The end of an era: as of Wednesday I'm not longer paid a grand or so a month to hang out with little Sebastian. Goodbye maternity leave. Alex and I have always agreed we don't want to send Sebastian to childcare when this time comes, or even in the next year or two, for two reasons: we hardly make enough money to justify paying for childcare, we just feel uncomfortable handing him over to someone we don't know very well especially at such a young age, and, the real reason, we'd just rather spend time with him than have extra money.
But, Alex's job situation is shifting now and he'll have to find something more stable and long-term. I'd been thinking about getting a tiny part-time job when this time came because I was starting to crave a little outside babyless interaction and some continued financial independence. I also a bit of a work horse, so when I was casually offered a job at The Shed on the pier, I happily took it. I'm not sure how much I'll be working, probably just weekends but while Alex sorts out his job situation I think I'll probably be working a bit more. I'm working a couple shifts this week. Some of the shifts will overlap with Sebastian's bedtime, foregoing our nightly ritual of milk and sleep, but I think we're both ready. But this place is flexible and Shylo, the girl who runs it, is a young mama (and is also going back to school and commuting to UBC like me) so I know I'm in good hands.
I'm grateful that our country has such generous parental leave benefits, and also grateful towards myself for having the sense to scramble my way into a job last-minute to earn benefits. There were many an exhausted, morning-sick days at my desk but I'm glad I got through it.When I was a baby I think the maximum paid time a woman had was three months. My ma reluctantly went back to the hospital part time (to work in pediatrics with sick babies, nonetheless) when I was that age out of necessity and would ride her bike home on her lunch break to breastfeed me, or my dad and I would trek there. I've had fifty paid weeks for my last couple months of pregnancy and until Sebastian's ten month mark, and I know he's at an age now where he can understand and accept that I'm not going to be there all day every day. I also think he's at an age where he might benefit from a little mumless time.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
beach, baby
Thursday, May 19, 2011
househousehouse
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| "the view!"sometimes i think alex makes fun of me when i say, "omg, the view!" but then i catch him saying it, too. georgia straight, vancouver, the coastal mountain and a cedars. i mean, come on. |
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| our hilly neighbourhood |
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| our front door and huge wrap-around veranda. |
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| the cherry tree |
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| mariners artifact atop a house near by |
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| after a lovely mother's day brunch with lee, doug and my boys |
Monday, May 9, 2011
May nine.
I have a writers block tonight, combined with that dreadful feeling of having read over several stories I thought weren’t half bad only to discover they are, in fact, quite bad. So I thought I could at least blabber on here for a while.
Alex, Sebastian and I are now happily in our new home. It’s so lovely. I can’t get enough of it. The constant reminder that I am home on the West Coast is magnified by the huge windows of ocean, mountain, beach, cedars. Tonight at dusk I walked down to the beach and sat in the Squamish First Nations land, which is a long stretch through the forested coastline of creepily abandoned houses. They’re planning some sort of development for this area but for now it’s a long row of boarded-up beach houses. People must have just up and left their homes, all at once, because there are still chairs on the decks, kids toys scattered about, damp mattresses. Apparently there is still food in some of the cupboards, in the fridges, mould everywhere.
Shipping six hundred pounds across the county paid off. We don’t have a car here, are fairly isolated from main amenities and the two thrift stores are pretty unreliable for practical items, so it was nice to open boxes and find things we needed. Packing and unpacking, carrying box after box from car to house always makes me want to purge more. We’d been living out of backpacks for the last two months and when I discover several boxes of clothes I had literally forgotten existed it’s easy to question whether or not I actually need them. The answer is no, by the way.
I’ve been reconnecting with some old friends and enjoying some solo time here and there. I went to Vancouver alone the other day. I’ve never been apart from Sebastian for more that like four hours, so I decided it would be nice to take that old methodical trip into the city and see some friends. The month of May is full of visitors. In a few days Aja is coming over which I’m so looking forward to.
Sebastian is changing a lot. He doesn’t seem like a baby anymore. He likes to play and make us laugh. He wants to be carried around a lot, wants to see the world from our level, wants to explore the house alone sometimes. He’s not consistent in a lot of ways, more demanding. Grocery shopping with him, for example, is risky; sometimes he mutinies.
He’s also shifting into putting himself to sleep, much to our excitement and also exhaustion. He is figuring out how to sleep on his stomach without crawling. Last night he crawled then flopped around in his crib alone for a long time and then… silence. It was amazing. He’d managed to entirely put himself to sleep. But in the night when he wakes up and joins us in our bed we have to deal with a restless kid. Sometimes he sleeps horizontally, stretching us to opposite sides of the bed, testing our patience. We don’t have a go-to thing to help him sleep anymore. Milk doesn’t often help, swaddling definitely doesn’t help. Songs are the best we’ve got, but basically he is all he’s got and it’s been a long-time adjustment for him. I am exhausted, and so it Alex. Sometimes Sebastian wakes me up every ten minutes, sometimes I’m awake with him for an hour or more in the night, just patiently waiting for him to find a comfortable position, or trying to soothe his frustrated screaming. Man oh man. I’m finding my memory loss is out of control, as is my unabashed lust for coffee. But I know we’re on the brink of something, just stretching over this little phase, and with that in mind it’s easier to endure
I have a writers block tonight, combined with that dreadful feeling of having read over several stories I thought weren’t half bad only to discover they are, in fact, quite bad. So I thought I could at least blabber on here for a while.
Alex, Sebastian and I are now happily in our new home. It’s so lovely. I can’t get enough of it. The constant reminder that I am home on the West Coast is magnified by the huge windows of ocean, mountain, beach, cedars. Tonight at dusk I walked down to the beach and sat in the Squamish First Nations land, which is a long stretch through the forested coastline of creepily abandoned houses. They’re planning some sort of development for this area but for now it’s a long row of boarded-up beach houses. People must have just up and left their homes, all at once, because there are still chairs on the decks, kids toys scattered about, damp mattresses. Apparently there is still food in some of the cupboards, in the fridges, mould everywhere.
Shipping six hundred pounds across the county paid off. We don’t have a car here, are fairly isolated from main amenities and the two thrift stores are pretty unreliable for practical items, so it was nice to open boxes and find things we needed. Packing and unpacking, carrying box after box from car to house always makes me want to purge more. We’d been living out of backpacks for the last two months and when I discover several boxes of clothes I had literally forgotten existed it’s easy to question whether or not I actually need them. The answer is no, by the way.
I’ve been reconnecting with some old friends and enjoying some solo time here and there. I went to Vancouver alone the other day. I’ve never been apart from Sebastian for more that like four hours, so I decided it would be nice to take that old methodical trip into the city and see some friends. The month of May is full of visitors. In a few days Aja is coming over which I’m so looking forward to.
Sebastian is changing a lot. He doesn’t seem like a baby anymore. He likes to play and make us laugh. He wants to be carried around a lot, wants to see the world from our level, wants to explore the house alone sometimes. He’s not consistent in a lot of ways, more demanding. Grocery shopping with him, for example, is risky; sometimes he mutinies.
He’s also shifting into putting himself to sleep, much to our excitement and also exhaustion. He is figuring out how to sleep on his stomach without crawling. Last night he crawled then flopped around in his crib alone for a long time and then… silence. It was amazing. He’d managed to entirely put himself to sleep. But in the night when he wakes up and joins us in our bed we have to deal with a restless kid. Sometimes he sleeps horizontally, stretching us to opposite sides of the bed, testing our patience. We don’t have a go-to thing to help him sleep anymore. Milk doesn’t often help, swaddling definitely doesn’t help. Songs are the best we’ve got, but basically he is all he’s got and it’s been a long-time adjustment for him. I am exhausted, and so it Alex. Sometimes Sebastian wakes me up every ten minutes, sometimes I’m awake with him for an hour or more in the night, just patiently waiting for him to find a comfortable position, or trying to soothe his frustrated screaming. Man oh man. I’m finding my memory loss is out of control, as is my unabashed lust for coffee. But I know we’re on the brink of something, just stretching over this little phase, and with that in mind it’s easier to endure
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