This weekend was great! Layton's tournament was awesome - he came in second in his division! The metal he got is really nice, too. The baby was a little angel for her auntie, too, which was a relief. She used to be so difficult, that I forget sometimes what a good baby she is now, especially outside of home. I think she's a bit shy, so she just behaves when she's away from me. She's not shy with me; she'll always tell me when she's not happy about something. Channing and I picked the baby up after Layton's fight and she was asleep by the time I got her home. She napped for more than two and a half hours, at which time we had to wake her up to take her to her grandparents' house, because we were having a date night. The baby was an angel for her grandparents too, and I missed her a lot but we had a really good date night; we went to see one of Layton's Muay Thai instructors fight, and he won!

My daughter has been sleeping through the night again; she's on to five nights in a row now. When she was around six months old, I was really feeling the pressure to get her to sleep through, but at that point I'd tried everything but letting her cry it out, and I was unwilling to do that, so I just accepted that she'd get up at least once and that I'd just have to deal with it. After that I found out that the majority of babies do not sleep through until they are nine months old, and that I was stressing for no reason. She didn't sleep through at nine months, and by that time I didn't even care. So now, even though she sleeps through most of the time, I am so used to getting up that I wake up several times a night and just lay there. It sucks and I wonder when it will stop. I don't feel bad that she's a bit behind in the sleeping-through thing. She's been on time or ahead for so many other things (she began rolling at 13 weeks) and when it comes down to it, babies will do things in their own time. It's not a baby competition. Now, at 11 and a half months, she may not walk, but she says mom, dad, hi, up and moo. I think that's pretty great.

I went with Bailey and Channing and Rachelle to see the new Sex & the City movie yesterday afternoon. When we first got there, we sat in the third row from the back and were immediately hit by a wall of BO. It seems the older gentleman sitting in front of us didn't deem it necessary to wear deodorant. I insisted we move. The movie was pretty good, though way too long. Way back when I used to watch Sex & the City, I don't think I really noticed what a moron Carrie is. It's only really been bugging me in the movies. Oh well; it's still a lot of fun.

Layton hung curtains for me in the dog room, so it looks really nice. He also did the plumbing and drywalling for my new rainfall showerhead, so hopefully the whole thing will be done in the next couple of weeks. We're so busy during the week that there's really no time, and we're going out to the cabin next weekend. I hope the weather holds up.

I just got season three of Grey's Anatomy, and am dying to watch it, but the baby really enjoys the Golden Girls, so I have to wait til that's over.

So back in February someone was moving into a house somewhere in the little "city" I live in, but, when signing up for electricity service, instead of giving their own address, they gave mine, or the agent taking the order entered the address wrong or something. At any rate, after I received my second bill that had only gas and no electricity, I called Enmax and asked. They informed me that the service had been taken over by another company and couldn't give me any information on who owned the service, but were happy to move me back to them. The next day, I got not one but SEVERAL calls from Epcor over the issue (the agent didn't seem to fully comprehend that I did not cause this mistake; I think I wrote about the issue a while back) but after some confusing discussion, she finally got down to the issue: I owed them money. I did not dispute this, of course, because I know electricity isn't free. At the time this was SUCH a big deal and it seemed that Epcor was going to a lot of effort to enforce this bill on me. Well, I got the bill in the mail today. $10.37. I laughed when I opened it. I'll be sure to hurry to get them that money.

Wow, what a great day! I cleaned the dog room today (and made it back into a human room), I came into some money, and my (future) sister in law found out the sex of her baby. Do good, and good things will happen? I guess, I'm not complaining!

Yoga kicked my ass last night. Because I went to see Pam's new baby last week, and Bailey's birthday two days later, I only got to go to two yoga classes last week and they were both yin classes. Granted, even in the short time I've been taking yin, my flexibility has greatly increased, but it's really not enough to keep a person in shape. I could almost feel my love handles growing back (oh horror). It was really nice to be at last night's class and I was SO pleased to find my seated forward folds are now much more advanced, but I'm really feeling it today. I took the baby on a walk (to 7-11, for a Slurpee) and was limping by the time I got back. Still, I feel great.

I'm also feeling pretty great about the dog room. It is thus called because that's where the dog sleeps, and it is technically a bedroom converted into an office. It has a glass door. So, for a year and a half now I've had to stare at this horrible mess of dog kennel and dog bed and vacuum cleaners and scrapbooking supplies and photo paper and receipts and bills and more and more and more dog hair. And grime. I couldn't believe the line of grime I found on the walls behind the kennel. So I pulled out the kennel (without the puppy, keeping it in the house is pointless, so it's moving into the garage with the '51 Plymouth) and took apart Layton's computer, which doesn't do much besides suck electricity out of the wall at an alarming rate, and probably cause cancer, and dusted and vacuumed and scrubbed and sterilized until the room was presentable again. I hated passing that eyesore daily. I wouldn't say I'm a clean freak...well, ok, maybe a bit. Squallor drives me insane. I cannot live with filth. My aversion to it has gotten worse and worse over the years. Well, I'd rather be a clean freak than the alternative.

Tomorrow is grocery day, which is wonderful because we're nearly out of groceries. The only groceries we seem to have left in the house are the ingredients for this recipe, which I discovered yesterday, and which is what we're having for dinner, when Layton gets back from training.

Ah training. He's got his first tournament coming up this weekend, so he's had to do extra sessions this week. Since I missed so much yoga last week, I didn't want to miss any more if I could avoid it, and thus availed myself to his parents as babysitters last night. When I went to pick the wee one up after class, I was a bit surprised to find that she was not excited to see me. Contrarily, she had her what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here look on. Taking her home did not go over well; she did not want to let go of a sparkly book and screamed bloody murder when it was yanked from her hands (I don't believe in giving kids what they want just because they cry) and then cried all the way to the car, and then as she was being strapped in. She finally stopped when the car started moving and essentially fell asleep the moment I laid her down in her crib. Luckily, she's a creature of habit (luckily for her I mean) and 8:30 was way past her bedtime and she did not regret going to sleep.

After my yin class tomorrow, and groceries, I'm going to buy myself a new lens. I'm so excited about this. I just got a new lens for my birthday, but I've wanted another for a long time as well and can't wait to use it. After that, I'm going to buy myself and my daughter charm bracelets, which will go with the charms Layton got us for Valentine's Day. I've wanted to buy those for a long time as well. After that I'll probably sit in Second Cup with my book and my latte and a bunch of buyer's remorse, because spending money makes me nervous.

And now, I am going to go take a nice hot bath and enjoy some pre-dinner me time and hope tomorrow is as great as today.

I don't care what anyone says; I'm glad people wave cell phones rather than lighters at concerts now. I was tired of burning my thumbs.

It's a lovely day. Sure, the sun may not be shining and the temperature may not exactly inspire one into shorts and a tank top, but I love the rain and I love long weekends and I'm very much enjoying myself. We didn't go away for the weekend. I wish we'd been able to, but we've got a cabin weekend coming up and that's more than good enough for me.

We went to the bookstore and I bought Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I read about a book a week, but the book I started yesterday is pretty short and I'm going to be done it in a couple of days, and then I will have had nothing to read, as my bookclub book is not due for another couple of weeks. I don't know what I'd do if I had nothing to read. TV bores me most of the time and doesn't often hold my attention, and though I still have baby birthday party invitations to put together, I can't count on that to eat a lot of time.

The last book I finished was a book about the Bronte sisters, specifically Charlotte, called Romancing Miss Bronte (Juliet Gael). It is a work of fiction, though largely based upon letters of the time. It was unexpectedly excellent and I recommend it to anyone with an inclination toward those classics. I've read both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights (though admittedly no other Bronte novels) and found myself inspired to read them again, so moved was I by Juliet Gael's novel.

I read almost constantly as a child, devouring books even more quickly than I do now (I had a lot more time then) but then hit a bit of a dry spot after moving out of my parents's house and into my first condo. I still read some, but life was busy and god knows I worked a lot. Then, tired of roommates, I moved into my second condo and read almost never. Reading turned into an activity I did at work, between calls. The book that actually pulled me out was Watership Down. I'd seen the movie as a child, but never expected such a moving, grown-up novel. Apparently many people read it in high school, but I was in IB English and we read things like Becket and MacBeth and I never got to read it.

I really got back into reading a couple of months after my daughter was born (she was colicky for the first nine weeks of her life and there was no time for anything, period) and haven't stopped since. I think I'm having some success in passing my love of reading on to her; when confronted with a pile of toys, she heads straight for the books. She chews on them, but at least it's a first step.

I have one cousin who has just come back from his third tour of duty in Afghanistan, and another who is at training in Gagetown. My family has a strong military background on both sides, and I'm very, very proud of my cousins. However, it's not a life I'd ever choose for myself. I could never put my country ahead of my family. I couldn't imagine sitting at home while my husband brandishes a gun in a far away country. Why do people love power and hate one another?

My daughter has been blowing kisses almost constantly for the past two days. Yesterday she mooed for the first, second and third times. She loves freely, openly. I'm frustrated daily by the world we live in and my inability to keep her safe from everything, forever. It's crippling, the uncertainty.

I was admittedly quite uninterested in babies until the year or so before I became pregnant. I'd had a lot of experience with children, but hadn't frequently been around infants, and has nearly never seen any newborns. Now, I can't help but jump at the chance to see a brand new baby. My friend Pam gave birth on Sunday, six weeks early, and had to be airlifted here, because the small city she lives in does not have a premie ward. Despite his prematurity, he is very healthy and will probably be released in a couple of weeks. Pam has already been discharged. The best part of this is that I got to go visit them in the hospital last night. He's definitely one of the cutest I've ever seen. It's hard to believe my own sweet baby was ever so tiny.

What a beautiful day. Bailey and I took our little girls into my back yard to play in the super-deluxe baby pool we bought this weekend and visited and enjoyed the serenity of the afternoon. Layton and I bought this house about a year and a half ago, in the fall, and thus did not see much but dead grass and leaves in the back yard, but when the following spring arrived (finally, after such a long winter) we discovered we'd purchased quite the gem. The house was built in 1973, with an oversized double-detached garage added ten years later, and though we bought it from a numbered company that rented it out to questionable tenants, I suspect it was much loved before that. We have a large spruce tree, three or four white lilacs, an apple bush, some sort of Japanese cherry tree, a birch, a long-suffering oak, lovely ivy, climbing wisteria and so forth. It's heavenly. Prior to moving here, I lived in a highrise condo just west of downtown, which I loved, but giving it up was worth it for what we've found here.

My daughter spent more than an hour in the pool. Quite contrary to myself, she is quite at home in the water and probably would have stayed longer had her nap not become so overdue. Her cousin was not so keen on it and spent much of the time in the playpen I irresponsibly leave full of toys in the back yard. Bailey and I drank Slurpees and chatted. If only summer lasted much, much longer. :D

My sister left Friday morning, with her car all packed up, and headed to Vancouver, to live this time. I'll miss her a lot, but I'm so happy for her. I think it's been a long time coming and that she'll be very happy. She was living in our basement in the two months leading up to the move and it really gave me an opportunity to spend a bit of time with her and get to know my little sister a lot better. We were never close growing up, didn't get along well and had nearly nothing in common. After I moved out of the house, though, I gained a great deal of respect for her, and three years ago I met up with her in Thailand for a three-week vacation that created a bond between us that never existed before. I am so proud of my sister and I know she'll be successful at anything she attempts.

It's Monday morning and I've been up since six, but my daughter slept ten hours in a row so I shouldn't complain. At the age of ten months she slept straight through the night for a solid week, but then stopped as suddenly as she'd begun. In the first six months or so of her life, I was obsessed with getting her to sleep through and tried everything anyone recommended to me, with absolutely no success. The books I read had great ideas on how to get a baby to go to sleep, all of which were useless to me since getting her to fall to sleep has never been much harder than putting her in a crib, reading her a book or two and turning off the light (she's had an 8pm bed time since she was 4 weeks old and she can't keep her eyes open much longer than that) but none of their theories ever kept the baby asleep. She wakes up at totally random times, and sometimes wants a bottle and sometimes doesn't. After six months, I gave up. I figured she will sleep through the night when she is ready, and I was wasting more energy trying to remedy the problem than I could ever recover with a full night's sleep.

So, it's strange to me now that her father has suddenly become so obsessed with having her sleep through. It's like watching myself seven months ago, trying everything, theorizing, panicking. I think he's beginning to worry that he will soon have to get up with her. I go back to work in a month and then it's open season for dad getting up with baby. He's an amazing father who dotes on his daughter and feeds her meals, changes diapers, gives baths and puts her to bed three nights a week, but he's useless at getting up with her in the night. Either he doesn't hear her until I've been up for more than five minutes (most times, she's up for less than five minutes, and he doesn't realize she's been up at all) or he gets up with her and has no success getting her back to sleep, and then falls back to sleep before I inevitably have to get up with her. He knows this won't fly when I go back, so he's really trying now. One great advantage of it to me is that now he's all over doing the things I ask him to around the house, especially when it comes to the baby. He didn't miss a beat with putting her air conditioner in her room, and then he was on a roll so he put ours in as well, and started our mini bathroom reno and mowed the front AND back lawn, and washed the truck and assembled the new stroller. I'm not convinced any of this will help the baby to sleep through, but it's great to have things done without asking.

I almost went back to work early. Well, there was this job that I nearly applied for, and would probably have gotten, and would have had to start in only two weeks. I wasn't ever excited about the prospect of going back early, but the job was everything I've been looking for and more so I thought I was willing to give up those last three weeks of mat leave for it. It meant I'd have my weekends free, and that I'd get to see my daughter every night before she goes to bed, two things that my current job do not allow, so it was worth it. Then I got up yesterday morning and realized I wouldn't be with my baby on her first birthday, and that quashed it for me. How could I ever give that up?

It's a beautiful day, and I will probably take the kiddo on a walk to get myself a Slurpee, and stick her in her deluxe kiddy pool in our back yard, and maybe pull up some more dandelions and perhaps even visit with the neighbors and invite my (future) SIL and niece over and just have one more beautiful day with my daughter, because these lovely, free summer days of mine are certainly numbered and I intend to cherish every one of them.

The logic behind colorful, patterned baby socks is confounding. It's easy enough to lose a single andult-sized sock; tiny ones just seem to turn to thin air. I must have a dozen pink and purple, adorably patterned socks that lack a partner.

I had a nice first Mother's Day. I got two new books (thank goodness! I finished my book yesterday afternoon and didn't have anything to follow it with) and a bag for my yoga mat. I picked my sister up from the airport in the morning (back from Mexico, off to Vancouver this week) then went by my parents' place to visit my mom, then had a great play date with my friend Candice and her little boy (the babies were so cute together) and then family over for dinner. Channing brought over little plastic lawn chairs for the girls which my daughter uses like a walker. She scoots all over the house with this thing. I'm just worried she'll try to walk (whenever she tries to walk, and I'm certainly not urging her to hurry on that - stay little!!!) all bent over.

I talked to a customer service agent for Enmax yesterday who had a definite Indian (as in, from India) accent. I was calling because I haven't been billed for my electricity in two months, and through the call it was discovered that another company requested my service from Enmax, probably in error since I didn't request it and haven't been getting bills, so obviously I wasn't angry. On top of that, I've worked in a call centre for the past seven years (fortunately I haven't taken customer calls in years) and I am very familiar with how it feels to be on the receiving end of the call. So, I'm a very, very pleasant customer to deal with. Despite all this, the poor girl, who told me her name was Sarah, was extremely apologetic. It seemed like she was trying to head off an angry outburst from me. I felt so bad for her. I'll bet she gets yelled at a lot. I've found that customers of my company (the company I work for, not My Company) are sometimes plainly abusive to our overseas reps. And Canadians are supposed to be so...

Tomorrow's stacking up to be a great day! Hatha in the morning, because my mom's coming a bit early to watch the kid, and then swimming with my (future) SIL. And then a nap in the afternoon? Very likely. It's coming down to the last few weeks of my mat leave and I'm starting to truly cherish every minute (and desperately search for a job that won't leave me working weekends and evenings and nearly never seeing my daughter) and I wish the weather would cooperate more with that initiative. My cousin has a lovely house in St Albert near all sorts of beautiful walking trails that we were supposed to go enjoy on Tuesday. But this is Canada, so it snowed on our plans. Swimming is an indoor event, so the weather doesn't much effect it, but it'd still be nice to just pull the baby's little cover-up dress on her on the way to the pool. But nothing ever seems to be on my side (ok, yes, usually everything seems to be on my side; I'm being dramatic) so instead I have to chase her around the livingroom to shove her into a bathing suit (she's so fat, and fast, and resistant) and then do it all over again to get her into an outfit. Then the four of us hop into the van (lol, not my van) and drive five minutes and we're there. It could be so much easier.

I had the most brutal Sunday night in recent memory. The baby woke up seven times, leaving me with less than 3 hours of sleep. I had to skip my Monday evening yoga class because I just wasn't going to make it. By the time I went to bed, at eight, I had a pounding headache. I dreamed about pancakes. Nothing comprehensive, just pancakes. Fortunately, the baby slept through and her dad and I were only awakened by the howling wind. That wasn't super fun either, but at least I'm caught up for sleep.

I went to visit at work yesterday. It was nice to see people. It won't be long, though, before I'm seeing them all the time. Not an exciting thought, but what can you do?

Well, I'm going to go be lazy.

I've managed to extricate all the brass from my kitchen. I'm so pleased. I hate brass, and every piece of hardware in the whole house was brass when we bought it. Now I only have to work on the oak. I hate oak as well. It was really tough to find hardware for the cupboards because what was there was an odd size and for a long time I could only find special-order pieces at around $12 a unit (and I had 20 to replace) but I was in Ikea the other day and found them - 5", black, perfect. The other option, of course, was to fill the top hole and re-drill, but that's risky too. I'm planning on having the cupboards painted (I don't have any confidence in myself to do it nicely) but this will not be for a while. Just looking at the brass-less kitchen makes me smile. Ah, small pleasures. Layton got the lattice up on our fence (when we bought the house, one fence was covered in chicken wire and vines, but we cut the vines down to replace the chicken wire with lattice) so I hope the vines grow in quickly. He also assembled my bistro set (we didn't get to do this last year because I couldn't find the hardware) so all I need is to figure out where to put it. It's so nice that the house is coming together. I finally found a window shade for the kitchen (the one that was there when we moved in is not actually oak, but it's the color of oak) but I haven't been able to locate one in the proper size so that has to wait. Still, it's nice to know progress is being made. Wow, thank god for tax returns.

My daughter just remembered that she loves pineapple. The first time she ever had fresh pineapple, she ate roughly half the pineapple (well, she chews on pieces until they're nothing but pulp, then spits themm out) but she's refused to even try a piece since. So when I offered her some today, I was surprised when she accepted it. She's on her way to finishing the entire fruit. I've never seen her so excited.