It's possible to get even bigger!

With a photo credit to Janine, here is the latest belly shot.

The North Pacific Gyre

A and I took out the garbage and recycling yesterday, and I got to thinking about an article I saw in the Vancouver Aquarium's monthly newsletter, Waters about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

This is a flotilla of plastic garbage that is twice the size of Texas, and is the result of the Ocean currents swirling it together into one big mess in the middle of the Pacific. Check out Ed Norton's video here. (The end of the video also slams BPA baby bottles - after continued washing, they leach more and more BPA into their contents.)

It motivates me to teach him better conservation and recycling habits, and we have created an easy-to-use recycling station in the kitchen. He knows plastics go in the Blue Box, and newspapers/mixed papers in the blue bag - already! I am so proud of him!

Please remove your feet from my esophagus.

Darling baby boy in my tummy:

Please remove your feet from my esophagus: it feels like someone is pushing up my throat from my stomach.

I know things are getting cramped in there, but it would be much appreciated if you would kindly stop kicking me in the lungs and causing my breathlessness.

Who knew first trimester nausea would come back in the form of a pair of baby feet at my stomach?

Susan Boyle has created quite a stir

I try not to miss Bruce Allen on Larry & Willy every Friday: he is loud, opinionated, often politically incorrect, and fearless in his convictions. I like that. I don't always agree with him, but I like the fact the guy is willing to go out on a limb and say what he really feels.

This morning, he and Willy disagreed on the whole Susan Boyle phenomenon. He thought it was a sad "ten seconds of fame" event that would be over in ten months or less. Willy felt his heart warm with the 'feel-good' element of the story. Either way, with over 42 million hits on YouTube, she has arrived.


Bart Jackson, of the Vancouver Sun, is sitting in the cynical camp. He thinks the whole thing is a brilliantly orchestrated publicity scam, which, when broken down, plays the audience like a bunch of ignorant puppets.

My opinion lies somewhere in-between. Does the world need a feel-good story like this right now? Obviously. Does she have a hope of making a career out of it? Possibly, if she gets picked up for animated features or radio. (Although, this is not to discredit her $1mil porn film offer) Is it going to outlast Allen's predictions of ten months or less? I doubt it. If we still remember her one year from now I would say she has beaten the odds, and garnered more than the candy-floss-ten-seconds-of-fame usually attributed to these sorts of situations.

Regardless, she's fun to watch, and it's nice to see the net buzzing about something positive for a change.

Even I'm getting tired of the hormones.

Week 35 and I officially REALLY want off.

My hormones are so fantastical that even I can't believe what is coming out of my mouth, and even though I am trying to self-edit in my head, my brain and my mouth just cannot seem to get it together.

I need cucumbers over my eyes to dispel the redness, and my own personal masseuse to come to the house and remove this baby foot that seems lodged between my second and third rib.

I need a pedicure, and some retail therapy.

I need to stop whining.

With patience thinner than the skin stretched over my baby bump, I am becoming that Mom, snapping at her kid and sighing a lot.

I went into BC Ferries today with A to exchange our fare saver tickets for a card, and as the kind but slow lady behind the counter stood making the transaction, A found the light switch for the entire office, and stood systematically turning it ON/OFF/ON/OFF/ON/OFF. The lady asked me to kindly control my son, and I sighed and told her "I'm doing the best I can" and asked A to sit down and wait. (Secretly, I was a little more than pleased to be causing a disruption with BC Ferries, as I think they're a bunch of fascists.)

Even my husband has had enough. In his own gentle way, he has told me to stop being such a Princess, and while the delivery set me off the deep end, he has a point.

Second pregnancies are waaaaay harder that your first. It's not just dealing with yourself, it's trying to maintain some level of proficiency in being a Mom to your two-year old. I do not like myself right now. I want to get on with it, get my body back, and regain my mobility. And I'm staring at four weeks of post-op recovery time from my C-section. How the hell am I going to manage?

Giants Face of the Game

After much delay, here is the footage we got up on the 'jumbotron' at the Giants Game, last series!

There's a Rhino in my DVD player

Aaron and I were settling in for a movie in bed last night, and I went to make popcorn in the kitchen. Not five minutes later, Aaron came thundering down the hall, looking like a man on a mission, saying "There's a mouse in the VCR". (We have one of those DVD/VCR players). He grabbed a knife and pair of tongs and headed back to the bedroom.

With visions of electrocution dancing in my head, I ran after him, saying "Wait, wait!!! Let's get a better look first!" and promptly ran around looking for a flashlight.

We found the flashlight, and cautiously opened the VCR door and shone it in.

There was a mouse-looking-thing stuck in the machine.

Bugger. (insert mind racing with pest control issues and problem getting bigger and bigger in my head)

I convinced Aaron to unplug the machine, and suggested a pair of tweezers might be less invasive than prying a knife through the guts of the machine. He held the flashlight, and I stuck the tweezers in, grasping the thing by the skinny gray tail.

Pulling it out, I noticed it had a horn and two ears.

It was a Rhino. A plastic Rhino.

We had a good laugh, and I thought to myself "at least it wasn't the fabled grilled cheese!".

Our darling little monkey had progressed from slipping coins into my Mac mini dvd burner to plastic rhinos into our VCR!

These are the parenting moments I love...

Getting scared

I am T-six weeks away, and I have seriously started questioning my sanity. Why did I think having two was a good idea? I know it all gets easier, but I am looking ahead to the next six months, and wondering how the hell I am going to do it. Never mind the surgery itself.

I think we got pregnant right around the time my memories of the sleeplessness, crying, teething, late-night-medicine and doctors visits started to fade.

I have a girlfriend going through the early months with her first right now, and she has brought it all back to me.
Oh hell.
Our 2.5 year old is a busy monkey at the best of times: how do you do it? How do you recover from a 2nd C-section, chase after a 2.5 year old and tend to a newborn? I had better blog now while I am coherent, and able to steal an hour for myself!

(Speaking of said girlfriend, she told me she once wanted twins, as they would be 'so cute', and it would kind of get it all over with together. Ha Ha, do we laugh about that now!)

Adding to my fears is the fact my second is a boy too: my Dad coined it perfectly this weekend: A has two speeds - go and stop! Two boys means a house full of sports equipment. Two boys means puck marks on the wall, and dents from high-sticking in the family room. Two boys means sweaty sock smell forever. Two boys mean twice-weekly trips to Superstore, and double the 8 litres of milk/week habit we currently have. Two boys will mean a second fridge in the garage.

Getting closer and closer to the delivery date, I am re-living A's birth, and I realize that we had so much post-delivery trauma and complications to deal with, a "normal" c-section should seem like a cake-walk, right? Not having three specialist appointments a month will free up oodles of time to sit around in the backyard with Peanut slung to me, and A shooting pucks and kicking the soccer ball.

It will allow us up to the Island, to sit on the beach with Peanut and A, and hunt for crabs and build sandcastles. Thankfully, that is probably all my addled brain will be able to focus on.

I will try and take it day by day, and focus on the little hurdles first.

Hop Hop went the Easter Bunny

Aaron and I have come to the realization that Easter chocolate must be doled out as slowly and in as small a quantity as possible if we are going to survive this post-easter-chocolate apocalypse.

It's quite amazing the change that comes over A when he has had some chocolate: the sugar rush is so named for a reason! While we're not a "no sugar" household, we don't lay too heavily on the sugar, so when we do give some to A, the change is noticeable and often drastic! So far, I have gotten it down to one small egg a day, however at this rate, my waistline is not going to thank me for it, as I inevitably nibble on A's chocolate much more liberally than my rules for my son!

Luckily, we were on the Island for most of the weekend, and A was free to run and play; making full use of the beach. All we heard was him going around systematically to each adult in the crowd, asking "Beach? Beach? Beach Please Mummy?". He sounded a bit like those seagulls in Nemo.... Between calls for beach he also screamed out for "More Crabs Mummy!". Our son really likes it outside.

I must tip my hat to my in-laws: they opted for colouring books, bunnies and puzzles as easter gifts for A this year, and it served as a nice counter-point to all the sugar...

I think I am going to try my hand at home-made hot chocolate, or maybe a chicken mole, as I would like to try and use up some of the chocolate so it's not sitting on the top of the fridge staring at me as I walk through the kitchen...

Happy Hop Hop all!

"Mummy, wet!!!!"

I'm not sure who said things came in threes, but whoever did, really hit the nail on the head. Friday we got news of a friend of the family's tragic death, Saturday of another friends' trip to the emergency ward, and Sunday morning our hot water tank blew up.

I won't speak on the events Friday, as I cannot find the words just yet, other than to throw my love and support out there to all of the family involved. It has left me shaken and speechless.

Our Saturday friend (I am happy to report) came through their trip to the emergency room and is now home resting with their family.

And finally, Sunday.

In light of everything else going on, a busted hot water tank is a very minute thing to stress over. Actually, I think in light of the rest of the weekend, it was almost a relief that that was all it was, and it was something we could fix. A made the discovery in the morning - heading down to his playroom first thing, he paused at the foot of the stairs, lifted himself onto his tippie-toes and yelled up: "Mummy, WET!!!". I could see the marks his feet were leaving in the carpet - kind of like large water stains when you put down a hot coffee cup on a wooden table. I ran down the stairs and promptly splashed onto the carpet myself.

I think the word of the day ended up being "lucky". We were lucky that only about 1/2 of the tank spilled out. We were also lucky there was a drain 2' from the tank leading outside. We were even more lucky that Aaron is in the trades, and both knew and could get a plumber in on a Sunday for a reasonable amount of money and a bottle of wine. I think we will continue to be lucky as we watch our gas/energy bills decrease as we opted for the Paloma, not to mention no more showers going cold or laundry coming out half-done.

All in all, I was more than happy to put this weekend behind us. Instead I will focus on just how lucky I am.

What's in a name?

I have been re-reading my baby name book, (Thanks to Alison who got us one with over 60,000 this time!) and making up my shortlist to take to the hospital. I see Jamie Oliver is as irreverent as always with his naming conventions: he's married to Jools, with his first two daughters Poppy Honey and Daisy Boo, and they have just named their third daughter Petal Blossom Rainbow! Now call me crazy, but having just read the chapter entitled "How does a name age?", it strikes me that Gwen Stefani's son Zuma, and Gwyneth Paltrow's son Moses and daughter Apple may have something to say about things when they are in their twenties, and going through the inevitable celebrity-parent therapy.

Or how about the names that just look like they were misspelled on the birth certificate application, like Rumer and Pilot Inspekter?

Fifi Trixibelle? Moxie Crimefighter? Tabooger? Seriously, I am not making this stuff up! I am all for getting off the beaten track, but whoa.

Thoughts?