Noooooooo!

I'm stressed out.

Yesterday, I learned that our amazing caregiver is taking July off to go to Greece for her son's wedding. From our perspective this is regrettable, but completely understandable.
Then, she's taking August off too because she always takes August off. Ummm...normally falls under the 'regrettable but understandable' category but she'll have just taken July. I know I'm horrible, but I have to say it anyway: WTF?
THEN, starting in September she's working a shorter week - four days only. My response: pretty much exactly what you see right here but with more fingers and lots more hair.

I know it isn't like she just dropped this bomb on June 15th or something but you have to understand, getting a place for a kid Brynn's age in a good daycare here in the 'Couver is like winning the bloody lotto. I would have had to register her the day I conceived for some of these places (you can't actually do that, I checked into it) and that's provided they're actually willing to take your name. One place we'd love to take Brynn to has a 400+ long wait list and hasn't accepted new names in over a year. Provided I ever get them to take her name, I'm sure there will be a spot just in time for my first grandchild. 400+ names? Really?

I've checked our top three preferred options (of the ones that would actually take our names for their wait lists) and all three are a no go.

Next Stop? Tantrumtown. According to The Great and Powerful Google, this may actually work.

The Devil's Boon!

Brynn's first word was Kitty.

Her next word was Balloon (although it actually comes out as "Boon!").

She loooves balloons. Loves to hold them. Loves to hug them. Loves to bite, kick, drag, punch, throw and body slam them.

Me? I'm not a fan. I hate balloons. I actually qualify as globophobic and yes, that is actually the correct term. I know it sounds stupid but I find balloons scary and stressful.

I'll just wait while you laugh it out.

....

....

...

Ok are you done? All out of your system? No?

...

Moving on. Brynn loves these horrible globes of death. We've had to dress her while she clutched her latest balloon. We've had to read to her, feed her, brush her teeth and bathe her while she held her balloon. I've had her smack me in the face with one repeatedly while I changed her diaper. (Strangely, she laughs just a little too hard while doing that...it is almost like she knows it freaks me out and she's enjoying it) She got one for her birthday and I was insanely happy when it disappeared...and by 'disappeared' I mean it no longer floated out of reach so I quietly cut it up one night when Brynn was sleeping. Yaay!

Unfortunately, when we came back from Thailand, my daughter had a brand new one, courtesy of her grandparents. Thanks, mom.

Since then, I've become convinced this particular balloon was possessed. One day while I was home sick, it was left floating in the kitchen and no one touched it after Brynn left for daycare. Later, I walked the length of the house, went up a flight of stairs, down the entire length of the house, up another flight of stairs and into our bedroom to have a nap. This is only important because when I woke up and rolled over I was literally face to face with Brynn's balloon. My first thought was that it was a good thing I woke up when I did because the damned thing was probably going to smother me in my sleep. The second was to wonder how the hell it followed me up there.

Sadly, this balloon also soon took a turn for the worse and is now a pile of limp Mylar. Yaay!

Whaaat? Oh please. Surely I'm not the only parent out there who secretly sabotages her child's most offensive possessions. I know for a fact that there are people out there that throw out their kid's favorite stuff when it gets too dirty, holey, small or smelly so if I maybe (and I'm not admitting to anything here, folks) happened to accidentally poke Brynn's possessed balloon with my tweezers hard enough to cause a very small hole then what can be done? Yes, Brynn was sad but it was on its last legs anyway and she soon got over it.

Yesterday, we went to Safeway to get a few groceries after picking Brynn up from daycare. It was like somebody took every bloody balloon in creation, brought them to the grocery store, and then strategically placed them everywhere a young child might look. She nearly lost her mind. Just picture a toddler spinning and pointing in every direction while chanting "BOON!" at the top of her lungs and grinning like a maniac and you have an idea what it was like. Needless to say, we left with a brand spanking new Hello Kitty balloon and I'm back to only shopping at Superstore...and sleeping with one eye open.

Beware the Devil's Boon!

Dinglie Danglie Doodle!

These days, I constantly make Rolie Polie Olie references in conversation...sadly often to people who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. For those of you who have avoided being dragged kicking and screaming into the cult of the Treehouse Kids TV channel, it's about a 6 year old robot boy named Olie and his "charming" adventures growing up on the planet Polie. Charming is in quotes because the charm part is debatable.

We find this one of the more palatable cartoons for young kids so we use it for distraction purposes whenever necessary (and yes, I know some people out there are freeeeeaking out that we're purposefully exposing our young child to TV. Blah blah blah yadda yadda). I was pretty surprised the other night when I realized this show actually got me thinking about a fairly serious parenting issue: bad language at home. The episode I was watching...I mean Brynn was watching...was called Dinglie Danglie Doodle (apparently quite a swear word on the planet Polie - called "the 3D word"). Olie's 2 year old sister Zowie overheard her father say it when he hurt himself and she wandered around repeating it until finally her mother heard her and nearly popped a gasket.

This is an issue for us now because Brynn is talking. Well...more accurately, she gabbles a lot but she also actually says a few words. 'Kitty' was her first one but now she also says baby, cracker, bye bye, balloon, Claire (her daycare friend's name), and - awesomely - Mommy and Daddy. The last thing I want to have to do is to try to get her to STOP saying something, even something rude, when she's got such a limited vocabulary but a ridiculously large percentage of my vocabulary is not particularly polite and unless some serious changes happen at home, it is inevitable. I have horrible visions of sending her to daycare, only to have her blithely babble out a string of swear words I unwittingly taught her that will make everyone think I'm the most horrible mother in creation.

Yup, there's an awkward conversation to have with your child's caregiver, to be sure.

So now we have a swear jar. Well actually it is a "swear piggy" 'cause it is her piggy bank and we're charging $1 per swear. What? You think that's expensive???? Well now I'm just going to mumble something vague about inflation and the expense of sending a kid to university in a decade and a half while I slink off into the sunset.

I know she'll eventually learn something rude.
I know she'll look up at me one day, smile charmingly and chirp out something that would make a pirate blush and I know I'll have to work really hard not to laugh BUT that time should not be now. For now, our house is a Dinglie Danglie Doodle-free zone, at least between 7am and 8pm.

After that, all bets are off, dammit!

And The Nineth Ring of Hell is....

Jetlag! Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness' worst punishment has GOT to be jetlag. I'm so tired my eyelashes hurt. I'm so wrecked my cuticles have bags. I'm so...well, I can't think of any more ways to describe how tired I am because I'M TOO FRAKKING TIRED!

I've begun to believe Thailand is Heaven and apparently Heaven is a warm, relaxing and tropical 15 hours ahead of Vancouver's cold, drab and dreary Rainfest of a timezone (boo rain!).

There were times I (semi)seriously thought about running away from Rainfest and staying in Heaven but then I remembered my real reason to come back to Rainfest. She's 14 months old, likes cats, balloons and long walks down our hallway. Her pet peeves are baby food, the word "No" and naptimes. No matter where I was or what I was doing, her little blue eyes and devilish smile would always call me back.

I have to say, this time I wish she had called me back on a different airline.

Scott and I flew Korean Airlines from Bangkok to Vancouver via Inchon, Korea. Well, actually we flew Asia Airlines from Phuket to Bangkok with a layover and transfer to Korean Airlines but that's details without much relevance to my true complaint. Oh, and did I mention I spent more than 32 hours in transit. Ohhhh yes...32 uncomfortable hours.

We hopped in a cab at 7:45 PM Thailand time (4:45 AM Vancouver Time) and didn't arrive back in BC until after well after 12 PM Vancouver time two days later. At the best of times, this is a long trip but we spent a ridiculous 9 hours in the second most beautiful, but absolutely most boring airport in creation before being forced to sit on a jam-packed airplane toddling around the tarmac for 2 hours past its scheduled take-off before finally taking off on its 11 hour flight, only then realizing that the chairs in the emergency exit row don't even come close to reclining the (puny) standard 33 degrees. OH MAH GAWD.

I loved Thailand. Looovedlovedloved it. I luuuuuurve Thailand but I detested the trip to and from more than usual this time. The Inchon airport in Korea, while lovely and clean, is a shopper's paradise...but only if you are Paris Hilton: Gucci, Prada, Cartier or, for the truly poor, Coach (shudder). It was one of the most repetitive places I have ever seen in my life: there were endless stores but they were quite literally all the same. I felt like I was being stalked when I kept looking around and seeing Gucci signs, Cartier stores, and Prada purses no matter where I walked. It was a bit like Groundhog Day meets Clueless.

Of course, if I were rich, I would probably be babbling on about how great Inchon was and how much I enjoyed my layover there. My 9 hour layover.

Sadly, in the absence of my Lotto Max win, it's still on my list of most boring.

Road Trip 2010

Over the Christmas break Scott and I loaded up the car, cinched our baby into her car seat, and headed out for what I now call "Road Trip 2010."

We were on our way to spend Christmas with my parents who live about 5 hours away. Of course, that 5 hour trip time does not take into account bathroom/diaper breaks, meal breaks, snack breaks, freak out breaks, or the now infamous " 'Hey, look at all that fluffy snow' while mommy cries into her pillow" break. In other words, this trip doesn't exactly take 5 hours now that we've got a baby on board.

This trip was tough but I know it could have been much, much worse. My poor sister BJ had to deal with my niece Jordyn screaming until she literally puked every time she got in the car when she was a baby - No, I'm not kidding. LITERALLY. That kid actually yakked every time they went farther than the corner store after screeeeeeaming her lungs (and her mom's eardrums) out. I have to admit, even though it wasn't a walk in the park, I'm a damn lucky woman 'cause even though my child is stubborn and vocal, you put her in a car and she's pretty chill.

Anyway...please note that I said Brynn is "PRETTY" chill. Not chillin' and definitely not mad chill, shorty. She was pretty chill for an active 1 year old hogtied to a plastic chair covered by a thin layer of padding in the backseat of our car for what we'll euphemistically call a "5" hour drive. Let's just say I'm encouraging my parents to seriously consider moving back to Vancouver - or at least the Lower Mainland - because that drive was...interesting. And by "interesting" I mean something I don't want to repeat in the foreseeable future.

It certainly wasn't all butterflies, smiles and Disneyesque musical numbers, but...we survived. Merry Friggin' Christmas Everyone!

Thailand Calling...

We're going to Thailand!

FYI: when I say "we" - I mean Scott and I, NOT Brynn, Scott and I. Now don't judge me but I have to admit that I can't help but to say "we're going to Thailand" in a singsong and I swear I hear birds chirping and angels plucking their harps as I do.

Oh. Niiiice! There you go...all judgey judgey.

Sadly, this is the portion of the blog dedicated to my defense of myself for doing something I think is normal and healthy. Sigh. Here goes...

I love my child.
I love that kid so much I spend a laughable (or rather pathetic) amount of time obsessing over whether she likes me or not.
I love that kid so much I do the most ridiculous things just to make her smile...in public...in front of strangers and people who know me, no less!
I love that kid so much I've actually (gasp!) gone to the grocery store without makeup to buy something she needed when it wasn't a 3 alarm emergency. I KNOW. Without makeup? Not even lip gloss or eye liner? "Good God," you must be thinking, "this woman sure looooooooves her baby." And believe me, anyone reading this who knows me, knows that this is something I would never do under normal circumstances, so yes, I love my child.

I do, however, think you can love your child and still go away on vacations without them. I've seen what happens to a person when her whole life is her kids and it ain't pretty. Women need to have more in their lives than diapers, scraped chins, and feeding schedules. So, my life in less than 2 weeks will revolve around beaches and bevvies. And curries. Lots of curries. (Shlurp) .

Of course, this unbridled hedonism will all be scheduled around my daily Skype conversations with my child, but that's beside the point. (disclaimer: This is NOT a picture of my child looking studiously at a computer screen. Mine would be pounding the shit out of the keyboard while laughing maniacally. No Google images photo corresponding to that, strangely enough)

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz - huh?

I'm beginning to wonder if the stories I've heard about children sleeping through the night are a societal boondoggle - a nice, tidy little flotable ring of a fable everyone quietly agrees must be thrown out there to help drowning parents stay afloat until their kids do finally sleep like babies supposedly do...and apparently don't.

When Brynn slept in the bed with us for the first couple of months, she often did sleep through the night but since then????

Not so bloody much.

Given the chance, she sleeps in but instead of our old "roll out of bed, fumble around looking for a bathrobe, stumble down the stairs and feed her a bottle once a night" routine, we're now getting up to do it twice! Ummm...how is that a step towards the mythical night of uninterrupted sleep, dammit!

The hard truth: it isn't.

I don't know if she's getting up more often because she's growing.
I don't know if she's getting up more often because she's teething.
I don't know if she's getting up more often because the wind is changing direction outside her bedroom window or because the temperature/dew point spread is not to her liking.

I don't know and I don't care. I'm too tired to care. I'm too tired to do much of anything except say, "Sleeeeep, baby sleeeeep."