yesterday mike called on his way home to pitch a last minute "summer-will- *really actually*- be- over- after -this- warm- spell" picnic for dinner. It ended up being one of his better pitches and involved tacos and beers from casa mexico and as if a girl's gonna say no to that. (for the local friends this place is new and did not disappoint! the citizen just reviewed this place so we thought we'd give it a try - and we're so happy to have found some hearty and authentic mexican close to home - because lets be honest we barely make it out of the 'burbs these days). in a crazy 10-minute fury, we packed up the entire crew, grabbed the only tom petty cd I could find in my collection (seriously. I have four of his cd's and only ONE was in the case. which was the fundamental problem with cd's - they never went back where they were supposed to be!), and went to Britannia beach which we sadly, had not one chance to visit the entire summer. there were actually quite a few people there who had the same idea and a bunch of people swimming. We put our feet in and June basically all but dunked her head and the water was so warm! I will take this Canada! If october is the new august I'm ok with that!
To be honest, Mother's Day has popped up on me this year. The other day Mike asked what I'd like to do on Sunday and it had completely slipped my mind; I guess I've been so focused on this new baby life and getting things ready which is pretty ironic; I've been thinking constantly about being a mother but forgot that I get a special day! Ha!
Yesterday I sat in the Fabricland parking lot with the car running for a few minutes trying to debate whether I'd go for the safe option: shopping at Walmart where there are shopping carts (and straps to contain your wild child) or Indigo, where there are the actual errands I needed to get done, but no magical child-restraining carts.
Last week while it was pouring down rain June and I set up a planting station in our kitchen. We potted two flats of seedlings and it was absolutely way more work then it would have been sans toddler. Within about 2 minutes there was dirt everywhere, and she was way more interested in pouring dirt into piles (but to be fair, I shouldn't have expected differently!) The mistake I made was trying to "get stuff done," at the same time as have June "help."
It snowed again on the weekend and because it's supposed to be SPring, we just couldn't bare to stay inside. my parents were visiting so we decided to make a trip out to almonte which is only about 1/2 hour outside of Ottawa. pronounced "Al-mont" (but I still say "al-mont-tee" in my head because I'm a bit of a nerd like that) it's a quaint old mill town that has come to life with artisan stores that sell local goods. I really love their efforts to keep the vibe of the town local and in support of the people who live in the area.
A few weeks ago, when it was kinda-sorta-almost Spring for a day, we had the lovely Alexandra Daprato take some maternity photos of our growing family! I met Alex, the owner of tiny marvels photography, through a local moms group and we've bonded over the usual girly stuff in addition to pregnancy commiseration. I know the mommy circuit on the internet gets a bad rap at times for judgy-mc-judgyness, but it also should be mentioned that we have something other generations of moms have never had access to before:
hi there and happy monday! mike had to work a good portion of the weekend and because it was cold again and we've been itching with cabin fever, i felt a huge need to bust out of the house for a bit with june. we ended up at the tropical greenhouse at the experimental farm (where we took june's first year photos and our family photos under the apple blossoms last year... apparently one of our favourite places to visit in ottawa!).
Sometimes I feel like all I do when I sit down to blog is complain about the weather. living in Ontario, so much of our life depends on the weather; and at this time of year it's like, we're done. Done with the cold, the lack of sun, the inability to put your child
I know the whole "stay-at-home" vs. "work" is a hugely hot-topic debate. And I know it's not as simple as "just stay home if you want to!" or "just work if you want to!" It's about money and career choices and just generally how as women with kids we're forced into a really tough position of having to choose. Or not having the liberty to choose! I ran into this issue this past Fall. I've always been so torn. My heart has always said "stay home" but my bank account, my sense of pride and the other grey matter in my brain that has not yet been consumed by motherhood (does that even still exist!? ha!) has beckoned for me to work. And when people ask me "what are you planning for work after mat leave?"
Take two on getting this ol' website up and running again! After having spent the better part of early August trying to clean my blog up, you may or may not have noticed that this place was completely out of business for the past week because of an issue with my domain - I've taken some breaks from blogging before, but when all of a sudden I couldn't write even if I wanted to, it was kinda painful in a weird way! I kept thinking of things I wanted to say and do and it's crazy but true, you don't know how good something can be until it's gone...
This month, more than any other month we've spent together in the past year, has gone by at warp-neck speed. I sat down to go over some other house-keeping stuff and I was seriously floored that tomorrow is April 1 (ugggghhh tax season!). Where does time go?