you want to see them all. Here are some that Jordy took of Lyra & I, and one I took of her with Adam, ( below the cut )

The weekend was full of activity. It was good.

Friday during the day I got together with my work husband Eli and we went for a nice hike out to Quarry Rock in Deep Cove. There was a lot of up and down involved. I had Lyra in the Ergo Baby as a test run for Sunday's NSMBA Trail Day, and it went pretty well - she stayed awake the entire way out to the rock, and fell asleep on the way back. Also, we lost one of her cute boots - they never stayed on her feet anyhow. Here is a photo of Eli & Lyra hanging out on the rock:



Friday evening Adam had set up babysitting for Lyra without telling me, and had me fooled into thinking we were going out with her to dinner with some of his friends from work. Instead we went down to Gust di Quattro where we had a fantastically good meal. I had the Hand Made Gnocchi with creamy gorgonzola sauce, toasted pine nuts, grilled radicchio & port marinated figs. It was absolutely delicious. We also had some wine - Tantalus Reisling - quite outstanding as well. And then we went for dessert at Dairy Queen, because I've been craving DQ for weeks I think. We also got in a little shopping at Winners, where both of us picked up a shirt each, and we bought a new sheet set.

Saturday morning was my sports conditioning clinic, which was very challenging, I must say. My legs were already tired out from the hike the day before, so I was in kind of rough shape to begin with. I got though the whole workout, though. For the afternoon on Saturday we went downtown to check out the open house at the new Convention Centre near Waterfront. It's a pretty building. My friend Ian was working there, doing some A/V techie stuff (babysitting projectors and playing music for the Cirque people in the ballroom.) There was much walking around the building.

On the way home, I took Lyra back from Adam (he had been carrying her in the Ergo most of the day) and we got on the seabus. We stopped to pick a couple of things up near Lonsdale Quay on our way home, and walked back to Lonsdale Ave. to catch a bus up the hill. The first bus that arrived was very full, and didn't stop for us. We waited another fifteen minutes for the next one, which stopped at our stop to let people off, then told us that there was only room for one. Since there were three of us (plus a Lyra on my front) we didn't get on; one of the other people went ahead. We were quite annoyed, however, to look at the actual fullness of the bus and notice that there was enough room for another five or six people to get on easily. The driver shut the door and took off, however. I was angry, so I phoned Translink to complain to them about it.

We then walked home from the Quay, 19 blocks uphill. I was already really tired, so it was a slow walk. Lyra slept for a good part of it in the Ergo.

Sunday we got up bright and early for the NSMBA Trail Day on Mt. Seymour. I was taking photos for the write up, since I can't do any trail work with Lyra in the Ergo. We were working on a lower Seymour Trail - The Empress Bypass, a multi-use trail for mountain biking, hiking, and maybe horses? I'm not sure on the horses - I've only ever seen horses on the Bridal Path when I've been biking on Seymour. The work done was mostly maintenance and upkeep - fixing drainage, armouring corners and parts that get rutted, and so on. I hiked up and down the trail a few times throughout the day with Lyra on my back. By the time we were at home after spending the better part of a gorgeous day on the mountain, my legs felt like jelly, and were aching.

This morning was the new round of Baby Bubbles classes - there were no more Wednesday classes so I switched to Monday mornings instead. I was planning on walking to the Rec Centre, but my mom took the West Coast Express out from Pitt Meadows to join us for Baby Bubbles, so we took a bus over instead. For some reason my mom didn't want to walk up the huge hill on 19th St. After class we walked up to Lynn Valley Mall, then came back home. I walked down to the grocery store with Lyra in the afternoon, so I got to spend a lot of time outside in the gorgeous warm sun. Spring is really, truly here now, I think. I could've been comfortable in shorts today.

Speaking of which... I need some shorts.

Also, I need to go biking. Being active is so very nice.

Lyra crawled today. She's been on the edge of crawling for a couple of weeks at least - shuffling around on her behind, launching herself forward on her hands without following it up with anything, and the like. She has practiced crawling on the bed, where it's much easier. Yesterday she was thinking about crawling - you could see her almost getting there.

Today she managed the entire action of crawling, and once she did it, it was like she realized just how fast she could get around. It was pretty interesting watching her figure out the motions - lunging onto her hands and knees from sitting, then alternating arms and legs to propel herself forward. She hasn't got turning figured out yet, so she pushes back up to sitting, turns on her behind and relaunches into crawling in the new direction. You can see how much she's enjoying herself. I don't think I'll get any downtime ever again...

She also has six teeth now. Two of them broke through the gums this weekend, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. These ones have been bothering her all week, so it's good to see them, although she's still obviously uncomfortable and fussy from teething pain. She now has four teeth on top and two on the bottom. She enjoys biting things now. I'm teaching her that I'm not something she should bite pretty quickly though. Teeth hurt! Relearning how to nurse has been interesting, but I think we're doing all right now.

She spent the last two days growling at us. It's incredibly funny. She'll growl at us, or at the cats, and then after a few minutes break into hysterical laughter, which naturally sets us off. I've found that if I laugh, she laughs back at me, and we can get going in an amazing circle of laughter. It's fun times.

And now, photos of the Lyramonster. My next update will invole something that doesn't involve photos of my baby. I promise.

This is the face of a future troublemaker:



( More here )

It's been raining the past two days. This isn't particularly strange, since it's spring and all. We had a nice day on the weekend, however, so I made sure to get out in the sunlight. I took a good long walk with a friend in Port Moody during the day, and called it training for the Sun Run. Since I'll be walking the Sun Run, that's really not an unrealistic statement.

Lyra has been teething like mad the past couple of weeks, but I think she's starting to come out of it. For much of last week, she was getting cranky and irritated by around dinnertime - requiring extensive cuddling time, which for Lyra means "YOU MUST NEVER PUT ME DOWN." She's a pretty cuddly girl at the best of times. When she's unhappy, I basically have to be willing to forfeit my individuality and accept that she is attached quite firmly to me. It keeps her happy, however, and considering the pain she must be in during those nasty teething times, I'm entirely willing to do so. She now has two bottom teeth and two top teeth, and she can get around the apartment rather effectively. She's probably a day or two away from proper crawling. In fact, as I type this, she's on the hardwood floor in the crawling position, pushing herself backwards and sliding along the floor. I think she's actually trying to sit up and having some trouble with it. I'll have to rescue her.

One rescued and happy baby... who is now looking at the cat food & water dishes again. I may have to come up with another place to put those...

This morning I had plans to get coffee with Maryn and then maybe go to baby songtime at the Library, but as it turned out, Maryn ran into heavy traffic on the way to the North Shore, and Lyra didn't take her morning nap on time so she was falling asleep by the time baby songtime was supposed to start - but refusing to actually sleep. Fortunately, Maryn did eventually arrive and we got coffee. I put Lyra in the stroller (she hadn't napped yet) and she ended up falling asleep there, so I took her for a walk around to the market for groceries after Maryn had headed back to PoMo for work.

Maryn and I are working on a project. We are hoping that Anne will also be interested in working on it, and anyone else who's interested once we have it fleshed out a bit more. Right now it's TOP SEKRIT!

I'm anxious for better weather to become more consistent. I look forward to getting back on my bike and heading to the trails.