Some words from a Silver

Every day Lyra repeats a new word back at me, or just outright says a word she didn't say the day before. She learns instantaneously, and it's one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. She's been showing plenty of 'headstrong toddler' signs - she thinks it's incredibly funny to do something we've told her repeatedly not to do - like throw random toys into the garbage can, pull the dish towels off their hanging rack, or play around with the chains that hold up some artwork hanging on the side of a shelf. She thinks it's even funnier if we tell her no - she grins madly and bursts into giggles when we do.

Here are a few snippets and thoughts:

The cat food lives in a bucket with a lid. Lyra likes to pick it up and carry it around in front of her, even though it's half her height. When she gets tired of carrying it, she puts it on the floor and pushes it. The cats follow her around with longing - hoping she is about to feed them.

On Fridays when it's raining and I want to take Lyra somewhere out of the house, we head down to the North Van library. There's a great children's area, and even a baby area that's a bit cordoned off by bookshelves. Once there, I sit down on the floor or on a bench near the window and set Lyra loose. She immediately heads for the nearest bookshelf full of board books, carefully chooses one, and walks over to hand it to me. I ask her if she wants to read it (usually when she wants to read a book she'll nod yes and climb into my lap) but every time she just looks at the cover for a moment and takes off back to the bookshelf, where she starts over with a new book. This can go on for a very long time, until I have a large stack of books that she isn't really interested in reading. Sometimes I can hand her a book and ask her to put it back, and she does. Usually, though, she just ignores it and gets another book. She'll also play with some of the toys, push around the book shopping baskets on wheels for a while, and stare at other children. It's pretty entertaining.

Her new word today was hat. I don't know when she learned it, but we were sitting on her bed and she pointed up at the two hats hanging on the wall and distinctly said hat. She then spent the rest of the day pointing at hats, carrying hats around, and saying hat.

On Wednesday we went to the Remembrance Day parade and service in the park. There were hundreds of people there, and many of them had brought their dogs. The word of the day for Wednesday was dog. I missed most of the ceremony because as soon as we arrived, Lyra demanded to be set down to walk about. She promptly wandered the crowds going from dog to dog, pointing at them and saying dog. I think this went on for an hour or so. She really likes dogs.

Her favourite playground structure seems to be the slide. On at least two days when I've dropped her off at daycare, she has immediately run for the slide, climbing up, sliding down, over and over, grinning the whole time. She loves moving fast and bouncing around, and gets bored when we stop for too long. This is not a baby who is content to sit around and play with toys on the floor. Do those exist?

Lyra holds a special place in her heart for music. She bops her head to electronic, she dances to bluegrass, rock and country, she sways back and forth to slow, ambient music. If one of us is holding her and dancing, she jumps up and down in our arms to the song, and keeps going even if we stop. She 'sings' along to songs without words (bah bah bah) and if I sing a note at her (for example, just singing aaahhhhhhh) she'll do the same back at me holding a note (not the same one, but she's trying.) It's pretty awesome.

She's starting to say so many single words these days that I can't keep up really with remembering what they all are. Moon, dog, hat, mama, dada, eye, star, more, wow... there are so many connections being made in her brain that I can't possibly keep up. I tire out just running around after her, now that she runs everywhere she goes. She's going through a growth spurt right now too - the daycare folks commented on it, and I've noticed that her nursing has gone back to epic levels recently. On top of that there's all the energy she's expending by running everywhere she goes... it's just amazing.

I wanted to post about our trip to Tofino on the last weekend of October... I will save that for another time. For now, here is a picture of Lyra and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic torch:

If we're counting months (and at this point we still are I guess) Lyra is fifteen months old as of yesterday. A year plus three months. She's practically in college!



This week she transitioned from walking occasionally as a novelty into walking as a means of getting from place to place. She's still quite wobbly, and it's very cute to watch her step oh so carefully in sock feet on the slippery hardwood floor. In the past two days she has also neglected to take a morning nap, simply because she didn't seem tired enough to actually sleep. This makes me incredibly happy.

I've never really liked naptime. For the first few months she mostly napped with me all the time, which I was fine with. I was very well rested. When she got older and started napping on her own, it was tough for me - she never stayed asleep for longer than a half hour to 45 minutes, so I never had time to really do anything but try and decompress - but since I was on edge the whole time listening for her wake-up, I never felt relaxed. I was better off napping with her, but I really didn't want to... I wanted to do things that I could only do when she was asleep.

Once she started daycare, her napping became a lot more consistent. I once asked them how they managed to get her to nap... I didn't really learn their secret, other than the fact that they aren't me. Something about not being mommy or daddy (and also having years of experience convincing babies to nap) seems to work quite well for them.

Yesterday she and I slept in till 9am, which was fantastic. Morning naptime came and went without a hint of her being tired, so I didn't bother trying to put her down. Afternoon nap was a bit earlier than usual, but she went down easily and then napped for an hour and a half. It was good.

Today she was up by 8am, which is still sleeping in for me, and is awesome. We went out for a walk, and spent some time playing at home, and generally had a great morning, followed by lunch. After lunch I put her down for her nap (and again, she went down easily) and she's now been out for an hour and a half again. I feel awesome about this. I have some quiet time to myself (Adam's out riding with Chris) and I can do things like write this stuff down, make myself lunch uninterrupted, and maybe play a video game. And I don't feel on edge waiting for her to wake up.

So I hope this is a trend, and that maybe the two short naps a day are going to become one longer one.

Some random Lyra observations and developments:

In other news, we got Katamari Forever, and Lyra loves to help her daddy play it:



Today we watched a bit of a baby video that has Twinkle Twinkle little star in it. She started to sing along - not with words, but she was saying bah bah bah bah along with the tune. It was so awesome. She has also learned how to not only pull the fridge magnets off the fridge, but also put them back on so they stick. Knocking them off the fridge is a lot more fun, however:



My older brother Mike and his fiancee Norina came to visit a couple of weeks ago and brought her a little rocking chair that used to belong to my little brother & sister in Ottawa. It didn't take Lyra long to figure out how to climb into the chair, turn around, sit properly in it, and then slide back out. This kept her entertained for hours.

In the mornings when I'm at home on my own with Lyra, we often walk together to Brazza (the coffee shop around the corner.) She holds my hand and we slowly make our way there, where I get coffee, and then we slowly make our way back. She loves climbing up the stairs by holding both my hands and walking up them very, very clumsily.

Her favourite foods are currently applesauce, grapes (cut up into bite-sized pieces), plums, cheese (old, mild, stinky, whatever, just bring on the cheese), goldfish crackers, and really just about any fruit you offer her. She's not really interested in much meat, although she likes pasta and breads from time to time. And she's got at least twelve teeth in her mouth with which to chow down.

And some random news about non-Lyra things

My birthday came and went last week with little fanfare. Adam kept asking me what I wanted to do, and I was too busy with work things and a sick baby (and not getting nearly enough sleep because of it) to really think about it. Ideally I wanted someone else to throw me some sort of party or something, which eventually kind of happened on Sunday. I got some cash, which I promptly went out and spent on some awesome new shirts and a necklace. And I got a giant ball of Edam cheese, which was fantastic.

Work has been absolutely crazy lately, with all sorts of changes afoot. I'm carrying on doing what I do, coasting along with the changes as they happen. It is an interesting time.

I have tried riding to and from work a couple of times, but it has been really hard. I'm still not equipped enough for it to be easy, and I am not a morning person, so it kind of has to be easy for me to get it done. The riding itself isn't easy - but that part I'm fine with. It's the complications of getting up early, getting Lyra ready and dropping her off, and then getting myself to work, without having more stuff than I can manage with me on the walk down to Daycare. Panniers are my mantra. If I had panniers, that'd fix everything. At least that's what I tell myself. I could've bought panniers instead of shirts with my birthday money, but I really needed the shirts, too. And I desperately want an Android phone, but that won't happen for a long time I think. I also have to get pants that fit me, since I have none that fit properly at the moment. I'm still between my pre- and post-pregnancy sizes for pants. It is frustrating.

None of these things can be acquired this month, however, because for Halloween weekend we're going to Tofino with Chris & Jinni, and that's where I'm putting extra cash right now. It will be nice - the first time I've gone without camping. I don't think we'll have enough for surfing lessons, sadly, but it will be lovely nonetheless.

And that's an extremely long update on my life at the moment. Things are pretty good. Lyra is changing every day. The world keeps spinning round and round.

I was at home with Lyra today, since it's Friday and that's what I do on Fridays. Just after lunchtime I was cleaning up the kitchen and rambling away at her while she played with blocks around the corner. I ramble at her regularly. I explained my plans to her about how we were going to go out and do some laundry, and maybe go pick up some fruit for her at the grocery store, like a banana or something. From around the corner I heard her squeal with delight, drop the blocks she was playing with, and sprint crawl towards me in the kitchen, excited about the prospect of a banana, apparently.

I have realized that I can't offer bananas right now unless I actually HAVE one to give her. I wouldn't say she was disappointed, but she certainly looked for it, and I felt a bit guilty to lead her on and not produce the fruit in question.

She is definitely beginning to understand language. Who knows what other words she recognizes but isn't excited about, and thus doesn't express any reaction to them... Time to make sure the boys watch their tongues around her, I guess. Even if it would be amusing to hear her swear like a sailor...

Tomorrow we are going to Ikea for Lyra bedroom things, and then stopping in at my mom's to drop Lyra off for a bit while we contemplate car ownership. We've been without a car for nearly two years now, and we were doing all right with it, but the inability to go biking without depending on other people has just reached a point of making us crazy, and it's affecting our activity level. It's just sad that I've only been out riding three or four times this summer - not because I was tied up with Lyra, but because I had no way to get to the trails with my bike in the allotted time. It sucked. We're also finding that we are spending a lot on the car co-op these days - nearly as much as a car payment, to be honest - and we can barely get cars anymore without booking far in advance because there are only six near us, one of which won't hold a baby seat and three of which require transiting to (which is really hard with a single person, baby, and baby car seat, let me tell you.)

And so we are going to look at cars and see what we can figure out. The environmentalist in me is feeling guilty about it. The mountain biker in me is crazy excited to be able to get out to trails again. The road tripper/camper in me is crazy excited to go on road trips and camping. The mother in me is happy to have the option of driving to things like swimming lessons when time is short and buses are few and far between. And while it's been satisfying to not have a car, it's just not practical for us anymore. Again, this makes the environmentalist in me sad, but I'm trying to assuage the guilt by making sure that fuel efficiency is a top priority, within the limits of what our needs are. No point in getting a tiny fuel efficient car that can't carry bikes.

The environmentalist in me has settled for internally raging that Canada is designed for people with cars.

We shall see how it goes. I'm excited and nervous, and I know it's unlikely that we'll buy anything tomorrow on sight, but part of me kind of wishes that's how it'll happen. Now that I'm committed to car ownership, I'm ready to have the car RIGHT NOW. When I make up my mind about something, it's hard to be patient.

Lyra is over thirteen months old now. Her first birthday came and went so quickly, I barely had time to think about what it really meant. And then She got sick, and Adam got sick, and I got sick, and we all got better, then all got sick again. Many weeks passed with varying degrees of sickness in the house, and I was too tired or sick to really think about anything.

We're finally all better now, which is nice. It won't last, but it's nice. Daycare is full of babysick germs that apparently attack us grown-ups worse than the babies.

So Lyra turned one, and within a few weeks so many developmental changes started kicking in that I could barely keep track anymore. She started cruising around furniture with a vengeance. She began standing up unassisted from the floor - although every time she noticed she was doing so she would sit back down because she's pretty sure she can't actually do that. She started eating regular foods in earnest and with great joy - especially fruit like blueberries, bananas, and cut up grapes. Just last night she discovered that the tube-shaped wooden block fits into the hole of the donut-shaped wooden block perfectly, and apparently spent two hours just doing that over and over with a huge grin on her face.

The best part of it has probably been the emergence of preferences. Not just 'she likes food A more than food B' but actual choices. She will pull every book off the shelf until she finds the one she wants you to read her, then bring it over to you and crawl into your lap. Right now her favourite books are Oh the thinks you can think by Dr. Seuss and The Awesome Book by Dallas Clayton. She also now points at foods she specifically wants, and even sort of says Banana if that's what she's looking for. It comes out as 'ba' - which is the same word she uses for baby, ball, and book - but accompanied by energetic pointing and a certain inflection that I can't describe in words, you know which one it is she means each time.

She also made Adam watch So you think you can dance Canada last week. He was flipping through channels and flipped past it, and she got excited and pointed at the tv until he turned it back. She then sat down and watched it for a while. The girl definitely knows what she likes, and is not at all afraid to tell you in any way she can communicate it.

In addition to saying ba, she also says something that could be 'hi' - it comes out as "I!" and is usually to get your attention. It makes sense, since we say hi to her to get her attention.

Some of her new favourite games (and old ones that never get tired) are piano playing (on someone's lap or from the floor), dancing to music, pulling disks out of the ps3, knocking stacked blocks over, assisted walking (either by holding hands or by pushing her walker thing around), and flinging herself between people who catch her - it's nearly like trying to walk, but she doesn't take steps so much as throw her entire body at you and expect you to catch her. Naturally, she's either grinning or laughing the entire time.

She has favourite songs & music videos too. She loves Twinkle Twinkle little star, and Daft Punk's Around the World. She will dance and smile to anything she likes, and ignore whatever she doesn't like.

She's also enjoying daycare more every day, which is nice. The interaction with other babies has been great - she hasn't had that much time to play with other babies her own age, so I'm really happy with the amount of socialization she's getting.

Last night I dreamed she was starting to repeat words we said to her. She's not quite there yet, but I don't think it's that far off. The thought of her being able to say things to us is a little mind-blowing at times, and also very exciting. Then again, every single thing that I get to see her figure out is just amazing.

Babies are little geniuses. I wish I could learn at that rate now.

I had started at least two updates, and then rebooted the computer both times without saving. Oops. As such, this is a much-delayed update. This one is mostly about events, rather than thoughts.

Lyra turned one

My little girl had her very first birthday on the ninth of July. Adam and I picked her up from Daycare (where they had given her a birthday hat and sang her songs all day) and took her out for a lovely sushi dinner at one of the multitudes of sushi restaurants on Lonsdale Avenue. Lyra loves sushi - already a west coast girl at heart. She picks up the rolls and gnaws on the rice and whatever is inside (avocado, cucumber, yam) and takes the whole piece apart, tossing much of it on the floor in the process. Fortunately she's cute enough that the staff at the sushi restaurant think she's awesome and don't mind cleaning up her mess.

After her sushi dinner, we took her across the street to Brazza Gelato & Coffee, where we acquired gelato for her dessert. Naturally, she also loves gelato. Not really sure if it's possible for a baby to not love gelato. Or anyone, really. At any rate, it was a huge win. (As an aside, I just looked at their website. I wonder if they'd barter a new website and product/shop photography for free coffee for a year or something? Mmmm Brazza coffee...)

It was a nice little family birthday celebration, and we had a good night.

Lyra had a birthday party

Her birthday party was on the weekend at my mom's house in Pitt Meadows. We invited a bunch of friends to celebrate with us, and got cake (of course) for Lyra to mutilate. She spent a good part of the afternoon crawling around naked in the yard, playing in the baby pool, and generally enjoying herself. There really is nothing like spending your birthday in your birthday suit, and she was a model birthday girl. She wasn't very interested in opening her gifts, so I opened them for her - books and toys and clothes - all much appreciated by her parents, if not the little girl herself. There was also a Barbeque, and Adam, Lyra and I stayed the night so that my mom could babysit the little girl the next day while Adam and I went biking together. It happens rarely, so it was a great Lyra birthday present for us. She had a fantastic time playing with her Nana.

Here are the rest of the photos from her birthday party.

Adam and I went biking together

Our ride was a nice one, with Maryn and Chris. We did the lower trails in Burnaby (I made them ride the trails up and back down, which was great) and then went to Port Moody where we rode Starz. It's really been a long time since Adam & I rode bikes together (I think we managed it twice last fall) so it was a good time. Plus, I hadn't ridden with Chris in two years or something, which was just sad. All remedied.

Lyra caught a cold around the 11th, just after Adam was sick. I caught the same cold by the 14th, and was not happy. For three days I was at home with Lyra being sick, and me sick too. Trust me on this one, it's really no fun. Nine days now and I still have a really sore throat and a nasty-sounding cough. I'm hoping it moves along soon, I'm tired of this, and everyone else seems better now.

I still have thoughts I want to share about Lyra's first birthday, but this entry is far more practical than that, and already long enough. Worry not, I will fill you in shortly.

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.

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.

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!

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...

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.

I watch Star Trek: The Next Generation sometimes in the afternoons when I'm home on weekdays. Call it a not-so-guilty pleasure, if you like - I'm not ashamed of it. Usually I'm watching while I'm playing with Lyra, or cleaning, or doing laundry, or any number of other boring things.

A few weeks ago I noticed something that amused me. I thought I'd take a short video of it and share with all of you. I'm apparently imbuing my baby with at least some geekiness...