Rocks and sand

I have not posted for a few weeks now. It has been very hectic and stressful. Michael sold his company, and with that came the security of being able to pay off our debts and purchase a couple of treats that we have had on the wish list for many years, but also the terrible insecurity of not knowing what is next and how we are going to make it all work.

I have found that it is all too personal to post on a blog for all the world to read, even my closest friends and family (perhaps especially my closest friends and family, for whom I think I want to portray an air of confidence and optimism). I am not comfortable writing about these big issues - our worries about money, about my husband's next career move which would more than likely find us in Vancouver living on a grad students' budget, about my insecurities at work - both my ability to perform to expectations and the fact that I am trying to support a family on one short-term contract (40 days!) to the next, with no promise of anything longer term.

I wish I could write about all the little things - the awesome (if I may say so myself) Star Wars party we threw for Kieran's 7th birthday, the funny things Liam has been saying, my love affair with my new hybrid bike and my new Nikon D80 (I've died and gone to heaven). I'd love to write about the cool things we're doing at work and our plans for the summer. But I fall back to thinking that those things would just seem trite without being able to discuss the Big Stuff - and the Big Stuff is just too BIG to write about without exposing myself too far.

Ever since this big transition, we've had lofty ideas and visions of more free time, more serenity, and better priorities. We've both found the opposite. It is as hard for me to adjust to working full-time and being the breadwinner as it is for Michael to adjust to being the stay-at-home Dad and juggling the kids' schedules and the home front. It is really, really difficult for both of us. We know where we want to be, we just can't see out of the quicksand right now.

There is a parable about a jar and sand and rocks. You all know the one - the rocks are the truly important things in life and the sand is all the trivial stuff. If you fill your jar with just sand, you will have no room for the rocks. But if you fill your jar with the rocks first, then your jar will be full, but you'll still have room for the sand if you want to put it in. In the next few months, I need to focus on the rocks. Unfortunately, this blog is one of the sandy things. It takes time away from the important issues. Perhaps I will come back to it once I have got all those rocks sorted out. I hope so.

i'll show you mine if you show me yours

I'm far too distracted about all the crazy uncertainty in our lives right now to even want to write about it. I'm hoping that soon I'll have something actually concrete to say.

So, in the meantime, let's talk about fridges. I don't know about you, but I love looking at what other people have on their fridge. Whenever I'm at a friend's house for the first time, I find that I am drawn to their fridge and I love poring over it, looking at their photos, their cartoons, their sayings, whatever it is they have up. It's like a window into their family life, a little voyeuristic, like hearing snippets of a diary. There are usually baby photos, which are like signposts of joy. I think the coolest fridge I've ever encountered belonged to my marvelously talented and creative artist friend, Eleanor - I remember there were childhood photos of herself, little sketches, snippets from the paper, photos and art of little Edith - it was fabulous!

So anyway, here is a recent photo of my fridge. If you click on it, you should be able to see the details...


:: my brother Kaje and sister-in-law Clel, all suntanned in the Australian Outback
:: Michael and Kieran and Michael's new tattoo at Elk Falls
:: tiles of the kids' names from the Filberg Festival
:: Kieran and Liam in dress-up at Kieran's birthday party last year
:: Michael's Dad and Stepmom at Robbie Burn's Night
:: baby Lily's birth announcement
:: with Karina, Kevin and Jenna at the Walk for Heart
:: Curious George, Michael's favorite from his childhood
:: Nana and Grandpa, a few weeks before she died
:: me and my baby brother, circa 1974
:: baby Danika hoping to share baby Lily's title as World's Cutest Baby
:: me and my honey in our boots in NZ, 1997
:: Casia looking like a gorgeous teenager already
:: a view from the top of the hike from the cabin weekend, with a quote that Kerry and I share from Great Big Sea: just keep your faith, and your ship will come in....
:: While there's tea, there's hope - also from Kerry, and no truer words!
:: Cow's milk is for baby cows, stolen from my Mum's fridge
:: What that woman couldn't do with tofu! - a lovely homage from dear Kara
:: and all the cute clips from Goats on the Roof!

Hmmm... where is all the kid's art, you might ask? We did keep lots of art on the fridge too until after Christmas, when I made the Kid's Wall of Art in the dining room for displaying all the masterpieces, so maybe another time I'll take a photo of that too :)

What's on your fridge? I don't know how to tag yet, so if you read this and have a blog, why not do the same, just for fun! God knows I need the diversion .


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Tagged: sheriagogo

Added for Kaje and Clel:

This is cool to see the same kids on fridges on opposite sides of the world - aren't cousins great? (but really dudes, get your own blog going so we can get all the weekly updates of Lily Mia!!!):


Top, L-R: Baby Clel in frame, baby Lil 12 wks in a warm dark place (shh, sleeping!), preggie Clel, world famous Lily card, Clel meditating the serenity in SW Western OZ (our trip), Kieran a la pro baseballer, Zavie as a toddler, Wombat magnet 'Crikey!' from Oz zoo, Lil sleeping on her side 20 wks in utero again - so cute!, Princess Zhara, papa e bebe, flowering eucalyptus macrocarpa - life-size - SW WA, Clel & Lil commune at 10 hrs old, Lil snuggles into Nanny Janette, LIAM!, tiny picture of The Wave - one of my faves, magnet with trees "A wonderful future is just ahead", Clel & Kaje say "Lick me!" - magnet from ice cream shop, fern in tree buttress root - NE QLD Daintree tropical forest, Kaje beholds the view in SW TAS, cry Sth central QLD - near a gorge oasis, our friend's new arrival - Jade, singing whale toyshop magnet, view from nail steps 200ft up a fire lookout tree - SW WA, red Pilbara rocks and ghost gums - NW WA, Autumn glacier from Comox magnet, 'Our Rainbow Bimbi' picture from Zha for us just before Lil was born, various emergency call numbers, Ruby as cute puppy, Lord Howe 'Treasure' Island magnet, 'We are in Scotland' picture from Kieran featuring Clel preggie with Bimbi & Kieran & Kaje & Blair Castle & of course the Loch Ness Monster!, Laura outside (Great) Zia Clelia's 878 Nicholson St in 1977.

trying. not. to. panic.

Our lives are a swirl of indecision, mixed with a frustrating inability to MAKE decisions until other factors outside of our control are settled upon. It's sort of like living in a big snowglobe and wondering if THIS is the last time, but four hours later it all gets shaken up again, just when we finally thought it was safe to go out and shovel the sidewalk.

I've been tempted by one of my favorite songs:

I've got a plan
Let's take off in the blue station wagon
And find the open road to salvation
Away from here

I've got a plan
Change the patterns that I form a lot
Not try to be something that I'm not
That I'm not

I've got another plan, this time it will work
I've got another plan, this time it will work,
Or I'll be struck down, struck down

...

The kids are seemingly oblivious to the impending changes in their lives, whatever they might be. Kieran has been entertaining me by (amongst other things) making up silly jokes. He's just starting to get the idea of what a joke is and how it works. I love it.

K: What is green and blue and has a 2?
me: I don't know, what is green and blue and has a 2?
K: A rhyme! Get it? Blue and Two, that rhymes!
me: Ha ha! Um, OK, what about the green part?
K: Oh, yeah, I just put that in there to make the joke longer.

flux

So many changes and things to think about....

The short story is that my honey will be selling his share of his business in the next couple of weeks. It's a decision that's been a long time coming. He and his partner have not been happy with each other for several months. They each have a very different managerial style and different philosophies about how to run and market the company and what kinds of contracts they wanted to attract. So, Mike has decided to sell out and start anew.

The timing couldn't be more perfect. For months now we have been moaning about not having balance in our lives. In fact, numerous times we have come to the conclusion that it would be wonderful if I could go to work full-time as a marine biologist, and he could stay at home with the kids and run the household. In many ways he is far better at being the stay-at-home parent than I am. He is infinitely more patient with the boys, and far better organized - when I'm away he has them at school 15 minutes early, while I am usually tearing through the school zone at 8:29 and still have to get the kids into their shoes and sweaters when they arrive! He has a much better sense of prioritizing his time at home and is much more likely to get a handle on the finances than I ever was.

So, now it's happened. I have no choice but to go back full-time now! It's very scary. Of course, it's what I've wanted for a long time, that sense of fulfillment and actually using the training I've acquired over the years. But I'm worried that since having kids, I am really rusty. I'm very accustomed to making my own schedule throughout the day and I'm worried that I will find it difficult to get the self-discipline to be at work at 8:30 every day. On the other hand, I am definitely looking forward to finding my place in my field again, and hoping to follow through on my idea to ride my bike to work so that I might actually start losing weight again.

All of the changes in our lives are both very hopeful and positive, and yet decidedly unsettling. The sale of the company will provide us with a small pot of gold, and we really do see the rainbow that comes with it. Still, we will need to figure out if we can continue to afford our house, our car, our children's school. Of those, we would sooner move into a mobile home than take our boys out of their fabulous school. It's more than just a school, it's an entire community of like-minded people. Which means, we might have to downsize our house. Which won't be hard philosophically - our house is really quite huge; that's normal for this area of our town, but it's hardly necessary. Having spent my childhood living in boats, I know that to be true. But moving itself is such a procedure. Can we use this opportunity to declutter and start afresh? Or will we fall back into old, easy patterns?

We are being forced to really take a long hard look at our priorities, and see if we are brave enough to actually take our lives to where we'd love them to be, to put our principles into action. To minimize our ecological footprint. To walk to school. To ride to work. To use a smaller car, and use it less often. To buy produce locally. To make more food from scratch. To exercise more. To live in a smaller house that takes less energy to heat. To live with what brings us joy and harmony, not with clutter. To spend more time outdoors. To have less plastic and more earth. To know our neighbours. To put energy into helping others. To use our skills in a way that fulfills us professionally and spiritually.

We've been talking the talk for a long time. Can we walk the walk?

The same old mum

Yesterday, my parents returned from their trip to New Zealand and brought back a treasure trove of kiwi books for the boys, including this delightful volume: 100 New Zealand Poems for Children.

The second poem was so adorable that I am sharing it today:

The same old mum

When Mum comes home from work,
the first thing she says is
'Put on the coffee, love,
I'll just go and change into something else.'

I put on the coffee and wait.
Will she change into a camel?
or a smiley green dragon?
or a chest of drawers?
or a triple-headed alien?
or maybe a super-mum
who cries 'Gazoo! Gazam!'

No, she always comes back the same old mum.
All she ever changes into
are her old home clothes.

-- Pauline Cartwright (fabulous illustration by David Elliot).

upgrades

Upgrades have been installed!

Before: Harry Potter glasses. After: new big-boy specs!

Before: page boy cut. After: new Luke Skywalker / Steve Irwin do!!

Before: plastic container with plastic rocks and plastic tree. After: all new diggs for Fishy! Note artful multi-coloured rocks, people!

And don't be alarmed, Fishy does actually live on the kitchen counter amidst the fruit basket, the dish-rack and the house plants, but this was the only way I could get his whole new habitat in the shot, and I couldn't resist choosing the shot with the household carnivores in it too... The bamboo stems are now starting to send out roots and so I'm hoping he must like his new mangrove-like arrangement. Having no way to really know unless he goes belly-up, I'm going to say he LOVES it.

Also, before: stressful life with little balance. After? Significant Life Upgrade is in the works. Stay tuned for details. And no, I'm not pregnant.

winter hangs on

... but the crocuses are resolute.

To the beach in winter

This morning my best friend called me and told me that even though there was a light smattering of snow, me and my boots needed to get outside. Which made me love her all the more, for both sharing a lovely relaxing morning and for admitting that she's actually reading this blog :)

So we made a trek south to this beach. It was 1 C (that's 33 F for all you murkins) and a strong wind blew down the Strait, bringing little snowflakes which bounced about and sparkled in the winter sun. We strolled along the million-dollar homes, while Liam contentedly bounced in and out of the driftwood, finding stones to throw and puddles to jump in. The tide was high, but we did find some anemones to show Liam and some really cool rock formations.


After yesterday's blog entry, I was feeling a little raw. Talking about one's post-partum depression is never easy. I am glad that all of those memories are slowly but surely being balanced out by days like today!

Living in a glass house and all

Earlier this week, we all had a good laugh at the antics of Britney Spears, who appeared to have completely lost it for all the world to see. I recall saying something derisive along the lines of predicting certain drug overdose within the month. Then I read dooce's blog entry on the topic, and I felt incredibly humbled and embarrassed. How can we, as a society, simultaneously depict motherhood as blissful and perfect, while viciously attacking anyone that fails to achieve perfection at it?

Now, I'll be the first to acknowledge that it's clear that Britney has made some choices in her life that would give most people regrets. And I don't pretend for an instant to know anything about what it's like to be a celebrity. I know nothing about Britney Spear's life, or her relationship with her husband, her babies, her friends, or with drugs and alcohol. I don't know if she has addictions or post-partum depression or poor judgement or some combination of all three.

But I will tell you what I do know. I know what it is like to wake up in the morning and wonder what the hell happened to my career. I know what it is like to watch my peers from university become successful, getting top research jobs, becoming assistant professors, publishing papers, taking on graduate students of their own - while I am changing diapers and driving the minivan. I know what it is like to think "I was a star!" and wonder if I will ever get back to the place where I was being recognized for my talents, where awards and scholarships came effortlessly.

I know what it is like to look at my body and feel depressed and angry that it will never be the same. I know what it is like to hear people tell me, "But you are a mother now, that is the most important profession in the world!" and feel ashamed and guilty that I don't completely agree with them. I know what it is like to feel envy from others because they think I have lots of money and therefore I should be happy and not complain. I know how it feels to make mistakes as a mother and to feel judged by friends and strangers alike for it. And I know that if I hadn't found a group of other mothers that were struggling with the same emotions, I might not be here today.

Don't get me wrong. I passionately love my children and my husband and I would never change them for the world. I am generally happy with the decisions I've made and I'm trying to balance all the many facets of my life. But being a mother isn't easy. For me, it's a constant struggle of many emotions, most of them positive, others not so much.

I also know that if I had to go through all these struggles under the merciless scrutiny of the world press, that I would not survive. I'm not afraid to admit on this blog that there have been times that I have lost it too. That I have phoned my husband at work and cried hysterically. And that I have phoned my husband at work and said nothing but held up the screaming baby to the phone. That the first time I left the house on my own after Kieran was born, I considered driving right past the grocery store and heading north on the highway. That I have had to pee by the side of the road so as not to have to take my sleeping baby out of his car seat while driving solo from Seattle to Vancouver. That I have been a complete bitch to innocent cashiers because my children were being headstrong that day. That once I drove my 2-week-old baby across San Francisco, unlatched in his car seat, because I was too sleep-deprived to remember to do it up. That I have gone for days without brushing my hair. That I have stayed in my pyjamas until just before my husband got home from work. That I have screamed at my kids.

I'm not proud of these things, but I'm not afraid to admit them. Because I'm convinced that all mothers have similar experiences, we're just conditioned not to talk about them. Which means that all the other first-time mothers out there go through the same cycle again, feeling like failures because they think everyone else is perfect and that motherhood is supposed to be easy.

And I thank God that when these things happened to me, that unglamorous photos of them weren't immediately blasted around the internet along with other people's assessments of the situation. Because that would not be fair.

And therefore, I refuse to judge.

these boots

One thing I did realize while I was in Peru is that if I'm wearing my hiking boots, I'm feeling vibrant and alive! This is true whether I'm wrangling seals, hiking in a forest, exploring a beach with my kids, or even mowing my lawn. I think a simple way to add balance to my life is to try to wear my boots as often as I can.


It got me thinking about where these boots and I have been together. I bought these boots in 1993, right before Michael and I went back-packing around Europe for 5 months. We'd just graduated from university and we went everywhere. This is not a paid ad for Vasque, but it should be as these boots have lasted 14 years and counting and they're still just as good as when I bought them. OK, so I've gone through a couple of pairs of laces, and the grommets are getting rusty (walking in guano dirt will do that!). But I love them, even though nowadays they sometimes get usurped by my Blunnies (which I love so much I went to Australia to get).

These boots have taken me around the world a few times. I dug up some photos and had a stroll down memory lane.

These boots in the Swiss Alps. We were hiking with Francis, Susanne and Digg on a glorious March day. Later, Susanne's Mum made us the best fondue I've ever tasted.


These boots in front of the swanky marina in Nice. To be fair, after walking around the French Riviera in my big ol' North American hikin' boots for a week or so, I broke down and bought a little pair of black Audrey Hepburn pumps for around town. Because, you know, the baggy Alaska sweater and the stretch pants wouldn't also be a dead give-away that I'm not from these parts.


These boots at Macchu Picchu. Tanya and I survived the Train Ride of Chickens and Floods to get to Aguas Calientes the night before, and got up to the site early to scale Huayna Picchu (in the background) before exploring the ruins. That hike bloody near killed us, and afterwards we learned that the vestal virgins apparently did it daily before breakfast. Without hiking boots.



These boots at Harlequin Lake, Alaska, where the glacier dumps big chunks of ice into the lake that float about and die gracefully on the shore like anorexic swans. Here Shawn and I had the unforgettable Encounter With Grizzly That Transformed At Last Minute into Juvenile Moose and scared the crap out of us either way.


These boots in front of Ben Nevis in Scotland - we had planned to climb Ben Nevis that day but the weather packed in and we didn't have any crampons or ice picks to complete the ascent. But we were quite content to sit on top of a peak (I think it's Meall an t-Suidhe) right next to the UK's highest. It was March and it was as cold as it looks. Kaje took the photo. And led the way. And made the sandwiches. But we bought the beer later.



These boots at The Falls - my favorite spot in the state of Washington, with my sisters and 3-week-old Liam. In this photo lives a part of my soul.


These boots in a kauri forest in New Zealand with my honey (and his boots!). Of all the photos I dug up in my quest for boot pix, this is my favorite.

I wonder where these boots will take me next? Or perhaps more importantly, where do I want them to take me?

Elk Falls

Today we took a road trip to Elk Falls, a spot that has a lot of significance for both Michael and I. It had been pouring rain at lunchtime and we'd been treated to a magnificent rainbow over the fishing boats in the marina.

Walking in the rainforest made me so calm and so grateful that we live in one of the most beautiful corners of the world. I must remember to bring the kids to places like these more often.


By the time I took this photo of the woods, it was lightly raining again - little pellets of freezing rain, even though it didn't seem that cold. But they jumped around on the camera like little pixies so I didn't have the heart to edit them out of the photo... Incredibly, it was even greener than the image could capture, the moss on the trees was glowing like neon.

Tarry me Mummy!! I all MUDDEE!!

The Great Bunkbed Experiment

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... we stole an idea from our friend Michelle, who also has 2 rambunctious boys about the same ages as ours. We pitched it to Kieran and Liam and they thought it was grand, so as of last weekend we have.... bunkbeds!! Here's Kieran (with best buddy Nathaniel) and Liam showing them off:

We installed them in Liam's room with the help of Courageous Mark, and moved Kieran's bookshelf and dresser in too. The kids seem to think they're brilliant... and so far it seems to be working - bedtime is still a bit crazy but it seems to be taking only 1 hour instead of 2.... Even better, it only takes one parent, which is nice for those nights when Mike has a meeting or I'm in Peru or something. Liam had a bit of a freak-out with the guard-rail the first night, so now we just have some extra cushions on the floor underneath instead in case he falls off - which he hasn't so far.

yook, I got a MOON yight!!

The bookshelves miraculously fit together at the end of the bed to form a cute little book nook. It's like we planned it or something! So now we read by the books at night before tucking them in and starting the lights-out madness...

And yes, pretty much everything you see is from IKEA. Or Goats on the Roof. And yes, the walls really are lime green. Cool eh?!

Meanwhile, Kieran's room is being converted into the playroom. Yes, we do have a huge playroom downstairs, which the kids never use because of, you know, the monsters down there! So we're hoping for the next couple of years that this arrangement will work better for them. I'll post photos of the playroom once it's all nicely organized (ha ha).

reflecting

I like blogging, and playing with photography, but I'm finding it hard to do much of either these days. It seems somewhat self-indulgent, to take time out of the chaos to post, but then - perhaps then I'm not fulfilling my own needs?

There are two photos that were taken of me while in Peru last November that I've been thinking of a lot recently.


This is me in my element - on the beach, writing in my field notebook, thinking about my research and coming up with questions about science and marine biology.... Everything was so simple there, even though we worked 18-hour days, were attacked by evil ticks wherever we went, and did all our own laundry by hand! But my time was my OWN. I packed a lot into three weeks - full days of data collection, maintaining an educational blog nightly for Kieran's school, and delivering a huge donation to a local school - but every day we still had time to prepare healthy nutritious food, to read, to sit and watch the ocean, to chat. We had very little there. My room had a bed, a desk and a chair. Desert sand coated all my things by the end of each day. We had electricity only for lights, but mostly we used our headlamps for getting around. We had no fridge, no microwave, no TV, no laundry machines, and we went into town nightly for showers and internet.

While I was there, it was like going back in time, to when I could actually use my brain for what it was trained for. I was a real marine biologist again. I was getting by in Spanish. I realized that this, THIS is what I wanted to be spending my time on when I got back to Canada. I resolved to put aside at least a day a week to work on my own research. I resolved to start feeding my children the sorts of simple meals we ate in Peru. I wanted to instill in my children a sense of value and gratitude that they have SO much while children in other countries have so little.

..............................

I really found this to be true when I visited the local school. Before I went to Peru, I realized I wanted to give something back to this community, that had hosted me some years before while I was collecting data for my Master's degree. I contacted my colleagues down there to find a local school that was in need of help. While some of the other schools in town were supported by the mine, the biggest employer in town, this particular school was made up of families from the other side of town - their parents were fishermen, motorcycle-taxi drivers, house cleaners, or unemployed entirely and living in shanty towns in houses they'd made themselves. They provided hot lunches for many of the kids each day, but they only received enough subsidy from the government for about 80 out of the 150 kids in need of lunch - typically, rice and beans, and for many of these children, the only meal of the day. So the school teachers told us they needed kitchen supplies most of all, as well as classroom materials.

I took this idea to Kieran's school, and the students and parents there raised $1,000 in one day! I was able to buy every single item on the school's wish list, in the market in Lima on my way down. We delivered the donated items on the back of our research truck, and it was piled high with massive pots, new plates and cutlery, all manner of classroom supplies, art supplies, games and balls of all kinds. When we arrived at the school, the kids all came out with signs with my name on them, thanking me for such a wonderful gesture.

When I saw the looks on the faces of those children, their teachers and the lovely cooking ladies in the humble kitchen, I realized it was one of my most proud moments ever. I could think of only two others - Liam's triumphant birth, and getting my first degree. And since then, I've been thinking how really easy it is to incorporate philanthropy into travel. As a family, we travel a fair amount, but how cool would it be to get connected with a local school or orphanage at each of our destinations, and find out what they need, raise the money and visit them with gifts from the blue? How valuable for my children to see this in action, to participate, to connect with other children around the world, and realize that they are all the same? How much more rewarding than sitting on a beach with an umbrella in one's glass, or listening to a tour guide, when we could be sitting in a school, eating tuna and beans and rice, next to the cutest 2nd grader ever?

....................................

But here's the thing. Then I flew home. And the marine biologist / global children's advocate disappeared in a *poof*. I'm back to all my other responsibilities - organizing the kids' days, making lunches, taking minutes at school, researching projects for the school, coordinating play-dates, driving to karate, keeping track of library books, trying to hold onto my part-time job, facilitating a support group, balancing our personal finances, wrapping my head around our business finances, trying to provide my family with healthy food in spite of food allergies and picky eaters, keeping the house clean and maintained, folding the never-ending laundry, mending Kieran's uniform sweatpants that get torn every few weeks, convincing Liam to potty-train, convincing Kieran to wear his patch, keeping alive two cats, a fish and a lot of thirsty house-plants, listening to my husband's stresses about work, trying to be a good wife and mother and friend and daughter and auntie, and exercise? that's been shelved until further notice.

So how to balance all this? How do get to that place of comfort in my soul that I found when I was in Peru? I have no idea. But I'm working on it. And hoping that I can find time to blog as well. It does help me to at least vent, and hopefully as time passes I can start to find that place of balance. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. How do YOU manage? Or are you stretched just as thin as I?

shades of grey

I'm back! I have taken quite a break from blogging, since disappearing to Peru for 3 weeks in November and spending 3 hours a night blogging there on my other site... and arriving back to the start of the Christmas season and all the other fun that winter has to offer.

After spending 3 weeks in the desert, it's been quite a shock to return to Mother Nature's new winter regime for Vancouver Island. Normally we have overcast days with steady drizzle, and snow once if we're lucky. Since November, however, we've been offered up a steady diet of gale force winds, torrential rain, or steady snow (choose up to 3 at any one time), seasoned with power outages and tree branches tossed through windows, and served with a biting chill.

Today it's back to snow. Michael donned his shining armour by taking Kieran to school, leaving Liam and I to enjoy a bit of the morning's offerings. I loved the shades of grey, and Liam discovered that sledding is even fun by yourself.

Miraflores

This afternoon I did a little sightseeing in Miraflores. It's an upscale area and I felt perfectly safe walking around by myself with my camera. I wandered down the Avenida Largo to Largo Mar, a shopping centre perched atop of the cliffs, overlooking the beaches and the Pacific Ocean. The fog was still in and it was fairly mild - warm enough for a tshirt and fleecy vest in which to hide my camera and wallet.

(clicking on the images should make them larger!)

... and yes, those are instructions in the bathroom - don't throw your toilet paper in the bowl ("water" is the spanish word for "toilet bowl", who knew? There is a basket provided for used toilet paper!) The elephant ride was in the shopping mall, it was a completely mechanized elephant walking all by itself!!

I had a delicious lunch of paella with Inca Kola overlooking the ocean, and did some window-shopping to get ideas for Christmas shopping. Later I found churros con dulce de leche - yum!!


On the way back to my hotel, I passed a procession of carnival walkers playing traditional Andean music. It turns out it was a candidate for the upcoming Municipal election, Pilar Brescia, walking the street and getting attention. What a way to say "vote for me!".

24 hours from Vancouver to Lima

0630 Arrive at Vancouver Airport and check in (thanks to Sarah for the ride!). I'm early for my flight but I wanted to leave lots of time for airport security screening. I have 2 large bags, a carry-on with my laptop and both recorders, and my microphone tube that is 3 feet long and makes security screeners very nervous!

0630 Security screening - I have to unpack my carry-on and place all the electronics in separate bins. They don't mind the microphone but my hiking boots and belts set off alarms and result in the full body frisking. Lovely.

0900 Flight to Calgary. I'm delighted to find that my carry-on actually fits under the seat!

1100 Lots of banking and a bumpy landing into Calgary, where we pop out of the clouds only a few hundred feet above a snow-covered landscape. I only have one hour to collect my luggage from the transit carousel and pass through US Customs, then drop off my luggage again. It was pretty tight!

1145 The US Customs agent asks what's in the tube and where I'm going with it. I reply that it's a microphone and I'm going to Peru to record wildlife. He asks what I do and I tell him I'm a marine biologist. "OH!" he says, "like George on Seinfeld! You saw that episode, right?" I lie and tell him of course I saw that one. This is now the 6th time I've been asked that question by a US Customs agent and they never say "like Jacques Cousteau"...

1200 Calgary Airport security screening - this time I am prepared and put everything into the bins, including my belt and boots, and get through with no problems - except I am made to drink the very expensive bottle of water I had just purchased in Vancouver!

1245 Flight from Calgary to New York. I watch a fascinating documentary about manta rays and the movie Water, about the injustice and deplorable conditions faced by widows in India. Everyone should see this film!

1900 Another bumpy landing into New York's JFK airport. I could see the lights of New York stretching below me as far as I could see.

1945 I check into the LAN Chile desk amid throngs of travellers from all over the world, many in traditional clothing from countries as varied as Kuwait, Indonesia and Jamaica. I stop for dinner in Bar Avion and feel replenished after a long day.

2100 JFK airport security screening. This time the screener wants to know if the tube contains a light saber. I play along, joking that my kids sure wish it was. I let her know it's a microphone and she assumes I'm in the film industry.

2230 Flight from JFK to Lima. I manage to get a couple of hours of sleep.

0500 Dawn breaks as we begin our descent along the Andes Cordillera. The fog bank is socked in tight along the coast, as it always is at this time of year, but I see the mountain peaks soaring up through the clouds like a chain of islands.


0615 We land at Jorge Chavez airport in Lima. Surprisingly, not one of the officials asked me any questions about my gear or what I was planning to do in Peru. They probably assumed I was heading to the jungle for an ecotour. I’m bombarded by taxi drivers as I exit the secure area, and rescued by my friend Susana who leads me to a waiting cab.

0645 Lima is humid!! We drive through the blue-collar port of Callao and make our way to Miraflores, the upscale district. Along the way we pass workers and students, minibus taxis, and when we get to the coast, long sandy beaches backed by cliffs covered in purple and blue flowers – la Costa Verde.

0730 My hotel is delightful and has everything I could ask for – a bed, a bath, free internet and a huge bottle of drinking water. I get another four hours of sleep and I’m ready to go!

... there's that crazy microphone tube!

Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is

Happy Halloween! All 3 boys had so much fun!!

dichotomous key

How to tell me and my brother apart, by Kieran:

Kieran wears glasses and is a Big Boy.

Liam wears No glasses and is a Little Boy.

--------------------------------

After Movie Night last night, I realized that there is another way to tell them apart:

Kieran ----------------------- Liam

Liam 2.5

Liam turned 2 and a half on Sunday and I wanted to record his milestone. It turned out to be a bit of a challenge amidst all the puking though. So here it is, a couple of days late!

My sweet Liam is not a baby anymore. Ask himself yourself and he will tell you, "Meemee NO baby! Meemee BIG boy now!". Of course, if you apply this logic to him in the form of "big boys pee in the potty", or "big boys all done numble-time", he gets himself all tied up in a big existential knot about it.

He's finally talking! Even though his first word was BALL when he was about 15 months, he really didn't have more than a handful of words for the next year. This summer he really started experimenting more with making English words (as opposed to signs and Liamish words), and since September he has really taken off. I'm sure he has all the vocabulary tucked away, just for some reason he never wanted to translate those into spoken word before now. It is so hilarious to hear some big words come out (like Darth Vader) while he's still using 3-word sentences!

He never said any numbers before this month, and suddenly he can count to 10 - wan, doo, dee, boor, bye, diss, debben, ade, nine, DEN!! He's learning his colours too, and I think he knows red and blue the best.

He loves his "school" (daycare) and he goes four days a week with "Miss Dinney" (Miss McKinney) while Mummy attempts to play at marine biologist. It's wonderful that his daycare is onsite and integrated with Kieran's school, as they get to play together after school, and several of Kieran's classmates have little brothers or sisters in the daycare too, so we socialize with all the same families. In fact, he has three playmates in his daycare room that will be starting Kindergarten the same year with him, so he'll know these friends for a long time!

At home he has pretty much given up on his Thomas duplo and trains in favour of playing big kid Lego with Kieran and his friends. He is relishing his role as kid brother and wants to do whatever the big boys are up to. Which is probably why he can't say his alphabet, but he can say knight, lego, darth vader, star wars, yoda, dragon, pirate, keyai (karate), and yight saber. I keep remembering Taking a Stance back when Kieran was 2 about no weapons in the house. How times change (introducing Kieran to Disney's Robin Hood, The Princess Bride, and Episode I the year Liam was born was the end of that little quest for moral high ground!).

He loves to play dress-up and he plans to be Yoda for Halloween. This is causing me significant amounts of angst since this means I have to actually take the glue gun out of its package to make the head thing with the green pointy ears. I have actually gone to Fabricland and purchased felt, people! These things, we do for our kids!

He's still nursing!! From the outset, I of course was committed to nursing for at least 2 years, but since Kieran weaned at 17 months, I was quite prepared for Liam to be weaned by now. But he seems to really enjoy the attachment and comforting aspect of it, and in the last three days of stomach flu I've been grateful to be able to get some fluids into him any which way. I'll be gone for 3 weeks in Peru next month, and I'll be taking some homeopathics while I'm down there to reduce my milk supply so that I don't get mastitis, and so that perhaps when I get back there won't be anything of interest to him anymore... But until then, it's nice to have that special snuggle time, especially as the stress mounts as I'm preparing for my trip. I know that I am so fortunate to have been able to have this experience with him for so long, and I am going to miss it.

He is such a sweet little snugglebug. Happy half-birthday, little dude! Love, Mummy xxxx

If you give a 2-year-old a tummy bug...

If you give a 2-year-old a tummy bug,
He'll throw up all through his bed at 7 am on a Sunday,
And then he'll come and crawl into your bed for a snuggle,
But then he won't feel very well,
And so he'll sit up and throw up all over you in your bed,
And then you put him in the shower to get cleaned up,
And you'll go in his room to find him some clothes
And then you'll notice the barf all through his bed,
And while you're calculating all the laundry you have already signed up for before 8 am,
You'll go through the living room and find 5 piles of cat barf on the carpet
And one pile of cat barf in the CandyLand box,
And then your 6-year-old will want waffles,
And he'll want some maple syrup to go with it,
And your 2-year-old will have miraculously recovered from his barfing,
And want waffles too,
And he will eat the waffles merrily, and drink some herbal tea,
And throw up all over his chair,
And while you're cleaning up the barf for the 3rd time this morning,
You'll go downstairs to put his bed linens in the laundry,
And that's when you'll find the 4 piles of cat barf on the stairs,
And while your toddler is in the shower for the second time that morning,
You'll get the Green Machine going on the cat barf situation,
And then after you've got him dressed again, he'll want to help with the Green Machine,
And while he's helping with the Green Machine, he'll puke all over it,
And while he's in the shower for the third time,
And you've got the second load of bed linens in the washing machine,
You'll start to relax because the kids are playing nicely in the big boy's room,
Until you hear shrieks of horror because the toddler has puked all over the Millenium Falcon,
And is being dragged out of the room by his shirt, dripping barf as he goes,
And while he's in the shower for the fourth time,
He's perfectly happy playing with his shower toys,
While you get the Green Machine out again,
And promise your 6-year-old that he will one day be able to return to his room,
After you have thoroughly disinfected it,
And when you dress your toddler in the fourth outfit of the day,
He looks perfectly fine and happy and full of colour in his cheeks,
So you rashly let him eat 12 grapes and a sip of herbal tea,
While you're helping your 6-year-old try on his Luke Skywalker costume,
And your 2-year-old will want to try on his Yoda costume,
And they will have a light saber battle,
And Daddy will get so excited that he'll rush off to the store to buy a Darth Vader costume,
And he'll drop off your 6-year-old for a playdate,
And you'll take your toddler down to get his baba out of the dryer, all clean and dry,
And you'll settle on the couch for some numble time,
And he'll fall asleep.......
And you'll realize it's 1 pm and you're still in your pyjamas,
Which have crusted puke on them,
And you'll eat a bit of lunch, and have a really long shower,
And do another 2 loads of laundry,
And clean up the kitchen,
And clean the kitty litter box,
And in a while you'll hear coughing from your toddler's room, followed by crying,
And you'll go in to find him sitting in a pool of puke,
And 12 grapes,
And you'll clean him up and take all his bed linens downstairs for the second time,
And he'll perk right up and do puzzles in the kitchen,
Until he throws up on the floor,
And you'll clean that up as Darth Vader and Luke arrive home,
And you'll watch in glee as a three-way light saber battle ensues,
And then you'll clean up some more barf,
And dress your toddler in his fifth outfit of the day,
And do another 2 loads of laundry,
And then you'll realize he hasn't peed or pooped today,
So you'll have a brilliant idea to make some fresh organic carrot juice to help clear out his system
And you'll put some beets in it because it's your heavy day,
And you would rather have spent the day on the couch wrapped in a blanket,
Dealing with cramps,
And you'll make scrambled eggs for dinner because they're easily digested,
And because your mother made them for you when you were sick as a child,
And he'll chug the juice and ask for more,
And he'll eat a nibble or two of eggs,
And he'll stand up and barf blood-red juice all down his front,
And your 6-year-old will freak right out thinking it's real blood,
And your 2-year-old will freak right out thinking it's a real problem,
And you'll be thankful it was all over the lino,
Even if it got into the cat food,
And then he'll get back up to the table and throw up some more bright red goo,
And then he'll have his fifth shower of the day,
And you'll put the big waterproof mattress cover from the 6-year-old's bed on his bed,
And you'll put the red sheets on his bed,
And you'll dress him all in red,
And he'll wander out into the hall and projectile vomit all over the light beige carpet,
And you'll realize you've been cleaning barf for 12 hours,
And you'll survey the bright red puke spread across the hall,
And your husband will don his shining armour and get out the Green Machine,
And clean it all up while you get your toddler changed into another red outfit,
And he'll bring you a towel when he throws up again,
And he'll sit with your 2-year-old, on a towel on his bed, under a red blanket,
And your 2-year-old will give up on the day and fall asleep in Daddy's lap,
And you'll read stories to your 6-year-old,
And Daddy will read more stories when you fall asleep in the middle of Paddington Bear,
And while you're cleaning the red puke out of the Green Machine,
Your 6-year-old will come out looking for pyjamas,
And tell you that his tummy feels upset,
And you'll remember that when you took the mattress protector off his bed,
That you knew this would happen,
And you'll put extra accident sheets under his sheet,
And pray that they'll sleep through the night,
And you'll go and run 3 more loads of laundry,
And just be thankful it didn't happen in the car.