In Which I Try to Explain My Absence

So, I haven't been posting. Whoops. Who knew having two kids is hard?
Actually, if I'm going to be honest (which I try to do on this blog), I'm not doing the greatest. It's lonely out here. It sucks being so far away from friends and family. Many things are still really unfamiliar about St. John's and that can get me down.
Basically, I have my good days and my bad days.

The Bad: 

• G's temper tantrums - at least one a day, sometimes as many as five a day. Living with a toddler feels like living with a bi-polar person whose mood changes every 10 minutes. They are taking their toll on both of us. I try take the advice of parenting books and articles, but I still feel like I'm doing everything wrong.
• The potty training nightmare (I don't discuss poo online, cause I don't think people need to hear about that, and I want to give my child a bit of dignity, but let's just say - nothing is good about the stage we're in).
• Even though my children sleep well, sometimes I don't.
• Trying to find a church home we both can agree on (and trying to forget how amazing St. Margaret's was)
• There are no sidewalks. They plow the roads onto the sidewalks to create 6 foot snowbanks instead. So, if I walk anywhere, I walk on the street. If I drive anywhere, I drive around the poor people that are walking on the street. 

The Good:

• Getting out of the house every day to playgroups, Le Leche meetings, the drop-in gym, library storytime and shopping trips. 
• Meeting other people at those places, and even better, meeting people repeatedly and building a solid bunch of acquaintances with potential for eventual friendships
• It may be insanely windy and have crazy amounts of snow, but it is not -40 and I don't have to bundle my children in five thousand layers.
• Paul decided to celebrate Valentine's Day*  by leaving love notes all over the apartment for me to find. I am still finding them. 
• M is still an amazingly mellow baby. 
• We managed to take G's soother away really easily and she hasn't asked for it since.**
• When G isn't temper tantruming, she is hilarious. She makes up stories, songs and dances. And she's started asking hilarious questions like "What do aliens eat?" and "What does a crab say?" 

So, I can list more good then bad. I suppose that says something. 

*we never have, because it is a stupid non-holiday where flowers cost thrice as much and everything smells like yucky red cinnamon hearts.

**Soother Fairy - I may explain this in a later post. 

A Sick Week

What has life been like this past week in our household?
COUGH
SNIFF
SNEEZE SNEEZE SNEEZE
Oh, pardon me.

Yes, we all three of us had colds. G managed to confine hers to a couple of coughing sessions in the early morning, but both Paul and I were completely knocked out. The worst thing about being pregnant and sick is the lack of drugs. No, wait, it's the tiredness on top of the tiredness. No wait, it's the energetic toddler who wants to run circles around you. No wait, it's the husband who CAN take drugs, but still whines. No wait, it's the coughing that makes you want to lose your lunch. No wait... perhaps it's all of the above.
So, basically, whenever G slept this week, so did I - and that wasn't always true - sometimes I slept when she was awake as well.  I fell asleep on the couch with a puppy puppet on my hand and woke up when G tried to put a metal spoon in my mouth that she had been using to feed the puppy. There is nothing like waking up with a toddler's face inches from your own, unless it's waking up to the vacuum cleaner running and excited screaming two rooms away.
Because of all this sleeping, I did not accomplish much last week. My house is not in very good shape. But, this week I'm recovered and just feeling the regular tiredness of pregnancy (only 9 weeks to go!).

Other exciting news: I have found a great playgroup to go to once (or twice) a week. I have been going to a drop-in gym time once a week, but I've found it really difficult to meet people there. G loves it, but it is mostly just parents chasing after kids and it's a big echo-y space, which makes conversation hard. Couple that with my difficulty talking to new people, and it just doesn't make for the greatest introductory place.
So, I found another place to go to as well, a little community centre type playgroup with a small room, free coffee and snacks and moms who actually get a chance to talk to each other. I met and had several actual conversations with people this morning! Hooray! Hopefully I can start to build some friendships from this.

We've also started attending a different church. This one is a bit more family friendly, but may take some time to get noticed, as it is quite a bit larger then the first church we tried. We're still keeping an open mind about choosing a place, but I like this church and want to just throw myself in with getting involved/volunteering so I can meet people.

One Liners from G this week:
Talking to her crayons: "I love you green, I love you purple."
After being told to say sorry to mommy after throwing a chair: "I'm sorry chair. I love you."
Not a good parenting moment for me (repeating what she hears): "Oh dang, oh dang, oh dang, oh FRICK!"

Church Seeking (a bit of a ramble)

It is so complicated to find a new church. We loved St. Margaret's so much and it is a very unique church that we are well aware we won't find another church like it.

Do we want to remain in the Anglican church? For now, I think the answer is yes. We love the liturgy and the church year and we are familiar with how it is structured. It's comforting for me. 

We have attended a church for the past two Sundays (and will tomorrow as well), our arrival at which was a complicated one. D&J, our friends from Winnipeg came here to St. John's 3 years ago for surgery on their daughter. They stayed near the cathedral with the people from that church. They put us in touch with him, but he had since moved away from St. John's. He gave us the email addresses of a few Anglican churches and we essentially chose one at random. We emailed the rector of St. Michael's and All Angels only to find out that they are currently without a building (they are constructing a new one). He mentioned they were meeting in a funeral chapel on Sunday mornings. When we moved here, we noticed there is a funeral chapel at the end of our street. We thought "Wouldn't it be neat if that was where they met?" Well, sure enough we found out it was! 

Tonight, Father Sam invited us to his house for dinner -along with another couple from the church. All of us have young kids (G was the youngest), so it was a bit chaotic at times, but luckily they had a basement the kids could escape to in order to play. It was great to be invited into someone's home so soon after moving here. Both couples were very friendly and so nice.

However, I just don't know if this church will become our church. The church has split a bit between generations. The family oriented service meets on Saturday afternoons and the regular service is on Sunday mornings. The Sunday service is entirely gray-haired- save for the rector and his young family. They were so excited to have us with them, but I don't know if it is the place for us. This is where it gets complicated. Is it better for us to find a church that fits all our needs (if such a place exists), and is catered to us, or is it better to go to a place where it's possible that we are the ones who are needed? Would this church benefit from having a young family attend not just the Saturday service, but Sunday as well? Because, no matter what, Paul and I just don't like not going to church on Sunday morning. It just feels...wrong somehow. Also, G's nap has moved to pretty late in the afternoon, so mornings actually work out quite well for us (though we'll see how we feel after Boogaloo is born). 

I am inclined to think we should go where we are needed, but it is a difficult choice to make. I dream of finding the perfect church for us, but I am also well aware that such a place does not exist, or that is does, but it is not a perfect church, it is just where we are most used by God.