Filip and Zola

Ok so this isn't really me. It is actually the father-person but he can't be a real member of this blog because he is too busy to answer his email. Loser! I mean over to you honey..

Hello to the humans, out there in blog land, huddled around your monitors, basking in the glow of my fuzzy warm verbiage. That ought read 'human', hello to the human reading this. Hello, spouse. If there's some other out there, reading this, this online diary format, welcome to the only therapy I can afford. There will be no confessions of excess, adolescent or otherwise, no tales of at home math kit piercings gone awry, animal sacrifice, ewine lust... no.

I was asked to comment on the large cat's gustatory habits. Unlike the small (this is a relative term) cat, who dines exclusively on kibbles and his rectum, this other freeloader is largely know to dine on:

a: kibbles
b: bark
c: the smaller cat
d: the smaller cat's vomit
e: cheerios

Tonight we fed our girl some chow mein and I know you can see where this is going, the dominant subject of this text being what does the cat eat and of course, she, being our child, is just over a year old, and the greasy little noodles, they are sticky and they spin and they fly and this is good, but the point is not to describe the qualities of the noodles which do not require description as they have no quality that will not be apparent to anyone who has purchased the take away styrofoam noodle pack from the nearest chinese storefront noodle vendor, but I digress, as the glistening noodles arc thru' the air rotating as they fall to the floor, to lie curled like dried summer worms lining the sidewalk, and as the similies begin to accumulate like something that accumulates prolifically and unnecessarily, and the sentence runs on barefoot like Zola Budd with the horse faced and grim fate of Mary Decker-Slaney aiming its cleats at its tender, innocent calves, and still it runs on does the sentence while Filip, our large, orange, slightly pear-shaped cat, slurps up the noodles from the floor, as if they were, well, noodles.

And it was my night to clear the floor, so, thanks Filip.

Child care search #3

Ok so I am commencing my third child care search. Search one resulted in the nanny who lasted 3 weeks and gave me 7 days notice... Teach me to hire a local and not to some marginalized immigrant! Search two was really a part of search one.. it was the daycare I wanted, love and now have to leave... the daycare I was waiting for when I hired nanny in August. I still feel slightly guilty that I put it to da sitter when she left that she had devasted our family with her departure.. as it turned out I was able to place her in dream daycare within the week and would have had to fire her anyway.

Guilt guilt guilt -- can I ever get enough?..

So now dream daycare's days are numbered. This small home setting with the 3,4,5 little ones has been overseen by our dear N. long enuf and now she will hatch some child care more homemade. I am really happy we did go with daycare as Baby e does all her visiting while we work and I don't have to contemplate the gymboree circut, cringe. I noticed when she first started talking that she really needed to be there.. so they can all talk their weirdo baby stuff and not have the likes of me interupt them with verbs and adjectives and junk.

So I guess I am lucky in this search I have about 3 mos to complete the job. But I am already FREAKING out. I hate arranging child care. There are many reasons including the fact that my family all seem to have the perfect answers to my problems and I am just too thick to see it their way. Too bad, isn't it?

My outcomes from a day of cold calls are as follows -- found very appealing new family/home daycare nearby, but she doesn't want to lead me on. I need to call back in January to see if she will really have a space. Found two open spaces at more dogey establishments one of which I will visit next week and hope to be pleasantly surprised. I also checked on all my USELESS waitlist positions. What is the deal with this anyway? You just can't always need a space when they have one and vice versa.. And, with most of the group centres asking for 50 bucks just to write down my name I might go broke trying to get on the second-string of their callback lists.

I am so afraid -- in this city the demand is high. I can tell by the way most people won't call you back and stuff you are really at their mercy.. Unless as in my last case I will just happen to get lucky. wish me luck.

Do I sound desparate? I'll tell you this much the very first daycare I ever visited and one I liked was a corporate one -- I immediately lied to get in. While I never backed up this lie with an application I can control my guilt but still. How can a relationship which requires so much trust be so very much grounded in fear and mistrust?

Earlier this evening I read my MPs circular and its promises about improved child care spaces... Would be nice. Too bad I don't believe a word of it.

Flip da laundry

So this was the last weekend before the return to full time work. I have been working for 4 months but only part-time. In light of this change my head exploded about a half dozen times on various organizational related matters. What about the housecleaning? I don't know what we are having for dinner on Wednesday? Have I written every outstanding thank-you note to date?

Dreck, really.

When I sat down to 'supervise' the miss at lunch yesterday I walked away from 1 sink full of dirty dishes; one half a countertop covered in clean dishes and a rapidly boiling pot of spag sauce. Well at least Wednesday is taken care of.

Huzzy was luckily home at the time so I could focus all my energies on convincing the miss that she would love some yoghurt and a sandwich -- even though all she has eaten for a week is a combination of sausage, kiwi fruit and apples. This went as to be predicted complete with my enjoyment of the nearly the entire repast myself -- who knew I could get fat on BABY food? -- more on that later. I gave in -- ergh, self-possessedly and dismissedly concluded the meal with little to do in the face of the infant after 25 mins. She notheless has an attitude of triumph.

So walked into the kitchen and no huzz, no tidy and spag sauce nearly burnt. AHHHHHHH -- why can't you? You didn't tell me -- ok now you are asking for it. Can you not show some initiative? I ask you NICELY, through my grit beared teeth, can you not just take a look around and figure some of this out without my direction , sometime???

Oh gawd I can tell he is NOT listening to one word. Thank god I AM BIG enuf to rise above it all.

And then today. With a nicer lazy day done and the girl in bed - clothes picked for daycare tommorrow, dishes in the dishwasher, house clean, etc.. What do i find the laundry I planned to get done has been resorted and a load put on by the Papa-man. Do I say something? Well being completely without either judgement or boundaries of course I do. "You flipped the laundry, eh? You know I had hoped to get that laundry done tonight but you .. " Insert rude gesture. I remember my words of yesterday. I can be such a putz.

What do you wish for when you are one?

I have put the book away

Welcome to the first post on Mother-Woman blog. As of yesterday I have put away my baby journal. After 14 months of diligently recording every suckle, poop and wee -- then adding in every wiggle, creep, crawl, step and word with pen and paper.... I have decided to update the manner in which I track my post-natal existence. So blog it is.

We'll see if I miss writing it all down. Really I don't think it is a given that to type ensures the same sense of record making, but we'll see? Seems that the community of knowledge on all things parenting, ehp.. acutally on all things... can be blogged? Why not me?

welcome