on rolling snake eyes at the Monte Carlo casino

Four years ago today I married a man who is so retentive he stacks the salad forks facing one way in the cutlery cabinet and the dinner forks parallel, tines North instead of South, as is the case with the smaller variety. This is the same man who could not close a clothes drawer or an armoire door if his life depended on it, thus allowing the cats free reign to peruse and play and jettison their dander over every pair of black pants I own, which is a lot, since we all know black is the most slimming.

Four years ago today I married a man whose pleasant nature and heartfelt sincerity can be witnessed in every picture in which he gives the “thumbs up” (even the one where he is drunk, at the bottom of our jet tub at the Percy apartment, just having fallen in it. The guy can’t stand, but apparently can react so quickly upon seeing a camera point in his general direction that he remembers to offer his signature pose. Amazing.) This is the same man who cannot watch a scary movie for fear of nightmares, but on the day his son was born, braced himself on the hospital bed rails, held my hand, and witnessed the birth of his first child, a child who in a solitary moment took us from being a couple and made us into a family.

Four years ago today I married a man who, if there was any doubt that he could be called a man back then at the tender age of 26, can surely be called one now. A man who slaves and strives everyday to better himself so that his family has the best that life can offer, a man who rushes home every night for kisses from his son, a man who treats his wife better than she deserves to be, who makes her feel that she is loved unconditionally, who makes her weep with gratitude at the thought of what their family’s become, what their family promises to someday be.

Four years ago today I married a man who is my best friend, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done with my life.

das web log

I’ve always maintained that this little public journal has been just for me (and Adoring and Wonderful Husband. And the Grandmas.) But secretly - in my heart of hearts – everything I do, I do it for you. My audience. Whoever you are, wherever you are. Ye who shall henceforth be known as: My Dedicated and Fabulous Fan Base. At least that’s what I like to think on my good days, the days I exclaim to Boh, as he sits in his ExerSaucer, staring at me, wishing I would quit god-damned typing already and maybe read him a story, or at least change the pee-pee diaper he’s been sitting in, for like, AN HOUR: That dooce broad ain’t got nuthin’ on me, baby boy! HOO-rah!

I’ve fancied myself a sometimes writer for years, ever since I was in grade five and tried to write my first novel, a la Gordon Korman and his Macdonald Hall series. If that dude can write his first novel at the age of 12, I thought, surely I can too. And so I did. And in its entirety the manuscript was nine pages long and consisted merely of caricatures of all the other little snot-nosed brats in my class, pre-puberty, post-pleasant, otherwise known as the age when parents say, What the bleep! did I do THAT for? My peers found out about my scripture (mostly because I told them all that – Behold! I am going to WRITE A BOOK!), and – of course – they wanted to read it, if only to know how history would judge them.

My debut (typed, double spaced) made its rounds around the room, when we were supposed to be learning to count to 100 en français, and ended at Christina, a girl I described in my “book” as “a chubby thing, with long brown hair.” (Riveting stuff, I know.) She took offence, mostly because she CLEARLY WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND ART if its meaning reared up and bit her in her slightly dimpled buttocks. Nonetheless, my attempts at writing the great Canadian novel were curtailed, at least until grade seven, when my dreams for penning the definitive biography of Michael Damien, singer of the ever rockin’ song, umm, Rock On, were dashed when whoever was in charge of his fan club refused to send me a stock reply to my letter, which asked him what it was like to work on the set of The Young and The Restless before embarking on his distinguished career as a recording artist. My only explanation for the snub was that either: a) Mr. Damien had a number of shocking skeletons in his closet that he obviously didn’t want me to uncover, or b) like Christina, he was threatened by my talent. In any case, I just googled good ol’ Damien, and his career thus far probably would have been HELPED by being the muse of what could have been the youngest Canadian biographer ever. His loss.

Umm…so where is all this going? I’m sure you’re wondering, since you all have jobs and your time is precious and stuff. It’s going here: I was dropped as a link from a fellow blogger’s website, and I am crushed. Apparently My Dedicated and Fabulous Fan Base doesn’t extend much further than myself, Adoring and Wonderful Husband, the Grandmas, and that Mike Todd guy (when I am lucky). Whatever. You’re all chubby anyways.

"when I grow up, I want to be an insurance adjuster!"

for Uncle Rob: business in the front, party in the back

Proof positive that you can take the procreators out of North End Regina, but you can't take North End Regina out of their offspring.

I think his goal is to grow a baby mullet worthy of being featured on the infant section of this website. That would be rad, man.













































PS: This family IS AWESOME.

Project RACE monthly update

I was VERY concerned about writing this post given the month I've had - a trip to the Holy Land, a visit from Grandma A - all things that threw me off my regular routine, but only just by a bit. While I have been quite lax keeping my food journal updated, I've done pretty well with the running, and it looks like I will have no problem being able to complete the 5K at the CIBC Run For The Cure in a little over a month (oh. my. God! Is October really only little over a month away?? **weep, sob, sob**) In fact, it's going so well that I am considering signing up for a 10K race to take place on New Year's Eve (called the Resolution Run). Anyone interested?

But now it's time to really start focusing on the other aspect of my goal: raising three hundred bones to go towards finding a cure for breast cancer - the whole reason for the run in the first place. At the time of writing I am only at 8% of that target. (Thanks S.!) So click here and GIVE UP YOUR MONEY, PUNK! The harassment will only get worse, so you might as well save yourself some trouble and just do it now...NOW!

for grandmas: I know what you come for, and it isn't my incoherent ramblings, trying to be profound

These cutie-pie pictures were taken last night, just before the Babe tried barley cereal for the first time ever. The event was followed by a moderate case of the hives, and one. poopy. diaper! this morning.

Allergic to barley?? Maybe he WAS switched at birth, after all. (But we'll keep him nonetheless.)

UPDATE: Make that two. poopy. diapers!

the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

Calling all language nerds! You will love The Mavens' Word of the Day. (Surely good for killing at least two hours at work. Surely.)

(PS: You were right, Ma. Fartlek IS a Swedish word.)

Boh’s first motion picture

My first movie was E.T. I think. But – honestly - I have no idea. What I think I remember, I don’t. I remember asking my mom if she had ever let me eat my own poop out of a jar, like the kind my Baba used to pickle cucumbers in, because the memory of me doing so in the basement is so vivid, it MUST have happened. She seemed disgusted that I’d even asked; I suppose I should have been more perturbed for feeling the need to question. I wonder what memories Boh will have when he’s older, memories of dreams that he’s having RIGHT NOW as I type. What’s that you say, Baby Boy? You think Mommy has the Best. Rack. Ever? You are so right, Sweetheart. SO RIGHT.

So…Bon Cop, Bad Cop. My first Stars and Strollers experience, Boh’s first movie. Both went well. A few observations:

1. Anything REMOTELY sentimental in a movie being patroned exclusively by women who have recently given birth is sure to be a tear jerker. (If you have been to Bon Cop, Bad Cop, it is the scene when the French mom yells at her husband for “losing” their daughter. Every woman with a baby girl in the room was reaching for a Kleenex for, like, ten minutes.)

2. Even babies are sick of the whole Two Solitudes debate. Boh pooped as soon as any referendum mention was made, and he slept through the Queen jokes. Smart (Saskatchewan) baby.

3. THANK GOD Dean McDermott or Paul Gross didn’t get their stanky little acting chops on this movie. THANK GOD.

dignity, on sale now for the low, low price of $29.99

University was my thing. For some, glory came in neat annual packages entitled Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior. (As in: high school. At the prestigious U of R, we simply called ourselves First Years, Second Years, Third Years, Fourth Years, and – in some prolonged cases, such as my own – Fifth Years.) For me, university was my chance to break away from the label-conscious high school era and into a time when sweats were the haute couture and nerds were integral fixtures of the social scene (finally, I had a life).

I met a far wider variety of fine folk than I’d ever encountered. Pink-haired people. Tattooed people. People with more piercings on their face than I have hair follicles on my head. Marxists-Leninists (it was the U of R, after all). Feminists. Lesbians. Lacto-ovo-vegetarians. And often, all these traits could be found in just the one person sitting beside you in Stats 151.

I also met poor people. Like C., a girl from Moose Jaw I became fast friends with in Political Science 101. Sure, I suppose there was poverty around me in my high school days (it was an inner city school, after all), but I never really paid attention to it until I met people my own age who struggled to live the life I took for granted. Unlike me, who was propagated with the wisdom of Cicero and CB Macpherson for free, C. had save and scrimp and scrape and suffer in a way that was foreign to me, in a way that I didn’t understand, still don’t, and hopefully never will.

One day we went shopping together at Value Village, the one great retail equalizer where everyone is of comparable taste and means. I loved the Village, and still do, for I have found some amazing articles of apparel there. Like the pumpkin orange, three-quarter length suede jacket I wore that day as I shopped with C., purchased at a Salvation Army in Calgary for only five bucks.

“Look here!” C. called, browsing the men’s outerwear section. “It’s a jacket just like yours!”

“It is!” my eyes lit up as I grabbed the leather from her hands, in lust immediately. Only subtle details differed: more mahogany than tenné, with thick cream accent stitching to give it an ultimate wow! factor. I coveted it, and I knew C. did to.

“I would love to get this coat,” sighed C., taking the jacket from my clutches only to resignedly put it back from where it came. “But I just don’t have the money.” And I knew she didn’t; I wouldn’t have been surprised if she couldn’t have afforded $5.99 that day, let alone $29.99, which is what the price tag read.

“Me too,” I ignorantly chimed. “I love my jacket so much; it would be so great to have two. I don’t have any money on me now either, but maybe I can see if my dad will lend me some.” And he did. And I went back that night, and got the coat. The look in her eyes that said “you bitch!” (and rightly so) didn’t even faze me.

I recall this episode now, and I wonder how I could be so nescient and neglectful. Chalk it up to being nineteen, I suppose, and a young girl who wants, wants, wants. Just like Akakiy Akakievitch, my overcoat was my undoing. It’s funny how a Value Village could be the scene of so much avarice.

In case you’re wondering, I still have the coat, and wear it every Fall. It’s perfectly suited for over a pair of blue jeans or a dress, in those October instances when I’m still clinging to summer.

who IS that cute baby?

Ed, the green-eyed monster

I think it’s safe to say that Adoring and Wonderful Husband and I are veritably content with the state of our existence. Each and every year since we’ve met, pretty awesome events have filled our calendar. Life-altering things. Things that are nothing to sneeze at. Par exemple: Year One – Buy a house together just twelve months after He of Yee-Inspired Stomach Flips (what he was known as before becoming Adoring and Wonderful Husband) first held the door open for me on my first day back as a summer student at the east-end auto claims centre in Regina. Year Three - Marriage at a big red barn on the prairies in front of 125 or so family and friends who were promptly served following the nuptials slab after slab of deep fried steak worthy of being featured on the Food Network. Year Four – Harrowing move across the country with nothing to cling to but a couple grand in student loans, a bunch of wire hangers in the trunk, and the hope (the hope!) that Adoring and Wonderful Husband wouldn’t file for divorce as soon as we were in our new jurisdiction. Year Seven – A babe. And not just any babe, but The Babe. The Babe to end all babes in fact. So, are we good? No, we’re better than that: We’re freaking fantastic.

But that doesn’t stop the pangs of jealousy that kick us in the gut every once in a while, doubling us over like a you-know-what who's just been sucker punched in a back alley somewhere. Take the evening preceding this morning, for example, when Adoring and Wonderful Husband and I were reading the blog of a friend’s sister and learned that Friend X is apparently preparing for an imminent move to New Zealand. New Zealand, you say?

Cue. Latent. Hostility. Here.

“So, Friend X is moving to New Zealand?” I asked, the end of my question intoned at a slightly higher frequency than it would have been if I had asked instead about, say, whether or not hemorrhoids were itchy, or if they just hurt (because how am I supposed to know if I ever get them?)

“I guess so,” Adoring and Wonderful Husband replied, dully, with the same cadence that he might use if he were to state blankly that the weekend fliers were on the front step, did I want them?

“Hmm,” I said.

“Hmm,” he responded.

“That’s cool,” I offered.

“Yeah.”

And that was all the time we devoted to that topic. That’s cool. Which it is, but would be so much more so if WE were the ones moving to New Zealand instead. Just like as cool as it would have been if WE were the ones to buy low and sell high in Calgary this past spring, making 100-grand plus profit. Maybe even as cool as if WE were the ones to take classes in how to dive in the waters of a tropical paradise as opposed to studying up on The Essentials of Risk Management or Public Policy and the Third Sector. Cool? Cool indeed. That is, if the colour of cool is green, and it lives in your closet, and is named Ed.

yabba dabba doo!

It's 3:12 pm. If you are reading this at work, GO HOME! You are clearly not doing anything that can't wait until Monday anyway. It promises to be a beautiful weekend too. Why don't you find yourself a deck and have a brew or something?

Also, your room is ready Grandma. Boh has the concierge on stand-by to take your luggage when you arrive.

fashion diva

Hi Dad,

I didn't like the outfit that you and mom changed me into the first time I pooped all over myself so I just pooped my pants again and mom changed me into a ratty old diaper t-shirt. She said something about three outfits before 9:00 am being ridiculous and also that she's going to throw me out on the front lawn naked if I do it one more time.

Look for me there at lunch.

Love, Boh

home (hōm) n: i. habitat, abode, dwelling; ii. place one lives with the pleasant connotations or family ties included

My love of the West was cultivated in grade three, when my dad and my brother and I drove through the mountains to Vancouver Island to attend my Auntie Denise’s wedding (my mom flew and met us there). It was a beautiful drive. We stopped at the side of the road and drank from a waterfall. We saw baby bears. We stole peaches from an orchard. We camped at the KOA on the ocean, where I met my first boyfriend, whose name was Aaron (I think). Suzanne Vega’s “My Name is Luka” played incessantly on the radio. And I lost the Precious Moments picture of a girl praying at her bedside that my Baba got me for successfully completing catechism (I think I would have had to stab the priest in the eye with a willow stick to fail). Ah, the West. I truly do love you, Prairies and Mountains and Biggest Baddest Ocean Going. So WHY I AM CHEATING ON YOU??

Before Adoring and Wonderful Husband and I moved to Ontario, the forewarnings of just how mean Upper Canadians could be were startling. For a sheltered prairie girl like myself who only knew Ontario as the nasty province that constantly bullied Quebec (or so all my political textbooks enlightening me on the French fact would seem to suggest), it was enough to make my stomach knot in trepidation at the thought of my first day of school, as though I was waiting to cash in on my two front teeth and barely potty trained once again. Thankfully the grad program in which I enrolled pretty much held my hand for the entire ten months, and thankfully that guy who was married to that girl who worked with my mom and who had lived in Ontario for all of 18 months was totally and completely wrong about how boorish Ontarians actually are. (Or maybe he wasn’t in error, but rather misinterpreted aplomb for insolence, a crime for which my fellow Kanadarios are often accused and convicted of.) Nonetheless, this province has grown on me, something I’ve found lately to be Very. Disturbing. Indeed.

I expected to come back from my travels this past week to the Holy Land with renewed resolve to get the BLEEP! outta here. Aside from the obscene distance from loved ones, there was no particular reason for wanting to leave, other than “it sure ain’t the West! Yee Haw!” Granted, I can’t really call the driving we did last week up and down Broad and Albert Streets a true representation of what it’s like to call the earlier time zones to the left of the Peg home, though I did nonetheless come back with a renewed (or just new) appreciation for what we have here: good jobs, great scenery, fabulous friends. And while that doesn’t mean we’ve necessarily decided not to call the flatlands (or maybe even the footlands) home sometime in the not-so-distant future, it does mean that I will accept our nation’s capital for what it has been to us for the last two years, and will be for at least one more spin round the sun: pretty darned homey for a place that may never really be home.

I like the word "indolence." It makes my laziness seem classy. ~Bern Williams

a week in pictures

Click here for cuteness and debauchery. (Well, as much debauchery as a breastfeeding woman can handle and will let her downtrodden husband partake in.)

Miss you already! XOX

for grandmas: 18 pounds

And his head circumference is 18 inches, slightly above the average range of how big baby heads usually are.

I think it's all those brains.

baggage

My same compulsion to eat the last half plate of greasy fries even when I think I'm at the point of losing my lunch altogether also has me hoard every last book that's ever been on sale at Chapters. Whereas I am the only one to suffer the consequences of the former (or, more accurately , my thighs and buttocks are), the latter habit has also been of disdain to my in-laws. That War and Peace novella for $3.99 that I have never, ever read? It sits alongside David Copperfield ($6.99), wondering when the dickens I will finally crack it. Both have found shelter in a dusty cardboard condo that takes up valuable real estate space in the room formerly known as The Cave where Adoring and Wonderful Husband sheltered his eyes from the light of day, lest the UV diminish his capacity for drinking excessively at Boston Pizza with his jackass buddies, or lead him into the temptation of saving money as opposed to blowing it all at the casino. But I digress...

Every time we travel back to the Holy Land, I pack the biggest suitcases we have only about a quarter full so that when it comes time to get back to reality I can stuff those suckers right up until the zippers threaten to burst open like Star Jones' stomach, one Big Mac later (too much?) And every time we get another visit under our belts, the boxes of my former life get pared down even more, transported to a new basement floor (if not discarded entirely), so that there's now only five boxes of me left on this soil, in this city, in this place I used to call home, instead of seven.

And I wonder: What happens when I get down to zero boxes? What happens then?

people in glass houses...

...probably shouldn't complain all the time about friends who don't blog as often as they poop, especially when they themselves go for a week without posting anything. (And you just can't tell by looking at someone what their BMs are like anyway, so maybe they actually do blog as often as they poop...what do I know?)

Anyway, we made it to Regina safe and sound and are having a good time showing the Babe off to friends and family. So far the two most memorable portions of the trip for me involve tears. The first was when we got off the plane and were going down the escalator to pick up our luggage and saw our nieces hold up a big sign saying "Welcome Home Boh!" Home indeed. The second was when Adoring and Wonderful Husband and I were reading a bedtime story to the Babe called "I Will Always Love You", a book about a mommy who loves her baby boy so, so, so much and tells him all the time, even when he gets to college, even when he becomes a daddy himself. I got through half of the book before I was tearing up so much I had to hand it to Adoring and Wonderful Husband to finish reading, only to find he was crying too! (And since it was only the second time I've seen him cry since I've known him, I know he must have been really, really choked up.) We spent the rest of the story reading and laughing and crying with Boh in between looking back and forth at the both of us trying to figure out what was going on.

Our first real family vacation. Home indeed.

letter from mommy: month four

Baby Boh,

Before you were born, I spent hours and hours in Chapters stocking up on books that explained in graphic detail through both words and pictures the damage the birthing process was going to do to my body. I read these repeatedly for a good eight months before I realized I maybe should get a book or two about what to do AFTER the winds of Tropical Storm Blood and Placenta had settled. These books, innocuously titled The Baby Book and What to Expect the First Year, would do all new mothers a favour if they were instead called Poop, Your New Best Friend and 24 Ways to Prevent Your Jugs From Dousing the Waitress in Boob Juice When You’re Having a Salad at Kelsey’s. And of course, the book jackets in both should clearly state the caveat that once you have a baby YOU CAN NEVER READ LEISURELY AGAIN, GOTCHA YOU SORRY SUCKER WHO JUST PAID $19.99 FOR THIS DUST COLLECTOR WHEN YOU COULD HAVE INSTEAD INVESTED IN DIAPER AND BREAST PAD STOCK, WHA HA HA HA HA!

The one thing these books have in common when I do have a chance to read them is that they all call this time of your life the golden age, and, I must say, truer words were never written. You are amazing. This has been a month full of firsts, and I look forward to each and everyday you and I get to do something new together.

You are now rolling over sporadically and even belly laughing at how funny your daddy is. (And I gotta tell ya, kid, you have a fan in your daddy. He loves you just because you’re you, but that you laugh at his jokes is just the icing on the cake for him.) You’ve become a little kangaroo in your Jolly Jumper, hop hopping like a mad man, stopping only when you see a particular product that you just have to have being advertised on TV during a commercial break. (Huh? you’re asking. You thought I said no boob tube before age two? That’s right, baby boy. I am a weak, weak woman. What’s that? You want a Play Station in your room when you hit five and to stay out past midnight when you’re in grade nine? Done and done.)

And to top it all off in the next week I get to feed you your first solid food. It will be just another day of firsts for you, but it promises be one of the most exciting days of my life. I already have the type of spoon and plate I want to get you in my mind, and I can already feel my pride in you swelling as I think of how good I am sure you will do with this milestone (and even if you don’t, I just picture how cute you will be as you scream and wail and throw that bowl of stanky rice cereal all over your Grandma and Grandpa’s new hardwood floors. You’re heaven in a baby, I always say!)

Baby Boy, sometimes when I see how big you’re getting and how smart you’re becoming I pout to your daddy about how I don’t want you to grow up. About how I want you to stay my little baby forever. But I know this really isn’t want I want, because the only thing I really want in this life – really, REALLY want - is for you to grow up into a healthy, happy, strong and loving man. A healthy, happy, strong and loving man who will be my baby forever no matter how big he gets.

You know what’s coming next by now don’t you? That’s right. It’s the part where I tell you that I love you so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much. Because I do.

Love,

Mommy

PS. On July 27 you rolled over from your back to your tummy for the first time. YOU ROCK.

PPS. I know this letter is a day early, but tomorrow is the day you test our patience by screaming in some grumpy 40 year old man’s ear while pooping all over our laps as we fly at 30,000 feet en route to the Holy Land, so better early than never. Kisses!

style at home

I used to be an independent woman. I drove my own car, paid my own bills, pumped my own gas and made my own breakfast. I even mowed a lawn once in a while. And then along came Adoring and Wonderful Husband, and my inner Damsel in Distress reared her ugly, if perfectly coiffured, head. (Actually, my tresses are just as disheveled as ever, but I have to at least PRETEND I exchanged my autarchy for some good girly reason, n’est pas?) Fast forward half a decade or so, and you’ll find a Slothenly But Deserving Wife who can’t remember the last time she refueled a vehicle let alone did anything to grass besides walk on it or smoke it (Ha! Ha! Only kidding Parental Unit. I just say ‘no!’ when someone is peer pressuring me to stroll atop a lot of Kentucky Bluegrass. Why? Because I know NOTHING GOOD CAN COME OF IT.) So, really, it should come as no surprise that subways do nothing but freak me out and drive me to bury my face in the lap of the person next to me (and I can only hope said lap belongs to an acquaintance, or at the very least someone who bathes on a regular basis).

I hate taking the subway. Faced with the prospect of riding the tube, my stomach spins and my chest tightens. I’m not kidding. The line maps make no sense to me; it’s like I’ve accidentally crossed the bridge into Hull with only my Saskatchewan French (read: English) to guide me. In other words, do-able, but certainly not advisable. Luckily, Adoring and Wonderful Husband likes to fancy himself James Bond-like when it comes to the many forms of transportation, and so I happily take his hand while underground to be led, concerning myself only with any wayward syringes that may be lying around, taking care to ensure that none catch on my open-toed shoes.

But if I were brave, I would plan all my future travels around cities with subways, and I would keep all my stubs and frame them as art. I would become one of those atl-ASS hosts who sneers at guests less well-traveled than them, and who barely tries to contain a snide smirk as they hold their glass of dry white wine limply in their left hand, while casually gesturing with their right to little pieces of coloured paper on their living room walls that hail from Rome, London, Paris, Tokyo, Washington, Sydney… Why? Because humiliation and righteousness make for the most fashionable décor.

gibe gourmet

"What's this?"

"Oh, that. I'm starting a food journal again."

"Really? Ha, ha! I loved your last one!"

"What do you mean?"

"Your last one was hilarious! You should have turned it into a book about your life."

"How so?"

"Orange: 60 calories. Soup: 300 calories. Beers with Krista: 5,000 calories."

"Ha. Ha."

we're going to have security escort you out of the building right now

"And - AND! - two is's in one sentence? THAT'S ENGLISH HERESY."

pink slip

"Aren't you concerned that future employers might come across your blog someday and take offence to all the swearing? What if they get a bad impression of you? They might even fire you for it!"

"I am not concerned about that. What I am concerned about is them seeing is my CLEARLY INAPPROPRIATE use of 'to' that should have been 'too'. I wouldn't be surprised if I never work in this f$#%ing town again."